Cel mai mare publisher online din lume ramane Yahoo! care prin grupul sau de site-uri (si sunt o multime) asigura cam 14% din piata reclamelor de pe Internet. Din martie cand avea cota de piata de 13,2% pana in septembrie cand a ajuns la 14,5% Yahoo! a tot luat market share de la competitorii sai. Ca idee, in martie Yahoo! a avut aproape 43 de milioane de reclame expuse in diversele pagini web, reclamele fiind vazute de 140 de milioane de vizitatori unici!

Pe locurile urmatoare se gasesc Fox Interactive Media, Facebook.com (7.7%, 25 milioane reclame expuse, 53 milioane vizitatori unici), site-urile Microsoft (5,5%, 18 milioane reclame expuse, 89 milioane vizitatori unici), AOL si Google abia pe locul 6. Site-urile Google sunt si ele in crestere, de la 1,3% in martie la 2,2% in septembrie insa diferenta intre el si Yahoo! este uriasa. Urmeaza eBay, Viacom, Glam Media si CNN, fiecare cu mai putin de 1% market share.

Pentru a-si creste propria cota de piata si implicit veniturile Google tocmai a cumparat o companie americana din Silicon Valley, Teracent, specializata in advertisingul bazat pe imagini pe Internet. Tehnologia dezvoltata de Teracent si care i-a facut cu ochiul lui Google este capabila sa particularizeze reclamele pe site-uri dupa profilul fiecarui vizitator, de exemplu reclame la pantofi celui care vizioneaza informatii despre incaltaminte sau articole sportive celui care navigheaza site-uri de profil. In plus tehnologia pare a fi usor de integrat in site-urile Google asa incat s-ar putea sa vedem in curand imagini in loc de reclame text la cautarile pe Google.

Pentru ca mentionam mai sus Fox Interactive Media, iata site-urile din curtea lor: AskMen.com, Fox.com, FoxSports.com, GameSpy, MySpace, MyNetworkTV.com, PhotoBucket.com, Scout.com, MyFoxny.com, Direct2Drive.com si altele.

Viacom Lawyer Compares Suing File Sharers to Terrorism; general counsel Michael Fricklas admits that suing end users for online copyright infringement is “expensive, and it’s painful, and it feels like bullying.” (Ars Technica)

Kyte Opens New Offices in UK, Germany; white-label video management company makes a big push with new hires and customers in Europe. (Kyte blog)

Glasses-Free 3-D Coming Soon; according to Thomson Reuters, 3-D-related patents have grown dramatically, led by CE makers such as Samsung, Panasonic and Toshiba. (Wall Street Journal)

New Teevees Should Be Able to Meet California Energy Requirements; manufacturers are confident they will meet 2011 requirements with future HDTV sets. (NYT)

EchoStar Pitches Place-Shifting to Cable Companies; its Sling set-top box allows a subscriber to access TV programming from a PC, laptop, BlackBerry or iPhone. (Cable360)

Nintendo Launches Wii Pay-Per-View Service in Japan; Wii no Ma (Wii’s Room) has 120 titles at launch, including episodes of “Sesame Street” and “Pokemon.” (Variety)

Ten years ago, Robert L. Johnson shocked black America when he sold BET to Viacom to become the first black billionaire. From a personal standpoint, Johnson cashed in on over twenty years of work. But, from a cultural standpoint, he had given up on the largest black-owned media conglomerate in America.

His vision for BET first began in 1979, while he was a lobbyist for the National Cable Television Association. Johnson had read a man’s plans to create a cable television network dedicated to senior citizens. The idea was one that Johnson liked, but all that he needed was a niche. Back in 1979, there were not too many programs geared towards black people, so he made plans for his own network.

In January of 1980, Black Entertainment Television was founded. Initially, it was carried on the same channel feed on what is now the USA Network. In order to generate interest around the channel, Bob Johnson would go to many black communities to churches and community organizations, pushing his network. Because of that, he easily found support for his project.

From there, he talked with possible sponsors who were enticed by the possibility of advertising directly to the black audience. Johnson was able to work things from both ends. It would be his partnership with John Malone, of Liberty Media, that put him in great hands. With the backing of Malone and a partnership with Time Warner, BET was carried in more and more areas and Johnson became a multi-millionaire.

By the 1990s, Bob Johnson had expanded the company to consist of other cable networks and magazines. What was to come next was BET Holdings. Before long, BET Holdings was the biggest black-owned company in America. However, the initial support that Johnson had was slowly beginning to decline. First, there was the comic strip, “The Boondocks,” that criticized BET’s programming.

