Bitter Tone in Debate Between Public Advocate Rivals

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Letitia James, 54, a councilwoman, and Daniel L. Squadron, 33, a state senator, hurled personal accusations at each another.

Her steely gaze wavered only once.

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CBS to Test a Third Version of ‘NCIS’ Franchise

This time next year, there might be three versions of “NCIS” on CBS.

The network is developing another possible spinoff of the hugely popular crime series the same way it did in 2009, when two special episodes of the original “NCIS” created an opening for the show that became “NCIS: Los Angeles.” This time, the special episodes â€" called a “planted spinoff” in television parlance, because it is a way to test a new show idea in plain sight â€" will revolve around a New Orleans office of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS.

A CBS spokesman confirmed the spinoff plans, which were first reported by Deadline.com. The two-parter will be produced in February and broadcast sometime in the spring; if CBS likes what it sees, it could order “NCIS: New Orleans” or a similarly named show for the 2014-15 television season.

“The NCIS New Orleans office handles cases from Pensacola through Mississippi and Louisiana to the Texas panhandle,” CBS’s description of the potential show says. “New Orleans, with its rich setting of music, fun and debauchery, is a magnet for military personnel on leave. And with fun comes trouble. It is a natural backdrop for a unique, character-driven spinoff.”

“NCIS” itself is a spinoff of “JAG,” which was televised until 2005. According to Nielsen, “NCIS” has become bigger than its parent ever was: new episodes of the series had an average of 21 million viewers last season, enough to make it America’s most-watched entertainment TV series on any network. “NCIS: Los Angeles” was not far behind, with about 17 million viewers last season.

If CBS moves forward on a third version of “NCIS,” it risks saturating the audience â€" but its experience with another crime franchise, “C.S.I.,” might give it confidence. For nearly a decade there were three versions of “C.S.I.” on CBS â€" the first one set in Las Vegas, another in Miami and a third in New York.

CBS has since canceled the two spinoffs to make way for other series, but the original “C.S.I.” continues to perform strongly for the network.

‘The Voice’ Propels NBC to a Big Ratings Win on Monday Night

“The Voice” on Monday cemented its status as television’s premier reality competition show, as NBC got off to a strong start in the new television season, according to preliminary ratings figures.

The other rosy news for NBC was the initial showing of the network’s much-talked-about new crime drama, “The Blacklist.” The show, which stars James Spader, posted hit-level numbers for its premiere, averaging more than 12 million viewers and a booming 3.8 rating in the category NBC sells to advertisers, viewers from the ages of 18 to 49.

Even accounting for a slight decline later when official national numbers arrive â€" because “Blacklist” benefited in its first half-hour Monday from a brief runover from “The Voice” â€" the performance was among the best in recent seasons for a new drama.

NBC promoted its overall supremacy Monday in the 18-49 competition. It topped its nearest competitor, CBS, by 70 percent with those viewers, which NBC research reported was the biggest margin for any network on a premiere-week Monday since Nielsen Research introduced its People-Meter system in the 1980s.

The next best ratings story from night 1 of the new season was how well Fox’s new drama “Sleepy Hollow” performed in its second week, when it had to face full competition on three other networks. The gothic series involving a reincarnated Ichabod Crane beat everything but “The Voice” in the 9 p.m. hour in that 18-49 competition, including the holdover hits “Two Broke Girls” on CBS and “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC.

“The Voice” remains NBC’s most potent weapon (after “Sunday Night Football”) and performed better in its premiere this season that it did a year ago, perhaps reflecting interest in the return to the original judging foursome, with Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green back to join Adam Levine and Blake Shelton.

The show grew to a 4.9 rating in the 18-49 category, up from a 4.2 last year, and to 14.7 million total viewers, up from 12.3 million a year ago.

The impressive performance by “The Blacklist” may be tempered slightly by a ratings decline in its second half-hour, though some of that could also be the product of extra viewers left from the minute or so runover from “The Voice.”

Still, the new NBC drama crushed the latest CBS crime drama, “Hostages,” which had its debut in the same hour. That show, an experiment by CBS in a more serialized drama, may be the season’s first endangered species. It started out with only 7.8 million viewers in its first half-hour (low for CBS) and a 2.0 rating among the 18-49 viewers, then fell to 7.2 million viewers and just a 1.7 rating with those younger adults.

The threat behind that falloff is that the audience will not jump into the serialized story, lose its thread and then abandon the series. The show’s future may hinge on how many viewers chose to record the drama for later viewing.

CBS got good news at the top of the night, with an hourlong premiere for the final season of the comedy “How I Met Your Mother.” It pulled in more than nine million viewers and scored a solid 3.6 rating in the 18-49 group. That was good for second place to “The Voice” in that hour.

But the other CBS comedies fell. “Two Broke Girls” was down to a 2.8 rating from a 3.7 last year in the 18-49 category. That affected the premiere of the new CBS entry “Mom,” which landed with a mediocre 2.5 rating and 7.9 million viewers.

The bad news for ABC was the plunge in ratings for “Dancing,” which started well last week against weaker competition. It reverted on Monday to recent form, drawing big numbers of total viewers â€" 13.3 million â€" but losing significant numbers of younger viewers. It dropped 24 percent from last week among the 18-49 viewers, to a 2.3 rating. It finished last in the 9-10 hour in that category.

Peter Matthiessen to Publish New Novel

Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times

The author Peter Matthiessen in 2008 at his home in Sagaponack, N.Y.

Peter Matthiessen, a National Book Award winner, Zen teacher and a founder of The Paris Review, has written a new novel, his publisher said on Tuesday.

Mr. Matthiessen, a renowned writer of fiction and nonfiction, said in a statement that “at age 86, it may be my last word.”

The book, “In Paradise,” is the story of a group that comes together “for a weeklong meditation retreat at the site of a World War II concentration camp, and the grief, rage, bewildering transports and upsetting revelations that surface during their time together,” the publisher, Riverhead Books, said in a statement. Riverhead will release it in spring 2014.

The novel will be Mr. Matthiessen’s first since “Shadow Country,” a compilation of three previous novels. “Shadow Country” won the National Book Award in 2008.

Mr. Matthiessen, who has participated in three Zen retreats at Auschwitz, said he has long wanted to write about the Holocaust, but that because he is not Jewish, he did not feel qualified. “But approaching it as fiction â€" as a novelist, an artist â€" I eventually decided that I did,” he said. “Only fiction would allow me to probe from a variety of viewpoints the great strangeness of what I had felt.”

Disruptions: Gawker Wants to Encourage More Voices Online, but With Less Yelling

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Debate Offers 2 Similar Public Advocate Rivals a Chance to Stand Out

Letitia James and Daniel L. Squadron are both liberal Democrats, critics of stop-and-frisk police tactics who boast about fighting on behalf of homeless families and public housing residents. But over the next week, they have to convince a tiny fraction of New York City voters that one of them is better suited to the office of public advocate, a little-known post that offers a bullhorn on city policy and a potential steppingstone to City Hall.

Councilwoman Letitia James has the support of women’s groups, as well as many of the city’s major labor unions.

