The Year in Media

The Year in Media | Comedy’s Comeback on TV

By BILL CARTER

Staff members of The Times’s media news department are highlighting the most significant developments this year in the industries they cover.

On the morning of Sept. 20, the hierarchy of CBS sat by their smartphones awaiting information that might be, in the jargon of television, a game changer.

Viewers had been expected to show up in big numbers to watch the hit comedy “Two and a Half Men” following the clangorous exit of Charlie Sheen and his replacement by the Twitter-mad Ashton Kutcher. But nobody expected the results CBS encountered that Tuesday morning. The reconstituted “Two and a Half Men” had attracted 28 million viewers, an unheard-of number for scripted television shows. In the financially vital category of viewers from the ages of 18 to 49, it hit a 10.3 rating, a gain of 110 percent over the previous year.

CBS’s night of comedies was off to a spectacular start, one that coincided with a drop of more than 30 percent for one of television’s mightiest unscripted shows, “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. The moment signaled an incipient shift in the tastes of television viewers — away from the reality shows they had come to love and back toward the golden oldie of television entertainment: the sitcom.

Not only did new hits like “New Girl” on Fox and “Two Broke Girls” on CBS emerge to underscore the comedy comeback, but several long-running comedies, including “Modern Family” on ABC and “How I Met Your Mother” on CBS, saw ratings surge to all-time highs.

Viral Spiral, 2006-11

Living helix of passed-along ads reveals the exponential growth of video sharing on the social web

By Tim Nudd

Unruly is interested in the sharing of online video, not just the viewing of it. And the Viral Spiral really illustrates—in a much more powerful, visual way than a set of numbers—just how much video-sharing is growing on the web. For example, look at the Dove "Evolution" spot from 2006 or the Cadbury "Gorilla" spot from 2007. Those were considered viral juggernauts at the time, but had just a tiny fraction of the shares of any of 2011's top five.

The other great thing about this infographic is that it lives and breathes. Hovering over any circle brings it to life—and clicking on it opens the full video in a new window. Also, the share numbers are updated three times a day for all videos, going all the way down the spiral. It will be interesting to see whether this growth in sharing continues at quite this pace in 2012.

15% Of Online Videos Viewed In November Were Ads

By Megan O'Neill

People are watching more video ads than ever before.  Earlier this month new statistics showed that in the third quarter of 2011 online video ad growth surpassed online video view growth and online video revenues are set to triple in 2011.  New data from comScore just adds to the proof that online video is bigger than ever.  According to comScore’s November 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings, video ads accounted for 15 percent of all videos viewed in November and 1.3 percent of all the minutes spent viewing online videos.

comScore reports, “Americans viewed 7.2 billion video ads in November, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.3 billion, followed by Tremor Video in second with 1.1 billion.”  Adap.tv, BrightRoll Video Network, Specific Media, CBS Interactive, TubeMogul Video Ad Platform, Microsoft, AOL and SpotXchange Video Ad Marketplace finished out the list of top U.S. online video Ad properties, according to the number of ads viewed.

Although Hulu clocked in with the most video ads, Tremor media delivered the highest duration of video ads.  Tremor aired 594 million minutes of ads while Hulu aired 565 million minutes.  The top 10 ad properties reached 52.4% of the U.S. population with their online video ads.

Joshua Cohen of Tubefilter crunched the numbers and found out that we’re each watching just under 16 minutes and 49 seconds worth of video ads per month, on average.  This, he reports, “is about one minute and 11 seconds shy of the amount of commercials and promotional spots you watch in one hour of television.”  That’s a statistic that makes me feel a little bit better about the amount of online video advertising we’re watching now, but also fills me with dread at how much more advertising they can cram into our online video viewing experience before we catch up to TV.

Do you feel at all overwhelmed with online video advertising yet?

TV 2011: By the numbers

The numbers don’t lie. People cared about two things this year — football and Snooki. See for yourself. Three charts rank what we watched on TV, what we talked about and what we read about in the past year.

Most watched TV programs of the year

1. “Super Bowl XLV-” -Fox-Feb. 6 - 111 million viewers

2. “AFC Championship” -CBS - Jan. 23- 54.9 million viewers

3. “NFC Championship” - Fox - Jan. 23 - 51.9 million viewers

4. “AFC Divisional Playoff” -CBS - Jan. 16 - 43.5 million viewers

5. “NFC Wildcard Game” - Fox -Jan. 9 - 39.3 million viewers

6. “Academy Awards” - ABC - Feb. 27 - 37.9 million viewers

7. “AFC Divisional Playoff” - CBS - Jan. 15 - 34 million viewers

8. “NFL Playoff Game 2” - NBC - Jan. 8 - 33.3 million viewers

9. “NFC Playoff” - Fox - Jan. 16 - 32.5 million viewers

10. Dolphins vs. Cowboys -CBS - Nov. 24 -30.9 million viewers

11. “NFC Playoff” - Fox -Jan. 15 - 30.8 million viewers

12. Packers vs. Lions - Fox - Nov. 24 - 30.2 million viewers

13. “American Idol” - Fox - May 25 - 29.3 million viewers

13. “Two and a Half Men” -CBS - Sept. 19 - 28.7 million viewers

Source: Nielsen

Most read TV stories of the year @nypost.com

1. “Bottoms up!” — US Supreme Court’s decision to vacate the $1.21 million fine levied against ABC after a 2003 episode of “NYPD Blue” showed actress Charlotte Ross’ naked bum opens the way for more nudity in primetime.

2. “CBS reporter speaks gibberish on-air” — Strange case of an LA reporter’s breakdown during the red carpet arrivals at the Grammys.

3. “Couric offered ‘60 Min’ ” — CBS attempts to keep Katie Couric in the fold.

4. “Rosie to rescue?” Oprah Winfrey’s struggling cable networks bets its future on Rosie O’Donnell’s new talk show.

5. “Comedian Ricky Gervais ‘crossed the line’ with snarky jokes, Golden Globes boss says” — Gervais poking too much fun at celebs.

6. “New photos reveal slimmed-down Snooki”— Her weight-loss sucess.

7. “They’re back!” — “Beavis and Butt-head” return to MTV after long vacation.

8. “Florence mayor gives ‘Shore’ cast rules for filming” — What the “Shore” crew could and couldn’t do in Italy.

9. “ ‘Jersey Shore’ star almost takes bridge plunge”— Snapshots of Deena Cortese getting a little too up-close and personal with Florence’s River Arno.

10. “Rutgers University pays Snooki more than commencement address speaker” — For two Q&As with the “Shore” star, school paid $32,000, which was $2,000 more than Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.

