Filed under: Feature | Tags: HBO, Jamie Hector, Marlo Stanfield, Michael K. Williams, Omar Little, Sergeant Ellis Carver, Seth Gilliam, The Wire
ALL IN THE GAME: THE WIRE SIGNING
If you haven’t seen the finest show on television, I would suggest not reading any further. If, on the other hand, you are aware of the grittiest street drama in history, carry on.
The final season of The Wire recently came to a close on HBO. To commemorate the event, three members of the cast hung out at the HBO Store in NYC yesterday for a little signing extravaganza.
Omar Little
Michael K. Williams
Sergeant Ellis Carver
Seth Gilliam
Marlo Stanfield
Jamie Hector
So, of course I was there to get my Wire schwag signed and flirt shamelessly with Omar. [cough cough] I mean Michael.
From left to right: Marlo, Carver, & Omar
From left to right: Carver & Omar
Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
HBO is yet to deliver a follow-up “edgy” hit series to rival “The Sopranos,” which is believed to have prompted a recent executive shake-up at the Time Warner premium cable channel. HBO is pinning its hopes on “True Blood,” a drama about vampires in Louisiana, set for September. (Iwantmedia, 3/21, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_13/b4077050393595.htm 3/20)
HBO has picked up a comedy pilot starring actor David Cross playing himself. “David’s Situation,” which begins filming in May, revolves around Cross’move to a gated community in the suburbs, where he lives with two roommates, one a conservative and the other a liberal. (The Hollywood Reporter 3/21)
“Black Magic,” the ESPN movie focusing on African-American athletes and coaches during the Civil Rights movement, became the network’s most-watched documentary ever in its March 16 premiere. The presentation attracted an average of 1.2 million households and drew a 1.3 rating. (Mediaweek 3/20)
Simon Fuller, creator of American Idol, has a real-time medical drama pilot, Austin Golden Hour that has been picked up by The CW. The pilot is about a group of young emergency room surgeons and EMTs that work closely together and go through the crucial 60 minutes following a trauma. The drama also recounts their personal, interconnected relationships. Fuller’s 19 Entertainment and CBS Paramount Network TV are producing.
DirecTV successfully launched a new satellite providing it with the capability to offer up to 150 national HD channels and expand its delivery of local HD channels to more than 100 DMAs, representing 84% of U.S. TV households. If only Dish Network, still playing catch up on the HD front, could be so lucky. Its satellite fell short of its orbit last week, a mishap expected to reduce the bird’s lifespan. Dish has two additional satellite launches planned this year to help it make good on its 100 HD channel capacity goal. (Cynopsis, 3/21)
If at first you don’t succeed … The FCC is calling for a do-over, scheduling a second net neutrality hearing after complaints emerged that Comcast rigged the first one by stocking the room with its employees. This one will take place on the West Coast at Stanford University on Thursday, April 17. (Cynopsis, 3/21)
Media-company defaults may increase as the U.S. economy heads into a recession. Bonds of media firms such as Univision and Tribune are trading at “distressed levels.” Publishers and broadcasters are among the weakest in this downturn as advertising dollars shift to the Internet. (Iwantmedia 3/21, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aW02qb9XmUcs 3/20)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
News Corp. is shutting down PageSix.com, its entertainment gossip site, after a mere three months online. PageSix exec Jennifer Jehn cites “difficulty in the economy.” Some 18 staffers will be let go. PageSix was not believed to be making rapid inroads against sites like Time Warner’s TMZ. (Iwantmedia 3/21, http://gawker.com/5004134/page-six-shutters-web-site-after-three-months 3/20)
Pagesix.com vs. TMZ.com
Don’t mess with March Madness. CBS Sports is learning that lesson the hard way on Facebook, where a major backlash is happening over its NCAA basketball bracket application. Yes, this is the same application that was allowed to spam users’ friends with more invites than other Facebook apps. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/21/cbssports-facing-march-madness-backlash-on-facebook-this-app-blows 3/21)
Ning certainly continues to rock and roll, at least according to data released by the company and reported by Comscore. The company, which allows users to easily create social networks, now has over 200,000 social networks on the platform and is adding another 1,000 or so per day. And Comscore-reported traffic is spiking up nicely: 3.1 million unique visitors/month, generating 71 million page views (February 2008). Ning, in short, looks like it might be a real business. Meanwhile, Ning competitor Flux, which is backed by Viacom, seems to have fallen off a cliff (we’re checking with Comscore on that data – see our earlier post on Flux growth here, including the update). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/20/ning-all-our-charts-point-up-and-to-the-right 3/20)
The NHL‘s free on-demand video service launches on Hulu.com today. Catch a full-length “game of the week,” a full-length classic match up or highlights and features on individual players or teams. (Cynopsis, 3/21)
If you hate rising costs, Comcast has a deal for you. The country’s largest cable firm has started offering a $42.95 price-for-life plan for current and new broadband customers. The program does not require a long-term contract, and it offers download speeds of up to 12 megabytes. (American City Business Journals/Albuquerque, N.M. 3/20)
Filed under: WIRELESS
Nokia has begun to open its laboratories and share ideas for innovative new products in hopes of finding potentially popular ideas like the Nokia Morph, a phone that can bend to fit a user’s wrist. “For Nokia, this is probably the biggest throw of the dice since they entered the cell phone business,” said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight. (NewsFactor Network/International Herald Tribune 3/20)
MySpace launched a new version of its mobile web site accessible through web-enabled phones at http://m.myspace.com/ , allowing users to update profiles, receive messages, view photo albums and post comments on others’pages. The social networker also announced a new deal with Sprint in the U.S., giving all its web-enabled users free access to the new MySpace Mobile site. Until now AT&T and Helio users had to pay a subscription fee to access MySpace Mobile. The MySpace/Sprint tie-up also gives Sprint users access to content from other Fox Interactive Media properties including FoxSports.com, IGN and Photobucket. (Cynopsis, 3/21)
Despite all the pre-auction hype that Google was gunning for wireless spectrum, telcos AT&T and Verizon Wireless emerged as the big winners of the FCC’s license-mart, which raised a record $19.6 billion in proceeds. Verizon paid $4.7 billion for the C-block spectrum, giving it the space to launch a national wireless network the FCC says must be open to accommodate third-party applications. Of course, this was the caveat that Google wanted all along. (Cynopsis, 3/21)
Cox, bidding as Cox Wireless, spent $304.6 million in the government’s recently concluded 700-megahertz wireless-spectrum auction and won 22 licenses in the A and B blocks, while Charter Chairman Paul Allen and his Vulcan Ventures spent $112 million to get two licenses in the A block. Cablevision did not win any licenses, according to the FCC, and Comcast and Time Warner Cable did not participate. (Multichannel News 3/20)
Filed under: TECHNOLOGY
Amazon.com Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos has posted a letter on the Amazon home page to apologize to customers for the shortage of Kindle devices. “We had high hopes for the Kindle before its launch, but we didn’t expect the demand that actually materialized. We sold out in the first 5 1/2 hours and have been scrambling to increase our manufacturing capacity ever since,” Bezos said in his letter. (Pocket-lint.co.uk 3/20)
