Filed under: MISC
Online Site of the Week
In Microsoft’s endless pursuit to make the Zune cool, I think they may have finally taken the right step with this site. . .with the help of some very talented animation artists. Each animation video features a piece of music along with the Zune logo thrown in at the end for flair. Very clever.
Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
BROADCAST/CABLE
Music industry video production and rehearsal complex CenterStaging Corp. launched rehearsalsTV on Comcast on Demand, showing behind the scenes jam sessions from CenterStaging’s Burbank campus. Chris Isaak, 8mm, Blessid Union of Souls and Howard Hewitt are among the featured artists.
Turner Sports announced it will offer more than 45 hours of live, exclusive coverage of the PGA Championship on PGA.com, complementing 18 hours of coverage on TNT from 2-8 pm ET on Thursday and Friday and 11 am – 2 pm ET on the weekend. Stream #1 will showcase footage before TV coverage starts each day, and stream #2 will follow a designated group around the course each day.
A stronger TV business, with a particular emphasis on its VOD offerings, led to a turnaround for Playboy Enterprises (NYSE: PLA) swung to a profit in Q2, coming in $1.9 million, or $0.06 per basic and diluted share, compared to a net loss last year of $3.3 million or $0.10 per basic and diluted share. Revenues gained 6 percent to $85.7 million from $80.5 million in Q206. Operating income in Q2 was $3.8 million compared to an operating loss of $1.2 million last year, when the company recorded a $1.9 million restructuring charge. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-earnings-playboy-swings-to-black-with-19-million-q2-profit-revs-grow-6-/ 8/7)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
NBC Universal will present over 3,600 hours of coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 2,200 hours of which will stream for free on nbcolympics.com. The coverage, which begins exactly one year from today, will include live broadband streaming for the first time ever in the U.S. An additional 3,000 hours of online highlights and replays will also be offered. The NBCU family will air around-the-clock coverage of the 17-day event on NBC, USA, MSNBC, and CNBC, offering high def programming on NBC’s HD affiliates, USA HD and Universal HD. Telemundo will air Spanish-language Olympic coverage. More on On-the-Go wireless coverage will be announced in the coming months.
MySpace and The Onion announced a content partnership that will bring Onion News Network video and audio content, blogs and breaking fake news to MySpace and MySpaceTV viewers. The Onion’s profile page is currently featuring the ONN report on the entire internet crashing from a while back. MySpace even put out a satirical press release to announce the news.
Yahoo signed a programming pact with Rocket Science Laboratories (Temptation Island) giving it a non-exclusive first look at the reality producers’ new interactive series. The deal will likely focus on short form interactive reality concepts, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Rocket Science’s current TV projects include Bull Run for Spike TV and If Women Ruled the World for Fox.
TBS, TV home of the Atlanta Braves and owner of the rights to carry Baseball playoffs for the first time this year, signed a deal to launch a broadband channel on MLB.com in September. TBS Hot Corner will provide daily video news briefs, player interviews, trivia contests and even “dugout cams” during TBS telecasts.
CBS Sportsline.com announced an array of new features for its Fantasy Football site. CBS Sportsline will produce 4 original video programs each week of the football season to keep players updated on news, rumors and analysis. CBS Sportsline Mobile will introduce cross-functionality with the site to allow users to make moves to their line up from any location. Anheuser Busch, GMC, Toyota and T-Mobile are sponsoring the products. 
Oxygen struck a deal with Yahoo! to provide long and short form video programming to the newly revamped Yahoo Video site, in the form of a branded Oxygen channel. Look for clips, outtakes and exclusive footage from Tori & Dean: Inn Love, The Bad Girls Club and Mo’Nique’s F.A.T. Chance. 
3DD Production’s music series London Live will appear on Second Life via the cyber channel Virtual Life TV. London Live, known as The Album Chart Show in the UK, showcases major artists album releases performed in front of a live audience at the Koko in London. The deal was brokered by 3DD Digital and Second Life’s creative agency Rivers Run Red, the first agency to establish a working presence within the virtual world.
To give you an idea, here’s a sample from the show London Live featuring Nelly Furtado performing Say It Right.
Healthy lifestyle media and retail company Gaiam, Inc. acquired Steve Case-owned Lime.com and progressive social networking site zaadz.com, in addition to acquiring a stake in socially conscious media and financial services company Conscious Enlightenment. Gaiam plans to integrate the brands under the “LOHAS” principle (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and launch a unified social networking site at Gaiam.com in the fall.
Lime.com
IPTV subscription video revenue will grow exponentially from $779 million in 2006 to $26.3 billion by 2011 not including advertising and value-added TV services, according to a new report from market intelligence firm iSuppli. The company believes IPTV service providers can also cash in by offering access to digital music, on demand gaming, data services and home security features, good for another $1 billion in revenue by 2010.
ESPN will try to unravel its online video confusion by relaunching ESPN360 in September with an emphasis on streaming live events — some 2,000 in the first 12 months, according to the WSJ. Games — the Disney (NYSE: DIS) sports net has been piling up live digital rights including nearly 1,000 college basketball games — and news conferences will show on ESPN360.com; highlights, news and archived shows will be on ESPN.com. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-espn-changes-broadband-game-plan-will-relaunch-espn360-with-emphasis-on/ 8/7)
The shift to digital continues to have an impact on the Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) bottom line, contributing negatively to lower sales in the spring quarter and positively to the company’s growth. Revenues dipped 2 percent to $804 million from $822 million in the same period last year, with declines in physical sales only partly offset by growth in digital recorded music growth and music publishing. Domestic revenue dropped 1 percent while international was down 4 percent. The net loss was $17 million compared with $14 million in the same 2006 quarter, widening to $29 million if non-recurring items (realignment charges, Bertelsmann settlement, etc.) are excluded. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-earnings-wmg-wider-loss-digital-revenue-up-29-percent-now-15-percent-of/ 8/7)
NDS Group (NASDAQ: NNDS), a subsidiary of News Corp. that supplies DRM and other content technology to digital pay TV and mobile providers, has bought Israel-based video content delivery network CastUp, for about $11.3 million in cash plus additional payments to employees and senior management. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-content-delivery-network-castup-bought-by-news-corp-owned-nds/ 8/7)
