Sony BMG inks deal with P2P firm Mashboxx

Music giant Sony BMG has finalized its deal with the legal file-sharing network Mashboxx, two days after a U.S. court dealt a blow to Mashboxx's unauthorized rivals such as Grokster.

Mashboxx, headed by former Grokster president Wayne Rosso, is a peer-to-peer file-sharing network that requires users to pay for copyrighted songs.

The companies said on Wednesday that Sony BMG songs will cost $0.99 each, in line with the price charged by Apple's market-leading iTunes online music store. Unlike iTunes, users will be able to preview entire tracks for a limited number of plays for free.

Mashboxx is designed to work closely with the technology company Snocap, headed by Napster founder Shawn Fanning, which identifies songs by their digital "fingerprint" and determines if they are copyrighted.

The efforts of Snocap and Mashboxx got a boost from the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The court ruled that Grokster could be held liable for copyright infringement, in part because it had taken no steps to prevent users from sharing copyrighted music and movie files.

Read the article: www.reuters.com

How 'Inside the box' thinking wastes billions of ad dollars

Marketers want big ideas that go beyond TV, or so they repeatedly tell their agencies. Agencies are all about big ideas that go beyond TV, or so they repeatedly tell the marketers. In fact the demands for -- and pledges to provide -- discipline-neutral, original thinking have become so commonplace that “outside the box” is now writ large on marketing’s BS bingo card alongside such overemployed aphorisms as “strategic fit,” “leverage” and “synergy.”

Yet the obvious truth is that most in the U.S. marketing world still think inside the box.

It’s apparent in the billions of dollars wasted on TV commercials for ill-positioned, ill-thought-out products; it’s apparent in the industry’s continuing obsession with award shows that focus on the (venerable) craft of making TV spots and relegate other disciplines to afterthought status; it’s apparent in marketers’ efforts to measure the unmeasurable, and their inability to innovate or change their external communications’ models.

But, most worryingly -- because it’s the talent in the industry that will determine its ability to adapt to the new marketing realities -- it’s apparent in the places that marketers and agencies look for their recruits: Marketers hire many brand managers from business school, where methodology and process, not creative thinking, is order of the day; agencies recruit much of their creative talent by watching rivals’ reels or flicking through books prepared in narrowly focused ad schools.

Read the article: www.adage.com

Researchers find an advertising upside to DVRs

Evidence is mounting that digital video recorders aren't necessarily the negative for TV advertising that many people have believed them to be. While research increasingly shows that a high percentage of DVR users do skip through commercials, new information suggests there is a DVR advertising upside--including the fact that people actually use the devices to replay interesting commercials, and they appear to be restoring the kind of family viewing that marketers and agencies relish.

That second point was revealed via new research from ESPN, which showed that 85 percent of DVR households own only one, and 68 percent of viewing in those households is done on the TV set connected to the DVR. The implication, he said, is that DVRs are leading to more family viewing within those households.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

MTV launches new division: 'MTV games'

MTV: Music Television today announced the launch of its newest division, "MTV Games." Dedicated to developing, producing and promoting unique and creative gaming experiences that resonate with MTV's audience, MTV Games will work in-house through its newly created interactive entertainment studio, along with industry partners, to produce and market original video game titles. MTV Games will incubate original game franchises in partnership with independent game developers. In addition, the new division will forge strategic marketing partnerships with game publishers to connect with the MTV audience across multiple platforms. MTV will work closely with publishers, leveraging its unique brand and marketing capabilities to maximize the success of each MTV Games release.

"In 1996 we launched MTV Films with the hopes of discovering some risky and bold stories to tell. Nine years later, I'm ecstatic about what we have accomplished, and today we launch MTV Games with a similar objective -- incubating breakthrough gaming concepts that embrace creative risk-taking, and push the boundaries of interactive entertainment," said Van Toffler, President, MTV Networks Music/Logo/Films Group.

"Technology, creativity and entertainment have continually adapted, expanded and melded together to create successful new industries," said Jeff Yapp, EVP, MTV Networks Music and Logo Enterprise Group. "MTV Games is an exciting new division with enormous possibilities within an ever-evolving industry. We are forging into new territory and are enthusiastic about this unique and exciting new way of working with game publishers and independent game developers."

