Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Academy Award, Arts, Harvey Milk, Movies, NBC Universal, Sean Penn, Starz, United States
Looking to whip up excitement about its upcoming “Party Down” series, Starz will release the first episode to multichannel providers a week before the March 20 debut. Partners such as Charter, Comcast, Cox, Mediacom and Insight plan to offer the episode, beginning March 13, via their on-demand and online services. Multichannel News (3/4)
NBC Universal announced the day-and-date release of the Focus Features film Milk, winner of two Academy Awards including Best Actor for Sean Penn‘s performance as Harvey Milk. The film will be available On Demand (VOD) March 10, the same day it releases on DVD and BLU-RAY HI-DEF from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. (Cynopsis 3/5)
Killing the DVD platform one day-and-date release at a time.
FOX announced it will premiere variety series Osbournes: Reloaded, headlined by the eccentric Osbourne clan of Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly, on March 31 at 9p following American Idol. The show will integrate audience interaction and comedic stunts as well as recurring segments such as “Osbourne in the USA” where the family works in places like a fast-food drive-thru. After its premiere, FOX will air additional Osbournes: Reloaded episodes as a series of specials throughout the season. FremantleMedia North America produces. (Cynopsis 3/5)
Michael Angelakis, Comcast’s chief financial officer, said the country’s largest cable provider would increase revenue, cash flow and revenue-generating units in 2009. “To what extent will we grow those metrics, I’m not 100% sure,” Angelakis said at an investor conference in Florida on Wednesday. “We are very confident we will grow those metrics.” CNNMoney.com/Dow Jones Newswires (3/4) , OneTRAK (3/4)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Boxee, Hulu, Joost, Podcast, Social network service, TechCrunch, TV.com, YouTube
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Techcrunch recently wrote that Joost still had a heartbeat despite the fact they made the wrong bet years ago by underestimating the power of the web for watching videos. They finally switched to Flash late last year, giving up on P2P, and introduced some social networking features around the video viewing experience to battle established players like Hulu, TV.com and YouTube. Now it’s taking a step beyond that by forming an alliance with Europe’s leading social networking service, Belgium-based Netlog
, theoretically expanding its reach to 40 million people. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/05/joost-continues-fight-for-relevancy-teams-up-with-social-network-netlog 3/5)
It’s still hard for me to take Joost seriously. A clusterf@#$ck of content that no one is really interested in now that we have Hulu…
Hulu really seems to be drawing a line in the sand for third-party developers. After pulling its content from the popular Boxee content portal, Hulu as now disabled video playback on the open source client-based desktop app MyMediaPlayer2, according to an open letter from developer Paul Yanez, who claims Hulu was disabled just 4 hours after the app was profiled in TechCrunch. The Adobe Air-based application, which utilized Hulu’s RSS feeds to pull a selection of movies and TV shows from Hulu with the ads attached, set out to expand Hulu’s availability to multiple OS’s, media players and devices while added increased functionality such as an integration with Twitter enabling micro-blogging during full-episode streaming. (Cynopsis 3/5)
The podcasting audience continues to grow at a healthy clip according to the latest eMarketer figures. As a percentage of internet users, podcast downloaders will grow from 9% in 2008 to 17% in 2013 to 37.6 million users. The number goes up significantly when cross-referenced with users who make purchases on the internet according to a PriceGrabber survey, which found that 50% of online buyers also listened to podcasts. (Cynopsis 3/5)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Emmy Award, Handhelds, iPhone, IpodTouch, Nokia, Showtime, Smartphones
Showtime, which received 21 Emmy nominations last year, will launch a campaign next month in an attempt to persuade Academy of Television Arts and Sciences members to take special note of breakout series such as “Weeds” and “The Tudors.” The new wrinkle in this year’s Emmy campaign is that Showtime will make full seasons available to ATAS voters’ iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Multichannel News (3/4)
Nokia, which has disclosed its preference for the Long-Term Evolution standard over WiMAX, plans to introduce 4G-enabled handsets in 2010, a company executive said Wednesday. “WiMAX has some place in the market, but we do believe it’s a niche play,” said James Harper, senior manager of technology marketing. The New York Times/GigaOM (3/4)
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Filed under: GAMING | Tags: Games, John Koller, Marketing, PlayStation Network, PlayStation Portable, PSP, Sony, Video Games
Sony is looking to expand the digital possibilities with its PSP, including turning the device into a virtual device. “There are obviously technical areas that need to be bridged. But when those are solved, consumers will see a wide variety of retro games and brand new games coming to the PlayStation Network,” said John Koller, Sony’s director of hardware marketing. CNET (3/4)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Amazon.com, High-Definition Multimedia Interface, Internet service provider, Remote control, Sharp AQUOS, Sony, Television, Universal Serial Bus
Silicon Valley-based ZillionTV says it believes it can support a free on-demand service by relying on highly targeted interactive advertising to provide programming to HDTVs through a Web-based set-top box. ZillionTV, which said it had reached content deals with five TV and movie studios, will also look to telecoms, cable companies and other ISPs as distribution outlets for its technology. BusinessWeek (3/4) , Multichannel News (3/4) , Reuters (3/4)
