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Wednesday, November 22, 2017

HOW’S FACEBOOK WATCH DOING?TWO BILLION VIEWERS WANT ENTERTAINMENT They’re not measured by Nielsen or com-score, but businessinsider.com has some viewer number in a new report on the progress of the three-month-old venture by Facebook called Facebook Watch. You may remember that Facebook announced Watch in early August with commitments for dozens of shows, and a handful of live events like Major League Baseball games. After a test with a small percentage of U.S. Facebook users, Watch was made available to the rest of the country in late August. The Watch shows that Facebook pays for currently air on a weekly schedule, similar to traditional TV. After a show airs for the first time, people can re-watch it on-demand. But at a time when younger viewers are accustomed to binge-watching Netflix shows, Facebook’s decision to schedule shows is a risky move that’s still unproven. One of the debut show partners for Watch was A&E’s “Bae or Bail,” a self-described “reality TV game show where couples face their fears.” The show’s first episode in early August garnered 32.5 million views despite the fact that Watch was only available to a subset of U.S. Facebook users at the time. But none of the following four episodes managed to crack 3 million views. The first episode of Refinery29’s Strangers show for Watch reached nearly 9 million views but none of the following episodes cracked even 200,000 views. When Facebook began soliciting pitches for shows late last year, the company said it wanted scripted shows at the production caliber of ABC’s Scandal, along with budgets similar to shows on YouTube’s Red subscription or Verizon’s go90 service. Facebook declined to discuss the financial terms of its shows, but the company is reportedly planning to spend as much as $1 billion on funding video in 2018. Facebook executives have said they don’t intend to spend at the same level as HBO or Netflix for content, the latter of which plans to spend $8 billion on original video in 2018. But Watch shows are increasingly becoming attached to A-list actors. In recent weeks Facebook has pitched celebrities like billionaire Shark Tank star Mark Cuban to host shows for Watch, and Hollywood figures like Kerry Washington, Zooey Deschanel, and Bill Murray have all agreed to star in shows since Watch first debuted. What’s the end game? Through premium original programming, Facebook is trying to become a place where people come to view a specific show. While there are already plenty of reasons to visit Facebook, original shows give people a reason to spend longer staring at their screens. If it can drive enough viewers to these shows thanks to its 2 billion total users, Facebook could offer significant revenue-share payouts, attracting better and better content creators.

ADVERTISER NEWS Lowe’s reported third quarter net earnings of $872 million, compared to net earnings of $379 million in the third quarter of 2016. Sales increased 6.5 percent to $16.8 billion from $15.7 billion. Hurricane-related sales in the quarter were approximately $200 million....Consolidated sales at Dollar Tree, Inc, were up 6.3% to $5.32 Billion in Q3. Same-store sales by segment were: Dollar Tree +5.0%, Family Dollar +1.5%... Luxury department store Neiman Marcus posted its first comparable store sales increase in more than two years, citing the success of its new digital and marketing

strategies. Total revenues in the quarter rose 3.8 percent to $1.12 billion….Shares of Signet, the parent company of Zales, Kay Jewelers, Jared The Galleria Of Jewelry and Piercing Pagoda plunged 27 percent Tuesday after reporting a loss in the fiscal third quarter and a reduction in its full-year forecast. Sales fell to $1.16 billion from

$1.19 billion a year ago, and were shy of analysts’ estimates of $1.17 billion. Same-store sales fell 5 percent....Shares of shoe retailer DSW fell 11 percent Tuesday after posting earnings below Wall Street expectations. CEO Roger Rawlins said, “An unusually severe hurricane season” hurt DSW’s same store sales and earnings....Whole Foods’ sales rose 4.4% in (fiscal year) Q4 compared with the year before, to $3.65 billion, according to Supermarket News. Whole Foods was owned by Amazon for one month of the quarter, and this was likely the last quarterly filing as its own company. Same store sales for the year were down 1.5% when compared to the Q4 of 2016, and Whole Foods saw a decline in traffic of 2.4% for the year. Total sales for fiscal year 2017 was up 2% to $16 billion, but net income was down 51.7% to $245 million....Same-store sales of publicly-traded restaurants were down in Q3 of 2017, according to Nation’s Restaurant News, with same-store sales for the third quarter dropping 1.2%. However, different categories of restaurants continue to fare differently. Fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Del Taco, and Taco Bell averaged growth of 1.1% in same-store sales for the quarter, but fast casual restaurants’ same-store sales decreased 2.4%. The winners of the quarter included Domino’s Pizza, Inc., with an increase in same-store sales of 8.4% during Q3 2017, and Texas Roadhouse, with an increase in same-store sales of 4.5% (at corporate locations)…. Burlington Stores reported profit in its third quarter that topped analysts’ expectations, but the impact of hurricanes did bite into sales. Total sales increased 7.1% to $1.43 billion, just missing estimates. Same-store sales rose 3.1%. The impact of weather-related store closures reduced incremental contribution to total sales results from new and non-comparable sales by $17 million, the company said.

