Rihanna ties Beyonce and Mariah Records

Rihanna's pop hit "Disturbia" rises from # 3 to the # 1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart this week, ending the seven-week reign at # 1 by Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" (which falls to # 3). "Disturbia" sold 148,000 downloads last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Disturbia becomes Rihanna's fourth Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, which ties her with Beyonce and Mariah Carey for the most # 1 s by a female artist this decade. Meanwhile, another Rihanna song, "Take a Bow," remains at # 4. In addition to “Take a Bow”, Rihanna’s has also hit #1 previously with "S.O.S.", from her sophomore CD “A Girl Like Me” and “Umbrella”, the lead-off single from her third CD “Good Girl Gone Bad”.

Here is a complete recap of Rihanna's top hits in chronological order of release. The final column shows the peak position attained on the Hot 100 chart:



2005 Pon de Replay 2
2006 Unfaithful 6
2006 SOS 1
2007 Umbrella 1
2007 Shut Up And Drive 15
2007 Hate That I Love You 7
2007 Break It Off 9
2008 Don't Stop The Music 3
2008 Take A Bow 1
2008 Disturbia 1

Wheel plans special "Canada Week" episodes

To mark the move of the Wheel of Fortune weekday strip to the CBC network in Canada, the show will run a series of Canadian-themed shows from October 13-17. CBC will be airing the shows in a 5:30 pm time slot in most markets as a lead in to regional news.

The Canada week shows will feature puzzles with a Canadian theme, prizes that include trips to Canadian destinations like Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto and some "Canadian fun facts".

The new season of "Wheel of Fortune" debuts Sept. 8 at 5:30 p.m. on CBC while companion show "Jeopardy" begins to air on the network on the same night at 7:30 p.m.

More details here

Apple's iphone app store off to fast start

It appears the App store that Apple launched along with its G3 iphone models may ultimately prove to be the more revolutionary market innovation. The App store has the potential to change the landscape by allowing small developers access to a broad customer base to distribute their software products. It could also shift the focus in the software development industry from an emphasis on apps developed for desktop and laptop PCs over to developing apps more suited for mobile smartphone handsets.

In the short period of time since launch date last month, 60 million apps have been downloaded, represent $30 million worth of sales revenues. Apple retains 30% of the app sales revenues. I am not sure how this percentage compares to the revenue sharing split on downloaded music and video content sold through itunes.

Details here:

Air Canada A/V changes

Air Canada is finally ending the wasteful practice of handing out free disposable audio headsets every time you board a flight. Instead they'll make available two prong adapters so you can use your own single prong headphones / earbuds to plug in to the seat jacks on older planes.

Now if they would only install more reliable seat-back VOD screens! I was on a recent flight where the touch sensitive seat back VOD screens failed and had to be re-set three times midflight. The attendants came through the cabin and distributed cards with a code to enter in an e-mail to customer service to receive some additional aeroplan points in compensation for the failure. I followed the instructions but never wound up getting credited with any.

I wonder if the attendants will demonstrate how to insert a one prong headphone in a two prong adapter, given that they still think people need instructions on how to fasten and tighten a standard lap belt!?

I think this change makes good sense. I expect many passengers watch / listen to their own audio-video material using their laptops and ipods in flight anyhow!

Details here.

Rogers marketing shifts: What do they really signal?

Rogers Retail has announced that its Rogers Video stores are being re-branded as Rogers Plus and will add expanded product and services offerings from the Rogers Cable and Rogers Wireless business lines to the existing movies and games software inventory available for rent and sale at the locations.

The transition from Rogers Video to Rogers Plus stores will take place between August and December 2008 on a city-by-city basis across the country. Information on the stores can now be found at http://www.rogersplus.ca/.

Rogers spokespersons are claiming that the decision to add new products at these stores is not a reflection of a software rental downturn, claiming that home video and game rentals continues to be a thriving, vibrant, industry in Canada to which Rogers is committed.

Frankly, despite the rhetoric, I am suspicious of the REAL motives behind this switch. There is no doubt that video piracy and illegal movie and software downloading and duplication have been eroding the video and game rental revenues of bricks and mortar retailers in the same way that it earlier altered the music retailing landscape. Also, renting homevideo titles may cannibalize Rogers revenues from its “Rogers on Demand” VOD PPV cable services in regions where Rogers holds CATV licenses. The window between homevideo release on DVD discs and availability of the same titles on PPV seems to be down to less than a month now. (Frankly its a lot easier downloading a movie using a Rogers high speed internet cable connection or ordering it up on an ROD screen than going out to a bricks and mortar store (twice) to pick up and return a DVD or Blu-Ray disc (particularly in the rainy weather we’ve been having this Summer or in Canadian winters)). Similarly, in Roger’s wireless business, its hottest new product is the Apple iphone which is generating download revenues for Apple (from sale of apps, music and video at the itunes store) rather than for Apple’s wireless service partners (like Rogers) that distribute the iphone.

