| NEWS 04.30.09 3:14 PM |
|
Upfront Update: Who's Doing What During the TV Networks' Big Sales Week
|
 | The 2008 Fox upfront party
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
|
FROM NEW YORK
Cable upfront presentations have been under way since mid-March, but May heralds the arrival of the network presentations, with their heavy delegations of out-of-town media buyers and—when it suits them—some fairly elaborate parties. Upfront Week itself is little more than two weeks off, starting with Fox on Monday, May 18, and concluding Thursday, May 21, with the CW. Although events look to be subdued once again, they’re looking up from 2008.
Last year NBC sent the already W.G.A. strike-addled upfront schedule into a tizzy by abandoning its long-established Monday presentation and opting for a series of meetings in early April. Sort of sticking to its guns, the network is still meeting with buyers early, but not as early as last year. After a small pitch at this year’s Super Bowl, NBC’s big sell takes place next week in its 30 Rockefeller headquarters, with a series of meetings and conference calls on May 4.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Upfronts, Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW, ESPN, Turner Entertianment, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim |
 |
| ASK BIZBASH 09.08.08 9:00 AM |
|
Who Can Produce a Cool Tribute Video?
|
 | Stills from a variety of tribute videos.
Photo: Courtesy of Lifefilm (top), Courtesy of Madprops (middle), Courtesy of Raw Films (bottom) |
|
Honoring a retiring exec or an award winner with a video about their life’s work is a great idea, but only if the piece doesn’t move guests to check their BlackBerries or sneak off to the restroom. Here are three companies that specialize in these types of films and, if asked, will travel to make it happen.
With more than 20 years of combined film and television industry experience, Lifefilm Productions co-founders Peilin Chou and John Brancaccio use the same production professionals they worked with at companies such as Walt Disney Studios, MTV Networks, ESPN, and Bravo to craft their celebratory docs. The firm prides itself on delivering broadcast-quality, story-driven films that are truly entertaining. Past clients include C-level execs from Hasbro and real estate developer S.R. Weiner. Rates start at $5,000, with longer and more intensive projects ranging from $10,000 to $20,000.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Walt Disney Company, MTV, ESPN, Bravo, Academy Awards, Saturday Night Live, VH1, A&E, E! Entertainment, NBC, Clinton Global Initiative, Miramax, Hasbro |
|
| Q & A 07.16.08 4:12 PM |
|
ESPN's Amanda Wells on Moving Tonight's Espy Awards Taping Downtown
|
 | The red carpet at last year's awards
Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage |
|
The Espy awards will tape tonight at the Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live (and will air Sunday). Overseeing the event is Amanda Wells, associate director of special events for ESPN, who handles all West Coast events for the company. In addition to the awards, Wells oversees the X Games, Monday Night Football on the West Coast, and the Rose Bowl. We asked her what went into this year's show.
Why did you move this year's event from the Kodak Theatre to Nokia Theatre?
It really was time for us to move downtown, and AEG built this theater that technically and logistically works for the Espys. The entire property was planned by event and show producers, so from the logistics of the lighting and the screens and power drops and distribution, it really is an all-in-one experience. It’s been wonderful for us and the show.
We are really happy in Los Angeles and our relationship with AEG and L.A. Live. It’s such an exciting project; we are building an ESPN Zone there.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
ESPN, Espy Awards, L.A. Live, Downtown Renaissance, Justin Timberlake, Miller Lite, Going Green, AEG |
|
 |
|
| NEWS 07.11.08 11:34 AM |
|
Who's Going Where: Espy Awards Move to Nokia, Early Events Blanket L.A.
|
 | The scene at last year's Espy party at Hollywood & Highland
Photo: BizBash |
|
ESPN's Espy awards will take to the 7,000-plus-seat Nokia Theatre on July 16 (and air on July 20), after a move from the Kodak, where the show had been for the previous six years. (ESPN has signed a multiyear deal with the Nokia, according to the sports-news Web site.) Justin Timberlake will host the show.
The related events are getting started early around town. ESPN the Magazine's "Espy Style Studio" will host athletes and celebs at the Standard downtown for a three-day gifting suite from July 14 through 16. The mag will set up on the the third floor of the hotel with brands like Laser Eye Center of Silicon Valley, Skull Candy headphones, Under Armour apparel, and Tigi Bed Head products. The “Play-Action suite" will feature cocktails by Lotus vodka and Greg Norman sparkling wines, plus the chance to play EA Sports' NCAA Football 09 at game stations, while DJ Prophet and Rico DeLargo entertain.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Espy Awards, ESPN, Gift Suites, Playboy, Blu-ray, Justin Timberlake, Under Armour, Bed Head, ESPN the Magazine |
|
| NEWS 07.12.07 7:16 PM |
|
Guests Gather Ringside at Espy Party
|
 | The Espys' ring setup.
