Checkout Line Becomes Latest Outlet for KTLA Promos
Media
by Claudia Peschiutta
KTLA-TV Channel is coming to a checkout lane near you.
This month, the L.A. station will begin running promotions for its news and programs on screens installed in grocery stores throughout Southern California. The screens, which feature sound and full-motion video, also provide their captive audience of shoppers with advertisements, cooking tips and movie previews.
KTLA has an exclusive partnership with Impli Inc. of San Francisco that makes it the only television station to run its ads on screens in L.A.
“It’s got a tremendous reach to it,” said John Reardon, KTLA’s general manager and vice president.
In exchange for promoting KTLA, Impli screen time will be packaged with station airtime for advertisers. The joint marketing agreement, in which no money changes hands, runs through at least the end of the year, said Alistair Goodman, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Impli.
Goodman cites company data indicating that most shoppers like the checkout-lane entertainment and actually remember some of what they watched while waiting in line. “We can make the perception of waiting shorter,” he said.
Lessons In Tolerance
Editors at the Los Angeles Daily News are learning a sobering lesson about the hazards of injecting religion into its commentary pages.
A Dec. 21 editorial cartoon by Patrick O’Connor created such an uproar over its anti-Semitic connotations that O’Connor, Managing Editor Ron Kaye and others at the paper plan to take a tour of the Museum of Tolerance.
The Daily News received dozens of angry letters and telephone calls in response to the cartoon that featured Israeli soldiers attacking what appear to be the Three Wise Men before the Nativity. The paper printed an apology two days later.
Kaye called the cartoon “a collective decision and a collective mistake. Our process broke down,” he said. “I don’t think any of us looked at it closely enough.”
No disciplinary actions have been taken against any of the people involved, Kaye said.
Editor David Butler was unavailable for comment.
While fewer letters and calls were coming in last week, Kaye conceded that some people did not feel a public apology was enough. “We lost credibility with our readers and we have to work hard to regain that,” he said.
Adjustments at Adelphia
Some local couch potatoes had their holiday cable-viewing interrupted when Adelphia Communications recently realigned its channels to add some new ones.
The changes caused some temporary problems but everything was back to normal last week, said Rick Neylan, consumer affairs manager for Adelphia.
The Federal Communications Commission requires that cable operators carry stations transmitting within their demographic area, which forced Adelphia to add KXLA-TV Channel 44 and KAZA-TV Channel 54, a Spanish-language station based in L.A., he said. Other channels, including the Home Shopping Network and Style, were also added in certain areas.
Adelphia also tried to bring more uniformity to its channel lineups in different areas through the realignment. “You want to get it as uniform as possible to make it easier for the customer,” Neylan said. “So, if you move from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills, you’ll know where CNN is.”
Good News for ‘Good Day Live’
The wacky team from “Good Day L.A.” has attracted enough fans to the morning show’s national spin-off for Fox to introduce it to two new markets and keep it on the air during the all-important February sweeps period.
“Good Day Live,” which began a trial run in L.A. and four other cities last month, will stay on the air at least through March 1, said Robb Dalton, president of programming and development at syndicator Twentieth Television. The show also is set to begin airing in Boston and Portland.
“We’re getting more audience reaction from this show than any other show I’ve worked on,” Dalton said, conceding that only some of it was positive.
While “Good Day Live” hasn’t earned higher ratings than its predecessors in each of the five test markets, it has shown week-to-week growth and managed to keep audiences throughout the hour, Dalton said.
Rosendahl Takes on the World
Talk show host Bill Rosendahl is getting ready to premier his latest cable public affairs program.
“The World In Focus,” an hour-long show on international issues, debuts Jan. 10 on Adelphia cable channels. Rosendahl, host of “Beyond the Beltway” and other shows, is producing the program in partnership with the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA.
The show will be funded by private donations being sought by Mike Medavoy, a member of the center’s advisory board and co-chairman of Phoenix Pictures, Rosendahl said.
“We’ve been talking about this for quite a while. What Sept. 11 did was add impetus,” he said. “Americans know less about foreign affairs than any other developed nation.”
Staff reporter Claudia Peschiutta can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 229 or at
[email protected].