Once Aaron McGruder, the strip creator, began criticizing BET, the black community did, too. Changing his tone from twenty years prior, Johnson said that it was BET’s job to provide entertainment, nothing else. When Bob Johnson was building the network, he was a regular man with a regular job. By the late 1990s, his personal fortune was well over $300 million. It is safe to say that the money changed him.

There was a lot of money that BET was making because of Bob Johnson’s frugal spending. He did not feel the need to develop quality original programming, so he ran reruns and infomercials, instead. The entire time, Viacom was watching the success of the BET network. While the other ventures were making a great deal of money, without BET, the entire company would suffer.

Outside of BET, the company also had Emerge, BET Weekend, Heart & Soul, and other black-oriented magazines. On top of that, Bob Johnson partnered with Starz to create the first black-oriented movie channel. What Johnson had on his hands was the first true black-owned media empire.

Still, all the executives at Viacom saw were a TV network aimed at black people. There was a lot of advertising revenue that they were missing out on. Starting in 1999, they began talks of purchasing BET from Johnson. They did not want the magazines, all that they wanted was the original BET channel and BET on Jazz.

As a surprise to many, Johnson ridded himself of the black movie channel and the magazines. All that was alive right before the Viacom sell was his two channels. Then, in 2001, he sold BET to Viacom. Not long after the deal, popular BET host, Tavis Smiley lost his job. Many silent critics were now speaking and they blamed Johnson’s sell to Viacom for all of this.

To keep people from becoming too upset, Bob Johnson said that BET was still going to be run in the same fashion by the same people. The only difference was the deeper pockets that were owned by Viacom. He promised that the network would now air better programming. Despite his promises, they did not. So, black America was without some of the top black-oriented magazines and the first black movie channel.

Had Bob Johnson kept BET, there may have been some new blood that would have convinced him to allow scripted original programming. The publications branch would have stayed and probably been better off than Johnson Publications is, now. If Johnson had kept BET and all of its holdings, he would have been worth well more than the $3 billion that Viacom gave him.

Call him whatever; Bob Johnson is a great businessman. He may have run BET in a sad manner, but it was constantly profitable and that is all that one asks out of a business. The only poor business move that he made was selling out to Viacom. Johnson should have kept his company because he could have re-won black America with the magazines and the programming may have improved.

Overall, he could have made more money had he never left BET.

Well, it’s finally here, I got to interview Dan Berger (for real, this time) the writer and artist of many notable projects behind the TMNT comic books.  We discuss in the interview the recent purchase of the creator-owned TMNT property by Nickelodeon, His future plans, his views on the TMNT universe, and some of his favorite music and movies.

Once again, I know that I said this to him every time we e-mailed back and forth for the interview (and the handful of other times I’ve e-mailed him), I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to interview a wonderful writer, artist, and above all, someone who I truly admire, in order to show their viewpoint of the business and bring to light some things that fans may just not expect.

Also, Click to see a larger version of the cover for the penultimate issue of Tales by Dan.  This is the – basically – world premiere of the image on the interweb.

I apologize for how the images are integrated into the interview… typically you can just make it look like a newspaper type and plunk the pictures so the Text fits around them, but I still haven’t figured out how to do this on WordPress.

let’s dig in!

Thanks once again for doing this interview.

My pleasure.

How did Peter Laird break the news about the deal to the writers and  artists, or how did you find out about the deal (with Viacom/Nickelodeon for the Rights to all things TMNT)?

Nick hasn’t approached any of the creators from Mirage – if anyone is  interested in trying to work for them, they’ll have to go to Nick.

I have no idea if that answered your question – but it does show how neurotic I am about deadlines.

Ya gotta try to come up with something a bit different if you want Peter to approve your plots.

I hope it lives up to your expectations. I’ll do my best.

However, the continuity issue comes up… will this be for sure something that will happen in the future or just an imagined story?

It’s a future story – definitely not imaginary.

I’ve got several varied ideas, but I can’t really talk about them without giving away too much – but they involve monsters, cats, and of course, kids.

Will you do the art as well as the writing duties?

Yeah – but that’s a tough row to ho these days. Publishers typically want someone to write (usually a celebrity) and then they’ll assign an illustrator of their choice to do the artwork – but I’m not particularly interested in doing it that way, since I’m not a celebrity and I feel too close to my ideas to let someone else draw them, at least initially. If I were to be fortunate enough to have some success and be able to do lots of projects, I wouldn’t mind working with other artist because there are so many out there far more talented than I am (which is one reason why writing for “Tales” has been so much fun).

Nothing unfortunate about it – I know how old I am. I feel it every day.

As I tell all my buddies, getting old sucks, but it beats the 
alternative.

