Following heads of agreement signed in December 2007, the Lagardère Group and Butler Capital Partners announce the signature of final agreements on a majority takeover of Virgin Group by Butler Capital Partners.

Virgin Group is a market leader in France in the distribution of cultural and entertainment products.
With consolidated sales of around 400 million euros and 1,900 employees, the group has 47 downtown sites and shopping malls, of which 35 trade under the Virgin banner and a dozen under the Furet du Nord banner. The group, which holds a perpetual license for certain European territories including France, operates about 10 franchises internationally, representing sales of around 100 million euros. The group also operates France’s no.2 music and video download platform, VirginMega.

Butler Capital Partners has over the last 15 years been building up considerable experience of the French industrial and business environment. Working with a variety of business sectors, Butler Capital Partners have in recent years invested, inter alia, in Atys (world leader in the preparation of fresh fruit), Flo (French leader in catering), César (world leader in party ware), Abrium (security equipment distribution), Giraud International (international transport), PSG (football club), Sernam (goods transport), Accès industrie (elevator pod hire), and SNCM (marine transport).

The Lagardère Group is a market leader in the media sector (books, press, audiovisual, distribution of cultural and entertainment products, and sports rights). The Group also has interests in the high technology sector via a 12.51% stake in EADS.
Lagardère shares are listed in Paris on Eurolist by Euronext – Compartment A.

In a 50/50 joint venture with South African partner Kagiso Media, LARI (Lagardère Active Radio International) announces the acquisition of Acceleration Media, a leading online advertising-media agency.

A leading player in the South African market, Acceleration Media specializes in online media strategy, planning and buying to help advertising agencies and advertisers maximize their Internet use. Its customer portfolio is a veritable Who’s Who of South African business. Currently staffed by a team of 14 Internet specialists, the company saw 40% growth in 2007.

LARI has operated in South Africa for more than 10 years through its participating interests in Jacaranda FM, South Africa’s leading private radio station, and Radmark, the country’s top radio sales-house.

According to LARI CEO Jean-Christophe Lestra, “The acquisition of Acceleration Media reflects our strategy of bolstering our development in growth markets like South Africa, particularly in the digital sphere. This transaction will involve a skills transfer thanks to Lagardère Active’s accumulated experience.”

According to Murphy Morobe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kagiso Media, “For some time now, we have been looking for new opportunities in the digital sphere, which is expanding rapidly in South Africa. The acquisition of Acceleration Media gives us a strategic outlet in one of the digital economy’s most dynamic market segments: online advertising. This deal will also allow us to build our business on a solid foundation of talent in coming years.”

Jacques van Niekerk, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Acceleration Media, said the following: “After negotiating with many candidates for acquisition of the company, we are delighted to be 100% consolidated into this Lagardère Active-Kagiso Media structure, which is perfectly in sync with Acceleration Media’s development strategy.”

• LARI has a presence in seven countries through 23 radio stations, which are heard by over 33.5 million listeners per day, and is Eastern Europe’s leading radio station operator.
  
• Lagardère Active is one of Lagardère SCA’s four major corporate brands, alongside Lagardère Publishing, Lagardère Services and Lagardère Sports. It aims to become a global leader in content production and aggregation for all platforms, with activities that include magazine publishing, radio stations, television channels (production, distribution and special-interest channels), digital media and media buying.
  Established in 41 countries outside France, and with some 235 magazine titles, 26 radio stations and 10 TV channels, Lagardère Active generated consolidated sales of 2.329 billion euros in 2007. It is the No. 1 French media group and the 10th-ranked French group in terms of digital audience.
  
• The Lagardère group also has a presence in the high-tech sector through its 12.51% participating interest in EADS.
  Lagardère shares are traded on the Eurolist market of Euronext Paris (Compartiment A).
  
• Kagiso Media is listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange in the media sector. A key player in South African radio, it holds direct interests in Jacaranda (80%), East Coast Radio (100%), OFM (24.9%), Heart 104.9 (33.3%), iGagasi 99.5 (33.3%) and the radio media-buying agency RadMark (50%), plus an indirect interest in Kaya (25.1%).

SES Astra France and Canal Plus say that their combined satellite version of the country’s digital-terrestrial TV platform has won more than 350,000 viewing homes.

