Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Arts, David Lynch, movie, Rainbow Media, Sundance Channel, Television, United States, Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. TV insiders confirm that the much-discussed “Gossip” spinoff will revolve around the character of Lily van der Woodsen. But instead of focusing on the grown-up Lily, the show will flash back to the 1980s, when Lily, then known as Lily Rhodes, was a wild child living life as a Valley Girl. (http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/01/gossip_girl_goes_retro_with_80.php 1/14)
Showtime, which added about 1 million subscribers in 2008 for a current total of 16.5 million households, will continue to focus on original programming in the year ahead, according to Bob Greenblatt, president of entertainment for the channel, which will debut “United States of Tara” next week. “We’re living through an evolution where original programming is the thing,” Greenblatt said. Broadcasting & Cable (1/14) , Variety (1/14)
Fox International Channels (FIC) announced the first-ever global debut of the drama series The Listener during the first week of March. FIC will open the 13-episode series produced by Shaftesbury Films on all Fox entertainment channels in 180 countries worldwide including the U.K., Italy, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Poland, Brazil and Turkey. FIC’s premiere of The Listener precedes that of NBC in the U.S. and on CTV, Canada later this year. (Cynopsis 1/15)
Rainbow Media’s Sundance Channel has picked up 26 independent films that will debut on the network in the coming year. Filmmaker David Lynch plays a starring role in the haul, which includes his 2006 film “Inland Empire,” a restored version of his cult classic “Eraserhead,” and “Lynch,” a documentary about the man himself. Variety (1/14)
The Screen Actors Guild decided to push ahead with plans to authorize a strike vote after a moderate faction failed to push through a proposal during a marathon meeting on Monday and Tuesday that would have ousted National Executive Director Doug Allen and taken a strike off the table. No mailing date has been set for the previously approved TV/Theatrical strike authorization referendum. (Cynopsis 1/15)
New York State Supreme Court Judge Richard Lowe threw a pass to both the Dish Network and the NFL Network, per Multichannel News. Judge Lowe did not order Dish Network to place NFL Network back on a more widely distributed channel tier. On the other hand, Judge Lowe also stated the action sparking Dish to move NFL Network’s simulcast of the New England Patriot/New York Giants game in December 2007 also “did not trigger the specific contract provisions allowing EchoStar to drop the NFL to a lower level of service last February.” NFL Network President Steve Bornstein said, “This is an important ruling for us.” Judge Lowe’s decision will likely be unsealed Thursday and a trial on the case has been scheduled for June. NFL Network filed a suit against Dish Network about a year ago after the satellite company moved NFL Network to the America’s Top 200 tier leading to the network losing approximately 4 million subscribers. (Cynopsis 1/15)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=040889a5-4011-46d1-a40b-cfa6ac0adcfd)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Apple, Burger King, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Facebook, Myspace, Warner Music Group, Whoopi Goldberg, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
YouTube wants to be on your TV set bad. It’s squeezing its way in through Apple TV, TiVo, and now videogame consoles: the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3. Just point those videogame browsers to www.youtube.com/tv and you can now watch a customized version of YouTube from your couch. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/15/youtube-comes-to-the-wii-and-ps3-but-not-xbox 1/15)
Facebook’s ongoing effort to launch a free streaming music service is stalled, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. The company was close to a deal that would bring free streaming music from three of the four big labels (Universal, Sony, EMI) through the Total Music joint venture. But the deal stalled when the lone holdout, Warner Music, refused to participate. (
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/15/how-warner-music-killed-facebook-music 1/15)
Burger King, through their insanely creative advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (see their recent Burger King perfume launch), launches a Facebook application that encourages users to remove Facebook friends. Sacrifice ten of them and you got a free Whopper. 233,906 friends were removed by 82,771 people in less than a week. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/facebook-blows-a-whopper-of-an-opportunity 1/14)
MySpace Music
added a few hundred thousand songs to its streaming music service today by signing up four more independent-label aggregators (Nettwerk Music Group, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, and RoyaltyShare) plus indie label Wind-up Records. This comes at a time when Facebook is still facing hurdles to launching its own music service. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/15/while-facebook-fiddles-myspace-music-signs-up-another-five-indie-partners 1/15)
Whoopi Goldberg, once a regular on Star Trek: The Next Generation, is set to executive produce and star in the sci-fi miniseries “Stream” for FEARnet.com, per Variety. The series will air in six 5-minute weekly installments both online and via on demand beginning Jan. 15.
Highlight of Whoopi’s career? The Color Purple. Low point? This series. Ooooooo. This first episode is bad…and not in that Twilight so-bad-it’s-good sort of way.
