Sony Hires Rothman to Head Revived TriStar Unit

LOS ANGELES â€" In a surprise move, Sony’s American-based film company said it would revive its semi-dormant TriStar unit as a movie and television joint venture in partnership with Thomas E. Rothman, who this year stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

The new venture comes as Sony faces pressure from the activist shareholder Daniel S. Loeb to increase returns from its entertainment divisions. The move promises to reboot a film and television label that until the late 1990s was operated as a fully staffed studio, run in parallel with Sony’s Columbia Pictures unit.

“On the poetic side, I’m a film buff, and I like being with something historical,” Mr. Rothman said of his reason for reviving the unit, which will be called TriStar Productions, rather than starting from scratch. At the same time, he said, the prospect of significant investment from Sony, and TriStar’s good will within Hollywood’s creative ranks, give the rebuilt studio an edge.

Mr. Rothman, who expressed support for Sony’s management, declined to say how much money Sony would invest in the studio. He and company executives said it was expected to make four films a year, and to split its activities evenly between film and television. Mr. Rothman said he would have an equity stake in the venture and was open to outside investment but expected to begin operating with Sony’s money.

In a statement, Sony Pictures Entertainment said Mr. Rothman would report to Michael Lynton, who is chief executive of that unit, and Amy Pascal, who is co-chairwoman.

Speaking separately on Thursday, both Ms. Pascal and Mr. Rothman said negotiations toward the TriStar venture began well before the first round of criticism by Mr. Loeb. Earlier this year, Mr. Loeb acquired a stake in Sony and began pressing the corporation’s managers to spin off its entertainment division, as a way of pressing it for better returns. Sony Pictures suffered an embarrassing flop this summer in “After Earth,” a science fiction film that starred Will Smith and his son Jaden.

But it did better with two comedies, “This Is the End” and “Grown-Ups 2,” and is looking toward another science fiction film, “Elysium,” for a boost.

“Elysium,” which stars Matt Damon and is backed financially by Media Rights Capital and QED International, is being released under the TriStar brand, which in recent years has been used largely for smaller films or pictures acquired from outside financiers.

Mr. Rothman, who has a reputation for controlling costs, said he expects to staff the company efficiently but said that under the arrangement, he will operate without formal limits on the size or type of films he might make.

Ms. Pascal said early conversations with Mr. Rothman had centered on a venture that might provide the smaller, artier films for which Mr. Rothman became known when he started Fox Searchlight for News Corporation and its 20th Century Fox unit. But ultimately, she said, the partnership was crafted to allow for more scope. “We want to make movies that make money,” she said.

Founded in 1982 as a joint venture among Columbia, HBO and CBS, TriStar â€" initially Tri-Star Pictures â€" grew with the explosion in home video revenue. It was eventually merged with Columbia in Columbia Pictures Entertainment, which in 1989 was acquired by Sony. Its peak moments included the release of “Jerry Maguire,” which had five Oscar nominations in 1997, and of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” which took in about $520 million around the world after opening in 1991.

CUNY TV Station Turns Over an Old Leaf, Transmitting by Air to Widen Its Reach

Richard Perry/The New York Times

In the City University of New York’s television studios on Fifth Avenue.

The rest of the television industry may be worrying about competition from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. But the City University of New York’s television operation has started broadcasting the old-fashioned way â€" over the air.

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Although Revenue Rises, Subscribers Drop DirecTV and Time Warner Cable

Two large television distributors, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable, reported second-quarter subscriber losses on Thursday while keeping overall revenues growing.

The results reflected a continued strategy on the part of both companies, also mirrored by some rivals, to appeal to what DirecTV in its earnings report called “higher-quality subscribers” â€" that is, customers who will stick around longer and pay more for monthly services. In the United States, DirecTV’s average revenue per household â€" a closely watched measure called ARPU within the industry â€" rose 4.6 percent, to $98.73. Time Warner Cable reported a 1.2 percent uptick in average revenue per household, to $105.21.

