Filed under: MISC
JON STEWART ON THE WRITERS’ STRIKE
Jon Stewart sums up the Writers’ Strike. . .quite nicely I might add.
Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
BROADCAST/CABLE
News Corp.’s Fox studio is suspending producer-writers who refuse to cross strikers’ picket lines to perform non-writing work on television shows. Also: Nonwriting staffers of NBC late-night talk shows “Jay Leno” and “Conan O’Brien” are expected to be laid off this week. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9OHK0DTI9xw 11/9, http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA6499587.html 11/9)
Investors punished shares of Time Warner, Disney, Viacom and other media companies on Friday after U.S. consumer sentiment hit a two-year low and sparked worries about cuts in advertising. “Media is a consumer driven business,” say analysts. “People are worried about ’08.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN0935120120071110 11/9)
News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch says that the uncertain climate prevents the media conglomerate from presenting accurate forecasts for next year until the economic picture becomes clearer. “Right now, all the economic indicators are that next year could be rough.” (http://business.scotsman.com/media.cfm?id=1781692007 11/9)
As the writers’ strike continues, there’s a new bent to it you should be aware of. CBS News and ABC News writers for both television and radio, are also members of the WGA East, and both have been working without a contract since 2005. Later on this week, Guild members will come together to vote to authorize a strike, which gives their union the authorization to call a strike if they choose too. The Guild represents approximately 700 news writers at the two networks. It should be noted that not all news writers are members of the WGA, but rather are represented by NABET, both of which negotiate their deals separately with each network. And there are still others who are not members of any union, and may have instead personal services contracts with the networks.
The WGA East issued a statement late Friday displeased with Ellen DeGeneres for apparently violating strike rules after staying out for the strike for just one day. The WGAE said they are “extremely disappointed to see that Ellen has chosen not to stand with writers during the strike.” Since Ellen has performed comedy on her show since the strike began, the WGAE is calling it “struck work” which means she is violating strike rules. The WGAE also said they will communicate their disappointment to her in person if she continues with plans of shooting upcoming shows in New York on November 19 and 20 or if she pre-tapes any segments on location.
AFTRA response to WGA East statement: “As you know, AFTRA members such as Ms. DeGeneres who are working under the AFTRA Network TV Code are legally required by the no-strike clause of that contract to report to work and perform their AFTRA-covered responsibilities. Ms. DeGeneres, along with thousands of entertainment-industry workers represented by AFTRA and other unions who are bound by similar no-strike clauses, are also reporting to work as legally required.”
More than 3,000 Hollywood writers and supporters assembled Friday for a protest at the Fox studio in Los Angeles. One protester waved a sign featuring a picture of News Corp. exec Peter Chernin that read: “Write This!” Chernin had said News Corp. could “save money” from the strike. (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/business/la-fi-strike10nov10,1,3162197.story?ctrack=3&cset=true 11/10, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-channel-12nov12,1,7789831.story?ctrack=4&cset=true 11/12)
Laila Ali will co-host NBC’s reinvented American Gladiators competition series together with Hulk Hogan. The show will be introduced midseason in primetime and is produced by MGM Television and Reveille.
A major controversy regarding gambling allegations involving an active NBA referee in the off-season has not hindered the league’s early telecasts on ESPN and TNT. While household ratings were largely unchanged in the first week of the season, both networks posted solid increases in the important male 18-to-49 and 18-to-34 demographics. (Mediaweek 11/12)
CBS Television Distribution has sold The Doctors, the new syndicated spinoff series from Dr. Phil in 75% of the U.S., for a fall 2008 debut. The show will appear now in all of the Top 25 markets.
