Press

Electronic Arts isn’t escaping a lawsuit brought by former collegiate athletes who allege a conspiracy to forbid them from profiting from their images and likenesses in sports video games. On Wednesday, a California federal judge denied EA’s attempt to score a quick win. The athletes, including Jim Brown, Sam Keller and Ed O’Bannan, claim that when athletes agree to participate in Division I collegiate sports, they’re told to sign a waiver agreement that gives the NCAA and its licensees the right to use their images, likenesses, and names without compensation. The athletes say that these agreements have been interpreted to exist in perpetuity, even after the student-athletes have ended their collegiate playing career. Further, the athletes allege that the NCAA and its partners have come to their own agreements to not pay collegiate athletes and to refuse to bargain with them whatsoever. Read More ›

The summer Olympics have hit the Viral Video Chart in a big way this week, in videos from some of the largest global marketers, according to data provided by Visible Measures. Both Visa and Coca-Cola debuted new campaigns centered around the London 2012 games this summer, and both play on the general spirit of excitement and competition while careful skirting the international politics of the games. Visa scored big with its debut of “Go World 2012,” which hit the top of the chart with more than 2.7 million views. The campaign, which saw a heavy push in social media, is live in 70 countries and features nine individual videos with Olympic stories of famous athletes, including Michael Phelps, Li Na and others. Its main component is a montage entitled “The Difference,” which depicts some of previous games’ more exciting moments, punctuated with the tagline “Join our global cheer.” Read More ›

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a number. Facebook shares will trade on the Nasdaq exchange for the first time at $38 per share on Friday morning, valuing the world’s largest social networking Web site at $ 104.12 billion. At $38 a share, Facebook would raise $16 billion in the offering. The company could sell an additional 63 million in over-allotments if underwriters see the demand (which they probably will). Facebook initially set its sights on a $28 to $35 price range, but the company steadily raised the target amid growing investor fervor for the largest technology compay IPO in history. Earlier this week, in an amended S-1 SEC filing, the company estimated its share price to be in the $34 to $38 range. Read More ›

Comcast will eliminate the 250-Gigabyte monthly broadband-usage limit on Xfinity Internet, moving over time instead to a usage-based pricing model that will provide at least 300 GB of data usage before customers incur additional charges, the operator said Thursday. The cable operator is making the change after it was criticized by competitors and public-interest groups for allowing unlimited usage of its IP video-on-demand service on Xbox 360, while applying usage of other Internet-video services to the cap. “[I]n recent weeks, some of the conversation around our new product introductions focused on our data usage threshold, rather than on the exciting opportunities we are offering our customers,” Cathy Avgiris, Comcast’s executive vice president and general manager of Communications and Data Services, wrote in a blog post. Read More ›

What, me, worry? Those three words broadly sum up the attitude of the broadcast TV network chiefs regarding the encroachment on their turf by digital media companies, as they conducted their traditional springtime dog and pony shows for advertisers in New York this week. Two weeks earlier, Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and other big digital media companies closed out their “Newfront” presentations to the same constituency, appealing for a portion of traditional TV’s annual $70 billion market share. But as this week’s upfront presentations revealed, the linear video guys still have lots of swagger. “Not Google, Netflix, Yahoo or, YouTube can compete with our scale,” Fox Broadcasting entertainment chairman Peter Rice told advertisers and their agencies Tuesday. “They’re now buying shows — good for them. In reality they’re going to find they’re in the NFL. It takes a lot to make a show that people want to watch across all media.” Read More ›

Kids these days aren’t like they used to be. Just ask executives at television networks that cater to children. Over the past year, a sea change in viewing habits has thrown one of the most profitable segments of Hollywood into a chaotic period of transition. Longtime leader Nickelodeon has suffered a nearly 30 percent drop in ratings, while rivals Disney Channel and Cartoon Network have seen increases. At the same time, upstarts such as The Hub, PBS Kids, Sprout and even Netflix are siphoning off viewers, to say nothing of the online programming and gaming options that compete for the attention of young people. It’s enough for savvy executives — many of whom are heading to the NCTA conference beginning May 21 in Boston — to begin questioning where the business model for kids television is headed. Read More ›

Comedy’s hot this season, and the nets are doubling down in the fall. But with a whopping 28 half-hours on the fall sked — up from 20 a year ago and 16 two years ago — is this an over-correction? Just because the genre is hot, it doesn’t mean that the networks should crank them out haphazardly. ABC, NBC and Fox all added two or more comedy slots. And they’re meeting in a three-network pile-up Tuesday at 9. Something’s gotta give. CBS, meanwhile, may possess most of TV’s top-rated comedies but it didn’t feel the need to expand in comedy just because it was the trendy thing to do. Going against the grain, the net will focus more on dramas this fall. The best sked moves announced last week had to be ABC’s relocation of “Revenge” to Sunday behind “Once Upon a Time” and CBS’ shift of “Two and a Half Men” behind “The Big Bang Theory” on Thursday. Read More ›

USA is doubling down on its commitment to digital media this year, with a broad portfolio of ancillary projects—six, covering the network’s slate of originals—to boost viewership, attract mega fans, and provide deeper ad integrations for the shows’ partners while the series are running. This year, the company has not one but four major automotive sponsors (Ford, Toyota, Lincoln and Lexus) buying tie-in digital integrations, and Capital One on a fifth. Unscripted television is no stranger to these sorts of deals, but USA’s collection of character-driven dramedies would seem to be a harder sell, not to advertisers, but to writers. But programming honcho Bill McGoldrick told Adweek that his writers have been using the integrations (created with companies like Ford and Capital One) to further flesh out corners of the worlds they’ve been creating that might otherwise go unexplored. Read More ›

Every May the broadcast networks take over midtown Manhattan to promote their new shows and ply advertisers with shrimp and champagne. It’s a business expense. Advertisers are expected to spend $9 billion for commercial time on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW for the 2012-13 television season. So Fox trotted out singer Mary J. Bligeto entertain the media buyers who decide where to spend money, while CBS rented out Carnegie Hall and used its”NCIS: Los Angeles” star L.L. Cool J to rap about the network’s strong ratings performance. The glitzy affairs are an old tradition in the television industry. But the upfront presentations, where networks showcase programs in development for the upcoming TV season, have taken on greater urgency as the networks fight to convince advertisers that they remain the most direct route to consumers — many of whom are no longer watching shows on television sets, but rather via other technology that can leave advertisers behind. Read More ›

Broadcast television executives came to New York this week, as they do every year, to talk up their new TV shows in front of advertisers. This year, they are having to talk about yet another technology trying to tear them down. The disruptive technology at hand is an ad eraser, embedded in new digital video recorders sold by Charles W. Ergen’s Dish Network, one of the nation’s top distributors of TV programming. Turn it on, and all the ads recorded on most prime-time network shows are automatically skipped, no channel-flipping or fast-forwarding necessary. Some reviewers have already called the feature, named Auto Hop, a dream come true for consumers. But for broadcasters and advertisers, it is an attack on an entrenched television business model, and it must be strangled, lest it spread. Read More ›