Those Verizon Dead Zone Commercials just crack me up. I love how well they're directed. I just saw the second one with the creepy kids. Too bad the service provided doesn't live up to the advertisement's promises. When I had Verizon I was constantly getting dropped calls. Anyone know who the director on these spots is?

Cable channels are bringing in more money than broadcast channels in advertising dollars this year. According to NY Times, "Preliminary figures for advance sales indicate that the cable channels will collectively sell about $8 billion in airtime to advertisers this season, up 7 to 8 percent from last year’s total." Broadcast channels are said to have raised their numbers by only about 1%.

As the Times points out, this shift in advertising dollars from broadcast to cable has been happening for a few years now. But this year it's an obvious gain for cable networks. That may have something to do with how bad network tv sucks these days.

It's fair to point out that the ad game has changed, so ratings are not the only reason for the shift. Advertisers are having to vary their targets so they are reaching out in ways they weren't before. There are a lot more niche channels, which certainly pull advertisements away from the general market and the broadcast networks. And, last winter's writers strike is cited as one the reasons that people headed over to cable channels for entertainment and therefore forcing those ad dollars to follow.

There really hasn't been, in my opinion a real push to draw back that viewership and regain those ad dollars. How about product placement? Oh, right.

It appears that NBC's "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" series will not tape any new shows after settling a lawsuit filed by the brother of the Texas county prosecutor that killed himself after being exposed by the show. The show reported explicit communication between the prosecutor and one of the show's investigative team members posing as a minor to the local authorities who then headed to his home to arrest him. Before the arrest could be made, he shot himself. The $150 million lawsuit settlement appears to be the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back."

For the like three or four of you that haven't seen it- The show often showed activist group, Perverted Justice, engaging in communication with men believing they were contacting underage boys and girls for sexual encounters and then luring them to a house where the cameras would "catch" them in the act and local authorities would be waiting to arrest them. It was a wildly popular show. But it turns out that many of the charges in the arrests made were ultimately dropped.

NBC says it stands by the investigations, but thinks the series has become to highly charged to continue. Seems like the show was difficult to sustain even without its legal troubles. Towards the end of production for the show, the NY Times talked about how advertisers were distancing themselves from the show anyway. No one wanted to be associated with a show about pedophiles. And it's said that NBC "spent tens of thousands of dollars on each sting, installing hidden cameras and microphones. It has also paid Perverted Justice a consulting fee of roughly $70,000 for each episode."

So while the show was good for viewership it was bad for business. I guess NBC won't be going down that road again.

This commercial gets me everytime. Each time I watch it, it just cracks up. I don't really have much to say about it, because I'm too busy lmao. But I love that Mustard is eating a salad. And the blue cowboy boots are classic.

Enjoy!

For anyone who isn't familiar with RedBand trailers, they're basically the adult version of what you see on TV. This means increased gore, cursing and maybe the occasional nip-slip. RedBand speaks the truth and gives us what we want in an ad (trailer). But does it give away too much of the final product?

Well not so much in this case, but I was talking with a friend of mine and we agree that the RB trailers trump anything made for TV broadcast.

We hear Tom Cruise will be making an appearance (this is not new by any means) at some point, and as you'll see in the trailer there's lots of referential comedy. I especially like the Eddie Murphy rip.

Reminds me — there's a new Murphy flick coming out called Meet Dave. Yet another shitty-looking piece by the once leather-clad comedian. Ugh, makes me shudder just thinking about it.

How did we miss this? There's a senior account manager from the Orlando based Knight Agency on The Bachelor? No shit. Maybe we missed it because The Bachelor, despite rolling into its 12th season with unusually high ratings, has never appealed to us.

Nonetheless, the 27-year old Amanda Rantuccio, was recently cut from the shows girly line-up and we missed it. She made it to the final three before being cut. The final episode of the show is set to air on May 12th.

"She made a guest appearance last week on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, but don't look for more TV in Rantuccio's future. She is back to advertising.

She had her boss' support: Together, they weighed the pros and cons before she went on the show. She has no regrets about the experience."

