A Little Of The Old In And Out



(image via cencom)

In: Lauren Zalaznick. Women@NBCU's Zalaznick, who is NBC Universal's point person to seize the 18-54 women demographic, is presenting this evening at the network's Upfront. We love her, of course, for giving us Bravo. Sure to be a player at the event (Let's hope more so than Jimmy Fallon), Zalaznick will unveil the virtual women's network. From Multichannel:

"Lauren Zalaznick, who last week was elevated to president of the newly established NBC Universal Women and Lifestyle Networks group, didn’t waste much time in declaring a new paradigm for distaff content and marketing initiatives.

"Zalaznick -- who had been heading Bravo Media, Oxygen Media and the programmer’s “Green is Universal” gambit, and now has added oversight of iVillage to her purview-- has launched Women@NBCU, which will be front and center at the NBC Universal Experience, the company’s freshly engineered upfront presentation to Madison Avenue, this evening at Manhattan’s 30 Rock.

"'There will be an installation in the building [NBC Experience],' she said. 'We want to showcase to our advertising partners our on-air, online and mobile assets, and how nimble this group can be in identifying opportunities and then delivering upon integrated marketing campaigns.'

"To illustrate her point, Zalaznick started with a brick and mortar metaphor many women can embrace.

"'I have these anchor stores in Bravo, Oxygen, iVillage and Green is Universal,' Zalaznick said. 'But there are also boutique shops with the [NBC’s] Today show and Lipstick Jungle, CNBC’s Suze Orman and USA’s The Starter Wife.'

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Out: Speed Racer. The reviews at the outset were brutal, reducing the candy-colored spectacle to an abattoir -- 35% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. From Defamer:

"How's this for irony? The same week Warner Bros. reestablished its mainstream priorities by dramatically cutting off Picturehouse and Warner Independent at the knees, the studio opened the summer with one of its biggest bombs in years: Speed Racer, the imperially promoted, poorly received $100 million Wachowskis film that opened this weekend to $20.2 million — if that."

In: Upfronts. What shows will get picked up and which shows will get dropped faster than a pair of trousers in the presence of Paris Hilton? From Buzzsugar:

"The network television upfronts, when each channel presents its programming schedule and new Fall shows to advertisers, kick off today in New York. This year's presentations look to be different than the glitzy celebrations of years past — both because of general financial worries and because the writers' strike left the networks without as many completed pilots to share. Plus, NBC — which would normally kick off the presentations today — jumped the gun and announced its schedule back in April. But there are still a lot of networks and potential shows to keep an eye on this week."

More here.