January 2006 News

Gretchen Babarovic, who was the late Peter Jennings' executive assistant, left ABC News on Dec. 15 after 22 "never boring" years.

The two met through her college roommate, Margaret Osmer, who went on to be among the first news anchors on "Good Morning America." But it would not be until after she married and divorced an architect and returned from living in England that she would be rescued from "a grisly job" by Mr. Jennings' invitation to come work for him at ABC News early in his second stint as anchor of "World News Tonight."

"It was quite a remarkable experience. We both kind of grew into it together," said Ms. Babarovic, who studied to be an architect. "It was always a learning curve. He had this incredible, insatiable curiosity and he just passed it on to others. I absorbed it like a sponge.

"I had no desire to move on or do anything else. I loved working for him. He was difficult at times, but we also had a bond between us that made it quite comfortable," Ms. Babarovic told The Insider on her last day at ABC News. "He allowed me a great latitude."

The next day she would be in London, home of her

7-month-old first grandchild, her daughter Tina, an ABC News producer, and her son-in-law, cameraman Bart Price. The couple's assignments in assorted hot spots have often put Ms. Babarovic in the position of being perhaps too keenly aware of the dangers attendant to their jobs. Indeed, mother calls daughter "the queen of the hellholes."

After London, it's off to Istanbul, and later to Paris, where the always impeccably turned out Ms. Babarovic plans to rent an apartment for a few months.

"It's perfect," said "World News" executive producer Jon Banner, for whom the image of Ms. Barbarovic and her "huge personality" in Paris is right out of Central Casting.

"It's funny," Mr. Banner said. "We'd be in places far flung and he'd get an e-mail from her on how he looked. Then we'd spend the next half-hour completely trying to change the shot for the next day. It drove us crazy, but he trusted her. He trusted everything she told him. He relied on her explicitly.

"While Peter was with us, the most often-heard words during the hours of 9 and 7 o'clock was 'Gretch. Gretch, Gretch, Gretch. Gretch, love, can you get me so-and-so.' She was indispensable to him.

"She's already missed," Mr. Banner said of the woman who helped so many at ABC News get through Mr. Jennings' illness and death. "As we shed so many tears over the past eight months together, I think the last time we shed a tear was when she told me she was going to leave."

"I love to travel," Ms. Babarovic said. "We'll see what's out there for me to explore.

"I certainly don't have to leave, by any means. But it's time," she said. "It's time to go have my own adventure. Peter would approve, I think."

Of that there can be no doubt.

Mr. Jennings also would approve her plans for after the trip, when she intends "to see what there is to do with my experience and my skills. One of the things I learned from Peter is that you don't want to stop being part of what is going on in the world, and I just think I have things to offer people on the outside."

No matter what else she does, Ms. Babarovic said, she'd like to help keep alive the legacy of Mr. Jennings, who died in August after a short battle with a ferocious lung cancer.

Mr. Jennings's widow "Kayce and I have talked about that. We just haven't … the dust hasn't quite settled yet. And the [Jennings] children and I have talked about all of that a bit. And so when I come back and the dust settles a bit more, we'll see what's there."

One thing that will be there, at the corner of West 66th Street and Columbus Avenue, will be a street sign designating the block of 66th Street on which ABC is the largest occupant Peter Jennings Way. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed the bill last week. The sign will be posted in late January or early February.

Video-on-demand grew during 2005 in three critical areas-advertising, distribution and programming-despite the fact that just a year ago the lack of a workable viewer measurement system posed a threat to the very future of the VOD business.

Several niche on-demand services launched in 2005, including Ripe TV and PBS Kids Sprout, and big media finally joined in via the watershed deals inked last fall, including Comcast's agreement with CBS to deliver prime-time shows on-demand in markets with CBS-owned stations starting next year.

All this business activity occurred against the backdrop of increasing consumer usage of the platform. Consumers have grown more fluent in use of on-demand, said Paul Rule, president of VOD research firm Marquest Research. In homes that have the service, about 88 percent of adults said they had used on-demand at least once during 2005, compared with 65 percent who used it at least once in 2004, he said. The frequency of use has also grown. In 2005, of the consumers who used on-demand, about 53 percent used it at least once a week, compared with only 24 percent who used it once a week in 2004.



Challenges Remain

But there are still areas where VOD is lacking. The release window for hit movies still lags behind the video stores, making some VOD movie fare seem stale. Also, cable networks for the most part still offer their "B" fare on-demand. But the CBS deal, along with NBC's pact to offer prime-time shows to DirecTV customers on their digital video recorders and ABC's delivery of prime-time shows on-demand to iPods, certainly suggests that the industry is interested in sending high-profile shows to new distribution platforms.

So despite the vocal and sometimes vitriolic proclamations made at industry conventions that the sky would fall on VOD this year, it decidedly did not.

"From the very beginning of the [American Association of Advertising Agencies'] attempting to coerce the cable operators into delivering on-demand metrics, [the effort] has been nothing but headlines, and there has been no substance," said Mitch Oscar, executive VP of Carat Digital. He's been a proponent of getting advertisers into VOD first to learn about the medium, betting that data will come in time.

"We haven't been able to get any metrics and it hasn't made a bit of difference," he said. "The industry has spun forward."

In the past year, Carat clients that have stepped up to the VOD plate include Schick in Music Choice, Anime Network and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, while Hyundai has created unique content for History Channel on-demand, he said.

Last month Chase introduced a long-form VOD campaign in Comcast's Philadelphia market explaining the features of Chase Blink, a new service the bank company is introducing in select markets that allows merchants to quickly scan a credit card. Chase is a Carat client, and Mr. Oscar worked with the company, along with VOD creative agency Words and Pictures, to develop the campaign.

Not on Sidelines

The Turner networks added several new VOD advertisers last year, among them Genworth Financial, American Express, Bowflex, Navy, Army, Schick, Nike, E-Loan, Maxwell House and Tylenol.

"There are a growing number of clients that see enough momentum that they don't want to sit on the sidelines and wait," said Chris Pizzurro, VP of multimedia marketing for Turner. Advertisers are willing to go forward with the data that Turner can offer at this point-total impressions and unique impressions-because VOD represents another brand extension, he said.

VOD-only nets are luring marketers too. Ripe TV launched in the fall with advertisers including Procter & Gamble's Old Spice, Dodge, Midway, Boost, Warner Bros. and Electronic Arts. Advertising is sold out into the first half of 2006, said Ryan Magnussen, Ripe TV CEO.

Comcast Spotlight last year added long-form advertisers including Reebok, Publix and Paramount.

Progress in measurement came in small pockets in 2005. On-demand service Music Choice made the bold move last fall of guaranteeing to advertisers that they would pay only for spots that were seen, not just fast-forwarded. There aren't any other on-demand programmers who make that guarantee yet, but Music Choice encodes its content and ads as separate assets, making it possible to track the views of the ads through its relationships with measurement firm Rentrak.



Progress Seen for 2006

Rentrak also inked deals in the fall with 12 additional VOD programmers, including CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, National Geographic Channel and Ripe TV, to provide them with measurement data. While that data won't yet include information on whether ads were fast-forwarded or rewound, it represented a step forward in measurement.

More progress will come this year, said David Porter, director of new media for Cox Media. Cable operators such as Cox, Comcast, Time Warner and Cablevision have been meeting throughout the year to define the metrics they will report to advertisers and programmers and he expects more data to come next year, including views per ZIP code, views per daypart and the first reports on fast-forwarding data, he said.

Cox has also grown its on-demand programming in the past year, adding 400 hours of content. It expanded its free fare with content from A&E, Discovery, Discovery Kids, DIY Network, E! On Demand, Fine Living, Food Network, HGTV, History Channel and NFL On Demand and added subscription services, including HBO and Cinemax, Starz on Demand and Howard Stern on-demand.

Rainbow Media garnered more distribution for its niche on-demand services. Thanks to a Comcast deal, sportskool expanded from 1.5 million homes to 13 million, while sister service Mag Rack rose from 2.75 million to 5 million homes.

Comcast added more content, upping its VOD fare from 2,800 programs comprising 1,600 hours at the start of last year to 3,800 programs comprising 2,200 hours. That includes additional movies from Starz Encore as well as networks such as VH1 and PBS Kids Sprout.

Cable operators can expect a number of technological innovations to further drive the VOD business forward in 2006.

For starters, operators are poised to begin rolling out VOD ad insertion technology from providers such as Tandberg Television, SeaChange and C-Cor. The new service will allow for the insertion of targeted ads on the fly into VOD content. That will be a big change from how ads are folded into content today: Now they must be baked in with the programming before it's even delivered to cable systems.

With ad insertion, which operators such as Comcast have said they will begin rolling out early this year, ads can be swapped in and out of content on a weekly or even daily basis and also can be targeted to neighborhoods, making VOD a more attractive advertising vehicle for marketers.

Also expect additional improvements in the VOD user interface, said Braxton Jarratt, VP of marketing for Tandberg Television. "The silos will be broken down and we will see the emergence of a single unified user interface across all content," he said.