However, Time Warner Cable lost 191,000 television subscribers in the second quarter, somewhat more than analysts were predicting. The cable company, and others like it, have been losing TV market share to satellite providers including DirecTV and other rivals like Verizon FiOS for years. But for only the second time in its history, DirecTV lost television subscribers in the second quarter, a total of 84,000.

The second quarter of the year is typically the weakest for the whole industry. Nonetheless, the subscriber decline at DirecTV prompted new chatter about whether the much-hyped phenomenon of “cord cutting,” when households give up a bundle of products including television in favor of online streaming services like Netflix, was visible in the data.

DirecTV, for its part, attributed the decline to its effort to retain more profitable households, even at the risk of losing some that are less profitable. It also cited “a more challenging competitive environment and mature industry.” Roughly 100 million American households subscribe to some form of television; that number has remained remarkably stable for years, despite newfound competition on the Internet.

But an analysis by the Leichtman Research Group in May found that the country’s biggest television providers collectively lost about 80,000 subscribers in the 12-month period that ended in March, the first time that the researchers had ever counted an industrywide subscriber loss (rather than typical share-shifting between companies). The earnings reports this quarter are being scrutinized for further evidence of declines.

Time Warner Cable showed some weakness on the broadband Internet side of its business, too. Like other cable companies, it has relied on broadband growth to offset television subscriber slippage. In the second quarter it added a mere 8,000 home broadband subscribers. The company pledged to improve its performance.

Over all, DirecTV posted a profit of $660 million, or $1.18 a share, for the quarter, down from $711 million, or $1.09 a share, a year ago. Profits were up at Time Warner Cable, totaling $481 million, for the quarter, up from $452 million, or to $1.64 a share from $1.43 a share, a year ago. When one-time costs were excluded, earnings reached $1.69 a share, exceeding analysts’ expectations.

Time Warner Cable stock closed at $117.68 on Thursday, up more than 3 percent in part thanks to continued discussion of consolidation in the cable industry. John Malone, who holds a stake in a much smaller cable company, Charter, proposed a merger with Time Warner Cable this year.

On a conference call on Thursday, Glenn Britt, the departing Time Warner Cable chief executive, said the Wall Street speculation about any such deal “is really an endorsement of the value of our assets.” The DirecTV chief executive, Michael White, also addressed consolidation â€" in his case, between DirecTV and its smaller satellite rival Dish Network â€" on a conference call on Thursday. He suggested that the differences in DirecTV’s and Dish’s operating strategies made an immediate mash-up unlikely.

“But you never say never, and we’ll be opportunistic when the right moment arrives,” Mr. White added.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 2, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Although Revenue Rises, Subscribers Drop DirecTV And Time Warner Cable .

Advertising: Irritated? He Knows How You Feel

Irritated? He Knows How You Feel

Laura Barisonzi

John McEnroe, center, known as much for his short temper as his long list of tennis titles, will appear in a series of videos for runners.

AS a tennis player, John McEnroe was known as much for his on-court irritability as for his Wimbledon titles, and now a brand has hired him for a campaign about irritation of another sort.

An ad from the campaign for Dove Men+Care deodorant.

Dove Men+Care, the Unilever brand, promotes its deodorant line, which contains moisturizers, with the tagline “Tough on sweat, not on skin.” To help promote its sponsorship of the New York City Marathon in November, Dove is rolling out three tongue-in-cheek Web videos in which Mr. McEnroe offers what the brand calls “anti-irritation tips” for runners.

“I’m John McEnroe and I know a thing or two about irritation,” he says at the beginning of the videos, in which he addresses irritating situations, like fans ringing cowbells or other runners wearing silly costumes, along with chafing.

The videos are what marketers call branded content, which aims to entertain consumers more than to promote products. The product is not sold overtly, but rather highlighted in an opening “brought to you by” message and a closing product shot accompanied by the text “Running has its irritations â€" your deodorant shouldn’t be one of them.”

Dove is sponsoring New York’s marathon for the first time. Matthew McCarthy, senior director of deodorants and antiperspirants at Unilever, said marathons were “a huge passion point” for men over 35, to whom the brand is primarily promoted.