France set in place a law that satellite had to be used as a gap-filler with matching channels to those available on its digital terrestrial system (Télévision Numérique Terrestre, TNT). Testing of the system started last June with set-top boxes available in volume from last autumn. TNTSAT currently offers 18 free-to-view channels, plus 24 regional variations to the public France 3 channel.

“The overwhelming success of TNTSAT is further proof that our satellite system is a very strong infrastructure driving the expansion of digital TV and helping to overcome the digital divide,” says Ferdinand Kayser, President and CEO of SES Astra. “Together with our long-standing customer Canal+, we have created a strong offer that brings real added value to television households. TNTSAT underpins our success in the French market through our enlarged partnership with Canal+, and will continue to be a significant driver to grow our reach to French TV households.”

Source: RapidTV News

Home Box Office (HBO), Inc. and YouTube™ monday announced an agreement to offer select promotional content on HBO’s new branded YouTube channel. Starting today, videos from HBO shows including Flight of the Conchords, The Wire, Def Comedy Jam, Real Time with Bill Maher, Real Sports, Extras, Stand Up Comedy, Habla y Habla, and Entourage, will be included in HBO’s channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/hbo). Full length episodes of HBO’s original series, In Treatment, will also be available on the channel, as well as promotional content from HBO Films and HBO Documentary Films.

“We are delighted to bring HBO content to the YouTube community and fans of our shows,” said Joseph Giraldi, director, digital distribution and partnerships, HBO. “We invest significantly in developing HBO programs and are always searching for new promotional platforms. We are thrilled to continue this tradition by offering the global YouTube audience access to our wide variety of content.”

“As the leader in online video, YouTube provides top media companies like HBO an opportunity to broadcast their content to an entirely new audience,” said Jordan Hoffner, head of premium content partnerships for YouTube. “The YouTube community watches hundreds of millions of videos everyday and as that number increases, so does the demand for original, quality programming. We are always looking to better serve the needs of our community, and we look forward to connecting existing fans with their favorite programming while introducing a new audience to quality HBO shows.”

The HBO YouTube Channel will be populated with content from the company’s most popular shows as well as special YouTube-only features in the near future.

About HBO
Home Box Office, Inc. is the premium television programming subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., providing two 24-hour pay television services – HBO and Cinemax – to over 40 million U.S. subscribers. The services offer the most popular subscription video on demand products, HBO On Demand and Cinemax On Demand, as well as HBO on Broadband, HD feeds, and multiplex channels. Internationally, HBO’s branded television networks, along with the subscription video on demand products HBO On Demand and HBO Mobile, bring HBO services to over 50 countries. HBO programming is sold into over 150 countries worldwide.

About YouTube
YouTube is the world’s largest online video community allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. YouTube is based in San Bruno, CA and is a subsidiary of Google, Inc.

TF1 Group chairman and CEO Nonce Paolini said he was betting on new media and multiplatform contents to boost the group’s activities, adding that “Television and the web will be our main assets in the future”.

Presenting TF1 Group’s strategic orientations, but no detailed figures, to analysts last week, Paolini announced 2008 would be a “pivotal year”. Planning to reach a consolidated turnover in 2008 of €2.83M the group’s strategy will be dominated by two general orientations in the four or five years to come: to make diversification activities reach 50% of its turnover and grow Ebitda to 20%.

Confronted by the constant progression of DTT and theme channels, TF1, which saw its audience share fall to 28% in January, has thus determined four ways to come up with mid-term objectives. The group, which has already launched a new type of management, first intends to improve financial performance and rentability, expecially through cost cuttings and the stabilization of the programming grid costs (€1.024M in 2007). At the same time, the group wants to strengthen its broadcasting activities through TF1, the “network of great spectacle” and its own dedicated DTT and pay-TV channels such as TMC, Odyssée and Ushuaïa.

But according to Nonce Paolini, TF1 isn’t excluding acquiring another DTT channel, and looks forward to expanding Eurosport into new territories. Neither is the comapny excluding selling its 50% stake in international news channel France 24 as this is set to join new holding France Monde.

Another orientation is to invest in and consolidate content through long-term contracts with international partners, such as US majors, and to grow in-house production activities in terms of formats and drama.

Last but not least, TF1 wants to position itself further as a global media company, boosting links between programming, the internet, mobile TV and IPTV. This strategy will thus result in more co-productions between TV and the internet. “We need to create new relationships with all audiences and offer our announcers a variety of unequivalent contacts,” Paolini said.