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CYBER MONDAY SHOPPING ONLINE, AT-WORK A survey for the staffing firm Robert Half Technology finds that 75% of workers surveyed admitted to shopping during work hours on a company device, and 41% said they spent one hour or more shopping on the job during last year’s Cyber Monday. This year, 23% of all respondents said they plan to spend even more time on online bargain hunting while at the office. 46% said they grab most of their Cyber Monday deals while on their breaks or at lunch, while others make purchases whenever they have a free moment during the day, keeping browser tabs readily open (29%). Forty-

three percent of workers said their boss or company allows them to shop online during Cyber Monday, while almost a third (31 percent) admitted they didn’t know their workplace policy. When CIOs were asked to describe their organizations’ online shopping policies on a company-issued device, almost half (49%) said they allow access, but monitor for excessive use. Another 22% said they allow unrestricted access, and 29% said they block employees from accessing online shopping sites.

THANKSGIVING DINNER COSTS LESS The average cost of a Thanksgiving Day dinner has declined for the second straight year, according to an annual survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation. Based on grocery price checks in 39 states, the average cost of this year’s classic feast for 10 is $49.12, a 75-cent decrease from last year’s average of $49.87. The big ticket item—a 16-pound turkey—came in at a total of $22.38 this year. That’s roughly $1.40 per pound, a decrease of two cents per pound, or a total of 36 cents per whole turkey, compared to 2016. The shopping list for Farm Bureau’s informal survey includes turkey, bread stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and coffee and milk, all in quantities sufficient to serve a family of 10 with plenty for leftovers.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

CABLENET CHATTER Titanic: 20 Years Later with James Cameron will premiere on National Geographic Sunday at 9 PM (ET). The one-hour documentary commemorates the 20th anniversary of the film and will examine what historical and scientific aspects the film got right. The special will include interviews with Cameron and Dr. Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic in 1985……The Entertainment Network Groups of NBCUniversal Cable placed an order for a pilot for a supernatural thriller series that will be executive produced by Jason Blum. The series will be titled Run for Your Life and centers on the last night of Dia de Los Muertos, otherwise known as the Day of the Dead, where a grieving detective is thrust into a deadly game to bring someone back from the dead. The cast includes Josh Segarra, Andrew Jacobs, Carlo Leal, Danube Hermosillo, Angela Alvarado, Jennifer Landon, Kadeem Hardison, and Fernanda Andrade. The Entertainment Networks Group is comprised of USA Network and Syfy……The Sportsperson of the Year Awards from Sports Illustrated will be broadcast nationally for the first time under a new deal with NBCSN. The hour-long special will air on the network Friday, December 8th at 8 PM (ET). The award is given to the athlete, team, or coach who best exemplifies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement. It has been presented annually since 1954, the year Sports Illustrated launched. Past honorees included Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, and Michael Jordan……ESPN will air the 27th edition of The Home Depot College Football Awards Presented by Gildan on Thursday, December 7th at 7 PM (ET). Twenty-seven finalists have been named for nine National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA) honors. The awards show will air from the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta and will be hosted by Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Tom Rinaldi, and Maria Taylor……BET has canceled the second season of the hip-hop drama The Breaks. The Viacom-owned cable network announced in April that the series would move from BET to VH1 for the second season. That will no longer happen. The Breaks is based on Dan Charnas’ bestseller The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop. The series wrapped up its eight-episode first season in February, averaging about a million viewers per episode.…Juicy Stories has been given a pilot commitment from E! Network. The hourlong project is inspired by Juicy Couture founders Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor and their story of creating the iconic Juicy track suit. The pair turned their $200 investment into a billion-dollar business. Skaist-Levy and Nash-Taylor previously teamed with producers Mila Kunis, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage for Made in LA, a drama inspired by their memoir The Glitter Plan, which was set up for development at Freeform……ESPN’s coverage of the Atlanta Falcons 34-31 win over the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football delivered a 7.2 rating in the metered markets. That represented a 16% increase over the rating from the previous week.

Conan O’Brien

This week, 90% of all calls and texts are men contact-ing women in their past to

say, “Are we cool?”

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