NBC’s ratings have plummeted since a great prime-time run last autumn, Bill Carter reports. NBC’s viewership has dissipated to numbers never before seen by any broadcast network — certainly not during sweeps month. In February NBC was not only well behind its competitors but also the Spanish-language channel Univision. The numbers are so bad that NBC may have to offer “make-goods,” or free advertising time, to cover shortfalls of ratings guarantees. Audiences for once-promising sitcoms like “Go On” have disappeared; new shows like “1600 Penn” have drawn little notice; and “Do No Harm” became the lowest-rated network drama on record before being canceled after two episodes. “Saturday Night Live,” the network’s highest-rated show even though it is 38 years old, was the only silver lining.
It is every brand manager’s nightmare: hackers breaking into a product’s social media accounts, an occurrence that is happening more often, Tanzina Vega and Nicole Perlroth write. It happens frequently on Twitter, where security measures for both personal and branded accounts amounts to nothing more than a username and password. Burger King’s Twitter feed was recently hacked — its logo was replaced by the McDonald’s arches and its tweets ranged from unprintable to incomprehensible — but Burger King is hardly alone. Social media accounts for NBC News, USA Today, Donald J. Trump, the Westboro Baptist Church and even the “hacktivist” group Anonymous have been victims. The hacking has led to calls for stronger security measures, and means more business for social media management companies like HootSuite.
“Argo” won best picture at a very musical Academy Awards Sunday night, Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply report. But in a field with many promising candidates the awards managed to take in a wider variety of films than in some years, with Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” winning four awards, including best director; “Les Misérables,” which won three; and “Django Unchained,” which won two, including best original screenplay for Quentin Tarantino. The evening was filled with surprises and contradictions, Alessandra Stanley writes, more because of host Seth MacFarlane than the awards themselves. Mr. MacFarlane, the creator of “Family Guy” and other animated television shows, crooned standards and carried himself like Fred Astaire while delivering crude jokes about Jews in Hollywood, women and even President Lincoln. Combined with too many fatuous award presentations, the broadcast became one of the longest and most self-conscious Oscar ceremonies ever. Dress choices were a bit more daring than usual, Eric Wilson reports. Sleeves were in short supply and straps might as well have been illegal. Anne Hathaway’s Miuccia Prada dress, which she chose at the last minute, stole the show.
Netflix’s new series, “House of Cards,” proves that the company is getting better at seeing the future, David Carr writes. Netflix’s streaming media service collects a huge amount of nuanced data from its 33 million customers, which helps shape its choice of television shows to license and which first-run programming to create. Data has always been crucial in creating programming, but some television executives worry that focusing too much on it will keep networks from pushing for innovative new content.
Barnes Noble’s e-reader the Nook may not be long for the increasingly-packed tablet market, Leslie Kaufman writes. The company announced that losses from its Nook media division in the third quarter of fiscal year 2013 will be greater than the year before, and that the unit’s revenue for all of 2013 would be far below projections of $3 billion. A person familiar with Barnes Noble’s strategy said that the quarter convinced the company to move away from manufacturing its own devices and bolster its online library. The pity is that the some of the latest Nooks were great e-readers, as this article by David Pogue shows.
The new food magazine Delish, published by Hearst and available only at Walmart stores, has proved a bright spot in the otherwise bleak retail magazine market, Stuart Elliott writes. While food magazines in general are performing better than many other categories, Delish’s success might be because of an interesting marketing scheme. Walmart customers who buy another Hearst magazine, like Country Living or Good Housekeeping, get a free copy of Delish.