Most-talked about TV events of the year on social media

1. “William & Kate: The Royal Wedding” April 29, 20115,641,263 viewers

2. “MTV Video Music Awards” Aug. 28, 20115,567,954 viewers

3. “Super Bowl” Feb. 6, 20113,037,241 viewers

4. “American Music Awards” Nov. 20, 20112,876,243 viewers

5. “Grammy Awards” Feb. 13, 20112,529,717 viewers

6. “Academy Awards” Feb. 27, 20112,015,118 viewers

7. “BET Hip Hop Awards” Oct. 11, 20111,519,794 viewers

8. “BET Awards” June 26, 20111,317,938 viewers

9. “Emmy Awards” Sept. 18, 20111,109,629 viewers

10. “Latin Grammy Awards” Nov. 10, 2011840,112 viewers

HOT MEDIA

Social Media Site
Facebook

Call it a bully, a new paradigm, a blessing, a curse—whatever you call Facebook, its presence and power is undeniable. Today the social network has more than 800 million members and is expected to more than double ad revenue to $3.8 billion by the end of this year. By the end of 2012, Facebook, which has a Klout score of 80 and won the Readers’ Choice poll for top social site, could control nearly 20 percent of all U.S. display ad revenue. In the past year, its monthly unique visitors climbed 10 percent to 166 million. By continuing to add music and lifestyle apps, Facebook hopes to differentiate itself even further with engagement.

Search Site
Google

In Internet time, 13-year-old Google is graying at the temples, but it still leads the pack in search with Adweek readers and users overall. Despite competition from Microsoft’s Bing and smaller startups, Google boasts a 65.6 percent market share. An endless stream of search queries helped Google earn record revenue—nearly $10 billion in Q3, up 33 percent from the previous year’s third quarter.

Gaming Company
Zynga

Thanks to hits like FarmVille and CityVille, Zynga is still the king of the social gaming world. Case in point: When the company filed for a $1 billion IPO in July, it reported revenue of $235 million for the first three months of the year. Its model of free games, with money coming from virtual good sales and advertising, seems to be paying off, and our readers agree. It topped our Adweek poll.

Mobile
Apple

Apple addicts got their fix this fall with the debut of the highly anticipated iPhone 4S and sidekick Siri, its cheeky, voice-controlled personal assistant. The hype, along with real improvements to Apple’s iOS—including iCloud, an 8MP camera, and faster performance—led to a record-breaking 4 million iPhones sold worldwide over the first weekend. Google’s Android may power more smartphones globally, but to Adweek readers and millions of iOS users, the iPhone shines brightest.
App
Angry Birds

It’s an Angry Birds world, and we just live in it. The game has been downloaded more than 500 million times in the past two years and has garnered a Klout score of 76. But the cultural footprint goes much further. Game maker Rovio is becoming a licensing powerhouse, with T-shirts, toys, Halloween costumes, and more. It’s also eyeing the entertainment industry, and there’s even a Hollywood movie in the works.

Startup
Spotify

Napster co-founder Sean Parker has called Spotify (where he’s an investor) the first online music service that can compete with piracy. Founded in Sweden, the U.K.-based company launched in the U.S. in July with sponsors Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, and Motorola, and now boasts 2.5 million paying U.S. and European subscribers (and 10 million total registered users). Last week, Spotify morphed into a bona fide platform, announcing plans to roll out apps. Partners include Rolling Stone and Billboard, and there are apps for ticket listings and lyrics. Apple and Facebook, take note.

Lifestyle Website
Tumblr

If Facebook is about connecting people, Tumblr is about tapping into their creativity. In the past year, the super-easy, hyper-customizable, and highly conversational micro-blogging platform has more than tripled traffic, logging more than 15 million unique visitors in October. The fast-growing site has a Klout score of 73 and is reportedly valued at about $800 million.

Sports Website
ESPN

In the highly competitive field of sports sites, ESPN is the top draft pick with Adweek readers. Not only is it fully loaded with a lineup that caters to both casual and diehard fans, but it also enjoys content that flows easily between the site and the cable box. The stats? Nearly 49 million unique monthly visitors and a Klout score of 86.

News Website
Huffington Post

HuffPo may not be popular among its peers—The New York Times recently filed a cease-and-desist for the website’s Parentlode blog, written by the Times former Motherlode writer—but the news aggregator continues to be a hit with users, growing since its acquisition in February by AOL by 40 percent to 35 million monthly uniques. With more to read (HuffPo’s sections have increased to 21), it’s no wonder the blog won Adweek’s Readers’ Choice poll. There’s a vertical for everyone.

Entertainment News Website
TMZ

As a news outlet, TMZ has made a name for itself the old-fashioned way: with (often unsavory) scoops. Since its founding six years ago, TMZ has transformed itself into the Politico of entertainment news, aggregating an enviable audience in the process. Today, TMZ gets an average of 17.5 million unique visitors per month and even boasts a spinoff syndicated series, TMZ on TV.

Streaming media
Spotify

Of all the streaming music services that have sprung up in recent years, perhaps none has posed so serious a threat to iTunes’ hegemony as Spotify. Unlike iTunes, Spotify is a social experience. Users can listen to their Facebook friends’ playlists and can then announce to the world what they’re listening to at any given moment. It also has two tiers of service: a paid subscription plan that is ad-free (sort of a Netflix for music) and an unpaid, ad-supported service. With its bold transition last week to a platform with integrated apps, Spotify’s “new direction” seems to be a great leap forward.  

Broadcast TV: CBS is the year's hottest network

By Anthony Crupi

CBS

Sorry, Charlie. Despite Team Tiger Blood’s attempts to destroy the franchise, Two and a Half Men is far and away the No. 1 scripted series on TV. Such is the state of affairs at CBS. Not only does Men command the highest ad rates ($250,000 a pop), but the once seemingly doomed show is joined by top-rated newcomer 2 Broke Girls and TV’s highest-rated drama (NCIS). Winning, indeed. CBS doesn’t need novelty to put up big numbers. Even an exile to Sunday night and the DVR-confounding NFL overruns hasn’t broken The Good Wife, and the aging Survivor franchise regularly finishes in the top 20. Reliable earners like Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory, and Mike & Molly also have conspired to land CBS in the catbird seat

Late Night
CBS

David Letterman may be more AARP than LOL, but don’t tell that to the Twitterati. With a Klout score of 72, The Late Show With David Letterman has more social media heat than Jimmy Fallon on NBC—plus he’s followed by the expert lunacy of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. Expect Dave to shine in what promises to be the most farcical election cycle in history as he puts pretenders to the White House–and his late-night throne–on the hot seat.