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Advertising: Debating the Changing Economics of Editorial Content

Debating the Changing Economics of Editorial Content

Douggoodman.com

From left, Kurt Andersen, Henry Blodget and Ken Auletta on a panel titled “The Golden Age of Journalism?” at the MIXX conference on Monday.

AS the 10th annual Advertising Week in New York began on Monday, speakers and panelists were paying a good deal of attention to what appears in between ads â€" a k a editorial content â€" as well as to the ads themselves.

The focus on content creation was partly related to content’s being part of a major trend on Madison Avenue known as content marketing or native advertising, which seeks to skirt consumers’ aversion to being pitched by dressing up ads to resemble articles or programs.

“For most of the last 200 years, advertising has been defined in tandem with journalistic content,” said Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which is holding its MIXX Conference and Expo 2013 during the first two days of Advertising Week.

As a result, he added, “the changing economics of content” ought to concern the advertising and marketing industries.

That was the subject of a MIXX panel, titled “The Golden Age of Journalism?” moderated by the author Kurt Andersen, who is also the host of the “Studio 360” podcast. The panel members represented two divergent points of view on the state of journalism and the proliferation of news sources â€" or what seem to be news sources.

“What is happening now is wonderful for journalism and the world,” said one panelist, Henry Blodget, chief executive and editor in chief of Business Insider.

“The world is vastly better informed,” he added, because “we’re getting more information all the time” along with “the ability to distribute anything to anybody through links.”

“And we still have the old stuff,” Mr. Blodget said, referring to legacy media, though he acknowledged that “pockets of it are going through very rough transitions.”

The other panelist, the author Ken Auletta, who also writes for The New Yorker, replied, “My answer to you, Henry, would be ‘Yes, but.’ ”

“Yes, Henry is correct that the digital revolution has democratized information and created two-way platforms,” Mr. Auletta said. “But newsrooms are 30 percent smaller than they were 10 years ago, there’s 50 percent less reporting on city halls and 40 percent of the local TV news is dominated by traffic, weather and sports.”

Mr. Auletta also expressed disappointment that “by now, 15, 20 years into the Web,” there are fewer “indigenous news entities online” than he had anticipated, saying that the “commentary and aggregation” supplied by so many Web sites is not sufficient replacement for journalistic reportage. (He even joked how many Web sites that specialize in cat pictures “aggregate cat pictures; they don’t even make them.”)

If a typical newspaper was once “news and a couple of pages of Op-Ed,” Mr. Auletta said, a typical Web site is too often “Op-Ed and a couple of pages of news.” Mr. Blodget responded this way: “People have more choice now. That is good. It’s impossible to say that is a bad thing.”

Mr. Auletta replied: “Choice is good, no question about it. Choice about facts is not good.”

In a discussion of how well or poorly legacy news media are adapting to the new economics, Mr. Auletta praised The Guardian newspaper as “probably as advanced an online publication as there is” for one whose roots are in print.

Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of The Guardian, was a member of an Advertising Week panel on privacy, which was focused on the Edward J. Snowden affair.

The world is experiencing a “golden age of surveillance,” Mr. Rusbridger told the moderator, Alex Wagner of MSNBC. “This is way beyond ‘1984’; Orwell could never have imagined anything as complete as this.”

Another reason that content was so popular a topic at various Advertising Week events is the growing affinity among consumers for using social media like Facebook and Twitter, where many of the most frequent and voluble discussions are centered on editorial content in the form of television programming, whether episodes of series, awards shows or live sports.

For instance, an Advertising Week panel, “Social Media Driving Social Change,” featured Ali Velshi, the former CNN correspondent who is a correspondent on the new Al Jazeera America cable channel, and Roy Sekoff, president of HuffPost Live at Huffington Post.

“We now use social media as a booking tool” to find guests for HuffPost Live video shows, Mr. Sekoff said.

Also, Twitter and the CBS Corporation announced a deal on Monday that involves clips and highlights from 42 shows being embedded into Twitter posts. CBS is joining a lengthy list of television companies that take part in an ad program of Twitter’s known as Amplify; 20 CBS brands are participating, including CBS News, CNET and Gamespot.

Amplify typically pairs video highlights and consumer advertising. Those packages are then delivered to Twitter users in the same way that other messages are sent on the service.

David Morris, chief client officer of CBS Interactive, declined to identify any advertisers, but said some would be announced soon.

“We’ve been out in the marketplace the last couple of weeks,” Mr. Morris said, referring to Twitter and CBS ad executives who have been visiting potential brand partners. “As we sit side by side in those sales calls, people get it almost instantly.”

During another MIXX presentation, Brian King, global brand officer at Marriott International, described how a new Marriott campaign, which carries the theme “Travel brilliantly,” includes a microsite, or special Web site, where consumers are invited to suggest and vote on, through social media, potential ideas for innovative changes at Marriott properties.

Many suggestions are related to improving how room key cards work, Mr. King said, laughing. “I can’t tell you how many complaints I get about that.”

Vindu Goel and Tanzina Vega contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on September 24, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Debating the Changing Economics of Editorial Content.

Bits Blog: Twitter Adds CBS to Its Stable of Big Advertising Partners

Twitter has been furiously adding partners to its Amplify advertising program ever since it began informally last year with a partnership between the social network, ESPN and the Ford Motor Company. In those initial ads, ESPN sent out clips of football games, wrapped in a Ford Fusion ad, as short messages on the service.

Since then, more than a dozen other content distributors, from the Fox television network to Globosat in Brazil, have joined the program, with brands including Heineken and AT&T promoting clips from major sports events like the U.S. Open tennis tournament and NCAA basketball games and live events like MTV‘s Video Music Awards.

On Monday, Twitter announced that it had signed CBS, one of its biggest partners yet. The broadcast and Internet network intends to use Twitter Amplify to showcase content from 42 products, from TVGuide.com to its fantasy football site.

As an example, Twitter and CBS showed off a possible “60 Minutes in 60 Seconds” ad, which could promote content from the venerable television news magazine.

Increasing advertising revenue is important to Twitter, which has filed preliminary paperwork to sell stock to the public in an initial public offering that could occur as soon as November. As part of the process of courting investors, the company will be publicly disclosing its financial performance for the first time.

The real-time nature of Twitter’s stream of messages, or tweets, pairs well with live broadcasts. During Sunday night’s Emmy Awards broadcast on CBS, for example, the number of tweets exceeded 17,000 per minute as Carrie Underwood performed her rendition of the Beatles‘ “Yesterday.”

Television executives are intrigued by the possibilities of Twitter and TV reinforcing each other’s audiences.

“It’s a win-win-win situation,” said David Morris, the chief client officer of CBS Interactive, who appeared onstage as part of a Twitter presentation for Advertising Week 2013, an annual industry gathering in New York. CBS can send Twitter messages, or tweets, in real time, targeted to people who are likely to be interested in the content, with advertisers getting additional reach for their messages.

Mr. Morris declined to name any advertisers that would participate in CBS’s Amplify efforts, saying discussions were still going on. However, he said, “one advertiser asked us to partner and package up 20 of these shows.”