That's not all. As more niche on-demand networks arrive on the scene and increase their distribution, they'll need robust tools to manage scheduling and distribution of that content, said Daniel Ronayne, general manager of Rainbow Media's two niche on-demand services, sportskool and Mag Rack. Rainbow relies on technology from Cauldron to manage the process of disseminating its content to various cable operators.

"It's so critically important that it all starts out the right way," he said.

Also, SeaChange said it will introduce new capability into its VOD equipment in 2006 that will enable operators to handle additional content as they continue to add hours to their programming slates, said James Kelso, VP and general manager for broadband systems. "We are making sure there are no technical barriers," he said.

By Mark Dominiak

Special to TelevisionWeek

Given that it is the first week of the year, let's resolve as media people to raise the bar on our media efforts in 2006.

And as part of that resolution, let's not pigeon-hole our thinking into only the quantitative aspects of media plans. The simpler things we can do to fulfill our new resolution are those that shave a few pennies off of a cost per thousand or that tweak a daypart mix to increase frequency by a significant margin.

Yet simple things aren't necessarily the things that will reap the biggest rewards in the marketplace, with clients or on the planning team. Perhaps we can try to add substance to our training efforts for younger team members or to build stronger relationships with colleagues. Or maybe we can take a long, hard look in the mirror and make a concerted effort to make ourselves smarter.



Harness Energy

Most resolutions fail because they're much easier said than done. Despite best intentions, it's hard to harness the positive energy present when the resolution is made and actually follow through with it. That's a shame, because by establishing resolutions, people are attempting positive change.

A wealth of fundamental principles that apply nicely to the notion of effecting positive change can be summed up in one word: growth. Growth has been a hot topic in the business world for years, but on the surface it's not one that seems to have many implications for media planning. Further consideration suggests otherwise.



Growth Fundamentals

In the Wall Street world in which we live, growth is too often viewed by its numbers-oriented definition: an increase in amount, size, power or intensity. The spirit of resolutions, however, reflects a different, stronger definition of growth: the process of becoming larger and more mature through natural development.

A portion of our consulting work with clients has gone beyond standard media and has dipped into the broader business question of stimulating growth. The powerful thing about growth fundamentals is that they apply to so many things. They are equally relevant to expanding a business proposition, community decision-making and personal relationships. And they are just as relevant to media planning.

Resources to learn about growth vary. Most people will dive into traditional business texts to gain understanding. But it is similarly valuable to explore other areas-from evolution to community development to human aging and cognitive process.

Immersion in the various sources will yield consistent themes relating to the subject of growth. We have found that there are six fundamentals that bear out growth's definition as a process of becoming larger and more mature through natural development: time, environmental change, critical decision-making, the need for others, learning and innovation.



Allow Time

Americans in general and businesses specifically demonstrate a remarkable disregard for reality when it comes to their expectations of time. Time is viewed as a sequence of events happening at a quick, linear pace. Our society has become fixated on what occurs next on the calendar as opposed to achievement of long-term goals.

Unfortunately, that's not how growth works. Organisms, individuals, businesses and markets cannot bite off more than they can chew and assimilate it immediately. Growth takes time.



Embrace Change

The old adage, "Only two things in life are certain: death and taxes," is false. There are actually three certainties in life: death, taxes and change. Change cannot be avoided in life or in the marketplace. Dismissing or ignoring change can be the equivalent of suicide. Change is a powerful force, and those who have the foresight to embrace it stand a better chance of surviving and thriving.



Critical Decision-Making

When change occurs in life or in the marketplace, the most defining moment an individual or business faces is how to deal with the change. Individuals fall back on skill sets that have provided success for them and they use those skills to deal with the changed environment.

Common business practice is to look at what's happening in the marketplace, responding to the need for growth by turning up efficiency and pulling "fat" out of organizations or plans. Businesses are good at this. They have "their way" of turning over every stone to figure out how to make the operation hum a little better. Deciding to fall back on skill sets or to turn up efficiency reflects either fear of change or a lack of knowledge of how to change.



We Need Others

When the environment has changed, circumstances under which individuals or businesses once flourished become different. The individual or business does not likely have the necessary internal acumen to address the new environment. The only way to understand the new environment and appropriately embrace change is to learn from others who have relevant knowledge and experience. For a self-confident individual or business, that's a hard thing to do.



Learning Is Vital

Learning means to discover, realize or be taught. If an individual or business can find the intestinal fortitude to reach outside and embrace the knowledge of others, they are on the right path. Just as physical beings need food to grow, so do individuals and businesses. Information is one such food. It provides the raw material to learn something new that can help embrace environmental change. New information helps individual or business capabilities become larger and more mature-in other words, to grow.



Don't Forget to Innovate

Innovation is the final growth fundamental. Growth will not occur simply as a by-product of having learned from others. Individuals or organizations must internalize new knowledge and adapt behavior to address the needs of the changed environment. When this occurs, a valuable thing happens: Individuals or organizations stop seeing the world in the way they took it for granted. They see the world as it could be, the possibilities that exist. They see the potential for growth, not the potential for status quo.



Achieve Your Goals

To help you follow through on a resolution for raising the bar on your 2006 media efforts, let's operate under a couple of assumptions. First, if the spirit of resolutions indeed goes hand in hand with the concept of growth, it would be good to apply growth principles to bring media resolutions to fruition.

Second, achieving your resolution will be easier if you use a resource that provides useful information about growth and its applications for media. So over the next months we'll cover the six fundamental aspects of growth in depth and apply them to media planning in an effort to provide you with information, ideas and supportive energy as you endeavor to keep your resolution.

Mark Dominiak is principal strategist of marketing, communication and context for Insight Garden.

In the biggest talent deal in E!'s 15-year history, the entertainment network has completed an agreement to sign "American Idol" host and radio personality Ryan Seacrest to a three-year contract to anchor the daily "E! News," host the network's awards coverage and produce new original series. Mr. Seacrest will effectively become E!'s new brand personality.

"This is a huge coup for E! and demonstrates how

committed we are about being the dominant entertainment authority," said E! President and CEO Ted Harbert. "Not only will we benefit immensely from Ryan's extraordinary ability as a broadcaster, his crystal-clear vision of our brand will make him an extremely valuable supplier of original programming. He is the very best at what he does."

To accommodate Mr. Seacrest's packed schedule, the deal includes a state-of-the-art radio and television studio to be built for Mr. Seacrest at the E! headquarters in Los Angeles, probably overlooking a courtyard. From there, Mr. Seacrest will host his KISS-FM morning show, the weekly "America's Top 40" countdown and co-anchor and serve as co-managing editor of "E! News" along with current anchor Giuliana DePandi. E! also will house Mr. Seacrest's production company, Ryan Seacrest Productions.

All told, sources estimated the deal is worth in the mid-eight figures. "This is a mass deal," said one source close to the agreement. "The only other thing that comes anywhere close to this is Larry King's deal at CNN."

Mr. Harbert said the network is also developing a companion news program to run following "E! News," though details were not available.

In addition to his "E! News" duties, Mr. Seacrest will executive produce E!'s signature red carpet awards coverage and co-host the coverage along with Ms. DePandi. E! has also tapped Isaac Mizrahi, who hosts the daily one-hour talk show "Isaac" on sister network Style, to join the red carpet team. A fourth slot has yet to be filled, sources said. Mr. Seacrest will anchor the coverage from a tower, while other team members will work the carpet. The team will debut Jan. 16 at the Golden Globes; Mr. Seacrest will join "E! News" in March.

For Mr. Seacrest, the most crucial part of the E! agreement is a generous first-look development deal including multiple "pay and play" commitments.

"It's very simple: I want to build a production company," Mr. Seacrest said. "I've been looking for a place to set up shop in a meaningful way and not just in a vanity way. I was very cautious about taking on another talent deal. But on the radio I talk about [E! topics such as] pop culture, music, movies and TV stars. It's what I like to do."

The drive for production ownership stems from Mr. Seacrest's desire to follow in the footsteps of veteran broadcaster Dick Clark. Last August, Mr. Seacrest was tapped to co-host, and eventually succeed, Mr. Clark on the annual "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve" special on ABC. Mr. Harbert, a former ABC executive, said he hoped to foster a similar path for Mr. Seacrest.

"It's wonderful for me because I was involved with helping Dick Clark build his production company at ABC," Mr. Harbert said. "It's great to be in business with somebody who can take over that mantel and eventually have just as big, if not bigger, of a company."

The effort to bring Mr. Seacrest to the network began several months ago, when E! executives sat down to decide "how to take the E! brand to the next level."

"One way to do that was to get a star," Mr. Harbert said. "We made a list and Mr. Seacrest's name was at the top."

Negotiations began with Mr. Seacrest's representatives at the William Morris Agency in October and concluded last week. Mr. Seacrest was also being courted by "Extra!" and TV Guide Channel, sources said.

