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Global’s racy girls
Global is revving up for a new four-part documentary series on female racecar drivers. Girl Racers will take a behind-the-scenes look at eight high-octane women over the 2004 auto-racing season as they go head-to-head in one of the few sports in which women compete directly with men.
The series premiers Friday, July 8 at 8 p.m. in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and 10 p.m. in the Maritimes and Alberta while it will air Saturday, July 9 at 8 p.m. in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. The series will be hosted by former driver and Beverly Hills 90210 star Jason Priestley.
Bravo! looks at origins of Canadian film industry
Bravo! is unspooling On Screen, a six-ep series of one-hours chronicling the Canadian film industry. The series will highlight some of our most-loved films and the people who made them successful.
The show will air Fridays at 8 p.m., beginning July 22 with a study of the classic Canadian horror Black Christmas which featured future stars Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin. Upcoming episodes cover the likes of Goin’ Down the Road and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
AOL Canada creates new audience division; names VP
Toronto-based AOL Canada has named Jonathan Lister as VP, audience. This is a newly created division within the interactive services company combining media sales and publishing with a focus on advertisers. Lister will oversee strategy for Web audience expansion and ad sales across AOL properties. He was previously senior director, media sales.
Fall TV Grids
Our Montreal grid for the fall 2005 TV season has been updated to include CBC in addition to SRC. Please click on the link below to view the revised grid.
Programming Grids for Fall TV
Fall TV Programming Grids
Media In Canada/Strategy Magazine have compiled national and regional television grids showing what the schedules will be this fall. Click below.
For in-depth coverage of the fall TV season, check out the MIC archives for the past few weeks and pick up a copy of Strategy’s June issue, on newsstands now.
Canucks in Cannes nab Lions
There will be Canucks celebrating on the Croisette tonight, as two Media Lions and one gold in Direct were just nabbed by Canadian agencies in Cannes. Toronto-based The Media Company and Cossette Media won a Media Lion apiece for their campaigns ‘Is Your Lipstick Still On?’ (Covergirl) and ‘Nike Speed’ respectively. Meanwhile, Montreal-based Diesel Canada clinched a Gold Lion for its work for Guru Bicycle Corp.
Doug Checkeris, president and CEO of The Media Company and a Media judge at Cannes, says he is thrilled to have a Lion under his belt this year. (TMC was also shortlisted for Nokia’s ‘Hello Toronto’ campaign.) ‘The Covergirl campaign was simple genius,’ he says. ‘It had a great consumer insight and access (to the target).’ The effort incorporated chips being imbedded in washroom mirrors to communicate with women in bars and clubs. As a judge, Checkeris saw 400 of the 1,100 total media entries and says the winning initiatives demonstrated a clear insight into the consumer, were engaging as well as scaleable and also had the results to prove their effectiveness. ‘There are no new ideas, the question is what makes an application more creative,’ he adds.
Analysis: The Unity Project – looking at both sides
Media in Canada Op/Ed columnist David Bray is SVP of Hennessy & Bray Communications in Toronto.
In the world of Canadian media research, the Unity Project has been one of the most ambitious endeavours in recent years, one that sparked considerable discussion and debate. As with anything of this import, opinions seem to be divided regarding implementation. Let’s take a look at Unity from both sides.
The initiative has been spearheaded by the Canadian Media Directors’ Council, more specifically by well-known media director Hugh Dow. Dow terms it ‘our attempt to bring some order to Canadian media audience and project usage data.’
Grant opens OOH production division
The Toronto-based Grant Sign Group of Companies (GSG) now has the ability to take out-of-home signage from production through to installation and maintenance with the formation of a new digital print division, Grant Sign Imaging Inc. (GSI). The imaging division is headed by CEO Steve Gallow, an owner/partner in the Grant Sign Group, and Will Thomson, president/partner. Before joining GSG, Gallow was SVP/partner at Cieslok Media, which was sold to Titan Outdoor earlier this year. He was previously with Mediacom (now Viacom) and started his own company, GHQ Imaging, in 1993. Thomson has experience on both sides of the border. He worked with Gallow at Mediacom and GHQ Imagining and most recently was director of operations for Prismaflex International, the company that bought GHQ.
Grant Sign’s other divisions are Grant Sign Service, Media Maintenance, and Rite Sign International. In other GSG news, the co has acquired the North American manufacturing and marketing rights for the Rite Sign product line, which includes tri-visions (three-message signs) amongst its products. Bill Mullen, former VP of sales for Rite Sign USA, has been named president of Rite Sign International. Mullen has also worked at Prismaflex International, Gallop & Gallop Advertising, and Mediacom.
