Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

HBO is developing what is being described as a dark comedy about a down-on-his-luck father who discovers that his below-the-belt girth can help transform his life. The show, titled “Hung,” is the first project for Sue Naegle, who became HBO’s entertainment chief Monday. (Variety 4/23)

A Chinese school teacher and a beautician are filing a lawsuit against Time Warner’s CNN over remarks they say insulted the Chinese people and are seeking $1.3 billion in compensation — $1 per person in China. Commentator Jack Cafferty had described the Chinese as “goons and thugs.” (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSPEK30866720080424 4/24)

CNN’s coverage of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary Tuesday averaged nearly 2.56 million viewers, good enough to overcome the other top cable news channels for the night, according to Nielsen. Fox News Channel recorded 2.36 million viewers, and MSNBC had 1.62 million. (Multichannel News 4/23)

Based on a Hallmark Channel analysis of Nielsen’s C3 commercial-ratings data, Nick at Nite retained 95.5% of its audience through commercial breaks in the first quarter — the best of any cable net. Hallmark finished second with 93.2% and was followed by The Weather Channel with 92.5%, TV Land with 92.1% and Cartoon Network with 91.4 to round out the top five. (TVWeek.com 4/23)

NBC and the National Hockey League are continuing their partnership through the 2008-2009 season. Under this agreement, NBC will air the NHL Sunday Game of the Week during the regular season per usual utilizing flexible scheduling, broadcasting nine Sunday afternoon games in all. The network will also provide coverage of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Stanley Cup Final which may equal 15 post-season games in total. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Fox has ordered up a new pilot from exec producer JD Roth called Bad Dads, hunting down deadbeat dads who owe ex-wives child support, reports THR.  At the helm is Jim Durham, who is also the head of the National Child Support Center.  Durham first calls the dads and offers them a chance to make things right, and when that doesn’t work, in classic ambush TV style, he finds and confronts deadbeat dads in public places. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications have pulled out of a joint venture with Sprint Nextel to develop a quadruple play of voice, video, Internet and wireless services under the banner Pivot, according to this article. “We remain committed to bringing a wireless component to our portfolio of services, but we don’t believe Pivot was the best option,” said Jill Ullman, a spokeswoman at Cox. (MSNBC/Associated Press 4/23)

Comcast filed for a restraining order against AT&T in Chicago complaining its U-Verse service is causing problems for its cable modem customers, reports Ars Technica. AT&T says it added 148,000 new U-verse customers this quarter, bringing its IPTV base to 379,000. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Computer hacker Christopher Tarnovsky is testifying in court that News Corp. unit NDS Group hired him to develop pirating software. But he denies using it to penetrate the security system of rival satellite-TV service Dish Network. The trial could result in millions of dollars in damages. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23591694-5014239,00.html 4/24)

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Amazon has announced that first-quarter profit was up 29%, fueled in part by sales of electronics and other general merchandise, which was up 56% to $1.48 billion. “It would be irresponsible for me to say they’re recession-proof, but they do have the lowest pricing. They’re the first place a lot of people go to comparison-shop,” said Domenic LaCava, an analys at Boston-based (Canaccord Adams. ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg 4/24, The Seattle Times 4/24, Yahoo!/Associated Press 4/23, CNET 4/23)

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible antitrust implications of Google’s two-week test with Yahoo to combine some of their Web search and advertising business. The Justice Department is concerned that the test, which ends this week, may violate antitrust law. (hIwantmedia 4/24, ttp://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSWBT00884320080423 4/23)

To promote its Friday night MovieLand slot, MTV Network’s TVLand.com launched a fun Movie Lover’s Database comprised of nearly 1,000 trailers spanning from the 50’s to the present. The handy interface allows users to browse for trailers by name, genre or decade. (Cynopsis 4/24,  http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2008/04/23/tvland_creates_new_database/2108 4/23)

Who throws a show?  Honestly. Best movie. . .EVER.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Trailer

The Facebook developer community is thriving but faces a good deal of uncertainty about its future. That was the general message from a session held at the Web 2.0 Expo today called “The Facebook Platform: Finding Success in the Facebook Economy.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/facebook-platform-faces-rough-road-ahead-despite-successes 4/23)

MySpace Application Gallery, MySpace’s app directory which launched in limited beta back in March, is now fully live and open to the public.  The MySpace application gallery allows users to browse applications and integrate them into their MySpace page and profile, giving what MySpace describes as “a more engaging and entertaining online experience.”  (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/myspace-apps-moves-out-of-beta 4/24)

