| EVENT REPORT 09.10.09 12:46 PM |
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Fox's Glee Premiere Is Kitschy Schoolyard Party, Bake Sale and Lunch Lady Included
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 | A mock glee club car wash at Fox's Glee party
Photo: Kimberly Sue, Fox Broadcasting Company |
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FROM LOS ANGELES
Fox's new series Glee concerns the ins and outs of daily life at a high school—so a themey screening and party at the Willows Community School in Culver City was in order to kick off the show's first season, which the network has aggressively marketed all summer long in anticipation of the premiere. Fox vice president of special events Tomiko Iwata oversaw the event, tapping Sequoia Productions to produce it.
The screening of an episode of Glee—which had the audience roaring with laughter at times—took place in the school's gym, where pom-poms sat on chairs and hand-painted posters with messages like "Fight, fight, fight" lined the walls. A squad of cheerleaders in outfits with Glee logos kicked off the screening with chants about the network and the show.
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Fox, Glee, Chevy |
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| NEWS 11.04.08 1:33 PM |
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Networks Bank on Big Election Night With Outdoor Broadcasts
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FROM NEW YORK
Over the past two decades, election coverage on the major television networks has gradually moved from the newsroom to street-side studios and open-air stages. This year proves to be a culmination of sorts, with ABC, Fox News, and NBC all making a big push to incorporate the streets and people of New York into their national broadcasts.
ABC News takes over Good Morning America’s Times Square headquarters this evening, with reporters stationed outside, interacting with the public. In addition to using its own marquee screen above the studio, the network rented electronic signs from Reuters, Nasdaq, and the Hard Rock Cafe to broadcast live feeds of its coverage.
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RELATED TOPICS
Election '08, Barack Obama, John McCain, ABC, ABC News, NBC, CBS, CBS News, Fox, Fox News |
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| NEWS 03.18.08 1:14 PM |
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Billboard Music Awards Profanity Case Headed to Supreme Court
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In a decision that surprised many, the U.S. Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will hear arguments in the F.C.C.'s "fleeting expletive" case against Fox Broadcasting Company. The decision marks the first time the Supreme Court will hear a broadcast indecency case since 1978.
According to Variety, fleeting expletives are "single instances of certain profanities, uttered usually in live settings." Back in March 2006, the F.C.C. ruled that Fox had violated the organization's decency rules twice in recent years, including a comment by Cher during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards and a comment by Nicole Ritchie during the 2003 awards.
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F.C.C., Supreme Court, Fox, Billboard, Billboard Music Awards |
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| NEWS 02.15.08 2:23 PM |
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CBS, NBC, Fox, and Others Confirm Upfront Presentations
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FROM NEW YORK
CBS led the charge of upfront-related news yesterday, announcing the network will once again host a presentation for advertisers on May 14 at Carnegie Hall—quelling months of speculation that the major networks would forgo the fancy (and costly) presentations and parties altogether. That said, CBS declined to comment on whether or not it will return to Tavern on the Green for its annual lavish after-party, though Variety reported that Tavern's sales office confirmed the space has been reserved for the afternoon and evening of May 14, adding "It's hard to believe CBS wouldn't offer advertisers some form of food and drink."
Reuters is reporting that because of the WGA strike, development plans for the 2008-2009 television season are much-delayed: "The usefulness of the presentations—where the networks parade out stars or their own executives for skits and dance numbers—[has become] the subject of the sharpest criticism."
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RELATED TOPICS
Upfronts, Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW, NBC Universal |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.04.08 2:02 PM |
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Best of the Rest: ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Fox, and More Super Bowl Parties
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 | Ludacris performed at ESPN the Magazine's Friday-night party.
Photo: Sara Jaye Weiss |
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. Though Maxim, Playboy, and Victoria's Secret garnered the most buzz among the Super Bowl parties here, clever production details abounded throughout the weekend. Here's our wrap-up of the other big events.
ESPN the Magazine
On Friday and Saturday, ESPN the Magazine returned to the Super Bowl with its Next Big Weekend party, setting up shop on the rolling, grass-lined lawns of the Scottsdale Performing Arts Center. Things kicked off on Friday night, with Ludacris performing for some 800 V.I.P.s in a massive, red-hued tent. Produced by ESPN vice president of marketing solutions Fred Bucher, with Event Eleven and East Side PR, the Friday-night fete was accented with chandeliers, cabanas, a circular 20-foot bar, and beer carts that allowed guests to grab a quick Corona on the go.
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Super Bowl, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Fox, Penthouse, Vice the Party |
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| GUEST QUESTIONS 05.31.07 7:30 PM |
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A Media Buyer Gives Her Take on Upfront Week
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 | | Our Upfront Week mole posing with Justin Chambers of Grey's Anatomy at the ABC after-party. |
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FROM NEW YORK
We gathered lots of
media buyers’ impressions of Upfront Week, and as a whole, they tell a hectic, fun,
sometimes contradictory story of the television networks’ annual sales pitches.
For more consistent (yet just as subjective) view, we asked a supervisor at a
major media buying firm to share her thoughts, day by day. Here's her take.
Monday
3 p.m., NBC
presentation, Radio City Music Hall
It was fair. No one was really buzzing about the shows
except Journeyman. They didn’t touch
on their extensions like late-night and morning programming too much, and I
think everyone was kind of grateful for that. They cut to the chase with the presentation.
5 p.m., NBC
after-party, the Rink at Rockefeller Center
All the talent was at the party. [The casts] of Friday Night Lights, The
Office, Heroes, and new shows
like Journeyman and Life. The party was like it’s always
been: It’s really nice because it’s at Rockefeller Center, and it’s never too
crowded. When I walked in, four people from The
Office were just standing there.
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RELATED TOPICS
Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW |
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| GUEST QUESTIONS 05.31.07 6:33 PM |
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Media Buyers Like Shrimp, Debate Whose Is Best
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 | ABC opened its upfront with an Ugly Betty musical number.
ABC/Donna Svennevik |
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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.
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RELATED TOPICS
Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW, ESPN |
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