Suddenly, after limited news over the past year, Epix has been very much the talk of the town in recent days. A number of publications, including Reuters, have picked up on some announcements out of the pay TV site jointly owned by Paramount, Lions Gate, and MGM.

The key bit of news, of course, was the announcement that it had reached its first distribution deal, with Verizon. Chief Executive Mark Greenberg suggested to us that other deals should be coming soon — that he is talking to everybody and “some are further along than others.”

This is key, in the eyes of Wall Street. Distribution deals are always a bit tricky, and even tougher in the current economic environment. But analysts want to see Epix sign a deal with one of the big players — one with a ton of subscribers. We’re talking about Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV. So far the reaction has been a little lukewarm from some of the big boys but that could just be a negotiating tactic.

That aside, there have been some other relatively significant bit of news. In case you missed…

• Epix will be launching in October, though hasn’t announced an official date. Sounds like they could be planning some sort of “event” or “special” to kickstart the channel

• The epixHD.com web site, which we’ve seen, is going to launch earlier.  It’s currently in beta, and looks good. Has some of the feel of Hulu.com

• Epix, which will be home to some 15,000 films, including titles like “Iron Man” and “Star Trek” and the James Bond movies, just signed a content deal with independently owned Samuel Goldwyn Films.

• Other content deals will likely follow, but Greenberg seemed doubtful that any full, equity partners would be brought on board.

• While most pay-TV channels air films about 12 months after the hit the theaters, Epix is planning to roll its out in 9-1/2 months (helps to be owned by the studios).

Still, none of this matters all the much without distribution. We’ll keep you posted.

Keep an eye on:

• In other news on Monday, Dish Network’s stock is jumping. The reason? For the first time in over a year the company added subscribers — impressive in the current climate. (Reuters)

• Bon Voyage. As expected, Microsoft has sold the Razorfish ad agency to France’s Publicis. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

Let the bleeding begin. USA Today publisher Gannett kicked off earnings season for media companies this morning, posting a 60 percent drop in quarterly profit.

Here are some key points:

• Revenue fell almost 18 percent to $1.38 billion.

• Publishing ad revenue fell 34.1 percent from last year, with U.S. ad revenue down 28.2 percent and British ad revenue down 38.7 percent.

• At USA Today, ad sales fell 33.5 percent, and the number of paid advertising pages fell to 527 from 826 last year. USA Today’s paid circulation also likely will fall after Marriott International said this week that it would no longer automatically deliver the paper to its guests.

Don’t expect advertising revenue to look much better for biggest media companies as they roll out their numbers over the coming weeks. As Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson recently pointed out in a research note, investors have been “looking past the horrid near-term trends to a happier place somewhere out on the horizon” but with earnings here “the recent run-up in media stocks will have resistance as the market realizes that recent trends are not likely to reverse any time soon.”

Keep an eye on:

• Dominos has found itself in the center of a publicity storm after two employees filmed a prank in one of its restaurant’s kitchens and posted it online (NY Times)

• ABC Entertainment Group President Stephen McPherson is under increasing pressure to produce a break-out hit (NY Post)

• Twitter is talking to big web companies about partnerships, but isn’t looking to sell itself (NY Times)

• Publicis Groupe agencies have added Hewlett-Packard’s personal systems group account in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region following a review (Adweek)

So how low can it go? One percent? Three percent? Five percent? Let’s try a decline of 6.9 percent — since that’s the latest forecast for global advertising spending from ZenithOptimedia.

To the surprise of few, the agency, part of French advertising group Publicis, revised downward its outlook for 2009, predicting that only Internet ad spending now looks like it will rise for the year.

“Since we released our last forecasts in December the global ad market has taken a substantial turn for the worse,” said ZenithOptimedia. (Back then, the agency was calling for a flat market).

The trouble is that nobody seems to have accurately pegged the severity of the advertising downturn. Everybody’s forecast has been lowered — often more than once — in trying to keep up with the swan dive in spending. And now experts can’t seem to agree on whether ad spending with be a leading or lagging indicator, or whether the worst has passed or is still to come.

Experts can hardly be blamed for getting it wrong. After all, as ZenithOptimedia puts it, the business has seen “unprecedented economic problems.”

But the size of the revisions should send chills up the spine of media-watchers, who are desperate for some clarity. Here’s what ZenithOptimedia offered up on Tuesday:

We are currently in the middle of a period of steep deterioration in ad expenditure. The downturn began in Q3 2008, accelerated in Q4, and Q1 2009 was at least as tough as the preceding quarter. As we enter Q2, there is limited long-term visibility in the market as most advertisers wait until the last moment to confirm their spending commitments. Many are treating advertising as a discretionary expense, and one they find convenient to cut. Ad expenditure correlates strongly with corporate profits, and the ad market is unlikely to start its recovery until profits start to pick up again.

