Wheeler rolling to FCC. DreamWorks Animation eyes AwesomenessTV
After the coffee. Before a long morning of earnings calls.
The Skinny: I got through the season finale of “The Following†last night. It wasn’t easy. Fortunately, afterward I watched the premiere of Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy,†which was a tad raunchy but had its moments. Wednesday’s stories include a look at the likely next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and quarterly results from Viacom, Time Warner and Comcast. If you are interested in receiving an email alert when the Morning Fix is live please send me a note.
Daily Dose: AMC did something a little different this past Sunday. Hoping to build attention for “Rectify,†which is on its sister Sundance channel, the network ran a repeat of it after Sunday night’s “Mad Men.†The hope is to build awareness for Sundance, which does not have nearly the audience of AMC.
Wheeling and dealing and regulating. Tom Wheeler, a venture capitalist and Washington insider, is going to be tapped by the White House as the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Wheeler, whose career includes stints as the top lobbyist for both the cable television and the cellular phone industries, was the leading candidate pretty much from the moment current Chairman Julius Genachowski announced his plans to resign. Some policy watchdogs are concerned about Wheeler’s close ties to companies he will be regulating. More on Wheeler from the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.
PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments
Totally awesome. DreamWorks Animation is in talks to buy YouTube channel AwesomenessTV, according to All Things Digital. Started by actor turned producer Brian Robbins, AwesomenessTV targets kids and young teens and has close to half a million subscribers. DreamWorks Animation has talked about starting its own cable network and AwesomenessTV could fit into those plans. DreamWorks Animation also released its first quarter results, which were better than expected, per the Los Angeles Times.
Number crunching. Three big media companies -- Time Warner, Viacom and Comcast -- all released quarterly results early this morning followed by analysts calls. Time Warner, parent of Warner Bros., HBO, CNN and TNT, posted a profit of $720 million, a gain of almost 20% compared with the same period a year ago. More on its results from Bloomberg. Viacom, whose properties include Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks, reported a profit of $481 million, a decline of 37%. Details on Viacom’s results from Reuters. Comcast said profit increased by 20% to $1.44 billion despite all the problems from NBC. Coverage of Comcast results from the Philadelphia Inquirer. We’ll have more on the calls later
No reason to cry. “Two and a Half Men†costar Jon Cryer is getting a raise to return to the hit CBS sitcom to more than $600,000 per episode. Ashton Kutcher did not get a bump in pay. But he’s making around $700,000 so don’t feel too bad. More on the salaries from the Hollywood Reporter.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Tony nominations 2013
Bad news is good ratings. The horrific bombings in Boston brought viewers back to CNN as the cable news network saw its audience grow by 80% in April. Fox News also had slight gains while MSNBC actually saw its audience shrink. More on the numbers from the New York Times.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: Maria Shriver is returning to NBC News. TV and movie production in Vancouver fell in the first quarter as Georgia and North Carolina made gains.
Follow me on Twitter. I need all the encouragement I can get. @JBFlint.
The Daily Dose item of today’s column was updated to reflect that it was AMC aired an encore episode of “Rectify,†not the Sundance Channel.
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