CBS Scores A Super Bowl Blowout

by Lacey Rose

Viewership tops finale of ‘M*A*S*H’ and becomes the most-watched telecast in U.S. history.

LOS ANGELES — Despite teams from two of the smaller media markets in the league (New Orleans ranks No. 51; Indianapolis, No. 25), this year’s Super Bowl was a big win for CBS Sunday night, delivering an average of 106.5 million viewers, the most-watched championship in the game’s 43-year history.

According to preliminary results from The Nielsen Company, New Orleans’ 31-17 victory smashed a 27-year record held by the 1983 series finale of M*A*S*H to become the most-watched telecast in U.S. history. (Worth noting: The current TV season boasts about 115 million TV homes, compared with 83 million in 1982-83.)

It’s just the latest win for pro football. The NFL is coming off two years of record-setting Super Bowls (97.5 million watched in 2009; 98.7 million a year earlier), and a ratings bonanza for all five networks that carried games this past season. For hard-hit NBC, regular season games lured 19.4 million viewers, up 17% from a year earlier, according to Nielsen data compiled by Horizon Media research director Brad Adgate. Similarly, Fox’s Sunday afternoon NFC team coverage averaged 19.1 million viewers, up 12% year over year, while CBS’  ( CBS  -  news  -  people ) Sunday AFC package grew 7% to an average audience of 17.1 million viewers.

read the entire article from Forbes

Larger March Madness not necessary – NCAA to Back Out of CBS Contract – Allow Other Nets to Bid per ESPN Anonymous Sources

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The NCAA college basketball tournament expanding to a 96-team field is “a done deal,” and could happen as soon as next season, SportsbyBrooks.com reported Monday, Feb. 1.
Two anonymous ESPN sources said the NCAA has plans to back out of the remaining years of its contract with CBS and allow other networks such as ESPN and FOX to enter a bidding war for television rights to an expanded Big Dance, according to the Web site.
This is a terrible idea.
March Madness is the greatest time of year for sports fans. While college football’s bowl season is fun, only one of those games truly matters. College basketball’s postseason tournament is full of meaningful games and is the perfect combination of size and timeliness.

read the entire article from The NewsRecordDotOrg

CBS News Lays Off Dozens in New Round of Staff Cuts

By BRIAN STELTER

Published: February 3, 2010

Dozens of employees at CBS News were laid off in recent days amid a new round of budget cuts at the third-place network’s news division.

Some employees were reassigned and others were demoted in the process. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared further layoffs, CBS employees said the cuts affected network programs like “The Early Show” and “60 Minutes,” and its news-gathering bureaus. Only a handful of on-camera employees were affected.

CBS executives said reports that roughly 100 people were dismissed were inflated, but declined to say how many employees were affected. The news division, which loses money for its parent, the CBS Corporation, says it employs about 1,400 people.

read the entire article at The New York Times

CBS News Division Hit With Layoffs

New York, Washington bureau to feel cuts, total number expected to be less than 100

 

The news division at CBS was hit with layoffs Monday (Feb. 1), according to sources there.
The company began informing employees Friday (Jan. 29) and notifications continued into Monday.
The cuts will further eliminate news gathering costs and will be felt at broadcast headquarters in New York but also at the 150-person Washington bureau, according to those familiar with the discussions. Most CBS News programs will end up losing some staff including 60 Minutes, which has largely been spared the axe that has periodically fallen on other programs and departments. The total number of layoffs is expected to come in under 100 or less than 7% of the news division.
CBS News declined to comment.
CBS News’ foreign bureaus underwent downsizing in 2008. And last year the network signed a deal with foreign news gathering web site GlobalPost that gives CBS News a footprint in 50 countries via the independent sites’ army of correspondents.
The news comes as another grim marker for media companies struggling to cut costs and reinvent themselves as leaner and more efficient while not undercutting their mission as news organizations.

read the entire article from Broadcasting & Cable Magazine

CBS Sells Out Super Bowl

Network commands $2.5 million to $2.8 million per spot

By Claire Atkinson — Broadcasting & Cable

CBS has sold all available spots for this Sundays Super Bowl broadcast, the network said Monday (Feb. 1). In most years broadcasters have some spots available until game day. While CBS reported price for a thirty-second ad spot, between $2.5 million to $2.8 million, is less than NBC’s high of $3 million during 2009, demand has been stronger than expected. What is more remarkable is that CBS was able to command such strong pricing given that it first pitched the Super Bowl to advertisers in the midst of the worst recession in recent memory and during one of the most drawn out and embattled upfronts in some years.
Among CBS advertisers are a host of car companies including: Audi, Honda, Hyundai, Chrysler’s Dodge and Cars.com. Coca-Cola Co. and Dr Pepper represent the soft drink category with Pepsi opting to shift out of the Super Bowl and spend big on a social media-driven cause marketing effort. Pepsi will however advertise its Doritos brand. Regular Walt Disney Pictures will also be promoting its latest movie efforts. General Motors and Fedex opted to sit out the big game this year.
First time advertisers in the big game include, Boost Mobile, US Census Bureau and Christian group Focus on the Family, which is fielding a controversial spot about celebrating life. The message has drawn protest from women’s groups over its alleged pro-life message.

from Broadcasting & Cable Magazine

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: Super Bowl Censors Stay Busy

By Barbara Lippert, Adweek

Abortion, a kiss between men, an effeminate former football player selling lingerie, and hell: So many Super Bowl ad controversies, so little time.

