\'Dr. Phil\' Renewed Through 2017

Whatever terrible and wonderful things happen in America in the next four years, Dr. Phil McGraw will be there in the afternoon to talk about them.

CBS Television Distribution said Thursday that his daytime talk show, “Dr. Phil,” had been renewed through 2017 by most of the stations that carry it. That gives “Dr. Phil” a longer-term guarantee than any other syndicated series. (Two others distributed by CBS, “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!,” have been renewed through 2016. “Judge Judy” has been renewed through 2015.)

CBS said the extension would take “Dr. Phil” through its 15th season. “Dr. Phil” garners about 4.2 million viewers a day, making it the most popular daytime talk show since the higher-rated “Oprah Winfrey Show” ended in 2011. The show was created by Ms. Winfrey’s production company.

“To have a talk show on the air for 15 years is a huge accomplishment,” Joseph DiSalvo, the president of sales for CBS Television Distribution, said in a sttement. Some stations, he said, have agreed to “upgrade” “Dr. Phil,” meaning move it to a more valuable time slot, like 4 p.m. from 3 p.m.

Partnership Gives Web Surfers More Than Just Images

Just viewing images of celebrities like Kim Kardashian might satisfy some Web surfers, but a new partnership between Getty Images and Luminate, a company that specializes in making digital images interactive, is bringing a new experience to more inquisitive viewers.

Digital photographs from Getty are typically tagged with basic descriptors of who or what is in the photograph â€" small bits of information known as metadata. Luminate will take those photos and append additional metadata, including, for example, Ms. Kardashian’s Web site, Twitter feed or related articles about her. When a user hovers over an image, the information will appear on the screen.

Chas Edwards, the chief revenue officer and head of publisher development at Luminate, said adding that information to a photograph can help publishers retain readers who might otherwise leave Web sites to find more information on the subject of a photograph. Getty began using the company’s technology this month.

“If there was a sory about a celebrity, wouldn’t it be nice to pivot that audience to an entertainment gallery on a related site” Mr. Edwards said. “It keeps that reader on your experience.”

Publishers that have already started embedding related Twitter posts into images include Entertainment Tonight Online, Just Jared and Perez Hilton.

Luminate also offers Getty and other clients the ability to tailor advertising to users based on the images on a publisher’s site. The images are tagged with metadata that matches an advertiser’s product profile. A toothpaste brand, for example, may opt to display its ads around photos of people who are smiling.

Brands that have used the technology include Garnier, Samsung, Macy’s, Best Buy, Intel, McDonald’s and Gap.

Tanzina Vega writes about advertising and digital media. Follow @tanzinavega on Twitter.

The Breakfast Meeting: Assange Assails \'Propaganda\' Film, and Netflix Surges

Netflix surprised Wall Street with a fourth-quarter profit of $8 million and a customer base of more than 27 million American households, causing one analyst to say the company has “risen from the ashes” of its disastrous 2011. Shares jumped 30 percent in after-hours trading. Apple reported a profit of $13.1 billion and a 28 percent increase in the sale of iPhones but that still wasn’t enough for investors, who pounded the stock down 11 percent in after-hours trading.

Appearing via link from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, Julian Assange attacked a new Hollywood film about WikiLeaks in an address to the Oxford Union. “The Fifth Estate,” a film by Bill Condon about the early days of WikiLeaks, is a “massive propaganda attack” according to Mr. Assange, who also said the film depicted Iran on the verge of having a nuclear arsenal.

Rolling Stone has laid off two longtime employees of the magazine: Eric Bates, the executive editor who had been with the magazine for more than a decade, and Mark Neschis, who handled press for Wenner Media, which owns Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal and US Magazine. Wenner Media has been struggling with declining ad revenues and a negative credit rating issued by Standard & Poor’s in December.

Fox announced it would put “Ben and Kate” on the shelf, another sign of a poor season for comedies. Ratings for “Ben and Kate,” “The Mindy Project” and “The New Girl,” all on Fox, have struggled this year, along with NBC’s “Go On” and “The New Normal,” both of which sank to new lows this past week.

A good time was had by all: more than 70 reporters and editors have responded to a casting call for a new reality series about a small-town newspaper, according to a report on Romenesko.