A Ford ad ties into the NBC series The Smash. So far, the show has brought lackluster ratings.

The Middle, Smash and Portlandia offer three examples of the growing seamlessness between product/brand placement and the creative content of TV series.

On ABC's The Middle this week, the episode was practically an ode to two brands: iPad and Red Lobster. The youngest child in the Heck family, Brick, pines and pesters for an iPad until his parents, Frankie (played by Patricia Heaton) and Mike, finally relent and buy him a restored model on eBay. Until they do, a huge chunk of the script is devoted to Brick's description of the wonders of the iPad.

Much of the rest of the story depicts the family at a Red Lobster, naming the restaurant repeatedly and including a shot of a juicy lobster. (A Red Lobster ad also aired during the episode — though there was no commercial for iPad.)Continue reading...

When VH1 got started way back in 1985, the cable TV network followed right in the footsteps of its sibling MTV, although focused its efforts at an older demo. While MTV (short for Music Television) scored big with tunes for adolescents and young adults (Men at Work, anyone?), VH1 (an acronym for Video Hits One) was going for the slightly older crowd, playing music videos featuring the likes of Elton John, Donna Summer, and Rod Stewart.

The thirst for an endless stream of music videos on both Viacom-owned channels came to a halt only a few years into their collective existence and shows with varying levels of quality were cranked out. VH1 scored hits with the annotated Pop-Up Video series, the gossipy tell-all bio series Behind the Music, and the artist-centric VH1 Storytellers. The music in both brands has consistently been drowned out since then with a slew of other programming, inspiring the perennial plea by boomers to bring back the music to MTV and VH1 (season three of IFC's Portlandia kicked off with a plotline to take back MTV from tween with its original VJs and news anchor, Kurt Loder.)

VH1, for one, has decided to indicate that shift with a change in its logo (or as the company likes to call it, "tagmark"). 

As announced at the TCA TV Critics Association press tour, VH1 is kicking off the new year by adding a plus sign to the end of its logo, to reflect the changes in the digital world — meshing together the network’s music, pop culture and nostalgia content together — in tandem with adopting a black-and-white look and feel to its visual identity and on-air promos. It's promoting the new look with, naturally, a #plussed hashtag on Twitter.Continue reading...

The White House today was the scene of the annual pre-Thanksgiving turkey pardon, with Cobbler and Gobbler getting a reprieve — along with a shout-out to New York Times stats-cruncher Nate Silver ("once again, Nate Silver completely nailed it") and Facebook, the platform on which (in a first this year) the turkey pardon was opened to public voting. Portlandia-ready infographics (below) gave more details on each turkey's background to help voters decide. The First Family then went to Martha's Table, a food pantry in Washington, D.C., to help assemble Thanksgiving meals to be distributed to the less fortunate this holiday.Continue reading...

Being dropped by the second biggest satellite TV operator in the U.S. (after DirecTV) is no laughing matter. Still, IFC is leveraging its award-winning original comedy series Portlandia also with its two new comedy series, Comedy Bang! Bang! and Bunk, to help convince viewers to lobby Dish Network to not drop the AMC Networks-owned channel as part of Dish's legal threat to drop IFC and its sister networks under the AMC Networks banner.

Visitors to IFC.com are greeted with a pop-up that reads: "DISH Customers - DISH is dropping IFC. If you are a DISH customer, you won't be able to watch our films and shows like Portlandia, Comedy Bang! Bang!, Bunk, and Whisker wars. Tell DISH to put IFC back on the air. Call toll free 855-8-KEEP-ON or go to KEEPIFC.com." Once they click through the "don't let IFC go black on DISH" pop-up and enter the site, visitors will see on of the banners above in rotation across the site.

If, however, they click through to KeepIFC.com to find out what all the fuss is about, they'll be redirected to KeepAMCNetworks.com, and discover that it's not just IFC but also Sundance Channel, AMC (home to Mad Men and Breaking Bad), and the female-skewing WE TV. Once there, they can click on "get the facts" to learn more about the background to the legal spat, which stems from a prior lawsuit between Dish and AMC Network's now defunct VOOM HD Networks, a high-definition suite of channels that existed back when AMC Networks was known as Rainbow Media and HD TV sets weren't as ubiquitous as they are today.Continue reading...

If you don’t know them already, you will now, as Rhett & Link, seen above, take on their latest starring role as judges in the celebration of low-budget, local commercials in IFC’s launch of its first LoCos awards.

Voters are eligible for a $250 cash prize for casting ballots for the greatest stars, jingles, taglines, mascots, special effects and more, as the LoCos join a tradition of local advertising built on the shoulders of off-beat characters including New York’s hi-fi king Crazy Eddie, ice cream magnate Tom Carvel, and LA’s car painting pitchman Earl Scheib.

And then there are the ads themselves.Continue reading...

Apple's WWDC announcements seen as "huge win" for (more engaging?) Twitter in a blow to Facebook. 

Anthony Weiner admits to sending lewd photos but refuses to resign, delighting headline writers everywhere.

Cablevision's AMC Networks (AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel, WE tv) are going public.

CFDA honors Lady Gaga with fashion icon award and Marc Jacobs with lifetime achievement nod.

Chanel supports National Resources Defense Council.

DHL sponsors Manchester United tour.

Disney's Anne Sweeney says it's the "right time" for ABC to get back into syndicated TV because of "right person" — Katie Couric.Continue reading...

Save-a-show efforts come along for all sorts of reasons. Usually, it’s because the TV series being threatened by network cancellation is seen as just too good to terminate, despite what Nielsen ratings figures might say. Think of Arrested Development.

But in the case of the fledgling effort to forestall the potential cancellation of ABC’s Detroit 1-8-7 police drama, a fan-based lobbying effort has arisen because of the importance of the production site. That would be Detroit.

It's the first network series to be shot in the Motor City, one of the reasons that Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley is adding her voice to a strong chorus of locals and fans behind keep187.com who are supporting a second season renewal for Detroit 1-8-7.Continue reading...

Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine, have enjoyed a friendly east coast/west coast rivalry in America, and no small amount of confusion. Portlandia, a new comedy series that debuts tonight on IFC, aims to establish the Oregonian outpost as the hipster, foodie, bird-branded alt lifestyle mecca of the two. That's not necessarily a good thing, but it is a funny thing. The mayor of Portland even makes a cameo — as the assistant mayor.

As a satire, the sketch comedy series (produced by Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels) spoofs a variety of slacker hangouts (feminist bookstores, cafes and the like) and slackers counterculture flakiness. In that sense, it could be Austin, TX; San Francisco or Berkeley, CA; parts of Brooklyn in NY; or Chicago's Wicker Park. As IFC GM Jen Caserta told the New York Times, "It's about Portland, but there's a piece of Portland in many parts of the country."

The six-part series, co-starring Fred Armisen of SNL and Carrie Brownstein of the now defunct Portland band Sleater-Kinney, was written by the duo along with writers from The Colbert Report and SNL. The Times adds, "The show’s creators are also bracing for reaction from the citizens of its namesake city. But Ms. Brownstein said that for sheer unpredictability the characters of Portlandia could never surpass Portland itself. 'The strange thing we all noticed,' she said, 'is no matter how far out on a limb we went, we always ran into that person within two days.'

Portlandia is sponsored by Zipcar and Aloft Hotels, and also premieres with The Onion News Network, marking The Onion's network TV debut.