The original Dove brand celebrates naturally beautiful women rather than airbrushed, stick-figure supermodels in its long-running “Real Beauty” campaigns. In the same way, Dove Men+Care, which was introduced in 2010, promotes traits like men’s parenting skills over hypermasculine images of men with bulging muscles surrounded by women.

“The Dove Men+Care brand is about bringing real care for real men, and the marathon is a sporting event that real people run in,” Mr. McCarthy said.

A contest promoting the sponsorship will award two coveted spots to run in the marathon â€" an atypical strategy for brands, which usually provide tickets to be a spectator (like at the Super Bowl) rather than a participant.

Gift bags with samples of the deodorant will be distributed to marathon registrants.

The videos, which are by Davie Brown Entertainment, will be introduced on Aug. 8. Digital ads, by Ryan Partnership, will be introduced in early September.

Mr. McEnroe said that although he had never run a marathon, casting him in the videos was logical.

“With me being the irritable type, the product we’re working with made sense,” he said in a telephone interview. “If they can calm me down, they can calm anyone down.”

Mr. McEnroe, 54, now a tennis analyst on television, is remembered as a player for his sometimes profane outbursts at court officials, as in the 1981 match in which he first yelled “You cannot be serious” at a chair umpire. He has often made light of his short fuse in advertisements, including an American Express commercial from 2007. To highlight the credit card’s dispute-resolution services, Mr. McEnroe knocks on the door of an umpire with whom he had disputed a call at the 1985 United States Open â€" and gives him a hug.

While 43 percent of Americans say they would describe Mr. McEnroe as aggressive and 28 percent as emotional, only 1 percent describe him as either warm or compassionate, according to E-Poll Market Research, a brand and celebrity research firm.

Gerry Philpott, chief executive of E-Poll, lauded Mr. McEnroe for “being very comfortable playing off the bad boy image” in commercials, adding that in the case of the Dove Men+Care videos, some of the negative perceptions of Mr. McEnroe could actually make the videos more memorable.

“People will get a chuckle out of this because they know he’s making fun of himself,” Mr. Philpott said. “It will help to get this message to stick in people’s heads.”

Dove Men+Care, which declined to reveal projected expenditures for the campaign, in 2012 spent $42.3 million on advertising for its range of products, which include body wash, shampoo and shave gel, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

Antiperspirants showed no strain during the recession, with revenue in the category growing by 14 percent from 2007 through 2012, according to Mintel, a market research firm. Unit sales were flat or declined for some of those years, but consumers paid more for newer offerings like so-called clinical strength products, which have higher concentrations of active ingredients and which can cost more than twice as much as standard deodorants.

Research commissioned by Unilever found that 62 percent of men have experienced some irritation from deodorant, and that when it came to choosing a deodorant, a nonirritating formula was the third most important attribute, behind efficacy and scent.

Brian Morrissey, the editor in chief of Digiday, an online publication that covers digital marketing and media, competes in marathons and in 56-mile ultramarathons, so he is no stranger to irritation.

While he said that videos about irritation would resonate with long-distance runners, he doubted that the New York City Marathon competitors who got the deodorant in their swag bags would be applying it on race day.

“Before a marathon, I wouldn’t put on deodorant,” Mr. Morrissey said. “And judging from what I smell out there, I don’t think that many people do.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 2, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Irritated? He Knows How You Feel .

Fusion Announces Premiere Date and Prime-Time Schedule

Fusion, the forthcoming cable channel that is a joint venture of ABC News and Univision, now has a premiere date â€" Oct. 28 â€" and a prime-time schedule.

Five hours of evening programs were announced on Thursday, highlighted by “America with Jorge Ramos,” an 8 p.m. news program hosted by Mr. Ramos, a veteran of Univision. The prime-time schedule will also include a sports comedy talk show and a news satire developed by a former producer of “The Daily Show.”

The joint venture to create a next-generation cable news and lifestyle channel for bilingual Latinos was announced in mid-2012. Back then the partners had hoped to start the channel by early this year; later they aimed for the late summertime. The Oct. 28 premiere is the first specific date they have publicized.