Is your grand wall of TMNT toys still going to hang up in your office?

Except Viacom might have a little less contempt for you than it might originally be thought.  The General Counsel at Viacom (the entertainment behemoth responsible for Showtime, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount Pictures, and a slew of other holdings) recently addressed Yale law students, and he let them know that suing infringers felt like terrorism, and that he’s a big fan–really!–of fair use. What he’s most interested in, he says, is copying the entirety of a particular content.  (Source)  (He’s also a fan of DRM–though not in the way it’s been implemented, and of three-strikes laws, which is something’s I’m planning on taking up a little later.)

There’s a video of the talk on YouTube, and it might be worth taking a look-see.

This does not bode well for all the Stargate Fans who have been eagerly waiting for the next round of Stargate movies direct to DVD…

If you need more proof that the new “Stargate SG-1″ DVD is never going to get made, here it is: MGM Studios is seeking a buyer. The cash-strapped studio got permission from lenders to skip interest payments on loans through January as it seeks a merger or acquisition, possibly with Fox/News Corp., Time Warner, or Viacom. Rumors about a private equity fund also cropped up, but most reports have it that Lionsgate will come out ahead of a possibly bidding war. The New York Times values MGM at between $1.5 and $3 billion, down from the $5 billion that Comcast, Sony, and venture capitalists spent taking MGM private in 2004.

TBS’s new “The Very Funny Show” will debut November 19 at midnight, featuring stand-up comics talking about life on tour. The show will follow “Lopez Tonight.”

The CW is developing a medical school drama called “HMS.” Word is that Hayden Panettiere will executive produce it.

That’s it today. A worthless Browns/Ravens game is on “Monday Night Football” tonight. Enjoy.

Source:

John Guilfoil is the editor-in-chief of Blast: Boston’s Online Magazine. He can be reached at guilfoil.j@blastmagazine.com

Die Medien verdienen mehr und mehr Geld durch Werbeeinnahmen, könnte sich das irgendwie auch auf die demokratische Urteilsfindung (Aufklärung/Bewusstseinsbildung) der Bürger auswirken? Dieser Bericht zeigt die amerikanischen Verhältnisse.

A Vh1 (89 na NET, 84 na SKY e 59 na TVA, entre outras operadoras), canal de música, entretenimento e cultura pop da Viacom lança sua nova campanha publicitária no Brasil. Criada pela AlmapBBDO, a iniciativa é o primeiro trabalho conjunto desde que as empresas firmaram parceria em maio desse ano, e incluirá anúncios, filme, spot de rádio e Internet.

O objetivo da campanha é usar a linguagem irreverente da Vh1 e referências da cultura pop para reforçar o posicionamento do canal junto a seus espectadores, além de atrair novos clientes. A estratégia prevê dois picos de ações, um agora no final do ano e um logo após o Carnaval. A campanha impressa, que já começou a sair nas revistas Trip, Rolling Stone Brasil, Caras, Veja, Veja SP e nos jornais Meio & Mensagem, Propaganda e Marketing e Folha de S. Paulo, e ações na Internet.

Nas peças impressas, os anúncios se utilizam de pequenos cubos, parecidos com os de jogos de palavras cruzadas que unidos mostram o título e criam imagens que se relacionam a um tema sobre música ou celebridades. A peça “Woodstock”, por exemplo, traz ícones do movimento hippie, que é diretamente ligado ao histórico festival de música americano realizado em 1969. Haverá ainda duas outras propostas: “Guitar Hero” e “Paternidade”, que seguem a mesma linha, brincando sobre a vida dos astros da música. A logomarca do canal, também em formato de cubos, revela que a Vh1 está 100% “encaixada” com esse conteúdo de música.

Mídias eletrônicas
Na internet, em breve um hotsite disponibilizará 12 players relacionados a ícones da cultura pop. Com esse conteúdo, o usuário poderá customizar seus blogs, incrementando a forma de ver vídeos na internet: em vez de usar a estrutura dos sites de hospedagem de vídeos, a barra de comandos que mostra o andamento do filme será substituída por uma figura relacionada a ícones da música. Há players com Gene Simons, Elvis Presley, Madonna, Amy Winehouse, entre outras celebridades.

Além disso, cada versão do anúncio impresso ganhará banners de web que usará o mesmo conceito de pequenos cubos formando frases. Os banners serão veiculados em vários canais e home page do UOL, MSN e Yahoo e em sites como Showlivre, Fliperama, Guia da Semana, Território da Música e na Rede Viacom (rede de sites internacionais do grupo Viacom em que há boa visitação de brasileiros, como comedycentral.com, jackass.com, mtv.com, vh1.com, shockwave.com e addictinggames.com).

