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+108 days ago

Madonna, Clint and the Rest of Super Bowl XLVI Halftime

By James Poniewozik
Paul Drinkwater/NBC

I went into last night’s Madonna Super Bowl halftime show expecting to hate it: yet another performer whose appeal can charitably be described as “nostalgic” (see The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc.) blasting out a set of oldies while trying to hit that big squishy target of something-for-everyone. (“Dad, what’s Lady Gaga’s mom doing at [...]

+108 days ago

The Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials of 2012

By TIME Staff
360_ent_super_bowl_ads_0205

Animals, beer, women in bikinis—all the things that one would expect from Super Bowl commercials were present. TIME grades the Super Bowl XLVI ads

+News Media | 212 days ago

Campaign Video: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em for Herman Cain

By James Poniewozik

Can this insane campaign ad help keep Herman Cain from inadvertently getting himself nominated?

+261 days ago

Plenty of Chances to Meet Fox’s New Girl

By James Poniewozik

Fox is deeply convinced that you will love Zooey Deschanel this fall in its comedy New Girl. But if you are not thus persuaded yet, then by God, Fox is going to help you learn to love her by any means necessary. To that end, Variety reports, the network today will begin previewing the show’s [...]

+273 days ago

Robo-James' Time Machine: They Were Still the One

By James Poniewozik

It’s almost fall, which means that promos for new fall shows are starting to reach a crescendo. But one thing that we’ve lost amid all the multimedia advertising is what used to be a network staple: the fall-season promo reel. Above, see an example from the ABC “Still the One” campaign in 1977. What’s most [...]

+301 days ago

The Morning After: Am I Blue?

By James Poniewozik

Last night in Los Angeles, my fellow TV critics who have already arrived at the TCA press tour attended a party thrown by the Playboy Channel at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. I sat in Brooklyn and watched America’s Got Talent. Not bitter! Because it meant I had the chance to see possibly the most awkward, degrading [...]

+358 days ago

Pardon the Interruption: PBS Planning Ad Breaks Within Shows

By James Poniewozik

The major difference between PBS and commercial broadcasters used to be, well, commercials. For-profit TV relied on ads, PBS didn’t. OK, maybe it had sponsors, but nothing so crass as commercials. Then, OK, maybe it had “enhanced” sponsor messages, which looked a lot like commercials to the layman, but at least they didn’t interrupt the [...]

+472 days ago

Groupon: We Meant to Do That

By James Poniewozik

So as I wrote this morning, Groupon seems to have alienated much of the football-watching world with its commercial last night, which began as a seemingly earnest plea about the plight of Tibet and ended with Timothy Hutton describing the awesome deal he and others got at a Tibetan restaurant thanks to the online-coupon site. [...]

+472 days ago

The Morning After: Super Bowl Ads, the Light and the Dark Side

By James Poniewozik

Thanks for my kindly masters, this was the first year in several that I did not work through the Super Bowl and into overtime reviewing every single ad for time.com—I divvied up the game with colleagues Steven James Snyder, Feifei Sun and Josh Sanburn. I had the second quarter, which included personal fave from Volkswagen [...]

+485 days ago

The Morning After: Second Skins

By James Poniewozik

The MTV drama Skins is shedding advertisers faster than its cast shed shirts in their publicity photos. The past week, when controversy over the show’s sex-and-drugs content was compounded by purported fears that the show could constitute child pornography, saw a half dozen sponsors leave the show, including Schick, Taco Bell, GM, Wrigley, Subway and [...]

+486 days ago

eTrade Baby Curses Jets Once More

By James Poniewozik

I can sometimes take the pulse of the Universal TV Watching Mind by noticing when there’s a sudden spike on traffic for a year-old post on my blog. Judging by this morning’s logs, a bunch of people are coming to Tuned In by Googling the terms “James Brown,” “eTrade Baby” and “shame” or “embarrassment” or [...]

+506 days ago

X-Factor to Bring the Pepsi (Literally) to Idol's Coke

By James Poniewozik

When Fox signed up Simon Cowell to produce The X-Factor singing competition after leaving American Idol, it was perhaps not the ideal situation—how Idol will survive Cowell’s loss remains to be seen—but it made sense. Better not to risk someone else grabbing Cowell’s project and set up a competitor across the street: Fox would have [...]

+TV Ratings | 588 days ago

Which TV Viewers Should Count?

By James Poniewozik

    It’s a common and understandable myth that TV shows stay on the air by getting as many viewers as possible. They don’t. In commercial television, shows stay on the air by making money, something that relates to, but does not correlate directly to, getting as many viewers as possible. If you’re a network [...]

+652 days ago

And Now for Something Completely Familiar: Conan's New Ad

By James Poniewozik

TBS has a new ad for Conan O’Brien‘s late-night show, debuting in November. I’m not sure if it’s reflective of the sensibility of the new show or just the sensibility of the TBS promotions department, but it’s Monty Pythonesque. More in the Terry Gilliam aesthetic than in actually being funny. But it’s very, very Monty [...]

+659 days ago

Sponsors Won't Punish $#*! for Bad Language, Will for Bad Ratings

By James Poniewozik

I’m not going to pretend you didn’t see this coming, but the Parents Television Council has called on advertisers to boycott CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says, based on the Twitter feed shitmydadsays and the subsequent book. “Unless or until CBS chooses a different title for this program, we are urging advertisers to avoid sponsoring [...]

+706 days ago

Dead Tree Alert: Last Golden Girl Standing

By James Poniewozik

The debut of Hot in Cleveland, starring Betty White with a trio of sitcom-nostalgia iconettes, attracted nearly 5 million viewers Wednesday night, making it the most-watched show on cable. Those numbers would be fairly decent for a broadcast network show (it’s not far from what, say, 30 Rock or Parks and Recreation draw), they’re outstanding [...]

+716 days ago

Nike Discovers the Flash-Sideways

By James Poniewozik

Nike has launched a new ad—at three-plus minutes, a mega-ad—for the World Cup, and it’s a doozy. Directed by Alexander Rodriguez Alejandro González Iñárritu, the hyper, kinetic, hyperkinetic commercial, “Write the Future,” follows several international footballers through the throes of game play—and beyond: it flashes out into the wider world to spin the reactions to [...]

+723 days ago

Lost Audience Not Record Setting, But Watched Ads Really Hard

By James Poniewozik

When I wrote my print TIME feature on the end of Lost, one section I had to drop for space had to do with how much money ABC was asking for ads in the finale—reportedly $900,000 a pop—even though Lost was not close to the highest-rated program on TV. That fact points to something that [...]

+777 days ago

Nike, Tiger Woods and the Saddest Ad of All Time

By James Poniewozik

So there are a few things that are pretty much known to move product. Sex, of course—we all know sex sells. And a good deep discount—people love to save money! Oh, and also? A pained, publicly shamed celebrity staring dead-eyed at you while being interrogated by the edited, disembodied voice of his dead father. It [...]

+786 days ago

Lost Finale Means Big Answers For Fans – And Big Business For ABC

By Steven James Snyder

In this age of DVR, Hulu and TiVO, live TV events are increasingly rare. But advertisers are betting on the fact that fans of Lost are going to be tuned in live May 23, for the much-anticipated final episode. And when we say betting, we mean betting big. AdAge is reporting that a 30-second commercial [...]