NETWORK TELEVISION Studios give special attention to film ads during May sweeps

One ad features a 10-minute look at the new 'Harry Potter' film.
By LISA DE MORAES
WASHINGTON POST
Hollywood studios, concerned about the skyrocketing cost of buying ad time on the broadcast networks to promote their new flicks, and about the increased use of technology that allows viewers to skip through those ads, have found a way to cope.
They're turning movie ads into sweeps specials.
The sweeps are monthlong periods -- four each year -- during which Nielsen Media Research closely monitors broadcast ratings to provide local TV stations with detailed information about their viewers and network suits with bragging points for telephone news conferences. The May sweeps period begins today.
To attract viewers during these important periods, network executives think long and hard about how best to please you, the viewer. They offer original episodes of hit series. They line up genuine celebrities, like Tony Curtis and Johnny Depp, to accept guest-acting gigs on their shows. They bring back Carol Burnett and Dick Van Dyke to reminisce about the good old days of TV. They persuade Dylan McDermott, who was ignominiously booted from "The Practice" in a cost-cutting move last spring, to let bygones be bygones and return for the series' swan song. They spend millions of dollars producing a special-effects-laden miniseries about a utopian world without California.
And, increasingly, they schedule 10-minute infomercials for soon-to-be-released movies, all gussied up as sweeps treats.
Special ads
Over at Fox, a full 10 minutes of Ford Focus product placement has been cut from a special one-hour "American Idol" results show scheduled for May 12 to make room for a 10-minute "sneak peek" at the Fox studio film "The Day After Tomorrow," which, in one of those happy coincidences that make life worth living for Hollywood empire builders, opens not long after.
"In this special-effects-packed, event motion picture, an abrupt climate change has cataclysmic consequences for the entire planet," the Fox network said in touting its very special sweeps advertainment special.
ABC plans to treat its viewers to "never-before-seen material" from M. Night Shyamalan's new movie, "The Village," on May 3.
Shyamalan himself will host the ABC lineup that night, which includes the broadcast of the Shyamalan flick "Unbreakable," starring Bruce Willis, in addition to "a groundbreaking 15 minutes of unique programming including a first look at scenes from ['The Village'], interviews and more behind-the-scenes access" to the flick, which opens July 30 and was produced by Disney. Might as well mention here that Disney also owns ABC.
Six days later, "by exclusive arrangement," ABC will follow its broadcast of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" with a 10-minute "sneak peek" at the "highly anticipated" third film in the series, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," which opens in theaters June 4. Disney does not own the "Harry Potter" flick franchise; it's in the hands of Time Warner. But Time Warner's only broadcast network is WB, and while you can't say much about ABC these days, you can say that on most days ABC gets more viewers than WB.