The news release that included the date also indicated that Fusion’s intended audience had broadened a bit. Previously, the marketing language for Fusion has focused only on Latinos; now the channel is calling itself “a news, information and lifestyle network for Latinos and millennials,” suggesting that it wants to reach a young audience regardless of race or ethnicity.

Fusion’s prime-time schedule reads a lot like a cable news channel programmed for the kind of young audience that mostly eschews existing cable news shows.

At 6 p.m. Eastern, Derrick N. Ashong will host an hour-long interactive show called “D.N.A.” about what Fusion called “a wide variety of socially relevant issues.” At 7 p.m., Alicia Menendez, a former host of HuffPost Live, will have “a fresh take on stories at the intersection of sex, money and politics.”

Mr. Ramos’s flagship program at 8 p.m. will be followed by two half-hour programs. The 9 p.m. slot will be filled with “Sports Bar,” a show with sports talk, comedy sketches and audience interaction. The 9:30 p.m. program, as yet untitled, will be produced by David Javerbaum, who was an executive producer of “The Daily Show” from 2006 and 2012. Fusion said the program would be a news satire show, suggesting similarities to “The Daily Show.”

Rounding out the schedule at 10 p.m. will be “Open Source with Leon Krauze,” a talk show hosted by Mr. Krauze, who anchors the evening news for KMEX in Los Angeles.

“We believe our programs â€" visually compelling, creatively produced and laced with humor and irreverence â€" will resonate with Latinos and non-Latinos alike,” said Beau Ferrari, the acting president of Fusion, in a news release. “Fusion’s unique combination of news, satire and original series is a completely new offering for the most exciting and fastest-growing group of young people in the country.”

What Fusion still needs are more distributor deals. Several television distributors, including Cablevision, Charter, Cox and Verizon FiOS, have agreed to carry the channel, but the four biggest distributors in the country, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable, have not.

The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC News and is handling distribution negotiations, has three more months to secure broader carriage.

Fusion is one of several new entrants to the fiercely competitive cable marketplace. Pivot, a channel for the millennial generation owned by Participant Media, came on television Thursday morning. Al Jazeera America, a domestic version of the international Al Jazeera news brand, will have its debut on Aug. 20.

‘Avatar’ Plans Now Include 3 Sequels

LOS ANGELES â€" James Cameron and 20th Century Fox said on Thursday that they now expected to make three rather than two follow-ups to their hit film “Avatar.”

The first of the new films is now expected to begin production next year, for release in December 2017. The second film will follow a year later, and the third a year after that.

Mr. Cameron said he had hired screenwriters to collaborate with him on scripts for the films. The newly hired writers are Josh Friedman, Shane Salerno and the team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.

Shortly after the 2009 release of “Avatar,” Fox executives talked of having an initial sequel ready for release in December 2014. But Mr. Cameron spent considerable time pondering the next steps in a story that began with the rescue of an ecologically doomed world, Pandora, even as he pursued other interests, including the purchase of a new home in New Zealand.

“Avatar” took in about $2.8 billion in theaters around the world..

Fox Signals How ‘Glee’ Will Handle Monteith Death

LOS ANGELES â€" The Fox network and the producers of “Glee” have devised a plan to address the unexpected death last month of one of the show’s stars, Cory Monteith, with a direct treatment of the issue of drug addiction, Kevin Reilly, the chairman of entertainment for Fox, said on Thursday.

The first two episodes of the new season of “Glee” had already been conceived as special all-Beatles episodes and that plan will stay intact, Mr. Reilly said. The third episode will deal with how Mr. Monteith’s character, Finn Hudson, will be written out of the show, Mr. Reilly said, though he did not provide details. He said the episode would “deal directly with the incident involved in Cory’s passing.”

The show will also include public service announcements from the cast addressing the issue of addiction, Mr. Reilly said. Mr. Monteith, who had struggled with substance abuse problems, was found dead in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 13, from what coroners determined was a toxic combination of alcohol and heroin. He was 31.