Source: RapidTV News

Arbitron Inc. and The Nielsen Company announced on monday, feb. 25th, that the two companies have terminated the development of “Project Apollo,” the proposed single-source, national research service. The two companies had been working on the pilot project since early in 2005. The announcement was made by Susan D. Whiting, executive vice president of The Nielsen Company, and by Steve Morris, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Arbitron Inc.

“Despite a promising level of interest, we did not secure sufficient client commitments to make Project Apollo a sustainable venture for our two companies,” Arbitron and Nielsen said in a joint statement.

“We are grateful to the companies, consultants and to the marketing and advertising agency executives of the seven Project Apollo Steering Committee members who helped us explore the cutting edge of media and marketing research,” the statement continued.

Said Steve Morris: “Everyone recognized from the outset what an ambitious effort we were undertaking: harness the best in modern research technology and methodology to see if we could finally fulfill the promise of a single-source media and marketing research service.”

Said Susan Whiting: “We have learned a great deal from ‘Project Apollo,’ and I am confident that this work will enable us to provide even higher levels of quality service to our clients.”

About ‘Project Apollo’
“Project Apollo” was designed to be a single-source, national market research service based on Nielsen’s Homescan technology for measuring consumer purchase behavior, combined with Arbitron’s Portable People MeterTM system, measuring electronic media exposure. In January 2006, The Nielsen Company and Arbitron Inc. completed the deployment of a national pilot panel of more than 11,000 persons in 5,000 households. The pilot panel was intended to show advertisers how ‘Project Apollo’ might enable a better understanding of the link between consumer exposure to advertising in multiple media and their shopping/purchase behavior.

Seven advertisers signed on as members of the “Project Apollo” Steering Committee. The Committee worked with Arbitron and Nielsen to evaluate the utility of multi-media and purchase information from a common sample of consumers.

Individuals within the sample were given incentives to voluntarily carry Arbitron’s Portable People Meter, a small, pager-sized device that collects the person’s exposure to electronic media sources: broadcast television networks, cable networks, and network radio as well as audio-based commercials broadcast on these platforms. Consumer exposure to other media such as newspapers, magazines and circulars were collected through additional survey instruments.

Information on consumer preference and purchases for a wide range of services and products were collected from panelists, via ACNielsen’s Homescan technology, which tracks packaged goods purchases. Data were then collected in aggregate to provide a more complete understanding of participants’ media interactions and their resulting shopping and purchase behavior.

About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit www.nielsen.com.

About Arbitron
Arbitron Inc. is a media and marketing research firm serving radio broadcasters, cable companies, advertisers, advertising agencies and outdoor advertising companies in the United States. Arbitron’s core businesses are measuring network and local market radio audiences across the United States; surveying the retail, media and product patterns of local market consumers; and providing application software used for analyzing media audience and marketing information data. The Company has developed the Portable People Meter, a new technology for media and marketing research.

Through its Scarborough Research joint venture with The Nielsen Company, Arbitron also provides media and marketing research services to the broadcast television, cable, newspaper and online industries.

Arbitron’s marketing and business units are supported by a research and technology organization located in Columbia, Maryland. Its executive offices are located in New York City.

Art-house studios Miramax Films and Paramount Vantage shared the corporate honors at the Academy Awards on Sunday with six wins each, thanks to their collaborations on high-profile winners “No Country For Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood.”

“No Country For Old Men” won four awards, including best picture and director for the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. “There Will Be Blood” won two awards, including best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis.

The two films led the field with eight Oscar nominations each.

In all, Miramax received 21 nominations, followed by Paramount Vantage with 19. Miramax is a unit of Walt Disney Co. Paramount Vantage is part of Viacom Inc’s Paramount Pictures.

Paramount Vantage released “There Will Be Blood,” the story of a misanthropic oilman, domestically, while Miramax is handling international responsibilities. The roles are reversed for “No Country For Old Men,” a tale of a cool-headed killer who cuts a swath of destruction across small-town Texas.

Neither film exactly enjoyed mainstream success. “No Country For Old Men” has earned $64 million after 16 weeks in North America, while “There Will Be Blood” has drawn $35 million after nine weeks.

Universal was the most successful of the major studios, with four awards. “The Bourne Ultimatum” swept in all three of its technical categories, and “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” won for costume design. The studio is a unit of General Electric Co’s NBC Universal.