Photo: BizBash |
|
When ESPN throws a party, a sports theme is a pretty safe bet. So after the taping of its Espy awards at the Kodak Theatre last night, the network treated guests to a soiree that featured live fighters in a boxing ring set up right on the first-floor plaza at the Hollywood & Highland complex. After watching the drama in the ring, the crowd milled amid vaguely Asian-themed decor (silk table runners and bright, towering flower arrangements), picked up savories and sweets from buffet tables and restaurants on Babylon Court (as the first-floor plaza is known), and danced to mostly hip-hop and R&B DJ sets. —Alesandra Dubin
RELATED TOPICS
Espy Awards, ESPN |
|
| NEWS 07.11.07 5:47 PM |
|
Pre-Espy Swag Suites Take Over Mondrian Floor
|
 | The view from the 11th floor.
Photo: BizBash |
|
With a throng of athlete-types and hangers-on in town for ESPN's Espy awards at the Kodak Theatre (which the cable network will televise July 15), Los Angeles is buzzing with a host of related events. We stopped by the 11th floor of the Mondrian hotel for ESPN the Magazine's gift suite running from Monday through today, and found a cool touch amid the sea of product giveaways: Signage in the form of big round dots on the walls led guests down the otherwise-blah hallway and announced what was inside the rooms, which were grouped according to genre—Ed Hardy with Retribution and Denim Design Lab in the fashion suite, for example. (We spotted Ian Ziering taking advantage of the barber services in the Shave of Beverly Hills' and Graycliff Cigars' guy-style room.)
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
ESPN, Espy Awards, ESPN the Magazine |
|
|
|
|
| GUEST QUESTIONS 05.31.07 6:33 PM |
|
Media Buyers Like Shrimp, Debate Whose Is Best
|
 | ABC opened its upfront with an Ugly Betty musical number.
ABC/Donna Svennevik |
|
FROM NEW YORK
Every May, a swarm of media buyers, ad execs,
talent, and other assorted television-industry types hits New York for Upfront
Week, the broadcast networks’ yearly presentations of their fall schedules. In
the hope of snagging millions in advertising dollars, the usually hard-sell
presentations are star-studded, and often stat-studded. And the parties that
follow are staged to wow, with plenty of photo ops with network talent,
mountains of shrimp, and free-flowing booze. While both attendees and the press
noted some fiscal restraint on the part of the networks this year, the
broadcasters weren’t exactly serving Saltines and cold cuts. After all, Advertising Age called Upfront Week a
“$9 billion annual event that is the financial pivot of the prime-time TV
business.”
NBC kicked off the week at Radio City Music Hall, promising
to “skip the song and dance” and get people out in under an hour and a half
(they did). CBS showed its wares at Carnegie Hall, with help from CSI: Miami star David Caruso, who was
happy to make fun of his on-screen persona. Pushing the multiplatform angle,
the net also aired a YouTube video of Caruso’s over-the-top one-liners on CSI and had ad sales president JoAnn
Ross address the crowd as an avatar. At Avery Fisher Hall, ABC staged a boffo
opening musical number starring the cast of Ugly
Betty and wrapped the presentation by giving away a plasma-screen TV (a
tie-in to the net’s upcoming show National
Bingo Night) and filling the theater with a thunderous marching band. Fox
kept it short and sweet, enlisting Keifer Sutherland to pretape a presentation
addressing Fox entertainment president Peter Liguori as 24’s Jack Bauer. (“Keep it to an hour. ... You’re on the clock, Mr.
President.”) In possibly a record for any upfront presentation, that’s all the
network took. (Perhaps it was a mea culpa: Last year’s clocked in at an
agonizing three hours.) Among the other networks vying for attention and ad
buys were Telemundo, Univision, the CW, ESPN, and Broadband Enterprises.
So how did they do? Did the networks get their money’s
worth? Well, our opinions don’t really matter, so we sought out the ones that
do: those of the attendees who slosh through the overcrowded week each year.
(“If you cut my finger off,” one high-level ad buyer said, “you can count the
rings of how many upfronts I’ve been to.”) Here’s what they had to say,
sometimes on the record, sometimes under the cover of anonymity, and sometimes
as they spoke to another guest, not realizing we were listening.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW, ESPN |
|
|