E!'s goal was to convince Mr. Seacrest to host the awards and news programs, while Mr. Seacrest wanted to launch new series and gain a single studio location for his other commitments. One sticking point was getting KISS-FM owner Clear Channel to sign off on the deal. Though no money changed hands, sources said, E! and Clear Channel will swap some branding opportunities as part of the agreement.

The deal is easily the most lucrative talent contract E! has ever inked. In the past two years, E! personalities Howard Stern and red carpet divas Joan and Melissa Rivers left the channel after protracted contract negotiations, lending some to wonder whether the network had the will-or the corporate backing-to acquire high-profile talent.

Mr. Harbert said E! parent Comcast was "very supportive" of the Seacrest deal and that E! received an "aggressive" programming budget increase for 2006.

"We're going to be expanding our red carpet coverage, our marketing and development," Mr. Harbert said. "We may have to hold a few bake sales on Saturday mornings, but we're prepared to do that."

Mr. Seacrest is also about to enter renegotiations with Fox for his role on "American Idol." When TelevisionWeek broke news of the pending E! deal Dec. 20 at TVWeek.com, sources said Fox was caught off guard and upset, unaware the E! contract was in the works. As part of the deal, Mr. Seacrest will not appear on "E! News" on days he hosts "Idol."

E!'s ratings have recently begun to recover from a longtime slump. Despite losing original episodes of its top-rated series last year, "The Howard Stern Show," the network is up 7 percent among total viewers and 18 to 49 in prime time. The channel also has slight growth for the year, up 2 percent, according to Nielsen Media Research.

"E! News" is enjoying an even greater ratings bump: up 28 percent year to date among total viewers and up 59 percent in the fourth quarter. The growth is attributed to a pair of format changes made last January, when the show ceased live telecasts (allowing producers to compile a faster-paced, more content-heavy show) and Ms. DePandi was promoted to sole anchor.

Ratings for E!'s red carpet coverage also increased last year, with Emmy coverage rising from 1.2 million in 2004 to 1.8 million in 2005. Star Jones led the red carpet team during 2005 events, but was dropped from the Emmy awards after receiving mixed reviews from critics.

For Mr. Seacrest, who is best known for hosting Fox's "American Idol," the deal comes after an extraordinarily active three years.

Though his much-anticipated syndicated daytime show, Twentieth Television's "On-Air With Ryan Seacrest," was canceled due to low ratings in 2004, that setback hardly slowed the 30-year-old personality. In addition to his multiyear agreement to executive produce and host "New Year's Rockin' Eve," Mr. Seacrest also took over "America's Top 40" countdown from Casey Kasem in 2003, and replaced longtime L.A. morning show host Rick Dees at KISS-FM in 2004.

In October Mr. Seacrest also made a deal to host several editions of "Larry King Live," taking on youthful interview subjects such as Jessica Simpson and Ashton Kutcher. Last summer Mr. Seacrest launched his own line of clothing, The R Line.

Mr. Seacrest said he doesn't expect to add any more commitments-at least not television commitments-anytime soon. "I only want to do one TV show a day. I've learned my lesson," he said. "I still want to have a life."

With the burgeoning popularity of broadband video, the annual National Association of Television Program Executives convention is drawing the attention of the major Internet portal companies seeking content to drive their search engines and fill their Web sites.

"We're talking to a number of content owners right now, and we'll continue to do so at NATPE because it's obviously a wonderful place to meet with content owners who might be looking for a way to distribute their content online," said Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video.

David Katz, head of sports and entertainment at Yahoo, said he's looking at NATPE as a place to find out about the newest programming projects. "We live in Hollywood now and we've got relationships with virtually all the networks and studios, so we have an ongoing dialogue with those companies," said Mr. Katz, who worked for CBS until about six months ago and is on NATPE's board. "We're looking at NATPE as a great place for the community to get together to learn a little bit about what's coming up, and it's a great place where you've got all the key partners kind of congregating."

"Clearly, there's so much explosive growth on the Web and in wireless, the conference is taking on additional dimensions," said Jim Bankoff, executive VP of AOL programming and products. As it did last year, AOL will have a contingent at NATPE.

"What's happened in the last three months of these announcements I think has opened people's eyes," said Blair Westlake, corporate VP of Microsoft's media, entertainment and technology convergence group. "I think there's now realization that this is going to provide some huge opportunities for [broadcasters and cable services], and it's really advanced discussions in a serious way because I think people realize that our reach with the PC is vast. There are 650 million PCs in the world that are powered by Windows, and that's a large audience for people."

Mr. Westlake, a former Universal Television and Gemstar-TV Guide executive, will speak at the conference about digital rights management.

To be sure, broadband companies have sent representatives to NATPE in the past and have appeared on panels. But broadband video has vaulted into the headlines this year, and companies such as Google and Yahoo are top of mind with TV executives. Indeed, Yahoo's Mr. Katz, who was formerly senior VP of strategic planning and interactive ventures for CBS, will be on a NATPE panel. And just last week Yahoo and CBS closed a deal to stream CBS sitcoms on Yahoo.

"I think we're evaluating the landscape right now and I think we're trying to figure out is there a new syndication window for video content on the Internet," he said. "I don't think there's an answer to that question at this time. But we certainly want to investigate it, and we think in the future that IP distribution of video is going to be a viable distribution platform."

NATPE President and CEO Rick Feldman is welcoming the broadband companies to the conference and reshaping the organization with board members from new media, including Mr. Katz and Mr. Westlake.

"I think that we are in the process of morphing from what was a domestic syndication show to what is really, truly now, or is coming to be, a global digital distribution show," Mr. Feldman said. "For us at NATPE, we are essentially a reflection of what's happening in the business-a mirror."

Judging from the AOL deal with Warner Bros., Web companies are going to be acquiring more product, and possibly exhibiting at the conference at some point.

"I don't think it's going to happen right now, but it's all happening." Mr. Feldman said. "In a couple of years they will almost be like cable channels, and they'll be another digital video distribution and exhibition forum and they will be looking for product and selling to advertisers and selling subscriptions and possibly even generating enough original product that they will be selling themselves to somebody else at some point."

Right now, the broadband companies are learning about television and the television companies are learning about broadband. And Mr. Feldman thinks NATPE can play a role in that process.

"Some of the other people at some of these companies that don't have a TV background need to be better educated about NATPE, which is what we're doing. It hasn't been difficult to establish the conversation. It's been somewhat complicated about trying to figure out at this early time in their world how best can NATPE service them."

"It's a very new area, so it's not as easy to understand as just searching over a Web page and linking to it," said Google's Ms. Feiken. "But I don't think it's a question of them not understanding it. I think it's a question of us building a partnership to understand how we might work together and what the platform looks like, what the user experience is and for the entire industry being very excited about a whole new industry of video content."

The broadband companies are still ironing out their strategies for the television business.

After running afoul of some broadcasters by running video pulled off the air, Google is now stressing forming partnerships with content owners.

"It's balancing a user's interest in having immediate access to the world's video content with the content owners' interest in controlling the distribution of that content and earning revenue, if that's their desire, or promoting it if that's what they wish," Ms. Feiken said. "Different content owners are going to have different interests in how they distribute their video and how it's seen on Google Video."

Most of the video content presently on Google Video has been uploaded by amateurs and is available free to Web surfers. But Google Video also allows content owners to charge for their video.

"We'll work with them to create the best experience for what their particular interests are," Ms. Feiken said. "I don't think there's going to be one particular way that we're going to mandate that the platform will serve the content."

Discovery Networks plans to introduce a pioneering new programming strategy in March designed to road-test the potential of its high-definition network Discovery HD Theater as a distribution platform for early premieres of shows on other Discovery-owned networks.

The new plan kicks off the week of March 25, when Discovery HD Theater will televise "Must Do's: The Jeremy Piven Project" a week before the special debuts on Discovery's

Travel Channel.

Discovery will implement this new approach-which it is referring to internally as "HD First"-as it rebrands Travel Channel in early April. Discovery executives said they intend to extend the strategy to other Discovery networks, such as Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, over time.

Patrick Younge, general manager and executive VP for both Travel Channel and Discovery HD Theater, devised the plan to raise the visibility of Discovery HD Theater and as a means to tout Travel Channel.

"The Piven show will be one of the central planks of that relaunch to get the buzz going," said Mr. Younge, who started overseeing both channels in October. He has been in charge of Travel Channel since April.

The two-part special follows actor Jeremy Piven as he travels in India. When the show runs on Travel Channel it will appear in standard definition.

"We can use HD to get shows to our passionate Discovery HD Theater audience and talk about this great show coming up in the next seven days … People are passionate in terms of HD. We think that medium should be rewarded," he said.

The HD First initiative is believed to mark the first time a network has premiered a show on its sister HD network in advance of its traditional standard-definition premiere.

NBC Universal's HD network, which draws content from NBC's cable and broadcast networks, has run "Battlestar Galactica" episodes within a few weeks of their original showing on the Sci Fi Channel, but never at the same time. However, the NBCU network has run many sporting events live in HD and SD, as have ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD and broadcast networks.



