NBC to offer shows through Viiv PCs
Two weeks ago, AOL announced a deal with Intel to distribute TV shows on Viiv PCs. Now NBC is expected to announce later this week that Viiv PC or Centrino notebook users can download shows like Heroes and Studio 60 on Sunset Strip. (While I’m on the topic, Heroes is the best new show of [...]
TiVo Series 3 units confounded by plasmas
Proud new owners of TiVo’s Series 3 DVR are discovering the remote controls basically don’t work if they have a plasma TV set. Turns out those plasmas emit a lot of frequency noise and confuse IR sensors nearby. While TiVo has yet to offer a solution, the folks at the TiVo Community are coming up [...]
Boondocks boots picas for pixels
Aaron McGruder is having a better time with “The Boondocks” in Hollywood than he had in newspapers. Universal Press Syndicate is warning clients that the edgy strip may not return to print any time soon. Meanwhile, Cartoon Network has renewed the late-night animated show for another season, the first-season DVD is selling, and rumors are [...]
Gmail down?
Safran and I have been unable to log into our Gmail accounts since 8:30amEST today. We’ve tried doing Google searches for any known issues and have called Google directly. No answers. We can’t even launch the Contact page on Google! Anyone else experiencing similar problems? You would think Google could post some sort of announcement [...]
Rosenblum launches Verizon-backed news unit in DC
Michael Rosenblum is working with Verizon to launch a video news project that will converge news gathering and distribution via cellphone, web and cable. Terry Heaton reports that the pilot could very well be the first of many to come in several cities and might give traditional TV news operations reason to watch closely. The [...]
Tribune execs would sell ‘many’ TV stations
The Chicago Tribune reports that Trib management’s favorite scenario would be to “spin off many of Tribune’s roughly two dozen television stations in a tax-advantaged transaction, unload several of the smaller papers and take the rest of the company private in a leveraged buyout.” The stations to keep? New York, LA and Chicago. But the [...]
Business Week’s Best of the Web 2006
Readers’ picks for the best websites are featured as part of Business Week’s special report, “Best of the Web 2006â€. (How very Web 2.0 of them.) The list is divided into 23 different categories organized into four groups, Information Overload, Money Matters, Not at Work, and Do-It-Yourself Web. Many of the top picks aren’t that [...]
Washington Post wins first broadband news Emmy
60 Minutes walked away with the most Emmy’s Monday night in the 27th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony. CNN’s Anderson Cooper won two awards. NBC won for its breaking news coverage of Katrina, and ABC took home a trophy for its “Money Trail” series of investigative reports, among others. And the first ever [...]
TV’s first virtual premiere
Wanna catch this week’s Laguna Beach a day early? Well, log into Virtual Laguna Beach (the kids call it VLB), find a date and attend the winter formal at a Spanish Villa. Then at 9 p.m. ET, cozy up with your date in front of a big-screen TV to watch Laguna Beach. “(It’s the) first [...]
NBC newscast reclaims lead from CBS
NBC Nightly News has ended the two-week winning streak posted by CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, according to preliminary ratings. Meanwhile, CBS News President Sean McManus has reiterated that the focus of his network’s new-look newscast is on “long-term developments, not the short term.”
Suit blames video game for Donaldson ranch slayings
The family members of three people who were killed on Sam Donaldson’s New Mexico ranch are suing the makers of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, blaming the game for compelling the teen accused in the killings to pull the trigger. The $600 million suit claims Cody Posey played the “virtual reality murder simulator” obsessively and [...]
IAB: Online ad revenue up 37 percent
The IAB and Pricewaterhouse Cooper have released online advertising stats for the first half of the year. While all online advertising is up 37 percent over the same period in 2005, search is up 40 percent and classifieds grew 20 percent. Despite the fact that Yahoo warned that ad growth could be slowing, the Online [...]
Real launches desktop news service
Called RealTime, it allows you to select from a suggested list (or enter your own) of content feeds, ranging from partner news content to blogs, that display in a thin bar along the bottom of the screen. You can also set it to alert you when a new item is posted in a given blog. [...]
ABC News to stream video on local sites
Less than a month ago, ABC announced that it would allow local stations to stream ABC’s primetime shows with local ad positions. Now ABC News is announcing it will make its player available to over 200 ABC affiliate websites this fall. The player will feature clips of World News and Good Morning America, with additional video highlights from across all ABC News broadcasts. And coming soon, affiliates can integrate their own content into the player. There’s no mention of advertising, but I imagine it will be a similar set-up as the the primetime streaming program. Of all the network groups, ABC seems to be making the fastest headway with integrating affiliates into a cohesive video strategy. Press release…
Do we need .mobi domains?
The new .mobi domains open up for general sale on Tuesday after companies were given the opportunity to lock in their trademarks. The new domain names — marketed to be the .com of mobile accessed content — are backed by Microsoft, Nokia and Vodaphone. But just like .tv, do we really need .mobi? Verizon says [...]
New Nintendo to feature news, weather
The new Nintendo gaming system Wii is hitting store shelves in November, and it will have news and weather channels built in. They use Wii’s funky little remote control, which is basically a cross between a laser pointer and a mouse (as TVs get bigger, this technology should be part of every remote control.) Check [...]
Selling video ads by impressions
Clickz’s Eric Picard says ABC’s recent announcement that it will start selling video ads based on flat rates instead of CPMs is a bad idea. “ABC is much better off selling impressions in a world where audience scarcity doesn’t exist,” he writes. (But keep in mind, this is for a site that has scale. Local [...]
