When most Americans think of where to catch up with episodes of their favorite TV shows on the Web, they more than likely think of Hulu, the online video site owned by NBC, News Corp and Disney that offers free viewing of TV broadcast shows and archive movies. Second to Hulu would probably be YouTube.

But not Fancast. Despite being owned by the largest U.S. cable TV operator Comcast, it doesn’t even make the top 10 video sites in the U.S., according to comScore data. (Hulu is No. 5). One of the ways Hulu became better known was by launching a national TV advertising campaign which kicked off during this year’s Super Bowl TV extravaganza. Hulu’s user numbers jumped after those ads — and Fancast hopes for a similar boost.

Fancast has dubbed its debut TV campaign “See It For Yourself” and will feature a series of five spots with recaps of shows including CSI Miami, Glee, NCIS, How I Met Your Mother and Gilligan’s Island. Three TV spots will debut on CBS and also on targeted national cable networks. See the Fancast/CSI ad here: The campaign also features an online push and an outdoor drive with interactive bus shelters around the San Francisco area.

In truth, beating Hulu might not be Comcast’s biggest prize. It’s more likely to have its eye on its On Demand Online /TV Everywhere initiatives, which aim to make popular cable shows available on demand to paying subscribers. Fancast will be one of Comcast’s key platforms for that new service when it fully rolls out so building awareness of the site now is important.

(Photo: CSI Miami’s David Caruso/Reuters)

What’s that? Jay Leno is moving to prime-time? You don’t say!

Frankly, it’s hard to remember the last time there was such hubbub about a TV show. It was, after all, the cover story in Time magazine. Not to be outdone, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, AP, and probably every local news outlet between New York and Hollywood had a story about the talk show host — more often than not raising the question of whether he’s going to save network TV.

(You’ve got to give it to the public-relations machine on this one. They really worked the story. Of course, their spinning was augmented by a huge marketing effort. Stuart Elliott of the New York Times today estimated that NBC put out more than $10 million in promoting the show).

But there is more to the fall TV season than Jay Leno. The media buyers and planners over at  RPA offer a useful road map to the season in a recent report.

Their take on the fall season is fairly upbeat (maybe network TV doesn’t really need Leno to save it).

“For the first time in two years, network fortunes will not be held hostage to the industry’s labor problems, but will be determined, as they used to be, by content quality and scheduling… Based on what we’ve seen, the overall quality of that content looks better than it has in the past two seasons,” the report says.

Here, according to RPA, are some things to keep in mind heading into the season:

• The five broadcast networks will debut 21 shows, accounting for 22 percent of scheduling hours.

• Dramas and dramedies (a mix of comedy and drama) will increase from 43 percent to 48 percent of the schedule’s hours. Comedies will rise from 10 percent to 17 percent.

• Not a single new fall show is a foreign co-production (which had been looking like a trend until now).

• Medicine is hot, with three hospital dramas debuting this fall and a fourth starting midseason (”Trauma,” “Mercy”, “Three Rivers,” and “Miami Trauma”).

• Paranormal is big, too. Four new shows built around that theme will land this fall (”V,” “Eastwick,” “Flash Forward,” and “Vampire Diaries”).

Oh, and Jay Leno is moving to prime-time.

CBS and Pepsi have teamed up to roll out the first ever video advertising in a print magazine next month. It will appear in the September 18th edition of Entertainment Weekly.

The mini video screen is packaged into an fixed magazine insert in the middle of the magazine. But only magazine subscribers in New York and Los Angeles will be able to see the video ads in their magazines.

The campaign, which is backed by the Pepsi Max brand, aims to promote CBS’s Monday night comedy lineup and new dramas. The ad uses video-in-print technology developed by Americhip, and features five different clips totaling 40 minutes.

CBS’s Monday night comedy features shows like “How I Met Your Mother”, “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory”.

(Photo: Neil Patrick Harris from How I Met Your Mother/Reuters)

A year ago, the big story around Emmy nominations was the acclaim showered on cable programs like “Mad Men” and “Damages.” A quick glance at today’s nominations indicates little has changed.

Just look at the best drama category, where Fox’s “House” and ABC’s “Lost” will face stiff competition from cable’s “Big Love” (HBO), “Mad Men” (AMC), “Damages” (FX), and “Breaking Bad” (AMC).

While the Emmy awards aren’t everything — ratings are still the holy grail — they certainly don’t hurt. Particularly when it comes to cable networks, which have built a reputation for developing more sophisticated, bolder programs than the broadcast counterparts.

While ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox are under heavy pressure from advertisers (and their corporate parents) to show immediate results, the cable networks can take more care with their programs. After all, they draw some revenue from carriage deals and subscriptions, which buys shows like “Breaking Bad” some time to develop.

That seems to be paying dividends — and not only when it comes to awards. While broadcast TV advertising rates are still at a sizable premium to cable, most advertising executives say the gap is shrinking. Couple that with carriage fees and a generally lower cost structure and you see why TV executives like NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker spend so much time talking up their cable assets.

