Reality Tv Statistics

Having steered through last year's rough movie seas only to again find choppy waters, studio marketing executives are pressing on this year toward the glistening, far-off shores of next summer and its promising roster of teen-tailored animation and action films.

While movie ticket revenues climb each year, the 2000 box office jump to $7.67 billion was a small 2-3%, fueled largely by higher tickets prices. Such boosts have not helped the beleaguered, overbuilt exhibition industry which in the past year has seen three of the nation's top five theater chains--United, Carmike and Loews--file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. General Cinema Theaters and Regal Cinemas, the nation's largest chain, also have been underperforming.

It was a year noted not so much for its blockbuster hits but for some notable misses. Two of 2000's animated flops--Dream Works' The Road to El Dorado and Disney's The Emperor's New Groove -- proved without equivocation that the popcorn populace does not like Aztec road comedies.

Still, 16 films each earned more than $100 million apiece, with mega-hits like Universal's How The Grinch Stole Christmas topping the 2000 charts with $253 million, aided in part by a gang of promotional partners that saw the film's Jim Carrey and his fictional Whoville brethren slapped across dozens of products from Nabisco cookies and Sprite soda cans to billions of pieces of holiday mail from the U.S. Postal Service. Among 2000's other stars: Paramount's Mission: Impossible 2, which netted $215 million, and DreamWorks' Gladiator which took home $186.6 million in domestic receipts and five Academy Awards, including best picture.

A 2000 of underperforming movies is not surprising considering the studios' much-ballyhooed Internet pushes which sapped money and resources--notably DreamWorks and its failed pop.com joint venture with Imagine Entertainment, Warner Bros. and its Entertaindom and Disney's Go.com. Add to that the shuttering of Disney's and Warner Bros.' studio stores amid stagnant sales of branded merchandise, the management upheavals and firings in production and marketing units at 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures, and the heightened pressure to boost efficiencies at the film units of the newly merged AOL Time Warner.

Beverages and fast food are not the only partners studios seek. Disney's Miramax unit dominated spring with promotion-laden Spy Kids and Bridget Jones's Diary, the latter forging several London trip sweepstakes with The Body Shop and Virgin's airline and record stores. Fox built promos for its June musical Moulin Rouge away from big partners, favoring high-end fashion and retail promos, notably Bloomingdale's.

Burger King, having been burned by three back-to-back lack-luster movie tie-ins last summer, took plenty of time last fall before picking its ultimate partner, DreamWorks' Shrek, despite heavy summer partner courting from Universal Pictures for Jurassic Park III and Fox for Planet of the Apes.

Along with earning $146 million in three weeks this May for The Mummy Returns, solid box office returns are expected for Universal's JP III next month. Fox's February flop, Monkeybone, shared the blame for this year's first-quarter earnings drop but Fox parent News Corp is expecting strong summer numbers for both Apes and Dr Doolittle 2. Dream Works' animated Shrek opened last month with a $42 million weekend.

For summer, Warner is expecting solid numbers with its prestige Steven Spielberg sci-fi entry A.I., followed by the release of the pet film Cats & Dogs and the animated Osmosis Jones. Paramount's Tomb Raider, backed by promotional partners Pepsi-Cola and PlayStation, will compete for teen boy movie tickets against expected box-office giant Pearl Harbor from Disney. The Mouse House's summer undersea animated entry, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, has struck $150 million in promo activity from the likes of McDonald's, Kellogg, ConAgra, General Mills, Frito-Lay and Hershey. But in the realm of likely merchandise bonanzas, toy executives have cared less about Atlantis than Disney's fall Monsters Inc., which has strong pre-release retailer interest.

New Line Cinema's Lord of the Rings will compete for holiday 2001 movie patrons against sister AOL Time Warner sibling Warner Bros. and its closely-watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Competing against them is the Nickelodeon/MTV Films release Jimmy Neutron; Boy Genius. Paramount's 2002 schedule includes plenty of sequel installments with Star Trek X: Nemesis, The First Wives Club 2 and Rugrats 3:Rescue Me.

Potter tie-in product already has hit stores but with mixed retail results for the fall film, which has one promotional partner, Coca-Cola, spending a reported $150 million, this after fractured talks with Potter author J.K. Rowling. Changes in studio loyalties involving Mattel and Hasbro, which of late have suffered job cutbacks and corporate upheaval, find movies as a brand category suffering in terms of tie-in toys.

Columbia's 2000 slate had mixed success and its summer 200l animated entry Final Fantasy. The Spirit Within is not expected to be a breakout hit. Meanwhile, MGM is coming off a prolonged quiet ride with this summer's tentpole film, Rollerball, while gearing up for the February 2002 bow of the 20th film starring 007.