Next Sneak-Peek Platform

Over the last year, many broadcast and cable networks, such as Nickelodeon, The WB and HBO, have used video-on-demand and broadband as platforms for sneak peeks of programs. The new Discovery approach suggests that HD could be the next medium for networks to showcase their content in advance.

The Discovery strategy will continue into April with "Yellowstone: America's First National Park," which will debut on Discovery HD Theater the week of April 10 and on Travel Channel the week of April 17.

If successful, Mr. Younge said, he'll broaden the early premiere concept to other Travel Channel specials and series and to programs on the other Discovery Networks. He's begun talking to the general managers of sister networks about programming fare that may benefit from an early HD debut.

"We will start it for specials and then maybe do one series, and I will probably take a look after those two," he said.

Measuring success will be imprecise since Discovery HD Theater is not yet rated. But HD fans are a loyal and often vocal bunch, and the network will monitor feedback on bulletin boards and its Web site and in chat rooms, e-mails and phone calls from viewers and feedback from affiliates.

The Travel Channel strategy benefits both Discovery HD Theater and Travel Channel, said Richard Doherty, research director for the Envisioneering Group, a technology market research firm. The strategy increases the value of the HD network. The eye-catching nature of HD content may entice Discovery HD Theater viewers to sample additional Travel Channel content, thereby driving new viewers to Travel Channel, he said.

Mark Cuban, who runs HD-only networks HDNet and HDNet Movies and is one of the industry's HD evangelists, also believes the HD First strategy is a smart one. "They get the opportunity, if the programming is good, to get in front of a new audience," he said.

However, he added, "The risk they face is that the audience will assign a lower value to the SD programming. Once you watch a show in HD, no one wants to watch the same show in SD." Todd Chanko, an analyst with Jupiter Research, echoed Mr. Cuban's caution. He concurred that an early HD premiere won't stimulate SD uptake because viewers won't want to watch a show in SD after they have seen it in HD.

Some other analysts also are cool on the early debut strategy. "I don't think HD has garnered a large enough audience to get an appreciable bump," said Steve Kovsky, senior analyst for digital television with research firm Current Analysis.

Still, Mr. Younge said the chance is worth taking. "We want to remain the brand leaders [in HD] and we have to constantly innovate. There is a clear benefit for viewers who paid the premium for an HD service. There is a clear benefit for our affiliates because everything that drives HD benefits everyone," he said.

The early premieres will be a key component of Travel Channel's broader rebrand marketing campaign that begins in March. That will include promoting the HD First programming on Travel Channel itself, found in 80 million homes, and on Discovery's other analog networks.

Usually, by the first week of December, television news columnist Gail Shister of the Knight Ridder-owned Philadelphia Inquirer has set up appointments and business dinners for the Television Critics Association's winter press tour scheduled in January. For 12 years Ms. Shister has gone to the tour, a semiannual event held in the Los Angeles area that brings together TCA members to meet with network executives and talent.

But with Knight Ridder on the sales block, fiscal uncertainty at the Inquirer left Ms. Shister wondering whether she would be making the trip to the press tour, to be held at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena, Calif. If the newspaper industry's financial problems put pressure on reporters and critics to skip the press tour, it could damage an event the networks use to fuel much of the publicity they garner for the entire year. Attendance of journalists from so many different markets is considered crucial by many in the TV business, because it enables networks and producers to connect with-and in some cases sway-the press that speaks directly to TV viewers.

"Anytime you can put a body of reporters in a room and give them access to your top executives and top talent, news will flow from that," one network executive said.

Knight Ridder isn't the only company with major newspaper holdings that is struggling. More than 2,000 jobs were cut by U.S. newspapers in 2005, according to the trade publication Editor & Publisher.

For journalists who cover television, the two- to three-week-long press tours can cost their papers thousands of dollars in hotel charges and airfare.

"I don't think they have suspended all travel expenses, but they are watching every penny," Ms. Shister said of the Inquirer.

In the past the Inquirer sent both Ms. Shister, who covers the news of the TV business, and her colleague, TV critic Jonathan Stone, to each press tour. In late December, however, it was decided Ms. Shister alone would attend the January press tour and Mr. Stone would solo at the July event.

This January between 140 and 165 reporters are expected to make it to Pasadena, a number "right in the range" for a winter press tour, said Rob Owen, president of TCA.

"It's not like we've suddenly dropped to beneath what we are accustomed to," Mr. Owen said, noting that this isn't the first time the newspaper industry has weathered a tough economic environment. "They have been under financial pressure before, and they will again," he said. "Press tour existed then and they will in the future."

The press tour is a string of conferences, usually starting in the morning with a cable or broadcaster executive session and ending after a series of Q&A sessions with executive producers and talent from specific shows. The day is capped with a reception featuring top executives from the network of the day.

Written transcripts are available to attendees within 24 hours. The press tour allows reporters and critics to bank stories with quotes from the stars of upcoming shows for the next six months. The budgets for networks making presentations at the press tour can be sizable, considering room rentals, audio/visual expenses, signage, air travel for talent and catering. The price tag can run broadcasters $200,000 to $250,000 a day.

Several networks are starting to re-examine their investments in the press tour.

"You do worry that you'll reach a point where the cost does not equal the return," the executive said.

Despite the costs, and the possibility that high-profile reporters like Ms. Shister won't attend every press tour, the efficiency of the event still makes the venture attractive to networks, since it saves publicity departments the time of having to set up hundreds of individual interviews.

"It still has relevance as a platform to introduce new programming and get your company messages out," the executive said, noting that as long as critics keep writing stories about the new network offerings, the press tour will be worth the expense.

But media companies are bracing themselves, Mr. Owen said. Some companies are devising new efficiencies when planning for press tour, with smaller cable companies occasionally sitting out if they have nothing to promote, and sister network and cable outlets presenting on the same day to conserve costs, according to Mr. Owen.

In January, for example, the Viacom-owned UPN and Showtime will share a press tour day.

With the proliferation of broadband, doing a video link press conference is now easier than it has ever been, raising the question of whether technology could help cut costs, another network executive said.

"Could it be done in a conference call?" the network executive asked. "Probably."

But in a world where television critics are being inundated by new programming from every angle, having a dedicated period of time where networks know they have journalists' attention is very valuable, so it's worth it to the networks to find a way to keep the event intact, even with the costs, another network executive said.

"It's much better than just putting another video on their desk," the executive said.

And for some formats, particularly comedy, a good press session can change attitudes about a show. A humorous executive producer and a quotable star can help build momentum if they get critics laughing. That's what happened after "The Simple Life" press tour session in 2003, when many critics went in not knowing what to expect but walked out with a better understanding of the reality series.

Reporters like Ms. Shister swear by the press tour's other benefits and note that their colleagues on the sports desk spend far more in travel costs. If any newspaper had an excuse to skip press tour, it would be The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, but the paper's TV critic, Dave Walker, will be in Pasadena this January.

"It is incredibly difficult right now just because of the many unknowns about the city, and the future," Mr. Walker, a TCA board member and the organization's hotel coordinator said. "But everybody's working as hard as they can to maintain the continuity for the readers."

The access press tour allows can't be duplicated through conference calls and e-mail, he said, particularly for reporters in markets outside the Hollywood loop.

"It ends up informing and increases my understanding of how the business works," he said.

The unique nature of the TCA press tour keeps the event relevant, said David Bianculli, TV critic for the New York Daily News. Before TCA was founded in 1978, networks used to sponsor all-expenses-paid press junkets. But newspaper ethics policies started being enforced, and a group of journalists formed the TCA as an alternative.

"When it became something newspapers took control of, we said we'd like to have access to executives," Mr. Bianculli said.

That change had a big impact in making TCA more than just a junket, a network executive said.

"We're the only industry where leaders are held accountable twice a year," he said.

Roger Catlin, TV critic for The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, said he has also watched staff reductions take place at his paper, but he is planning to attend the press tour. He will be filing many more stories than he did just a year ago, in fact. At the summer press tour in July Mr. Catlin was one of the growing number of reporters blogging from the event, after being encouraged by editors to come up with fresh content for the papers' Web sites.

"There was just a ton of material they could use," he said.

TCA is also well aware of the pressures on its members, who pay a $50 annual membership. TCA has no office, no full-time employees and an all-volunteer member board.

Ms. Shister booked a flight to Los Angeles and made a reservation at the press tour host hotel. She is assuming she can go until told otherwise. The one-on-one access the tour provides makes it worthwhile for her to push forward. "I write a news column, so I'm very dependent on access," she said. "Somebody who doesn't know your face is much less likely to return your call."

NBC's year-old digital weather network Weather Plus will bring its shared national and local weather approach to the Internet today in an effort to take on Web weather incumbent Weather.com.

Weather Plus is currently in about 90 local TV markets representing 75 percent of the United States. The digital network reaches about 15 million cable homes and draws on the resources of Weather Plus meteorologists and local weathercasters in all of its markets.

