"Nickelodeon At Sea" Hits The High Seas In Asia

From Kidscreen:

Nickelodeon hits the high seas in Asia

Viacom International Media Networks Asia and Asia-Pacific cruise line Star Cruises have expanded their partnership to launch the first "Nickelodeon At Sea" cruises in Asia.

Co-sponsored by Mondial Assistance, the cruises are set to run from November 11 to December 30, 2012 on cruise lines SuperStar Virgo (pictured) and SuperStar Libra.

A total of 55 "Nickelodeon At Sea" cruises are planned, featuring popular Nick brands SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego! Go!. Activities include character meet and greets, afternoon tea events, arts and crafts programs, treasure hunts, Nickelodeon-themed rooms and meals, and kids can even get covered in Nick’s famous green slime.

The latest cruises come on the heels Nickelodeon’s successful “SpongeBob at Sea” cruises which launched in 2011.

Tags: Nickelodeon At Sea, Star Cruises, Viacom International Media Networks Asia

eOne Inks New Broadcast Sales Down Under For "Ben And Holly's Little Kingdom", "Humf", "Lost And Found", "Peppa Pig", "Rob The Robot", And "The Secret World Of Benjamin Bear"

From Kidscreen:

eOne inks new broadcast sales Down Under

eOne Family has secured new broadcast sales in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa for several preschool series including Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom.

In Australia, ABC has renewed the animated The Secret World of Benjamin Bear and picked up Rob the Robot season two, both produced by Amberwood Entertainment, as well as season five and six of eOne's Peppa Pig.

For New Zealand, TVNZ has snapped up Lost and Found for TV2, and Peppa Pig will debut on its Kidzone channel. In addition, Mediaworks has picked up Peppa Pig, Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom and Humf for channel Four.

Meanwhile, South Africa's ETV has scooped up Peppa Pig season one through six, which began airing on the channel last month.

Tags: Australia, Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom, eOne Family, Humf, Lost and Found, New Zealand, Peppa Pig, Rob the Robot, South Africa, The Secret World of Benjamin Bear

NickToons UK Celebrating The 2012 Summer School Holidays By Showing Classic Nicktoons!

According to Nickelodeon UK and Ireland on their official Twitter profile page (@NickelodeonUK), for one week (this week) only, to celebrate the summer school holidays, Nickelodeon UK's animation channel, NickToons UK and Ireland, will be going through the Nickelodeon Archives and will be showing the classic animated original Nickelodeon shows ("Nicktoons") "The Ren and Stimpy Show", "Hey Arnold!" and "Invader Zim" every weeknight from 7.00pm from Monday 23rd July 2012 to Friday 27th July 2012 (similar to NickToons' 'Toonz2nite' Classic Nicktoon programming block from the mid 2000's)!:

Check out old skool Ren & Stimpy and Rocko’s Modern Life every night THIS WEEK 7pm on Nicktoons!

According to Nickelodeon UK's "What's On" schedule section for NickToons on the official Nickelodeon UK and Ireland website, Nick.co.uk, below is NickToons' Classic Nicktoon line-up:

7:00pm - Invader Zim
7:30pm - Hey Arnold
8:00pm - Ren and Stimpy
8:30pm - Hey Arnold
9:00pm - Ren and Stimpy
9:30pm - Invader Zim

As well as Nicktoons UK and Ireland's week-long Classic Nicktoon programming block, NickToons UK and Eire will also be showing the classic Nicktoon's "Invader Zim" and "The Ren and Stimpy Show" every night from 11.00pm:

11:00pm - Invader Zim
11:30pm - Ren and Stimpy

PLUS, the classic animated Nickelodeon show "Rocko's Modern Life" every weeknight at 10.30pm!

They're not just cartoons, they're Nicktoons!

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

TV Market Broken As Viewers Pay More, U.S. Senator Says

From Bloomberg:

TV Market Broken as Viewers Pay More, U.S. Senator Says

Consumers' television bills keep climbing and blackouts of popular programs have become common, showing that marketplace rules set in the 1990s may need to be changed, a U.S. senator said.

“Consumers are still forced to purchase larger and larger packages of channels,” Senator Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the Commerce Committee, said at a hearing on cable regulation. “The market isn’t working. Real competition should be bringing rates down.”

The session was part of a series of hearings in both houses of Congress to consider updating laws that govern the broadcast, cable and satellite industries. No change will pass this year because the topic is complex, Rockefeller told reporters April 25.

Regulation hasn’t kept pace with the rise of satellite broadcasters DirecTV (DTV) and Dish Network Corp. (DISH), or the spread of high-speed Internet links used by services such as Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Barry Diller’s online Aereo Inc. that provides broadcast signals without a cable subscription, lawmakers and industry officials have said.

Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, said Congress should repeal the 1992 law that lets TV stations charge cable providers for broadcast signals.

“It was a right created out of whole cloth to combat a cable monopoly,” DeMint said. That monopoly no longer exists after inroads from competitors, including satellite providers, he said.

Negotiating Power

Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he wouldn’t support “radical proposals” to repeal the 1992 law.

“It would result in, probably, very few broadcasters being around,” Kerry said. “I want to preserve local broadcasting.”

“There’s a real divide here, and it’s going to be interesting to see how we manage it,” Kerry said.

