April 14, 2008

CBS

CBS Readies Another Burnett Reality Show

CBS is readying a new reality show from producer Mark Burnett of "Survivor" fame. The network ordered up eight episodes of the advertiser-friendly "Jingles," in which contestants compose melodies to sell products before the WGA strike started last year. Now, insiders say the series has started casting and preproduction and the announcement of a summer launch could come within weeks.

FOX

Exclusive Nike Sneakers, Hip Hop Clothing and Nike Myspace Layouts Coming to Kicks and Chicks

Kicks and Chicks has built their KicksAndChicks.com web site into one of the Internet's top sources for Nike myspace layouts and Nike sneaker news. It now plans to expand its sneaker store, add Kicks and Chicks T-shirts, and produce more myspace layouts than it ever has.

ImpreMedia to Power New MySpace Latino Sports Community

ImpreMedia will now be the primary content provider for the new MySpace Latino Community, “TodoFútbol.” The company provides Hispanic news and information (online and print) in the United States. ImpreMedia will now have an opportunity to tap into the existing base of more than nine million Hispanic users on MySpace and more than one million registrants on the MySpace Latino beta site.

Popular MySpace Latino answers demand for content

The online hangout MySpace is expanding its offerings for U.S. Hispanics, adding eight bilingual communities focused on Hispanic bands and celebrities, soccer and other interests. The year-old MySpace Latino has largely been a translation of MySpace's English site into Spanish. MySpace recently unveiled content specific to one of the fastest-growing groups online.

Shopit To Launch Shopit Store App On MySpace

Shopit, the leader of a new revolution in ecommerce, social commerce, today announced that it will launch the Shopit Store App on MySpace, the world's most popular social network. The Shopit Store App brings MySpace users the ability to buy and sell right from within their profile page.

Spanish Broadcasting System Forms Partnership with MySpace

Spanish Broadcasting System announced today that its television and radio properties are partnering with MySpace to launch a creative and innovative campaign in the top Hispanic U.S. markets to attract Hispanic audiences to MySpace Latino. This ambitious project, "Queremos Un Millón de Amigos" ("We Want a Million Friends"), will be promoted on all SBS television and radio stations, as well as their Web sites, in order to get one million people to the Web site.

MTV

MTV Networks Selects Media Excel for Video Transcoding; Single Platform and Unmatched Speed Enables Rapid Delivery of Content

Media Excel, a leader in advanced real-time video solutions, today announced that MTV Networks, a division of Viacom Inc., has implemented the Media Excel HERA 3200 series of video transcoding products across several of its channels to enable high-quality, rapid, and more cost-effective delivery of video to any device – TV, PC, and mobile – over any network.

The 3G MTV Mobile Phone Launched with an Exclusive Offer From SFR

ModeLabs Group (Paris: MDL), the customized design manufacturer, announces the commercial launch of the new MTV3.3 mobile on April 23. The first music channel 3G mobile will be accompanied by the MTV SERIES range of limited-time offers from SFR.

UNIVISON

Univision, Nielsen tool gives leg up to Hispanic nets

Univision's announcement last week that it was rolling out, with Nielsen, a research tool combining TV-viewing data with product-purchasing information gives the Hispanic network more ammo toward convincing advertisers they should divert some English-language marketing dollars into its space.

VIACOM

MTVN and BETN Name Melody Tan Senior Vice President, Strategy & Business Operations, Content Distribution and Marketing

TV Networks (MTVN) and BET Networks (BETN), units of Viacom, today announced the promotion of Melody Tan to Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Operations, Content Distribution and Marketing (CDM).

AFRICA

HIV-positive men jailed for homosexuality

A judicial official in Egypt says four HIV-positive men have been convicted for being homosexual and sentenced to three years in prison followed by three years of close police supervision.

Partnership aims to aid African HIV patients

Project 40/40 stands for a partnership between UW’s student body of 40,000 and 40,000 HIV-positive people in Uganda. The group, which works hand-in-hand with the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, raises funds through its events that go purchase a year’s worth of antiretroviral treatment, maintenance tests and a diagnostic test for each patient.

South Africa: Improved Health Care Decreases Maternal Mortality

Interventions to improve the quality of health care for pregnant mothers have led to the ratio in maternal mortality dropping over the past ten years. The maternal mortality ratio has decreased from 150 per 100 000 live births in 1998 to 124 per 100 000 to date.