The NBCweatherplus.com Web site is the next logical brand extension for the network, which is quickly becoming the de facto weather brand for NBC. MSNBC and many NBC local affiliates have recently rebranded their weather coverage with the "Weather Plus" moniker, and during breaking weather news the youthful diginet is becoming the source for NBC News programs such as "Dateline," "Today" and "NBC Nightly News."

The NBCweatherplus.com rollout begins with the 14 NBC-owned stations and will add its other affiliates in the next several months.

In so doing, NBCweatherplus.com intends to challenge The Weather Channel's Weather.com by putting more local flavor into online weather. The new service also opens another ad sales opportunity for TV stations, since ad inventory on the site will be shared by the stations and the network.

Weather.com is hugely dominant online, with its intuitive URL and strong brand that attracts 26 million unique monthly visitors.

Mike Steib, the general manager for Weather Plus, said he likes his chances. "We have built NBCweatherplus.com on both the same principle and the same assets of our TV network," he said. "Stations are the best source for local weather information, and that's what people care about. What viewers have told us over and over again is their No. 1 source for weather info is local news, and the top driver for which news to watch is often the weather they like to watch."

So Weather Plus will test whether that concept plays out on the Internet, since the new Web service will mix national weather reports with coverage and forecasts from the local weathercasters at its affiliated stations.

For instance, if a site visitor enters a New York ZIP code, the site takes that visitor to a section branded by WNBC-TV, the NBC owned-and-operated station in New York, with pictures, video and a message from the station's meteorologist. "It's not a computer that sits off somewhere and says the temperature in New York will be this," Mr. Steib said. "We believe the meteorologists in the market can best predict and forecast the weather."

Visitors can also jump to different markets within the site, thereby tying the local station partners seamlessly into the site. Also, when viewers visit the Web sites of the local Weather Plus affiliates such as WNBC or NBC-owned KXAS-TV in Dallas to request weather information, they will be redirected to the portion of NBCweatherplus

.com dedicated to that station. That handoff between NBCweatherplus.com and its local stations means the new site will have a built-in audience from the get-go because weather traffic from the local stations' sites will be routed to the mother ship at NBCweatherplus.com.

Tom O'Brien, the general manager and president for KXAS, said the new service gives the station one more advantage in a competitive market.

"Every content provider is fighting parity," he said. "This gives us something no one else has. With weather being a driving factor, this really just adds to the portfolio of products we have to offer. … This is the coordinated product of three platforms."

NBC will promote NBCweatherplus.com heavily on the NBC affiliates and will introduce a Web and television marketing campaign later this month.

"It will be a substantial and meaningful increase for the TV stations," Mr. Steib said. "We're not putting in all this effort to just bump traffic 10 percent. NBCweatherplus.com will be a major player in the online weather space."

But NBCweatherplus.com will have its work cut out for it trying to drain market share from Weather.com, said Gordon Borrell, president of local media research firm Borrell Associates.

"[The Weather Channel] has created very formidable competition in Weather .com," he said. "Weather.com and Weather Channel are about as ubiquitous as oxygen. They are on the AOL opening screen, Yahoo weather screen. They are in planes, on ships, on TV screens, on computers, on cellphones and GPS devices," he said.

It's also a trusted online brand. Weather.com commissioned a Nielsen study last fall that found that 39 percent of online users rated Weather.com as the most trusted weather source online, well ahead of second-place National Weather Service at 11 percent and the Web site of the local station or newspaper at 8 percent.

Local stations have always been competitors of Weather

.com, said Joe Fiveash, senior VP and general manager of Weather Channel Interactive. "The single other place where consumers go other [than us] for weather coverage is the online or on-air [local station], so this is nothing particularly new, but another chapter in a long-running competition for local users," he said.

And Weather.com will go more local as it introduces new functionality later this year that will provide conditions every mile and every 10 minutes. Weather.com has tested the service for the past few months and will extend it deeper across the site later this year. "If it's raining at work and not raining halfway to your house on your commute, you will know that," Mr. Fiveash said.

The Internet has changed the way consumers obtain weather to an on-demand and personalized model, said Gary Gannaway, CEO of WorldNow, which powers the Web sites for more than 200 local media properties, including local TV stations. "The NBC … effort sure is a great step in helping local stations to extend their local weather franchises. There definitely is a powerful local weather niche that's there for the taking," he said.

Tolman Geffs, managing director of investment bank The Jordan, Edmiston Group, also likes the local approach of Weather Plus. "My sense is that [Weather Plus] online will be a home run," he said. Mr. Geffs previously headed IBS, which provides content for local TV station sites, including the NBC-owned stations.

Weather Web Site Features

NBCweatherplus.com

BBC America has ordered two new BBC co-productions, "Waterloo Road" and "Shakespeare Retold," to bolster its current lineup until it can get a stateside development team in place later this year.

"Waterloo" is described as "the anti-'Boston Public,'" a look at the relationships between jaded teachers and students at a downtrodden British school. The series consists of six one-hour episodes from the creative team behind "Footballers Wive$."

"Shakespeare Retold" (working title) includes four 90-minute modernized adaptations of Shakespeare's plays using young actors in contemporary settings. "Much Ado About Nothing," for example, is set at a TV news studio; "Macbeth" is set in a fancy restaurant. The series came about after the success of the network's series last year that put a modern twist on the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. The network is also considering a series taking the same approach with fairy tales.

The Discovery-distributed channel just completed a successful quarter, up 25 percent among total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, and touting a best miniseries Golden Globes nomination for its crime/romance/musical "Viva Blackpool."

But the network has experienced growing pains as well. Breakout hits "The Office" and "Coupling" brought viewers to the network, but the remake rights were sold and the concepts reworked by NBC, to varying success. Popular talk show "So Graham Norton" was another ratings draw, then Comedy Central signed Mr. Norton for a stateside version and Logo snatched up the rights to the "So Graham" back catalog. And when "The Office" creator/star Ricky Gervais made the new BBC series "Extras," HBO outbid BBC America for domestic distribution rights.

Blessed with more good taste than financial ownership participation, BBC America announced plans last year to develop original series. No timeline or projects have been announced, but General Manager Kathryn Mitchell said she hopes to establish a stateside development team within six months. "I'd like to do a drama, a [lifestyle series] and a comedy this year," she said.

The new projects will be produced domestically, but will also air in the United Kingdom. The BBC would help fund the new projects, but-unlike the network's current content-BBC America will have a controlling ownership.

The programs will give BBC America a chance to select subject matter and actors with strong American appeal. But how closely should the network's U.S. material stick to its British brand?

"I don't think we will put constraints on the creativity," Ms. Mitchell said. "You cannot predict this stuff. I'll only know if it's right when the script crosses my door."

BBC America's biggest current draws are Mystery Monday programming and the series "Footballers Wive$," which it has positioned as a British "Desperate Housewives" and has scheduled right after the ABC hit. Ms. Mitchell said the network's scheduling strategy is typically less concerned with the competition.

"We look out for the big set pieces-Lifetime's 'Human Trafficking,' Sci Fi's 'The Triangle,' 'Desperate Housewives,'" she said. "But it's not like I'm about to put on any stories about airplane crash survivors at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays."

Later this month, BBC America plans to choose a slate of programming from Granada International, with which the network signed a multimillion-dollar deal in September to acquire 160 hours of dramatic programming. Each program will have a three-year window on the network.

Sony Pictures Television has signed reality series producer Michael Davies and his production company Embassy Row to a three-year overall deal to develop unscripted and scripted series.

Mr. Davies is an executive producer on Buena Vista's syndicated "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," ABC's "Wife Swap" and Sundance Channel's "Iconoclasts." A former executive with The Walt Disney Co., he also produced The WB's short-lived game show "Studio 7" and the 1990s late-night syndicated talk strip "The Keenen Ivory Wayans Show."

"We believe the reality business is here to stay, and Michael has proven that he can create shows that are both unique and compelling," Zack Van Amburg, co-president of programming and production for Sony Pictures Television, said in a statement.

As part of the deal with Sony, Mr. Davies will remain executive producer on "Wife Swap" (which he co-produces with RDF Media) and keep his first-look deal with ABC for prime-time programming. He will also continue to work on "Millionaire."

"The heart of my business is games," Mr. Davies said, "but the areas I'm working very hard to grow are comedy, documentary for both film and television, and also digital and branded entertainment."

Sony is no stranger to Mr. Davies' core business. Besides producing the two top game shows in syndication, "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!," Sony owns GSN, a natural place for Mr. Davies to develop game shows.

Aside from Sony's international presence, the company's ability to distribute content also attracted him to the deal, Mr. Davies said.

"I'm mainly concerned with being a producer," he said. "If you've made that decision, at that point you want to make a deal with a studio."

Mr. Davies formed New York-based Embassy Row in May along with film and TV producer Chris Moore ("Project Greenlight") and former Davie-Brown Entertainment President Tera Hanks. Embassy Row, which also announced a Comedy Central game show project with former "Jeopardy!" contestant Ken Jennings, absorbed Mr. Davies' previous production company, Diplomatic.