Sony and Amazon.com are leading the charge in the market for e-book readers, a market that some analysts say they believe will continue to grow. Naysayers do exist and question the ability of the devices to reach the mainstream consumer. TWICE (3/4)
Sharp is offering the AQUOS DH77 series full HD LCD TVs, which, according to the company, use less energy when the green eco-button is pushed on the TV remote. The sets in this line feature 50,000:1 contrast ratio, three HDMI inputs, a USB port and Sharp’s “Natural Clear Panel.” Pocket-lint.co.uk (3/4)
Leon Speakers has designed the v114i and v115i speakers with the capability to be either in-wall mains or timbre-matched rear channels. The v114i comes equipped with standard, audiophile-grade or Peerless HDS woofers, while the v115i features either European or audiophile-grade woofers. CEPro.com (3/4)
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Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Jimmy Fallon, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, NBC, NFL Network, NFL Scouting Combine, Sarah Silverman Program, Television, USA Network
NBC‘s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is off to a stellar start as the show debuted Monday night precisely at 1237a with a 2.3/8 in metered-market households, the highest-rated Monday for NBC with metered markets in more than three years. (Cynopsis 3/4)
USA Network has announced that its “summer” programming slate will begin a little early this year … on April 19, to be exact. That’s when USA will premiere the eighth-season opener of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and the second season of “In Plain Sight.” Variety (3/3)
NFL Network delivered 5.0 million viewers, according to Nielsen, for its exclusive four-day live coverage of the 2009 NFL Scouting Combine Presented by Under Armour from February 21-24. The television coverage gained in viewers by +26% over last year and visits to NFL.com jumped by +27%. Additionally, the network increased in ratings among A18-49 by +81% and with M18-49 by +68%. The NFL Scouting Combine watches as players engage in workouts such as the 40-yard dash and the bench press plus offers news coverage and more. (Cynopsis 3/4)
Sunday night’s season five finale of E!’s The Girls Next Door at 10p tallied a 3.18 rating among W18-34, a 1.8 HH rating and an average of more than 2.2 million total viewers. (Cynopsis 3/4)
Walt Disney Co. is preparing “High School Musical 4,” which is expected to premiere on the Disney Channel sometime next year. The latest iteration will have a new cast, and the plot will revolve around two rival high schools in Albuquerque, N.M. Reuters (3/3)
Following a four-day impasse between Comedy Central and the executive producers of The Sarah Silverman Program over a budget cut dispute, the live-action series will be back for a third season. Comedy Central ordered 10 episodes and the series will now be co-financed with sister cable network Logo. (Cynopsis 3/4)
ABC officially cancelled the drama series Life on Mars and will allow it to gracefully conclude with a definitive ending to the storyline. The network informed show producers it will not order additional episodes beyond the 17 in the works for this season and confirmed it won’t renew the series for next year. (Cynopsis 3/4)
As expected, President Barack Obama announced he will nominate Julius Genachowski as the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Genachowski will inherit a number of daunting challenges, including the transition to all-digital TV signals now scheduled for June 12 and developing a plan to bring broadband access to rural and low-income areas of the country. The Washington Post (3/4) , USA TODAY (3/3)
ESPN has joined with a group of sports leagues and off-Broadway theater owners to sue the FCC for its decision to allow unlicensed devices to operate between DTV signals. The suit, filed in the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, alleges that the use of the so-called “white spaces” will interfere with the wireless microphones that are used during sports telecasts and stage productions. Multichannel News (3/3)
First-quarter ad sales for the National Geographic Channel are up 11%, and the network is nearly sold out for March, according to Rich Goldfarb, senior vice president for advertising sales. And, with the cable TV upfront on the horizon, Nat Geo is developing one of its most ambitious programming schedules to date: 11 returning series and 10 new shows are in the hopper. TVWeek.com (3/3)
Comcast will begin discounting TiVo DVR service for new triple-play customers in the New England area, according to TiVo CEO Tom Rogers. The deal would offer TiVo for $9.95 a month, about the same price Comcast charges for its standard HD-DVR. Light Reading (3/3)
Cablevision will begin offering advertisers the chance to target their ads to specific households based on demographic segments such as income, ethnicity, sex and family makeup. According to this report, the service initially will be available in 500,000 homes in Brooklyn, the Bronx and parts of New Jersey. The New York Times (3/3)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: CNN, Facebook, Kirkland & Ellis, Mark Zuckerberg, Myspace, Netflix, Social network service, Twitter
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Here’s a clean look at the upcoming Facebook homepage redesign that will go live next week. The new design will give users the ability to easily feed the news stream by friend type and network, and gives users a much easier way to post links, photos and videos. The news feed will also begin updating in real time without page refreshes. See more here
. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also wrote a blog post summarizing the changes here. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/04/screen-shots-the-new-facebook-home-page 3/4)
I love the real-time update on the news feed. Now I won’t need to refresh Facebook 5.000 times a day. This will convince me that I don’t in fact have a social networking addition. Sigh. Dodged that bullet!
