A moderator for the Facebook online social community has halted a marketing campaign for Universal Pictures' Untraceable after becoming alarmed by the level of violence in the clips posted online. Launched last week, the "Kill With Me" page for the movie presented the following text: "This guy is going to die. You want to see his stinking flesh burn and bleed and blacken? Until he's some twisted dead thing? This is what you want. And I've filmed it especially for you. The more fans I get, the more I'll show." Neil Wirashina, director of international advertising media at Universal, told Marketing Week's online site, that the Facebook campaign was intended to be provocative. "We were looking to promote a reaction, and we have definitely achieved this." The controversy raises questions about what actually constitutes advertising in the day of the Internet and which ads must be submitted to the MPAA for ratings approval. The MPAA has previously fined studios for releasing ads that it deemed excessively violent and which had not been previously approved by the group's ratings board.

Performances of four classic operas by the San Francisco Opera Company will be shown over four weekends in March and April in 121 movie theaters across the country, the San Francisco Chronicle reported today (Wednesday). The operas include Puccini's La Rondine, Saint-Saëns's Samson and Delilah, Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Puccini's Madama Butterfly. However, unlike the operas produced by New York's Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera's performances were shot at the War Memorial Opera House and were later edited and otherwise enhanced in post-production by the distributor, The Bigger Picture. Ironically, the Chronicle pointed out, the performances will not be screened in any theater in San Francisco, Oakland, or Berkeley because of a scarcity of theaters with advanced digital equipment in those cities.

More than 90 percent of 4,060 voting members of the Writers Guild of America have approved a new three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West, called the agreement "a new beginning for writers in the digital age." Following the vote, the AMPTP issued a statement saying, "Now that our industry is back in business, our goal is to collaborate with everyone ... to produce the highest-quality entertainment products without any further interruption."

Shrek the Third was just what it took to put DreamWorks Animation back in the green again. DVD sales of the animated sequel accounted for $179.4 million in revenue during the fourth quarter. Total revenue rose to $290.2 million with net income of $94.1 million. It was, said CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, "DreamWorks Animation's most successful year since going public." Comparison with the year-earlier results was difficult since the studio wrote down $109 million following disappointing ticket sales for its 2006 feature, Flushed Away.

Without the high price of popcorn at the concession counter, the price of tickets would be a lot higher, according to a study by the University of California Santa Cruz and Stanford University. Today's (Wednesday) San Jose Mercury News reported that the researchers studied data from 43 multiplex theaters in 30 cities over a five-year period and determined that the concession stand in effect subsidizes relatively low ticket prices and that without it, the ticket prices would rise 25 percent.

Executives of Sony Pictures Television have let it be known that they are prepared to make a lucrative offer to Jay Leno in November, when he is permitted to enter negotiations regarding his future plans, the New York Times reported today (Wednesday). Leno has agreed to step down as host of the Tonight show and be replaced by Conan O'Brien in 2009. The Times said that Sony is prepared to make him an offer that would boost his salary above David Letterman's (NBC currently pays Leno $25 million annually; CBS pays Letterman $30 million), put his name on a new theater on Sony's lot in Culver City, and give him a financial interest in Sony Music performers who appear on his show. The newspaper said that ABC and Fox have also "discreetly" informed Leno that they, too, are prepared to make "financial overtures" to him in November.

Although ABC had the Oscars last week, Fox had three nights -- count 'em, three nights -- of American Idol, and that's all it took to come out on top of the Nielsen ratings for the final full week of the February sweeps. Moreover, the Oscars telecast was the lowest rated since Nielsen began keeping track in 1974. (The low ratings also affected those for ABC's Good Morning America. GMA often beats NBC's Today show the day after the Oscars simply because millions of people leave their TV sets tuned to the ABC channel when they go to bed.) Fox wound up the week with an average 8.6 rating and a 14 share. ABC placed second with a 6.1/10. CBS came in third with a 5.1/8, while NBC trailed with a 4.6/7.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. 80th Annual Academy Awards, ABC, 18.7/29; 2. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 16.4/25; 3. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 16.1/24; 4. American Idol (Thursday), Fox, 13.4/21; 5. Oscar's Red Carpet 2008, ABC, 13.3/21; 6. Deal or No Deal, (Monday), NBC, 10.0/15; 7. Without a Trace, CBS, 8.0/13; 8. Barbara Walters Oscars Special, ABC, 7.7/13; 8. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 7.7/12; 8. Lost, ABC, 7.7/12; 8. Two and a Half Men, CBS, 7.7/12.

A news magazine that employs actors and uses hidden cameras much the way Candid Camera once did may hardly seem to qualify as a news program at all, but ABC's Primetime: What Would You Do? nevertheless earned a first-place 6.0 rating and a 10 share at 10:00 p.m. Tuesday night. (Over at NBC, the debut of the Internet drama Quarterlife in the same time period hardly registered at all on the Nielsen scale, drawing a 2.5/4 or just 3.86 million total viewers.) The top-rated show of the night, of course, was Fox's American Idol, which posted a 16.3/24 between 8:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Cable giant Comcast was accused Tuesday of hiring people off the street in Boston to pack an FCC hearing on Internet neutrality at Harvard University on Monday. Among other things, the commission was looking into charges that Comcast routinely slows down or blocks access to peer-to-peer networks. Critics of the cable provider posted pictures on the Internet of the alleged seat-fillers sleeping during the hearing; others acknowledged on audio tape that they were being paid to fill seats and didn't know what the hearing was about. The company later acknowledged that it had paid some people to act as placeholders for Comcast employees who wanted to attend the hearing. Meanwhile, on another matter, the NFL was celebrating the decision by a New York appellate court that overturned a lower court ruling that Comcast was in its rights to put the NFL Network on its sports tier rather than include it among its basic cable channels.

CBS chief Les Moonves said Tuesday that his network "was not affected negatively" by the recent writers' strike but strongly implied that the writers themselves were. During a conference call with investors, Moonves said that the network was "able to manage operating costs" by terminating costly writing contracts, slashing the number of scripts for programs that it will produce this season, cancelling development deals and doing away with pilots for some new shows. Moreover, he said, the economic overhaul put in place during the strike has "changed the way we do business and will allow us to operate more efficiently going forward." Asked about the fact that the company's television revenue fell 4 percent during the last quarter, Moonves attributed the drop to the fact that it had sold some of its stations, which now no longer contributed to its revenue picture. Operating income for the quarter, however, grew 7 percent. Moonves said that he has seen no sign of the widely debated recession at CBS. "Fortunately, the hardest-hit sectors like home building and real estate are not significant advertisers on our air," he said.

Satellite provider DISH network saw a 12-percent increase in revenue and a 14-percent jump in net income during the fourth quarter over a year ago, but slow subscriber growth caused analysts to erect warning signs. DISH added just 85,000 new subscribers during the quarter, representing a 76-percent plunge from the same period during the previous year. One analyst, Craig Moffett of Sanford C. Bernstein and Associates, linked the slow subscriber growth to weakness in the housing market. New subscribers, he suggested, were often people moving into new homes.

The presidential race has been particularly good to CNN. During the February sweeps the cable news network beat its arch rival, Fox News Channel, by a whopping 36 percent among the key demographic, adults 25-54. CNN, which aired three primary debates during the Jan. 28-Feb 22 period, averaged 750,000 viewers in that demographic bracket, while Fox News drew 550,000. This marks the first time that CNN has beaten Fox in the key demo since 2001. Fox, however, remained ahead in total viewers, attracting an average of 2.22 million in primetime to CNN's 2.03 million, a lead of 9 percent.