Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Arts, HBO, NBC Sports, NBC Sunday Night Football, NFL, NFL on NBC, Sports, Steve Rubell
The NFL and NBC Sports will announce a deal today to stream 17 regular season (mostly Sunday night) match-ups live on NBC.com beginning with the season opener on Sept. 4, reports The WSJ. The move, brought by the league to NBC, is being described as an experiment to lure new viewers and engage current fans with interactive elements including multiple live camera angles and up-the-minute fantasy stats. The NFL, careful to protect broadcast contracts that will earn more than $3.7 billion this year, has been the last of the major U.S. sporting leagues to embrace the web as a distribution medium. (Cynopsis 7/28)
Tell Me You Love Me from HBO Entertainment and Pariah will not return to HBO for a second after Cynthia Mort, the show’s creator/executive producer said the show is having problems finding its direction. The first season of ten episodes ran last fall and HBO quickly picked up a second season after the fourth episode aired in October. (Cynopsis 7/28)
A new scripted drama series is coming to Showtime – Studio, produced by MRC, is a fictional drama set in the 1970s at the infamous Studio 54 nightclub in NYC. The only character in the show based on a real person will be that of the club’s founder, Steve Rubell. According to THR, the show begins in the months leading up to the club’s opening in April 1977. (Cynopsis 7/28)
In its first sign of solidarity in months SAG members voted unanimously to reject the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers‘ latest new media proposal on Saturday, presented to the actors guild as a “final offer” earlier in the month. The AMPTP issued a statement in response saying the refusal means actors will continue to have to work indefinitely under the previous contract – expired as of June 30 – which includes no residuals for ad-supported streaming, made-for-new media programs or reuse of clips online. (Cynopsis 7/28)
A restructuring by General Electric left the global conglomerate with four distinct business segments, but the corporate construction of NBC Universal was left unchanged. NBCU, which owns several top cable networks, has been the subject of growing speculation that GE would try to sell the company soon after the Summer Olympics. (
ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg 7/25, Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg 7/26, Broadcasting & Cable 7/26)
The 15 largest ad-supported cable networks are having “a normal, solid cable summer,” said Mediavest’s John Spiropoulos, “and the premieres of many of their major scripted series have exceeded last year’s numbers.” USA Network’s “Monk,” for instance, recently premiered with 16% more viewers than last summer, and TNT’s “The Closer” debuted with 500,000 more people watching. (Mediaweek 7/28)
The Comcast Media Center has announced the addition of 14 high-definition channels from eight programming groups to the company’s HITS service. The new channels include History, Animal Planet, ABC Family, Lifetime Movie and USA. (Multichannel News 7/27)
According to an offer from Comcast, newcomers to the company’s “Triple Play” of digital cable, VOIP service, and high-speed internet will also be able to bag an honest-to-goodness Nintendo Wii on their way out the door. Sure, you’ve got to sign a two-year contract (à la mobile telco policy), but you’ll also walk away with a console that still can’t be found on a lot of store shelves. (http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/28/comcast-offering-a-free-wii-to-new-triple-play-subscribers 7/28)
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