Guess her boss thought it would be great PR for the agency. Um, so... why don't you guys have a web page that can be reasonably found in less than fifteen minutes? Seriously. Ad agencies have got to get better about using search engines. Good luck to Amanda (she really liked the dude) and good luck to the little agency that should have... Sheesh.

A UK-targeted Kellogg's ad, created by Leo Burnett London, has been cleared of making light of the sexual abuse of young people.

The ad for a Nutri-Grain cereal bar was set in a doctor’s examination room, with a young man complaining of hunger pangs.

An older man, a baker posing as a doctor, hands the younger man a cereal bar and asked him to take his trousers off.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK regulating board for advertising, said 42 complaints were received from viewers who thought the ad was suggestive of sexual abuse, and was not suitable to be broadcast to children.

However, the ASA said that the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence. Leo Burnett said they'd replace the offensive line for future broadcasts of the ad.

Kudos to the kids at Leo Burnett for creating the controversy -- taking the ad standard practice of "sex sells" to a whole new level.

Catch this - soon, there will be a brand spanking new premium movie channel. Viacom, Paramount Pictures, MGM Studios, and Lionsgate have announced a partnership that will launch in 2009. This yet-to-be-named station may put Showtime out of business. As the wonderful website Ars Technica points out, Showtime has contracts with all of these studios, which are about to expire. Doh!

Why do I mention this? Because, naturally, there's going to be an online arm to this baby and I'm fascinated by the the struggle content providers face to deliver their goods direct to an evolving consumer. Who isn't?

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has said the site would be "oriented toward the consumer." He did not go in details but did say that there might be fewer restrictions in delivery since the studios actually own the content outright. Is this the new Movielink, which was an abysmal failure? True, it was early days with that site launched and the DRM issues, as well as its PCs only format certainly held it back.

This new venture is a chance for the movie studios to get it right with completely on-demand content, streaming ads and hopefully, international access. We shall see.

I wasn't going to post this, but seriously... what the hell is wrong with the CW Network? The finally have a hit in Gossip Girl. Finally. And yet, because more consumers are watching the show online, they've yanked the streams in an attempt to force viewers to watch it in real time.

Sorry, sorry, but is it 2002? Have networks gleaned nothing about the future of on-demand content? Plus, what about the strong evidence that shows that making programs available on the Web increases exposure which, in turn, builds an audience for broadcast episodes, thus increasing the network's ability to charge more dollars for advertising? Idiots.

CW is backass backwards. It's the little network that should be following the lead of smarter players such as NBC. In the face of CW pulling the streams, I'm going to go back to downloading full episodes from P2P networks where there are no commercials at all.

Nielsen is getting ready to acquire IAG Research for $225 million. According to Adweek, IAG is a privately held firm that measures consumer engagement with television programs, national commercials and product placements. Meanwhile, AdAge recently asked the question: Can "TV-ratings kingpin Nielsen maintain its dominance as the gold standard by which video advertising is priced?" Competitors abound and the first to provide marketers with real time data will win the rat race.

Tracey Scheppach, senior VP-video innovations director at Starcom USA, pointed out the obvious: "It's hard for a monopoly to be the force of innovation."

Big companies lumber along. They can be unwieldy and slow to make changes. Although, Nielsen is looking pretty nimble these days (the company has snapped up Telephia, Audience Analytics and Buzz Metrics, too) they can't buy the whole lot of 'em including Rentrak, TNS and the pugilistic Group M's Irwin Gottlieb and his mafia.

Alan Wurtzel, NBC Universal's president-research, said:

"The digital world has taught us that there can be a couple of guys in a garage somewhere that can topple mighty corporate entities, because some of it is just new ways of thinking and just figuring out a better mousetrap."

Nielsen is going to fight to the death and our bet is that they hang in their better than anyone is predicting. The entire piece is worth a read, outlining various threats, dilemmas and offering an interview with Susan Whiting (pictured left), Nielsen exec VP who oversees development and sales. Grab your lunch and get to it.