In other syndication news, Twentieth Television, Inc. is launching Boston Legal into syndication and has sold the ABC drama in 46 markets so far, or 50% of the U.S. Stations carrying the show are from station groups including ABC O&O’s, NBC O&O’s, Scripps, Sunbeam, Allbriton, Meredith and Cox.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission intends to enact new regulations opening the cable television market to smaller rival services to deter monopolies. New rules and regulations could prevent cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner from making cable acquisitions. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/washington/10cable.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 11/9)
Starz, a division of John Malone’s Liberty Media, posted an 11% revenue increase in the third quarter, to $253 million. The company attributed the strong performance to reduced programming costs as well as subscriber growth. (The Hollywood Reporter 11/10)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
NBC.com kicked off its NBC Direct download service offering free ad-supported episodes of shows such as The Office, Heroes, Life, Bionic Woman, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights. The NBC Direct player can be set to schedule weekly downloads of shows, but the videos can only be viewed on the computer that downloaded them. So far the service supports only Windows PCs running the latest Internet Explorer browser. (http://mashable.com/2007/11/10/nbc-direct-launches 11/10)
Nice quality viewing experience but with one huge flaw for me: I can’t watch the videos that I download on my iPod. To recap for a moment, here’s the story: NBC decides to pull their shows off iTunes by the end of the year, sell through amazon.com, stream free ad-supported content on Hulu.com and allow free ad-supported downloads of shows via NBC Direct. That’s a whole lot of digital distribution kids. Apparently, NBC decided they would test all avenues simultaneously and to be honest, I respect them for taking so many risks. At the same time, I wonder what the value is to the advertiser if the content is segmented and distributed via so many avenues. I suppose the numbers will prove me right or wrong.
More than any media sector, the Internet “will hold up” in these uncertain times, says IAC/InterActiveCorp Barry Diller. The new slimmer, trimmer IAC has a lot of cash for possible acquisitions, such as AOL. “When and if Warner doesn’t want it, I’ll certainly be at the door.” (http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=121930 11/12)
AOL is acquiring Yedda.com, a social search question and answer service. Yedda automatically matches questions to other related questions and topics, while selecting the best available users to answer the question. AOL plans to integrate the service into certain areas of AOL.com. (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071112/aol_acquisition.html 11/12)
ABC.com will start streaming mini 2-3 minute webisodes of Lost this week originally intended to debut on Verizon Wireless, according to EW.com. The “Missing Pieces,” penned by Lost writers under a separate arrangement before the strike began, will reveal previously unknown backstories of the survivors of flight 815. The bigger screen version of Lost is still scheduled to begin its fourth season in February. ABC.com users have started 160 million full-length episodes since the site began offering them for free last year while a total of 33 million ABC shows have been downloaded via iTunes so far, per Disney CEO Bob Iger’s conference call to analysts last week.
Warner Bros. Television is in negotiations to offer a range of its library content to the News Corp./NBC Universal Hulu joint venture, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
MySpace‘s first original series Quarterlife debuted yesterday, the first of 36 8-minute episodes that will premiere every Sunday and Thursday night on its profile page as well as on MySpaceTV. The series, about a group of twentysomethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives a few years out of college, has its roots as an ABC TV pilot co-written and directed by Marshall Herkovitz called “1/4life” that failed to get picked up in 2005. MySpace has pledged to serve banner ads for the show on more than 500 million MySpace pages. (http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2007/11/11/2007-11-11_television_vets_make_move_to_online_ente-1.html 11/11)
I’ve only watched Part 1 so far but at this point, I don’t get it. It’s sad and not in that My So-Called Life-teen-angst kind of way but in an oh-my-god-that-girl-is-pretending-to-chat-on-her-cellphone-because-she’s-so-lonely kind of way.
A new service called BlinkBox launched in beta format offering movies and TV shows for viewing, rental and download to own. The service allows users to clip “blinks” or snippets of content to share with others, typing comments directly in the clip. Sounds perfect for snarky remarks.
Intro Video
Fun but being a UK-based site, there isn’t a wide variety of US TV shows to choose from. There are, however, a fair number of movies but I really see this best utilized as a Facebook application and not the type of functionality which warrants its own site.