Matt Derella, a Twitter executive who works with the company’s largest American advertisers, said that research by Twitter and Nielsen suggests that Twitter and television reinforce each other, boosting viewership and the volume of messages on Twitter.

Broadcasting commercials simultaneously on a TV show and Twitter can boost an ad’s message, Mr. Derella said. Twitter has found that users who saw a TV commercial and then engaged in some fashion with a Twitter ad for the same product indicated they were 58 percent more likely to to buy it than people who saw just the television ad.

“By adding Twitter to your buy, you will sell more stuff,” he said.

Former F.B.I. Agent Pleads Guilty in Leak to A.P.

WASHINGTON â€" A former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent has agreed to plead guilty to leaking classified information to The Associated Press about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen last year, the Justice Department announced on Monday. Federal investigators said they identified him after obtaining phone logs of Associated Press reporters.

The retired agent, a former bomb technician named Donald Sachtleben, has agreed to serve 43 months in prison, the Justice Department said. The case brings to eight the number of leak-related prosecutions brought under President Obama’s administration; under all previous presidents, there were three such cases.

“This prosecution demonstrates our deep resolve to hold accountable anyone who would violate their solemn duty to protect our nation’s secrets and to prevent future, potentially devastating leaks by those who would wantonly ignore their obligations to safeguard classified information,” said Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who was assigned to lead the investigation by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

In a twist, Mr. Sachtleben, 55, of Carmel, Ind., was already the subject of a separate F.B.I. investigation for distributing child pornography, and has separately agreed to plead guilty in that matter and serve 97 months. His total sentence for both sets of offenses, should the plea deal be accepted by a judge, is 140 months.

A Justice Department court filing claims that Mr. Sachtleben disclosed the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency had foiled a bomb plot in Yemen to an unnamed reporter â€" The Associated Press was not identified in the filing â€" on May 2, 2012. The news service broke the news that a plot had been foiled in Yemen on May 7.

A year later, it became known that the Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed phone companies for calling records for 20 phone lines of Associated Press offices and reporters, without providing advance notice to the organization so they could negotiate over the scope of the effort or ask a judge to quash the subpoena.

The disclosure helped set off a furor among journalists and members of Congress over the Justice Department’s aggressive methods in carrying out leak investigations, and Mr. Holder, who was recused from that investigation, later issued new guidelines tightening the circumstances by which investigators could go after reporters’ information.

The calling records proved crucial to identifying Mr. Sachtleben, the Justice Department said. An official familiar with the investigation said the F.B.I. had conducted more than 550 interviews at that point but had not managed to identify a suspect. The records showed communications between the reporter and Mr. Sachtleben, who became a suspect.

“Sachtleben was identified as a suspect in the case of this unauthorized disclosure only after toll records for phone numbers related to the reporter were obtained through a subpoena and compared to other evidence collected during the leak investigation,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “This allowed investigators to obtain a search warrant authorizing a more exhaustive search of Sachtleben’s cellphone, computer, and other electronic media, which were in the possession of federal investigators due to the child pornography investigation.”

Emmys Draw 17 Million Viewers, Up From Recent Shows

LOS ANGELES â€" Bucking downward network-television ratings trends, the Emmy Awards on Sunday evening earned the biggest audience for an Emmys show in almost a decade.

More than 17 million people were tuned in at any average minute during the three-hour-plus telecast, according to Nielsen data supplied by CBS, the network whose turn it was to televise the awards ceremony. That average compared favorably to last year, when about 13 million viewers watched on ABC.

CBS estimated that about 40 million people caught some portion of Sunday’s telecast. The Emmys audience was inflated by the highly rated Jets-Bills football game that immediately preceded the awards on CBS (and delayed the start time by a couple of minutes).

Cable award winners like HBO’s “Veep” and Showtime’s “Homeland,” which have much smaller audiences than CBS, welcomed the exposure to millions of potential new viewers. The biggest winner of the night, AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” was competing with the Emmys somewhat â€" its second-to-last episode was shown at 9 p.m. Eastern, during the second hour of the ceremony.

“Breaking Bad” has been scoring new personal bests in the ratings as it barrels toward a Sept. 29 finale, and Sunday was no exception: 6.6 million viewers tuned in, beating last week’s record of 6.4 million. The audience for the show continues to skew young, with 4.3 million viewers between the ages of 18 and 49.

At times on Sunday the Emmys show seemed as dark as the drug-fueled story lines of “Breaking Bad”; some viewers took to calling them the “death Emmys” on Twitter because of the inordinate number of in-memoriam segments about deceased stars. But the producers will be able to point to the ratings in rationalizing their programming choices. CBS said the total of 17.6 million viewers was the best for the Emmys since 2005.

Webdenda: Accounts and People of Note in the Advertising Industry

Accounts and People of Note in the Advertising Industry

Adap.tv, San Mateo, Calif., part of the AOL Networks unit of AOL, opened an office in Tokyo.

Don Albert joined AdsWizz, San Mateo, Calif., as North American president. He succeeds Alexis van de Wyer, who was promoted to chief executive in January. Mr. Albert had most recently been working with various companies as an adviser and director and before that had been vice president and general manager for the Americas and advertising at Skype.

AnalogFolk, London, opened an office in New York, to be led by Daniel Bennett, as director for strategy, and Jim Wood, as creative director. Mr. Bennett had been digital strategy director at JWT New York, part of the JWT division of WPP, and Mr. Wood has worked for agencies that include AKQA, JWT and Taxi. The office is AnalogFolk’s second, after opening in Sydney in 2011.

Tracy Armstrong and Chris Hsu joined the Blackboard Co., Austin, Tex. Ms. Armstrong becomes media director; she had been at agencies that include the Davis Group and GSD&M. Ms. Hsu becomes an account supervisor; she had worked on the Apple account at the TBWA/Media Arts Lab unit of TBWA Worldwide.

Brownstein Group, Philadelphia, hired seven employees. They are Kate Concannon, a copy editor; Jenna Hollmeyer, agency communications manager; Mallory Jaroski, a senior public relations account executive; Hannah McDonnell, a copywriter; Julia Missaggia, director for talent; Will Murdoch, a Web developer; and Michelle Woolford, a public relations account executive.

Creative Asylum, Hollywood, Calif., was acquired by Modus Operandi, Los Angeles. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal came after more than 75 project collaborations, the agencies said, and a two-year strategic partnership. Modus Operandi now has its headquarters at what had been the Creative Asylum headquarters as well as offices in Portland, Ore.; Panama City, Panama; and Cebu City, Philippines.

Dino de León joined Shoptology, Dallas, part of Project WorldWide, in a new post, executive creative director. He had an executive creative director at TracyLocke, Dallas, part of the Omnicom Group.

Joe Esposito, director for audience solutions and product at Spafax Networks, New York, part of the Tenthavenue division of WPP, was promoted to vice president for product and operations.

Mark Herrington joined Shoutlet, Madison, Wis., as chief executive, a post that had been vacant since April. He had been executive vice president for global product management and innovation at the First Data Corporation.

