Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
“True Blood,” the HBO series about vampires, has extended its reach. The new deal is designed to bring the blood-letting series to central European countries such as Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Romania, which includes the Transylvania region. Variety (2/13)
In the past two months, Google has abandoned its efforts to sell newspaper and radio advertising. Will it pull the plug on its initiative to sell television ads, too? A range of companies are also developing technologies “that do a better job” of allowing advertisers to target TV viewers. (Iwantmedia 2/16, http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE51C6IE20090213 2/13)
(Below) I can’t hate on E! too much as they currently are the home for Chelsea Lately. But, as an open letter to their programming staff, I say simply…SERIOUSLY?!
E! approved a new reality project combining cheerleaders and paranormal investigation, reports THR. Hot Girls in Scary Places, from Go Go Luckey, takes three University of Southern California cheerleader friends and challenges them to stay overnight in a reportedly haunted hospital. The three girls then compete for a $10,000 cash prize. E! will debut the show as a special/backdoor pilot on Friday, March 13th. (Cynopsis 2/16)
ABC is adding a comedy pilot called Funny in Farsi based on a memoir by Firoozeh Dumas about her experiences moving to the U.S. from Iran and growing up in 1970s Newport Beach. (Cynopsis 2/16)
ABC also said yes to an untitled Jeff Strauss comedy from ABC Studios, per THR. This project, written by Strauss, will look at marriage and parenthood from the perspective of three couples. (Cynopsis 2/16)
NBC picked up another untitled comedy project from Justin Adler, Sony and Tantamount, cites THR, about a family of adult siblings. (Cynopsis 2/16)
CBS gave a nod to a comedy pilot titled Good Girls from CBS Paramount and Katalyst about two long-time female friends who want to transform themselves after making mistakes when they were younger. (Cynopsis 2/16)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ABC.com’s “Lost” and NBC.com’s “Saturday Night Live” top the list of the most-viewed shows from U.S. network online video players, according to Nielsen. “SNL’s” online popularity suggests that “there is a Web audience that might otherwise not watch these programs at all.” (Iwantmedia 2/16, http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/display/19768 2/13)
The much-anticipated online piracy trial aimed at shutting down P2P streaming site The Pirate Bay once and for all begins today in Stockholm, Sweden. Plaintiffs including Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., MGM Pictures Inc., Colombia Pictures Industries Inc., 20th Century Fox Films Co. and Sony BMG are seeking $14.3 million in compensation for lost revenues. Long a target of studios due to its popularity, cheekiness and utter disregard for copyright protections, The Pirate Bay found itself a target beginning in May of 2006 after Swedish police raided one of the group’s data centers containing servers that facilitate its file sharing activities. With more than 25 million peers at a given time, The Pirate Bay is by far the largest BitTorrent tracker and shutting down the site’s numerous servers could severely disrupt P2P file sharing across the globe, predicts TorrentFreak. (Cynopsis 2/16)
CBS Interactive utilized YouTube effectively last week by actually making a crucial clip of content available before it appeared on air. CBS uploaded Joaquin Phoenix obtuse interview with David Letterman, in which he discussed his new career change to hip-hop, in a play to increase on air viewership and get a head start on viral buzz. The ratings didn’t substantially spike that night but the clip racked up more than 2.5 million views within 36 hours of the telecast, according to internal CBS measurement. (Cynopsis 2/16)
Open APIs may not be a foregone conclusion after all among studios. Indicating a possible digital media policy sea change at Viacom, MTV notified developers through a blog post that, beginning in March, MTVN’s embeddable video player will no longer be available to third-party sites. Until now developers have been able to embed full-length, ad-supported videos from MTV, VH1, CMT and Logo directly on their sites. Going forward, third party sites will only have access to thumbnails and lists of videos that link back to MTVN sites. Needless to say developers, who spent time testing the API and helping to greatly increase the distribution of MTVN content on the web, are not happy. (Cynopsis 2/16)
Disney unveiled the Flash-driven DisneyXD.com, a companion site to its newly rebranded cable network Disney XD now focused on boys (formerly knows as Toon Disney.) The site combines elements of video sharing, virtual worlds and social networking, enabling kids to create profiles and avatars, accumulate points, play casual games and watch videos of original Disney content. (Cynopsis 2/16)
As layoffs continued to pound the economy in January, one beneficiary was job networking site LinkedIn. According to the latest January data from comScore, the LinkedIn’s U.S. unique visitors shot up 22 percent to 7.7 million, up from 6.3 million in December. Total minutes spent on the site doubled in January to 96.8 million, from 47.6 million in December. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/14/as-the-economy-sours-linkedins-popularity-grows 2/14)
Adult entertainment industry professionals are bemoaning New York Gov. Paterson’s plan to apply the so-called “iPod tax” on online music downloads to adult content on the Web. The Paterson administration wants to expand the state’s 4% sales tax to all digital purchases. (Iwantmedia 2/16, http://www.nypost.com/seven/02162009/news/regionalnews/taxxx_sparks_a_furor_155419.htm 2/16)
MySpace
has introduced a new image search feature to its integrated search engine, allowing users to quickly search through photos shared by their friends and the MySpace community. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/13/myspace-quietly-launches-site-wide-image-search 2/13)
Fast growing microblogging service Twitter raised $35 million in series C financing from Benchmark and Institutional Venture Partners. The company’s plans include enabling a robust echosystem to grow around the service and building revenue-generating products. (Cynopsis 2/16)