Service disruptions caused by disputes over how much cable providers should pay broadcasters for their signals are a source of concern and Americans “deserve answers as to why their screens have gone dark,” Rockefeller said. Consumers should get refunds when they lose channels, he said.

The incidence of blackouts has spiked as broadcasters have become increasingly willing to withhold programming during fee disputes, Melinda Witmer, executive vice president at New York- based Time Warner, the second-largest U.S. cable company by revenue, said in testimony submitted to the panel. So far this year there have been 69 instances with programming being withheld in fee disputes, Witmer said.

World Series

Cable and satellite providers are seeking federal help as broadcasters seek more fees for program carriage. Pay-TV companies paid $1 billion in retransmission fees to local affiliate broadcast channels in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

New York-area consumers in 2010 missed games in Major League Baseball’s World Series and the opening minutes of the Academy Awards in disputes between Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) and News Corp. (NWSA)’s Fox and Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s ABC.

Viacom Inc. (VIAB), owner of the MTV and Nickelodeon networks, on July 20 announced a new programming fee agreement with DirecTV, ending a 10-day blackout for the satellite-TV service’s 20 million U.S. viewers.

Other program outages affected Time Warner, Dish Network Corp. and DirecTV, the FCC said last year as it began examining rules for retransmission negotiations. The FCC doesn’t have power to demand binding arbitration or to order TV stations’ signals restored during disagreements, officials said.

Market Power

Increased competition lets broadcasters play the cable companies and other pay-TV providers against each other, Time Warner’s Witmer said. Laws don’t let cable companies buy a broadcast signal from alternative sources, leaving them to deal exclusively with local stations, Witmer said.

Stations should be able to negotiate for compensation because they provide most of the top-rated shows, Gordon Smith, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, said in testimony submitted to the committee.

“When some suggest that these laws are ripe for a rewrite, they misstate history and facts,” Smith said. Members of his Washington-based trade group include ABC, Fox, Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s NBC and CBS Corp. (CBS)

Broadcast stations account for 35 percent of TV viewership and receive less than 7 percent of program carriage fees, Smith said.

Rewriting Laws

TV executives are watching for signs lawmakers may rewrite the carriage laws, Paul Gallant, a Washington-based analyst with Guggenheim Securities, said in an interview before the hearing.

“Broadcasters have a fair amount of leverage to raise fees,” Gallant said. “Their concern is Congress could undercut that leverage.”

A June 27 hearing before a House panel showed that “a good number of members” want to consider rewriting the rules surrounding blackouts, Gallant said.

Publicis Sees More Ad Market Deals

From Bloomberg via GulfNews.com:

Publicis sees more ad market deals

Global advertising industry is predicted to grow 4.3% this year

[...] Publicis expects a rebound that will give them growth that is expected to be higher than in the first quarter.

New York: Publicis Chief Executive Officer Maurice Levy, whose company has made more than a dozen acquisitions this year, predicts more consolidation in the advertising industry even if some prices, like those for London’s Aegis Plc and the US’s AKQA, are too high.

Levy said Publicis looked at buying both Aegis, which was acquired by Dentsu Inc. recently for £3.16 billion ($5 billion) and AKQA, which WPP Plc agreed to buy late last month for $540 million.

“On both companies, we decided to pass, considering that we have no strategic issues with those two assets,” Levy said in an interview on July 19. “We also considered the price paid was too high.”

Publicis, the Paris-based owner of advertising agencies including Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi, will continue to expand by buying digital assets and companies in fast-growing markets. First-half profit at the world’s third-largest advertising company rose 19 percent, though organic growth, which strips out effects from acquisitions and mergers, rose 2.8 percent, as clients cut spending amid the European debt crisis and it lost a $3 billion annual advertising contract with General Motors.

Levy, who earlier this year warned that growth would slow in the second quarter, said Publicis expects “a rebound that will give us growth that is expected to be higher than in the first quarter.”

Health care has been the worst performing segment for the advertising business, he said, as many of the big pharmaceutical companies faced restructuring.

New business


Net income for first half was €275 million ($337 million), while revenue rose 14 per cent to €3.08 billion. The company won $1.8 billion of net new business in the first half from clients including Kraft Foods, Subway and Nickelodeon. Publicis is targeting 75 percent of revenue to come from digital companies and fast-growing markets in the medium term.

The most notable of Publicis’s acquisitions this year was the UK’s Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the ad agency behind the Johnnie Walker “Keep Walking” campaign and Levi Strauss & Co.’s “Flat Eric.”

Levy said last week’s agreement by Japan’s Dentsu to acquire Aegis was a smart move. “They paid a very full price but it makes strategic sense,” he said. “I’m not sure there’s a lot of synergies but Dentsu was looking for many years at the possibility of becoming a global player.” The move places Dentsu and Aegis among the largest advertising companies in the world such as WPP, Publicis and Omnicom Group Inc.
Slowing Growth

The global advertising industry is predicted to grow 4.3 per cent this year, down from an earlier forecast for 4.8 per cent, researcher ZenithOptimedia said in June. Marketing spending slowed in April and May amid fears that Greece would leave the European Union, it said.

WPP advertising researcher GroupM on July 20 cut its forecast for worldwide ad growth in 2012 to 5.1 per cent from 6.3 per cent, citing a decline in ad investment of 8.8 per cent in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Ad spending in the US is predicted to grow 3.6 per cent, from a 4 percent forecast late last year.