Robert Kleman joined the Miami Beach, Fla., office of SapientNitro, part of Sapient, as executive creative director. He succeeds Juan Morales, who left to become executive creative director at BGT Partners, Hallandale Beach, Fla. Mr. Kleman had been a creative director at Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miami, part of MDC Partners.

Lov, São Paulo, Brazil, part of Dentsu, is teaming with 360i, New York, another Dentsu agency, to help 360i open an office in São Paulo. It is the third office outside the United States that 360i has opened this year, joining London and Toronto.

Harmon Lyons joined Integral Ad Science, New York, in a new post, vice president for business development. He had most recently been managing director and global vice president for business development at the Resolution Media unit of the Omnicom Media Group, part of the Omnicom Group.

Mediamorph, New York, hired an executive for a new post and promoted an executive to a new post. Richard Cooper joined Mediamorph in the London office as international sales director; he had been business development manager at Red Bee Media, London. Also, Tim Rottach, who had been international managing director at Mediamorph, based in the London office, moves to New York and becomes vice president for marketing.

Kristin Morales joined the Portsmouth, N.H., office of Mad*Pow in a new post, director for business development. She had been director for business development at Raka Creative, Portsmouth.

Olo, New York, hired three executives for new posts. They are: Marty Hahnfeld, vice president for sales; Scott Lamb, vice president for account management; and Matt Tucker, chief operating officer.

Pace, Greensboro, N.C., was named Content Marketing Agency of the Year at the second annual Content Marketing Awards, presented by the Content Marketing Institute.

Point of Purchase Advertising Institute, Chicago, named two industry executive who will be inducted into the POPAI Hall of Fame on Dec. 12. They are: Gary Forman, chief executive at Henschel Steinau, and Bill Kolb, who is chairman at MRM Worldwide as well as chairman and chief executive at Commonwealth, both units of the McCann Worldgroup division of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Rolaids â€" the antacid brand known for its long-running campaign carrying the theme “How do you spell relief?” â€" is being reintroduced by its new owner, the Chattem Inc. unit of Sanofi U.S., part of Sanofi, which purchased Rolaids from the McNeil consumer health care division of McNeil-PPC, owned by Johnson & Johnson. Ads created by Ferrara & Company, Princeton, N.J., feature Guy Fieri of the Food Network, who declares, “That’s how you spell relief.”

Trueffect, Westminster, Colo., hired three executives for new posts. They are: Kevin Barhydt, vice president for business development; Ashley Grace, senior vice president for sales; and Darryl LaRue, senior vice president for operations.

April Weeks joined the Dallas office of Centro in a new post, vice president for regional media operations in the South. She had been senior vice president and senior director for media strategy and innovation at TM Advertising, Dallas, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Q. and A. With Stuart Elliott

Stuart Elliott, the advertising columnist, answers questions from readers each week. Questions can be sent to stuarte@nytimes.com.

Q. Who is the actress who plays the clerk behind the counter in the current series of Toyota commercials? I think she is very good - and pretty, too.

A. Thanks, dear reader, for your question about the spots for Toyota Motor Sales USA, which promote what the carmaker calls sales events like annual clearances. In the commercials, the character, named Jan, deals with offbeat customers who come into a Toyota dealership as they shop for a new car.

“Actress Laurel Coppock plays Jan, the knowledgeable, helpful and quick-witted receptionist,” says Angela Seits, a spokeswoman at the agency that creates the commercials, which is the Los Angeles office of Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Publicis Groupe.

Ms. Coppock has also appeared in episodes of popular sitcoms like “Arrested Development,” “Modern Family” and “The Office,” according to Ms. Seits.

The Toyota character is somewhat reminiscent of Flo, the character played by Stephanie Courtney in a long-running series of commercials for Progressive insurance. Flo is a sales clerk in a Progressive superstore.

There seems to be a boom, or boomlet, in characters being introduced in campaigns for major marketers; I recently wrote about new characters in ads for Campbell’s condensed soups and Meineke car care centers. Other examples include a campaign for Volkswagen with a new character named Johnny Conquest, and a campaign for Zantac antacid with a new character named Captain Zantac.

Q. Who is the man doing the voice-overs in the TriHonda Dealers commercials? It’s a very “New York” kind of voice.

A. The voice in the spots that are part of the TriHonda Dealers campaign, which carries the theme “Not just smart. Street smart,” is provided by Edward Burns, says Tricia Kenney, a spokeswoman at the agency that creates the campaign, which is Publicis Kaplan Thaler in New York.

Mr. Burns is the actor (“Saving Private Ryan”) and director (“The Brothers McMullen”) who may probably be better known now as the husband of the supermodel Christy Turlington. The TriHonda Dealers - formally the TriHonda Dealer Advertising Association - is composed of dealers in metropolitan New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Publicis Kaplan Thaler is part of the Publicis in the USA division of Publicis Worldwide, which is a division of the Publicis Groupe.

Campaign Spotlight: Ads for Rosewood Hotels Hope to Convey ‘A Sense of Place’

Ads for Rosewood Hotels Hope to Convey ‘A Sense of Place’

A company that operates high-end hotels and resorts is joining the ranks of marketers in the lodging and travel categories that seek to sell potential customers on accumulating rich experiences rather than expensive possessions.

The company, Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, is introducing a campaign that carries the theme, “A sense of place,” which is complemented with another phrase, “A true journey never ends.” The budget for the campaign â€" including print and digital ads, online video and a redesigned Web site â€" is estimated at $8 million.

The campaign presents striking shots in a “living canvas” style by a Danish photographer, Anders Overgaard, of interesting and unusual things to do in cities where Rosewood has properties. For instance, one image, titled “Getting Lost in the Moment,” depicts a Temazcal ritual at the Rosewood Mayakoba in Riviera Maya, Mexico.

A second ad, titled “Behind the Magic Curtain,” shows a couple in formal wear backstage at a ballet in New York, where the Carlyle is a Rosewood hotel. A third ad, titled “Hitting All the Right Notes,” features guests enjoying a pianist at the Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle.

Other experiences that are highlighted in the campaign include sailing a dhow and riding bicycles in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rosewood has one hotel and intends to open a second, in 2015; and getting fitted for a dress and taking a calligraphy master class in Beijing, where Rosewood is to open a hotel early next year.

The campaign arrives as the company proceeds with expansion plans that involve doubling the number of properties under the Rosewood brand umbrella within five years. In the short term, in addition to the new hotel in Beijing, a Rosewood hotel is scheduled to open in London next month.

Beyond that, the company has proposed opening seven additional hotels, in markets like Bali, Indonesia; Chongquing, China; Nassau, the Bahamas; and Phukut, Thailand.

The campaign is being created for Rosewood by AgencySacks in New York, which specializes in advertising aimed at consumers at the upper end of the market; its slogan is, “We influence the affluent.” The Web site redesign is being handled by the Hong Kong office of Isobar, which is part of the Dentsu Aegis Network division of Dentsu.

AgencySacks has been working for Rosewood since 2004 and was kept on after the company changed hands in 2011, when the previous owners sold to New World Hospitality, a unit of New World China Land, for $800 million.