ASIA

Cabbages, Condoms and HIV in Thailand

“Sorry, we have no mints,” reads the sign at Cabbages & Condoms Restaurant in Bangkok. “Please take a condom.” The restaurant is owned by Thailand’s Population and Community Development Association, a nonprofit founded in the ’70s to promote family planning.

Chinese AIDS victims detained, harassed -lawyers

Chinese police have detained up to eight HIV/AIDS-affected people who tried to complain to Premier Wen Jiabao about a hospital they claimed spread the HIV virus, lawyers for two of the families said on Monday.

UNICEF and partners organize national peer education workshop on HIV and AIDS in Yemen

Over 120 young people from Aden, Hadhramout, Mahweet, Hodeida, Taiz and Sana’a met here today in a three-day workshop organized by UNICEF and partners to share their experiences in peer education for combating HIV and AIDS.

CARIBBEAN & LATIN AMERICA

Brazil producing condoms from the rainforest

The Brazilian government has come up with a novel way of fighting the Aids epidemic that has gripped the country - using rubber from trees in the Amazon rainforest to produce condoms.

Local stakeholders help refine regional HIV/AIDS document

The consultation was convened to review the Caribbean Regional Strategic Framework on HIV and AIDS 2008-2012 and to provide feedback and recommendations to the Caribbean Community/Pan Caribbean Partnership (Caricom/PanCap) Against HIV/AIDS.

Primary Students Targeted For Sex Education

Officials are optimistic that a comprehensive programme designed to teach primary school students about their sexuality and HIV/AIDS is making significant inroads.

EUROPE

First ever mass campaign on HIV/AIDS prevention among student youth launches in Ukraine

It is expected that this first in the history of Ukraine mass project, implemented by ICF ‘International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine’ with the support of Levi Strauss Foundation will lay the basis of systematical changes in students’ lives motivating safer behavior and resulting in decline of new cases of HIV-infecting among youth in Ukraine.

Taxis to carry condoms

TAXIS are being used in the battle to drive home the safe sex message and combat disease. Couples in cabs are being given free condoms to combat an `alarming growth' in sexually-transmitted infections, especially chlamydia, health bosses in Wigan and Leigh said.

HIV/AIDS AND SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS

Actor Blair Underwood to Join Thousands of Walkers for Florida AIDS Walk

Actor Blair Underwood (Dirty Sexy Money, In Treatment, The New Adventures of Old Christine) and actor/comedian Mario Cantone (Sex and the City: The Movie) will join thousands of walkers for the Florida AIDS Walk on Sunday, April 27th

Efforts Raise HIV/AIDS Awareness Among Blacks, Encourage Black Students To Pursue Health Careers, Address Infant Mortality Disparity

The third annual "Women Empowered -- Responding To Serve Valued People" health forum was held last week. The forum aimed to raise HIV/AIDS awareness among blacks in the area. Alesia Miller -- senior project specialist with the not-for-profit Care Resource and a community activist, gave testimonial about being HIV-positive.

MAC signs up Fergie as Viva Glam spokesperson

US. The MAC AIDS Fund, the charitable arm of MAC Cosmetics, has confirmed singer Fergie as the newest spokesperson for the MAC VIVA GLAM VI campaign. The three-time Grammy Award-winning artist will represent a new limited-edition VIVA GLAM VI Lipglass gloss, and act as a voice for the MAC AIDS Fund’s Global Youth Prevention Initiative.

See Something, Say Something: NYC Condoms

You might have noticed the posters plastered throughout subway cars these past months: The City of New York wants you to “get some”—and get it safely. Over 4 million NYC condoms have been dispensed since February, when designer Yves Béhar gave last year’s subway-inspired prophylactic wrapper a makeover.

Using AIDS, Everest and Bono to sell product

SanDisk flash drive products are being carried by a 3-man Everest team, called INSPI (RED), hoping that their ascent will help call attention to AIDS in Africa.

OTHER MEDIA NEWS

SocialMedia Networks Launches First Ad Network Exclusively Focused on Social Media, Delivering Tangible Results to Advertisers

Social advertising moves the traditional ad network model to the next level as consumers engage in two-way interactions with advertisers' messages. Today, on the eve of ad:tech San Francisco, SocialMedia Networks announced the launch of the first social-enabled advertising network. The SocialMedia Advertising Network gives advertisers the ability to target users based upon their social network profile and behavior using applications as an advertising channel.