As part of today's announcement, MTV Games unveiled a strategic relationship with Midway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY), a leading interactive entertainment publisher and developer, to market, jointly sell in-game advertising.

Read the article: www.prnewswire.com

File-sharing suffers major defeat

The US Supreme Court has ruled that file-sharing companies are to blame for what users do with their software.
The surprise ruling could start a legal assault on the creators of file-sharing networks such as Grokster and Morpheus. The case was brought by 28 movie and music makers who claimed that rampant piracy was denting profits.

The Supreme Court judges were expected to rule in favour of the file-sharers because of legal precedents set when video recorders first appeared. The unanimous ruling is a victory for recording companies and film studios in what is widely seen as one of the most important copyright cases in years.

The legal case against Streamcast Networks - which makes the software behind Grokster and Morpheus - began in October 2001 when 28 media companies filed their legal complaint.

Read the article: www.news.bbc.co.uk

'Ridiculous' ad rules threaten ITV, Ofcom warned

ITV's business model will "melt away" if the ban on product placement on TV is not relaxed, Peter Bazalgette has warned.
Mr Bazalgette, chief creative officer of Big Brother producer Endemol, said the threat posed by personal video recorders to commercial TV was one of the most important issues facing the broadcasting industry.

He called on media regulator Ofcom to relax "ridiculous" rules that prevent product placement and severely limit advertiser-funded programmes to allow commercial broadcasters to replace income from traditional spot ads.

"If you don't have product placement in the UK in the relatively near future, ITV's business model will melt away. That big, advertiser-funded business will be a goner," Mr Bazalgette told today's Institute of Economic Affairs conference on the future of broadcasting.

"There are movies on every night that have product placement, next to programmes that aren't allowed to do it. It's ridiculous.

"Is this going to happen right away? No. But in the next five to 10 years. It's actually one of the most important economic issues facing this industry now," Mr Bazalgette said.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Software piracy 'seen as normal'

Campaigns to persuade people to stop downloading pirated games or software from the internet are not working, a report suggests.

Two UK university researchers found that people did not see downloading copyrighted material as theft. The findings are unwelcome news for the games industry, which says it loses more than £2bn annually from piracy. The results of the government-funded study were previewed at a games conference in London.

The report, called Fake Nation, is due to be formally presented next week by Dr Jo Bryce of the University of Central Lancashire and Dr Jason Rutter of the University of Manchester.

Read the article: www.news.bbc.co.uk

PARIS HILTON RUCKUS EXPANDS CKE MARKETING PLANS

Web Sites Transformed Into Product Placement Entertainment Centers

CHICAGO -- A racy commercial starring Paris Hilton has stirred up controversy for CKE Restaurants. But the company has bigger plans: It’s capitalizing on the attention generated from the spot to turn the Web sites for its Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains into popular entertainment destinations for young males.
Thanks to the racy Paris Hilton TV ad, CKE has adopted a long-term strategy to make the Internet its primary marketing medium.

And advertisers looking to connect with the lucrative demo are saying, “That’s hot.”

Boy toys fill virtual living room

The newly launched home pages for the burger chains resemble the living room of a bachelor pad, where all things cool among young men are at their fingertips. Products from Motorola are placed within the room, and an Olevia-branded flat screen TV hanging on the wall continuously showcases trailers for upcoming movies from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema -- not to mention the Paris Hilton commercial -- and video games from game publishers THQ, Namco and Ubisoft. Napster, Vans and Maxim magazine also advertise their wares on the site. A deal with a video-game console maker is in the works.

The site also incorporates interactive features such as a wallet that includes a Club Paris napkin with a phone number that when called spouts funny rejections via gotrejected.com, an online voice-mail service sponsored by Vonage.



Read the article: www.madisonandvine.com

'Viral' advertising spreads through marketing plans

Viral advertising is spreading as a popular, efficient marketing tool, as consumers increasingly pick and choose what ads they watch and when.

Viral is today's electronic equivalent of old-fashioned word of mouth. It's a marketing strategy that involves creating an online message that's novel or entertaining enough to prompt consumers to pass it on to others — spreading the message across the Web like a virus at no cost to the advertiser. (Related: U.S. ads scoop up awards.)