Stateside, Cablevision, the cable TV provider in Long Island New York, recently won a court decision allowing them to remotely store digital video recorded content selected by their cable subscribers (for time-shifting) on central high volume servers housed in cable company premises outside of consumers' homes. Until this ruling such timeshift digital recording was limited to that done using a TIVO or other DVR set top cable box within a subscriber's home. This decision greatly enhances storage capabilities and cost efficiencies for cable companies and their subscribers. However producers, broadcasters, cable network operators and their advertisers opposed the court ruling. This is because studies reveal that viewers skip thru commercial breaks when they play back programming from DVRs instead of watching original broadcasts in network programmed timeslots.

Rogers have so far not announced any plans to introduce a Cablevision style DVR storage model in Canada, but marginalizing the role of homevideo sales and rentals in their retail locations would certainly insulate them further from the influence of the movie studios that produce a lot of the content that both gets DVRed and released on homevideo. Moreover, there is no love lost between Rogers and conventional (over the air) TV broadcasters who have petitioned the CRTC regulators, seeking license fees from cable operators for distributing their programming comparable to those charged by specialty TV license holders.

Beijing Olympics: TV ratings update

UPDATE:


Monday night update:

Final ratings show NBC averaging 29.7 million total viewers in primetime (down marginally from the overnight levels reported earlier), from 8 to 11:36 p.m. This is an increase of 9 percent from the 27.1 million that tuned into coverage on the same night in Athens. Monday night's broadcast from Beijing featured coverage of Michael Phelps tying the Olympic career gold medal record. The Athens coverage featured coverage of Paul Hamm and the U.S. men’s gymnastics team earning a silver medal.

This viewership level was the highest Monday night rating for any network since Fox in February 2003 and the highest rated Monday for NBC since February 2002. NBC averaged a 17.4 household rating and 28 share Monday night. That is 5 percent better than a 16.6/27 for Athens. NBC also averaged a 10.4 rating in the key demographic (adults 18-49) that advertisers covet. That represents the best Monday night performance in that measure since Fox in January 2004.

Overall:

After four nights of Olympic coverage, NBC is averaging 30.4 million total viewers, 23 percent better than the 24.7 million average for Athens. Among households, NBC is averaging a 17.1 rating, up 16 percent from Athen’s 14.7. NBC’s ratings earned to date represent the best start to a Summer Olympics staged outside the USA in 16 years, since the 1992 Barcelona Games averaged a 17.4 rating for the first four days.

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Original post:

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Viewership levels for NBC's Olympic coverage continues to dominant regular programming on other networks, as follows:

Monday night

NBC’s Olympic telecast averaged 29.951 million 8 from 11 in the overnights. Comparatively CBS, the next highest rated network, averaged 6.126 million.The telecast peaked out at 34.581 million viewers in the 10:00 PM half hour.

Sunday night:

NBC's Olympic telecast, which included coverage of the men's 4 X 100 meter freestyle swimming relay, attracted 32.6 million viewers, rating it the 2nd highest programme of the week behind Friday’s opening ceremonies telecast (which averaged 34.89 viewers). This topped by 16 per cent the overnight prime time rating for the first Sunday night of competition in Athens four years ago. The difference between the two telecasts was that the Athens programming was taped, while Beijing was live. The highlight of the telecast (when viewership peaked) featured the come-from-behind win by the American relay team when Michael Phelps earned his second gold medal of the Olympiad, staying on track in his quest for eight gold medals.

Saturday night:


NBC’s Olympic coverage averaged 24.079 million viewers (on generally the least viewed TV night of the week), rating it the third highest program of the week. Comparatively, CBS, the next highest rated network, averaged 4.036 million viewers. Viewership peaked in the 10 PM half hour, attracting 28.362 million viewers

Beijing Olympics lip-syncing scandal revealed

UPDATE: And the controversies just keep on coming:

Who knew that the Chinese translation of Milli Vanilli was Lin Miaoke?

Lin Miaoke is a fraud and a fake. The cute and precocious pig-tailed 9 year old who captured China and the world's hearts by performing at the start of the opening ceremonies actually lip synced her song lyrics to the voice of a vocal double. The child who appeared to sing live in Bird's Nest Stadium as the national flag entered was Lin Miaoke (pictured top right) . Lin became an overnight national sensation in China and wound up with her picture published on the front of the New York Times. But the real voice heard over the loudspeakers singing "Hymn to the Motherland" was actually that of 7 year old Yan Peiyi (pictured top left) who pre-recorded her vocal at the Central People’s Radio Station.