The debate over hell has already frozen over, so to speak. The devil was in the details. Responding to the objections that CBS censors raised over language, EA Sports agreed to change the tagline for its spot promoting its new Hades-based game, Dante’s Inferno. The original line, "Go to hell," was amended to, "Hell awaits."
Heck, that’s what all the fuss was about?
For advertisers, network approval is obviously a hard-won business and an inexact science, and some of it has to do with the barely perceptible cultural shifts of the moment.
But in the week leading up to the Big Game, two advertisers who’ve had ads rejected — ManCrunch.com and GoDaddy.com — are complaining that the rulings made by CBS’s Standards and Practices department concerning Super Bowl XLIV are not only increasingly conservative, but also homophobic.

read the entire article from AdweekMedia

The Big Game Goes for a Record

Could Super Bowl XLIV become the most-watched Super Bowl in history?

With game time less than a week away (Feb. 7, CBS), the answer to that question is being debated among analysts and researchers. Some believe the mix of this year’s huge, post- season NFL ratings coupled with spreading HDTV technology and a population focused on cheaper forms of entertainment (it doesn’t get any cheaper than free TV) could indeed drive the game to new heights. It could even surpass, they say, the 98.7 million viewers that tuned in last year, the game’s largest audience ever and the second largest for any TV broadcast.
Toon van Beeck, senior industry analyst with market research company IBISWorld, predicted that the game would average 100 million viewers this year, up a little more than 1 percent over last year’s record. Viewership, for one, he noted, has been steadily rising since 2005. "There are a lot of factors pointing to another record-breaking year," he said.

read the entire article from AdweekMedia

Tom Brookshier, ex-CBS analyst and Philadelphia Eagles star, dies at 78

Tom Brookshier, an NFL analyst for CBS for more than two decades after an All-Pro career at defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles, has died. He was 78.

The Eagles said Brookshier had cancer and died Friday night.

Brookshier, who played on the Eagles’ 1960 championship team, had 20 interceptions in seven seasons with the team, earning All-Pro honors in 1959 and 1960.

Brookshier remained a revered figure in Philadelphia many years after he retired but became well known to football fans nationwide, calling games on CBS.

From 1974 through 1980 he teamed with Pat Summerall as CBS’s No. 1 team, announcing three Super Bowls before Brookshier was replaced by ex-Raiders coach John Madden in 1981.

Before and after that period, Brookshier worked for several years paired with other announcers on the network’s games.

read the entire story from the San Jose Mercury News

Obama’s speech approval hit 83% in CBS poll.

by Joe Sudbay

Obama’s speech was a big hit with the American people according to a CBS poll:

A large majority of Americans who watched President Obama’s State of the Union Address generally approve of the proposals he outlined in his speech, according to a CBS News Poll conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the President’s address.

Of the randomly selected 522 speech viewers questioned by CBS, 83 percent said they approved of the proposals the President made. Just 17 percent disapproved — typical of the high support a president generally receives among those who choose to watch the State of the Union. In January 2002 — when George W. Bush gave the State of the Union Address a year into his presidency — 85% of speech watchers approved.

Keep in mind that was when Bush was riding high in the polls and the country was still relatively united after September 11th.

You get the sense that people do really want this President to succeed. Because, most people get that his success matters to their daily lives. And, the GOP now represents those 17 percent who disapproved. That’s the hard-core, teabagger crowd. And, no surprise, the Teabagger Party did not approve of Obama’s speech calling it "hot air."

In the CBS poll, while people approved of the speech, they didn’t expect Obama to deliver:

However, a sizable 57 percent said the President will not be able to accomplish all of the goals he set out in his speech. Most Democrats who viewed the speech (63 percent) said the man they elected would be able to accomplish all of his goals, but only 11 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independent voters agreed.

Most Democrats and independents who watched said the president shares their priorities, while most Republicans did not.

Getting the economy moving again and creating jobs for Americans isn’t a priority for the Republican party. And, they admit it.

 

…from AmericaBlog News

CBS Reorganizers Midseason Schedule

CBS has announced changes impacting Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

-By Marc Berman

Miami Medical, a new drama about a team of trauma surgeons who race against time to save patients, will premiere in the Friday 10 p.m. hour on April 2. Current occupant Numb3rs, which had its episode order slashed to 16, will have officially completed its run.
Benchwarmer sitcom Rules of Engagement will return on Monday, March 1 at 8:30 p.m. in place of freshman Accidentally on Purpose, which moves to Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. in place of Gary Unmarried beginning on March 31.

The changes appear as follows:

Monday
8:00 p.m. How I Met Your Mother
8:30 p.m. Rules of Engagement (effective March 1)
9:00 p.m. Two and a Half Men
9:30 p.m. The Big Bang Theory
10:00 p.m. CSI: Miami

Wednesday
8:00 p.m. The New Adventures of Old Christine
8:30 p.m. Accidentally on Purpose (effective March 31)
9:00 p.m. Criminal Minds
10:00 p.m. CSI: NY

Friday
8:00 p.m. Ghost Whisperer
9:00 p.m. Medium
10:00 p.m. Miami Medical (effective April 2)

from MediaWeek