New York-Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouses, the nation’s 14th-largest retailer, has re-upped for a third straight year as the category-exclusive sponsor for “Trading Spaces,” TLC’s room-redesign basic-cable ratings hit. The one-year deal calls for Lowe’s to provide the budget, products and materials for the series’ design projects. In return, TLC provides Lowe’s with product integration opportunities, customized tagged tune-in messages and promotion in Discovery Channel retail stores.
All in the game
New York-Getting paid just to drink beer or for acting and modeling jobs requiring no experience or even looks? Too good to be true? The pierced-tongue-in-cheek fliers now up at colleges and universities around the country are just the latest guerrilla marketing gimmick from Game Show Network. College kids who call the number on the fliers get a recorded message from former MTV VJ Kennedy, who’s hosting “Friend or Foe,” a GSN show, telling would-be beer tasters, “Wow! You’ve got to be hammered!” and would-be models, “You actually called. … You’re so stupid you really could get a modeling gig!” More than 1,500 students called last week, according to GSN.
That ’80s showing
Los Angeles-KCBS-TV’s Thursday prime-time average 12.5 rating/20 share was the station’s biggest sweeps-opening night since Oct. 31, 1985, when the CBS lineup consisted of “Magnum, P.I.,” “Simon & Simon” and “Knots Landing.” Finishing second for the night to KCBS was KNBC-TV (10.5/17). KCBS’s prime-time performance was up 45 percent from the sweeps-opening night a year ago and its late local newscast (5.5/12) was up 62 percent from the comparable night in 2001.