Archive for May 8th, 2007
Special Edition, Cable Show Headlines
Tuesday’s headlines from Viva Las Vegas and the 2007 National Show (aka the Cable Show):
Comcast Wants Same-Day Movie Releases, doesn’t say how it will deliver fresh popcorn. (Reuters)
FCC’s Martin: Don’t Hate Me, Cable! FCC chair tries to tell audience he isn’t their enemy, despite favoring just about every cable competitor out there. Leaves stage without taking questions, before tomatoes fly. (CommDaily; Telephony)
Cable Direct to your PC? The industry is “quietly” working on a spec to support two-way interactive communications with Internet-linked PCs, perhaps for the day when set-top boxes disappear. (Light Reading)
CableCo CEOs say They’re Whupping Telcos: Cox, Comcast and T-W honchos tell the choir not to worry about those big bad telcos. (Multichannel News)
Soundbites From Top Execs: Viacom, News Corp., Time-Warner and Comcast execs discuss issues on panel. Then they adjourn to smoky back room to cut deals. (PaidContent)
Advice, How-Tos Hoping for Broad Appeal
A recent spate of announcements indicates the 18- to 34-year-old male geek isn’t the only target audience for professional broadband video. Videos focused on everything from fashion tips for the budget-conscious clotheshorse to child-rearing advice for new mothers define some new content offerings that have recently been announced. Will these broad but well-defined niches bring advertising riches? We shall see.
Newbaby.com is born: Parenting guru Maria Bailey’s BSM Media conducted a study that concluded “80% of mothers are watching videos online, with 43% preferring videos that provide expert advice and solutions” according to the release.
So she co-founded NewBaby.com, a destination site for parents geared towards mothers. Besides a friend network and a series of blogs, it features advice from experts and “NewBaby TV” with plenty of questions and answers from both professionals and other parents.
Editors’ Pick: Good Morning World
You’ve got to watch about three episodes to start to appreciate daily video show Good Morning World, but I promise the extra time is worth it.
“A bad morning show for the world,” as creator Peter Oldring describes it, GMW doesn’t have much relevance to the daily happenings of the world, besides the fact that you can count on guffawing along with it each weekday morning. But hey, when was the last time you learned something from Regis and Kelly?
I was surprised to learn this week in a phone interview with Oldring that Good Morning World is entirely improvised. Sure, it’s got its regular gimmicks, but basically it’s just two guys riffing.
‘Disabled’ DVRs a Smart Choice for Cable
Reading the news today about Cox’s decision to “disable” the fast-forwarding capability from its network-based DVR for certain popular ABC shows and ESPN football broadcasts, you had to wonder: What took them so long to figure this out?
While the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the announcement calls disabling the commercial-skipping functionality an “unusual condition,” given the current economics of the content-production business, protecting commerical-supported programming through whatever means necessary is anything but unusual. And the guess here is that despite perhaps predictable criticism from TiVo enthusiasts, Cox viewers (and eventually other cable customers whose carriers will follow suit) probably care more about having viewing choices than they do about having the ability to skip commercials.
Will the Web Kill SportsCenter?
In my long-ago days as a sportswriter, I remember watching an early version of SportsCenter with my editor, who nodded toward the screen and said, “that’s killing what we do now.” What he meant was, no longer could daily newspapers remain relevant by filling up column-inches with wire-service box scores and game recaps. By the time our paper hit the doorstep, SportsCenter had been on not once but several times. The highlights game was over, for both newspapers and the three-minute sports-guy recap at the end of the local nightly news. SportsCenter was next.
Fast-forward a couple decades, and there are signs that the Internet may be replacing SportsCenter as the go-to guy for immediate highlights gratification. With the ability to become broadcasters themselves — either through conventional means, like a dedicated cable channel, or directly through the web, leagues everywhere are reining in broadcast rights and keeping content more exclusive, even making a few bucks per highlight in the process. Right now, ESPN is at the height of its power, charging premium fees from cable operators for the right to carry the channel. But for how much longer?
Superficially Yours, the New Cartoons
Woe is DC Comics. While competitor Marvel somehow emerged from the 20th century as the arbiter of superhero glam, DC, excluding the Superman and Batman franchises, remains little more than a silly putty-like substrate for the affectionate mockings of our collective pop consciousness.
Exhibit A: DC’s The Super Friends, a long-running animated series that has, in recent years, served as fodder for everything from Budweiser parodies to Office Space satire to political commentary. The latest riff, The Superficial Friends, drops pop heroes (Superman, Wonder Woman) in favor of pop starlets (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton), who binge and purge their way to justice.
Brandon Fletcher Debuts ‘Date: Unknown’
There was a time when a young person with a dream of making it in the entertainment industry would hustle money and favors from everyone they could find to put together a first feature, or even just a short, and shop it around to festivals and, hopefully, distributors. The other choice was working your way from production assistant up through the ranks or winning the pilot lottery. Things have changed.
Brandon Fletcher of New York gained some notoriety by publicly asking YouTube to feature him on the front page, even flying across the country and visiting their offices. The effort, “Can YouTube Hear Me,” did get him a chat, but no promise of feature status. That hasn’t deterred the 20-year-old music and video producer, who has now put together his own reality show, “Date: Unknown.”
Tuesday Morning Vid-Biz Headlines
Fresh off the NewTeeVee news ticker, headlines from the world of online video:
IPTV a Hit in China, should be in U.S. as well. (Telephony)
Title Fight Video Quickly Taken Off YouTube, as HBO sends a fast legal jab. (AP)
Hollywood Loves the Tiny Screen, but advertisers aren’t so enamored. (NY Times)
Cisco adds Internet Streaming Video Support, service-provider product due out this fall. (Cisco Press Release)
Cable Show gets Violent Start, with bomb blast, arrest of HBO exec. (Multichannel News)
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