Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
BROADCAST/CABLE
Starz has given the green light to two half-hour comedies scheduled to debut in January. The move marks a strategic shift into original scripted fare for the usually film-centric network. (Variety 9/3)
ESPN’s investigative news series will be titled “E:60″ and will debut Oct. 16. The show will be marketed as a faster-paced, sports-minded version of CBS’s “60 Minutes” and will feature reporters Jeremy Schaap, Lisa Salters, Tom Farrey, Rachel Nichols and Michael Smith. (The Hollywood Reporter 9/4)
AmericanLife TV Network, formerly called Nostalgia Television and GoodLife TV Network, has started offering 20 hours of video-on-demand monthly programming for free. The service is available to TVN Entertainment’s more than 100 cable affiliates. (Multichannel News 9/2)
Comcast has spent $12 million to improve video, phone and Internet services in Vermont since taking over the Adelphia cable franchise a year ago. By the end of this year, the country’s largest cable company will have laid more than 600 miles of cable to connect the state’s most rural areas. (Rutland Herald (Vt.) 9/2)
Cablevision affiliate Grupo Televisa, Mexico’s largest broadcaster, will acquire Bestel in a deal valued at $325 million. Bestel is a long-distance telephony company with a network that includes most of Mexico and parts of Texas and California. (TeleGeography Research 9/3)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Apple issued a press release saying talks broke down with NBC because it declined to pay more than double the wholesale price NBC was looking to charge this time around, which would have resulted in a $3 per episode price hike for the consumer. If talks aren’t resurrected, returning NBC shows will be available on iTunes only through December and none of the new fall titles will be put up on the service. The breakup could also have major repercussions as NewsCorp, CBS and Discovery are also soon coming up for renewal.
Sundance Channel unveiled a new short-form HD series featuring 1-minute vignettes of writers, musicians and designers discussing what inspires and motivates them as artists. Grey Goose Presents The Next Garde shorts will appear as interstitials from September 1 and be available on sundancechannel.com throughout the month.
BBC America will debut new episodes of its UK drama Hollyoaks daily via BBCAmerica.com starting with a two-episode launch on September 4. Each new episode will be available online seven days for free. The first 65 episodes of Hollyoaks will also air as repeats on the linear network’s late-night schedule.
Peer-to-peer online internet TV start-up Babelgum found another way to leverage its budding relationship with Spike Lee. Babelgum is hosting an online film festival to celebrate international short filmmaking and getting Spike to act as an “honorary” judge. The festival is open to English or English-language subtitled films less than 45 minutes long, screened at global film festivals between January 2007 and February 2008. Submissions from rights owners will be accepted from September 15, 2007 to February 15, 2008 with no film submission entrance fee required. Babelgum will hold non-exclusive online rights to all accepted films from March 2008 to March 2009, prohibiting other P2P TV services from offering the films during that period. Winners will be announced in April 2008.
Wall Street Journal Online launched a new free channel called Entrepreneur offering expert guidance and advice to small business owners. The channel aggregates WSJ content such as Kelly Spors’“Small Talk” column and features exclusives such as videos and podcasts from successful entrepreneurs. It is organized into tabs including Financing, Running a Business, On Technology, Building Awareness, Franchising and Small Business Link, WSJ’s monthly online and print report. 
Google expanded its news clip aggregation service hosting full-length news stories from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, The Press Association UK and The Canadian Press instead of sending to readers the services’sites. Google News negotiated licensing deals with news agencies after concerns were raised that Google was violating copyright laws. France’s Agence France-Presse actually sued over the issue.
Launching this morning at 9am is ABC News’Good Morning America Now, with anchor Chris Cuomo, on ABC News’broadband channel, ABC News Now. Online coverage begins as the onair broadcast finishes up, and will include original content, as well as contributions from Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and Sam Champion. Interactively, the new online show will include a Talk Back function where viewers can post their own video questions. This addition to the ABC morning schedule comes one week before NBC’s Today expands its morning show to four hours.
Live TV dashboard platform Jacked received $6.5 million in first round funding led by Provenance Ventures, Core Capital Partners and Gabriel Venture Partners, according to paidcontent.org. Jacked provides online software that allows users to configure their own gamecast they can run while watching a game live on TV with widgets providing real-time stats, chat, news and play-by-play readouts. NBC Sports is using the service to enhance its coverage of the Notre Dame football season this year.
Peer-to-peer online TV service Joost acquired OnTheToob, a Flash-based programming guide created by one of Joost’s beta testers that allows users to create customized channels and RSS feeds from the service’s 239 channels and 10,422 programs. OnTheToob creator Hal Schechner will begin work at Joost this week. Joost recently released its latest updated player allowing developers to create widgets to run inside of the downloadable client.
Yahoo is planning a social network to connect college students and alumni with companies they’d like to work for, according to CNET. Blending the missions of Facebook with Linkedin, Yahoo Kickstart will allow users to build profile pages that resemble a resume, yet with more social functionality such as discussion forums and event announcements. Companies will be able to start groups that students and job seekers can join.
Online newspaper ad spending increased 19.3% to $796 million during the second quarter according to the estimates from the Newspaper Association of America, the 13th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth since the NAA started tracking online ad spending. There are signs of diminishing returns, however, as growth during the same period from 2005 to 2006 totaled 33%. Newspaper websites now account for 7% of total newspaper ad spending. Meanwhile print revenue continued to decline – particularly in the area of classified sales, down 16.4% during Q2/07 compared to the same period last year.
Several states are considering so-called “net neutrality” legislation that would prohibit internet service providers from charging heavy users more for bandwidth, according to a new report released by the Pacific Research Institute. PRI makes the case for rejecting regulation, concluding that only an open market would continue to attract investment and spur innovation.
Filed under: GAMING
GAMING
For the second consecutive month, Japanese sales of Sony’s PS3 gaming system have cut into the market lead currently held by Nintendo’s Wii. Enterbrain reports that Nintendo sold 245,653 units of the Wii in the four weeks ending Aug. 26, compared with 81,541 units of Sony’s PS3. (Yahoo!/Reuters 9/3)
Filed under: TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research, predicts that HD DVD may pull ahead of rival format Blu-ray in 2008, due in large part to cheaper prices and recently signed distribution deals with Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks. The Blu-ray camp is still battling, however, with Sony software outselling HD DVD in the U.S. and Walt Disney Co. stumping for Blu-ray through its Disney Magical Blu-Ray Tour. (National Post (Canada)/Reuters 9/3)
Despite market reports that suggest that plasma TVs will continue to lose market share to LCDs, several plasma manufacturers feel that they can remain competitive by cutting costs and improving both power-efficiency and display quality. “We have a chance because demand for bigger screens is increasing,” Panasonic’s Hiro Wada said. (The Washington Post/Reuters 9/3)