The current barriers to recovery include lack of trust in the credit markets, and low confidence in prospects for short-term growth. If governments manage to tackle the bad debt poisoning the credit markets, and if their stimulus programmes kick-start economic growth, then advertisers should start to regain their confidence. This will take time, and occur at different speeds in different markets. At this point we forecast 1.5% growth in global ad expenditure in 2010 followed by 4.5% growth in 2011, but these forecasts will be revised in the light of new information

Keep an eye on:

• PepsiCo, taking umbrage over a nationwide advertising campaign accusing its Gatorade energy drink of missing crucial electrolytes, sued Coca-Cola Co for false advertising and taking scientific liberties (Reuters)

• NBC’s Boston affiliate has reversed course and decided to carry the network’s new Jay Leno primetime talk show after all (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Amazon, in response to angry online commentary, said that “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error” had caused thousands of books on its site to lose their sales rankings and become harder to find in searches (The New York Times)

(Photo: Reuters)

With the Super Bowl less than a week away, this is when the anxiety really boils on Madison Avenue. Is our spot going to bomb? Are we too late in the game? Is anyone going to watch Pittsburgh vs. Arizona? Is any of this madness worth it?!!????

Advertising Age puts at least a bit of that fear to rest:

Surely, spending $3 million on a Super Bowl ad in the midst of a crushing economic downturn is a foolish waste when chief marketing officers’ jobs are on the line?

On the contrary, it’s a bargain.

The Super Bowl presents not just a huge platform with astounding audience numbers where consumers actually lean forward to watch your ad. It also pays surprising ancillary dividends in awareness: reams of press coverage that drive word-of-mouth and stampeding traffic to websites. Most importantly, for the right company, it can establish a relationship and sell product.

Of course, you still have to get the creative right and hope that audiences are interested in the game. Feel any better?

Keep an eye on:

• Movies sales were slow, but not totally missing, at the Sundance Film Festival, which ended Sunday in Park City, Utah (New York Times)
• Publicis won a global advertising deal with French supermarket group Carrefour, boosting its shares and depressing those of rival Havas, which previously held a large part of the contract (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

Sorting out what the economic downturn means for the sports world has become something of a sport itself.

Will consumers’ need to escape with some old-fashioned football trump their anxiety about shelling out hard-earned money for tickets, parking and hotdogs at the game?

Will TV broadcasters cash in on higher ratings, as consumers skip more expensive entertainment to spend time at home watching baseball or basketball on television? Or has devastation across the financial services and auto industries — two big advertisers in sports — doomed TV broadcasters regardless of audience size?

We already know what happened with GM and Tiger Woods.

“If you just look at the numbers, straight at the numbers, on the broadcast side in sports, anywhere — and especially when you look at football or anywhere — between 6 percent to 8 percent of their revenue is automotive and then you take out the financial picture there and now maybe you’re up to 9 percent or 10 percent,” MPG North America Chief Operating Officer Steve Lanzano told the Reuters Media Summit. “That’s a ton of money that’s moving out of the marketplace. That is very scary.”

NFL Executive Vice president Eric Grubman acknowledged that the economy is hurting the league on several fronts: it makes financing tougher; it crimps advertising revenue for its partners; and it undercuts consumer spending on everything from tickets to jerseys.

But, says Grubman, it’s not all gloom and doom.

“There is a part of the National Football League that is I believe very countercyclical and very recession resistant. And that is that when people are experiencing tough times… economic or otherwise… they go back to things that they love and they go back to things that they enjoy. And sports is one of them,” he said.

Hmmmm.

NASCAR and Major League Baseball drop into the Reuters Media Summit later today.

Keep an eye on:

• National Amusements Inc’s negotiations to restructure its debt are moving slowly — that means a deal may not happen this year (WSJ.com)
• Blockbuster will sell tickets for top U.S. concert producer Live Nation (Reuters)
• Publicis Groupe is building its Asian assets with a deal to buy W&K Communications, a full-service agency in China (Adweek)

(Photo: Reuters)

If you were looking for any positive signs from the advertising industry, perhaps as vendors try to drum up business amid the rough economy, forget it. Times are tough there too.

On Tuesday, France’s Publicis said it expects to see weakness in mature markets and traditional sectors and a “marked slowdown” in the ad industry next year.

And Interpublic Chief Executive Michael Roth said clients’ spending plans were under pressure from the financial crisis.

“While we believe that with our strong performance year to date we remain positioned to achieve our financial objectives for 2008, the impact of an increasingly unsettled and volatile business environment on our sector is not yet clear and creates a risk to meeting our stated goals.”

Even Martha Stewart’s Omnimedia machine said advertising revenue in its publishing division fell in the third quarter, and ad results in the current quarter are down so far.

All this after Omnicom last week said some of its retail and automotive clients had begun to cancel some spending plans.

Keep an eye on:

• The Los Angeles Times plans to cut 10 percent of its news staff. (Reuters)
• MSNBC takes hits for its political coverage. (Hollywood Reporter)
• OK! magazine is unveiling a major leadership shake-up. (New York Post)
  

Quarterly results arrived today from Interpublic Group and Publicis. Guess what? Advertising spending held up in the second quarter, at least for the two ad companies.

You would think — given all the doom and gloom — that corporations would have sharply cut back on spending in the second quarter. Indeed, just about every expert out there has cut spending forecasts.