Drama
CBS

With a median age of 58 years (higher than even the network’s average), NCIS is one of broadcast’s oldest-skewing shows. It’s also the biggest scripted draw on the dial, averaging 19.6 million viewers season to date, and boasts a none-too-shabby Klout score of 68. Veterans like Criminal Minds are big earners in the ad and syndie markets, while new- and newishcomers (Person of Interest, NCIS: Los Angeles) are holding their own.

Prime-time Schedule
CBS

Through the first nine weeks of the season, CBS has opened up a comfortable lead in the ratings race, averaging 13 million viewers in prime time, 23 percent more than runner-up ABC. Despite delivering broadcast’s oldest audience (median age is 56), CBS is tied with Fox for first place in the crucial 18-49 demo, with a 3.4 rating. In a sense, CBS may be a victim of its own success. With little room on the schedule for anything new, the net is likely to kill off one of its workhorses. (Not a bad problem to have.)

Reality
Fox
Simon Cowell, the star-making, snark-lobbing judge and executive producer of The X Factor, is like a one-man Statler and Waldorf—just substitute the judges’ table for a balcony. The Idol impresario’s latest effort doesn’t reach the heights of his first stateside series, but X has helped give Fox its first big Q4 in memory. And Idol, of course, remains the standard against which all reality is measured. Advertisers will shell out as much as $500,000 per spot when it returns Jan. 22.

Sports
NBC
Little wonder Adweek readers gave NBC the winning nod. On Feb. 5, the Peacock net will host Super Bowl XLVI, which sets the table nicely for its stewardship of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Sunday Night Football is NBC’s sole bona fide hit. With an average draw of 19.7 million viewers and a 7.9 rating in the 18-49 demo, it’s also the biggest draw on TV.

Comedy
ABC
No matter how well Mr. Kelso Goes to Malibu performs for CBS, it’s the Pritchett-Dunphy axis on ABC’s Modern Family that made Americans fall in love with the sitcom all over again. The linchpin of a Wednesday night lineup that includes new hit Suburgatory and the Friends-with-benefits Happy Endings, Modern Family earns nearly a quarter-million dollars per :30.

Cable TV: AMC pulls ahead of the pack

By Anthony Crupi

Drama
AMC

In a three-way race that saw votes going to FX and a revitalized HBO, AMC thrived on the strength of its dead. Seething with self-righteousness and desperate for deliverance, the human survivors that populate The Walking Dead are becoming harder to distinguish from the ravenous corpses roaming the post-apocalyptic countryside—and viewers are eating it up. The most-watched series in cable history among the 18-49 set, The Walking Dead represents the apotheosis of AMC’s antihero stance—the literal evocation of spiritual rot. Don Draper and Walter White would be very much at home here. Not since HBO aired new installments of The Sopranos and The Wire has a network so faithfully (and relentlessly) captured the moral compromise of an age.

Comedy
FX

While uncompromisingly dark dramas like Sons of Anarchy are FX’s stock in trade, the network has insinuated itself with comedy nerds by way of the outré hits Louie, The League, Archer, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. When your rivals are poaching your wares—Comedy Central scooped up the off-net rights to Philly for $400,000 per episode—you’re on to something.

Sports
ESPN

In September, ESPN was the first NFL partner to re-up its TV contract with the league, signing an eight-year, $15.5 billion deal that will keep Monday Night Football in the ABC Sports family through 2021. Adweek readers were nearly unanimous in selecting the sports net; the $1.7 billion in ad sales ESPN stands to bring in this year made it official. 
Family
ABC Family

While ABC Family does brisk business with millennials, the channel’s reach isn’t limited to those who are still on the hunt for a learner’s permit. The success of original series like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Pretty Little Liars has allowed the Disney net to position itself as a must-buy for clients targeting women 18-49. Its biggest franchise remains “25 Days of Christmas,” a holiday stunt that offers classic Rankin/Bass specials, original movies, and theatricals.
Prime Time
History

Original series Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and Swamp People are among the most-watched unscripted efforts on basic cable, so much so that History in Q3 finished second in the cable race for adults 18-49. As such, its ad sales staff this year is on track to eclipse the $350 million mark, no thanks to a certain Irish bootlegger in The Kennedys.

Late Night
Comedy Central

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart delights in his role as a twinkly-eyed, despairing Walter Cronkite for a generation that gets its news from its Twitter feed. Lead-out Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report embodies the shameless hucksterism of cable’s screaming heads, who have made a cottage industry out of presenting extreme views to an audience that doesn’t ask questions. Together, they’re the dream ticket for an election season that promises to offer the gravitas of a hot-dog eating contest.

General Interest
USA

No one’s likely to replicate its five-year winning streak in the cable ratings, but USA’s clear vision is an industry model. Its series are shot with USA’s “blue skies” filter—literally a guiding principle that colors its cop/doctor/spy/shrink dramas with an upbeat quirkiness. Homegrown series like Burn Notice and Royal Pains, and WWE Raw get a rise from viewers.

Reality
MTV

Think the civilization of Dante, Michelangelo, and Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra will reach its full fruition in a perma-tanned goomba sporting an Ed Hardy shirt? Relax. Jersey Shore is just a TV show—albeit one instrumental in saving MTV’s pancetta. In its fourth season, it averaged 7.3 million viewers, capping an unbelievable summer in which the network and its siblings earned nearly $745 million in ad sales revenue.

Lifestyle
Food Network

If the personalities who inhabit the Food Network aren’t to everyone’s taste—Paula Deen’s “recipe” for preparing English peas (open can, melt butter) reads like a parody of her folksy, cholesterol-spiking shtick–the channel has a read on how “real” Americans eat. (The foodies can sulk and saute their way on over to the Cooking Channel.) Advertisers bet big on Guy Fieri, et al.–last year Food took in $277 million in sponsor bucks.

Hottest Revenue Player: CBS president, CEO Les MoonvesBy Anthony Crupi

CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves last year received $57.7 million in total compensation, a sum that included nearly $8 million in a special cash payment for his “leadership in connection with the creation of premium content.” He’s worth every penny. While at least one rival was throwing his hands in the air and bemoaning the death of the broadcast model, Moonves continued to do what he does best: make tentpole TV. All but two of CBS’ prime-time series draw in excess of 10 million viewers each week–by comparison, NBC can say the same about just one (Sunday Night Football)–and since the season began, CBS boasts nine of the top 20 shows in the 18-49 demo. Even broadcast’s biggest booster isn’t content to rest on his nightly deliveries. CBS’ international syndication business generates north of $1 billion annually, and Moonves has done a masterful job of licensing library content to third-party streaming services. In July, Amazon cut a $100 million check for the rights to mothballed CBS Studios series such as Cheers and Frasier. Should the ad market fall stagnant, such licensing deals will keep CBS flush–as will the steady stream of retransmission consent fees and reverse compensation from affiliates. As a showman, Moonves would probably rather talk up what’s on the screen. But it’s his business acumen that justifies the adulation.

