Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Arts, Discovery Health Channel, New York City, O, Oprah Magazine, Oprah Winfrey Network, Oprah Winfrey Show, The Oprah Magazine, Warner Bros.
Time Warner film studio Warner Bros. suddenly has a lot riding on the box office performance of “Sex and the City” after the disappointing numbers posted by “Speed Racer” — which cost $100 million to make but has only grossed $32 million domestically. “Sex and the City” opens Friday. (http://www.nypost.com/seven/05252008/business/picking_up_speed_112395.htm 5/25)
I met Patricia Field at a Sex and the City party just after I moved to New York City. She pulled up next to me at the bar with her shocking red hair wearing skin tight leather pants and pasties over her ta-tas. As I maneuvered quickly to make room for her, all I could think to myself was, god. . .please don’t let me poke Pat Fields in the boob. Luckily, I avoided the transgression.
Sex and the City – Behind the Fashion
The average audience for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” has fallen nearly 7% this year. The circulation of O, The Oprah Magazine, has fallen by more than 10% in the last three years. The weaker numbers come as Winfrey preps OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, her new cable channel. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26oprah.html 5/26)
Both ABC and NBC are teaming up with cable operator Cox on a video-on-demand service that allows viewers to watch shows such as “Desperate Housewives” and “30 Rock” any time they choose without fast-forwarding through ads. The “MyPrimetime” test is rolling out in several states. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.nypost.com/seven/05272008/business/ad_hungry_nets_develop_on_demand_rivals__112706.htm 5/27)
While cable networks such as Bravo, E!, TBS and USA are enjoying their best ratings ever and are on track to hit a record this year, broadcasters are watching a continuing trend that they do not like. “While the recent strike was certainly a factor in the migration of more viewers to cable, the bigger story is that broadcast ratings were down sharply before the strike even began,” said Steve Koonin, the president of Turner Entertainment Networks. (The New York Times 5/26)
NBC, the first broadcast network to announce its prime-time slate for next fall, is also the first broadcast network to announce changes. Four “Saturday Night Live” election specials will be added to the Thursday 9:30 p.m. time slot. The specials will be called “Thursday Night Live.” (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/23/AR2008052302788.html 5/24)
HBO is adapting the British show “Bad Girls,” which revolves around the lives of the staff and inmates at an all-female prison. The pay cabler’s version is being written with the assistance of Alan Ball, the creator of “Six Feet Under” and the upcoming “True Blood” for HBO. (The Hollywood Reporter 5/26)
Prior to the kick off of the fall schedule, NBC will debut another new series – Fear Itself is an anthology series of 13 episodes set to debut on June 5th at 10p, and each penned by a different writers of the thriller genre. (Cynopsis 5/27)
Last Saturday’s NHL Game 1 of the 2008 Stanley Cup Final telecast on VERSUS posted a 1.8 national HH rating and had more than 2.3 million total viewers tuning in. (Cynopsis 5/27)
Kelsey Grammer will star in the ABC comedy pilot Roman’s Empire as Roman Pretty, an eccentric billionaire who wants his daughter’s boyfriend to stay part of the family after the couple splits up. (Cynopsis 5/27)
Cable prices have risen 77% since ’96, about double the rate of inflation. And the average cable customer pays $60/month to watch about 13% of 118 channels provided in his or her lineup. The traditional cable model seems more unsustainable than ever, it would seem, given the increasing availability of programming via digital platforms. (Cynopsis 5/27, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/technology/24cable.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 5/24)
Comcast is trying to sell 46 smaller U.S. cable systems serving 400,000 to 500,000 subscribers. The cable giant is believed to be “pruning some of the more outlying areas in order to make a more efficient cluster.” Almost one-fourth of the cable systems are in rural central and northern Maine. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523/ap_on_hi_te/comcast_sale 5/23)