Mr. Reilly also addressed the annual question of what Fox would do to try to revive “American Idol,” its once-dominant hit. The show needed to replace its judging panel after the end of last season. Mr. Reilly announced that one judge, the country singer Keith Urban, would return. He also confirmed the reports that Fox was in talks with Jennifer Lopez to return as a judge.

Fox also announced that it had commissioned an American version of the widely praised BBC crime series “Broadchurch,” which will begin its run on the BBC America cable channel on Aug. 7.

Mr. Reilly said “Idol” remained a Top 5-rated network show and so Fox was resisting wholesale changes in its format. “It needs some recalibrating and some freshening elements,” he said.

Whistle-Blowers in Limbo, Neither Hero Nor Traitor

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To Make It Up to Rowling, Law Firm Makes a Donation

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Essence Magazine Names New Top Editor

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Obama to Appear on ‘Tonight’ Show

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New York Times Company Swings to a Profit

The New York Times Company swung to a profit in the second quarter on stronger circulation revenue and lower operating costs, but continued weakness in advertising weighed on results.

The company reported on Thursday that net income rose to $20.1 million, or 13 cents a share, from a loss of $87.6 million, or 58 cents a share, in the period a year earlier.

Last year’s second-quarter results were hurt by write-downs related to the sales of About.com and the company’s regional newspaper group. Excluding those items, income from continuing operations was $20.1 million, compared with $38.1 million in the period a year earlier.

Total revenue for the quarter declined less than 1 percent, to $485.4 million, from $489.8 million in the second quarter of 2012. Circulation revenue rose 5.1 percent, to $245.1 million, from $233.3 million. But that gain was largely offset by a 5.8 percent decline in advertising revenue, to $207.5 million.

Print advertising at the company’s newspapers, which include The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The International Herald Tribune, declined 6.8 percent, and digital advertising fell 2.7 percent. Digital advertising now accounts for 24.7 percent of the company’s total advertising revenue.

Operating costs declined 3.1 percent, to $431.9 million, from $445.7 million, mainly because of lower compensation and benefits costs, according to the company.

“Our improved results in the second quarter were an organizationwide effort â€" with contributions from more favorable revenue trends and strong cost performance,” Mark Thompson, the company’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.

The number of paid subscribers to the Web site, e-reader and other digital editions of The Times and The International Herald Tribune grew to 699,000, a jump of more than 35 percent from the period a year earlier. Digital subscriptions to The Boston Globe and BostonGlobe.com rose to 39,000, an increase of nearly 70 percent from 23,000 a year earlier.

Since Mr. Thompson joined The Times in November, he has focused on rebranding The Times as a global operation. In February, the company announced it would sell the New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe, Boston.com, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Globe Direct, a direct-mail marketing company. Bids for the properties were due in July but a sale has not been announced.

The Times also announced in February that it would rename The International Herald Tribune, its 125-year-old newspaper based in Paris, The International New York Times. It also will unveil a new Web site for international audiences in the coming months.

The company has also continued to increase its plans to charge readers for content. In June, the company started to charge nonsubscribers who want to read more than three articles a day on The New York Times apps for mobile devices.

“We are making good progress and are on track with our strategic growth initiatives,” Mr. Thompson said. “In particular, we are well under way in the ramp-up for the fall rebrand of The International Herald Tribune as The International New York Times and with the development work related to our new paid products.”

Spotify Losses Grow, Despite Successful Expansion

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Goodbyes and Grief in Real Time

Scott Simon’s first Twitter message about his mother, dated July 16, squeezed a universal story involving heartbreak and humor into 21 words. He wrote: “Mother called: ‘I can’t talk. I’m surrounded by handsome men.’ Emergency surgery. If you can hold a thought for her now ... ”

Scott Simon

The ellipsis hinted that he’d have more to say later, and he did. “We never stop learning from our mothers, do we?” he asked on July 25. By then his mother, Patricia Lyons Simon Newman, 84, had spent several nights in the intensive care unit of a Chicago-area hospital. And Twitter users around the world were getting to know her, thanks to the short bursts of commentary by Mr. Simon, the host of “Weekend Edition Saturday” on NPR.

The tweets captured the attention of a significant portion of the social-media world for days.