A campanha prevê ainda um comercial e um spot de rádio, que entrarão ainda em novembro em canais de TV por assinatura e nas rádios Oi, Kiss e Alpha FM.

AdNews

By Kevin Matras
November 10, 2009

The Price to Earnings ratio (or P/E) is probably the most common ratio in determining whether a company is under or overvalued. However, the Price to Cash Flow (or P/CF) is another great ratio to do just that. Cash of course is vital to a company’s financial health, especially nowadays, in order to finance operations, invest in the business, etc. And cash can’t really be manipulated on the Income Statement like earnings can.

The reason why some people like this measurement better than the P/E ratio is that the net income of the Cash Flow portion rightly adds back in depreciation and amortization, since these are not cash expenditures. Whereas the net income that goes into the Earnings portion of the P/E ratio does not add these in, thus artificially reducing the income and skewing the P/E ratio. So many analysts prefer using the Price to Cash Flow metric to judge a stock’s value.

And just like the P/E ratio is calculated by dividing the Price by its Earnings per share — the Price to Cash Flow ratio is calculated by dividing the Price by its Cash Flow per share. Also like a P/E ratio, the lower the number, the better. Currently, the average Price to Cash Flow (P/CF) for the stocks in the S&P 500 is 9.6. For the 12-month forward P/E ratio, it’s 15.3. But just like the P/E ratio, a value of less than 15 to 20 is generally considered good.

But make sure you compare the stock’s P/CF to its Industry, since different Industries will have different numbers that are considered normal. For example: the average Price/Cash Flow for Gold Mining companies is about 30, whereas it’s about 3 for Telecom.

Screen
The screen I’m running today is relatively simple:
* Zacks Rank = 1
(Only Strong Buys get thru.)
* One Year Projected Growth Rate >= Average for the S&P 500
(Looking for above-market growth rates.)
* Current Cash Flow >= 5 Year Average Cash Flow
(I want to see the Company’s cash position improving.)
* Price to Cash Flow less than or equal to Median for its Industry
(I want to see Companies with valuations lower than the median for their respective groups.)

There were 30 stocks that came thru this week’s screen. Here are 5 of them:
BARE – Bare Escentuals, Inc.
CMN – Cantel Medical Corp.
HS – HealthSpring, Inc.
TTC – Toro Company
VIA.B – Viacom Inc.

Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.

Pesquisa da Viacom aponta que as pessoas entre 25 e 34 anos, fase que chama de juventude estendida, estão mais dispostas a aprender. Segundo esse estudo, elas se dividem entre sonhadores nostálgicos, garotos crescidos, bem resolvidos e pretendentes ao sucesso.

A Viacom Networks Brasil (dos canais Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, Vh1, MTV Hits e MTV Jams) apresentou nesta sexta-feira, 6, a agências e anunciantes um estudo global que retrata o público jovem de hoje. “Juventude 30 quilates: a idade que vale ouro” envolveu a participação de 28 mil pessoas, em 18 países, com fóruns de discussão online, entrevistas com especialistas, pesquisa etnográfica e entrevistas online, com o intuito de entender e avaliar os atuais hábitos dos jovens.

A gerente de pesquisa e responsável pelo departamento de pesquisas da Viacom, Beatriz Mello, explica que o objetivo do trabalho era identificar os interesses do público, o que ele gosta de fazer e com o que interage. “Nosso principal target é o jovem. Entender essa faixa etária é importante para os negócios da marca, já que 45% do mercado dirigem seus investimentos para essa faixa etária”, destaca.

O grande interesse no estudo era descobrir quem é o novo jovem de 25 a 34 anos. “Antes, eles eram mais engajados politicamente e tinham ligação forte com a família. Agora, com o aumento da expectativa de vida, a juventude foi estendida. Eles querem viver a vida de maneira plena”. Esse público pode ser representado, em suas palavras, como “um cara que ainda deseja crescer muito e está aberto a novas possibilidades”. A pesquisa aponta ainda que todas as decisões importantes começam a ser tomadas a partir dos 25 e por decisão individual. A cobrança é mais interna (pessoal) do que externa (por parte da família, por exemplo).

Há um detalhe interessante: no mundo, 78% desse público entre 25 e 34 anos afirmam que desejam aprender mais e desenvolver suas habilidades. No Brasil, esse índice é maior: 88%.

