In Season Short on Star Power, Rodriguez’s Return Lifts Ratings on YES
Posted in: UncategorizedCuriosity about Alex Rodriguez’s 2013 debut and suspension attracted a high number of viewers to the Yankees’ broadcast.
‘NewsHour’ Appoints First Female Anchor Team
Posted in: UncategorizedJason Sudeikis Confuses American Football with Soccer for NBC Sports
Posted in: UncategorizedIf you live in either Chicago or Boston, you may have watched (or wanted to watch) the Stanley Cup Finals, in which case you realized that you don’t have access to NBC Sports. After some McGyver-ing and hooking you iPad to your TV, you got thousands about thousands of commercials advertising that NBC Sports would be broadcasting every game of England’s prestigious Barclays Premier League. After digesting this fact, you immediately stopped caring because 1.) You’re an American who likes ‘merican sports and 2.) Again, you don’t have access to NBC Sports.
But who better to make you, an American without access to NBC, care about this development than Jason Sudeikis, a former Saturday Night Live cast member who has appeared basically fucking everywhere in the last month? First, dude quits SNL. Then, he starts going on a press tour for his terrible-looking new movie, Meet The Millers, where he stars opposite Jennifer Aniston, who plays a middle-aged stripper. Then, he joined ESPN to count down the top 50 “This Is SportsCenter” ads last week. Then, he made cameo appearance in Drinking Buddies, a new film playing on Apple TV before it hits theaters at the end of the month and stars Sudeikis’ real-life fiance, Olivia Wilde. Then, Kiran shows me this and asks me to write about it, compelling me to start complaining about how Jason Sudeikis is fucking everywhere these days. Then, wouldn’t you know it, he releases a viral video YESTERDAY where he leads a parody version of Mumford & Sons, with Ed Helms, Jason Bateman and Will Forte starring as his bearded indie-folk backing band.
Seriously, it’s absolutely impossible to get rid of this guy. Watch him play a dumb American coach who doesn’t get soccer above in a new campaign from the Brooklyn Brothers (who you may remember from those kick-ass John Krasinski/Alec Baldwin New Era spots), and then don’t talk to me about Jason Sudeikis until you’ve developed some sort of Sudeikis repellant.
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Study Links TV Viewership and Twitter Conversations
Posted in: UncategorizedArtsBeat: ‘Teen Beach Movie’ Gets Big Ratings for Disney
Posted in: UncategorizedVolkswagen Swims with Sharks for a Week
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Discovery’s annual Shark Week extravaganza not only confirms that viewers go crazy for underwater creatures that can rip them into a thousand pieces, but that brands will use just about any tangential connection to a popular theme to try and wring out that extra dollar. Take the fat, colorful Tide billboard above the Lincoln Tunnel that I came across yesterday: “We get the blood out, too.” That’s one way to do it.
Volkswagen and Deutsch are going all in as well, bringing cars and sharks a lot closer than they’ve ever been before, a true sharknado of brand association if there ever was one. The VW campaign is loaded on social media, mainly focusing on sharable videos through Instagram and Vine. VW created a Beetle convertible that will be used as an underwater cage hooked up to cameras for the remainder of the week, hoping to conquer a chunk of the digital space floating around with these exclusive videos. Credits after the jump.
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The TV Watch: Surviving CBS’s Fight With Time Warner Cable
Posted in: UncategorizedNickelodeon on the Mend, Profit Soars at Viacom
Posted in: UncategorizedSurprise at TV Critics’ Gathering: DeGeneres Is to Host the Oscars
Posted in: UncategorizedAt a preseason press tour, the newsmakers of the industry gave a preview of offerings.
Ellen DeGeneres to Host Next Year’s Oscars
Posted in: UncategorizedThe Perfect Ad for Anyone Who’s Ever Wanted to See James Franco Get Punched in the Face
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Are you so tired of James Franco's artsy Instagram pictures, his smirking superiority, his pretentious poetry, his cornrow-sporting Spring Breakers white gangsta, his incessant everywhere-ness—so much so that you could just punch him right in his boyishly handsome face? Here's the perfect video snippet for you. The actor-writer-producer-"student of life" already let slip—in a recent Instagram video as laconic and lifeless as his Oscar co-hosting gig in 2011—that he'll be the subject of an upcoming Comedy Central roast. Now the cable network is starting its own promotion, creating the piece of performance art below that a lot of haters will no doubt really dig. Take that, pretty boy! But the 35-year-old star is still standing, of course. He'll play a young Hugh Hefner in the upcoming flick Lovelace, about Linda Lovelace and the porn game-changer Deep Throat, premiering next week. And there's that book of poetry on the way. What a great time for a beatdown. The cable channel roast airs Sept. 2.
CUNY TV Station Turns Over an Old Leaf, Transmitting by Air to Widen Its Reach
Posted in: UncategorizedThe City University station, available in the five boroughs on cable since the ’8os, now also broadcasts over the air, with a signal reaching 35 miles.
Fox Signals How ‘Glee’ Will Handle Monteith Death
Posted in: UncategorizedEating at Steak ‘n Shake is Now Officially a Form of Martial Arts
Posted in: UncategorizedSteak ‘n Shakes still exist apparently (ed. This was our college late-night sanctuary), and Minneapolis-based Carmichael Lynch, which took over for KBS+ on the diner chain’s biz in late March, is here for a brand new campaign “Hunger Wisely.” What “Hunger Wisely” means is a bit vague, but, you know, kung-fu masters are wise and hungry people eat food, so why not?
While these ads, which were directed by Harold Einstein of Station Films, are a little nonsensical, they do bring up some important topics. For example, Steak ‘n Shake seems to be pretty cheap. The “shake” in Steak ‘n Shake stands for “milkshake,” as opposed to dancing while eating steak. Finally, Steak ‘n Shake offers hotdogs, one of the few fast food places (other than like Sonic or something) that does so maybe. In other words, you take away that weird kung-fu master stuff, and you’re left with a pretty effective brand awareness campaign. (Checks Google Maps). Too bad I’ll never go to one as there aren’t any in Chicago. Watch a one-minute long video of more kung-fu stuff, and another I embedded of some guy getting his head kicked off, after the jump.
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Comcast and CBS Post Strong Results, Aided by Web
Posted in: UncategorizedHerb Kaplow, Voice of ABC and NBC News, Dies at 86
Posted in: UncategorizedBryan Cranston Recites ‘Ozymandias’ in Breaking Bad’s Haunting Final Promo
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Breaking Bad wins the award for most poetic TV show promo ever. The final episodes of the series, beginning Aug. 11, are heralded by a haunting reading of "Ozymandias" by Bryan Cranston, aka Walter White, aka Heisenberg. Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet about the inevitable decline of kings serves as a warning to all those who would create an empire, suggesting time and nature will obliterate the works of man in the end. Given that Breaking Bad is a quintessential tragedy with all the trappings thereunto, including the inclusion of a Greek chorus, nothing could have been more perfect to foreshadow the end. Glad someone paid attention in 10th grade lit.