Comcast introduced a new service in Massachusetts this week that enables viewers to begin a movie or show in one room, stop it and then watch the rest of it in another part of the house. The new offering is part of a wider trend that, according to this article, is slowly but surely turning houses into “connected” media centers. (The Boston Globe 5/26)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Carl Icahn, Chad Hurley, Google, SEC, Steve Chen, Yahoo, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Yahoo has urged its shareholders to reject the slate of directors proposed by Carl Icahn, according to an SEC filing it did late on Friday. This is for Yahoo’s annual meeting, which was delayed and will now happen sometime late in July. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-yahoo-says-we-cant-on-icahns-slate 5/23)
Will we see longer-format videos on YouTube? CEO Chad Hurley says: “As we build bridges and connections to other devices beyond cell phones — connections to the TV — that is where it’ll become more of an opportunity for us [to] host and really push longer-form content.” (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/635d1ba6-2876-11dd-8f1e-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1 5/23)
Steve Chen, YouTube’s CTO, on YouTube and What Comes Next
Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube threatens how people exchange all kinds of information on the Internet, according to lawyers with YouTube owner Google, in new legal papers. Google says YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations.” (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080526/ap_on_hi_te/youtube_lawsuit 5/26)
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists may not have made much headway on the issue of new media control and compensation in negotiations with the AMPTP over the weekend. AFTRA National President Roberta Reardon sent a letter out to members warning of “tough challenges” involving new media and pointing to an editorial in the LA Times as a way to remind them that studios are not yet making much off the medium. Studios seek the right to re-use TV and film clips online as they see fit under a flat fee structure without having to consult performers as to their usage. The Screen Actors Guild is scheduled to resume negotiations with the AMPTP tomorrow. (Cynopsis 5/27)
Sometime soon, perhaps this week, Facebook will turn the year-old Facebook Platform into an open source project, multiple sources have told Techcrunch. The immediate effect will be to allow any social network to become Facebook Platform compatible – meaning application developers can easily take their Facebook applications and have them run on those social networks, too. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/26/facebook-to-open-source-facebook-platform 5/26)
In a marketing campaign on Facebook to promote “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Viacom’s Paramount Pictures is allowing site users to send their friends a virtual version of Indy’s iconic brown hat. In less than 12 hours, all 250,000 of the hats sold out. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629616 5/23)
Social networks, blogs and other “social media” are yet to produce significant revenue, say some entrepreneurs and financiers, despite years of experimentation aimed at turning such sites into money-makers. The failure is said to be dampening the mood in Internet start-up circles. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c968990-2b4c-11dd-a7fc-000077b07658.html 5/26)
Microsoft is abandoning its effort to scan whole libraries and make their contents searchable, a sign it may be getting choosier about the fights it will pick with Google. The software giant says: “The next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model.” (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080524/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_book_search 5/24)
Borders is jumping back into online retailing with a redesigned Web site that aims to evoke the feeling of browsing at a neighborhood bookstore. But after seven years paired with Amazon.com, analysts say it will be a challenge for Borders.com to step out of the Web retailer’s shadow. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080527/ap_on_hi_te/borders_goes_online 5/27)
Foreign Body from Vuguru, a 50-part serialized prequel to the Robin Cook’s soon-to-be-released novel streaming in 2-minute chapters 5 days a week through Aug. (Cynopsis 5/27)
I love the idea of using a web series to promote the release of physical media. After experiencing only just over 2 minutes of video encapsulating the first episode, I would also say that the content is interesting. I would add a tail end to this strategy and offer a story to follow the novel. The primary winner in driving momentum in this strategy seems to be the novel as book sales should be increased if all goes well. To garner some additional ad dollars online, I would create a top and tail to push users back online after reading the book as well and entice some additional online ad $$.