Yet Interpublic, home of DraftFCB and McCann-Erickson, posted revenue that raced right past expectations and said it was well on the way to achieving its goals for the year.

And the economy? They said they’re watching it and keeping an eye on costs.

“While the growth that we posted during the first half demonstrates that we have yet to see retrenchment on the part of clients, we will continue to monitor the broader economic situation closely,” CEO Michael Roth said in a statement.

French advertising group Publicis also seemed to weather the storm in the second quarter, increasing organic sales in all areas, including the United States. It did say, however, that it expected marketing investments to fall in some areas, citing the automotive and financial sectors, because of the credit crisis and rising commodity and food prices.

Of course, solid spending by clients in the second quarter may not tell us much. Many see advertising spending as a trailing economic indicator, meaning that we could very well see clients cutting budgets for the second half of the year.

“We are not immune to the macroeconomic environment. We will certainly see some client areas affected,” IPG’s Roth said on a conference call. But so far clients see the downturn as an opportunity to build brand, he added.

“We haven’t seen a major pullback.”

On the other hand, clearly everything isn’t sunshine in the advertising world. Just check out Meredith, whose earnings fell because of lower advertising revenue at its magazines. Or take a look at Viacom Inc, whose earnings showed weakness in retail and automotive advertising crimped hurt sales for its cable TV networks.

Keep an eye on:

• Dell is testing a digital music player that could go on sale as early as September in a challenge to Apple (WSJ.com)
• Social networking site MySpace announced a series of new senior executives (paidContent.org)
• Billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens has sold all his Yahoo shares in frustration over Yahoo’s failure to reach a deal with Microsoft (San Francisco Chronicle)
• ESPN will unveil a new online network that will encompass a cluster of Internet sites aimed at action sports (LA Times)

(Photo: Reuters)

So Tribune Co is cutting jobs at The Sun in Baltimore and Hartford Courant.

Not to sound callous, but by this point should anyone be surprised by news that a publisher is getting rid of jobs? After all, this is shaping up to be one of the worst years in memory for the newspaper business.

The upshot: The Sun will lose 100 jobs, 60 of them in the newsroom, and the Courant will cut about 60 jobs. (Don’t forget, Tribune is also cutting jobs at the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune)

But it’s not just Tribune. It seems everyone is cutting jobs as advertising revenue plunges thanks to the one-two combination of a weak economy and competition from the Internet for marketing dollars.

Here’s what the union had to say about Tribune’s cuts:

“Baltimore Sun employees are being punished for Tribune’s mismanagement,” Cet Parks, chief negotiator for the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, said in a statement. “Tribune’s answer to solving declining circulation and readership is to slash employees from the payroll and cut the news hole, salaries and benefits.”

Perhaps that is their answer — but is there a better one out there? So far, nobody seems to have found one.

Keep an eye on:

• WPP Group chief Sir Martin Sorrell is warning that Google is trying to do an end-run around ad agencies. But French rival Publicis is keen to partner with the search giant - and just about anyone else in the online realm (NY Post)
• Video games are known to improve hand-eye coordination but can they help someone quit smoking or lose weight? (Reuters)
• NBC has settled a lawsuit filed by the family of a man who killed himself when confronted with cameras for the documentary series “To Catch a Predator” (NY Times)
• It costs less to run run ads during “The Office” on Hulu than NBC.com. But keep in mind you can’t buy individual shows on Hulu, just demographics across a number of shows (Silicon Alley Insider)

(Reuters photo of Tribune Tower)

Quarter after quarter, analysts and the financial press keep pressing advertising executives about the economy and spending. For good reason, too, since corporations often take scissors to advertising budgets during downturns.

Thing is, the chief executives of the big ad holding companies so far have given very much the same answer during conference calls and interviews: everyone is worried, nobody is cutting spending.

Interpublic CEO Michael Roth is no exception. Here’s what he said on Wednesday about the economy/spending issue during his company’s earnings call:

“Of course, it goes without saying clients remain cautious due to broader economic concerns. To date we are not seeing signs of a pullback. But we continue to monitor the situation closely so as to be able to response quickly should the need arise.”

Here’s Publicis Groupe’s Maurice Levy:

“Not one single client has changed its plans. We continue to work with our clients according to plans.”

And Omnicom’s John Wren:

“Like most of our clients, we remain cautious about the economy, but to date, as I said, we have not seen any significant reduction in client spending.”

Havas’s Herve Philippe had this to say:

“Today we do not see any impact on our numbers from the international environment.”

So everyone seems to agree that nothing is happening — yet.

What’s that mean? It could be the industry is painting the brightest picture possible, which isn’t unheard of in advertising. Or it could mean companies aren’t yet feeling the full effects of the slowdown, and don’t need to take scissors to ad budgets. Or perhaps the thinking in the corporate world has shifted, and executives believe marketing is too important to cut. Or maybe the big cuts are just working their way through the system and will show up next quarter.

Give us your best guess. We’re interested.

(Photo: Reuters)