CNET Networks is expected to announce an editorial and advertising deal with Yahoo that will give the tech news site broad distribution on the highly trafficked portal. Yahoo will sell some of CNET’s remnant inventory and allow CNET ad sales staff to sell into some areas of Yahoo. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080424/cnet-and-yahoo-broadly-expand-editorial-and-ad-relationship 4/24)

Time Warner’s AOL is introducing an Internet-based marketplace where advertisers can bid for unsold space on company-owned Web sites and others on its Advertising.com network. The market gives advertisers one-stop access to thousands of sites reached by AOL’s ad businesses. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aMvRCQj8vj3g 4/24)

Popular podcasting network PodShow, co-founded by former MTV VJ Adam Curry, has officially relaunched as Mevio, adding new features including a tool that allows podcasters to program channels of content to send to other users. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Virgie Arthur, the mother of Anna Nicole Smith, is filing a lawsuit against Time Warner celebrity Web site TMZ.com, among others, claiming she was defamed. Arthur asserts that TMZ and others spread a false story that she was the mother of her stepbrother’s child. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN2343027320080423 4/23)

Virgie Arthur (Anna Nicole Smith’s mom)

Internet Broadcasting says it got a huge boost from its new partnership with CNN.com, posting record unique visitors (UV) during the first three months of 2008. UVs grew each month with 17.7 million uniques in January, 19.6 million in February and 17 million in March, compared to 13.8MM, 15.4MM, and 13.9MM during the first three months of 2007. IB attributes the gain to election coverage, weather franchises and ongoing distribution increases. The company says 36 of its partner station sites hit records as well in terms of unique visitors and/or page views during Q1. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Here are some interesting facts about broadband consumption attributed to IP network management firm Arbor Networks, courtesy of GigaOM. On fixed and mobile consumer-focused broadband networks: (Cynopsis 4/24)

• 10 percent of subscribers consume 80% of bandwidth
• 0.5% of subscribers consume about 40 percent of total bandwidth
• 80% of subscribers use less than 10 % of bandwidth

This supports ISP’s argument that only a few heavy users are taxing the network for everyone. But it turns out peer-to-peer networks aren’t the real culprit. According to Arbor: (Cynopsis 4/24)

• Only 20% of traffic is P2P applications
• During peak-load times, 70% of subscribers use http, while 20% use P2P
• Http still makes up the majority of the total traffic, of which 45% is conventional text & images
• Streaming video and audio content from services like YouTube accounts for nearly 50% of the http traffic

WIRELESS

Google is expanding its advertising business into a new domain: graphical ads that appear on mobile devices. As with the company’s text-based mobile ads, the Google image ads are displayed on the basis of keywords that appear on Web sites that people visit with their mobile phones. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9926580-7.html 4/23)

Razr anyone? Motorola can’t even give those things away anymore. The once-proud company reported horrible earnings today, with sales down 21 percent and a net loss of $194 million. But the big takeaway was the 39 percent collapse in its mobile phone business. Mobile device revenues in the quarter dropped $2.1 billion compared to last year. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/motorolas-loss-is-apples-gain-that-21-billion-sucking-sound-is-coming-from-the-iphone 4/24)

Filmmaker Spike Lee is teaming up with cellphone maker Nokia to direct a short film comprising YouTube-style videos created by teenagers and adults using their mobile phones. “Within five years, new movies will be made with devices like these,” says Lee. (Iwantmedia 4/24, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/technology/24cell.html 4/24)

TECHNOLOGY

Apple’s profit jumped 36% to $1.05 billion and revenues increased 43% on huge sales growth of Mac computers and the successful launch of the iPhones. Apple shipped 2.28 million Macs (up 51%), 10.6 million iPods (up 1%) and 1.7 million iPhones during the quarter. Apple also confirmed it acquired microprocessor designer P.A. Semi Inc., giving the company its first stake in the chip business. (Cynopsis 4/24)

Sales growth of Apple’s iPods flattened out at 1% in the first quarter, and the company had to lower the price of its 1-gigabyte Shuffle because of falling sales. But observers note that Apple has spun out enough ancillary iPod products — such as the iTunes Store, the iPhone and iPod Touch — to ensure the company a strong revenue stream even if the MP3-player market collapses. (The New York Times 4/23) )

Amid a wall of 2008 flat-panel TVs, Samsung devoted most of a Wednesday press event to its “Touch of Color” design collection, a move that parallels its spring multimedia marketing campaign. Among the technical features Samsung showcased were built-in InfoLink Internet connectivity and networking capabilities on the ToC sets and HD plasma sets that can support 3-D content, which reportedly is an industry first. (TWICE 4/23)