The Morning Fix: NBCU takes beating; more (yes, more) on Finke; more Emmy analysis; upfront drags on
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After the coffee. Before hitting the gym.
Emmy examinations. More analysis of the Emmy nominations than you’ll know what to do with including a look at the long, strange journey of Fox’s ‘Family Guy’ from outcast to smash (The Los Angeles Times) and how the new rules worked and didn’t work (USA Today). If you’re still hungry, here’s more coverage from your hometown paper and from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and The New York Times. Had enough?
NBCU takes hit. General Electric reported second quarter earnings this morning and said profit was off 41% at NBC, primarily because of woes at the broadcast network and local TV stations. The forecast for the rest of the year is nothing to smile about either. The Wall Street Journal, PaidContent.
Finke Files. Adding to the pile of Nikki Finke stories is The New York Times’ David Carr who weighs in with a lengthy page-one piece on the Hollywood blogger a few days after our own James Rainey’s take. We’ll sum it up for you. She’s harsh in her reporting, but sounds nice on the on the phone. No one will talk on the record about her and she has problems taking vacations.
Here’s David. CBS’s David Letterman is on a roll in the ratings, beating NBC’s Conan O’Brien in viewers and closing the gap among younger demographics. The New York Times’ which last week said Conan was the man, now seems to be saying that actually Dave is the man. Sit tight Kimmel, you might be the man next week.
Upfront standoff. ‘There’s simply a disconnect between what our clients and we think the marketplace is compared to what all of our [media] suppliers think it is,’ says Alan Cohen, U.S. CEO of advertising giants Omnicom Group’s OMD in Advertising Age. In other words, the market won’t be breaking this weekend.
Potter pours it on. Warner Bros. ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ has already crossed the $100 million mark around the globe. Variety
In today’s Los Angeles Times: A new CNN ad claiming the news network is number-one uses some data that its rivals are dismissing as a reach. The spot, MSNBC says, is ‘fiction.’ It’s a renters market, at least when it comes to DVDs, an industry report reveals. Video game sales drop 31%.
-- Joe Flint