Marketers have caught the bug and are increasingly weaving viral components into their marketing plans. Not only is the approach relatively inexpensive, but also it can sometimes be more believable than standard ads.

"People have grown increasingly skeptical of packaged, canned, Madison Avenue-speak," says Russ Klein, Burger King's chief marketing officer.

Read the article: www.usatoday.com

TNS launches product-placement measuring service

In the latest effort to establish an accurate method for measuring the impact of product placements in TV and film, TNS Media Intelligence launched the Branded Entertainment Reporting Service earlier this month.

A new measurement service from TNS aims to compare branded efforts to other types of media.
The service integrates branded-entertainment data into a system capable of comparing it to advertising in 18 other types of media, said Lori Madeloff, senior vice president of product and custom services at TNS.
“What a client does is they can look either by category or by brand at what they’re doing within regular advertising -- TV, magazines -- and now add in the branded-entertainment slice,” Ms. Madeloff said.

Read the article: www.adage.com

CNN.com launches free video with sponsorships from Chase, GM

CNN.COM THIS MORNING IS SET to launch its free video initiative, with banking giant Chase and car manufacturer General Motors as initial sponsors, said Greg D'Alba, executive vice president-COO of CNN Advertising Sales and Marketing. He added that the Web site currently is engaged in "upfront" discussions--or talks about advance sales for the upcoming "season"--with more than 50 national advertisers.
"We're seeing more interest in video than we did 25 years ago when we got into cable, because everyone is embracing this technology and its potential," D'Alba said. "Everybody was calling cable a revolution back then, but today this technology is seen as part of a larger evolution."
Chase and GM's luxury brand Cadillac each will have category exclusivity, tagged promotional spots on all CNN Networks, and promotional banners throughout CNN.com--as well as the opportunity to run 30-second on-air creative prior to content. Both will also be able to air long-form lead-out creative and a 728 X 90 web banner, according to a CNN spokeswoman.

Access to CNN.com's broadband video--which is woven throughout the site on section fronts, special reports, and story pages--previously cost $4.95 a month. CNN.com's initiative to make its video content available, while a bid for more traffic and ad dollars, also reflects the background of CNN President Jonathan Klein. He came to the Turner Broadcasting unit from the FeedRoom, a company he founded that builds broadband Web sites and streams online content.

Visitors will be able to view various on-demand videos across a variety of topics, including politics, world news, business, sports, entertainment, science, and technology. A specially designed video player--attached to a 728 x 90 banner--will allow users to search and organize videos. CNN also plans to offer marketers the opportunity to run ads up to 30 seconds long.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Microsoft readies BitTorrent alternative

Researchers at Microsoft's Cambridge, England, labs are developing a file-sharing technology that they say could make it easier to distribute big files such as films, television programs and software applications to end-users over the Internet.

Code-named Avalanche, the technology is similar to existing peer-to-peer (P-to-P) file swapping systems such as BitTorrent's, in the sense that large files can be divided into many smaller pieces to ease their distribution, James Niccolai, of IDG News Service, reported. End users request the file parts from other users' hard drives and reassemble them to create the original file.

Such systems can scale well to serve millions of users, and reduce the band-width and computing costs of sending content directly to users from central servers. Some have also irritated publishers who complain the services are used to share copyright works illegally.

The problem with existing systems, according to Microsoft, is that people sometimes have wait a long time to receive the last, "rare" pieces of a file. This is made worse when clients drop off line unexpectedly and creates bottle-necks when only a few clients have files that are in high demand.

The system differs from BitTorrent's eponymous software in a few ways, Key said. It does not depend on central servers, called "trackers," to orchestrate the download. The Avalanche client on each PC shares the files automatically among users; they do not look at other users' hard drives to find what they want. And the system works well in smaller networks, such as a corporate intranet, he said.

Perhaps more importantly for content creators, Microsoft claims its system prevents users from redistributing copyright material, because Avalanche will only forward files that have been signed by the publisher.

The software may also be interesting to TV broadcasters and movie studios. Microsoft has been in talks with both groups, and Avalanche may be introduced to users in the U.K. as early as next year, he said.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began testing a service last month that lets people download TV and radio programs using a P-to-P system from Kontiki. It is not looking at Avalanche currently, but will put the contract out for public tender before launching the service, said Chris Charlton, a BBC spokesman.

