THE WGA will attempt to force studios to bargain individually, breaking up the AMPTP group negotiations. The Guild claims it has the legal right to demand one-on-one bargaining. Meanwhile, David Letterman’s independent production company will seek an interim deal with the WGA that would allow Letterman to return with his writing staff intact. Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert are planning to return without writers shortly after the new year.
GOOGLE increased its share of the search market this year, growing from 52.6% to 58.5% according to ComScore data. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL all lost market-share. Ask.com was the only one to gain, picking up 1/10th of a percentage point. However, all search engines showed increases in the number number of searches conducted – except AOL.
NBC has scheduled Quarterlife to begin on Monday February 18 in the 9 PM time slot. The 36 short webisodes from the Internet series will be made into eight hour-long episodes.
AUTOMAKERS are expected to increase the percentage of ad budgets spent online from 5% this year to 13% in 2011, according to a new study released by the Kelsey Group. Newspaper classifieds are expected to drop from 14% to 10% and newspaper display ads will shrink from 17% to 14% of budgets during that time. TV advertising for the automakers has slowed its growth rate significantly.