Crown Media Family Networks’ executives said Thursday that efforts to increase the amount of original programming on their two Hallmark cable channels are already attracting advertisers, Stuart Elliott reports. Hallmark Channel plans to introduce five original prime-time series in July, and Hallmark Movie Channel will present original movies with Christmas themes this fall. Crown Media joins a lengthy list of media companies pursuing original programming rather than rerunning shows from broadcast networks. William J. Abbott, president and chief executive at Crown Media Holdings, said advertising gains will be “strong, strong, strong.”
The Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that movie ticket sales rose 6 percent around the world, to $34.7 billion in 2012, Michael Cieply reports. China beat Japan to become the second-highest national box office, taking in $2.7 billion to Japan’s $2.4 billion in 2012, and ticket sales rose in the United States and Canada. The number of movies released in 2012 by the association’s members continued to decline, dropping to 128 from 141 a year earlier.
Scottsdale, Ariz., has introduced a borderline surreal campaign to attract the most irascible of commuters, the New York subway rider, Matt Flegenheimer writes. The city of Scottsdale has spent $25,000 on a “full-body wrap” that festoons the 42nd Street Shuttle with images of cowboys cavorting under the sun or in saloons. “We’re embedding that seed of ‘Hey, maybe I’ve never considered Scottsdale before,’ ” Caroline Stoeckel, the vice president of marketing for the Scottsdale Convention and Visitors Bureau, said.
BioShock Infinite, one of the most-anticipated video games of the year, will be released Tuesday, Harold Goldberg reports. The third installment of Irrational Games’s BioShock series took 200 people four years and upward of $100 million to create, not including an advertising budget analysts estimate in the tens of millions. BioShock Infinite, a deep first-person shooter game set in a floating city and packed with cultural references, is in large part the brainchild of Irrational’s creative director, Ken Levine.
It is not a coincidence that inhabitants of the rural town of Dish, Texas, watch Dish Network, Manny Fernandez writes. In 2005 the town, then known as Clark, agreed to change its name in exchange for free basic service, installation and equipment for all residents. A Dish (the network) spokesman said the arrangement has been beneficial to both the company and the town, but many Dish residents said it has done little to put their hamlet on the map and bemoan the costs of premium channels like HBO.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced on Thursday that it would publish a book about Johnny Carson by the late-night host’s former lawyer, Henry Bushkin, Leslie Kaufman reports. Mr. Bushkin and Mr. Carson were close companions for 18 years but had a bitter falling out in 1988.