Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
ESPN executive John Skipper said the Disney-owned sports network wants TV rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics, which it would carry live regardless of the time zone. “We serve sports fans. It’s hard in our culture to fathom tape-delaying in the same way they have,” said Skipper, referring to NBC, the current holder of the Olympic TV rights. The New York Times (8/19)
November 25 will be the final episode date for FX’s The Shield, per Variety. The seventh and final season kicks off September 2. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Warren Sapp, former NFL star will join Inside the NFL on Showtime as an analyst along with host James Brown and other analysts Phil Simms and Cris Collinsworth. Inside the NFL, produced by CBS and NFL Films, begins on Showtime September 10 following 31 seasons on HBO. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Emmy-nominated “Damages” on FX and “Mad Men” on AMC may have given cable the prestige it needs to bid for a turn hosting the annual awards program, according to this report. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has contracts with ABC, CBS and NBC for broadcast rights for the next three years and is expected to begin talks in 2009 for the next licensing agreement, which usually spans eight years. United Press International (8/19) , Variety (8/19)
A new study by the Pew Research Center suggests that news reports on CNN are more believable than any other cable or broadcast network. CNN got the highest ranking from 70% of respondents, edging out cable competitors MSNBC (63%) and Fox News Channel (59%). Multichannel News (8/19)
NBC Universal’s cable and broadcast TV properties are still writing ad business for the Olympics in a record-setting performance that has eclipsed $1 billion, according to this article. The ad-revenue torrent has surprised even NBCU officials: “We’ve written a lot more business than we thought we would,” said Seth Winter, senior vice president for NBC Sports & Olympics sales and marketing. The Hollywood Reporter (8/19) , Broadcasting & Cable (8/19)
BET will debut its first scripted TV series, Somebodies on September 9 at 1030p with two half-hour episodes. Shot on location in Athens, GA and the University of Georgia, the story is about Scottie, played by Hadjii, who is trying to find his way in the world but finds himself stuck in the role of “professional” student as his buddies move on to the real world. He then begins a journey of self-discovery. (Cynopsis 8/20)
SlamBall will soon have a home on CBS and VERSUS, reports Variety. The first-ever team action sport that combines parts of basketball, football, hockey, soccer and gymnastics and owned by IMG Sports Media and Tollin Productions, will have its championship title game air on CBS November 2. In addition, VERSUS will air eight SlamBall games on Sundays beginning August 31. The SlamBall league is expected to launch in 2009 over the July 4 weekend in eight U.S. cities. (Cynopsis 8/20)
ABC gave the go-ahead for a Supernanny spinoff featuring Chicago child therapist Mike Ruggles, reports THR. The project titled Supermanny will air as a back-door pilot special this fall in the new Supernanny time slot of Fridays at 9p. Ricochet Television, which produces the original Supernanny, is also involved with production on this project. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Comcast has announced the addition of 15 high-definition cable networks to its Chicago-area systems, bringing the country’s No. 1 provider up to 500 HD options in The Windy City. Comcast officials say they remain committed to the company’s so-called Project Infinity, in which subscribers by 2009 will get access to 1,000 hi-def choices at any given time. Multichannel News (8/19)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: AOL, CBS, CBS Audience Network, Google, Joost, Veoh, Yahoo, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Six months ago, OpenSocial was nothing but a list of promised partnerships. But the social network application platform backed by Google has made a lot of progress since then as those partners started to go live with their OpenSocial Apps. First there was MySpace and Orkut, then Hi5, and most recently Friendster. All told, if you add up the various social networks that are now live with OpenSocial, it reaches a total of 350 million users. And it will soon reach 500 million, as four more social networks and services prepare to launch by the end of of September. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/20/opensocial-now-reaches-350-million-users-and-growing 8/20)
Today, Aircell announced that their fleet of Boeing 767-200s will have the Gogo service enabled on flights originating from NYC’s JFK to LA, San Francisco and Miami. CrunchGear will have a seat on a flight to LAX today that leaves JFK at 12 PM EDT. Head on over there now for more details and the full press release. Again, there will be no VoIP enabled on these flights nor will there ever be. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/20/aircells-gogo-inflight-wi-fi-service-going-live-today-and-crunchgears-got-a-seat 8/20)
Flying in the face of conventional wisdom that online video should be short, CBSSports.com unveiled a new weekly Fantasy Football show to premiere Sept. 7 that will run a full 90-minutes in length, streaming live every Sunday morning of football season from 11-12:30 pm ET. The show will utilize segments from the cast of CBS’ NFL Today filtered for value to fantasy team owners, along with input from CBSSports.com Fantasy Football Senior Writers Jamey Eisenberg and Dave Richard. Going head to head against the 4 established Sunday morning football preview shows (on CBS, FOX, ESPN and NFL Network,) Fantasy Football Today will have its work cut out. Then again, none of the shows cater exclusively to fantasy football fans. The show will also benefit from wide distribution across the CBS Audience Network, including YouTube, AOL, MSN, Veoh, TV.com, Bebo, Joost and Fancast. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Introducing one of its first big content projects under AOL’s wing social networking service Bebo debuted Model.Live, a broadband reality series chronicling the lives of 3 IMG Models as they work the runways during Fashion Week in New York, London, Milan and Paris. As with past Bebo shows users are given the chance to interact with the models via video diaries, text messages, photos and blogs. The 12-episodes series, produced by IMG Media and sponsored by Express.com, will run simultaneously on Bebo and Vogue.tv, with new episodes appearing each Friday. (Cynopsis 8/20)
I found the series incredibly dry. That aside, I think this series will be successful in the online series space because of the sponsorships attached (Vogue and Express) and simply for the fact that it’s a show about beautiful people.