DANCING APPS

Apps That Make You Feel Like Dancing

By BOB TEDESCHI

“Dancing with the Stars” has helped spur interest in ballroom dancing, but for many who would like to follow in the footsteps of the stars, lessons are often too expensive, too far away and socially awkward in the extreme.

But if your partner is a mobile device, none of those obstacles apply.

Mobile apps could be the best thing to hit ballroom dancing since the hurdler’s stretch. The better ones — like LDF Hot Salsa ($1 to $3 on Apple), Pocket Salsa ($3 on Apple and $2 on Android) and Learn Argentine Tango ($10 to $13 on Apple) — offer solid, inexpensive tutorials.

And thanks to the mobile format, you can use them when no one’s watching, or brush up on your steps immediately before you try to impress a date in public.

After a few swings around my living room, I found the Hot Salsa series especially effective. There are three levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced), with each anchored by a set of instructional videos featuring Christian Gutierrez and, sometimes, his partner Lien Pham.

The videos are adequate, if slightly less than professional quality. The audio is passable, the lighting is fair and the set is a living room, complete with fireplace. The video is framed from a point that was slightly too far at times for me to see Mr. Gutierrez’s footwork clearly, although that problem was less bothersome when I tested the app on an iPad.

Aesthetics aside, the quality of the instruction was quite good. The 30 lessons featured in each app average roughly one minute each — just enough to cover one distinct movement. Mr. Gutierrez typically introduces a move by demonstrating and explaining it at full speed. He then offers a slower demonstration, along with a more technically oriented discussion.

The videos are bolstered by text explanations of each move, which I found helpful, if occasionally in dire need of proofreading. You can also add notes of your own to each lesson, which is a nice touch.

Hot Salsa also includes a “Salsa Rhythm Interface” feature for practice sessions. With this, users can customize a salsa tune according to their preferred tempo and accompanying instruments, and hear an audible count to help with timing.

Pocket Salsa offers far more instruction for less money, but it has drawbacks. With 100 videos, it teaches all levels of the dance and provides a different instructional style than Hot Salsa. Rather than introduce a move with text, for instance, Pocket Salsa’s instructor and developer, Anthony Persaud, overlays snippets of text at crucial points in the movement.

The videos are shot more cleanly than those on Hot Salsa, the audio is clearer and the lessons cover both the “On 1” and “On 2” approaches to the dance, while Hot Salsa exclusively teaches the On 1 technique. On 1 dancers start the Tango on the first beat of a measure, while On 2 dancers begin the step on the second beat.

But Pocket Salsa suffered from a nagging flaw. Even though I tested it on a strong Wi-Fi connection, the videos paused frequently to load. I switched to Hot Salsa and experienced no such problems.

Pocket Salsa users can download the videos individually and avoid interrupted playback, but that requires patience or advance planning. A single episode of five minutes needed roughly seven minutes to download over Wi-Fi. (There is one upside: If you download only some videos, you’ll save space on your device.)

Salsa students with Apple devices would do well to download both Hot Salsa and Pocket Salsa, as there are benefits to hearing the steps taught by different instructors. For those who are unsure about buying Pocket Salsa, some of the app’s videos are available to download free at Addicted2Salsa.com.

Tango fans, meanwhile, have a good option — as long as they have an Apple device. The Learn Argentine Tango series (seven volumes, $10 to $13 each) features Alex Krebs, a veteran tango instructor based in Portland, Ore. Mr. Krebs leads about 15 lessons that are roughly two minutes each, with most covering a specific movement.

In a welcome departure from other apps, Mr. Krebs also includes tutorials on the history and etiquette of the dance, and he focuses on the small details, like posture, with precision.

“We want to have the hips back over the heels and the sternum over the toes, so that we have a slight forward inclination in our body,” he says.

Students may still find Mr. Krebs moving too quickly at times, however. I occasionally wished for slowed-down explanations, with close-ups on the dancers’ feet from different angles, for instance. But in the current state of dancing apps, users should feel lucky enough to get video from a single angle with adequate sound and lighting.

Android users can expect versions of Hot Salsa and Learn Argentine Tango next year, both developers said. Meanwhile, for the non-Apple crowd, there are a few far less polished alternatives to Pocket Salsa.

Ballroom Dancing Beginners Part 1, for instance, is free — and for good reason, since it is essentially a portal to YouTube instruction videos, complete with ads. Still, it’s useful, as it catalogs passable tutorials of the major dance techniques and thereby saves you the hassle of searching.

A cast of supporting apps can also help both Android and Apple users. Learn Swing, Salsa and Tango (free on Apple or on Android, as Salsa, Tango, Swing & Cha Cha) provides diagrams of the basic steps. It’s neither extensive nor especially user-friendly, but if you can figure out that Q is the developer’s symbol for quick, among other mysteries, the app will make more sense.

DanceTime Deluxe ($5 on Apple) also deserves consideration, at least for those who are using apps that don’t include rhythm samples for practicing at different speeds. DanceTime features adjustable rhythms for 23 dances, including Merengue, Bhangra and Cha Cha.

Android users get a free alternative in Dance Line, which covers 10 dance steps. The app shut down unexpectedly on my Droid Razr, however, and you can’t slow the tempo to match your dancing speed as you learn.

Maybe that’s intentional, though. If you dance fast enough, nobody will be able to figure out what exactly you’re doing with your feet.

Quick Calls

Two app developers have adopted Guitar Hero’s moving fretboard approach to help real guitarists improve their technique. Rock Prodigy ($1 on Apple), which teaches popular songs, is one of the more smartly designed guitar apps on the market. WildChords (free on iPad, with in-app purchases) is more cartoonish and is great for beginners. ... With Shopkick (free on Android and Apple), you can earn rewards by visiting retailers (offline, that is).

Apple TV

Apple may be getting ready to reinvent TV

Remarks by late co-founder Steve Jobs in a new biography have set off a flurry of speculation that Apple will roll out a TV set that could remake the industry.

By David Sarno

Now that Apple Inc.'s chief visionary is gone, the company is facing a billion-dollar question: Will it be able to conjure another pioneering product without Steve Jobs?

Perhaps fittingly, a possible answer came posthumously from Jobs himself.

The television set, the quintessential squawk box of the 20th century, is ripe for a reinvention, the Apple co-founder said before he died Oct. 5.

"I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson in the new book "Steve Jobs," which hit shelves this week. "It would be seamlessly synched with all of your devices and … will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

His remarks in the book have set off a flurry of speculation that Apple will roll out a television set that could remake the $100-billion industry, much as the company altered personal computers, music players and cellphones.

Apple and Jobs have a record of taking existing technologies and redesigning them with an emphasis on visual simplicity, allowing users to play songs, open applications and make calls with the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger — with little technical knowledge required.

But over the last decade, television systems have gone in the other direction, with remote controls sprouting dozens of buttons, many for obscure functions that consumers don't use. Meanwhile, cable TV's grid of hundreds of shows and channels has become overgrown and difficult to navigate.

"My parents come to my house and there are three remotes to work the TV," said Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. "I literally have to change the station for them because they're freaked out to try it themselves. That's a disaster."

For some analysts, Jobs' declaration to Isaacson has confirmed what they already suspected. Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities wrote to investors Tuesday that he had seen "concrete evidence that an Apple Smart TV was already flowing through factories over in China in early stage pilot and prototype production."

White said Apple was well positioned to take advantage of the global television market. Television manufacturing is generally considered a cutthroat business with narrow profit margins, in which competitors like Samsung Electronics, Sony and Panasonic Corp. vie for customers by offering ever lower prices on their TV sets.

But White believes that Apple will be able to charge twice or even three times the going rate for TVs because of what he called Apple's "unmatched aesthetics, expansive digital ecosystem and overall quality."

Apple has been able to build highly profitable businesses with its iPhone and Mac computers, both of which have been priced at the high end of the market.

Industry watchers believe that Apple has been laying the groundwork for a television set for years, intensifying its focus recently on developing high-resolution, TV-like screen technology for its iPhones and iPad tablet computers, and on software that works across all of its devices and allows users to manage and store broad swaths of their digital lives.

Apple this month also introduced a sophisticated voice-control system for the new model of its iPhone. Called Siri, the software is able to understand free-form spoken commands, including scheduling meetings, writing emails, checking the weather and finding restaurants. If built into a television, that system could help users find shows and information without having to make a long series of button pushes.

At the same time, Apple has been expanding the size of its iTunes digital store, which now allows consumers to quickly purchase and download millions of songs, games, movies and television shows through the Internet.

The missing piece, many analysts believe, is Apple's ability to offer traditional broadcast television, a business long dominated by cable giants like Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

That could be partially resolved with a broadcast partnership with AT&T Inc., which offers a TV service called U-verse, Misek said. AT&T is a longtime Apple ally and the iPhone's first wireless carrier beginning in 2007.

But Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee, said Apple might have a more ambitious and disruptive plan in store, one that could upend the business model that television networks have relied on since the rise of cable in the 1980s.

Citing industry sources, Wu said Apple "would love to offer users the ability to choose their own customized programming" — paying for channels individually rather than buying dozens together in "tiers," as is typical today for cable subscribers. "This would change the game for television and give [Apple] a big leg up against the competition," Wu wrote in a note to investors.

Such a move would be difficult to achieve without the support of Hollywood media companies, which have long opposed efforts to "unbundle" television subscriptions out of fear that that would decimate a multibillion-dollar revenue stream.

But Apple watchers are fond of pointing out that the company has managed to upend established business models before, including the record industry's now largely dissipated network of retail stores and their racks of CDs.

Apple may be arriving to the television business at just the right time, when mobile devices, personal computers and television sets are able to communicate with one another much more effectively.

"Five years ago everything [in TV manufacturing] was centralized and individualized," said Dan Muratta, who runs the broadband division of Broadcom Corp., which supplies wireless networking chips to Apple's iPhones and iPads.

But with new technology, "I may be watching a program on my TV and I want to watch it on the tablet or smartphone, and voila," he said. "The more forward-thinking companies are taking advantage of that."

TV SITCOM BACK

In a Gloomy Economy, TV Sitcoms Are Making a Comeback

By BILL CARTER

In television, funny is money again.

For the better part of a decade, while drama became more ambitious, and reality shows became more outrageous, comedy had the worst track record in prime time.

As recently as 2008, only two comedies ranked among the top 10 shows at this point in a new television season. Two years earlier, the total was zero.

But comedy has surged back this fall, elbowing past those other genres to reclaim supremacy among viewers. So far this season, sitcoms occupy seven of the top 10 spots among entertainment programs (not counting football) in the category of most financial importance to network executives — viewers ages 18 to 49.

Two shows, “New Girl” on Fox and “2 Broke Girls” on CBS, are brand-new hits. And new comedies have shown promising signs on both other networks: “Suburgatory” and “Last Man Standing” on ABC and “Up All Night” on NBC.

At the same time, several longer-running comedies have expanded their popularity. “Two and a Half Men” on CBS benefited from the publicity that surrounded the noisy departure of Charlie Sheen. Its ratings numbers are up 65 percent (though much came in its first two weeks.)

“How I Met Your Mother” on CBS is up 23 percent, and yet another CBS comedy, “The Big Bang Theory,” is up 8 percent. (CBS has four of those top seven comedies). And ABC’s “Modern Family,” fresh off an Emmy sweep, has improved 25 percent. In the past week, it nudged past “Men” to rank as the top-rated comedy.

In looking for a turning point in the comedy comeback, many fingers point to that three-year-old ABC comedy. Jennifer Salke, the president of NBC Entertainment, said, “ ‘Modern Family’ is at the center of it, just the sheer excellence of it.”

Kevin Reilly, the president of Fox entertainment, said that “Modern Family” seemed to “revive the confidence of the creative community — I definitely feel more vibrancy in comedy now.”

Paul Lee, the entertainment head at ABC, noted that CBS had all along had comedies that were “immensely strong” but, he said “Modern Family” took it “to another level, elevating the genre.”

Part of the reason was the way in which “Modern Family,” achieved success by coming out of nowhere. ABC was moribund in comedy until it secured the sitcom about the daily absurdities visited on three interrelated families.

The pilot was a sensation, validating ABC’s bold scheduling strategy: four new comedies on Wednesday, with “Modern Family” in the center. The show was a hit from its first episode.

That pattern rang familiar to television executives like Warren Littlefield, the former top programmer at NBC, who was around for a previous era of comedy downturn in the 1980s.

“We had come out of the era of the relevant comedies of Norman Lear,” he said, referring to the creator of “All in the Family” among many other comedy hits. “It was a comedy desert. Nobody had transitioned to the next phase. Then Bill Cosby changed all that by illuminating the family comedy with his point of view.”

