Super Bowl sets record! Adult Swim adds hour. Clooney talks.
After the coffee. Before seeing my accountant.
The Skinny: I’m still watching “The Following†but I don’t know how much longer I can take it. On last night’s episode, Ryan Hardy stares so hard at a potential suspect that she figures out he’s on to her and escapes. Real smooth detective work there. Today’s roundup includes Super Bowl ratings and expansion plans for Adult Swim. Also, George Clooney talks about the struggles of getting “Monument Men†to the big screen.
Daily Dose: Consider today’s Daily Dose a public service announcement. Time Warner Cable, feeling bad that some Los Angeles subscribers lost part of the Super Bowl, is offering a “gift.†Subscribers with digital cable can treat themselves to a free movie while those few left who only have a bare-bones cable plan will get a $5 credit. “We know there’s no way to undo the inconvenience of last night’s outage, and we want them to know how truly sorry we are for this issue,†said Deboarh Picciolo, senior vice president of operations for Time Warner Cable.
Super numbers. Even though the Super Bowl was pretty much over at halftime, viewers didn’t grab the remote and flee. The audience for Seattle’s beatdown of Denver was 111.5 million, which is a new record and an improvement of about 3 million viewers from last year’s game. Interestingly, the biggest audience was at the start of the third quarter, perhaps Bronco fans were rallying for the comeback that never came. More on the numbers from the Los Angeles Times and AdWeek.
PHOTOS: Behind the scenes of movies and TV
Getting more animated. Turner Broadcasting’s Adult Swim franchise, is expanding its prime-time real estate on the Cartoon Network by one hour. Now the adult cartoon block will start at 8 p.m. and end at 6 a.m. Adult Swim has huge numbers among young adults, particularly men. Turner is also rebranding its Boomerang Network, which primarily carries classic cartoons. Details from the New York Times.
Building a monument. Getting any movie from script to screen is a journey with many bumps and bruises along the way. The World War II drama “Monument Men,†directed by and starring George Clooney, is no different. Variety sits with Clooney on the struggles to make “Monument Men,†which is finally hitting the big screen after being pushed out of the 2013 calendar.
Bad day. Walt Disney Co. is making cuts at its interactive unit. The Wall Street Journal says “several hundred people†will be let go. The move comes despite Disney having some recent success with the new game “Infinity.†The unit has 3,000 employees and recently went through a management change at the top.
Bad day II. Layoffs at Time Inc. are expected to get underway today in advance of the magazine publisher’s planned separation from parent Time Warner Inc., according to the New York Post. While this is print and the Morning Fix is generally movies, TV and digital, Time Inc. owns some magazines that cover the biz including Time, Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: Philip Seymour Hoffman left behind a lot of completed work and a few unfinished projects as well. Ryan Faughnder on the boom in sales for equipment to make electronic dance music.
Follow me on Twitter. It’s hard out there for an ink stained wretch. @JBFlint.
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