Keep an eye on:

• Google will be under the spotlight when it reports second quarter earnings later today. How much of a toll has the downturn in advertising and the competition from Microsoft taken on the web leader? (Reuters)

• Speaking of Microsoft, its share of the U.S. market increased in June as it rolled out Bing (Reuters). And its not just focussed on search and Google — the company plans to open some retail stores “right next door” to those of Apple Inc. (Reuters)

• Don’t get too comfortable watching your favorite TV show on the web with only a few commercials. Media companies are pressing ahead with plans to put more ads in web videos. (Wall Street Journal)

CBS made very few changes to its fall prime-time schedule, adding just one new comedy and three new dramas. Executives at the network contend that the lineup doesn’t need a makeover, given that it’s the only one to show an increase in audience ratings this season. Fair enough.

Still, even with just a handful of new shows to preview, CBS managed to keep the upfront presentation from being too dull. Some laughs, some cringing.

• Chief Executive Les Moonves played up the network’s ratings for 2008-09 and took mock offense at an L.A. Times story that pointed out that CBS isn’t the sexiest of networks. “Who says we’re not sexy. My wife thinks I’m sexy — or at least that’s what she tells me.” Crowd liked it.
• Crowd also liked Simon Baker, star of “The Mentalist.” Two female advertising executives sitting in front of me couldn’t get enough of him, snapping pictures with their phones etc. “I know what you’re thinking,” Baker offered. “Yes, I’m a little shorter in real life.”
• Laurence Fishburne reminded everyone that he’d been on CBS a couple of times before his current stint on “CSI.” One of those occassions? Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Sweet.
• Neil Patrick Harris took a page from his show, “How I Met Your Mother,” and offered a few of his character’s tips from “The Bro Code” for advertisers heading to upfront parties. Among some of the gruesome lines: “Article 176 C, if you wake up tomorrow morning in bed with Jennifer Love Hewitt, what happens at the upfronts stays at the upfronts.” “Article 176 D, if you wake up with Morley Safer, see Article 176 C.” “Article 150, a bro never dances with his hands above his head. Ever.” “Article 157, a good way for a bro to get a get in the mood at the CBS party is to suddenly mention the dirtiest sounding CBS shows. These include, but are not limited to ‘The Bing Bang Theory’ and ‘69 Minutes.’”
• L.L. Cool J, who is set to star in NCIS: Los Angeles, actually came out on stage and performed “Mama Said Knock You Out.” You really had to be there. At one point, he urged a thousand or so buttoned-up advertising executives at Carnegie Hall to “Put your hands in the air, stand on your chair!”. Some did. Seriously. I only wish I had a camcorder.

Here’s a look at the new CBS schedule, which will be presented to advertisers later today.

(New shows are in bold)

MONDAY

8:00-8:30 PM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

8:30-9:00 PM ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE

9:00-9:30 PM TWO AND A HALF MEN

9:30-10:00 PM THE BIG BANG THEORY

10:00-11:00 PM CSI: MIAMI

TUESDAY

8:00-9:00 PM NCIS

9:00-10:00 PM NCIS: LOS ANGELES

10:00-11:00 PM THE GOOD WIFE

WEDNESDAY

8:00-8:30 PM THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE

8:30-9:00 PM GARY UNMARRIED

9:00-10:00 PM CRIMINAL MINDS

10:00-11:00 PM CSI: NY

THURSDAY

8:00-9:00 PM SURVIVOR

9:00-10:00 PM CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION

10:00-11:00 PM THE MENTALIST

FRIDAY

8:00-9:00 PM GHOST WHISPERER

9:00-10:00 PM MEDIUM

10:00-11:00 PM NUMB3RS

SATURDAY

8:00-9:00 PM CRIMETIME SATURDAY

9:00-10:00 PM CRIMETIME SATURDAY

10:00-11:00 PM 48 HOURS MYSTERY

SUNDAY

7:00-8:00 PM 60 MINUTES

8:00-9:00 PM THE AMAZING RACE

9:00-10:00 PM THREE RIVERS

10:00-11:00 PM COLD CASE

CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves doesn’t sound particularly worried about NBC’s decision to put Jay Leno in the 10:00 pm timeslot five nights a week. In fact, he sounds a bit giddy about the whole thing.

The way Moonves figures it, CBS could bank millions in additional revenue from the switch. Moonves described his thinking on a call with investors, using what he acknowledged were “ballpark” figures to make his point.  Essentially he said that even if Leno does well the show simply will not attract the kind of advertising dollars of, say, “CSI”. That means CBS will take an even bigger share of the advertising money in primetime.

“Assume we were the No. 1 at 10:00 last year and we took in 38 percent of the revenue available at 10:00 on broadcast television. Remember, there are only three networks [Ed: Fox doesn't run competing programming at that hour] And assuming Jay Leno does great, does what he’s doing now. Suddenly, that 38 percent will turn into 45 percent, maybe 47 percent. So you take 10 percent more revenue in that time period. And 10 percent of an arguably many hundreds of millions of dollars pie is a lot of money.