A pesquisa mostra que o jovem está em busca da maturidade emocional e funcional. Para melhor compreender a juventude, ela foi dividida em três etapas: adolescência – momento da descoberta, insegurança; fase da experimentação – compreendida pelos jovens de 20 anos, que ainda têm muitas dúvidas, mas já sabem o que não querem; e a última são as pessoas entre 25 e 34 anos, momento no qual muitos conquistaram a maturidade emocional e muitos a funcional, mas poucos atingiram a duas. Essa categoria foi subdividida em quatro segmentos: sonhadores nostálgicos, garotos crescidos, bem resolvidos e pretendentes ao sucesso.

Beatriz conta que o estudo se concentrou nessa última categoria, grupo que antes era classificado como adulto, mas que atualmente ainda usufrui da juventude, o que é importante para as marcas e seus negócios. “É uma geração mais feliz, confiante, exigente com ela mesmo e com independência financeira condicionada com seus interesses”, detalha.

Conheça melhor os quatro perfis da geração entre 25 e 34 anos:

Bem resolvidos (mundo 45%, Brasil 51%)

- é o grupo que conquistou o mais alto índice nas duas maturidades:

- são positivos e responsáveis e acham que com 30 anos estão no melhor momento de suas vidas;

- em sua maioria, estão em uma relação estável e muitos já têm filhos;

- profissionalmente, estão satisfeitos com seus empregos ou têm um negócio próprio e têm a maior renda dentre os demais jovens;

- embora admita que já tenha conquistado algumas coisas na vida, ele acredita que não chegou onde queria e que ainda tem muito o que aprender. Por isso está sempre em busca de aprender novas habilidades;

- são early adopters e querem se manter em dia com as novidades tecnológicas.

Pretendentes ao sucesso (mundo 32%, Brasil 36%)

- já adquiriram alto nível de maturidade emocional, mas ainda precisam conquistar a funcional;

- sentem-se frustrados vendo seus amigos com famílias e acham que ainda não conquistaram tudo o que querem da vida;

- pensam no futuro, mas não fazem nada para torná-lo real;

- têm necessidade de se sobressair, mas demonstram certa falta de confiança para buscar novas experiências;

- querem se manter atuais em relação à moda, diversão e tecnologia e estão dispostos a utilizar o crédito para conseguir o que querem;

- são ambiciosos, mas limitados pelo dinheiro. São atraídos pela popularidade das marcas.

Sonhadores nostálgicos (mundo 17%, Brasil 10%)

- têm alta maturidade emocional, mas baixa funcional:

- são jovens que tomaram decisões importantes muito cedo na vida: muitos já casaram e se separaram e a maioria tem filhos;

- têm gostos de adultos e saudade da juventude;

- gostariam de começar a juventude de novo e esperam conquistar mais coisas agora;

- são desconectados de novidades tecnológicas e não estão interessados na cultura jovem;

- são mais tradicionais em relação às marcas e preferem aquelas que já conhecem.

Garotos crescidos (mundo 5%, Brasil 2%)

- têm baixos níveis de maturidade emocional e funcional;

- são super otimistas, mas não se preocupam com futuro;

- buscam a juventude sempre e querem se destacar dos demais;

- são individualistas, solteiros e não estão preocupados em formar família;

- são o segundo grupo de maior renda e super antenados com a cultura jovem e ditam tendências para os demais grupos;

- são trend setters e buscam nas marcas exclusividade e autenticidade.

BROADCAST/CABLE

Viacom’s quarterly profit breezed past expectations as consumers set aside money worries to scoop up the new Beatles video game and buy tickets for box-office hits like “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe.” (Reuters 11/3)

GameSpot reports that the release of Harmonix’s The Beatles: Rock Band has helped Viacom reverse its trend of slumping rhythm game sales.

I’m not a lawyer and more specifically not an intellectual property (IP) lawyer, but this particular area of the law is one I have been involved in as a patent owner. It’s somewhat weird to think that you can patent ideas such that other folks cannot use them without permission – but there yah go!

The field of IP is, however, a source of great entertainment for those who are not suing or being sued. For example, an 8-year battle between McDonalds and Malaysian fast-food company McCurry (allegedly short for “Malaysian Chicken Curry“) still continues.

McCurry Restaurant and Owners

One other linguistically based skirmish took place in 2006 between Viacom International (owners of MTV, VH1, Paramount Pictures, and a host of media companies) and sole-proprietor web site Pimp My Snack. I thought of headlining this SpongeBob Whips Sponge Cake but thought better of it.

The alleged infringing site, now called Pimp THAT Snack, is dedicated to the “art” of taking a particular item of food and turning it into a much larger version. I came across it while watching an episode of BBC’s The F-Word and saw one of the presenters create a two-foot wide Jaffa(R) cake – a popular chocolate-coated orange-based cookie.

