Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
BROADCAST/CABLE
Pressure is growing on CEO Jeff Immelt to take action to get General Electric’s stock moving after six years of stagnation. Although the troubled NBC Universal is seen as “safe” until after the Summer Olympics next year, Immelt vows to be “tough-minded and investor-friendly.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22ge.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 7/22)
Barry Diller is the first media mogul to get pinched in the new credit crisis, backing out of borrowing $3 billion for a stock buyback deal because it was too costly. Shares in his online travel firm Expedia tumbled on the news. Diller’s personal holdings in Expedia lost $14.9 million. (http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/business/diller_dilemma_business_paul_tharp.htm 7/24)
Variety reports HBO has ordered up another season of Big Love, with 12 new episodes. Production begins in November.
Comic Drew Carey is being tapped to replace legend Bob Barker on the CBS daytime game show “The Price is Right.” Carey says: “It’s only a game show, but it’s the longest-running game show in American television and I plan to keep it that way.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070724/ap_en_tv/tv_price_carey 7/24)
Music Choice can now claim more than a billion orders of its on demand music offering since its launch in November of 2004, according to data provided by Rentrack. Music Choice On Demand currently reaches 104 markets in the U.S., adding Mediacom Communications in a deal announced yesterday. The service generated 54 million views from 4 million set-tops in June.
MTV’s Laguna Beach will have a new vantage point for the fourth season as the show moves up the California coast to Newport Harbor. MTV will premiere Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County August 15 at 1030p. Also debuting on August 15 will be Virtual Newport Harbor at www.vmtv.com and starting this week viewers can go to newportharbor.mtv.com to see the cast bios, the official blog and exclusive photos.
WWE On Demand will treat customers to a free month of its SVOD service in September to promote WWE’s Biggest Fan contest co-sponsored by Comcast’s Ziddio.com and participating cable affiliates.
RCN Corp. and Disney-ABC Television Group struck a multi-year deal to provide ABC, Disney and ESPN programming to RCN customers on a variety of platforms. RCN will carry VOD content from Disney Channel, ABC Family, ESPN and ABC News. RCN high speed internet customers will gain access to the ABC News Now broadband service and the premium ESPN360.com service. The deal also includes carriage of ESPN2HD on RCN’s basic HD tier. (Broadcasting & Cable 7/23)
Comcast expects to have all of its e-mail and Internet customers in the Houston area switched over from Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner system to its own system by Friday. Comcast took over the Houston system Jan. 1 as part of a deal with Time Warner Cable to divide up Adelphia’s former assets. (Houston Chronicle 7/24)
Echostar has filed a petition that seeks to have the Big Ten Network designated as a regional sports network. EchoStar is concerned that if it isn’t able to reach a deal to carry the Big Ten Network, DirecTV will have an advantage in the eight-state region that the Big Ten covers. DirecTV parent News Corp. has a 49% stake in the Big Ten Network. (Variety 7/23)
On Monday, Showtime won the most awards for excellence in cable marketing during a ceremony at the CTAM Summit in Washington. Showtime won 16 Mark Awards, while Comcast’s 10 were the most for a cable operator. (Broadcasting & Cable 7/23)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
A judge will decide this week whether to proceed with a lawsuit that claims Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole source code and trade secrets from people who hired him to work on another social-networking site, ConnectU. The plaintiffs want the court to shut down Facebook. (http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=201200554 7/23)
Democratic presidential candidates made history Monday, parrying Internet video questions from voters, in a sign of the Web’s booming role in elections. “Wassup? asked the first questioner, Zach Kempf from Provo, Utah, in the debut of the “unconventional” CNN/YouTube debates. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070724/pl_afp/usvote2008democratsinternet 7/23)
Below is the first video question and answer from the debate. I think this is an excellent way to harness the power of TV with the interactivity of the internet. Just under 3,000 video questions were submitted for the candidates to answer. There’s no better way to Rock the Vote than by inspiring the younger generation to care about their leadership. And one more thing, the casual man-on-the-street style of the questions was much more entertaining than the usual dull banter. I give this strategy the Marauder seal of approval.
Want more of the debate? Click here: http://www.youtube.com/debates
Time Warner’s AOL is said to be paying $275 million for Tacoda, an online advertising company that uses behavioral targeting techniques to track Web surfers’ habits. Tacoda’s technology allows brand advertisers to target messages to specific audience segments. (http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/business/aol_has_an_eye_on_you_business_peter_lauria.htm 7/24)
MySpace founder Brad Greenspan sent out another one of his open letters, this one to Dow Jones shareholders as the Bancroft family considers Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion offer for the company. He says the creation of a Dow Jones cable channel and a subscription-free WSJVideo web site will push the stock price up to $100 a share. The valuation is based on assumptions of 10 billion views a year and a $30/CPM ad rate.