Read the article: www.infoworld.com

Music industry cheered by sinking of pirates

The record industry's hardline stance on illegal downloads appears to be paying off, with the number of people paying for them expected to overtake the pirates within a year.

An increasing number of people are opting to buy downloads rather than risk prosecution, according to the 2005 Digital Music Survey to be released today. Some 35% of music consumers now legally download, compared to 40% of those who do so illegally. Nearly a quarter of people said they would start legally downloading soon, compared with 16% in 2004.

"I think there is a good chance that we will see legal downloaders outnumber pirates in the next six to 12 months," said Russell Hart, chief executive of Entertainment Media Research, which conducted the survey.

Fear of prosecution was the number one reason music consumers were put off downloading illegally. About 44% of survey respondents cited fear of prosecution, 39% said illegal downloading was unfair on the artists, and 29% were concerned about viruses.

Children aged 13-17 and women were most likely to be concerned about being taken to court for music piracy. EMR believes illegal downloading is on the wane, as 65% of people who have pirated music claim they will do so less often in the future.

The main reasons people didn't download music was because they preferred CDs (58%) or because they thought it was too expensive (35%).

Downloading is still more popular among males (39%) than females (31%) while 44% of men aged 18-24 download. But the next generation of downloaders is expected to include more women (24.5% intended to download in the future) than men (21.5%).

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

An onslaught of hidden ads

Toyota Motor Corp. has asked at least three major magazine companies to explore product integration -- that's product placement to you and me -- of its cars into magazine editorial pages. Say hello to another indicator of changing media mores.

There's no sign that Hearst Magazines, Meredith, and Advance Publications, the parent of Condé Nast Publications, are going along with what would be a major breach of the traditional wall between magazine editorial and advertising units. Still, it's a time, says Deborah Wahl Meyer, vice-president for marketing at Lexus, in which "ideas can cross between advertising and editorial. It doesn't always need to have the 'advertorial' note on top." Indeed, when Toyota came calling at each publisher, its execs talked up a favorite marketing coup: this year's multimillion-dollar deal that put its vehicles on reality-TV show The Contender.

Read the article: www.businessweek.com

Americans 'prefer' DVDs to cinema

Most Americans would now rather watch films at home than at the cinema, a poll has suggested.
Seventy three per cent of adults said they preferred watching movies at home on DVD, video or pay-per-view to going to a cinema. The survey of 1,000 adults also found that 47% said films were getting worse.

The results come as the US box office experiences its worst slump in 20 years. The number of cinema-goers has dropped for the last two years running. Just 22% of people said they would rather see films at the cinema, in the survey for the Associated Press news agency and AOL News.

Read the article: www.news.bbc.co.uk

Study prototypes DVR users, finds 'Live' TV still the 'Norm'

ESPN unveiled the latest findings from an ongoing tracking study of digital video recorder users, and the research suggests that the vast majority of DVR households are relatively new to the technology, and have yet to have their TV viewing behavior substantially altered by it. About two-thirds of DVR owners got their devices within the past six-months, and 85 percent of them own only one; 15 percent own two, according to the findings, revealed by Artie Bulgrin, senior vice president-research and sales development at ESPN, during a presentation at the Carat Digital Exchange in New York.

While those statistics may not be surprising, Bulgrin said the research also suggests DVRs are actually leading to more family-viewing, as household members gather around the TV set connected to the DVR. He said 68 percent of viewing in DVR households is now done to the TV connected to the DVR. Another key finding is that 60 percent of all viewing in DVR households is done "live," and that a majority of DVR owners still consider live TV viewing to be "the norm."

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Coming to a hard disk near you

The FBI doesn't like it. The Department of Homeland Security is so concerned that it has closed down websites related to it. The Moving Picture Association of America is waging a war against it. And every day millions of people around the world use it to share music, TV programmes and movies.
The "it" is BitTorrent - a computer program that's the brainchild of the softly-spoken Bram Cohen. It is a super-smart way to share huge files over the internet, and one which, depending on whose side of the argument you listen to, is either an evil tool for those involved with copyright theft, or a work of genius set to transform the media industry as we know it.