Web-site staffers at Vanity Fair magazine are “learning to Twitter,” they say. While the Conde Nast magazine made plans to live blog the Vanity Fair Oscar Party next Sunday, staffers discovered that the interface of VF’s blogging platform “doesn’t really work on an iPhone.” (Iwantmedia 2/16, http://www.vanityfair.com/online/culture/2009/02/13/vanity-fair-invades-the-twitter-zone.html 2/13)
Max Goldenson, daughter of ABC network founder and TV pioneer Leonard Goldenson, has launched a new multiplatform digital production outfit dubbed MWG Entertainment. MWG’s first project – “My Two Fans,” a 16-episode web musical about a late twentysomething’s attempt to rebound from a broken heart, is set to premiere on March 9 on YouTube, Blip.tv, Veoh, iTunes and Sling.com. (Cynopsis 2/16)
HarperCollins has turned to the Bebo community to find Britain’s latest slang words. The words were originally short-listed by a panel of 14-18 year-olds and have been divided into six categories; money orientated, ‘cool’, friends, girls/boys, street language and put-downs (always a source for inspiration). Bebo’s 10.5 million unique users in the UK are currently casting their votes and views on which of the slang words they think should be included. The list of teen slang words selected for the 30th edition of the Collins English dictionary will be made public by Bebo this summer. (Cynopsis 2/16)
Online video usage in the U.S. remained relatively flat in terms of uniques and total streams in Dec. compared to the previous month, according to Nielsen Online. The engagement metric of time spent per viewer actually declined by 4%. (Cynopsis 2/16)
Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)
Nov-08 Dec-08 Percent Change
Unique Viewers (000) 124,262 124,611 0%
Total Streams (000) 9,548,267 9,593,320 0%
Streams per Viewer 76.8 77 0%
Time per Viewer (min) 177.9 170.7 -4%
Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus, Includes progressive downloads, excludes video advertising
Top Online Brands ranked by Video Streams for December 2008 (U.S.)
Brand Total Streams (000) Unique Viewers (000)
YouTube 5,561,410 84,603
Yahoo! 223,604 22,231
Fox Interactive Media 223,130 16,245
Hulu 216,344 6,679
Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network 203,164 7,213
Google 189,964 25,484
ESPN 171,930 8,228
MSN/Windows Live 153,056 12,384
ABC.com 117,652 3,578
Turner Sports and Ent. Digital Network 99,909 4,423
Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus, Includes progressive downloads, excludes video advertising
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Filed under: WIRELESS
Once again, Microsoft is throwing some flattery Apple’s way by following its lead. Earlier today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft announced the latest version of its mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5. The new OS takes cues directly from the iPhone. It has “an improved touch-screen interface, making it easy to take action with a finger” and a dashboard-like interface with different application icons in honeycomb cells (screen shots). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/16/microsoft-updates-windows-mobile-to-make-it-more-like-the-iphone-my-phone-anyone 2/16)
CEO Steve Ballmer has revealed that Microsoft will launch a service like Apple’s popular App Store that will give Windows users easier access to add-ons for their smartphones. The App Store’s success has inspired similar moves from Google and Research in Motion to cater to their own mobile platforms. Financial Times (2/16)
At the Mobile Word Congress in Barcelona, Nokia has unveiled its initiative to try and repeat the runaway succes of Apple’s App Store with its own mobile storefront dubbed Ovi Store. This was an expected move as the rumors about the Finnish mobile juggernaut’s mobile applications store already spread last week; they were late confirmed to Reuters by industry sources. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/16/nokia-unveils-ovi-store-application-sales-to-debut-in-may 2/16)
Adobe wants everyone to know that its fully-featured Flash Player, not the dinky lite version, will be available on many mobile phones . . . in 2010. So hang tight until then. The phones that will support Flash 10 include the Palm Pre, Nokia S60 models, Android phones, and Windows Mobile. (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/02/15/adobe-is-all-flash-announces-vaporware-for-several-mobile-phones-except-the-iphone 2/15)
Lionsgate reached an agreement with mobile services company Webalo, Inc. to enable the studio’s executives to be the first to receive smartphone access to up-to-the-minute figures about box office receipts and other performance data, via Webalo’s Mobile Dashboard Service. (Cynopsis 2/16)
Samsung has teamed up with Texas Instruments for the development of built-in video projectors on its W7900 and I7410 smartphones. The phones, set to launch in South Korea and Europe early this year, can produce images in excess of 50 inches. MSNBC/The Associated Press (2/13)
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Filed under: GAMING
Video game sales in the U.S. climbed to $1.33 billion in the first month of the year, a 13% gain over 2008. The Nintendo Wii was the industry’s top product, selling at double the pace of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation. InformationWeek (2/13)
Dawdle, an online market for resold games, consoles and accessories, relaunched this past Fall as a niche eBay competitor of sorts. It’s a place where gamers can get some money back on their old supplies, albeit not through auctions but a straightforward price listing and “buy it now” process. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/16/dawdle-invites-game-resellers-to-set-up-shop 2/16)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY
The next generation of high-definition video technologies — with advancements such as stereoscopic 3-D imaging and MPEG-4 compression systems — gives the cable TV industry a prime opportunity to stand apart from its rivals, according to Dick Green, president and CEO of CableLabs. “You can get video from a lot of sources — satellite, telephone companies, over the Internet,” he said. “So it is important for us to look at how the cable industry can enhance the video product and differentiate ourselves from our competitors … .” Broadcasting & Cable (2/16)
Sony has announced that it will close its decade-old PlayStation store at the Metreon shopping center in San Francisco by this summer. The 350,000-square-foot shop is Sony’s only PlayStation-specific store in the U.S. VentureBeat (2/13)