Mr. Simon wrote on Monday morning that “her passing might come any moment,” and that evening it did, when she died after being treated for cancer. Borrowing from “Romeo and Juliet,” he wrote, “She will make the face of heaven shine so fine that all the world will be in love with night,” and then stopped tweeting for half a day.

“When I began to tweet, I had almost no thought that this was going to be my mother’s deathbed,” Mr. Simon said in a telephone interview on Wednesday, after the outpouring of emotion â€" his Twitter audience’s as well as his own â€" had made national headlines. His mother, he said, had originally gone into the hospital for a blood test.

“As it got more serious, she was just so marvelously entertaining and insightful,” he said. “I found it irresistible.”

In the past he might have done that through a book or a recorded segment for his radio program. (Mr. Simon commented on the deaths of his father and stepfather in his 2000 memoir, “Home and Away.”) But the Internet enabled him to celebrate his mother and mourn her in real time, creating the sense this week that an online community was collectively grieving with him.

The online reactions were overwhelmingly positive; some people thanked Mr. Simon for letting them get to know Ms. Newman and described what she had in common with their own mothers. A smattering of online comments, he said, were critical, suggesting that sharing such intimate moments was inappropriate. “Exploiting his mother’s last days for ratings and fame,” read one comment accompanying an ABC News article about Mr. Simon’s tweets.

“Social media is most poignant when it gives us a window on stories that would otherwise go untold,” said Burt Herman, a co-founder of Storify, an Internet company that markets what it calls social storytelling tools. “The stories can be voyeuristic, like a couple fighting at a Burger King. But at their best, these stories give us a deeply personal view into life’s inflection points, whether it’s a revolution abroad or an intimate moment between a mother and son.”

Mr. Simon said he wanted people to know that “I wasn’t holding my mother in my arms and tweeting with my free hand.”

He added: “As you may know, an incurable illness like this is a lot like war. There are moments of panic and anxiety, separated by hours of tedium.”

Sometimes Ms. Newman gave Mr. Simon, and by extension some of his 1.2 million Twitter followers, a reason to smile or chuckle: “Believe me,” she told him on Saturday, “those great deathbed speeches are written ahead of time.” Sometimes, she seemed to want Mr. Simon to share bits of advice. On Sunday, he encapsulated this thought from his mother: “Listen to people in their 80s. They have looked across the street at death for a decade.”

Mr. Simon resumed posting to Twitter on Tuesday; he jocularly recounted how the couple who run a cremation service call themselves “posthealth professionals.” During the interview on Wednesday he cried while expressing thanks for the “love and support and prayers” from people. He said he had given precisely no thought to the societal implications of sharing his mother’s life and death.

But others have. “We have reached a point in the way we think about our lives where our stories of struggle and loss feel like they no longer belong solely to us,” said Joe Lambert, founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, Calif. Being able to broadcast them, on Twitter or elsewhere online, “feels like a gift to those grieving in our families, our communities and as far as a tweet might reach.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 1, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Goodbyes And Grief In Real Time.

‘The Croods’ Helps DreamWorks Animation Increase Quarterly Profit

LOS ANGELES â€" Glass half full: The cave people of “The Croods” came through for DreamWorks Animation in the second quarter, as strong ticket sales for that movie raised the company’s profit by 73 percent, to $22.2 million.

Glass half empty: The studio’s financial results are still being whipsawed quarter to quarter, and the underperforming “Turbo” is likely to cause headaches in the period ahead.

“The film’s soft opening is a clear result of an overly saturated marketplace and a difficult release date,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, the company’s chief executive, said of “Turbo,” which has taken in about $102 million worldwide after two weeks.

Mr. Katzenberg added, “Based on the data that we have to date, we do believe that ‘Turbo’ will be a profitable film for us.”

For the quarter, which ended on June 30, DreamWorks Animation reported net income of $22.2 million, or 26 cents a share, up from $12.8 million, or 15 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Analysts had been expecting 20 cents a share.

