Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Cannonball Run II, CBS, Dom DeLuise, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, New Adventures of Old Christine, Smokey and the Bandit, Warner Bros.
TNT scored with its 2009 NBA Playoffs coverage, delivering the best first round ratings ever. TNT attracted 14% more total viewers than the previous year (nearly 3.4 million vs. almost 3.0 million). Furthermore, TNT’s broadcast of game #7 on May 2 was the most-watched Round One game in cable TV history at 5.0 million viewers with households as well as 7.0 million total viewers. (Cynopsis 5/6)
Lifetime has announced that it will bring back its popular “Army Wives” series for a third season June 7. The show is the most-watched drama among women 18 to 49 on ad-supported cable TV, and its Season 2 finale last November was the most-watched show in Lifetime’s 25-year history. Variety (5/5)
Spike TV has acquired the off-network rights to HBO’s “Entourage” for a reported $600,000 per episode. As part of the deal, Spike, beginning in January, gets to telecast the 78 episodes already produced, the upcoming sixth season and any future episodes. The Hollywood Reporter (5/5)
FOX announced it will not continue with its half-hour Saturday late-night program Talk Show With Spike Feresten for a fourth season. (Cynopsis 5/6)
CBS’ sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine will be back for a fifth season, though which network will carry the series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus is up in the air, reports THR. ABC made a back-up agreement with Warner Bros. TV, producer of the series, for a full-season order of 22 episodes if CBS opts to not pick up the show. (Cynopsis 5/6)
Funny man, Dom DeLuise died Monday night, passing away in his sleep after a long illness. He was 75. With a stage, film and television career spanning 50 years, Dom is remembered for his comedic film roles starring opposite his best friend Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and the Cannonball Run films from 1981 and 1984. (Cynopsis 5/6)
While Walt Disney Co.’s quarterly profit fell 46% in the first quarter, the highly diversified company’s cable unit — which includes ESPN and the Disney Channel — saw revenue of $2.2 billion, a 4% improvement, and operating income of $1.14 billion, a 5% increase. Additionally, Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger said the company’s recent investment in online video site Hulu.com would help drive Web traffic back to Disney portals, such as ESPN.com. ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg (5/5) , The Wall Street Journal (5/6) , Reuters (5/5) , OneTRAK (5/5)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Arts and Entertainment, Business, Hulu, Robert Iger, Television, TheWB.com, Time Warner, Walt Disney Company
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Disney‘s deal to take an equity stake in Hulu and put video content on the site isn’t a threat to the media giant’s existing businesses, says CEO Bob Iger. Hulu will allow Disney to add new revenue streams and combat the rise of digital piracy. “We think we can expand the audience.” (Iwantmedia 5/6, http://www.smartmoney.com/news/ON/?story=ON-20090505-000689-1813 5/5)
Social media is coming to Warner Bros. Television’s Web sites, thanks to a property at Time Warner sibling AOL called Socialthing. A feed of members’ activity on sites such as TheWB.com and TheCW.com will be displayed on their Socialthing profiles for their online “friends” to see. (Iwantmedia 5/6,
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10233896-36.html 5/5)
U.S. Congress is considering a bill that could force radio companies to pay royalties of as much as $500 million a year to record labels and artists whose music they play. If the deal goes through, it could change the economics in the struggling music industry. (Iwantmedia 5/6, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124156573280489397.html 5/6)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: AT&T, iPhone, Microsoft, Mobile phone, Nokia, Research In Motion, Smartphone, Wall Street Journal
The rise of the mobile-app market has helped send the popularity of games soaring, according to a new AT&T-sponsored survey that found 57% of cell phone users are gamers — with more than half of those playing at work. AT&T also released a list of the 10 most popular games and applications that were downloaded on its network from January to March. The Wall Street Journal (5/5) , TMCNet.com (5/5)
Say you’re a wireless carrier with an exclusive deal on the hottest wireless device with the most popular application store. What do you do? Well, up until now, AT&T’s answer has been basically nothing. It had released zero apps taking advantage of the fast growing iPhone platform. Today, it finally got around to releasing one. (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/05/05/att-finally-releases-what-should-have-been-the-first-iphone-app 5/5)
Developers planning to write for Microsoft‘s new mobile market should forget about VoIP applications and programs that change the phone’s default browser or allow users to shop at rival app stores. Those are among the 12 rules Microsoft has spelled out for the downloadable-apps market the company is expected to launch — along with an operating system upgrade — in the second half of the year. PCWorld/IDG News Service (5/5)
AT&T is putting some of its smartphones on a diet: The carrier said Monday that it would begin selling in early summer Research in Motion‘s new BlackBerry Curve 8900 — at 0.53 inches deep, the phone is said to be RIM’s thinnest full-QWERTY release ever — and has put Nokia‘s new e71x on sale for $100. At 0.39 inches in depth, the Nokia 3G-enabled handset might be the world’s slimmest and is the first keyboard-equipped phone that Nokia has released in the U.S. in more than two years. TWICE (5/4) , xchange (5/4)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Blu-ray Disc, Consumer electronics, New York, New York City, Television, United States, VUDU
Amazon revealed its third Kindle today at a jam-packed press conference in New York City. The new Kindle, which Techcrunch first caught wind of last year,
is expected to have a larger screen to be used for reading newspapers, magazines, and textbooks. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/06/the-big-kindle-revealed-liveblog/ 5/6)
Old Kindle vs. the new Kindle.
Looking to add to its subscriber base, Vudu will begin offering its collection of movies to Entone, a company that supplies set-top boxes and DVRs to regional TV providers. Vudu’s library includes more than 14,000 movies and TV programs. CED Magazine (5/2009) , xchange (5/5)
Sales of “connected” consumer-electronics products — including TVs, set-top boxes, servers, consoles and Blu-ray players — will reach 100 million units by 2013, according to a new study by Parks Associates. Kurt Scherf of Parks said the trend toward connected CE systems was fueled by consumers who wanted “whole-home access” to content as well as the ability to bring Web content to their TVs. Dealerscope (5/6) , CEPro.com (5/5)
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