No edition on Monday due to the Labor Day holiday. Happy weekending all.
I leave you with what I deem one of the classic online videos of all time. This commercial originally premiered during the 2003 Superbowl thereafter becoming the darling of the internet. Love that Terry Tate.
Terry Tate Office LineBacker
BROADCAST/CABLE
TNT gave the OK to the production of a pilot titled “Leverage,” a story of sophisticated thieves who target evildoers around the world. Meanwhile, the network pulled the plug on “Heartland” after nine episodes. (Variety 8/30)
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Unable to come to terms on pricing, NBC Universal will not renew its digital download deal with iTunes. NBC Universal digital downloads on iTunes account for approximately 40% of the video downloads. NBC U also wants to bundle its downloads on iTunes, positioning it for higher revenues, and is looking for iTunes to set better piracy controls. The non-renewal of NBC content on iTunes won’t have a consumer effect until December when the current contract expires. Other deals soon looking for renewal include NewsCorp, CBS and Discovery. This is the second major content provider to iTunes to not renew its contract - Vivendi did the same last month. (The New York Times 8/31)
NBC began streaming full-length episodes of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, the first late night talk show host to officially stream on the web. Episodes will be made available on NBC.com at 9 am ET/ 12 noon PT the morning after each telecast. Conan has been one of TV’s more web-savvy comedians; his animated series Pale Force was one of the first original series featured on NBC.com.
MTV’s 2007 Music Awards in Las Vegas will offer unprecedented interactivity this year with an extensive array of digital initiatives geared toward the web, mobile devices, virtual worlds and on demand environments:
Joost, VeohTV and other new Web sites in development are out to make the experience of watching video online more like watching television. The Internet and TV are increasingly being portrayed as destined to fuse within 10 to 20 years, with TV just another form of high-speed data. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070830/ap_on_hi_te/bigger_online_video 8/30)
Joost Full Screen (From VH1’s I Hate My 30’s)
ESPN President George Bodenheimer says the channel’s online video service, ESPN 360, is closing in on signing one or two cable carriage deals. ESPN 360 recently switched its content focus to include more live events. (Multichannel News 8/30)
Sony will phase out its Connect music service, which offered downloads in a proprietary ATRAC format, and open up its music players to other formats, the company announced on Thursday. Sony also said it would offer software to convert ATRAC files to MP3s. (Yahoo!/Associated Press 8/30)
Blinkx announced 28 new partnerships with small “long tail” publishers adding to its index of more than 14 million hours of searchable video content. Internet broadcasters Cycling TV, Wedding TV and Eye Music Network are among the new content providers.
Roxio has released Popcorn 3 for the Mac, the latest version of its video-transfer software. Popcorn allows users to convert video to and from a variety of formats and sources, and includes TivoToGo, which allows recorded programs to be transferred to a portable device. (Macworld 8/29)
U.S.-based GekTV Entertainment is launching a new IPTV service on September 16 offering several Asian channels and on-demand television shows and films. With content from Tai Seng Entertainment and its President, Bernard Soo, GekTV will have Cantonese, Mandarin, and English-language programming with Vietnamese and Cambodian shows coming on board by the end of 2007.
This may surprise some. A new study of 500 random users by Advertising.com and InsightExpress found that a majority of streaming video fans are over 35, favor news clips over other genres and are willing to tolerate short video ads. In the first half of 2007, 62% of consumers viewed news clips online, followed by movie trailers at 38%. Music videos came in third at 36%, decreasing from 47% in the second half of 2006.
Despite enormous hype and popularity social networks such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube are just beginning to monetize their services, according to IDC Digital Marketplace. However, the research firm predicts new advertising models and tools should help quickly correct the imbalance, increasing social networking ad revenue from $400 million in 2006 to as much as $1 billion this year.
Americans are spending more time with blogs, according to a new survey from Synovate/Marketing Daily. Still, only 13% of blog readers say they spend less time with newspapers, television and radio since they started following blogs. However, “this could certainly change.” (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/30/americans-blogging-habits 8/30)
Startup Zayo Bandwidth is looking to team up with top broadband providers to bring higher bandwidths to B- and C-level metropolitan areas such as Memphis, Tenn., and Harrisburg, Pa. The company owns more than 8,000 miles of fiber lines and several collocation facilities in relatively rural areas. (Light Reading 8/30)
WIRELESS
Sharp has announced plans to begin shipping a new touch screen with scanner capabilities for mobile electronic devices. The screens will be able to respond to multiple simultaneous touches and will be thinner and clearer than previous models, according to Sharp. (International Herald Tribune/Associated Press 8/31)