The organizers made the switch "in the national interest" because they thought the child on camera "should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression” and they found that Yang Peiyi's "image was not the most appropriate". Apparently, the fringe hair Peiyi, with her crooked teeth, failed the "cuteness test", but was judged to have a more "perfect voice". Miaoke had prior acting experience. She appeared in a television ad last year with gold medal hope and hurdling champion Liu Xiang and in another Olympics ad that aired just before the Chinese New Year.

The organizers ought to be ashamed of co-opting these two young girls in this political propaganda motivated switcheroo scandal!

Mamma Mia past the $100 million box office mark

Based on weekend box office estimates provided by studios, Mamma Mia, with a take of $8 million, has passed $100 million at the North American box office in its 4th weekend in wide release. Neither the facts that Pierce Brosnan can't sing, Colin Firth can't dance, nor that Meryl Streep is too old to play mom to Amanda Seyfried, have been able to bring this irresistibly infectious feel-good Summer musical down.

The $8.1 million take easily surpasses the $6.4 million take of Hairspray in its 4th weekend of release last year and Mamma Mia is now within $15 million of Hairspray's total box office take.

Internationally Mamma Mia has $277.4 in the till compared to Hairspray's $200.6 total. MM is now the 5th best grossing (live action) movie musical released since 1974 and only the 6th to gross more than $100 million, as follows:

1 Grease . $188.4 1978
2 Chicago $170.7 2002
3 Hairspray $118.9 2007
4 Rocky Horror $112.9 1975
5 Mamma Mia! $104.0 2008
6 Dreamgirls $103.4 2006

Executive producer Tom Hanks is getting a good return on the $52 million he invested in MM production costs, although it will not match the domestic haul of his company's Big Fat Greek Wedding, which took in $241.4 million, six years ago.

Meanwhile the movie's soundtrack is still ranked number 3 on the Billboard best sellers chart and ABBA Gold is still perched atop of the Pop catalog chart

Olympic sized ratings

CBC's ratings will not be available for some time still, but NBC's US telecast of the 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Beijing received the highest overnight rating ever for an event staged outside the USA. It earned a 21.5 rating and a 37 share (from 8-11:19 p.m. ET/PT).

(A rating is a percent of the all television households in the USA tuned to a particular show and a share is the percentage of the TV audience watching TV at a particular time that is tuned to a particular program.)

The overnight rating for the Opening Ceremony represented a 19 percent increase over Athens in 2004 and 16 percent higher than Sydney in 2000, according to Nielsen Media Research data.


In the overall viewership averages for Friday, Aug. 8, the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies scored a whopping 35.31 million viewers and a 10.3 rating/32 share among adults 18-49.


When you look at the total viewers tuned to each network, the dominance of NBC's Olympics coverage becomes apparent :


NBC: 35.31 million,
CBS: 4.02,
CW: 3.77,
ABC: 3.30,
Fox: 2.32


In the key demo (Adults 18-49) NBC likewise dominated its rival US broadcast networks


NBC :10.3 rating/32 share,
CW: 1.2/ 4,
ABC: 1.1/ 4,
CBS: 1.1/ 3,
Fox: 1.0/ 3


The Opening Olympic Ceremonies on NBC beat the four competing networks combined by 21.9 million viewers and 134 percent among adults 18-49!



OPENING CEREMONY OVERNIGHT RATINGS COMPARISON

(for a Summer Olympics held outside USA) :



1) Beijing - 2008 - 21.5/37
2) Sydney - 2000 - 18.5/32
3) Seoul - 1988 - 18.3/33
4) Athens - 2004 - 18.0/30
5) Barcelona - 1992 - 16.5/32

(first score is the rating; second score is the audience share)

The opening Ceremony in Atlanta in 1996 earned 27.2/47.


In terms of local markets, the Olympics telecast performed strongest in the Western cities in the USA, as follows.


TOP 10 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:


1) San Diego - 26.5/49
2) West Palm Beach - 25.7/42
3) Sacramento - 24.3/43
4) Denver - 24.2/43
T5) San Francisco - 24.1/47
T5) Baltimore - 24.1/41
7) Indianapolis - 23.9/42
8) Salt Lake City - 23.5/49
9) Nashville - 23.4/37
10) St. Louis - 22.9/42

(first score is the rating, second is the audience share)

NBC is broadcasting its record 11th Olympics, surpassing ABC for the most Olympics broadcast by any network. NBC plans to present 3,600 hours of Beijing Olympic Games coverage, the most ambitious single media project in history featuring the most live coverage (nearly 2,900 live hours in total), across the most platforms, of any Summer Olympics in history.