Two studios owned by Time Warner Inc won a pair each. Art-house unit Picturehouse picked up two for “La Vie En Rose,” including best actress for Marion Cotillard. Warner Bros. made the winners board with single wins each for “Michael Clayton” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

Fox Searchlight releases “Juno” and “Once” each won a statuette. The studio is a unit of News Corp.

Source: Dean Goodman, Reuters

A small France-set Maghreb immigrant drama from a young helmer, Abdellatif Kechiche’s “The Secret of the Grain,” stole the show at France’s 33rd Cesar Awards Friday, taking film, director and original screenplay, as well as breakthrough actress (Hafsia Herzi).Produced by vet Claude Berri, “Grain” recently won the Prix Louis Delluc for best Gallic film of 2007, making it the most multi-prized movie of France’s award season.

“We haven’t had a director like Kechiche since Maurice Pialat,” Berri said. Otherwise Edith Piaf bio “La Vie en rose” largely dominated kudo affairs.

Piaf’s signature tune, “Je ne regrette rien,” was parodied in emcee Antoine de Caunes’ opening kudosfest sketch.

And judging by thundering applause, France’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences regretted little in giving actress kudos to Marion Cotillard, just in from the U.S. and bound on a plane back to L.A. Saturday. Cotillard won actress at Britain’s BAFTAs.

A near-to-tears Cotillard thanked Olivier Dahan, director of “La Vie en rose,” which also cleaned up four main tech awards, for giving her a role that had changed her life.

Mathieu Amalric, shooting the next Bond film in Panama, confirmed predictions, taking actor for his remarkable performance in Julian Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” as a paralyzed editor who can only communicate with one eye.

“Persepolis,” Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s B&W toon feature, which shared a Cannes jury prize last year, reaped some consolation for failing this month to make the short-list of nominations in the Oscar foreign-language category, by clinching best first film and adapted screenplay.

Paronnaud said he and Satrapi would collaborate again, but on a live-action film.

Honorary Cesar awardee Roberto Benigni let rip with five minutes of extraordinary unabashed stream-of-consciousness pidgeon French, before asking for a minute of silence for the deceased Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman.

Academy members got to their feet to applaud the other career achievement recipient, Jeanne Moreau, celebrating 60 years of film-making.

Issues voiced at a droll but rarely impassioned Cesar awards sometimes echoed Hollywood concerns.

“The epicenter of piracy is China,” half-joked De Caunes. “One year after the bow of ‘Ratatouille,’ they celebrated the year of the Rat. No coincidence, eh?”
And the Cesars went to:

FILM

Abdellatif Kechiche, “The Secret of the Grain”

ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard, “La Vie en rose”

ACTOR

Mathieu Amalric, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

DIRECTOR

Abdellatif Kechiche, “The Secret of the Grain”

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Abdellatif Kechiche, “The Secret of the Grain”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, “Persepolis”

FIRST FILM

“Persepolis,” Satrapi and Paronnaud

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Julie Depardieu, “Un secret”

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sami Bouajila, “The Witnesses”

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE, ACTRESS

Hafsia Herzi, “The Secret of the Grain”

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE, ACTOR

Laurent Stocker, “Hunting and Gathering”

SOUND

Laurent Zellig, Pascal Villard and Jean-Paul Hurier, “La Vie en rose”

ORIGINAL SCORE

Alex Beaupain, “Les chansons d’amour”

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Tetsuo Nagata, “La Vie en rose”

ART DIRECTION

Olivier Raoux, “La Vie en rose”

COSTUME DESIGN

Marit Allen, “La Vie en rose”

EDITING

Juliette Welfing, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

SHORT

“Le Mozart des pickpockets,” Philippe Pollet-Villard

FOREIGN FILM

“The Lives of Others,” Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Germany)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

“Terror’s Advocat,” Barbet Schroeder

Source: Variety

With the writers strike settled and the 80th Academy Awards confirmed for February 24 in Hollywood, California, The Nielsen Company today released its annual Guide to the Academy Awards, which showcases a wide range of consumer and media information illustrating the enormous impact the Academy Awards has in the U.S.Among the findings:

• TELEVISION: The Academy Awards telecast on ABC Network continues to be one of the highest rated TV events of the year, with last year’s award show attracting more than 40.1 million U.S. viewers.

• BOX OFFICE AND BOOK SALES: Box Office figures for most Best Picture Nominees increased significantly after the Academy Awards nominations were announced. Sales of books related to nominated movies also rose after their nominations were announced.