Huge Jaffa cake with originals in foreground

The use of the word pimp in this situation reflects a modern change to refer to something as being wonderful, great, cool, or desirable. It appears to have been originally used in this way in the 1970’s by African-American males to describe an attitude or swagger, and being pimp was a good thing. It also seems to have been happy to jump across parts of speech from noun (“He’s a pimp“) to adjective (“That’s a pimp outfit you’re wearing”) to verb (“I’ve pimped out my ride”), and even interjection (“Pimping!”)

It’s in its use a verb that the Viacom lawsuit is based. In 2004, MTV launched the show Pimp My Ride, where the mechanics of LA car shop, West Coast Customs, would take a beat-up old car and transform it into something glamorous and desirable. Viacom have clearly decided that they can claim ownership of the phrase Pimp My X, hence the “cease-and-desist” order against the linguistically similar Pimp My Snack.

Legally, I suspect that only the words “pimp my” are covered because changing to Pimp THAT Snack doesn’t seem to have incurred a further law suit. The word “my” is used as a possessive determiner whereas “that” is used as a demonstrative, so clearly it’s true that “possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

Legal arguments aside, the word pimp first makes an appearance in 1607 to refer to someone who “provides means and opportunities for unlawful sexual intercourse.”  (OED, Vol XI, p.845)

The famous diarist Samuel Pepys wrote in his 1666 diary on 10th June that, “The Duke of York is wholly given up to his new mistress… Mr. Brouncker, it seems, was the pimp to bring it about.”

It’s thought that the word derives from the 16th century French verb, pimper, which translates as “to render elegant,” and then from the past participle, pimpant,  to mean alluring or seductive in appearance or dress. However, this is still open to discussion.

Interestingly, the word is also used dialectically to mean a bundle of firewood or faggot, which first appears in print in 1742 in De Foe’s Tour of Great Britain; “Those small light Bavins, which are used in Taverns in London to light their Faggots, and are called in the Taverns a Brush, and by the Wood-men Pimps.”

Pimp or faggot

Continuing with the word as a noun, in Australian and New Zealand slang a pimp is an informer or tell-tale, while in Welsh dialect it’s a Peeping Tom.

As a verb, it is used intransitively. In the New Yorker magazine on May 26th, 1975, you’ll find “His father (Jack Warden) pimps to add to his income as a taxi-driver.”

Oh, and those of you who are fascinated by bacronyms may want to stop by the Urban Dictionary site to find a few that have appeared for pimp. These include “Person Into Marketing Prostitutes,” “Player In Many Places,” “Put It In My Pocket” and even “Penis In Many People.”

And who says modern youth are not linguistically creative

By now, everyone knows the controversy that has surrounded BET for years. Black America has pushed the network time and time again to step up. For the past two years, the network has been trying to step up, but in the opinion of some, the network has taken some steps back. This is including their addition of “The Game” to their schedule.

During its peak, BET was the only black-owned television network and it was a black-owned multimillion dollar corporation. The network made its name off of reruns and low-budget original programming. Many prominent black Americans were upset by BET’s programming, but remained silent because of their great news coverage.

As the 1990s entered, BET still found itself without original sitcoms or dramas, in their place hip hop music videos. In the 1990s, hip hop was just becoming violent and misogynistic. As a result, the hip hop videos displayed this and BET became hated by most of black America. The only thing that kept black people from hating the network was the fact that it was black-owned.

When the 21^st century rolled around, BET’s founder, Robert Johnson, sold the network to Viacom. Now, the network had crappy programming and it was no longer black-owned. This was when black America began speaking out against BET and Johnson. Soon, the news and public affairs programming was gone and BET was becoming MTV Black.

By 2006, BET had hit a new low and 2007 brought the “Read A Book” controversy. Almost all of black media then jumped on BET because of its programming. This was when former programming president, Reginald Hudlin, decided that it was his job to re-program the network. The result was one original sitcom and more MTV-type reality shows with black faces.

In 2008, Reginald Hudlin left BET and the original sitcom that he had pushed for was canceled. However, BET has played a huge role in the effort to save the hit sitcom, “The Game.” Still, overall, the programming is not much better than it was when the network was first sold to Viacom some ten years ago.

Some have given up on BET, they feel that it has been thirty years, already and nothing is going to change. It is obvious that BET still has some growing to do, but unlike during the days of Bob Johnson, the executives seem willing to do it.

