KPBS Exceeds Goals
For Membership Drives
Florescent lights against Mission Beach’s cloudy skies marked the biggest day at the MTV “SoCal” summer shoot at Belmont Park.
On May 23, celebrities such as pop diva Britney Spears and Poway chart phenoms Blink-182, and MTV hosts such as Carson Daly and San Diego native Ananda Lewis, were on hand to tape the music channel’s official launch to its summer programming.
Filming will take place in locations along the West Coast but will be based in San Diego.
Temporary studios were built at Belmont Park, and much of the editing will take place onsite.
Tuesday’s footage was slated to air over Memorial Day weekend. Hundreds showed up at the shoot. An estimated 100 teens were extras on the open-air beach house set, hyped to applaud, jump and yell on cue.
Warming up the crowd were USD seniors Michael Armijo and Mike Catanzaro. The 21-year-olds had been entrants in MTV’s karaoke show the week before and had made such an impact that they were invited to stay and keep the extras pumped for future shoots.
The only thing that couldn’t be prepared was the weather, which was dismal and even drizzling that morning.
Still, San Diego has served MTV well so far, said Tony DiSanto, vice president of production at the New York City-based network.
“So far, everything’s been going amazingly well,” DiSanto said. “We’ve been really lucky. The last two days, it’s been a little overcast, but it’s not affecting the show in a negative way at all.”
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Funds Raised: KPBS collected $952,635 through recent television and radio memberships, more than $200,000 above its original goals for the campaign.
In March, the television component raised $700,401 and KPBS Radio raised $252,234 in February. According to KPBS, membership pledges account for more than 40 percent of its $16,340,000 operating budget.
Cuffed: One of the county’s newest local publications, aptly describing itself as “serving those who serve,” debuted May 13: the San Diego Police Gazette.
An estimated 7,000 copies of the 20-page May edition was distributed to law enforcement agencies at federal, state and local levels.
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Status Chart: Kearny Mesa-based Lorenz Advertising recently signed client T-Systems International, Inc. in San Diego. Drasnin Communications in Hillcrest will be handling public relations for local health care site eVitals Corp. and El Segundo-based direct access broker MB Trading. Local PR firm Kutch & Co. was retained by San Diego-based construction consulting firm Gafcon.
Sound Bites: Local PR heavyweight Stoorza, Ziegaus & Metzger recently announced it hired Paul Sanchez as executive vice president and general manager of San Diego operations. For the first time, Cox Communications will sell its WNBA Season Pass sports package to digital customers. Local talk show veteran Stacy Taylor recently began a series of guest host assignments on conservative-talk station KCBQ-AM, which broadcasts out of the La Jolla area.
The deadline for the next Media & Marketing column is June 1. Rodrigues can be reached at (858) 277-6359, ext. 107, or via E-mail at trodrigues@sdbj.com.