Episode 1
Scott Sassa, a former president of NBC Entertainment, is now behind Uber.com, a publishing platform that aggregates individuals’Web sites for free. Discovery Communications is signing on as an investor and plans to use the site to power online forums for its cable channel shows. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-uber27-2008may27,1,4179227.story 5/27)
Jason Busch, a former columnist for InternetWeek and InformationWeek, is pulling in $300,000 a year from his blog, SpendMatters.com, which focuses on spend management. Busch is targeting annual revenue of $1 million from his business, which includes podcasts and Webinars. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-mon-minding-blogging-businesmay26,0,7187568.story 5/26)
The method of counting video views on online portals varies greatly among the internet’s top sites, according to research conducted a year ago then recently revisited by TubeMogul. The online video analytics firm looked at 14 sites for possible overcounting, testing how 4 separate events are measured, including:
- Watching a video start-to-finish multiple times
- Watching a video and stopping more than half-way (but not to completion)
- Refreshing the browser after video play has begun
- Watching a video multiple times through a player embedded on another site
Only blip.tv, Metacafe, Dailymotion and Howcast had taken steps to account for pumped up views resulting when these actions are taken from a single IP address. Only blip and Metacafe held to the strictest standard of counting one user per IP address. (Cynopsis 5/27)
Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: 802.11, Data Communications, Datastorm, EastLink, Manitoba Telecom Services, Quebecor, Shaw Communications, WIRELESS
AT&T claims American Idol fans sent 78 million text message votes during season seven of the show, smashing last year’s record of 64.6 million votes. (Cynopsis 5/27)
4INFO.net, a Silicon Valley text-message advertising firm, plans to announce a new trial partnership with Yahoo. 4INFO will provide the technology for Yahoo to publish news updates, sports scores and other content via text messages that also contain a small ad. (Iwantmedia 5/27, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121185056833021519.html 5/27)
Hop-on is pushing a $10 mobile phone at U.S. convenience stores that offers 4 hours of talk time and 150 hours of standby time. The Hop1800 is a disposable handset, but the company is offering a rebate to those who recycle it. (Pocket-lint.co.uk 5/26)
Nokia’s possible plans to cut prices and re-enter the South Korean market has LG Electronics looking over its shoulder, a company executive conceded Monday, but he insisted that LG’s overall outlook this year was solid. Chang Ma, an LG marketing executive, said the company was ready to exploit any problems that rivals Motorola and Sony Ericsson might encounter. (Reuters 5/26)
Filed under: GAMING | Tags: Amazon.com, Console Platforms, Games, Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, Video game, Wii, Wii Fit
After selling out of the Nintendo Wii Fit in early May — before they even went officially on sale — Amazon.com restocked the hit title Saturday, according to an “in-stock” indication on its Web site. Wii Fit has been a scarce commodity online and at most major retailers. (Punch Jump 5/24, The New York Times 5/25)
Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Apple, GameStop, iPhone, iPod, Microsoft, Solar, Solar energy, Zune
(Below) Could I just hold my iPhone up to the plane window to re-juice? Ingenius. Who needs a power port when you have unshielded sun availability in-flight?
Apple has reportedly discovered how to harness solar power on portable devices such as laptops and iPods, according to a patent filing discovered by MacRumors.com, which detailed how Apple overcame obstacles to using solar energy on smaller devices by placing photovoltaic cells below LCD screens. The question that remains is how effective solar power can be in weaning electronics companies off on-the-grid power connections. (PC Pro (U.K.) 5/2008, Forbes 5/26)
(Below) YOUCH to Zune.
Microsoft is downplaying GameStop‘s decision to stop selling the Zune media player, saying the company’s relationship with major retailers remains solid. GameStop said that Zune sales were disappointing and that the iPod rival was not a good fit with its product mix. (INQUIRER (U.K.), the 5/27, InformationWeek 5/23)
Filed under: MISC | Tags: Arts, At World's End, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Movies, North America, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros.
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” from Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, rang up $151 million over five days in North America, making it the second-best Memorial Day weekend opener — just $2 million shy of last year’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-boxoffice27-2008may27,0,1747628.story 5/27)
With DVD sales not what they used to be, Warner Bros. Entertainment will tie the theatrical debut of its upcoming “Watchmen” movie with the release of an original, exclusive DVD that will feature a spinoff story from the feature film and a documentary-style narrative that will explore the characters’back stories. Warner will release the side story, titled “Tales of the Black Freighter,” in stores five days after “Watchmen” enters the theaters. (International Herald Tribune 5/26)
The Contest
