Those with knowledge of the matter say that for $300,000, consumer brands can buy an "integration package" that will either incorporate a brand into existing "L Word" storylines or allow the brand to work with the show's writers to create customized storylines, participating in one episode or across several. Ms. Chaiken is also offering brands opportunities for integration around Ourchart.com, the largest social network for lesbians on the web.

Ad Age points out that the show does have great penetration into the affluent gay audience, which is seriously not a joke of any sort. And they suggest that companies like Nike and Mars—both of which recently pulled ads after being charged with homophobia—could use characters on The L Word as great brand ambassadors. We'll wait and see before we make a ruling. But the show's writer did say of other noncommercial premium shows, "They may be purists, but they'll get over it if they need to."

[Ad Age]

Once confined to HBO and then Showtime, top-shelf programming has spread to smaller networks like AMC, home to Mad Men, and even Lifetime, future host to Runway. Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, with their fake news shows, have a level of influence that meets and even, at times, exceeds that of the broadcast news anchors.

As this process continues and even smaller networks come up with distinctive hits that grow their audiences — think TNT, FX, Sci Fi and the Food Network — cable will have achieved something of an advertiser's holy grail: Narrow targeting combined with deep reach, something never really possible on broadcast television and still being tinkered with online. The efficiency of advertising on these networks, by the way, happens to be quite attractive when you economy is slowly melting.

The cable boom will be pretty glorious, at least until advertisers wise up about how many viewers are digitally skipping right over their commercials, at which point product placement will poison all that creative fun, and everyone will be sad until the Sex And The City of iTunes comes along and moves the fun to yet another medium.

(Photo: Rick on Flickr)

"The show [Studio] is less about the history of Studio 54 than it is about New York in the late '70s, what people were going through, the political and social issues," says a writer for the show. We love the beguiling, melancholic Mad Men, with all of its picky period detailing of the beginning of the end of the American dream in the early 60's, so maybe the same could work for this strange bumble of time. Just get the obligatory Andy Warhol winky winky out of the way, and it could be fun. What we're most curious about? Who will play the DuPont twins?

[Observer]

The six main characters — including an art gallery owner, lawyer, event planner and a closeted bartender — deal with career and relationship issues. They encounter violent situations and anxieties that are briefly manifested as monsters and other apparitions that may or may not be real.

"American Psycho" Author Plans Showtime Horror [Reuters/Hollywood Reporter]

Hurwitz takes a hike
'Arrested' creator bails as showrunner

"Arrested Development" creator Mitch Hurwitz says he will not be continuing with the series, throwing a major — likely fatal — monkey wrench into attempts to keep the Emmy-winning laffer alive for a fourth season.

Series producers 20th Century Fox TV and Imagine Television had agreed on a deal to move "Arrested," previously on Fox, to Showtime — assuming Hurwitz was willing to come back. In the end, however, a mix of creative and financial concerns has prompted Hurwitz to move on.

And the worst part is, it's not Murdoch's fault. It's Hurwitz's. Asshole.

Hurwitz Takes a Hike [Variety]
Related: Up With Grups [NYM]