Rosewood is “a very-well-recognized brand,” says Sonia Cheng, chief executive of the company, which has offices in Dallas and Hong Kong. “We saw the opportunity to take it to the next level and expand Rosewood aggressively.”

The campaign is intended to be part of efforts to “completely revamp” Rosewood “from a brand identity front,” she adds, to “keep up with what luxury travelers are looking for.”

The campaign theme represents “a strong philosophy,” Ms. Cheng says, that gives the brand “a more modern look and approach.”

“What Rosewood has right now is special,” she adds. “We want to make it as ‘un-hotel’ as possible.”

By that, Ms. Cheng explains, she means that she wants to distinguish Rosewood from lodging chains that, as they grow bigger, “focus on quantity” rather than quality and make staying at each property “a cookie-cutter experience.”

Rosewood, by comparison, tries to make each hotel “individualized,” she says, and let each have “its own personality that embodies local culture.”

“What luxury travelers are looking for is not extravagance, but experience,” she adds.

A campaign for Loews Hotels and Resorts, introduced in July, also seeks to portray staying at each property as a unique experience. The Loews campaign, which carries the theme “The room you need,” is created by the Catch New York agency.

After Ms. Cheng came to Rosewood following the change in ownership, a brand consultant and graphic designer, Robert Louey, “helped us with the direction” of the makeover, she says. Then AgencySacks was brought in to work on a new campaign.

In many instances after a company changes hands, one of the first things the new owner does is look for a new agency. In this instance, Ms. Cheng says, she wanted to keep AgencySacks because “they know Rosewood inside out.”

“It was a smart choice to make,” she adds.

Introducing “A sense of place” as the new theme for Rosewood speaks to the desire to “create experiences for the guests,” Ms. Cheng says, in a “living canvas” approach.

As part of that, the company is bringing experts it calls “curators” to the hotels, she adds, “and give the inside scoop on each location to the guests.”

The TV Watch: Old Guard Keeps Grip on Celebration

Old Guard Keeps Grip on Celebration

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Michael Douglas, best actor winner for the HBO movie “Behind the Candelabra.”

Despite all the fear and anxiety, Netflix didn’t steal the night in the end. “Modern Family” on ABC won the Emmy Award for best comedy, which was almost a surprise because it has won so many times before and because other shows, like “Veep” of HBO, have gained ground. “Breaking Bad,” on the other hand, is about to end its run, so it was almost inevitable that that AMC hit would get yet another standing ovation.

Many other wins were unexpected, and some were well-deservedâ€" like Jeff Daniels, who won the best drama actor award for “The Newsroom” on HBO, and Merritt Wever, of “Nurse Jackie” on Showtime, who won the award for best supporting actress in a comedy. Ms. Wever proved she deserved her statuette, giving the shortest and best acceptance speech. She thanked the academy, then said, “I gotta go, bye,” and walked offstage.

If it’s a new and golden age of television, as so many presenters insisted, you couldn’t tell from the host, Neil Patrick Harris, who treated the Emmys like the Tonys and made self-conscious jokes about the precariousness and even irrelevance of classic television in the era of on-demand premium cable and Internet streaming. Mr. Harris said that the awards show would celebrate the best of television, then added, “For our younger audience, that’s the thing you watch on your phones.”

In a night was could have celebrated the many exciting innovations in the field, the Emmy producers chose to look backward, not only with tributes to dead actors but also with mournful references to a more glorious time in broadcast television, particularly on CBS, which presented the event. The network put its chief executive, Leslie Moonves, in a coy cameo in the opening skit, and it stretched a link between the anniversary of CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the Kennedy assassination and the Beatles’ first performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on CBS, so that Carrie Underwood could sing “Yesterday.”

CBS executives seem so worried about their own mortality that they’re celebrating their own mortality.

Insecurity may also be the reason the show kept veering off into song-and-dance routines that have no bearing on the Emmys. Mr. Harris, a perennial awards show host, was mocked in a fake ad in which his “How I Met Your Mother” co-stars warned about the risks of Excessive Hosting Disorder. But it was the show itself that needed an intervention, shifting from Emmy awards to musical numbers better suited to the Tonys and the Grammys: Awards Show Identity Disorder. Mr. Harris did two song-and-dance numbers, including one that paid tribute to “Mad Men” with a tune from “Guys and Dolls.” The other made fun of its own irrelevance to the moment at hand: “It’s the number in the middle of the show.”

That was a lot of time wasted on a night when there were so many deaths to acknowledge, including those of Cory Monteith of “Glee” and James Gandolfini, once of “The Sopranos.”

Even stars who didn’t die this past year got a shout-out. Michael Douglas’s best actor award for a mini-series was one of three that “Behind the Candelabra,” an HBO biopic of Liberace, won. (Mr. Douglas thanked his co-star, Matt Damon, who played his younger lover, and said he would split the statuette with him, saying roguishly, “Do you want the bottom or the top?”)

With that many awards, it wasn’t clear why Elton John needed to sing a solemn song from his new album that had nothing to do with that legendary Vegas showman, But it certainly wasn’t much of an homage to play on an unadorned piano and no candelabra in the wind.

Fashion, always a side benefit of an awards show, wasn’t much more innovative or exciting. There is so much change in the industry and so little experimentation in wardrobe choices: year after year, actresses, or rather their stylists, select tasteful, risk-free monochromatic, strapless gowns by Valentino or Prada or Zac Posen. Hollywood is still so haunted by the over-the-top fashion faux-pas of Cher or Björk that even comedy stars abide by the sartorial equivalent of the Hippocratic oath: first do no fashion harm. And that made Lena Dunham’s choice of a bold, full-skirted green ball gown covered with giant red roses, seem even more shocking than her near-nudity famous on “Girls.”

The real winner of the night may have cynicism and public distrust of government.

Seven or eight days away from a possible government shutdown, some of the winners, like “Veep,” “Homeland” and even “Political Animals,” reflect television’s repulsed but riveted relationship with Washington. The federal government may be a swamp, but it’s a swamp viewers love to splash in. Compared with the waste and gridlock on Sunday’s Emmy awards show, Washington may be a lot more functional.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Old Guard Keeps Grip on Celebration.

Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’

LOS ANGELES â€" On Sunday, a mere seven days before its very last episode, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” finally earned the outstanding drama Emmy award that it had been denied for years.

As Bryan Cranston, who plays Walter White, the show’s lead character, applauded behind him onstage, the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, said he “did not see this coming.” Mr. Gilligan rattled off the names of the other nominees, including “Mad Men,” the AMC sibling that beat “Breaking Bad” in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and “Homeland,” the Showtime series that beat both of them last year, making sure to mention every competitor. “I thought this was going to be ‘House of Cards,’” he admitted, mentioning the Netflix series that has been credited with ushering in a new age of online television.

But no, it was not Netflix’s night. It was Mr. Gilligan’s, whose show made its debut in 2008 and had been nominated for the top drama prize three times since, but had never won. Mr. Gilligan did not mention the impending finale next Sunday, but he did not have to â€" the award was a free advertisement before an anticipated audience of at least 10 million viewers.