• MUSIC: Following last year’s event, album sales and digital downloads of songs performed during the Academy Awards telecast surged. Will this year’s nominees reap the same post-Oscars benefits?

• ONLINE: Oscars buzz in the blogosphere peaked after the February 13 announcement that the show would go on as planned. But perhaps because this year’s event remained in doubt for several months, the Web sites of nominated films received less traffic this year than in 2007.

• ADVERTISING: The cost for a 30-second commercial edged up to an all-time high in 2007, but total ad spending decreased slightly, from $80.7 million in 2006 to $79.9 million in 2007.

• DEMOGRAPHICS OF ACADEMY AWARD VIEWERS: People in upper to upper-middle income brackets are almost twice as likely to watch the Oscars telecast. Of this group, a majority are women at least 35 years old, college educated, and living in the New England, Mid-Atlantic, or Pacific regions of the U.S.

TELEVISION VIEWERSHIP
In 2007, an average of 40.1 million Americans tuned in to the ABC Network to watch the Academy Awards, Nielsen Media Research reports. Last year, the event averaged a 23.6% household rating, up slightly from previous years.

The most-watched Academy Award broadcast in the last decade was in 1998 when Titanic was voted Best Picture. That telecast drew 55 million viewers for an average household rating of 34.9%. The lowest rated Oscars in recent years was in 2003 when Chicago was voted Best Picture: only 20% of U.S. homes tuned in for the telecast.

Among local U.S. markets, New York received the highest overall local rating for 2007 (35%), while the second largest local TV audience was in Los Angeles (32%). See Tables 1 and 2 for more details.

Source: Nielsen Media Research

Source: Nielsen Media Research
Note: local TV ratings include data for time-shifted viewing within one week of the awards telecast.

Box Office Sales
Do Academy Award nominations impact the distribution and ticket sales of nominated movies? Nielsen EDI compared the number of theatres showing each movie and ticket sales before and after the nominations were announced on January 22 and found significant increases in most cases (See Tables 3 and 4).

Source: Nielsen EDI

Source: Nielsen EDI

Impressive gross sales are not a requirement for a nominee in the top categories. For example, There Will Be Blood, in movie theaters for seven weeks, earned only $28 million at the U.S. box office through February 14, while fellow nominee Juno pulled in close to $119.5 million since its December 25 release (See Table 5).

Source: Nielsen EDI
*Includes sales data through Feb. 14, 2008.

BOOK SALES
Nielsen BookScan, which covers 75% of sales in the book industry, took a look at sales of books that are related to the nominated movies. Table 6 below compares total 2007 sales with book sales since the release of the movie related to each title. All data below includes sales for hard and paperback formats.

Source: Nielsen BookScan
Note: Nielsen BookScan does not track sales of books through WalMart, Sam’s, BJ’s, airports, or libraries.
*Includes sales data through Feb. 10, 2008.

MUSIC SALES
Billboard’s Geoff Mayfield used data from Nielsen SoundScan to analyze sales of songs nominated for this year’s Academy Awards. Of the current nominees for Best Original Song, three songs come from Walt Disney’s Enchanted. That soundtrack album, released on November 20, 2007, had sold 195,000 copies in the U.S. as of February 10, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Enchanted’s three nominated songs-”Happy Working Song,” “So Close,” and “That’s How You Know”-have also sold a combined 177,000 digital downloads.

A surprise hit last year, the Once soundtrack-nominated for “Falling Slowly”-is also a notable contender this year. The album has sold 343,000 copies since it debuted on May 22, 2007, making it the tenth best-selling soundtrack of 2007. This year’s fifth nominee, “Raise It Up,” comes from the August Rush soundtrack, which has moved 103,000 copies since its release on November 13, 2007.

Last year, songs from Dreamgirls-”Listen,” “Love You I Do,” and “Patience”-also locked up three out of five nominations in the Best Original Song category. None of the Dreamgirls songs won the Oscar, however. That honor went to Melissa Etheridge’s “I Need To Wake Up” from the soundtrack for An Inconvenient Truth.

Despite losing to Etheridge’s song, Dreamgirls sales rose 19% after last year’s Academy Awards telecast. The album shifted 45,000 copies in the week immediately following the event and finished 2007 as the sixth best-selling soundtrack of the year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. To date, it has sold 1.1 million units in the U.S.