Takkle, a high-school sports social-network site, is receiving additional funding from Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated and the New York City Investment Fund. As part of a content sharing deal, Takkle will carry SI articles on its site and sponsor magazine features. (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/23/takkle-scores-funding-from-sports-illustrated 7/23)
National Geographic Channel launched a campaign today offering an embeddable “How Taboo Are You?” widget featuring video outtakes of taboo rituals from the Taboo series returning August 5 at 9 pm ET/PT. The contest gives viewers the opportunity to choose which taboo ritual they would undertake. Upon making their selection, users will find out if more people agreed or disagreed with their selection.
The Game:
Video search engine blinkx has logged on more than 14 million hours of searchable content through more than 200 media partnerships, including new deals with RealNetworks, Lycos and Ask.com.
Social network aggregator MyLifeBrand launched a new video platform MyLifeTV, enabling users to organize, share and soon upload videos based on community interests. Initial channels include A3TV (“The Nightlife Network”), Adventure Online and a music video channel powered by Brightcove. Revver will enable uploading, hosting and ad serving of user generated video.
Pay-per-click fraud figures increased by rate of 15.8% for Q2 2007, according to a report released by Austin-based Click Forensics. The average click fraud rate of PPC ads appearing on search engine networks such as Google AdSense and Yahoo’s Publisher Network was 25.6%, up from 21.9 percent during the first quarter of this year. Google and Yahoo have long claimed that Click Forensics inflates its numbers to gain more business from advertisers.
Filed under: WIRELESS
WIRELESS
Several leading magazine brands are already streaming video onto the new Apple iPhone. Early offerings include The New Yorker’s animated cartoons, Make magazine’s do-it-yourself vodcasts, Slate.com’s new V video magazine channel, and videos from Advertising Age. (http://www.minonline.com/topstory2.htm 7/23)
AT&T is launching “Video Share,” which will allow users to send live streaming video via cellphone. However, the service is “useless” unless both sides have video-capable phones. The reach will be limited at first, as most people don’t own such devices, which start at $50. (http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/entertainment/video_chat_coming_to_your_cellphone_entertainment_mary_huhn.htm 7/24)
A&E and History Channel launched MobiTV versions of their channels, available to 3G customers of AT&T Wireless, Sprint and other carriers. MobiTV also carries The History Channel espanol on its Spanish language mobile TV service and offers A&E, The History Channel, The Biography Channel, Crime & Television Network, Military History Channel and History International on its broadband TV service.
Oxygen and Artificial Life teamed up to launch a 3G Bad Girls Club mobile game to launch in late August. Players can create avatars based on actual Bad Girls season one characters and star in their own virtual reality show. The game will be available for download for $3.99 at the show’s web site and via botme.com. Oxygen also announced a new promotion with LCD TV manufacturer Westinghouse Digital called Girls Gone Wired, including giveaways, tech vignettes and consultations with a tech guru.
According to a Light Reading report, cable companies aren’t focusing on wireless deployments as their top priority. Heavy Reading analyst Alan Breznick said cable companies were currently more focused on residential VoIP and advanced video services such as HDTV, but he warned that cable needed to place more of an emphasis on wireless phone services to better compete against phone companies. (Light Reading 7/23)
Filed under: GAMING
GAMING
Lifetime and RealNetworks formed a partnership to produce a new series of downloadable casual games. Lifetime Presents, which will debut later this summer, will be embedded with ads and promos of Lifetime shows. Casual gaming is dominated by women, according to a report released last week by the Casual Games Association, with adult females consisting of up to 74% of online users. Real has doubled its ad-enabled game portfolio from 12 to 24 games over the past six months, serving up more than 9 million ad-enabled downloads in the past year.
New domestic-sales data released by the NPD Group show that 2007′s first-half sales of gaming consoles jumped 44%, to $6.1 billion, while game sales rose 24%, to $2.9 billion. The report equates much of the sales boost to strong performance by Nintendo in the handheld and console-market sectors. (Variety 7/23)
Filed under: TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
TiVo is introducing a trimmed-down, less expensive version of its digital video recorder for high-definition televisions, hoping to spur mainstream demand 10 months after a pricey first foray was received coolly. The TiVo HD model will sell for about $300, starting in August. (http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2336480120070724 7/24)
Filed under: MISC
MISC
French media group Lagardere plans to sell its retail branch Virgin France, which includes the Virgin megastores and online retail music sites, according to a report in French newspaper Les Echos. Lagardere dismisses talk of a sale as “a recurring rumor.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSL2442493320070724 7/24)
Responding to Blockbuster’s aggressive pricing moves, Netflix is lowering the price of its most popular movie rental plans by $1 per month. Three DVD rentals at a time will now cost $16.99 while two will drop to $8.99.