Recent research has shown that, last year, BitTorrent was responsible for one third of all traffic on the internet. That's one third. And this despite a wave of legal activity against the peer-to-peer technology (P2P) that underpins Cohen's brainchild.

In essence, BitTorrent is just the latest in a line of programs that started with Napster and allows individuals to swap information with each other over the internet. An OECD report on digital music released this week revealed that at any one time there are as many as 10 million people exchanging files using all forms of P2P. Business Week has estimated that the total number of users could be as high as 100 million.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Apple and Sundance channel sign podcast deal

Podcasting comes home to the mother ship as Apple and the Sundance Channel announce a deal that will make content from the cable network exclusively available as podcast downloads from the Apple iTunes Web site.

The partnership with Sundance gives iTunes one of its first exclusive podcast partners and inches Apple's iTunes operations -- originally created as a music distribution hub -- toward becoming a broader, radio-like media entity.

In March, approximately 1.7 million U.S. households downloaded a song from iTunes, according to a study by NPD Group.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been personally publicizing the new podcast-enabled version of iTunes, due out in July. At Apple’s recent Worldwide Developer’s Forum in San Francisco he called podcasts “the hottest thing going on in radio.”

Read the article: www.adage.com

700,000 download Beethoven music

Nearly 700,000 listeners of BBC Radio 3 downloaded live performances of Beethoven's first five symphonies, with number one proving the most popular.
The music was performed as part of The Beethoven Experience on Radio 3 and free downloads were available for a week-long trial.

The pieces were performed by the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester. Roger Wright, Radio 3 controller said: "We hope it will encourage audiences to explore online classical music. "This trial was all about gauging listeners' appetite for downloads and the results are astonishing."

Read the article: www.news.bbc.co.uk

Procter & Gamble slashes US TV advertising

Procter & Gamble, one of the world's most influential advertisers, is reportedly slashing its US television advertising budget.
The giant packaged goods company, which makes everything from Ariel to Hugo Boss fragrances and recently bought Gillette, is to slash its spending on cable TV by 25% and on terrestrial budgets by 5%, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Procter & Gamble, which last year spent £1.4bn - 80% of its advertising budget - on TV, would not confirm the figures.

The move came to light while the company negotiated its spending with TV networks during the "upfront" season, where major advertisers of the stature of Procter & Gamble buy airtime in bulk deals at the start of the year to save money.

The development has been interpreted as a sign of the growing power of advert avoidance technology such as Sky+ and Tivo personal video recorders, but some analysts believe the Procter & Gamble tactic might be a negotiating ploy to save money, with the advertiser scooping up cheap airtime later in the season.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Come on music biz, embrace P2P

File-swapping networks alone are not to blame for the recording industry's woes and might plausibly be converted into legitimate channels for distributing music, one of Europe's most influential economic bodies has concluded.

In a report issued Monday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development -- a Paris-based alliance of developed nations -- also suggested that it's difficult to establish a link between piracy and the music industry's shrinking revenues.

The report said a "re-evaluation" of music distribution needs to happen to achieve a balance between consumers' desire to access digital music and the industry's copyright protection concerns.

"Online technologies could evolve in a manner in which unauthorized use of copyright works are finally transformed into legitimate businesses," said Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, an OECD economist and one of the report's authors.

The report said it is difficult to establish a causal connection between the rise of file sharing and a drop in music sales. While the music industry's revenues fell 20 percent from 1999 to 2003, other factors, such as illegal CD copying, might have played a role in the decline, the OECD said.

The OECD is an international organization that promotes democracy and free trade. It was formed to administer the Marshall plan after WWII.

The report recognized the value of fledgling online stores like Apple's iTunes. Last year represented a "turning point" for legal music downloads, the study said.

However, online music distribution only accounted for 1 to 2 percent of music revenues in 2004. The OECD expects to see that climb to 5 to 10 percent of revenues. But growing online sales will depend on expanding catalogs to appease demand and sway illegal downloads, the OECD said.

The report also suggested exploring new distribution methods, beyond what the OECD called traditional "fee per economic unit" transactions.

