The children’s channel Nickelodeon plans to release an iPad app Thursday that could have serious implications for its parent company, Viacom, Amy Chozick writes. It represents Viacom’s first attempt at a streaming app and could indicate how they will approach apps for channels like Comedy Central and MTV. The most interesting thing about the app is that Nickelodeon’s research indicated that 9- and 10-year-olds were more interested in associated content, like music videos, games and video clips, rather than watching full episodes on a tablet. So the app contains a lot of accessible content beyond streaming episodes of Nickelodeon favorites like “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “iCarly,” even for users who do not subscribe to a cable company that provides Nickelodeon.
The front page of Britain’s hell-raising tabloid The Daily Mail became the improbable site of literary discourse after Hilary Mantel, a celebrated historical novelist, wrote an article about the former Kate Middleton in The London Review of Books that the Mail called a “venomous attack.” Ms. Mantel was describing the 31-year-old Duchess of Cambridge based more on the idealized, objectified way she has been cast as part of the royal spectacle than who she may be as a person, John F. Burns explains. Nevertheless, the essay, which was written in an elegant but haughty style and referred to the duchess as “machine-made” and “a shop window mannequin,” created a populist furor that reached as high as Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the comments “completely wrong.”
Lawyers for New York City were rebuffed in their attempts to subpoena interview outtakes from documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’s movie about five men who were convicted and later cleared in the racially charged Central Park jogger rape case in 1989, Russ Buettner writes. The lawyers subpoenaed the interviews and notes from Mr. Burns as part of their defense against a federal lawsuit brought by the men. Mr. Burns fought the subpoena, calling it an assault on journalism that could have chilling repercussions, while the lawyers contended that Mr. Burns’s production company had veered from journalism into advocacy. Mr. Burns said he “jumped up and down” when he heard of the decision.
The World Wildlife Fund has launched a new public service campaign to promote awareness of the brutal poaching of wild animals without resorting to disturbingly graphic images, Andrew Adam Newman reports. The campaign is based around print ads at places like airports, buses and bus shelters that show, for example, a close-up of a tiger above the words “I am not a rug.” The ad space is donated, and the campaign will also feature an online push via Facebook and Twitter.
Snickers is taking a new approach to their well-regarded “you’re not you when you’re hungry” ad campaign, this time in print, Stuart Elliott writes. The new ads incorporate coupons to show that hunger affects decision-making. The first ad is intended for hungry boyfriends, husbands and significant others, with a coupon for 20 percent off a bouquet from ProFlowers. Underneath the coupon are the words “If hunger caused a delayed reaction to ‘Is she prettier than me?’ use this coupon. But next time, eat a Snickers.” The coupons are redeemable online and are also available on social media like the Snickers fan page and Twitter account.
A new interactive graphic shows how trailers from five of the nine films nominated for best picture at the Oscars were put together, Melena Ryzik explains. Some trailers follow the chronological order of their films while others choose scenes throughout the film, and they tend to mirror a film’s tone and pace. There are also sometimes discrepancies between what appears in a trailer and what appears in a film.