At Google, when it rains, it pours. In the wake of announcing its first round of layoffs this afternoon, Google has released several blog posts detailing the upcoming shutdown of a number of services (compiled here by Danny Sullivan). Included among the upcoming closures are: Google Notebooks, Google Catalogs, Dodgeball, Google Video, Google Mashup Editor, and future development of Jaiku (though the service will live on). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/google-axes-dodgeball-jaiku-video-and-more 1/14)
Google padded its lead in search dramatically in 2008 growing by 33.5% to achieve nearly 63% of all U.S. searches, according to Nielsen Online‘s MegaView data. MSN/Windows Live was the big loser, declining by 15% to capture less than 10% of the market for December. If the Yahoo and MSN were to combine search services they would have 26.6% of the market. (Cynopsis 1/15)
Top 10 Search Providers for December 2008, Ranked by Searches (U.S.)
Provider Searches (000) YOY Growth Share of Searches
All Search 8,623,705 19.6% 100.0%
Google Search 5,421,943 33.5% 62.9%
Yahoo! Search 1,448,140 13.7% 16.8%
MSN/Windows Live 841,457 -15.5% 9.8%
AOL Search 357,025 5.1% 4.1%
Ask.com Search 169,116 6.0% 2.0%
My Web Search 62,415 -11.6% 0.7%
Comcast Search 50,385 45.1% 0.6%
NexTag Search 29,219 0.7% 0.3%
AT&T Worldnet Search 27,176 8.0% 0.3%
BizRate Search 23,593 37.1% 0.3%
Source: Nielsen Online, MegaView Search
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f722ffb9-73a6-4e89-bf01-b47aca04ecf2)
Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Apple, Facebook, Flash memory, Hardware, iPhone, SanDisk, Subscriber Identity Module, Y Combinator
Mob Wars – a largely text based strategy game that throws users into a virtual underworld of organized crime – has become a Facebook phenomenon, with 2,680,129 monthly active users and monthly revenues rumored to exceed $1 million. The game isn’t the first of its kind (in fact, similar text-based games have been around for many years), but it is among the first to go truly mainstream. Now Y Combinator startup Addmired is looking to capitalize on the popularity of Mob Wars and its ilk by developing a new game for the iPhone dubbed iMob Online. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/15/imob-hits-the-iphone-prepare-to-become-an-addict 1/15)
Wireless carriers and handset makers could offer rich multimedia content pre-loaded on flash-memory devices under new content-protection technology LG and SanDisk are developing in which carriers can offer premium services that they limit to their subscribers, the companies announced Wednesday. The Smart Card Web Server verifies the user’s rights to view content through data on their SIM cards as the memory card works as a network node carriers can control from their facilities. InformationWeek (1/14)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a647705a-8b4b-4c30-9203-a54f299dc950)
Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Blu-ray Disc, DVD, Hollywood Reporter, Microsoft, Mobile phone, Motorola, Steve Ballmer, Wall Street Journal
Global shipments of personal computers dropped 0.4% in the fourth quarter last year while U.S. shipments fell 3.5%, according to a study by research firm IDC. IDC analyst Loren Loverde characterized the drop as “pretty dramatic,” noting that netbook computers were one of the only bright spots for the industry during the last three months of 2008. The Wall Street Journal (1/15)
Motorola confirmed Wednesday it will eliminate an additional 4,000 jobs — all but 1,000 from its mobile-devices unit — after cell phone sales plummeted more than 50% in its fourth quarter. The handset maker sold 19 million phones compared with more than 40 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. Combined with the elimination of 3,000 positions announced in October, Motorola said it would save about $1.5 billion a year. 
ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg (1/15) , The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (1/15) , Yahoo!/The Associated Press (1/14)
(Below) Sigh. Simplification is the name of the game at this point…
If video killed the radio star, DVDs and Blu-rays have helped to do in the Laserdisc format. Pioneer reportedly is shutting down production of its DVL-919 Laserdisc/DVD/CD player as well as the DVK-900 and DVL-K88 models. ElectronicHouse.com (1/14)
Mirroring overall consumer-spending trends in the U.S. last year, home-entertainment spending fell 5.7%, with standard-definition DVD sales down 9.5%. Some analysts suggested that rising Blu-ray sales are dictating the end of DVD’s day. The Hollywood Reporter (1/14)
Rumors of massive job cuts at Microsoft — totaling perhaps 15,000 positions — appear to be unfounded. However, the company is reportedly mulling job cuts that could be announced next week. CEO Steve Ballmer said: “We’re finding our right balance. When we find it, I’m sure we’ll communicate that publicly.” The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) (1/15)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7d7a2658-97fa-4e12-9239-5d3305aaf321)
