GQ is out with its annual "Men of the Year" issue. This year there are four different covers, all worthy of acknowledgment: President-elect Barack Obama, actor Leonardo Dicaprio, Mad Men's Jon Hamm, and Olympian Michael Phelps. Take your pick.
Other notables inside the issues: John Malkovich (Mad Genius of the Year), Megan Fox (Obsession of the Year), Sean Penn (Drama Queen of the Year), James Franco (Screen Idol of the Year), The 'Wire' Writers (Tough Guys of the Year), Seth McFarlane (Mogul of the Year) and Gordon Ramsay (Prick of the Year).
The saga of Project Runway could be a reality TV show itself.
The Weinstein Company owns the hit reality TV series "Project Runway" which has been a--pardon the pun--runaway hit on NBC's Bravo TV network for five seasons. The show was created by and originally produced by Magical Elves.
In April, Weinstein snuck away and negotiated a deal to move "Project Runway" to Lifetime, which has a much larger share of the cable audience than Bravo. (Lifetime is co-owned by The Walt Disney Company and the Hearst Corporation).
The folks at NBC/Bravo sued, saying that they had first right of refusal to match any deal Weinstein may be presented with. NBC won an injunction against the network, keeping the series off
Lifetime until the matter has been resolved. In response, Lifetime has
sought to have the trial moved to federal court.
For back-up, Bravo has now greenlit a new fashion series called "The Fashion Show" just in case things don't work out with Project Runway.
The premise of the new show is similar to Project Runway, with contestants putting their design skills to the test in a series of challenges. In The Fashion Show, however, the winner will be chosen by America, and will have their clothing sold at a national retailer.
The folks at Magical Elves, will not be involved with the new series, even though the production outfit’s founders inked a development deal with NBC universal after Lifetime announced the pickup of Runway. The show will instead be produced by 3 Ball Productions (Beauty and the Geek, The Biggest Loser).
So what do you think? Will Project Runway go to Lifetime and continue its successful run? Will The Fashion Show fail as a knockoff?
Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that the fifth season premiere of Bravo’s "Top Chef: New York" ranked number one in its time period against the cable competition with 1.87 million P18-49 and 2.7 million total viewers. The audience numbers were up 27% from last year's premiere episode (against the 18049 demo) and up 19% in total viewers.
The network better be careful. If Top Chef proves as big a success as "Project Runway," Lifetime TV might steal it.
Earlier today I posted on how the presidential election news was a boon for the newspaper business. Here is a great video with some informative man-on-the-street interviews which suggest that the printed paper may not be as dead as we all thought it was. "I never realized the paper was that important..." Said Jay, a production assistant for MTV Reports are that The New York Timees printed an additional 75,000 copies to meet demand, and copies of the newspaper are being offered on www.ebay.com for more than $100.00.
According to Nielsen data, the average viewer and household numbers on Tuesday night set new Election Night records.
Election coverage drew more than 71 million average viewers, and 47.5 million households.
Adweek reports that Live news coverage was carried on both broadcast and cable networks, including Spanish-language networks: ABC, CBS, FOX Broadcast, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, BBC America, BET, CNBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, and TV One.
In 2004, almost 59.2 million viewers tuned in between 8 p.m. and 11 pm to watch Election Night TV coverage.
On Election Night in 2000, almost 61.6 million viewers (excluding viewers of Spanish language networks) watched primetime TV coverage of President Bush and Former Vice President Al Gore's embattled election contest.
It may be for only one day, but the print newspaper business saw an uncharacteristic surge in sales yesterday--thanks to Barack Obama.
Obama's election victory proved a boon for struggling newspaper sales, with publishers rolling extra copies off the presses by the thousands-- and still failing to meet demand.
News of his victory even led the opportunistic to sell copies of sold-out papers on eBay, with copies sold for more than $200.
One seller of The Charlotte Observer gave an asking price of $2,000.
While The New York Times, like many papers, had anticipated extra demand for its paper, it failed to predict the scale of the public's appetite for the paper.
It printed 35% more copies than usual for sale on Wednesday (an increase of about 150,000) and later printed 75,000 more, but still sold out.
The Washington Post also boosted its print run, printing an extra 30,000 copies on Tuesday night.
In keeping with the US spirit of commercial opportunism, the paper then produced 150,000 copies of a special edition of the paper, which it sold for $1.50 each, three times the normal cover price.
The Chicago Tribune, in Obama's home town, added an extra 20,000 copies to its usual print run of about 50,000, but ended up printing 200,000 more.
The paper's office reception even became the equivalent of a newsstand, with staff selling 16,000 copies from the lobby.
The Chicago Tribune on its website was also offering readers the chance to buy a piece of history by snapping up a commemorative issue celebrating Obama's victory.
I turned to my usual ritual this morning of scanning various media sources--LA Times, NYT, IHT, HuffPo, Washington Post, Brandweek, Adweek and AdAge (among others) and was surprised to see a stark contrast between the front pages of two industry rags--Adweek and AdAge.
Adweek's homepage looked surprising like any other news day, with stories like "Supreme Court Hears Fox, FCC Arguments" and "Saatchi L.A. Taps Goodby's McKay as Creative Chief" while the folks at Advertising Age gave up the full homepage to coverage of the presidential election, and an analyis of how marketing and media were, and will be affected by the Obama campaign and the end to the election season.
I thought, how could Adweek have missed the boat?
And it seems I wasn't the only one that noticed. The fine folks at AgencySpy commented on the same editorial divide between the two publications.
For me, Advertising Age hit the mark, with several well-written (and some not-so-much) articles with significance to the marketing and media community. May I suggest a couple of articles?
In a convergence of politics, sports and broadcast media, Major League Baseball has agreed to push back the start time of a potential World Series Game 6 by eight minutes to allow Barack Obama to run a long-form 30-minute "ad" on CBS, NBC and Fox.
The Obama presidential campaign has purchased time on the 3 networks for October 29 between 8-8:30 p.m.
From The Hollywood Reporter: “Fox will accommodate Senator Obama’s desire to communicate with voters in this long-form format,” network spokesman Lou D’Ermilio said in a statement. “We are pleased that Major League Baseball has agreed to delay the first pitch of World Series Game 6 for a few minutes in order for Fox to carry his program on Oct. 29. If requested, the network would be willing to make similar time available to Senator McCain’s campaign.”
Senator McCain's activities have been equally invasive into prime-time sports schedules. In early September, the NFL moved up the kickoff time of the opening-night game (on NBC) to 7 p.m. to make sure that the game would be over before McCain accepted the nomination of the Republican party during the RNC.
I've always been a big Tina Brown fan. Her days at Vanity Fair, as New Yorker editor and Talk magazine founder show her passion for publishing. And now, her latest venture is The Daily Beast--financed by Barry Diller's IAC.
Brown describes the site as "a speedy, smart edit of the web from the
merciless point of view of what interests the editors. The Daily Beast
is the omnivorous friend who hears about the best stuff and forwards it
to you with a twist."
The site launches today, with no advertising. But that's a temporary situation. Brown explains: "At this point, in this first phase, we're only focusing on the content and building the audience."
Is The Daily Beast the new Huffington Post? You be the judge.
AdAge looks for outstanding accomplishment, growth, business and buzz among magazines. Most have seen their ad pages increase this year (New York and Traveler are exceptions). And circulations rise (except House Beautiful and Fast Company).
AdAge considers The Economist its Magazine of the Year. Elle's Carol Smith as Publisher of the Year, and Chris Johns of National Geographic as Editor of the Year.
