Occationally you get a commercial that isn’t just crap but actually represents a lot of thought and effort. The end result is something which manages to engage the audience, capture their interest, stay in their heads and most importantly promotes a product (which is retained by the audience). Even more rare are those commercials which do all of the above and represent well thought out composition and visual dynamics. Ritual is one of those.

The “Doctor Who” spin-off series “Torchwood”, will make its way onto Australian screens in 2007 on the ABC.
Torchwood tells the tale of a secret organisation which looks into strange and Alien goings on in Cardif. This new series brings back some familiar faces. John Barrowman reprises his role as “Captain Jack Harkness” a short term companion to the Doctor and Rose and will head up the team, while Eve Myles “Gwen Cooper” and Naoko Mori “Tosh” both get full casting after bit parts in Doctor Who.

Gleamed from the Sydney Morning Herald

CBS has found that offering video downloads increases the audiences for their TV shows

A poll taken by CBS found that over half of the users who streamed CBS shows on the Web had never seen the shows before on TV. According to CBS, the new users then became fans of those shows.

“We’re looking at this as a key change in direction for us now and looking at our programming as dual distribution programming–over the air and on the Internet,” said CBS Corp. research chief David Poltrack.

The CBS poll reinforces the trend towards free, ad supported video downloads and podcasts of television content.

from Podcasting News

Showtime has given the green light to a second season of crime drama Dexter, just five weeks into its initial run. The second season of twelve episodes goes into production next Spring for premiere later in 2007.

This is good news. I have been thoroughly enjoying Dexter, its unusual and rather dark; yet it is genually intriguing. If you have not caught an episode I highliy recommend it.

This is something that I am not buying at all. Appart from the fact that the breaks last longer than the quoted 60 seconds (including 20 seconds for ten’s promo for it) I am starting to think that these ads are spliced in at shorter intivales than the usual 8 min odd. In other words, the audience is being manipulated into staying in front of the Telly rather than getting up because its not the standard commercial length. On the other hand I think from a promotional point of view its working, yet there is something rather underhanded about it.