"I’m just so happy for Vince," AMC’s president, Charlie Collier, said as he exited the Nokia Theater.

Until Mr. Gilligan’s acceptance speech at the very end of the Emmys on Sunday, it looked as if “Breaking Bad” might come away almost empty-handed. There were audible gasps of “Whoa!” and “What?” in the auditorium here as Jeff Daniels of HBO’s “The Newsroom” won the annual outstanding actor in a drama award, besting Mr. Cranson, who had won three times before and was widely expected to win again. Mr. Daniels sounded as surprised as anyone when he accepted the award; he had not expected to win.

Neither had Bobby Cannavale, of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire;” in fact he had not even written an acceptance speech. But he beat two “Breaking Bad” actors, Aaron Paul and Jonathan Banks, in the supporting actor category. “I can’t believe I get to get mentioned with these other really incredible actors,” Mr. Cannavale said.

But “Breaking Bad” did pick up one acting award, for Anna Gunn, who plays Walter White’s wife, Skyler, and was recognized as best supporting actress. (“Bryan Cranston just told me to breathe,” she said as she came on stage.)

To the surprise of many Emmy observers, the two stars of “House of Cards,” Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, came away without awards. The filmmaker David Fincher, who directed the first episode of “Cards,” won an Emmy for best directing, but he was not there to accept it. (A Netflix spokesman said he was filming “Gone Girl.”)

But the wins for “Breaking Bad” might be seen indirectly as wins for Netflix, too: five prior seasons of the AMC series are available on the streaming service. Minutes after “Bad” won the best drama award, the widely followed Netflix Twitter account congratulated the show â€" “All hail (this year’s) king” â€" and reminded subscribers that they could catch up online.

Earlier in the evening, Showtime’s “Homeland,” which last year took home the Emmy for outstanding drama and was nominated again this year, won two awards, one for the actress Claire Danes and another for Henry Bromell, a writer on the series who died of a heart attack in March. Mr. Bromell’s widow, Sarah, accepted his award. Ms. Danes, accepting her award later, paused to acknowledge Mr. Bromell. “We think of him every day as we continue to work on the show that he helped define,” she said.

It was a night of upsets â€" with all-too-numerous remembrances of stars who had passed away in the past year â€" from the very first award, when Merritt Wever won for her supporting actress performance on Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie,” beating three-time winner Julie Bowen of “Modern Family” as well as Ms. Bowen’s co-star Sofia Vergara.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’ . \n \n\n'; } s += '\n\n\n'; document.write(s); return; } google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '3'; google_ad_client = 'nytimes_blogs'; google_safe = 'high'; google_targeting = 'site_content'; google_hints = nyt_google_hints; google_ad_channel = nyt_google_ad_channel; if (window.nyt_google_count) { google_skip = nyt_google_count; } // -->

Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’

LOS ANGELES â€" On Sunday, a mere seven days before its very last episode, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” finally earned the outstanding drama Emmy award that it had been denied for years.

As Bryan Cranston, who plays Walter White, the show’s lead character, applauded behind him onstage, the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, said he “did not see this coming.” Mr. Gilligan rattled off the names of the other nominees, including “Mad Men,” the AMC sibling that beat “Breaking Bad” in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and “Homeland,” the Showtime series that beat both of them last year, making sure to mention every competitor. “I thought this was going to be ‘House of Cards,’” he admitted, mentioning the Netflix series that has been credited with ushering in a new age of online television.

But no, it was not Netflix’s night. It was Mr. Gilligan’s, whose show made its debut in 2008 and had been nominated for the top drama prize three times since, but had never won. Mr. Gilligan did not mention the impending finale next Sunday, but he did not have to â€" the award was a free advertisement before an anticipated audience of at least 10 million viewers.

"I’m just so happy for Vince," AMC’s president, Charlie Collier, said as he exited the Nokia Theater.

Until Mr. Gilligan’s acceptance speech at the very end of the Emmys on Sunday, it looked as if “Breaking Bad” might come away almost empty-handed. There were audible gasps of “Whoa!” and “What?” in the auditorium here as Jeff Daniels of HBO’s “The Newsroom” won the annual outstanding actor in a drama award, besting Mr. Cranson, who had won three times before and was widely expected to win again. Mr. Daniels sounded as surprised as anyone when he accepted the award; he had not expected to win.

Neither had Bobby Cannavale, of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire;” in fact he had not even written an acceptance speech. But he beat two “Breaking Bad” actors, Aaron Paul and Jonathan Banks, in the supporting actor category. “I can’t believe I get to get mentioned with these other really incredible actors,” Mr. Cannavale said.

But “Breaking Bad” did pick up one acting award, for Anna Gunn, who plays Walter White’s wife, Skyler, and was recognized as best supporting actress. (“Bryan Cranston just told me to breathe,” she said as she came on stage.)

To the surprise of many Emmy observers, the two stars of “House of Cards,” Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, came away without awards. The filmmaker David Fincher, who directed the first episode of “Cards,” won an Emmy for best directing, but he was not there to accept it. (A Netflix spokesman said he was filming “Gone Girl.”)

But the wins for “Breaking Bad” might be seen indirectly as wins for Netflix, too: five prior seasons of the AMC series are available on the streaming service. Minutes after “Bad” won the best drama award, the widely followed Netflix Twitter account congratulated the show â€" “All hail (this year’s) king” â€" and reminded subscribers that they could catch up online.

Earlier in the evening, Showtime’s “Homeland,” which last year took home the Emmy for outstanding drama and was nominated again this year, won two awards, one for the actress Claire Danes and another for Henry Bromell, a writer on the series who died of a heart attack in March. Mr. Bromell’s widow, Sarah, accepted his award. Ms. Danes, accepting her award later, paused to acknowledge Mr. Bromell. “We think of him every day as we continue to work on the show that he helped define,” she said.

It was a night of upsets â€" with all-too-numerous remembrances of stars who had passed away in the past year â€" from the very first award, when Merritt Wever won for her supporting actress performance on Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie,” beating three-time winner Julie Bowen of “Modern Family” as well as Ms. Bowen’s co-star Sofia Vergara.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Honors for ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Modern Family’ .

Collectors of Royalties for Music Publishers May See Better Results

Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS

Taylor Swift is among the members of BMI, which collects royalties for music publishers.

The music industry is used to bad news. When the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announced that record sales in 2012 had their first yearly uptick since 1999, for example, there was jubilation in the record business â€" even though the gain was only 0.3 percent.

One area that has been growing consistently, however, are the royalties from performing rights organizations like Broadcast Music Inc. and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which pay songwriters and music publishers when their music is broadcast, performed live or streamed online.

BMI, as Broadcast Music is known, will announce on Monday that it had $944 million in revenue for the year that ended in June. That is 5 percent more than it collected the year before, and a new high for the organization, whose 600,000 members include stars like Taylor Swift, Pink and Adam Levine of the band Maroon 5. BMI paid $814 million in royalties, the first time its annual distributions have exceeded $800 million. Since 2003, BMI’s revenue has increased about 50 percent.

