‘The Office’ Gets an Extra 15 Minutes to Say Goodbye

NBC announced on Tuesday that it had extended the show’s finale another 15 minutes, meaning the episode set for May 16 will run from 9 to 10:15 p.m.

    

N.C.A.A. Tournament Final Four Men’s Semifinals Moving to TBS

CBS will continue to carry the championship game in 2014 and 2015, and the two networks will also start splitting Round of 8 games in 2014, rather than in 2016.

    

Digitas Regional President, ‘Huge Harley Fan’ Barbara Goose Talks BrandLIVE, Social Media

In case you’re not an avid watcher Boston-based New England Cable News or its This Week in Business broadcast, you probably missed out on this nearly nine-minute chat between the hosts and Barbara Goose, who currently serves as president of Digitas Boston/Detroit and has spent 14 years in all at the agency. Tipsters give us the usual snark when sending this clip, but maybe they’re just taking umbrage with Goose’s proclamation that Digitas is “the leading digital agency in the world” following its merger with LBi a few months ago.

Whatever the case, seeing as most of our Digitas coverage in recent months has regarded cuts and/or departures, it’s welcoming to post something, well, um, positive? This was probably better suited as a lunchtime item, but what the hell, if you have some time to spare and give a shit, feel free to watch her explain Digitas’ BrandLIVE platform and how she’s anxious to take a Harley-riding class among other things.

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USA Network to Explore Sitcoms and Reality Shows

The USA Network believes that in order to stay competitive it has to branch out into new programming directions.

    

The Media Equation: For Media Moguls, Paydays That Outstrip Other Fields

Leaders in other industries may be well paid, but they earn far less than their media counterparts.

    

Media Giants Chase Online Ads With Original Shows

Major media companies, including Condé Nast, Yahoo and Hulu, are promoting online video programming on a large scale, but it is not clear whether advertising dollars will follow.

    

Alaskan Media Battle Pits KTUU and Cable Rival

A telecommunications company’s bid to offer TV content raises questions about fairness and monopoly.

    

Reminder: Do Not Show a Man Having Sex With a Pig on Your Billboard

Of all the images to take from British TV series Black Mirror, the one that made a billboard for Australian TV network Studio was of a man doing the underpants Charleston with a pig. Cable provider Foxtel issued an apology in response to the immediate blowback, and it's as spineless as the offending image was tasteless and bewildering. "[The billboard] was intended to provoke," it said in a statement, "but it is clearly in appalling taste and demonstrates a lapse of judgment by Studio, and a failure in the approvals process at Foxtel." Well, no kidding. Why even move forward with an idea like that when you know you'll just have to apologize and take it right down? Part of me wants to see what would have happened if they'd stood their ground.

    

One Last Cringe for ‘The Office’ Finale

Rather than simply present the faux documentary that’s been shot for nine seasons, NBC plans a reunion-style show for “The Office” finale.

    

Home Spending on Entertainment Rises

Purchases of movies and TV shows rose about 5 percent in the first quarter, according to an industry group.

    

Hotel Guests Turn Away From TV and Toward Streaming Media

Hotels are less interested in television hardware than in getting the Internet into every room, and delivering what entertainment the guest may prefer.

    

Maria Shriver Returning to NBC as a ‘Special Anchor’

In Ms. Shriver’s new role, she will not be on any one NBC program regularly, but will appear on a variety of them and will produce and anchor prime-time special reports.

    

Weather Channel Aims Twitter-Powered Tornado Winds at Its Helpless Interns

Intern abuse is always good fun. The Weather Channel is celebrating the beginning of Tornado Week today by putting its interns in a room and blowing powerful winds at them, with the force of the breeze increasing for every public mention of #TornadoWeek on Twitter. They're broadcasting the whole thing live on YouTube (see below—although for the full experience, click the link above). There have been about around 6,000 mentions so far, and the winds are in the mid-90 mph range. If the tweet count hits 1 million, the channel is vowing to pummel the interns with a "full blown EF-5 tornado." That would mean wind speeds of more than 200 mph. They'd better have a lot of desk fans on hand.

    

Windows Denounces Apple-on-Samsung Fan Violence in Latest Spot

Son of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now director, Francis-Ford Coppola, Roman Coppola was on a bit of a winning streak after co-writing Wes Anderson films The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom. However, after directing the near-universally panned Charlie Sheen vehicle, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, Roman lost a healthy portion of the goodwill he had racked up. As The A.V. Club put it, the film “it isn’t a movie so much as a feature-length perfume commercial for a Charlie Sheen signature cologne with gorgeous packaging and absolutely nothing inside.” So, yeah. It was pretty bad.

Seeking solace from tomato-throwing critics, Roman did what all directors attempting to recover from a stinker do: Join forces with CP+B for a Microsoft TV spot. Here, we see Roman channeling his own life experiences to sell Windows Phones. Sure, says Roman metaphorically through this spot, there are haters are either side of the aisle. But you can’t have the naysayers keep you down, you know? Yes, some people like Apple phones and some people like Samsung phones, just like some people like good movies and some people like other good movies. But, just because your movie isn’t “good” or your phone isn’t “good” either, doesn’t mean to have to be part of the fighting. As Jay-Z once said, “Get that dirt off your shoulder.” Most assuredly, Roman was playing this track on set throughout the production of this ad.

Embrace Roman Coppola, and embrace Nokia Windows phones. Credits after the jump.

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The Media Equation: Cable TV’s Shift to Darker Dramas Proves Lucrative

Built on lush portraits of human pathology, subscription- and ad-supported cable channels gradually became hotbeds of quality and profits, as detailed in “Difficult Men” by Brett Martin.

    

Two Classics of the Soaps Are Heading to the Web

Two war horses of the genre, “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” will have their Internet premieres at 5 a.m. Monday on Hulu and iTunes.

    

Media Decoder: Center to Offer Tools for Gauging Impact of Media

With $3.25 million from two foundations, the Norman Lear Center will create a “global hub” for people who want to measure the actual impact of media.

    

Iraq Suspends Al Jazeera and Other TV Channels

All but one of the channels are aligned with Sunni financial backers, and the Iraqi government said the channels were inciting sectarian conflict.

    

Arts, Briefly: NBC Renews 5 Dramas

NBC really does have a batch of shows that are working, despite a rough patch this spring that even induced a presidential-level joke on Saturday night.

    

Apple Reminds You About the Awesomeness of the iPhone’s Camera

In perhaps the best spot since the passing of Steve Jobs, Apple and TBWA\Media Arts Lab’s latest for the iPhone, “Photos Every Day,” somehow mixes simplicity with more visually striking images than we’ve seen from the tech giant in quite a while.

“Photos Every Day” takes us outside of Apple’s infinite environment of white space and Helvetica and into the great outdoors, which may be the first time Apple’s ever done that to my recollection. However, I’m young, so correct me if I’m wrong here. The spot highlights one of the iPhone’s greatest, if overlooked feature: its 8-megapixel HD camera. Now, in this day an age, every phone on the market is a camera-phone, as has been the case for nearly a decade now. However, the iPhone’s camera is, and probably will continue to be, a step up from every Nexus or HTC phone on the market.

This is Apple’s way of saying, “Hey, remember this thing? We have the best, and, unlike Siri, it’s actually one of our features that you’ll use constantly for just about everything.” Add to that Instagram, which began as an iPhone exclusive and still works best with iOS, and you have yourself some simple, yet beautiful. Credits after the jump.

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