Late last year Mr. Moore and Ms. Hanks left Embassy Row, and Mr. Davies shut down the company's Los Angeles office and consolidated his operations in New York. The project with Mr. Jennings is no longer at Comedy Central, but Mr. Davies said he is still working on developing the series. Though Sony gave no details on the finances of its deal with Embassy Row, Mr. Davies said his agreement with Sony isn't about guaranteeing him a sizable salary.

"I wanted a deal that would guarantee investment in Embassy Row, and invest in our ability to produce more," he said. "I feel I can sell a lot of shows, but I need help to produce a lot of shows."

Univision outperformed The WB and UPN in total viewers and 18- to 49-year-old viewers in prime time during the first few days in which the Spanish-language broadcaster was included in Nielsen Media Research's national ratings sample.

When the preliminary nationals for last Tuesday and Wednesday nights arrived, Univision, which fielded no repeats on those two nights, outperformed The WB and UPN, neither of which offered original episodes of their regular series. Univision also appeared to be up dramatically from the same lineups the previous week, which included Christmas.

It will take more time and data to know whether Univision's drawing power during what is one of the least-watched weeks of TV shakes up the rankings on a long-term basis.

Following several days characterized by longer-than-expected delays in crunching final ratings data, by last Thursday morning Nielsen Media Research executives told their clients they could see the light at the end of a clogged data tunnel.

Nielsen experienced numerous delays in reporting viewership figures last week while grappling with three major hurdles: the inclusion of Univision in its reports for the first time, the addition of DVR information and the holidays.

Nielsen sent out revised delivery schedules for the final national data for each night last week, which were to have been delivered the following afternoons. Nielsen expected to deliver Monday finals (including time-shifting viewing data and Univision) last Thursday morning, Tuesday finals Thursday afternoon, Wednesday finals Friday morning and Thursday finals Friday afternoon.

No new insights into DVR usage emerged from Nielsen's first few days' worth of DVR data, which included live and time-shifted same-night viewing information from DVR homes in its National Television Index.

Still to come, in the week of Jan. 30, is the addition of Telemundo to the national sample. A Nielsen spokeswoman said the company does not expect a repeat of last week's glitches.

Nielsen's production team now has "got the answer and they've got it solved going forward," she said.

For the week ended Dec. 18, the majority of top-rated syndicated first-run strips were either down or flat compared with their performance the previous week, with the notable exception of Warner Bros.' "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," which scored a series high.

"Ellen" hit a high with a 2.7 national household rating for the week, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was up 4 percent for the week and 13 percent over its performance in the week last season. But "Ellen" was still eclipsed by the top talk strips, including the genre leader, King World's "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Down 7 percent for the week, "Oprah" grew 2 percent for the year. "Oprah" spinoff "Dr. Phil" declined 6 percent for the week and 2 percent for the year to a 5.0, while Buena Vista's "Live With Regis and Kelly" declined 3 percent for the week to a 3.8, a 6 percent increase over last year. NBC Universal's "Maury" was even for the week with a 2.8, which was a 7 percent decrease from last year.

Among the debuting talk strips, NBC Universal's "Martha" was down 5 percent for the week to a 1.8, while Warner Bros.' "The Tyra Banks Show" declined 6 percent to a 1.7.

In the courtroom genre, Paramount's "Judge Judy" was once again tops with a 5.0, up 2 percent for the week but down 4 percent for the year. The No. 2 court show, Paramount's "Judge Joe Brown," declined 6 percent for the week and 11 percent for the year to a 3.2.

The sole new courtroom strip, Twentieth's "Judge Alex," was also the highest-rated first-run rookie, dropping 4 percent for the week to a 2.3.

Among debuting off-network strips, Buena Vista's "My Wife and Kids" grew 4 percent to a 2.4, while Warner Bros.' "Sex and the City" was even with a 2.3. Twentieth's "The Bernie Mac Show" (2.2) and Debmar/Mercury's "South Park" (1.7) also were both even for the week.

The highest-rated program in syndication for the week was King World's "Wheel of Fortune," which declined 2 percent from the previous week and 3 percent for the year to an 8.6.

Could the deal struck late last month between search-engine company Google and Time Warner's America Online unit help quell some of the shareholder unrest being fueled by financier Carl Icahn?

Mr. Icahn had made clear in recent weeks that he was opposed to an AOL-Google transaction, saying as recently as Dec. 19 that such a linkup would be "disastrous" if it were to preclude AOL from being able to merge with any number of potential buyers Mr. Icahn deemed suitable-including online auction company eBay or Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp.

In addition, Mr. Icahn has advocated spinning off AOL into a publicly traded company as part of a broader strategy to boost shareholder value by breaking up Time Warner into a number of companies.

What impact the AOL-Google deal will have on Mr. Icahn's fight remains to be seen. An Icahn spokeswoman was not available for comment.

But how to deal with AOL was part of a laundry list of complaints that Mr. Icahn has about how Time Warner was run. The billionaire financier is also pushing for the media giant to increase the size of its stock buyback program and to completely spin off Time Warner Cable, instead of Time Warner's planned sale to the public of a 16 percent stake in the cable unit.

In recent weeks, though, AOL has been a major focus for Mr. Icahn, who is also seeking to have a representative on the Time Warner board. Citing a recent op-ed piece from former Time Warner Chairman Steve Case in which the former executive claimed that some board members had once floated the idea of selling off AOL, Mr. Icahn has demanded to see copies of minutes of Time Warner board meetings during which the topic was discussed.

However, some aspects of the deal, under which Google will invest $1 billion in AOL in exchange for a 5 percent stake, could help to assuage Mr. Icahn, who has been waging a battle with Time Warner management over the direction of the media giant since the fall.

For starters, the transaction sets the stage for an event Mr. Icahn has been pushing for: selling AOL shares to the public. According to deal terms laid out in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google has the right to sell its stake in AOL in an initial public offering to the public beginning July 1, 2008.

What's more, the deal immediately forces Wall Street to rethink AOL's worth. Though some analysts had pegged AOL's value at around $10 billion, Google's investment elevates AOL's worth to twice that-a nice boost for an operation many had left for dead just six months ago.

And though some observers have raised questions about the $20 billion valuation, arguing that Google might have paid up for the AOL stake to prevent software giant Microsoft from swooping in with a competing offer (Microsoft had been in on-again/off-again conversations with AOL about supplanting Google as AOL's main provider of search services until Google and AOL reached their Dec. 20 agreement), Google's investment could help to further buff up AOL's image in the eyes of Wall Street, which could translate into a higher stock price for Time Warner.

It would be a welcome change: For years AOL has been a drag on Time Warner's stock, with everything from subscriber losses to accounting scandals at the online unit weighing on the media giant's shares, even as other parts of the Time Warner empire have flourished.

"Truth be told, Time Warner's non-AOL assets have performed well over the 2000-to-2005 time frame," noted Bernstein Research media analyst Michael Nathansan in a research note. "TBS and TNT were repositioned. The DVD cycle and strong titles drove the studio. … Time Warner Cable launched VOIP [Voice over Internet protocol], [digital video recorders] and digital TV. Time Inc. built [magazines] InStyle and Real Simple into money winners."

Under the terms of the five-year pact, Google will continue providing search functions for various AOL Web sites, as it has done since 2002. In addition, AOL will now sell search advertising directly to advertisers using Google's search-results technology, which allows advertisers to display ads in relevant search results.

By and large, analysts are praising the deal. Douglas Shapiro, an analyst at Banc of America Securities, said, "[The Google deal] could shore up AOL's chief strategic holes."

Word of the Google deal has not helped Time Warner's stock to any significant degree, with shares up less than 1 percent between the Dec. 20 announcement and last Wednesday's close. By comparison, Viacom's widely held Class B shares fell more than 1.6 percent, while Disney and News Corp. shares were largely unchanged.

"NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" won the flagship newscast ratings competition in all categories for the fourth quarter of 2005, extending "Nightly News'" streak as most-watched network evening newscast to 25 quarters. Data through Christmas weekend from Nielsen Media Research showed "Nightly News" averaged nearly 9.79 million viewers for the quarter, while "ABC World News Tonight" averaged 8.65 million and "CBS Evening News" averaged 7.47 million. In the key news demographic, adults 25 to 54, "Nightly News" finished the fourth quarter with an average 2.6 rating, edging out ABC's "World News," which averaged a 2.5 rating. CBS's "Evening News" averaged a 1.9 rating.



Sinclair, Verizon Reach Retransmission Pact

Sinclair Broadcast Group said last week it has struck a retransmission agreement with Verizon Communications under which the phone giant will carry the station group's digital and analog signals in Baltimore and Tampa, Fla., where Verizon is launching its new video service FiOS. Details of the agreement were not disclosed. The deal covers Sinclair's WTTA-TV, a WB affiliate in Tampa, and its two Baltimore stations, Fox affiliate WBFF-TV and WB affiliate WNUV-TV.