The three nominated songs from Dreamgirls also saw handsome gains in their download sales following last year’s Academy Awards. “Love You I Do” sold 6,000 downloads in the first week after the event (a 100% increase), “Patience” downloads increased by 53%, and “Listen” increased downloads jumped by 73%.

Meanwhile, last year’s winner, Etheridge’s “I Need to Wake Up,” experienced a 295% gain in downloads in the week of the Academy Awards, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Perhaps viewers, moved by Etheridge’s win, rushed to their computers to download her song immediately after the telecast.

ONLINE USAGE
In 2007, traffic to the three major Oscar Web sites (oscar.movies.yahoo.com, oscar.com, and oscars.org) reached 1.8 million unique visitors on the day of the awards ceremony, according to Nielsen Online. On the day after the telecast, combined Web traffic to these sites increased 81% to 3.3 million unique visitors. Traffic to these three Web sites grew 183% during the week of the Academy Awards, from 905,000 unique visitors in the previous week to 2.6 million unique visitors in the days leading up to the ceremony.

Last year, Oscar.com grew 88% year over year, from an Oscars week unique audience of 720,000 to 1.4 million.

This year, the writers’ strike left the Academy Awards ceremony in doubt for several months, perhaps resulting in less Web traffic to the sites of nominated films. Web sites for this year’s Oscar contenders received just 831,000 unique visitors during January 2008-compared with 993,000 in January 2007.

BLOGOSPHERE Buzz
Drawing on its database of approximately 70 million blogs, Nielsen Online monitors consumer-generated content on the Internet before, during, and after the Academy Awards to provide advertisers with both quantitative and qualitative insight into virality and the popularity of the event and the nominees.

Table 7 shows the percentage of blog buzz related to this year’s Best Actor and Actress nominees. With 32.24% buzz volume, Johnny Depp dominated Academy Awards discussion on blogs. Depp far outpaced George Clooney, who claimed second place, with 13.74% of the blog buzz. Laura Linney was least buzzworthy.

*Includes data from Nov. 17, 2007 - Feb.14, 2008.

The following graph shows the percent of all blogs that mentioned the Academy Awards, the writer’s strike, and both together during the past three months. The January 22 spike in Academy Awards references was prompted by the nominations announcement, coupled with concerns that the writers strike would cancel this year’s show. After the February 13 announcement that the strike had ended, excitement for the event telecast triggered another peak in Academy Award-related blog discussions.

Please see downloadable pdf for chart.

CONSUMER BUZZ
The members of The Nielsen Company’s new consumer-driven opinion network, Hey! Nielsen (www.heynielsen.com), who recently rated ads during the Super Bowl, are now making predictions on who will win Oscar gold. The predictions in eight major categories reveal a few clear front-runners: Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, and Ratatouille, to name a few. There are also several tight races heading into Oscars night. In the Best Actress category, newcomer Ellen Page holds a slim lead over double-nominee Cate Blanchett, while Blanchett and Ruby Dee are tied in the Best Supporting Actress contest. The full results are compiled in Table 8 below.

Source: Hey! Nielsen
*Includes data collected from Feb. 5 - Feb. 19, 2008

Advertising Trends
Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the competitive advertising intelligence service of The Nielsen Company, analyzed advertising for the 2007 Academy Awards telecast and found:

• Movies nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director spent more than $102 million on advertising during 2007.
• The last year’s event had a total of 24 commercial minutes during the 3 hour and 10 minute televised broadcast on ABC Network, down slightly from 24½ minutes of advertising in 2006.
• The cost for a 30-second ad rose slightly from $1.65 million in 2006 to $1.67 million in 2007.
• Twenty-seven unique brands aired a total of 38 national advertisements in the 2007 broadcast.

Advertising Spending
In 2007, movies nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor/Actress, and Best Director spent more than $102 million on advertising in the U.S. Michael Clayton, which was nominated in three of the four categories, spent $27.6 million-more than any other movie, while There Will Be Blood, also nominated in three categories, spent the least: $404,618 (See Table 9).

Spending on movies nominated in the Best Actor category reached $59.4 million in 2007, accounting for almost 60% of total advertising expenditures. In comparison, the movies in the Best Actress category spent only $26.1 million on advertising. Movies nominated for Best Director and Best Picture spent just over $45 million each on advertising.

Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus

Commercial Minutes
Over the past five years, the number of commercial minutes in the Academy Awards telecasts ballooned from 24 minutes in 2003 to a high of 27½ minutes in 2005 (See Table 10). By 2007, that number had shrunk back to 24 minutes-the same commercial duration as in 2003.

Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus
Note: Commercial Minutes exclude promotional announcements

Average Cost for a 30-Second Commercial
The average cost for a 30-second commercial has increased 23% over the past five years-from $1.35 million in 2003 to $1.67 million in 2007 (See Table 11). Total advertising expenditures decreased slightly last year, from $80.7 million in 2006 to $79.9 million in 2007.

Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus

Top Advertisers During the 2007 Telecast
For the second consecutive year, General Motors was the top advertiser, with 3½ minutes of commercial time-30 seconds less than it aired when it claimed the top advertising slot during the 2006 Academy Awards telecast. Coca-Cola, L’Oreal, and J.C. Penney rounded out the top four advertisers for the 2007 telecast (See Table 12).

These four companies have held the top Oscars advertising slots since 2006. Coca-Cola replaced Pepsi-Cola as the leading soft drink advertiser beginning in 2006, and L’Oreal became a major Academy Awards advertiser in 2005.

Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus

2007 Advertisers: Old and New
Beyond last year’s top four, McDonald’s, which aired two commercials during the 2007 event, and American Express, which aired a 120-second spot that was the longest running commercial of the telecast, hold the distinction of being the only two companies that have advertised during the last 14 Academy Awards telecasts.

There were also several notable, new advertisers last year. Apple previewed its iPhone with three 30-second spots, and Unilever aired a 60-second Dove Cream Body Wash spot created by the winner of a contest that asked women to create commercials for Unilever’s new Dove product.

Viewing the Commercials
To view full-motion commercials, storyboards, and ratings from past Academy Awards telecasts, visit Nielsen’s Monitor-Plus website at https://www.nielsenmedia.com/monitorplus/specialevents .

Commercials from this year’s Academy Awards will be posted on Tuesday, February 26, 2008.

THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF AN ACADEMY AWARD VIEWER
According to data from Spectra, a Nielsen marketing service that measures lifestyle behaviors of American consumers, almost 60% of Academy Awards viewers are women. Among this group, most were at least 35 years old, college educated with incomes of at least $75,000 per year, and living in the New England, Mid-Atlantic, or Pacific regions of the U.S.

In general, these viewers live in upscale suburban areas or major urban centers (40%) and are either live in large families with older children (age 6 and older), or are older couples (age 35 and older) with no children. Academy Award viewers also tend to be health conscious consumers of wine, nuts, pretzels, yogurt, liquor, health bars, trail mix, coffee, pudding and popcorn.

Additional data from Claritas, Nielsen’s marketing research unit, indicates that Academy Awards viewers are predominantly in upper to upper-middle income brackets. These “upper crust” viewers are twice as likely to watch the show. Conversely, people in lower to lower-middle income categories-for examples, downscale retirees-are half as likely to watch the Oscars telecast.

Media Contacts
Nielsen EDI: Anne Saini, 646.654.8691
Nielsen Online: Suzy Bausch 408.941.2965 or Sandra Parrelli 646.654.7772
Nielsen Monitor-Plus: Jamillah Wright, 646.654.8357
Nielsen SoundScan: Anna Loynes, 213.639.6167
Nielsen BookScan: Whitney Jacoby, 914.684.5505
Nielsen Media Research: Anne Saini, 646.654.8691
Claritas: Steve Moore, 858.677.9634
Spectra: Jennifer Frighetto, 847.605.5686

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions and recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (Nielsen Online), mobile media (Nielsen Mobile), trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA.

Mediaedge:cia announces the birth of Arthur Schlovsky, opening the door to a new generation of agency. Its mission:  “the finest content for your brand”.

The Arthur Schlovsky media studio is the first to grasp all elements of the communication chain:  conception, creation, production and mediatisation of strategic content for brands.

It will be headed by three talents, well-known in the marketplace, all associated with Mediaedge:cia:

• Stéphanie Jolivot, Mediaedge:cia Directrice Générale Adjoint
• Franck Botbol, founder of Milk, producer
• HuguesCholez, founder ofLabviral

Eric Mourouvin, Mediaedge:cia Directeur-Général will preside over Arthur Schlovsky’s destiny, slated for development in the other principal European countries by 2010.

ArhturSchlovsky is located on the 1^st floor of the Mediadedge:cia, at 32 rue Guersant in Paris’ 17th arrondissement,  along with all of France’s WPP media agencies, under the aegis of GroupM.