Instead of paying a set fee to download an individual song, music downloads might become part of a subscription package from a cable television company, internet service provider or mobile-phone carrier, the OECD said.

The OECD report said P2P networks have legitimate uses beyond trading copyright music and movies. P2P networking is a "new and innovative technology which finds increasingly useful applications in new communication and other services," the report said.

Read the article: www.wired.com

The celebrity solution

Sean (P. Diddy) Combs had pimples. Not surprisingly, he went to a top-notch specialist, and this person recommended an acne-fighting product called Proactiv Solution, which is probably best known in the context of infomercials. Combs was appalled: ''You want me to use, on my face, something from an infomercial?'' This, at least, is the story that Combs himself tells . . . in the latest infomercial for Proactiv Solution. June marks the 10th year that Proactiv infomercials have been on the air, and the current 30-minute version has a more star-studded lineup than most talk shows. In addition to Combs, there are Jessica Simpson and Alicia Keys. The host is Vanessa Williams.

Perhaps many of us remain as skeptical of products peddled in paid programming that runs late at night as P. Diddy used to be, but apparently not all of us. The Proactiv infomercial that he's in also announces that the stuff is the ''best-selling acne system in America.'' The company that sells Proactiv, Guthy-Renker, claims annual revenue of more than $1 billion, all from products sold this way (from Marilu Henner's weight-loss program to Tony Robbins's motivational tapes). Advertising Age has credited Guthy-Renker's well-crafted productions as an example of ''branded entertainment.''

It still seems a little startling that a celebrity with Combs's or Keys's wattage would venture into the form. But Karen Barner, senior vice president for marketing at Guthy-Renker, says that ''the stigma of the infomercial industry has waned quite drastically in the last 20 years.'' She also calls Guthy-Renker's infomercials ''shows.''

Read the article: www.nytimes.com

TiVo mobile video service now on Microsoft devices

TiVo Inc. on Wednesday said it extended its TiVoToGo portable video service to pocket computers and mobile phones running Microsoft software, as the television recording company beefed up its offerings in an effort to differentiate from its rivals.

TiVo said TiVoToGo is now available on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Centers -- paperback-sized devices that can play digital music and videos -- as well as certain Windows Mobile-based Smartphones and PocketPCs handheld computers.

The move improves on TiVo's TiVoToGo initiative, announced earlier this year, that allows users to shift recorded TV programs to a personal computer in the same home.

The new feature lets them travel with those shows, and watch them on devices made by companies such as iRiver, Samsung Electronics, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Dell Inc.

Read the article: www.reuters.com

Invertising: the future of advertising when consumers control the media

The Latin root of "advertise" - adertere - literally means "to turn towards." It is the same root for the word "adversary." This sense of confrontation at the essence of advertising may be what undergoes the most radical change in the next decade of marketing sponsorship.

Contrary to popular wisdom, consumers do not hate advertising per se. People continue to buy through catalogs that arrive in their mailboxes; search advertising is booming because people click ads targeted to their queries; and we can all hum a dozen favorite TV jingles.

Yet, in this world of hyper-fragmented media and too many marketing messages, consumers are acting to avoid the overload, paying for the unadulterated media they want, and investing in technology to strip out unwanted ads. With the skyrocketing popularity of blogging and TiVo, iPods, NetFlix, and peer-to-peer networks, consumers are starting to expect more control over their entire media experience, a phenomenon at odds with interruptive advertising.

The popularity of consumer-controlled media arguably has more to do with consumers' desire for the exact media they want when they want it than it has to do with ad avoidance. Nonetheless, the same tools that enable consumers to skip ads if they want to, raise the bar considerably for advertisers.

Procter & Gamble Chief Marketing Officer Jim Stengel told the audience at the American Association of Advertising Agencies' media conference last year: "All marketing should be permission marketing. All marketing should be so appealing that consumers want us in their lives."

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Wal-Mart's new realm: reality TV

Wal-Mart, seeking additional ways to burnish its tarnished image, is turning to a new realm: reality TV.

For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores is becoming a major sponsor of a reality television show, by signing a branded-entertainment agreement with ABC for "The Scholar," a summer series that begins a six-week run on Monday night. Wal-Mart will be woven into the plots of episodes of the show, which is centered on a competition among 10 high school seniors from across the country for a grand prize of a full college scholarship, valued at $250,000, covering tuition and expenses.