(Below) The only one I don’t really like is that company pages will become profiles much like MySpace enabled companies to have their own profiles. Why would I want to be friends with CNN? That feels wrong… I mean. I like CNN but I don’t like like CNN. I can’t exactly see what it looks like from the photos but I guess I’ll wait till next week.
Facebook made a number of announcements today about changes to its home page, profile pages, and activity streams. Taken together, these represent a concerted response to the rise of Twitter as a real-time message broadcasting system that goes beyond members’ personal circle of friends. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/04/facebooks-response-to-twitter 3/4)
DVD-rental icon Blockbuster, which has faced a competitive onslaught from companies like Netflix, has hired a law firm to analyze a possible restructuring. The company said it brought on Kirkland & Ellis to aid in “ongoing finance and capital raising initiatives,” but that it was not planning on seeking bankruptcy protection. 
ClipSyndicate (3/3) , The Wall Street Journal (3/4) , Reuters (3/3) , The New York Times (3/3)
Following the larger open access distribution trend, CBS Sports is looking to expand traffic to their NCAA March Madness on demand product by again offering third-party sites access to free applications that feed live scores and other info from the games. CBS has exclusive rights to video of NCAA tourney games (offered in HD this year via Microsoft’s Silverlight platform) but rivals sites including ESPN.com and Yahoo! Sports will have access to the apps, along with the extended CBS Interactive family. The NCAA March Madness on Demand Developer Platform‘s selection of widgets are more sophisticated this year, including applications dedicated solely to brackets, live scoring, news or each of the Division I Men’s Basketball programs. CBS drew 4.8 million unique visitors on its March Madness On Demand site last year, delivering 4.9 million total hours of live streaming video. Video consumption jumped an astounding 81% compared to the 2007 tournament. (Cynopsis 3/4)
After months of rumors, Google Health finally launched last May, promising to store our medical records in a secure way that is more accessible, easier to understand, and useful than traditional paper records. Since there hasn’t been too much news about the service, which isn’t particularly surprising given the sensitive nature of the information involved. Today, Google has announced that it has launched a significant new feature, giving users the ability to share their medical records with designated family or close friends. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/04/google-health-now-lets-you-share-your-medical-history-with-loved-ones 3/4)
MySpace may be in deep trouble, but that isn’t stopping them from capitalizing on middle America (and Los Angeles), which still rampantly loves the site. You can now get a MySpace branded credit card and rack up points to download free music on the site. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/04/will-a-credit-card-solve-myspaces-woes-who-cares-get-free-music 3/4)
Proving that Myspace can figure out how to become just a bit more lame. As someone who used to work in credit card marketing, I can tell you that co-branded cards usually don’t work. Remember the Sony Citi card? Yah, I didn’t think so…
The highly publicized Pirate Bay copyright infringement trial concluded yesterday in Stockholm with the site’s young defendants claiming that the P2P portal is simply an innocuous piece of internet infrastructure – a tool used to search for content uploaded by others. In closing statements on Monday, prosecutors asked the judge to issue one-year prison sentences to each defendant for enabling illegal copyright infringement. Industry lawyers weren’t that generous, pushing for the maximum penalty of 2 years. The final verdict is scheduled to be handed down on April 17. (Cynopsis 3/4)
Philippe Dauman, the chief executive officer of Viacom, has pronounced his company “very open” to initiatives such as TV Everywhere, Time Warner’s plan to make cable content available online to multichannel subscribers. “We think it has to be seamless to the consumer, and we’re working (with the distributors) on the consumer and technology side,” he said. Advertising Age (3/3)
(Below) Comcast and free Wi-Fi? Never thought I’d live to see the day…
Comcast has begun testing free Wi-Fi hot spots at commuter rail stations in New Jersey. Separately, the country’s largest cable provider launched DOCSIS 3.0-powered broadband service in the San Francisco Bay area with download speeds of up to 50 Mbps. CED Magazine (3/2009) , Light Reading (3/3)
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