That’s why we wish Jay well. We think this is a big plus for us and ABC in terms of revenue.”

The revenue would be welcome. CBS television’s operating income dropped 54 percent in the most recent quarter; ABC’s dropped 38 percent.

(Photo: Reuters)

Media mogul Sumner Redstone credits fish, Grey Goose vodka and plain hard work for giving him “the health of a 20-year-old.” 

The octogenarian head of CBS Corp and Viacom Inc told CNN talk show host Larry King at the Milken Institute Global Conference that he made a “miracle recovery” from prostate cancer due to his “highly disciplined” consumption of “every antioxidant known to man” even when he doesn’t feel like it.

“My doctor says that he’s seen a lot of men slow down the aging process but I am the only man who has reversed it,” Redstone crowed at the hour-long interview that packed two conference rooms at the Milken Institute Global Conference on Wednesday in Beverly Hills.

Sumner, also repeatedly insisted, to King’s annoyance, that he is 65 years old.
   

“Suddenly you don’t look so amazing,” King retorted.

Sumner is 85.

That robust health and need for a challenge extends to every aspect of his life: “The most attractive women are married,” the recently divorced Redstone told King. “Sometimes a husband doesn’t count.”

In between tales of business, baseball and the Massachusetts General Hospital burn unit, which helped him make a miracle recovery from severe burns suffered in a hotel fire, Redstone said he keeps healthy by eating fish most days, exercising for 15 minutes and downing a shot or so of vodka and a half glass of wine each day.

He has “no intention of retiring or of dying.”

– Blog post written by Gina Keating.

Get your brackets filled out, hand over a few bucks to the office pool manager, and settle in for some March Madness. The NCAA basketball tournament starts today.

Besides terrific basketball, the next two weeks will showcase what is a great paring of old and new media by CBS. Give the folks over at CBS credit, they’ve done a tip-top job of bringing the games to both your television set and your computer.

(In 1999, CBS acquired the rights to 11 years of broadcasting the tournament, paying about $6 billion. It also has the exclusive online rights.)

But this is where the big question comes into play. Will CBS’s first-rate online coverage cannibalize its television audience? And does it matter, particularly if advertisers are buying package deals? This is the sort of the thing media executives — worried about their own balancing act between old and new media — have been trying to figure out for years.

Here’s the Breakingviews.com take on it:

The growth of online video is similarly problematic for CBS. True, it owns the Internet rights to the tournament. And it expects online video revenue to increase 20 percent this year to $30 million. If the company can make extra money from online video while keeping its TV revenue steady, its not-very-lucrative rights contract could still turn into a moneymaker.

But online revenue could come at the expense of the company’s cash cow, its television business. Last year, the tournament averaged 10 percent fewer viewers than in 2004, according to Nielsen.

Keep an eye on:

• Cisco Systems is buying digital camcorder-maker Pure Digital Technologies as it seeks to push further into the consumer market (Reuters)
• Microsoft is set to publicly launch Internet Explorer 8 early on Thursday, the latest version of its market-dominating Web browser (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

CBS’s stock may be in the tank (now under $4 a share),  but Chief Executive Les Moonves is still pretty darn optimistic. That may be because his network — home to the “CSI” franchise, “Survivor,” and “The Mentalist” — is the only one of the big four that’s been pulling in more prime-time viewers. For months it has been crushing ABC, NBC, and Fox in the ratings game.

What’s the payoff? CBS won’t have to make wholesale changes to its 2009-10 schedule and should be able to hang on to more advertising dollars than its rivals,  Moonves told an audience at the Deutsche bank Deutsche Bank Annual Media & Telecommunications Conference.

Moonves figures CBS will need to shoot six fewer pilots than it did a year ago, and bring only 2 or 3 new shows to air next season. He also says that with known hits — like “The Mentalist” — and few question marks about its schedule the network should fare well in this spring’s upfront market.

What’s more, if advertisers get too skittish, CBS will simply hold back inventory during negotiations, Moonves said. “”We’ve never been afraid to play the scatter game,” he said. “My guess is there will be a little less volume going into the upfront.”

Of course, CBS has also been burned by holding back inventory and betting on stronger prices later in the year for the scatter, or spot, market. Remember 2001’s upfront? CBS cut its inventory, bet on the scatter market, and was hurt when advertising fell apart that fall after the attacks of Sept 11.

Still, Moonves sounded confident. “We will not reduce our prices,” he declared.

And he wasn’t about to apologize for CBS’s programming choices, which some say are too vanilla. “Do we program for Middle America? Yeah.  We’ve heard for years that we have too many procedurals. But we’ll keep doing them until America tells us to stop doing them. All I know is we keep getting base hits. Our on base percentage is phenomenal.”

Keep an eye on:

• Microsoft Corp is testing a new version of its online search service internally under the name of Kumo.com (Reuters)
• Thomson Reuters Corp will launch a video news service in June for financial professionals who use its terminals, part of a $1 billion plan to appeal to a new generation of customers (Reuters)
• Live Nation posts wider loss on writedown, but sees healthy 2009 ticket sales (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)