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V Guide folds its Spanish editionTV Guide en Español folded yesterday after launching only five months ago. Staffers at the magazine say the launch itself was an experiment aimed at targeting the Latino community. "What we are really doing is suspending the print component — we still have Hispanic listings on the web — which was an attempt to reach an audience we're still interested in. It was always intended as a test," Lauren Snyder, spokesperson for the magazine told the Daily News. But according to industry insiders, TV Guide never presented the publication as an experiment when it launched editions in the country's top Hispanic markets last October. It was also reportedly unclear in both advertising and marketing campaigns that TV Guide en Español was actually an insert in the existing TV listings magazine. TV Guide en Español's end comes at a time when interest in reaching the Hispanic consumer market is booming. The Daily News and Major League Baseball are launching a bilingual publication focusing on the MLB, aimed at a Latino audience, on March 19.
Demand for
King's online novel swamps sites
Suspense writer Stephen King became an
online author yesterday when
his latest project, a short story called "Riding the Bullet,"
was released exclusively online, wreaking havoc on the sites that carried
the book. Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble's BN.com
became inundated with heavy volume for the 66-page ghost story. "All
the servers have reached 100 percent capacity and gone over several times
today," Pat Eisemann, a spokeswoman for Scribner, the co-publisher
with King's Philtrum Press, told the Daily News. "Everybody is pretty
much crashing, and you can't get through." An Associated Press
reporter began trying to download "Riding the Bullet"
via Barnes & Noble and Amazon at 10 a.m. and reportedly had not succeeded by 5
p.m. Barnes & Noble and Amazon did not charge to download the story,
but some sites were charging $2.50.
ABC's 'Millionaire' web
site draws millions
The phenomenon of "Who
Wants to be a Millionaire?" has entered cyberspace. Since adding the
"Millionaire" game to ABC.com on Jan. 9, the
network’s site has jumped 60 percent in unique visitors, according to Media Metrix
data. The "Millionaire" game has been played by an average of 4.4
million people a month since its launch, according to an ABC spokesperson.
As a result of the influx of visitors, ABC.com is now the No. 5 entertainment
site. The game is updated with new questions to lure
in repeat visits each time an original episode of "Millionaire"
airs on TV. The online game is based on the TV show format, putting the
player in the hot seat and features the all-important music. While
contestants cannot win any money playing the game, they can enter a
monthly sweepstakes to win $500 and tickets to the taping of the show in
New York. Since its launch last month, over 51 million games have been
played, with 3 million players advancing to the final million-dollar question.
VNU spins off
Competitive Media Reporting
Nielsen Media Research may still be a monopoly when it comes to
television ratings, but the tracking of advertising spending should become
a bit more competitive, now that Netherlands-based VNU has sold
Competitive Media Reporting. VNU, which owned CMR, purchased Nielsen last year, but was ordered by
the Federal Trade Commission to unload CMR if it wanted government
approval for the Nielsen purchase. That approval is now expected in a few weeks, now that the FTC's
conditions have been met. Both Nielsen, with its Nielsen Monitor Plus unit, and CMR are in the
business of tracking media spending and the airing of advertisements on
television. CMR has been bought by Taylor Nelson Sofres, a British market research
firm company, which paid $88 million for the unit, and which is a leading
competitor of VNU.