Good news for Mac users. CinemaNow, one of the oldest movie and TV show download sites, will finally be available for Mac users. Pay-per-view titles will also be streamable using Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox or Opera browsers. iTunes still has a lock on content playable on the iPod, but such integrations should help loosen Apple’s lock on content options for Mac users nonetheless. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Former CEO and founder of CBS Sportsline.com Mike Levy has launched a new online Sports destination Open Sports. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Intel and Yahoo have announced
plans for a new “Widget Channel”, a widget platform for consumer electronic devices running on Intel’s hardware. The platform will support a number of current technologies, including JavaScript, HTML, XML, and mostly notably Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash, which many current platforms on CE devices don’t support. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/20/intel-and-yahoo-want-to-bring-widgets-and-the-internet-to-your-tv 8/20)
iaTV (formerly ImaginAsian TV) entered into a licensing and sales deal with Los Angeles-based manga publisher TokyoPop to sell a range of digital media assets including anime series Initial D and Psychic Academy. iaTV’s ad sales team will represent sales activities for TokyoPop’s digital assets as part of the agreement including tokyopop.com, brand integration within original and user-generated video content, mobile advertising and other applications. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Encouraged by recent improved revenue results from professionally-themed social networking sites such as Linkedin, eMarketer is predicting steady growth in social networking business-to-business ad spending during the next few years, projecting last year’s $15 million to grow to $210 million in 2012. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Hulu continued its climb up Nielsen’s VideoCensus chart measuring web video streams and downloads, ranking 8th in July with more than 105 million total streams delivered to an audience of 3.2 million + viewers. Hulu now offers some 250 TV shows and 100 full-length movies. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Top 10 Web Brands Ranked by Total Streams, July 2008
Brand Total Streams (000) Unique Viewers (000)
YouTube 5,024,249 77,838
Fox Interactive Media 295,646 20,142
Nickelodeon Kids & Family 211,802 7,211
Yahoo! 183,124 22,546
MSN/Windows Live 146,260 9,345
Disney Online 134,356 8,949
ESPN 106,391 5,387
Hulu 105,830 3,293
CNN Digital Network 94,746 7,128
Turner Sports & Ent. 90,205 4,591
Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising
Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Android, Apple, Google, HTC, iPhone 3G, NPD Group, Palm, T-Mobile USA
The FCC posted documents Monday approving the first cell phone based on Google’s Android operating system for the U.S. Deutsche Telekom confirmed rumors that T-Mobile USA will roll out the first Android device with an HTC-manufactured handset dubbed Dream. infoSynch World (8/18) , The New York Times (8/18)
Palm as just released their much anticipated - and leaked - Treo Pro, a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device with a touchscreen and UMTS/HSDPA GSM networking. The phone also includes G.P.S. and improved WiFi handling for better and easier WiFi hand-off. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/20/palm-releases-treo-pro 8/20)
Apple has released a software update that is meant to improve the performance of its new iPhone 3G, which has been the subject of numerous customer complaints related to everything from dropped calls to poor connectivity. An Apple spokeswoman declined to say exactly what part of the $199 device the update is designed to improve. The Boston Globe/Associated Press (8/19)
Even though consumers paid more for mobile phones in the second quarter — average selling price was up 14% year-over-year at $84 — sales of mobile devices in the U.S. dipped to 28 million units, according to The NPD Group. On the global front, however, growth is predicted to continue, with ABI Research estimating worldwide sales growth of 13% this year. Network World/IDG News Service (8/19) , CNET (8/19)
Business road warriors have driven wireless data card usage to record numbers over the past year in the U.S., according to Nielsen Mobile. More than 13 million PC users now connect to the internet using wireless cellular network cards, with 55% of these devices having been acquired in the past 12 months. (Cynopsis 8/20)
Cox Communications positioned itself as a major player in the wireless-phone market when President Patrick Esser announced at a conference that the cable provider was developing a mobile device that will integrate the company’s full suite of services and make its content and applications portable. Cox Wireless spent more than $304 million earlier this year in the government’s wireless-spectrum auction. PC Magazine (8/19)
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Filed under: GAMING | Tags: BioShock, EA, Electronic Arts, Games, Grand Theft Auto, Take-Two Interactive, Video game, Wall Street Journal
Electronic Arts said that it was no longer possible to acquire Take-Two Interactive Software and its best-selling “Grand Theft Auto” franchise in time to take advantage of the holiday selling season and that it had allowed its unsolicited, hostile $2 billion offer to expire. But, according to this article, top executives from the two companies are still talking about a possible deal. ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg (8/18) , The Wall Street Journal (8/19)
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