Revenue jumped to $213.4 million from $162.8 million, driven by $584 million in global ticket sales for “The Croods” and stronger-than-expected DVD sales of “Rise of the Guardians.” Shares of DreamWorks Animation rose more than 5 percent in after-hours trading, to about $26.

In a conference call with analysts Wednesday, DreamWorks Animation executives sought to underscore the work they were doing to diversify away from movies. They discussed new theme park deals with companies like SeaWorld; growth at their newly acquired YouTube channel, Awesomeness TV; expansion in original television programming, including the hiring of two senior Nickelodeon executives; and plans for a more robust toy and merchandise business.

Mr. Katzenberg said consumer products would soon start to become “an ongoing business as opposed to one that is simply event-driven.”

The studio has hired 35 people in its toy and merchandise unit since Jan. 1 and on Wednesday announced the arrival of a senior executive to lead “retail development and entertainment.”

Advertising: Songs and Sunscreen Spread the Health Insurance Message

Songs and Sunscreen Spread the Health Insurance Message

In one ad for the Oregon insurance exchange, the singer Matt Sheehy performs an anthemic song, “Long Live Oregonians.”

THE part of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act that requires Americans to obtain health insurance has been a contentious issue politically, but new advertising from the 17 states setting up marketplaces where residents will buy insurance tends to be buoyant.

New commercials for the Oregon exchange, called Cover Oregon, for example, resemble something from a tourism bureau. In one commercial, the singer Matt Sheehy performs an anthemic song, “Long Live Oregonians,” that is reminiscent of “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie.

“From Hart Mountain, to the Skidmore Fountain, from the shores of Gold Beach, to the gorge out east,” sings Mr. Sheehy, who wears a plaid flannel shirt and appears strumming his guitar in each new location as he refers to it. “We’re free to be healthy, gonna breathe that fresh air, wanna get the best care, that a state can get.”

Neither this commercial, nor others featuring the singer Laura Gibson or the hip-hop group Lifesavas, mention insurance, although they do conclude with the exchange’s Web address.

A recent survey of uninsured Oregonians commissioned by Cover Oregon found that 87 percent of respondents were unfamiliar with the exchange, while 9 percent had a favorable opinion of it and 3 percent an unfavorable opinion. The first phase of the campaign, which was introduced on July 9, aims to familiarize Oregonians with the name of the organization. Subsequent ads will promote enrollment in the program, which, like other states’, begins Oct. 1 for coverage that takes effect Jan. 1.

“If all we were doing is what we’re doing right now, I’d be nervous,” said Amy Fauver, chief communications officer of Cover Oregon, referring to the first phase of the campaign. “But we needed to get our name out there, and get positive associations with our name, and in the fall we’re shifting to a more direct call to action.”

The campaign, by North, a Portland branding and advertising agency, also features other Oregon musicians in Web-only music videos, television and radio commercials. Work by Oregon visual artists is featured in print ads and on billboards. A promotional budget of almost $10 million includes placing advertising, the agency fee and the public relations efforts.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in April found that 59 percent of Americans with household incomes under $30,000, a group more apt to be uninsured, were unaware that the Affordable Care Act and its insurance requirement were the law of the land.

The first state to introduce an ad campaign was Colorado, which in May began running television commercials for Connect for Health Colorado. As with other states, the Colorado online marketplace resembles travel sites like Expedia, with competing insurance companies and a choice of coverage levels, and the commercials open with residents navigating the site.

After actors in the spots choose a plan, the walls of their homes slide away to reveal other settings, and they end up either celebrating a win in a casino, being sprayed with Champagne in a locker room or astride a horse in a winner’s circle. The ads close with a voice-over, “When health insurance companies compete, there’s only one winner: you.”

The campaign, which includes print, radio and billboard ads, is by Pilgrim, an advertising and digital marketing agency in Denver. Connect for Health Colorado is projected to spend more than $21 million on marketing and advertising, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Decidedly more somber is a campaign that began July 15 for Nevada’s marketplace, with a documentary-style approach that focuses on the perils of not having coverage.

“I live fast and play hard,” says the text for one print ad, with a portrait of a man in his early 20s. “But I don’t have health insurance and that scares me.”

C. J. Bawden, communications officer for the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, said that focus groups of Nevadans indicated a preference for a serious tone.

The focus groups “said health care is a serious matter so please don’t trivialize it and make funny ads about it because we want the facts,” Mr. Bawden said.

The campaign, by KPS3, a marketing and advertising agency in Reno, Nev., includes spots on TV, radio, billboards, newspapers and social media, with projected advertising placement expenditures at about $2.8 million.

In August, beachgoers in Connecticut will be handed packets of sunscreen printed with “Get Covered” and the logo and Web site for Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange. Roving representatives of the exchange clad in orange T-shirts also will hand out branded containers of hand sanitizer and packets of adhesive bandages.

The tchotchkes are part of an extensive $6 million promotional and advertising campaign, which includes television commercials and print, online and radio advertising. The campaign is by Pappas MacDonnell, a marketing and advertising agency in Southport, Conn.

Advertising for health exchanges in Utah and Rhode Island will be introduced between mid-August and early September, according to representatives from the programs.

The Covered California exchange is projected to spend $86 million on advertising placements through April 2015, and it has hired Weber Shandwick, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, to develop and produce advertising, and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide to help promote it. A representative of the exchange said advertising would be introduced before open enrollment begins on Oct. 1, declining to be more specific. The health exchange for New York, which has yet to announce what it will be called, has a $40.2 million advertising and marketing budget for the next two years and has hired the New York office of DDB Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group. The agency will develop a campaign with television, print, online and transit advertising.

The campaign will begin in mid- to late-September, according to Bill Schwarz, director of public affairs for the New York State Department of Health.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 1, 2013, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Songs and Sunscreen Spread the Health Insurance Message.

Film Academy’s New Leader Starts by Sizing Up Oscars

LOS ANGELES â€" A day after she was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cheryl Boone Isaacs said her first order of business was to check in on the organization’s most valuable asset: the Oscars.

Cheryl Boone Isaacs was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday.

“I have a meeting with the producers later today, in fact,” Ms. Isaacs said.

Speaking briefly by telephone on Wednesday, Ms. Isaacs, who succeeded Hawk Koch, said she was generally happy with this year’s show, which attracted strong ratings but was also criticized for the crude humor of its host, Seth MacFarlane. And she said she had supported Mr. Koch’s decision to bring back last year’s producers, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, though the choice of producers has customarily been left to the incoming president.

Still, Ms. Isaacs said she anticipated changes. “Right off the bat, it will not be the same show,” she said.

Ms. Isaacs, who was elected at a Tuesday night meeting of the group’s governing board, is the first woman to hold the post since Fay Kanin, from 1979 to 1983, and is the first African-American president in the group’s 86-year history.

A consummate academy insider, Ms. Isaacs has been part of the group’s board of governors for more than 20 years. She has worked recently as an independent marketing consultant, following an executive career at New Line Cinema and Paramount Pictures.

Ms. Isaacs and Robert G. Friedman, the co-chairman of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group, were regarded by fellow governors and other academy insiders to be leading prospects for the presidency.

One of Ms. Isaacs’s early tasks will be to oversee a renewal of deals with Dawn Hudson, the academy’s chief executive, and Ric Robertson, its chief operating officer, whose three-year contracts are set to expire next year. Ms. Isaacs also said she expected the academy to break ground next year on its planned movie museum in Los Angeles.

In filling other positions on Tuesday, the governors elected John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studio, as first vice president, while electing the writer-director Phil Robinson as secretary and Richard W. Cook, a film entrepreneur and former Disney executive, as treasurer.

Jeffrey Kurland, a costume designer, and Leonard Engelman, a makeup artist, were also elected as vice-presidents.

Also at their Tuesday meeting, the academy’s governors added a 17th branch, for casting directors, to the group’s existing divisions, which represent various groups of film professionals, including actors, directors, film editors and sound artists. A number of casting directors had previously been admitted to the approximately 6,000-member associations as members-at-large.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 1, 2013, on page B5 of the New York edition with the headline: Film Academy’s New Leader Starts by Sizing Up Oscars.