The performing rights societies are some of the industry’s oldest financial engines, and they are trying to adapt to a digitized business that has spread far beyond radio and broadcast television, their bread and butter for decades.

BMI, which was founded in 1939, collected $57 million in its most recent year from digital services, which include not only Pandora and Spotify but also Hulu, Netflix and other online outlets. As recently as 2009, such services represented just 2 percent of BMI’s domestic revenue, but in its latest fiscal year they were 9 percent.

BMI’s “general licensing” category, which includes live performances as well as the music played in restaurants and other businesses, brought in $116 million, and $297 million more came from international sources. Michael O’Neill, who took over as BMI’s chief executive this month, said the organization had become leaner through staff reductions and by building a more efficient digital infrastructure to track billions of performances of its songs.

Founded in 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or Ascap, reported in March that it had $942 million in revenue for 2012, down 4.2 percent. For the year that ended in June 2012, BMI’s revenue also fell by about 3.5 percent, to $899 million. In those periods, both organizations â€" which are nonprofits regulated by federal consent decrees â€" were hit by a royalty renegotiation with radio broadcasters.

Even as the performing rights organizations have tried to adapt and streamline their operations for the digital age, their future has been cast into doubt. In recent years, some of biggest publishers have withdrawn digital rights to their catalogs from the performing rights organizations, in an effort to control the royalty rates paid by online services like Pandora.

But last week, a federal judge in a case between Ascap and Pandora ruled that publishers could not keep some rights within Ascap but withhold others. That decision did not directly affect BMI. But it raised concerns that the societies â€" already threatened by the trend of rights withdrawal by publishers â€" could be in even greater danger if they are seen as standing in the way of publishers getting the highest rates they can.

“This was the year we were declared dead by some,” said Richard Conlon, a senior vice president at BMI, “and we just hit a 74-year high in revenue.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Collectors of Royalties For Music Publishers May See Better Results .

Collectors of Royalties for Music Publishers May See Better Results

Christopher Polk/Getty Images for TAS

Taylor Swift is among the members of BMI, which collects royalties for music publishers.

The music industry is used to bad news. When the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry announced that record sales in 2012 had their first yearly uptick since 1999, for example, there was jubilation in the record business â€" even though the gain was only 0.3 percent.

One area that has been growing consistently, however, are the royalties from performing rights organizations like Broadcast Music Inc. and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, which pay songwriters and music publishers when their music is broadcast, performed live or streamed online.

BMI, as Broadcast Music is known, will announce on Monday that it had $944 million in revenue for the year that ended in June. That is 5 percent more than it collected the year before, and a new high for the organization, whose 600,000 members include stars like Taylor Swift, Pink and Adam Levine of the band Maroon 5. BMI paid $814 million in royalties, the first time its annual distributions have exceeded $800 million. Since 2003, BMI’s revenue has increased about 50 percent.

The performing rights societies are some of the industry’s oldest financial engines, and they are trying to adapt to a digitized business that has spread far beyond radio and broadcast television, their bread and butter for decades.

BMI, which was founded in 1939, collected $57 million in its most recent year from digital services, which include not only Pandora and Spotify but also Hulu, Netflix and other online outlets. As recently as 2009, such services represented just 2 percent of BMI’s domestic revenue, but in its latest fiscal year they were 9 percent.

BMI’s “general licensing” category, which includes live performances as well as the music played in restaurants and other businesses, brought in $116 million, and $297 million more came from international sources. Michael O’Neill, who took over as BMI’s chief executive this month, said the organization had become leaner through staff reductions and by building a more efficient digital infrastructure to track billions of performances of its songs.

Founded in 1914, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or Ascap, reported in March that it had $942 million in revenue for 2012, down 4.2 percent. For the year that ended in June 2012, BMI’s revenue also fell by about 3.5 percent, to $899 million. In those periods, both organizations â€" which are nonprofits regulated by federal consent decrees â€" were hit by a royalty renegotiation with radio broadcasters.

Even as the performing rights organizations have tried to adapt and streamline their operations for the digital age, their future has been cast into doubt. In recent years, some of biggest publishers have withdrawn digital rights to their catalogs from the performing rights organizations, in an effort to control the royalty rates paid by online services like Pandora.

But last week, a federal judge in a case between Ascap and Pandora ruled that publishers could not keep some rights within Ascap but withhold others. That decision did not directly affect BMI. But it raised concerns that the societies â€" already threatened by the trend of rights withdrawal by publishers â€" could be in even greater danger if they are seen as standing in the way of publishers getting the highest rates they can.

“This was the year we were declared dead by some,” said Richard Conlon, a senior vice president at BMI, “and we just hit a 74-year high in revenue.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Collectors of Royalties For Music Publishers May See Better Results .

Chinese Titan Takes Aim at Hollywood

Jason Lee/Reuters

The actress Kate Beckinsale met fans on Sunday at an event in the coastal city of Qingdao to promote a movie theme park planned by Wang Jianlin.

HONG KONG â€" Los Angeles has film studios and the best-known movie industry award ceremonies. Orlando has amusement parks and resort hotels. Now, one of China’s richest men wants to copy them with a movie-themed real estate development in his country’s most fashionable beach city.

Wang Jianlin, the chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group.

Wang Jianlin, who is chairman of Dalian Wanda Group and reputed to be China’s wealthiest investor, announced plans on Sunday for the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis. Costing from $4.9 billion to $8.2 billion, it would encompass film studios, resort hotels, an indoor amusement park, movie theaters with up to 3,000 seats and even a hospital.

Stars like Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, Leonardo DiCaprio and Zhang Ziyi, among others, showed up on Sunday at a ceremony in Qingdao for the development, which Mr. Wang billed as a sign of China’s effort to become the world leader in yet another industry: filmmaking.

Dalian Wanda purchased AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion in a deal last year that signaled China’s biggest splash yet in the American movie market.

“It is estimated that China’s film box office revenue will surpass North America’s by 2018 and will double it by 2023 â€" that is why I believe the future of the world’s film industry is in China,” Mr. Wang said, according to a text of his remarks.

Dalian Wanda will build a series of movie sound sets, and has reached preliminary agreements with four of the biggest Hollywood movie agent businesses to help negotiate contracts with actors and actresses for the production of 30 foreign movies a year, Mr. Wang said. It is also planning deals with 50 domestic companies for the production of 100 films and television shows a year.

Chinese officials were quick to extol the Qingdao project. “Whether in terms of investment, scale or grade, Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis is an unprecedented project that will create history as it represents the highest level and the future of the development” of China’s film industry, said Li Qiankuan, the chairman of the government-controlled China Film Association.

Mr. Wang also announced plans to host an annual film festival in Qingdao every September, starting in 2016. The festival would include an elaborate awards ceremony.

But the moviemaking aspects of Sunday’s plans appeared to be dwarfed by the real estate project surrounding it. Mr. Wang, who made an estimated $14 billion fortune as a real estate developer, said that he planned to build eight resort hotels, an enormous shopping mall, a 300-berth yacht club, numerous apartment towers, a seaside restaurant row and even a celebrity wax museum â€" in addition to 20 movie sound sets and the amusement park.