Mr. Littlefield said “Modern Family” is playing the same role that “The Cosby Show” did in “examining the family, but it’s a family we haven’t seen before.”

Still, timing played a hand. As Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, noted, it would be inaccurate to describe comedy as a desert this time, because CBS had several consistent hits, thanks largely to Chuck Lorre, who created three of them.

But as Mr. Lee described it, “comedy had lain fallow for a long time.” Mr. Reilly called the output “truly anemic, except for CBS.”

The cycle of entertainment interest shifted, starting about 2000. Drama soared; reality exploded. But, as usual, after a long run, those genres began to get played out, a trend especially notable this season.

“I feel like the appetite for reality has come down a bit,” said Ms. Salke. “And after shows like ‘Lost’ and ‘24,’ the bigger ideas for drama became harder and harder.”

Steve Levitan, a creator of “Modern Family,” said, “If you subscribe to the theory that Hollywood is 10,000 people running to the spot where lightning has just struck, then it’s fair to say viewers are tiring of the glut of reality shows.”

He added, “A well-crafted, well-cast comedy has the potential to jump-start a renaissance on its own.” But it’s awfully hard to do, he said. “Thousands of stars have to align.”

Why is it happening now? The liberation of comedy ideas is one explanation. Mr. Reilly said for years he listened to ideas for shows that “felt like ones we just canceled.” And, he said, “Shows were pitched in a very tentative way, almost apologetically. Like, ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ ”

Many of the programmers cited a flowering of female comedic talent. “There is not a lot of opportunity for women in feature films,” Ms. Tassler said. And so film actresses like Zooey Deschanel (“New Girl”) and Kat Dennings (“Two Broke Girls”) and a host of female writers have moved into the sitcom.

And then there’s the economy. Mr. Lee said it was a mistake to tie trends too simply to social developments, but in this case, it was inevitable to think of “things like the 1930s and screwball comedies.”

Indeed, socio-economic conditions are being widely credited. Mr. Lorre, who had hits before and after the economy tanked, said, “Comedy thrives during economic downturns. You know, if you’ve had a bad day, laughter is a better remedy than watching a coroner pick shrapnel out of some poor guy’s private parts.”

Ms. Salke said, “It’s all part of stress level.” She said people might look to comedy because they “don’t want to think too hard.” She added, “You’re probably sitting around the table talking about how you’re going to afford the tuition, or you’re not going to have a vacation, or you can’t afford a divorce. You need an escape from that.”

Of course, there are also business reasons, which Mr. Reilly cited: Comedy is popular with advertisers. It tends to pull in younger viewers. It works better in repeats than many dramas. And hit comedies remain hot commodities in the syndication market.

All those factors have led to one of the busiest seasons in memory for networks looking to buy new comedy ideas. Many deals were concluded in the past few weeks for high prices. “It was extremely competitive,” Ms. Tassler said.

The result will most likely be an even greater flourishing of sitcoms next season. Mr. Reilly said an increase of as much as 25 percent in comedy was possible.

And the cycle will move on from there. As Mr. Levitan of “Modern Family” put it, “In the not-too-distant future, they will tire of the inevitable glut of comedies.”

TV IS LESS

TV universe

Nielsen says homes owning sets fell for first time

By Andrew Wallenstein

Americans may be watching more TV than ever, but all that viewing is happening in fewer homes.

The 2011-12 season marks the first on record with Nielsen to see a year-over-year decline in the percentage of U.S. households with at least one TV, known as the TV penetration rate. For the first time in 20 years, the total number of homes with TVs -- what Nielsen refers to as the universe estimate -- has dropped, from 115.9 million last season to 114.7 million.

With the overall number of U.S. households (with or without TVs) rising to 118.6 million over the same period, the TV penetration rate dropped 2.2% to 96.7% -- the lowest since it hit 97% in 1975, according to Nielsen.

"What's staggering to me is for decades the TV penetration rate has been at 98%-99%, so this is a pretty notable dropoff," said Brad Adgate, senior VP research at Horizon Media.

The percentage drop means nearly 5 million viewers have vanleaving a universe of 289.7 million.

So where did 1.7% of the viewing population go?

The reasons for the contraction of the TV world are not entirely clear. The first theory: In a tough economy, Americans don't buy as many TVs, a trend compounded by the 2009 digital transition that forced consumers to upgrade or replace their equipment.

Because the old analog sets are no longer counted, Nielsen immediately saw a downturn in TV homes once the transition deadline transpired, and though the numbers eventually rebounded, they still haven't returned to pre-2009 levels.

"The drop in TV households after the digital transition was undoubtedly tied to a poor economy," said Pat McDonough, senior VP of insights and analysis at Nielsen. "Most homes that dropped TV were younger, poorer homes."

She also noted that Nielsen has periodically revisited non-TV homes and found that they have double the vacancy rate of TV homes -- indicating that people in non-TV homes move frequently, possibly because of worsening financial conditions in the household.

Blame the recession

The recession may have also stunted the growth of TV households because young adults who would have gotten jobs and residences of their own are increasingly moving back in with parents after college amid high unemployment rates.

"Kids who were normally in an apartment in (New York City) and counting as a new household were now staying home with ma and pa," said David Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS Corp.

But it's also possible that what may seem a cyclical economic trend is also a secular, technological one. The decline could be tied to the highly disputed phenomenon known as cord-cutting, in which a segment of the population is bypassing multichannel subscriptions to watch on digital platforms.

Just how many consumers may be cord-cutting is subject to debate. Many studies have shown their ranks are statistically insignificant, but many analyst ascribe the sizable dips in subscribers that cable operators saw in the second quarter to cord-cutting.

Just a phase?

Nielsen has found that online viewers tend to be recent college graduates in big cities. While poor, rural markets over-index among decreasing TV homes, there are tech-savvy, college-heavy urban centers that also show marked decreases like top-10 market Boston, down 3.3%.

The big question is whether those watching online are doing so because they can't afford new TVs or because those TVs have become an anachronism to them.

"We're curious to see if this is simply a lifestyle phase that they'll grow out of as they get the house and the kids," McDonough said.

Nielsen research in May and July showed an unusual increase in broadcast-only homes, suggesting that rather than simply tossing aside TV entirely in favor of laptops or tablets, viewers may be attempting a combination of free over-the-air broadcast TV and such paid digital services as Netflix. That trend is playing out at the same time that subs disappearing from cable are not flocking to satellite or telco options as they've done historically.

