‘La Fea mas Bella’ beats all English nets
The season finale of Univision’s telenovela “La Fea mas Bella” beat all five English broadcast networks Tuesday night. The show had 7.4 million viewers – CBS drew 7.06, Fox 5.65 million — and NBC and ABC under 5 million. La Fea mas Bella is a cousin of ABC’s Ugly Betty — both are based on [...]
CBS Radio producing live video webcast
Last week I pointed out a newspaper that was doing much more TV-like content and presentation, and tonight radio is pushing into our arena as well. CBS Radio is producing a live webcast tonight called “Live from the Web Carpet” at the red carpet of the Transformers premiere in Los Angeles. The webcast will be [...]
MySpace launches new video destination
Update: In a bid to take on YouTube, MySpace has launched a standalone site called MySpaceTV.com. The site features professional video “front and center,” and it aims to integrate video more seamlessly with social networking. “When you go to MySpace video now, what you see is far less appealing to the eye than what you [...]
Are rights issues chilling online sports news reporting?
There have been two national news stories this week involving sports. One is the death of WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and son in an apparent double-murder/suicide. The other is the House hearings into the NFL’s disability plans for retired football players. And although both those stories are getting airtime, Andrew Tyndall keenly observes [...]
Slate debuts a video magazine
The folks at Slate have launched SlateV.com, a companion video site to the online magazine. The site combines original features hosted by Slate writers with some user-created components. Multiple Emmy winner Bill Smee, formerly of Discovery Times Channel, and Andy Bowers, long-time NPR correspondent and creator of Slate’s video programs are running the site. Like [...]
BBC iPlayer launches July 27
Good news for those in the UK waiting anxiously for the launch of the new BBC iPlayer. It’s set to launch on July 27th. Director General Mark Thompson said: “This July we are going to launch the iPlayer and in our view, the iPlayer is at least as big a redefinition of what TV can [...]
MySpace founders want millions to re-up
MySpace founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe are reportedly asking for a massive compensation package to stick around with News Corp. after their current deals expire in October. How much compensation? It would put them just under Rupert Murdoch and COO Peter Chernin.
YouTube responsible for 10% of Internet traffic
And you thought YouTube was big before: A new report (PDF) by Ellacoya Networks shows that the Google-owned video site comprises a monster ten percent of all traffic on the Internet. Thanks to the video boom – HTTP traffic outpaced peer to peer traffic for the first time in four years. Granted, video is a [...]
Tentative agreement reached on Dow Jones control
Talks between News Corp. and Dow Jones has taken another big step forward with news that the two companies have reached a tentative agreement over editorial control. Explains the NY Times, “That clears the way for negotiation of price and other remaining issues. But some people close to the talks cautioned that certain details on [...]
Mossberg reviews the iPhone: Flawed, but a breakthrough
Wall Street Journal Personal Technology Columnist Walter Mossberg is not one who is prone to give in to hype. So I respect his product reviews. He put the iPhone to the test, and gives a detailed review in this video. His verdict? It’s indeed a breakthrough device, but has its flaws. Video review below… “Even [...]
Personalized copies of Wired arrive for lucky few
Back in April, Wired Magazine offered to personalize the July, 2007 cover for 5,000 lucky entrants. (The issue is dedicated to “the hyperlocal web.”) The magazine has been arriving this week, and LR pal Chip Mahaney of KDFW in Dallas is among those who graces their own cover. So here’s Cover Boy Chip, Wired’s Sexiest [...]
Now THAT’S an ad
I just punched up WashingtonPost.com and the screen pushed down… way down… And that’s on a 1280 x 1024 resolution setting. These kind of ads (which condense up to a narrow bar at the top of the page after a few seconds) are becoming all the rage on many newspaper sites these days.
Internet radio goes silent in protest
MTV Radio, Rhapsody, Pandora and thousands of other internet radio stations are silent Tuesday to protest the dramatic hike in music royalties that go into effect in three weeks. (A few stations, like the popular KEXP here in Seattle, decided not to go along.) This screen grab from MTV Radio explains further:
AOL News relaunches as a blog
You may remember that TMZ.com — an AOL property — has had tremendous success switching from a traditional news format to a blog format, and now the new AOL News is following in its footsteps. Think of it as a modified blog format, with a shorter home page and stories not necessarily listed in pure [...]
Slingbox trumpets ‘on-the-go broadcasts’ for TV stations
When we posted a blurb in May about KPIX using Slingbox for live video transmission, we thought it would get people’s attention. “We’ve had tons of interest and many questions regarding our collaboration with the Bay Area CBS affiliate,” writes Sling Media’s Dave Katz in an email to Lost Remote today. So the company has sent out a press release (click below to read). Also, Katz points out that NBC Weather Plus is using Slingbox to incorporate live video from WESH, KUSA, KPRC and WDIV. A write-up in Broadcasting and Cable explains how it works:
WESH, for example, plugged a coax cable right into the Slingbox, which lets NBC Weather Plus look at the station’s beauty cam at Universal Studios, as well as at two other tower cameras, says WESH Chief Engineer Richard Monn. To be placed on-air, the Sling video has to run through a scan converter, to change it from progressive-scan VGA to the interlace format, before it can be fed as a live source into a production switcher and displayed in NBC Weather Plus’s upper-right corner box. Running the picture small minimizes the hit in picture quality the picture suffers when it is compressed by the Slingbox for Internet delivery.
The Slingbox press release on KPIX follows below…
iPhone watch: Apple releases rate plans
AT&T and Apple released rate plan information for Friday’s iPhone release – and the price points are less than you might have expected. For example, the basic individual rate (phone and data) is $59.99. Also, you will be activate the phone at home via iTunes.
‘Too few people subscribed’ to CNN Pipeline
In a note posted on CNN.com’s Behind the Scenes blog, CNN.com SVP and GM David Payne thanks Pipeline’s paying subscribers and explains why the site is switching to a free video strategy. “As popular as the service was, it became clear to us that reaching true scale was going to be impossible if the product [...]
U.S. web access slower than in many other countries
USA Today lists the results of a survey done by the Communications Workers of America that claims the median download speed from the web here in the U.S. is downright pokey compared to other countries. The report found the median download speed here in the U.S. to be about 2 megabits per second. That’s a [...]
