Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

CBS Sports, CBSSports.com and USopen.org have partnered to bring tennis fans live streaming video of CBS Sports’ broadcast of the US Open Men’s Final, postponed until Monday, September 8, at 5 p ET due to bad weather. The match, between No. 2-seeded Roger Federer and No. 6-seeded Andy Murray, can be seen on CBS.Sports.com and USopen.org. (Cynopsis 9/8)

As anyone with a lick of tech knowledge knows, ripping a DVD onto your hard drive is, well, frowned upon by the “Powers that be” in the motion picture industry. Realizing that, RealNetworks has launched a new solution called RealDVD, which lets users copy DVDs onto their hard drives without facing legal troubles. Even better, it only takes about 20 minutes to do so. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/realnetworks-lets-you-copy-dvds-to-your-hard-drive-and-keep-the-drm 9/8)

HBO on Oct. 1 will debut “Hooking Up,” a 10-episode series that will play out solely on the Internet. The show, featuring online personalities such as Jessica Rose, the star of the “lonelygirl15″ Web series, will be offered at video-centric sites such as MySpace and YouTube as well as its own portal, hookingupshow.com. The Hollywood Reporter (9/7)

Marketers are continuing to step up efforts to get the government to take a harder look at the pending search agreement between Google and Yahoo, a pact that if approved will give Google control of between 80-90% of the search market. The Association of National Advertisers sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) late last week, citing its objections to the deal. Advertisers fear diminished competition and increased concentration of market power will ultimately lead to higher prices for online advertising. (Cynopsis 9/8)

Twitter, the social networking and microblogging service, may get a big push into mainstream society, thanks to CNN. News anchor Rich Sanchez is posting a tweet saying that the Time Warner news network is launching a “Twitter show” called “Rick Sanchez Direct.” (Iwantmedia 9/8, http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/09/08/new-cnn-show-based-on-twitter 9/8)

Facebook is set to switch over to its newly redesigned user interface this week. The social network reports in its developers blog that over 30 million users have already checked out the new profile. Of course, not everyone is happy with the changes. One group is out to convince 1 million users to sign an online petition to keep the old Facebook in place. They’re about half way there with close to 560,000 members. (Cynopsis 9/8)

ABC is developing In the Motherhood, the MSN internet series produced by MindShare that acts out stories from real-life moms, into a weekly comedy series, per THR. ABC Studios has ordered up 13 episodes. (Cynopsis 9/8)

I’m not a mother nor do I usually subscribe to thoughts of motherhood, but even I thought this was an interesting cast molded into some pretty hysterical plot lines.  Imagine that.

Phone-based movie showtime service AOL Moviefone will announce a joint venture with voice and visual mobile ad company Apptera today to monetize the more than 40 million annual calls Moviefone receives with targeted in-call ads. (Cynopsis 9/8)

CBS again registered as the most visited network website according to Hitwise on the strength of its Big Brother site that features 24/7 RealNetworks-powered video feeds from inside the Big Brother home. ABC’s Dancing with the Stars catapulted to 2^nd place with a 13.2% market share of visits while FOX’s Prison Break site cracked the top 10 for the first time. On the cable side, Paula’s Home Cooking is the top visited show online, one of the 3 Food Networks sites in the top 10. (Cynopsis 9/8)

Top Visited US Broadcast Network TV Websites (Week ending Aug. 30, 2008)
Rank                Network Website    Market Share of Visits
1  CBS             www.cbs.com 31.22%
2  NBC           www.nbc.com 24.28%
3  ABC             www.abc.com 22.64%
4  FOX*            www.fox.com 16.56%
5 The CW      www.cwtv.com 4.87%
6 MNTV   www.mynetworktv.com .41%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise, *includes traffic aggregated from stand alone websites americanidol.com, amw.com, familyguy.com, thelot.com and thesimpsons.com.

Top Visited US Broadcast Network TV Show Sites (Week ending Aug. 30, 2008)
Rank   Network       Website                      Market Share of Visits
1          CBS          Big Brother 9                        15.14%
2          ABC          Dancing With The Stars         13.28%
3          FOX          American’s Got Talent            10.04%
4          FOX          Prison Break                          8.47%
5          NBC          Deal or No Deal                     5.62%
6          FOX          America’s Most Wanted           3.88%
7          FOX          American Idol                         3.64%
8          NBC          The Office                              1.87%
9          NBC          Heroes                                   1.58%
10         CBS          CSI                                        1.56%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise

Top Visited US Cable Network TV Show Sites (Week ending Aug. 30, 2008)
Rank   Network                   Website                   Market Share of Visits
1     Cartoon Network      Drama Island                     14.96%
2     Cartoon Network      Ben 10: Alien Force              3.97%
3     Nickelodeon             Spongebob                          3.52%
4     Food Network          Paula’s Home Cooking           2.97%
5     ABC Family              Secret Life of the Am. Teen   2.48%
6     Comedy Central       South Park                           2.47%
7     SciFi                       Eureka                                 2.07%
8     Cartoon Network      Chowder                              2.00%
9     BET                        106 & Park                            1.99%
10    Cartoon Network      Naruto                                  1.83%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise

Top Visited US Cable Network TV Show Sites - Excluding Children’s Programming (Week ending Aug. 30, 2008)
Rank   Network                   Website                   Market Share of Visits
1     Food Network          Paula’s Home Cooking           5.10%
2     ABC Family              Secret Life of the Am. Teen   4.33%
3     Comedy Central       South Park                           4.32%
4     SciFi                       Eureka                                 3.62%
5     BET                        106 & Park                           3.48%
6     MTV                        The Hills                               3.06%
7     Comedy Central       The Daily Show                     2.62%
8     Fox News                O’Reilly Factor                       2.46%
9     Food Network          30 Minute Meals                    2.12%
10    Food Network          Everyday Italian                    1.87%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise