Networks & Studios

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Monday, July 6, 2009 at 10:18 AM PT

 

Vid-Biz: iPods, Watchmen, Nielsen

iPod Lineup to Get Video? Whispers of a video camera and pictures of a new case with a camera-friendly hole have blogs buzzing. (TechCrunch) Speaking of i-video, check out this Guide to Video on the iPhone 3GS; exposure, focus, and the “jelly” effect are some of the sample topics discussed in this comprehensive breakdown of video on the device. (the automatic filmmaker)

Watchmen Director’s Cut Leaked to Torrent Sites; version for the upcoming DVD and Blu-ray release now online, but since the movie basically bombed, does it matter? (io9)

Nielsen: Video Stats on Tots; among kids ages 2 to 11, 5.1 million boys and 5.2 million girls watched online video in May, but boys watched more streams and spent more time watching videos online. (emailed release)

ViralHeat Comes Out of Private Beta; social media measurement tool scans sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter to see what brands are being discussed. (TechCrunch)

Mobile DTV is One Step Closer; the Advanced Television Systems Committee raised the ATSC-Mobile/Handheld standard to “proposed standard” status, which should keep it on track for being approved by the end of the third quarter. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Jay Leno Wins Cybersquatting Case; a U.N. agency finds Texas man misused “jaylenoshow.com” to direct traffic to a real estate site. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Monday, July 6, 2009 at 6:58 AM PT

 

ABC Content Now on Hulu

If I was the Count from Sesame Street I would say something like, “Three! Three of the four major broadcast networks now have their content on Hulu!” (with accent, of course). ABC, which had long been a Hulu holdout, refusing to run its full-length content anywhere but on its own web site, kicked off its Hulu presence today with episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Grey’s is the only ABC content currently up on Hulu, and there isn’t even a whole lot of it up right now. There are just five episodes from the last season, and no clips (the show doesn’t even have clips up at YouTube, where ABC/Disney has a short-form content deal). According to a Hulu press release, over the next two weeks, more ABC shows will appear on the site including: I Survived a Japanese Game Show, The Superstars, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Scrubs.

In April, Disney became an equal partner in Hulu, joining fellow broadcasters FOX and NBC in the endeavor. As part of that deal, Hulu will get exclusive access to full-length programming from ABC, ABC Family and the Disney Channel, as well as popular library TV shows and films.

With ABC now up and running on Hulu, only CBS remains as the lone broadcaster not playing along. That’s one! One major broadcaster left!

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Friday, July 3, 2009 at 11:11 AM PT

 

Wimbledon? More Like Wimble-Done Already!

I’m in the midst of moving, so I’m stuck in between mountains of cardboard boxes and molehills of bubble wrap this holiday weekend. That means I have little access to the Internet and television and, by extension, the Wimbledon semi-finals. Evidently, NBC forgot the “live” part of its online live-streaming and is delaying the televised and online coverage, a tactic NBC CEO Jeff Zucker is fond of (tape-delayed Olympics, anyone?).

East Coast bloggers are particularly perturbed:

Staci D. Kramer (the “D” is for “Damn you, Jeff Zucker!”) at paidContent writes:

I’m sitting outside on a lovely Friday morning, sipping a cup of tea and catching up on the news. What’s wrong with this picture? It’s the final Friday of Wimbledon and I’m reduced to either watching a pirated feed from a place where the broadcasters value live sports or following the Andy Roddick-Andy Murray match vicariously through Twitters and live blogs. That’s because NBC Universal values the Today Show more than live sports and, or at least, more than this live sport and its fans, and NBC Sports has the right to “save” a match for its exclusive window.

And Henry Blodget, who seems ready to bludgeon Zucker, writes over at Silicon Alley Insider:

Following on its disastrous “coverage” of the Wimbledon quarterfinals, NBC is now wrecking the Wimbledon semifinals.

Andy Murray and Andy Roddick are a tight first set (Roddick’s up 4-3). ESPN, which owns the rights for this hour, can’t show the match on TV because NBC won’t let them.

NBC, meanwhile, refuses to show the match online, because that might dilute its TV audience when it finally bothers to put Wimbledon on the air.

If NBC’s coverage was a tennis match, this would be a double fault.

Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 3:02 PM PT

 

Vid-Biz: Thriller, Sales Growth, Oscilloscope

Thriller Gets 28M Views Since Jackson’s Death; copies of the groundbreaking music video rack up the playcounts, according to Visible Measures. (company blog)

Digital Media Sales Up Only 0.9% Year-Over-Year; but paid models doing better than advertising, according to Strategy Analytics. (release)

Warner Bros. to Distribute Oscilloscope Online; Warner Bros. Digital Distribution has exclusive for digital release of firm’s boutique films. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Obama Takes Citizen Video Questions; prez hosts midday town hall on health care reform Wednesday, includes video questions from YouTube. (YouTube, transcript)

AMC Acquires Movie Sites; the network launches digital media unit and buys filmsite.org and filmcritic.com. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Five CEO Wants British Hulu; UK broadcasters should team up (even though that whole Kangaroo thing didn’t work out), says Dawn Airey. (Variety)

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 at 10:31 AM PT

 

Vid-Biz: Hulu, Google, YooStar

Hulu No Longer Accessible on PS3 Browsers; trying to reach the site via the game platform results in the message, “Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.” (Engadget)

Google Invites News Sources to Become YouTube Partners; company says the 25,000+ sources already found in Google News are invited to share (and monetize) news video as official YouTube Partners. (Google News Blog)

YooStar Wants to Be the “Guitar Hero” of Movies; game lets users digitally insert a performance into a scene and upload it to the web. (Variety)

Dish to Launch Addressable Ad Service; satellite TV service partners with GroupM, will use Invidi to store targeted ads on set-top boxes, similar to the set up DirecTV announced recently. (MediaWeek)

Advertisers Experiment with Video Approaches; among them, TV.com testing a method where viewers earn credits to earn a commercial-free experience. (Ad Age)

Akamai and KIT Digital Enter into Strategic Alliance; marketing and sales agreement will have the two companies packaging and selling each others services. (release)

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 at 8:28 AM PT

 

YouTube Launches Reporters’ Center

Being a reporter takes more than a video camera and the willingness to put yourself in harm’s way. There are skills and techniques that every good news gatherer should know, and to help out, YouTube launched its new Reporters’ Center over the weekend.

The new section features videos from top journalists doling out advice on a wide variety of reporting topics. Katie Couric explains how to conduct a good interview; NPR’s Scott Simon discusses how to tell a good story; and Bob Woodward talks about investigative journalism. The Reporters’ Center will also be a place where aspiring citizen journalists can “learn practical and ethical tips, like how to fact check your stories, avoid breaking the law while reporting, and adhere to journalistic principles.”

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Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 at 7:29 AM PT

 

More Networks Line Up for TV Everywhere Test

Comcast’s TV Everywhere test is expected to include TV programming from Scripps Networks, Rainbow Media, A&E Television Networks and Comcast Networks, reports Multichannel News. They will join Time Warner’s TNT and TBS networks, which were announced as inaugural participants in the trial earlier this week.

TV Everywhere aims to put full-length cable programming online, but require viewers to prove that they have a cable subscription before they’re able to watch. Currently most full-length episodes from cable networks aren’t available on the web.

Scripps programming includes the Food Network and HGTV; Cablevision’s Rainbow Media has AMC (home of Mad Men and Breaking Bad) and Sundance Channel; A&E has A&E (obvs) as well as Bio and the History Channel; and Comcast Networks has G4 and E!.

According to Multichannel, Viacom’s MTV, Disney/ABC and NBC Universal won’t be part of the initial trial, but are open to participating later on.

The Comcast TV Everywhere trial begins next month and will roll out to 5,000 people nationwide.

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 7:30 PM PT

 

Boxee (Officially!) Partners to Bring MLB to TV

Boxee made a slew of announcements at its App Developer Challenge in San Francisco this evening, and key among them was the news that MLB.tv was added to the open-source media platform. Starting tonight, MLB.tv Premium subscribers will be able to watch games piped over the Internet on their big screen TVs (or just on their PCs) through the Boxee browser.

MLB - choosing a game

What’s interesting about this announcement is that the addition of baseball to Boxee was done in an official partnership with Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM). This wasn’t just some hack that Boxee put together, so presumably the company will avoid the troubles it got into with Hulu.

But it’s also nice to see the MLB is still forward thinking when it comes to web video. Sports leagues get very particular about where, when and how games reach consumers. But the MLB has proven itself very tech-savvy as an early adopter of online video, and this season added HD capabilities and DVR functionality to its service. MLB also offers an iPhone app to allow fans to watch games on the go.

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Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 8:40 AM PT

 

Where to Watch Wimbledon Online

WimbledonThis is a big week for NBCSports.com. After a rain-delayed U.S. Open Golf Championship spilled over into a live-streamed Monday finale, the sporting world now turns its eyes to Wimbledon, where the grand-pappy of tennis tournaments kicks off this week (watch it here).

And for the first time in the U.S. this year, coverage of Wimbledon will be available via free, live online streaming, including the men’s and women’s finals (hat tip to MediaPost).

From the NBC press release:

NBC Sports will present more than 38 broadcast hours of coverage over nine days from Wimbledon beginning this Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, and includes live coverage of the Gentleman’s and Ladies’ Finals. All matches televised by NBC Sports are available online at Live at Wimbledon via NBCSports.com and Wimbledon.org.

This marks a shift for Wimbledon, which last year only offered live-streamed coverage via a $25 subscription (and only to Windows users). Despite that fee, the tournament generated 1 million live and 4 million on-demand streams last year. From the Wimbledon.org site, it looks like there is still a subscription for U.K. residents. (Since we’re in the U.S., it blocked us from getting too far into the subscription process.)

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Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Monday, June 22, 2009 at 8:21 AM PT

 

Vid-Biz: LG, White House, WetPaint

LG Electronics Adopting ARM Processors; newest TVs feature so many functions, like widgets and the ability to display web pages, a more general-purpose microprocessor is needed. (VentureBeat)

White House YouTube Privacy Update; the code still sends cookies back to Google when a video is watched, but Google doesn’t store the information anywhere. (MediaMemo)

WetPaint Unveils TV Fandex; service tracks “fan engagement” of popular TV shows on Facebook, Twitter, Google and WetPaint’s own network of fan sites. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Break.com Launches MadeMan.com; site to go after (surprise!) guys with info on gadgets, sports and night clubs, as well as such Break-like videos as “Hot Babes Test Bras on a Roller Coaster.” (MediaWeek)

Soon-to-Be SyFy Network Buys Up Negative Domains; network braces for backlash over rebranding by purchasing names including SyfySucks.com and NoSyFy.com (NoSyfy slipped through their grasp). (Broadcasting & Cable)

JibJab Makes Barack Obama a Superhero; new original animated music vid, He’s Barack Obama, packs some presidential punch. (JibJab)

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