The promise of 2002 rests on three S's -- scifi, sequels, and Spielberg. Sony's Columbia releases Spiderman, Stuart Little 2 and Men In Black 2 (which Spielberg is executive producing), with all three films built on proven box office and promotional franchises. Warner Bros. will resurrect Scooby-Doo plus a third Exorcist sequel later that year and Universal returns to its monster-hit Mummy franchise with summer spin-off The Scorpion King. Fox releases DreamWorks' animated The Ice Age next spring plus next summer's Star Wars Episode II and Spielberg's Tom Cruise-starring Minority Report. That title gets an added spring boost with Universal's 20th anniversary theatrical and DVD/video re-release of Spielberg's 1982 E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.

Unlike the movies' flat year, television witnessed a pivotal season of unforeseen ratings success and promotional partner salivations. The CBS hit reality show Survivor, boasting a median age of 40.4, enabled the network to get younger than the median 53.1 years of its longtime Touched by an Angel demographic. Survivor and a host of imitators built on ABC's successful formula with Who Wants To BeA Millionaire? But when Millionaire went into overdrive this year, blanketing four nights on ABC's prime time schedule, its ratings suffered. That didn't stop other networks from earnestly embracing highly scripted "reality" game-based programming as one alternative to cable-fragmented audiences. NBC this year entered the genre late, but successfully, with The Weakest Link.

Reality shows have come in handy as the networks sought to hold onto younger viewers -- the XFL experiment notwithstanding -- and innoculate themselves against a threatened Writer's Guild of America strike (which was settled last month) and another less-likely strike by the Screen Actor's Guild this summer.

Syndicated TV this season has seen Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O'Donnell extend their name brands into women's magazines with the new O and the old McCall's becoming Rosie. Syndicated TV also watched the undoing of Paramount Television's syndicated talk show starring conservative radio scolder Laura Schlessinger; promoting it proved hazardous as the show was dogged by homosexual activists highlighting Schlessinger's prior anti-gay comments.

Cable saw strengthened brand identities. The Discovery channels are now home to what used to be pedestrian PBS docu-fare, and VHI is building itself into the music channel for those entering early middle age with Behind the Music specials on the Go-Go's (so perfectly recycled for, say the mid-May release of the group's comeback album), while HBO is witnessing its biggest audience hits by mixing mayhem (The Sopranos) and lust (Sex and the City).

The History Channel has been pushing branded historical tours of Europe and the Middle East and is planning a line of branded furniture -- not HC-logoed couches, but period pieces with modest hangtags and brought-to-you-by mentions.

When the Survivor sequel returned this year, the show featured items from partners Target, Mountain Dew, Visa, General Motors and Doritos. But partner promotions could take on a whole new look this fall, with ABC's placement-heavy traveling contest, The Runner, which will see players interact with various brands as they traverse the country Likewise, CBS will carry film producer Jerry Bruckheimer's reality world race show called, well, The Amazing Race.

                             ENTERTAINMENT
Brand                   Company Name, Location
MOVIE STUDIOS
 1. Buena Vista         Wait Disney, Burbank, CA
 2. Universal           Universal Pictures, Universal
                        City,  CA
 3. Warmer Bros.        A0L Time Warner, Dulles, VA
 4. Paramount Pictures  Viacom, New York
 5. DreamWorks          DreamWorks SKG, Universal
                        City, CA
 6. Twentieth Century   News Corp., New York
    Fox
 7. Sony Pictures       Sony Pictures Entertainment,
                        Culver City, CA
 8. Miramax Films       Miramax, New York
 9. New Line Cinema     AOL Time Warner, Dulles, VA
10. MGM                 MGM, Santa Monica, CA
Brand                   Lead Agency, Location    Total Sales
MOVIE STUDIOS                                    (millions)
 1. Buena Vista         Various                   $1,100.0
 2. Universal           DDB, Los Angeles           1,090.0
 3. Warmer Bros.        Grey, Los Angels             891.2
 4. Paramount Pictures  In-house                     785.5
 5. DreamWorks          GSD&M, Austin, TX            768.8
 6. Twentieth Century   J. Walter Thompson, Los      728.8
    Fox                 Angeles
 7. Sony Pictures       McCann-Erickson, Los         666.3
                        Angeles
 8. Miramax Films       Carat, Los Angeles           475.0
 9. New Line Cinema     In-house                     395.4
10. MGM                 BBDO, San Francisco          103.9
Brand                   Media Spending  Quality  Salience  Equity
MOVIE STUDIOS             (millions)
 1. Buena Vista            $273.2        6.37       42      26.8
 2. Universal               220.7        6.83       73      49.9
 3. Warmer Bros.            401.2        6.73       78      52.5
 4. Paramount Pictures      220.6        6.55       73      47.8
 5. DreamWorks              337.6        7.20       65      46.8
 6. Twenitieth Century       90.5        6.57       70      46.0
    Fox
 7. Sony Pictures           196.0        6.53       49      32.0
 8. Miramax Films           128.9        6.58       56      36.8
 9. New Line Cinema         162.3        6.48       39      25.3
10. MGM                      52.1        6.76       73      49.3
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter (bax office
sales); Competitive (media);
Total Research; OxS=E

COPYRIGHT 2001 BPI Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group

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