The Federal Trade Commission will hold a workshop Oct. 29 to assess how well voluntary entertainment industry efforts to check the marketing of violence to children are working. In a statement, the FTC said the workshop’s goal is to give…
Fox Cable Network Group’s new extreme-action sports network, Fuel, may not have much name recognition and only limited carriage. But it has quickly signed up a number of national advertisers, who see it as a way to reach an audience…
When Cablevision Systems committed its Rainbow programming assets as part of the Bronfman bid for Universal, the perception was that those assets, including the AMC cable channel, were in play. Now that Vivendi has chosen to do a deal with…
It may be top rated among syndicated shows, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be freshened up. When “Wheel of Fortune” viewers tune in to the start of the game show’s 21st season on Monday, Sept. 8, they’ll get a…
Panasonic introduced last week the first of four digital TV sets that connect directly to cable systems without a set-top box. These cable-ready sets will be available by early November and represent an important first step in the movement to…
“ESPN HD is revolutionizing the way we all watch football. Our service will air a college game every Saturday, an NFL game on Sunday and `Playmakers,’ our drama series about a professional football team, on Tuesdays. That takes care of…
Azteca America, the newest national Spanish-language network, is using the fact that it produces and controls its own programming to its advantage in its sales pitch to national advertisers. “We’re telling agencies and their clients if they come up with…
A recent McDonald’s “Summer Beats” ad campaign for its Big Mac burger has lit the way for a new push into multicultural marketing, a major shift away from what advertising executive Luis Miguel Messianu calls McDonald’s previous “family-oriented, clean-cut middle…
Someday in the very near future, the commissioners of big league baseball, hockey, basketball and football may look back on the turn of the 21st century as halcyon days, a time when the networks battled each other for the privilege…
Can Kenny, Cartman, Kyle and Stan hack it in the playground that is broadcast television? Comedy Central is betting that the smart-alecky tykes from its hit series “South Park” can do in the broadcast arena what the series has done…