Archive for November 11th, 2007
With the Writers Guild of America strike entering week two, here are a flurry of interesting notes:
- The non-writing staff at NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno has been informed they could be laid off at the end of the week if the strike doesn’t end. But the AP says there’s another option being discussed: bringing the show back from hiatus November 19th… with guest hosts sitting in for Jay.
- Ellen DeGeneres returned to her show last week, albeit without writers. DeGeneres is a member of both the WGA, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. The WGA sent out a release blasting her — and AFTRA defended her for continuing to perform her non-WGA duties.
- If you were expecting a primetime lineup riddled with news programming if the strike drags on - ABC and CBS might not be the places to find it. CBS News writers are covered by the WGA, and are set to vote on a strike authorization. ABC News could be next - 200 WGA members there have been without a contract since 2005.
- The last new episode of The Office airs this Thursday.
- Wonder how your favorite show will be affected by the strike? The LA Times has a great network-by-network, show-by-show grid.
November 11th, 2007
UPDATE MSNBC.com launched most of its new design Friday night, and it’s a fairly drastic change among news sites - with a raft of new ideas and techniques. “Though we are in a bit of a remodeling period as we continue through the weekend working to make sure the site works as it should, we have rolled out many of the changes we’ve been promising all week,” blogs editor in chief Jennifer Sizemore on AlphaChannel, MSNBC.com’s new blog.
The top of the home page features a flexible module that constantly changes format and layout - no more locked down poster graphic and eight-10 headlines like before.
The site’s navigation doesn’t start until after that top story module, giving more room across the top. An “Explore” box features several talker stories, with additional tabs for video, pictures and community.
A series of horizontal module boxes feature news, business, entertainment, health, etc. Users can change the order, and choose zero, five, 10 or 15 headlines.
Inside the site, the story pages feature the new wrapper and navigation, but the content hole is largely unchanged - with the same look as before the redesign. The site’s home page features very few ads - but that’s made up for here - with 15 ad units from my count (including text based ads, but excluding the marketplace box).
Overall, the site made big steps from a design standpoint, while keeping some of its core elements the same - which should make the transition for users fairly straightforward.
As with most any redesign, the majority of the comments left on the site’s blog are negative.
November 11th, 2007
A big gift from the Allen & Co. was supposed to fire up a free Wi-Fi cloud over the resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho - host to the yearly summer media conference. But it hit a brick wall: the town newspaper and cable company. The Idaho Mountain Express sounded off in a March 30 editorial:
“The company that owns this newspaper and other valley media companies sell Internet advertising. Yet, the city would use tax dollars not only to compete with Cox, Qwest, Skylan and cell phone companies, but with smaller local media companies. And, unlike those companies, the city would face no market risk. The city should not use scarce tax resources to compete with established local businesses that pay the very taxes that would be used against them.”
Cox Cable also joined the chorus of complaints. The Idaho Business Review notes that after ten months of wrangling, a solution finally was found (a private group was formed to administer the wi-fi net) - but this just illustrates how some companies would rather get in the way then adapt to the changing media landscape.
November 11th, 2007
I’m very sad to announce that our own Steve Safran has decided to step down from his blogging post as managing editor here at Lost Remote. As many of you know, Steve has been with the site from nearly the beginning. For seven years now (seven years!), he’s educated, enlightened and entertained Lost Remote’s readers with his terrific insight and wit. But most of all, he’s helped pave the way for how technology is changing television. Remember, nobody listened to us then, and it certainly wasn’t popular to blog about it. But Steve volunteered countless hours on Lost Remote and helped prepare an industry for incredible change, and I can’t thank him enough for everything he’s done.
Of course, these changes are far from over, and Steve’s increasingly busy schedule at AR&D is a key reason why he’s stepping down. Yet he promises to still post a blurb and write a snarky comment from time to time (watch out, tdc!) But day in and day out — I think all of you will agree — we’ll miss him on Lost Remote, big time.
November 11th, 2007
NBC.com fired up “NBC Direct” over the weekend - a new service that allows users to download full episodes of shows to your computer to watch anywhere. The service doesn’t work with my lowly MacBook Pro, so I can’t provide much of a review - but Chris Albrecht at NewTeeVee gave it a whirl and came back with a pretty negative review.
Why not just make downloads an option within Hulu?
November 11th, 2007
I’m in the process of rolling out a discussion forum for Lost Remote called “The Circuit,” powered by Vanilla. The idea is to create a community here on LR for media tech folks. In true web 2.0 fashion, I’m letting you know about it before it’s ready for prime time, but I’d like to get a few people testing it out. It requires a quick registration to post (I have it set to automatically approve new applicants), but you can read the discussions without signing up.
November 11th, 2007
I got my Hulu invite last week - and pretty much logged on seconds after it hit my e-mail box. Cory’s detailed review is here. I had a bunch of trouble trying to embed a custom clip into a friend’s MySpace (only the full episode would play, not my special The Office clip), but all-in-all the service exceeded expectations. If the industry finds a way to land on a common platform like Hulu - where viewers can one-stop shop - it will be an unstoppable force.
On that front, The Hollywood Reporter says Warner Bros. is close to a deal to license its library to Hulu.
November 11th, 2007