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Reaching out to the more price sensitive, The NBA retooled its NBA League Pass broadband offering, offered with Turner Sports’ NBA Digital, to give fans of a few teams the lower-priced option to follow up to 7 teams for just $99.95 for the season. Access to all out-of-market games goes for $149.95. The premium package also feature the live-game DVR functionality with an extended game archive to view games on-demand up to 48 hours after they air. (Cynopsis 10/28)

Paramount Pictures has found a new way to generate more revenues from its films and the DVD market. The Viacom studio has made an inexpensive film called “Circle of Eight” and is premiering on MySpace. The idea is to create buzz, then rent or sell the film through Blockbuster. (Iwantmedia 10/28, Business Week 10/27)

Remember when Yahoo started to roll out its new homepage last summer? It’s been live for all users for about three months now, and today Yahoo’s annual Analyst Day, senior vice president Tapan Bhat gave an overview of how the redesigned homepage is performing. In the past three months, pageviews are up 9 percent, and time spent on the homepage is up 20 percent. (Techcrunch10/28)

In 2006, after its acquisition by Activision, RedOctane dismissed Harmonix Music Systems as lead developer for the Guitar Hero brand of music games. Harmonix was then acquired by Viacom, which resulted in a bifurcation in instrument-based rhythm games. Since then, Guitar Hero (RedOctane) and Rock Band (Harmonix) have been in a neck and neck battle for dominance of the sub-genre.

For a time, both developers enjoyed a modicum of prosperity, but both brands have recently seen across the board declines in sales. Some have blamed the weak economy, while others have said that the entire Guitar Hero craze was nothing more than a fad. Neither of these explanations is adequate. Music simulation games are here to stay, but those behind the products were overly optimistic that demand would continue to increase.

In his discussion of foreign policy, Nobel prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman notes that governments “commonly overestimate their future success” when predicting the outcome of military campaigns. At the same time, they underestimate the ability of the enemy in what is known as “reactive devaluation.” Both of these concepts apply to other areas of human psychology, including investment and business decisions. It may also have played a key role in the decision of RedOctane to take the Guitar Hero brand away from Harmonix and in the decision of Viacom to launch the Rock Band brand.

In the years since the launch of the first Guitar Hero, the number of instrument simulation games has increased each year to unsupportable levels. Call it the Guitar Hero Bubble.

Number of Instrument Simulation Games Launched since 2005

As everyone knows bubbles happen when optimism causes people to invest in the stock market after long and unsustainable rallies. Investors ignore historical trends believing “this time will be different.” It happened in the 1990s DOT.COM bubble and it happened in the 2007 housing bubble. Just as investors ignored these bubbles, Viacom and Activision ignored the possibility that music games would follow the standard life cycle of new products.

A Typical Product Life Cycle

Viacom, Activision, and others clearly predicted that these games were in a prolonged growth stage as they introduced more and more games at a faster and faster pace. Nintendo fell into the same trap in the early 1990s when it began to release new Mario titles at an unsustainable pace. The resulting crash almost killed the Mario brand. Likewise, 2009 has seen a decline in across the board sales suggestive that the sub-genre has reached the maturity stage of the product life cycle (although we don’t expect to see the same kind of crash that accompanied the Mario bubble for reasons discussed at length in the book).

The above graph, published by Gamasutra shows that both major brands saw overall sales declines despite the launch of more games, including the much anticipated Beatles bundle.

Kahneman, D. and Renshon, J. (2007) Why Hawks Win, Foreign Policy, pp. 34-38

Hastie, R. and Dawes, R (2001) Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, Sage Publications

Bazerman, M. (2006) Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, Wiley

Gilovich, T. et al. (2002) Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, Cambridge University Press

BROADCAST/CABLE

The premiere Oct. 22 of Comedy Central’s “The Jeff Dunham Show” attracted 5.3 million viewers, the most ever for a series debut on the Viacom-owned network. After factoring in showings later in the night, the series amassed an opening-day audience of 7.9 million viewers. The Hollywood Reporter (10/23)

CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth – and last – among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising. (NY Times 10/26)

Microsoft is backing out of its sponsorship off Fox’s upcoming “Family Guy” comedy/variety special. The software giant planned to sponsor the show to tout its new Windows 7 operating system. The special’s content, Microsoft says, “was not a fit with the Windows brand.” (Iwantmedia 10/27, Variety10/26)

In case you haven’t heard (or, to some of my friends, care) the TMNT property has been sold to Nickelodeon for roughly $60 million.  Well, every month I send to fanmail@ninjaturtles.com my reviews, and Dan Berger who manages the site politely links to the blog (netting in 222 views on this blog yesterday alone) if my reviews are positive (which consistently are).  There are also some responses to my reactions on my review of Tales of the TMNT #63, and Dan Berger’s writing of Marlin.  Anyway, since I was at the source of a lot of info, I couldn’t resist asking Dan some questions through e-mail, and here are some of his replies:

And here’s where the interview sort of begins:

MechanisticMoth:  I worked a bike convention for Specialized Bicycles of the summer and worked with a guy from the great land of Oz, and… I don’t know, he may have uttered one or two of those (Aussiesms) underneath his breath.