Adler, Donnelly Appointments at Paramount

Kate Adler has been named VP of comedy development for Paramount Network Television. In addition, Jim Donnelly has been promoted to director of comedy development. Most recently Ms. Adler served as a producer for CBS's "Survivor: Palau" and "Survivor: Guatemala." She was also a producer on NBC's "Crime & Punishment: Real-Life Law & Order." Mr. Donnelly first joined Paramount Network Television in 2004 as manager of comedy development. Before that he worked at CBS Productions in comedy development and current programming.



Oxygen Picks Up 'Dickinson Project'

Oxygen has picked up the 10-episode reality series "The Janice Dickinson Project," which is set to debut in the spring. The series features former supermodel Janice Dickinson as she starts her own Hollywood modeling agency. Ms. Dickinson served as a judge in the first four seasons of the UPN reality show "America's Next Top Model." On "Project" she will audition and choose five models to be the first signed by her agency. The series, from Krasnow Productions and FremantleMedia North America, will also focus on Ms. Dickinson's efforts to balance her new business with her role as a mother. Ms. Dickinson, who gained fame as a model in the 1970s, will also executive produce the series.



Family Association Protests NBC's 'Book of Daniel'

The American Family Association launched an e-mail drive last week urging its supporters to call their local NBC affiliate and ask it not to air NBC's new series "The Book of Daniel." The AFA described the show's main character as "a drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her midday martinis" and noted it was written by what it describes as a "practicing homosexual" whom it quotes as saying, "I don't necessarily know that all the myth surrounding him [Jesus] is true." The show's main character also speaks with a "very unconventional" Jesus, according to the

e-mail. "NBC considers 'The Book of Daniel' a positive portrayal of Christ and Christians," the AFA said in its

e-mail message, which also solicits donations for the organization. The message additionally urges people to distribute copies of the AFA appeal in churches and to e-mail NBC Universal Chairman and CEO Bob Wright directly. An NBC spokesperson said, "'The Book of Daniel' is a fictional drama about an Episcopalian priest's family and the contemporary issues with which they must grapple. We're confident that once audiences view this quality drama themselves, they'll appreciate this thought-provoking examination of one American family." The show is scheduled to premiere Friday.

The last time Connie Chung co-anchored a half-hour national news program with a man, it wasn't much fun.

But a decade after the end of her strained on-screen marriage with Dan Rather on the "CBS Evening News," Ms. Chung is going to try it again-this time on MSNBC with her real-life husband, talk show host Maury Povich, and guided by an executive producer whose sharp tongue is firmly in cheek.

"Weekends With Maury & Connie," which debuts at 10 a.m. Saturday, will be executive produced by Lizz Winstead, co-creator of Comedy Central's fake newscast "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." Her job now is to coax Ms. Chung and Mr. Povich, who have been married since 1984, into playing against public type and having fun with real news and interviews.

In test runs for their new show, for example, it was discovered that it is possible to reserve tickets on a bus tour of disaster sites. The subject of training judges to try former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was also discussed.

"It's Connie Chung in a way you've never seen her and it's Maury Povich in a way you don't know him," she said. "These people are irreverent. They have a sense of humor.

"You'll see a Maury who is not searching for the paternity of children around the country. He's smart. He's very good at getting to the heart of the matter," said Ms. Winstead, who said she has enjoyed seeing Ms. Chung in test tapings "being really funny and breaking out of her nonpartisan shell and being able to have an opinion and talk about things she really cares about."

Ms. Chung and Mr. Povich poke fun at themselves and their careers-including dashed dreams of a syndicated news show in 1996-and each other in his-and-hers campaign-style promos that have been running on MSNBC. According to Ms. Chung's spot, her career started at a place so small, she had to share a desk, whereupon the camera pulls back to reveal that she's sitting next to Mr. Rather on the anchor desk of the doomed-to-be-third-place "Evening News." The spot sums up her career with the word "fired" and the logos of all the TV news organizations for which she worked up until CNN canceled "Connie Chung Tonight" after less than a year in March 2003.

After asking viewers to support her mainstream approach and reject the "morally bankrupt" philosophy of Mr. Povich-whose talk show "Maury," syndicated by MSNBC stablemate NBC Universal Television Distribution, has become defined by "who's your daddy?" genetic tests-Ms. Chung executes a snappy salute and assures the audience: "I'm Connie Chung, and I approved this message."

In his promos, Mr. Povich delivers paternity verdicts to "Maury" guests, extols his "common-sense approach" versus the "radical extremist" ideas of Ms. Chung (looking particularly ferocious in the spot) and concludes with a vow that he also approved his message.

The eye-catching spots were produced by MSNBC's promo department and The Agency at sister network NBC with creative input from Ms. Winstead and "Weekends With Maury & Connie" senior producer Jonathan Larsen, with whom Ms. Winstead worked at Air America. She was on the launch team of the left-leaning radio operation and left less than a year later.

Asked about the differences between having fun with fake news for Comedy Central and having fun with real news for MSNBC (which will tape "Weekends With Maury & Connie" Friday afternoons and repeat the programs at 4 p.m. (ET) Saturdays and 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Sundays), Ms. Winstead doesn't miss a beat: "We had a much bigger budget on 'The Daily Show.' On 'The Daily Show' we had something called writers. On this show we have something called Lizz."

Representing one of the first steps toward offering current prime-time cable content on-demand, Court TV has partnered with Time Warner Cable to sneak-peek a February episode of "Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege and Justice" a week before the series' fourth season debuts Jan. 16.

Court TV aims to drive linear viewership of the series by showcasing on-demand the "Deadly Design" episode, which delves into the murder of Gianni Versace, a month before its Feb. 6 premiere on the network, a few weeks into the new season. "Deadly Design" is not the first episode of the show's new season, which starts Jan. 16.

The sneak peek starts Jan. 9 for Time Warner's video-on-demand customers and also includes bonus material exclusive to on-demand, such as a 90-second highlight reel of the upcoming season and a three-minute interview with Dominick Dunne during which he discusses his life as an author and the murder of his daughter.

"This is the first time we have done a series [sneak peek] on VOD," said Linda Finney, VP of marketing for Court TV.

The goal is simple: Use the VOD platform to drive linear ratings for the show. It's a strategy the network has relied on successfully in the past with one-off specials. Last summer the network offered a sneak preview on-demand in Time Warner markets of its special "Scott Peterson: A Deadly Game" from July 30 through Aug. 3 in advance of the Aug. 4 linear premiere. The special generated a 0.8 household rating in non-Time Warner markets and a 1.0 rating in Time Warner markets.

The upcoming promotion will live on the VOD platform for nearly a month, including the entire week before the new season starts. The network is betting that VOD sampling will translate into a bit of a ratings bump for the linear show.

"You have a window of a week to create a little noise and buzz around the new season," said Bob Rose, executive VP of affiliate relations for Court TV.

However, the Versace episode will remain on the servers for nearly a month before its actual premiere in February, thereby posing a slight risk of lower ratings for that particular episode. But Mr. Rose pointed out that the sneak preview is available only to Time Warner's digital customers who have VOD, and he does not think that episode will be overexposed. "The majority of people still only see us on analog," Mr. Rose said.

He added that Court TV doesn't expect to offer an entire season of a series on VOD anytime soon since Court TV's VOD offering is limited to about 10 hours at any given time.

Time Warner actively seeks opportunities like this to bring more viewers into the VOD platform, said Eric Goldberg, senior director of programming for Time Warner Cable. "It's been proven that if you get more people using VOD, they love it," he said. Last summer's preview of the Scott Peterson special was the most popular of the Court TV VOD titles during its run, he said.

"The more any network uses both platforms together, the better for us. We just don't want the VOD channels out there that have content from five years ago," he said.

Court TV's sneak peek is exactly the kind of strategy networks need to attract viewers to VOD, said Paul Rule, president of VOD research firm Marquest Media & Entertainment Research. "Networks that fill their VOD menus with leftovers can't expect consumers to get too excited," he said.

In fact, a recent Marquest study found that limited programming selection was by far the No. 1 complaint with on-demand-40 percent of homes with access to VOD had this gripe, more than twice the number that named any other problem.

Discovery Networks plans to introduce a pioneering new programming strategy in March designed to road-test the potential of its high-definition network Discovery HD Theater as a distribution platform for early premieres of shows on other Discovery-owned networks.

The new plan kicks off the week of March 25, when Discovery HD Theater will televise "Must Do's: The Jeremy Piven Project" a week before the special debuts on Discovery's Travel Channel.

Discovery will implement this new approach-which it is referring to internally as "HD First"-as it rebrands Travel Channel in early April. Discovery executives said they intend to extend the strategy to other Discovery networks, such as Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, over time.

Patrick Younge, general manager and executive VP for both Travel Channel and Discovery HD Theater, devised the plan to raise the visibility of Discovery HD Theater and as a means to tout Travel Channel.

"The Piven show will be one of the central planks of that relaunch to get the buzz going," said Mr. Younge, who started overseeing both channels in October. He has been in charge of Travel Channel since April.