Simmons’ study of gay and lesbian consumers comes out
New York-based market research firm Simmons announced yesterday that it has released its Gay and Lesbian Consumer Study, a comprehensive look at the consumer behaviour of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) population in the U.S. The new study will be published twice a year. PlanetOut, a leading global online media company offering consumer services, news and entertainment to the GLBT community through properties such as Gay.com, PlanetOut.com and Kleptomaniac.com, inked a charter subscription with Simmons. The media company works with advertisers to develop branded entertainment and interactive ad programs to more than five million subscribers.
http://www.smrb.com
Summer Chill Tour hits the road
Toronto-based Astral Media’s Family Channel hits the road again for the third year in a row with its Summer Chill Tour. The tour hits 65 spots across Canada from July 1 in St. John’s, Nfld. to Aug. 27 in Vancouver. Families and kids can sample free KISKO freezies and ICE POP-ITS while playing with the Mattel Shield Blaster in a game of water tag. The tour is aimed at kids eight to 14 and is the vehicle used by the network to promo tween show Mad Mad Summer. Deals with first-timer Mattel and long-time partner Kisko were brokered by Toronto-based event marketing agency TrojanOne.
Grand Prix event sports really big beer
Bowmanville, Ont.-based OOH company ImageProjection served up a really big beer at Montreal’s Grand Prix earlier this month. From June 9 to 11, a massive Budweiser bottle complete with racing mask loomed over Crescent Street. The Grand Prix sponsor’s ad image was projected onto a hotel wall garnering an estimated 420,000 pairs of eyes during the event. The big Bud bottle measured 50 by 90 feet – seven times larger than a standard billboard and so huge that the Bud can be seen from the city’s Mt. Royal, situated nearly three kilometers away. But unlike standard beer ads, size doesn’t matter here. The challenge is finding a wall to project the image and also, length. ‘It’s hard to put a cost ceiling for this as clients can choose more than one market for up to 15 nights,’ ImageProjection president Matt Drury says. ‘A standard local rate goes for $5,500 per night, if we’re using a single light and no scaffolding.’
http://www.imageprojection.com
BBM Media Snapshot: Canadians who bought patio furniture
* 4 million Canadians (15%) bought patio furniture during the last two years.
* 50% of those who bought are between 35 and 54 years old.
* Ontario has the highest incidence of patio furniture buyers in Canada (last two years) – 41% versus the 15% Canadian average. Ontario is the only region above the national average.
* 55% of patio furniture buyers live in families of three or more members; 39% live in households of two members.
* Their average personal yearly income is 1.4 times the national average.
* Consumer facts about those who bought patio furniture during the last two years are: 56% have gas barbecues (1.8 times national average), 13% have a pool (1.8 times national average), 12% have a camping trailer (1.7 times the national average), and 13% own a cottage (1.3 times national average).
* 25% of patio furniture buyers attend a craft show at least once a year (1.5 times national average), 22% go to home shows (1.7 times national average), and 13% attend garden shows (1.6 times national average).
* Their top media for yesterday’s exposure are radio (90%), TV (90%) and daily newspapers (61%).
* News/talk (21%), adult contemporary (20%) and classic/mainstream rock (12%), are the top radio formats amongst patio furniture buyers.
* Their preferred TV program types watched in an average week are: movies (72%), news/current affairs (70%), suspense/crime (49%), and documentaries (47%).
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’03 / Spring ’04
The preceding information is from BBM RTS, a syndicated consumer-media survey of over 55,000 Canadians, conducted twice a year by BBM Canada. For more information contact Craig Dorning of BBM Canada: cdorning@bbm.ca.
Teletoon grabs lots for fall
Teletoon’s got a full lineup for fall. For the four-to-six set, Gerald McBoing Boing airs weekdays at 3 p.m. with a launch date of Monday, Aug. 29. Carl2, a half-hour Teletoon original is aimed at tweens nine to 11, beginning Saturday, Sept. 3. The show airs on weekends at 7 p.m.
Older kids are in for a bit of fun with Sons of Butcher beginning on Friday, Sept. 2 at 9:30 p.m. The half-hour show skews male 14 to 17. Station X, a half-hour multimedia series begins its half hour on Saturday, Sept, 3. The show airs weekends at 9:30 p.m. and goes for the 12-to-17 crowd. The Wrong Coast, a 13-episode, half-hour series is aimed at 18+. The show launches on Saturday, Sept, 3 and airs weekends at 11 p.m.
Choose your own neighbour on CTV’s summer series
Imagine a place where you can choose your own neighbours. No, we’re not talking Wisteria Lane. On CTV’s new reality series Welcome to the Neighborhood, the participants get just that. Neighbours living in a quiet suburban community get to choose the family who will move next door as seven very different house-hungry families vie to impress them. Talk about kissing up to the Joneses. The hour-long series debuts on Sunday, July 10 at 9 p.m. targeting adults 25-54.