Dan Berger:  Oh, I went out of my way searching google to collate as many “sayings” as I could – and then crammed every one of them into the script. My bad. I did play up Marlin’s Aussie-isms a lot – I was doing it as an inside joke for Tristan Jones (I expected him to write me and say “We don’t actually talk like that, mate!”) – in retrospect, it probably was not a wise thing to do – but I was having a bit of fun (apparently too much

MechanisticMoth:  I heard about the whole Nickelodeon deal, and it sounds really exciting.  Although, it’s surprising for me to hear that they’ll be taking over the site.

Dan Berger: Actually, I don’t know what their plans are, but at some point soon, Mirage will not be in charge of the domain name. What Nick decides to do with it, I have no clue – but it gets pretty good traffic (7,500 unique visitors per week), so they may keep it going to take advantage of that.

MechanisticMoth:  I figured it was more so them handling the cartoon properties.

Dan Berger:  Nope – they now own the TMNT lock, stock and barrel.

MechanisticMoth:  So, Nickelodeon owns the rights to the comics properties/Mirage, as well?

Dan Berger: Nick owns the TMNT property, but they do not own Mirage Studios.

MechanisticMoth:  What’s the future (if there’s even any idea of it amongst you guys) of the comics, then?

Dan Berger:  Peter Laird maintained the rights to publish up to 18 TMNT comics per year, but at this time all we plan to do is to continue publishing “Tales of the TMNT’ up to May, 2010 (#70). Beyond that, we don’t have any plans for publishing (outside of finishing off the Donatello mini- series and publishing the full color reprint of TMNT #1).

MechanisticMoth:  I haven’t checked Peter Laird’s blog for the last couple weeks… is that probably a good idea to get an idea of the change-ups?

Dan Berger:  That’s a very good idea.

MechanisticMoth:  As a side note, I know it’s a ways off (April-ish), but it’d be really great for some of you Mirage guys to make a stop at the Seattle comic-con or at least submit a print like Jim did a couple years ago.

Dan Berger:  I don’t foresee anyone making the trip, I’m afraid. Mirage is closing its doors on December 31, so they won’t be paying the artists’ way to shows anymore, thus we would have to pay out of pocket, and that’s a long and expensive trip to make for any of us. But never say never. The print thing is a possibility, though, if the show approaches anyone.

MechanisticMoth: Yeah, East Coast to West is a pretty big trip, and that’s completely understandable.  I’ll try to pester the people who are running the thing to pester you guys then.

Alright, just to let you know, some of this is actually out of order to how the e-mail correspondence went, but I wanted to group things thematically to make sense of everything.  For those of you who want to find out more information on the Nickelodeon deal, check out Peter Laird’s Blog (he’s so far at 2 posts explaining his reasoning behind the deal) at: http://plairdblog.blogspot.com/ .  Also, you can check out the press release from Viacom (who own, through various organizations, Nickelodeon) at: http://www.viacom.com/news/Pages/newstext.aspx?RID=1344566 .

I really hope the comics keep coming out from Mirage, even if there’s a bit of a hiatus after issue #70.  The comics are just so great on such a consistent basis that it would be a shame, but judging from Peter Laird’s blog, he needed a huge break which is pretty damn understandable.

Taking notes from sister networks, MTV and VH1, BET has decided to move into full webcasting. In 2007, the network began broadcasting their shows on the internet with BET on Blast.

At the time, people were very happy with the strides made by the network to create an online presence. However, now, people find the video player frustrating to use and favor the video players featured on the websites of MTV and VH1.

In order to keep with the uniform of the Viacom networks, BET has decided to change their player format. This will allow videos from BET to be embedded onto other sites and it will be a much easier player to use.

This also works out perfectly for the network, as they recently launched the web series, “Buppies.” Some speculate that BET will try to take on internet competitor True Black Television by broadcasting original programs through BET.com, too.

No one has directly said this, but that may be the reasons for all of the changes going on at their website.

According to Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman, The Beatles: Rock Band has exceeded sales projections and some editions could sell out by November. That is good news for the ailing videogame industry.

The Beatles: Rock Band is one of several games featured in a chapter focused on the music genre. In it, we point out a number of challenges, as music game developers succumb to the same performance traps as console makers and traditional game developers. Although it is still too early to give a final verdict on Harmonix latest musical masterpiece, even if it continues to sell well, the genre will have a difficult time maintaining the momentum generated by early versions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band.