The two-part special follows actor Jeremy Piven as he travels in India. When the show runs on Travel Channel it will appear in standard definition.

"We can use HD to get shows to our passionate Discovery HD Theater audience and talk about this great show coming up in the next seven days … People are passionate in terms of HD. We think that medium should be rewarded," he said.

The HD First initiative is believed to mark the first time a network has premiered a show on its sister HD network in advance of its traditional standard-definition premiere.

NBC Universal's HD network, which draws content from NBC's cable and broadcast networks, has run "Battlestar Galactica" episodes within a few weeks of their original showing on the Sci Fi Channel, but never at the same time. However, the NBCU network has run many sporting events live in HD and SD, as have ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD and broadcast networks.



Next Sneak-Peek Platform

Over the last year, many broadcast and cable networks, such as Nickelodeon, The WB and HBO, have used video-on-demand and broadband as platforms for sneak peeks of programs. The new Discovery approach suggests that HD could be the next medium for networks to showcase their content in advance.

The Discovery strategy will continue into April with "Yellowstone: America's First National Park," which will debut on Discovery HD Theater the week of April 10 and on Travel Channel the week of April 17.

If successful, Mr. Younge said, he'll broaden the early premiere concept to other Travel Channel specials and series and to programs on the other Discovery Networks. He's begun talking to the general managers of sister networks about programming fare that may benefit from an early HD debut.

"We will start it for specials and then maybe do one series, and I will probably take a look after those two," he said.

Measuring success will be imprecise since Discovery HD Theater is not yet rated. But HD fans are a loyal and often vocal bunch, and the network will monitor feedback on bulletin boards and its Web site and in chat rooms, e-mails and phone calls from viewers and feedback from affiliates.

The Travel Channel strategy benefits both Discovery HD Theater and Travel Channel, said Richard Doherty, research director for the Envisioneering Group, a technology market research firm. The strategy increases the value of the HD network. The eye-catching nature of HD content may entice Discovery HD Theater viewers to sample additional Travel Channel content, thereby driving new viewers to Travel Channel, he said.

Mark Cuban, who runs HD-only networks HDNet and HDNet Movies and is one of the industry's HD evangelists, also believes the HD First strategy is a smart one. "They get the opportunity, if the programming is good, to get in front of a new audience," he said.

However, he added, "The risk they face is that the audience will assign a lower value to the SD programming. Once you watch a show in HD, no one wants to watch the same show in SD." Todd Chanko, an analyst with Jupiter Research, echoed Mr. Cuban's caution. He concurred that an early HD premiere won't stimulate SD uptake because viewers won't want to watch a show in SD after they have seen it in HD.

Some other analysts also are cool on the early debut strategy. "I don't think HD has garnered a large enough audience to get an appreciable bump," said Steve Kovsky, senior analyst for digital television with research firm Current Analysis.

Still, Mr. Younge said the chance is worth taking. "We want to remain the brand leaders [in HD] and we have to constantly innovate. There is a clear benefit for viewers who paid the premium for an HD service. There is a clear benefit for our affiliates because everything that drives HD benefits everyone," he said.

The early premieres will be a key component of Travel Channel's broader rebrand marketing campaign that begins in March. That will include promoting the HD First programming on Travel Channel itself, found in 80 million homes, and on Discovery's other analog networks.

Usually, by the first week of December, television news columnist Gail Shister of the Knight Ridder-owned Philadelphia Inquirer has set up appointments and business dinners for the Television Critics Association's winter press tour scheduled in January. For 12 years Ms. Shister has gone to the tour, a semi-annual event held in the Los Angeles area that brings together TCA members to meet with network executives and talent.

But with Knight Ridder on the sales block, fiscal uncertainty at the Inquirer left Ms. Shister wondering whether she would be making the trip to the press tour, to be held at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena, Calif. If the newspaper industry's financial problems put pressure on reporters and critics to skip the press tour, it could damage an event the networks use to fuel much of the publicity they garner for the entire year. Attendance of journalists from so many different markets is considered crucial by many in the TV business, because it enables networks and producers to connect with-and in some cases sway-the press that speaks directly to TV viewers.

"Anytime you can put a body of reporters in a room and give them access to your top executives and top talent, news will flow from that," one network executive said.

Knight Ridder isn't the only company with major newspaper holdings that is struggling. More than 2,000 jobs were cut by U.S. newspapers in 2005, according to the trade publication Editor & Publisher.

For journalists who cover television, the two- to three-week-long press tours can cost their papers thousands of dollars in hotel charges and airfare.

"I don't think they have suspended all travel expenses, but they are watching every penny," Ms. Shister said of the Inquirer.

In the past the Inquirer sent both Ms. Shister, who covers the news of the TV business, and her colleague, TV critic Jonathan Stone, to each press tour. In late December, however, it was decided Ms. Shister alone would attend the January press tour and Mr. Stone would solo at the July event.

This January between 140 and 165 reporters are expected to make it to Pasadena, a number "right in the range" for a winter press tour, said Rob Owen, president of TCA.

"It's not like we've suddenly dropped to beneath what we are accustomed to," Mr. Owen said, noting that this isn't the first time the newspaper industry has weathered a tough economic environment. "They have been under financial pressure before, and they will again," he said. "Press tour existed then and they will in the future."

The press tour is a string of conferences, usually starting in the morning with a cable or broadcaster executive session and ending after a series of Q&A sessions with executive producers and talent from specific shows. The day is capped with a reception featuring top executives from the network of the day.

Written transcripts are available to attendees within 24 hours. The press tour allows reporters and critics to bank stories with quotes from the stars of upcoming shows for the next six months. The budgets for networks making presentations at the press tour can be sizable, considering room rentals, audio/visual expenses, signage, air travel for talent and catering. The price tag can run broadcasters $200,000 to $250,000 a day.

Several networks are starting to re-examine their investments in the press tour.

"You do worry that you'll reach a point where the cost does not equal the return," the executive said.

Despite the costs, and the possibility that high-profile reporters like Ms. Shister won't attend every press tour, the efficiency of the event still makes the venture attractive to networks, since it saves publicity departments the time of having to set up hundreds of individual interviews.

"It still has relevance as a platform to introduce new programming and get your company messages out," the executive said, noting that as long as critics keep writing stories about the new network offerings, the press tour will be worth the expense.

But media companies are bracing themselves, Mr. Owen said. Some companies are devising new efficiencies when planning for press tour, with smaller cable companies occasionally sitting out if they have nothing to promote, and sister network and cable outlets presenting on the same day to conserve costs, according to Mr. Owen.

In January, for example, the Viacom-owned UPN and Showtime will share a press tour day.

With the proliferation of broadband, doing a video link press conference is now easier than it has ever been, raising the question of whether technology could help cut costs, another network executive said.

"Could it be done in a conference call?" the network executive asked. "Probably."

But in a world where television critics are being inundated by new programming from every angle, having a dedicated period of time where networks know they have journalists' attention is very valuable, so it's worth it to the networks to find a way to keep the event intact, even with the costs, another network executive said.

"It's much better than just putting another video on their desk," the executive said.

And for some formats, particularly comedy, a good press session can change attitudes about a show. A humorous executive producer and a quotable star can help build momentum if they get critics laughing. That's what happened after "The Simple Life" press tour session in 2003, when many critics went in not knowing what to expect but walked out with a better understanding of the reality series.

Reporters like Ms. Shister swear by the press tour's other benefits and note that their colleagues on the sports desk spend far more in travel costs. If any newspaper had an excuse to skip press tour, it would be The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, but the paper's TV critic, Dave Walker, will be in Pasadena this January.

"It is incredibly difficult right now just because of the many unknowns about the city, and the future," Mr. Walker, a TCA board member and the organization's hotel coordinator said. "But everybody's working as hard as they can to maintain the continuity for the readers."

The access press tour allows can't be duplicated through conference calls and e-mail, he said, particularly for reporters in markets outside the Hollywood loop.

"It ends up informing and increases my understanding of how the business works," he said.

The unique nature of the TCA press tour keeps the event relevant, said David Bianculli, TV critic for the New York Daily News. Before TCA was founded in 1978, networks used to sponsor all-expenses-paid press junkets. But newspaper ethics policies started being enforced, and a group of journalists formed the TCA as an alternative.

"When it became something newspapers took control of, we said we'd like to have access to executives," Mr. Bianculli said.

That change had a big impact in making TCA more than just a junket, a network executive said.

"We're the only industry where leaders are held accountable twice a year," he said.

Roger Catlin, TV critic for The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, said he has also watched staff reductions take place at his paper, but he is planning to attend the press tour. He will be filing many more stories than he did just a year ago, in fact. At the summer press tour in July Mr. Catlin was one of the growing number of reporters blogging from the event, after being encouraged by editors to come up with fresh content for the papers' Web sites.

"There was just a ton of material they could use," he said.

TCA is also well aware of the pressures on its members, who pay a $50 annual membership. TCA has no office, no full-time employees and an all-volunteer member board.

Ms. Shister booked a flight to Los Angeles and made a reservation at the p