A Tale of Two Coffee Shops

It has been interesting to monitor the shifting fortunes of Tim Hortons and Starbucks as the economy contracts. Tim Hortons (TDL) recently announced a 11.5% increase in Q2 profits whereas Starbucks have been announcing executive shuffles, store closures, rebranding efforts and price adjustments to try to revive their sagging earnings.

I find some personal validation and/or vindication in this dramatic reversal in corporate fortunes. Tim Hortons has always been my paper-cup java of choice. I joined the Tim Hortons fan club at an early age, growing up in the East end of Hamilton just a few miles from the original Tim Hortons outlet, where it all began (on Ottawa St. N). I have fond memories of driving there with my Dad as a kid. In those days they used to sell off their "day old" donuts in plastic bag dozen assortments at half price. There used to be much heated discussion in the car among my siblings en route about whether we wanted to go with a fresh dozen donuts in an assorted box of our choice or double up and pig out on the day-old grab bags for the same price. Hamilton was a lunch bucket town where donut shops thrive (likely has more donut shops per capita than any other city in the world). The original Ottawa St N shop was strategically located on the daily commute route of steelworkers heading to the blast furnaces on their morning commutes. Tim Hortons is clearly and proudly "blue collar".

Starbucks, on the other hand, is the much more upscale hi-brow "foo-foo" brand. Unlike Tims, which was born in the blue collar shadow of the blast furnace, Starbucks comes to us via the US Pacific Northwest, where they take their coffee almost as seriously as Italians. Starbucks is more about the show than the coffee. The brand has upscale cachet and is much more white-collar than blue collar. The problem is that as they have expanded to more and more outlets, they have become more broadly accessible to the masses, which has undermined the snob-appeal cachet of the brand.

The pretentiousness of Starbucks is quite hilarious. This used to be cleverly parodied on the Frasier sitcom when the Crane brothers gave the barrista their esoteric finicky choices! Rather than referring to their cups sizes as small, medium, large or extra large, Starbucks applies terms like "short" for small , "tall" for medium "grande" (pronounced "grawn-day") for large and "vente" for extra-large. They always offer a mild and bold coffee daily house blend, in addition to a de-caf option. There is also a wide range of hot and cold speciality drinks, some of which are coffee based (espresso, latte, cappuccinos, et al) and others which are cream or ice based. When you order a specialty blended drink you need to specify a wide range of finishing and extra instructions, ranging from the caffeine level (de-caf or half-caf), the number of espresso shots (single, double, triple, quad) whitener options (half and half, non-fat, low fat, soy, lactose free), topping options (foam, low foam, no foam, extra-foam, whipped on top) and even serrving temperature (140 degrees is less likely to burn)! You need to be a mathematician to add up all the possible permutations and combinations. Its choice overkill to the nth degree.

Meanwhile back at Tim Hortons, (although they have recently added Flavour Shots) they have only one favour of coffee--- coffee flavour! The serving options are normally limited to black (the way I take mine), double-double and triple-triple (the way our building security guard Nicole (she's from Oshawa) takes hers, when I bring her one back).

We are spoiled in terms of paper cup coffee options within walking range of our condo. We have three Tim Hortons and three Starbucks nearby. The Starbucks evening closing times vary from 8 PM to 10 PM-- and two of them (the one at King and George and the one on Front, west of the market) have patios. Meanwhile, one of the Tim Hortons shares its facilities with Wendys and the other is inside George Brown College (so has very restricted hours). When I am at work, there are four Tim Hortons, located on the PATH in concourse food courts, within walking distance of my office (one in Scotia Plaza, one in the TD Canadian Pacific, one in 145 King W and one in the First Canadian Place Exchange Tower (with a 5th about to open in Royal Bank Plaza when its Food Court re-opens in the Fall.) There are also six Starbucks within walking distance... two in Brookfield Place, one in the TD CP "west side" foodcourt, one in First Canadian Place, one in Lombard Place, one in the Richmond-Adelaide Centre and one on the ground floor of First Canadian Place.

My workmates are almost equally divided in their Tims vs Starbucks preferences, ven tho I work in a decidedly white collar environment in a Big 4 professional services firm.

In the final analysis, I believe the fact that Tim Hortons is thriving now while Starbucks is struggling is more a barometer of the ailing economy than the relative merits of their product or marketing efforts. With gas at $1.25 a litre, people simply can't afford to drop $4 for a cup of java every time they enter the coffee shop. That's why Tim Hortons is pulling ahead. Mickey Dees is also upgrading coffee options to challenge Starbucks in its home market. There is a misconception that Starbucks offers better tasting coffee that justifies its higher price. The results of independent taste tests dispel this myth. Apparently Starbucks is test-marketing cheaper coffee in some markets. When the economy comes roaring back, I expect, Starbucks should be poised to resume their growth, if they are able to ride out the rocky road until then! Meanwhile, Tim Hortons is going to be riding the steeper growth curve!