Marauder-Produced Blink
Facebook’s new ad network could run into legal troubles in New York State according to a New York Times report. A 104-year old statute prohibits advertisers from using photos, drawings or other likenesses of people without their express written consent. So the question becomes, does opting in when registering count as giving permission?
News Corp.’s MySpace, facing rising competition from Facebook, will start to let advertisers target users as they go through college, marriage and other stages of life. The new service will expand on an ad program begun in July. By year-end, MySpace plans to offer 1,000 ad categories.
(http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=a9AeehorxQAg 11/9)
Google is said to be in talks with Simon Fuller, the British entrepreneur behind “American Idol,” about a joint venture that could “change the way TV is watched over the Internet.” A possible deal could “change television in much the way iTunes changed the way music is disseminated.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/11/mediabusiness.google 11/11)
Google shares may surpass $1,000 over the next year as the Internet giant trounces competitors, says Ryan Jacob, manager of Jacob Internet Fund, the best-performing tech fund. Google is “taking share from smaller players and consolidating their lead among larger competitors.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aXnEmYphrM0A 11/9)
Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, who describes Google as “no real threat,” is emerging as a star on Google’s YouTube video-sharing site. Clips of Ballmer, including one at him “going crazy” a Microsoft conference, are racking up millions of viewers and thousands of comments. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/11/10/cnmsoft110.xml 11/9)
Oh, I could just watch this over and over again. Either Ballmer is a head football coach or he’s at a Microsoft conference. You make the call.
Radiohead and Warner Bros. Records are disputing comScore‘s research that determines less than 40% of users who downloaded the In Rainbows album actually paid for it, calling it “purely speculative” as it was based on only a couple of hundred users. comScore defended its methodology on its blog, saying it observed the activity of nearly 1,000 visitors to the In Rainbows site, a “significant percentage of whom” downloaded the album.
Comcast-owned FearNet, a Web site and VOD service serving up horror content, has struck a carriage deal with Cox that will expand the channel’s universe to 16 million homes. The one-year-old service also celebrated its anniversary by announcing deals with 19 new advertisers. (Multichannel News 11/12)
Filed under: WIRELESS
WIRELESS
Google still plans to bid on the 700 mHz spectrum up for auction soon by the FCC, according to reports, even though it has secured distribution of its mobile platform through an alliance of partners including T-Mobile and Sprint.
Disney plans to start its own cellphone service in Japan next spring with branded phones and animated content. Disney will offer the service by partnering with Softbank, Japan’s third-largest mobile operator. Japan’s government is opening the market for cellular service. (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/disney-softbank-plan-japan-cellular-phone/story.aspx?guid=%7B03F8E7F9%2D184C%2D40A4%2DA30A%2D0F9F13F5B845%7D 11/11)
Sprint Nextel’s decision to terminate its WiMAX partnership with Clearwire may lead the carrier into the arms of the largest cable companies in the country, according to this story. An analyst now says Sprint may have to team up with cable firms to build the network instead. (New York Post 11/12)
Filed under: GAMING
GAMING
Disney is steadily increasing its spending on video game development, rising from around $100 million in 2006 to a projected $175 million in 2008. Within five years Disney is looking to spend as much as $350 million. Disney just shipped 2 million units of the game “High School Musical: Sing It!” (http://www.nypost.com/seven/11122007/business/video_games_serious_business_for_disney_89825.htm 11/12
Filed under: TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
LG Electronics’ 23LS7D features the company’s XD Engine, which takes low-resolution analog signals to near-HD levels by improving brightness, contrast, detail and enhancing color. The TV also features a QAM tuner, which allows owners to watch cable programming without having to have a separate box. (HDTV News 11/12)
Filed under: MISC
MISC
Many New York Theaters were dark this weekend as stagehands from the Local One union went on strike against the League of American Theatres and Producers. Shows from Wicked to The Phantom of the Opera to the holiday Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical were all closed. Both sides have been in heated negotiations for more than three months over work rules and staffing requirements pertaining to loading and setting up a show. According to reports, it’s considered unlikely a settlement will be reached soon.