The students will compete in a variety of academic, creative and social tasks, including team challenges, oral exams and defending themselves before a scholarship committee. In one challenge, the five members of the winning team each receive a $2,000 Wal-Mart gift card to outfit their dormitory rooms. And Wal-Mart is underwriting the cost of the scholarships for the nine runners-up, totaling $300,000. (The Broad Foundation in Los Angeles is donating the grand prize.)

"We don't usually do sponsorships of any show, no matter what the format is," said Betsy Reithemeyer, executive director of the foundation and vice president for corporate affairs at Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Ark.

But "The Scholar" was "different from anything brought to us before," she added, because it is "a unique way to get out the message on national television that we're supporting education."

Read the article: www.nytimes.com

Gadget promos creep into TV shows

Tech product placement is going into overdrive, with several prime-time shows basing plot lines around hip gadgets and gizmos. And soon, thanks to interactive "object-tracking" technology, consumers may be able to buy featured products with a click of the remote.

As consumers turn away from traditional advertising, tech marketers are picking up the slack by weaving lots of gadgets into the fabric of TV shows and movies. The net, video games and ad-skipping DVRs are forcing marketers to focus more attention on "branded entertainment."

Movies like Sony Pictures' Hitch, starring Will Smith, gave prominent placement to several Sony products, as well as the popular BlackBerry e-mail device. The plots of high-energy shows like CBS' CSI franchise, and Fox's 24 and Alias, often hinge on technology. The first season of 24, in fact, made novel use of competing computer platforms to denote the goodies and the villains.

"Nobody watches traditional commercials anymore," said Richard Rizzuto, senior partner and CEO of New York City-based RPR Marketing Solutions."In five years, it's going to be 90 percent branded entertainment and 10 percent traditional advertisi

Read the article: www.wired.com

The other side of BitTorrent

Film and television executives no doubt wish the increasingly popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing system never saw the light of day. Thousands of consumers are using the software to download hundreds of movies and hours upon hours of television programming.

But one industry's threat is another's opportunity. There's an upside to allowing viewers to transfer copyright material content over BitTorrent.

As noted by Japanese entrepreneur Joi Ito, fans of the Japanese anime series Naruto regularly post translated episodes of the show to BitTorrent, which attracts more fans to the series.

The relatively obscure program has spawned a global following in online forums, internet relay chat channels and fan sites.

With box sets and special edition DVDs, Ito wrote, the copyright holders can make a tidy sum from fans prepared to "spend thousands of dollars on one show."

However, not everyone is convinced BitTorrent will level the playing field. Heavy.com, a New York-based independent online content provider and marketing outfit, said cheap and easy distribution is only a part of the equation.

Heavy already distributes some content over peer-to-peer networks to "get the word out," said co-CEO Simon Assaad. But he doesn't expect an immediate content shake-up to overthrow the majors.

"People assume that because it's open to everyone there'll be this mass movement of people making quality content that everyone can access, and I don't think that's true," he said.

Even if independents can produce quality content, the marketing clout required to generate an audience will make it harder for smaller players. "Marketing is getting harder as people's attention gets fragmented," Assaad said.

Still, Assaad said word of mouth and community building can work. "You could be a smart marketer and spend a thousand bucks if you spend it in the right places," he said.

Read the article: www.wired.com

Win, draw for Burnett branding

Call it a tale of two series. "The Apprentice" and "The Contender," two reality shows loaded with product integrations this past season, had very different outcomes for advertisers who paid record fees for their products to be featured in the programs executive produced by Mark Burnett, widely considered to be the king of reality TV and brand integration.

Despite a double-digit decline in ratings for "The Apprentice" in its second year on the air, representatives for many of the brands integrated in the series at a cost of $1 million-$4 million per episode say they had some of the most astounding marketing successes to date that could be directly tied to branded entertainment. The brands featured in "The Contender" had more of an uphill climb in reaching a broad audience, given the show's weaker-than-expected ratings, but it turns out that at least some of "Contender's" integration sponsors had a safety net built into their deals that is quite unusual in the branded entertainment realm.

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