Famed for its gentle coastal climate and located between Beijing and Shanghai, Qingdao has some of the costliest real estate in China. But as it is everywhere in China, all land is owned by the government, and the support of local officials is needed to obtain land at low cost and get permission to build on it.

In a city where even the smallest plots have set off bidding wars, Mr. Wang’s vision seems to have captured the hearts of local leaders. Mr. Wang said that the project would cover 929 acres in a new development on the city’s outskirts. The plan calls for constructing 58 million square feet of buildings on the site, the equivalent of 21 and a half Empire State Buildings.

Qingdao’s top Communist Party and municipal government officials attended Mr. Wang’s ceremony but did not release financial details for the land.

Until a few years ago, the best way to obtain a large plot of urban land cheaply was to agree to build an auto assembly plant. That has contributed to the development of more than 100 auto companies in China, many producing tiny numbers of cars.

Even the largest automakers in China, like Geely Group, tend to have Balkanized manufacturing networks, having set up many small assembly plants on large urban sites in cities scattered all over the country instead of just a few, high-output operations.

In the last five years, local governments changed tack at the direction of Beijing and began offering nearly free land either downtown or in inner suburbs to renewable energy companies. That has helped produce a huge surge in the production of solar panels and wind turbines, as China has become by far the largest manufacturer of both.

A version of this article appears in print on September 23, 2013, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Chinese Titan Takes Aim At Hollywood .

News From the Advertising Industry

Accounts

â–  Guaranteed Rate, Chicago, a residential mortgage company, named Olson, Minneapolis, its first agency of record. Billings were not disclosed.

■ Subway Restaurants, Milford, Conn., chose 360i, New York, part of Dentsu, as its social media agency of record. Billings were not disclosed. The assignment previously was handled by the Zócalo Group, Chicago, part of the Ketchum division of the Omnicom Group.

â–  Air Canada named JWT Canada, Toronto, part of the JWT unit of WPP, its creative advertising agency of record. Spending was estimated at $2.6 million. The assignment was handled for the last 27 years by Marketel, Montreal. The media planning and buying part of the account will be handled by a JWT Canada sibling, Mindshare Canada, part of the Mindshare unit of GroupM, also owned by WPP.

■ Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Philadelphia, selected Glu, New York, as advertising agency of record. The organization previously worked with the Advertising Council and Publicis Modem, part of the Publicis Groupe, for a national public service campaign in 2011 that carried the theme “Start something.” Glu plans to work with consumer brands to create paid cause-marketing ads for the organization in traditional and digital media.

People

â–  Andy Brown, chairman at Kantar Media, London, part of the Kantar division of WPP, is adding the post of chief executive, assuming those duties from Jean-Michel Portier, who retired this year.

â–  Kerry Keenan joined Deutsch New York as partner and chief creative officer, succeeding Greg DiNoto, who is leaving, the agency said. Ms. Keenan most recently ran, with Nathy Aviram, a company, Half Irish, that specializes in branded content; before that, she was global executive creative director at Y&R, as well as executive producer and principal at Y&R Entertainment, both units of the Young & Rubicam Group division of WPP. Deutsch New York is part of the Deutsch division of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

â–  Jason Prohaska joined Your Majesty New York, part of Your Majesty, as chief executive, a new post. He had been general manager and managing director at Big Spaceship, Brooklyn.

â–  Richard Kosinski joined Unruly, New York, as United States president, succeeding Art Zeidman, who left to join Pixability as executive vice president for sales and chief revenue officer. Mr. Kosinski most recently was senior vice president for sales at Quantcast.

â–  Rodd Chant joined Bannistar as executive creative director, overseeing the creative output and creative staff members at the offices in Singapore and Tokyo, as well as working with agency executives on plans to open a satellite office in New York. Mr. Chant, who most recently ran his own creative consultancy, will be primarily based in Singapore but will also spend time in New York.

â–  Sean Rosenberg joined Code Worldwide, New York, part of the Diversified Agency Services division of the Omnicom Group, as global head of mobile, a new post. He most recently was senior vice president for business development at Indaba Music.

■ Michael Kantrow and Tom Ajello, founding partners of Poke New York, part of Poke, London, completed a management buyout of Poke New York, which they renamed Makeable. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal came as Poke, a digital agency, was acquired by the Publicis Groupe, Paris, becoming a part of the Publicis Groupe’s operations in Britain. Mother Holdings, which had been a minority investor in Poke New York, is also a minority investor in Makeable.

â–  Mary Baglivo joined her alma mater, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., in a new post, as vice president for global marketing and chief marketing officer. She most recently was chairwoman and chief executive for Latin America and multicultural at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, part of the Publicis Groupe.

â–  Marlene Sanchez Dooner, senior vice president for investor relations at the Comcast Corporation, was named to a new post at the NBCUniversal unit of Comcast, executive vice president for Hispanic enterprises and content, reporting to Joe Uva, chairman for Hispanic enterprises and content, which include Telemundo and Mun2.

Miscellany

■ Federal Trade Commission, Washington, plans to offer a workshop on Dec. 4 devoted to the subject of native advertising, also known as sponsored content and content marketing. The workshop, the commission’s first on the subject, will explore whether native ads blur the line between editorial content and advertising to the point where consumers are confused or misled. In a statement, the commission said its examination of native ads was in keeping with its scrutiny over several decades of how clear the distinction between content and advertising is to consumers. It cited challenges to deceptive practices like Web sites that pretend to be news sites and infomercials that are styled like television programs.

â–  Straightline, New York, a brand consultancy, opened an office in London. As Michael Watras, chief executive, divides his time between clients at both offices, Andrea Cotter, managing director of the agency, becomes president.

â–  Van Winkle & Associates, Atlanta, was renamed Van Winkle & Pearce after Bobby Pearce, who joined the agency last year, became a co-owner with Alex Van Winkle.

â–  “Inspired,” a commercial for the Canon Eos Rebel T4i camera, won the 2013 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial at the 65th annual Creative Arts Emmys. The spot was created by Grey New York â€" part of the Grey division of the Grey Group, owned by WPP â€" and directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ.

â–  CKSK, Dublin, expanded to the United States by opening an office in New York, to be called CKSK USA. The agency also has an office in Amsterdam. CKSK USA will work for clients that include Heineken USA and Pernod Ricard.

â–  Neverstop, New York and Seattle, was acquired by the CHR Group, New York, a marketing services agency holding group. Financial terms were not disclosed. Nasir Rasheed, president and chief cultural engineer at Neverstop, becomes a shareholder in CHR and will join the board; Neverstop will operate as an autonomous brand within CHR.

■ The Station, New York, a post-production and content production company, started a division called The Writer’s Room, offering advertisers and agencies a roster of writers with backgrounds in movies, television and sketch comedy.

â–  Talent Partners, New York, which provides production and talent support services for agencies and marketers, opened Talent Partners Canada, Toronto, through a merger with Canadian Connection. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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