Nielsen doesn't think cord-cutting is entirely the answer, but that hasn't stopped the company from exploring how to extend its measurement of digital platforms in TV homes to non-TV homes, which would then be factored into universe estimates.

Nielsen has made inroads into tracking usage on digital platforms, but integrating those stats into TV homes numbers is a tall order and won't be completed this year.

"This is a complex business discussion we need to engage in with our clients," McDonough said. "We have started this conversation and will continue it as we evolve our measurement across platforms."

Someone has to pay

Whether the drop is an aberration won't be known for some time. But if it is the beginning of a long-term trend, there will be consequences for what advertisers pay to reach audiences. For now, though, the new numbers were factored into negotiations given that Nielsen notified the industry back in May.

"In the upfront, everybody just built in the numbers, and it was business as usual," Poltrack said.

The declines are playing out across all demographics and also clearly suggest an aging of the audience that shouldn't play well with advertisers who target the under-50 crowd. The 18-49 demo slipped from 131.5 million last season to 127.9 million in 2011-12.

Nielsen was expecting some sort of change in the 2012 universe estimates given that it would be the first to incorporate population measurements from the 2010 census. Every 10 years the universe estimates are recalibrated to take into account the latest census figures. But in 2002, the census actually spurred a 2002 increase; 1992 was the last time universe estimates went down, but they shot right back up over the remainder of the decade, which McDonough credits to the country shaking off a recession quicker.

"The boom in the 1990s helped TV households rebound at that time," she said. "We will certainly be watching to see if history repeats itself." 96.7%

The penetration rate of TV in the U.S. has dropped 2.2%, marking the first decline since Nielsen began tracking it in the 1970s.

iCloud News

A Look at Apple’s iCloud
By David Pogue

7:13 p.m. | Updated to note user reports of e-mail problems today.
This week in The New York Times, I reviewed Apple’s new iPhone 4S. But the new phone is only one of the big Apple news items this week. On Wednesday, iCloud went live.
This new service is the latest incarnation of what has been called iTools, then .Mac, then MobileMe.
There are three bits of good news about iCloud.
First, it’s free. (MobileMe was $100 a year.)
Second, it does more than MobileMe.
Third, it’s solid. Like a rock. It would be understandable if you wanted to steer clear; plenty of people remember the data loss and foul-ups of the early MobileMe — but this time, it looks as if Apple nailed it.
So what is iCloud?
• A synchronizing service. It keeps your calendar, address book, documents updated and identical on all your gadgets: Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches. In other words, pretty much what MobileMe was.
This is a huge convenience. Change, add or delete an appointment or address-book entry on one device, and the change is instantly, wirelessly, automatically reflected on all the others.

iCloud also includes a free e-mail account, ending in @me.com. Same deal here: Delete a message on one gadget, and you’ll find it in the Deleted Mail folder on another. Send a message from your iPad, and you’ll find it in the Sent Mail folder on your Mac. And so on.
Some programs are available for more than one machine — including Apple’s own iWork suite (Numbers, Pages, Keynote). Those programs are available for Mac, iPhone/iPod Touch, and iPad. In that situation, you can create or edit a document on one kind of machine, and marvel as iCloud automatically syncs it with all your other devices. (Well, sort of. Create or edit a document on an iPhone/iPad/Touch, and it appears on the iCloud.com site for manual downloading by your Mac; the transfer isn’t automatic. Similarly, you have to manually upload these files to iCloud.com before they are transmitted to your iGadgets.)
• An online locker. Anything you buy from Apple — music, TV shows, e-books, and apps — is stored online, for easy access at any time. For example, whenever you buy a song or a TV show from the online iTunes store, it can appear automatically on all your i-gadgets and computers. Or you can re-download it manually at any time, no charge.
• Photo Stream. Every time a new photo enters your life — when you take a picture with an iPhone/iPad/Touch, for example, or import one from a camera onto your computer — it is added to a special folder called Photo Stream. In other words, it appears automatically on all your other iCloud machines: iPhone, iPad, Touch, Mac, PC, Apple TV.
Now, your iGadget doesn’t have nearly as much storage available as your Mac or PC; you can’t yet buy an iPad with 750 gigabytes of storage. That’s why, on your iGadget, your Photo Stream consists of just the last 1,000 photos.
(There’s another limitation, too: the iCloud servers store your photos for 30 days. As long as your gadgets go online at least once a month, they’ll remain current with the Photo Stream. And it doesn’t sync over the cellular airwaves. It sends photos around only when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot or connected to a wired network.)
You don’t have to worry about that 30-day, 1,000-photo business on your Mac or PC. Once they appear here, they’re here until you delete them.
On an iGadget, once a photo arrives, you can copy it to your Camera Roll, where it’s permanently saved.
This, in its way, is one of the best features in all of iCloudland, because it means you don’t have to sync your iPhone over a USB cable to get your photos onto your computer. It all happens automatically, wirelessly over WiFi.
It’s also a great way to send photos the other direction — from your Mac or PC. You can drag photos into the Photo Stream folder there, and marvel as they show up on your iGadget.
The one weirdness is that, to preserve its simplicity, Apple designed Photo Stream to be literal and rigid. Every photo that enters your photographic bloodstream becomes part of the Photo Stream. You can’t choose which ones. And more alarmingly, you can’t delete one. All your terrible shots, all your muffed shots, all your scandalous shots become part of the stream, and therefore get propagated across all of your iCloud devices. This is not great news for politicians.
(If something unfortunate enters your own stream, you can visit iCloud.com and use the Reset Photo Stream function. Just be sure to turn Photo Stream off and on again on each of your devices, too, to make them “notice” the newly empty Photo Stream.)
• Back to My Mac. This option lets you access the files on one Mac from another one across the Internet. It isn’t new, but it survives in iCloud.
• Find My iPhone — and Mac. Find My iPhone, the one free former MobileMe feature, pinpoints the current location of your iPhone or iPad on a map. It’s great for helping you find your iGadget if it’s been stolen or lost.
You can also make your lost gadget start making a loud pinging sound for a couple of minutes by remote control — even if it was set to Vibrate mode. That’s brilliantly effective when your phone has slipped under the couch cushions. In dire situations, you can even erase the phone by remote control, preventing sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.
In iCloud, this feature can find your Mac, too. That might seem like a silly idea; how often do you misplace your iMac? But remember that 75 percent of all computers Apple sells are laptops.
• Automatic backup. iCloud automatically backs up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Completely, automatically and wirelessly (over WiFi, not over cellular connections). It’s a quick backup, since iCloud backs up only whatever data has changed since the last backup.
But in some ways, iCloud is MobileMe Minus; some MobileMe features didn’t survive the cut. For example:
• iWeb. The beauty of this easy-to-use Web-site design program was that, with one click, you could publish your work on the actual Web — the MobileMe site “hosted” your pages. (As a replacement, you might consider the free http://www.weebly.com/ service, which makes it super-simple to design a Web site.)
• The iDisk. This “virtual hard drive in the sky” was a great way to transfer big files between computers. (As a replacement, consider DropBox or SugarSync; they let you create desktop folders that behave exactly like the iDisk. You can make them appear — and synchronize them — on any computer, or the iPhone or iPad. Free for up to 2two gigabytes (DropBox) or five gigs (SugarSync).
• Photo Gallery. Apple’s online galleries were a beautiful, uncluttered and ad-free way to present your digital slide shows to your adoring fans. And now they’re gone (the galleries, not the fans). (Replacements include http://www.picasa.com/ and http://www.flickr.com/. And, of course, there’s Facebook.)
• Data sync. Some of the things MobileMe could sync no longer sync in iCloud: Dashboard widgets, Dock items, Keychains and all the trappings of your e-mail accounts, like settings, signatures, rules and preferences.
Apple will keep MobileMe around until June 30, 2012. At that point, it goes away forever.
A free iCloud account gives you five gigabytes of online storage. Fortunately, anything you buy from Apple — like music, apps, books and TV shows — doesn’t count against that five-gigabyte amount. Neither do the photos in your Photo Stream. (You can expand your storage if you find five gigs constricting — for $2 a gigabyte a year. So you’ll pay $20, $40 or $100 a year for an extra 10, 20, or 50 gigs. You can upgrade your storage right from your iGadget or computer.)
This must sound like a lot of stuff and a lot of complexity. And it is. (Of course, you choose which features you want to use, or you can ignore all of it and just not sign up.)
Still, that’s nothing compared to the complexity that must have been involved in engineering all of this to work smoothly from Day 1. Imagine the strain on Apple’s servers when its 300 million iGadget and Mac customers descended simultaneously on iCloud on Wednesday. (Update: Actually, some people are having iCloud e-mail problems today.)
But the bottom line is that there is real gold in them thar clouds. The syncing of address book and calendar is essential. Photo Stream is fantastic — you never have to curse the fact that some great photo is stuck on another machine (although I wish there were a way to delete individual photos).
And all of this is free?
What can I say? It’s a banner week for Apple.

ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE

New Rovio Exec David Maisel Believes ‘Angry Birds’ Movie Will Change Video Game Adaptations

The former Marvel Entertainment exec explains why casual game properties will become mainstream entertainment brands.

By John Gaudiosi

LOS ANGELES -- After selling Marvel Entertainment to The Walt Disney Company for $4 billion last year, David Maisel was looking for his next venture when he literally stumbled upon Rovio’s smash hit, Angry Birds. His 85 year-old mother was playing the game on the iPad he’d given her for Christmas. Maisel immediately saw similarities in the mainstream potential the casual game that has been downloaded over 350 million times has with Marvel superheroes like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor that he helped turn into blockbuster film franchises. He talks about how he’s now helping the Finnish game studio turn the table on successful video game entertainment.
What did you learn from the successful Angry Birds marketing promotion for 20th Century Fox’ Rio movie this summer that merged characters from both properties into a mobile game?
That was a co-promotion together with Fox that worked really fantastic for both parties, which is really rare in these co-promotions. The biggest learning I took from that, which also got me very excited about the upcoming Angry Birds movie, is the ability to use our game platform to market a film or other entertainment. Fox was able to use the Angry Birds game to increase awareness for their film, which first drove them to theaters and later propelled sales of the DVD, which included exclusive game levels. When I look a few years ahead to when we market the Angry Birds film, there’s huge potential. Marketing in movies hasn’t really changed that much in the past twenty years. It’s still focuses a significant spend on TV in the three weeks before the film opens and still focuses a relatively small amount online. We can do so much innovative stuff in marketing our film through our own platform directly to our fans. That’s going to be pretty exciting.
How do you see the Angry Birds movie changing the track record of Hollywood game adaptations?
Over the past twenty years if you look at all the gaming movies made from Super Mario Bros. to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, they’ve averaged about $35 million domestic box office. The 23 films made have earned about $800 million domestic box office. The two Lara Croft films account for about $200 million of that and another $200 million comes from the four Resident Evil movies. The audience and the scope of the demographics from those traditional games has been somewhat limited, focusing on the heavy gamers. The potential for big entertainment franchises wasn’t as great. Now with casual gaming, not just Angry Birds but others as well, so many people are playing them. I think it’s the first time that we’ll see massive brands coming out of the game realm that really supersede traditionally what the gaming audience has been.
How have you seen the attitude in Hollywood about videogames change over the time that you’ve been there?
It really hasn’t changed that much yet. Hollywood has never been the best -- the major traditional studios -- at spotting the trends before they get big. Gaming companies like Electronic Arts, Activision, Zynga and others have been creating brands outside of the studio system. Hollywood’s approach to gaming has been somewhat schizophrenic. At times the studios will launch their own game divisions, then they’ll exit and then they’ll buy some companies, but never necessarily on par with how big the industry has been from a profitability point of view.  From a point of movies, because of that track record I just talked through, gaming movies don’t get that much attention because they have been made by companies who will lower the budget and try hit a single rather than go for the grand slam you can get from an Avatar or a superhero film. But that is on the verge of changing. That’s why I joined Rovio, because rather than going back and redoing superheroes this is a chance to start a new wave of IP enhancement taking it from the gaming realm into the broader global entertainment system.
What impact do you think that a successful Angry Birds big screen movie could have in opening more doors for videogame movies in Hollywood?
This is just a start and hopefully Angry Birds can illustrate it very well to the industry of massive global brands coming from the gaming realm. The casual gaming realm, thanks to the ease of use and its broader demographics, has huge potential. The awareness is already getting out there that this new technology and this new ability to interact with our phones and our tablets and play these games can launch massive brands in a way that has never been done before.
Rovio is still a game company. How do you see Angry Birds being used to introduce new game experiences?
Right now we have the benefit and the challenge of managing a very fast growth with this franchise. We’re bringing Angry Birds to all the platforms and launching new versions of the game. We’re developing a social game based on the IP. There’s so much growth in the Angry Birds franchise that it takes a huge focus, but the platform of the game and the ability to use that to launch new games is something we’re really excited about. In addition to parallel developing Angry Birds as a game, we’re developing our platform and using that platform for monetization as well as for promoting our own new ventures in games, entertainment and other things.