Seth Gilbert, 08-31-2007
NBC Universal accounts for roughly forty percent of the videos downloaded on iTunes and they’re ready to walk.
Echoing a similar story with Universal Music in July (expanded on three weeks ago), unable to come to terms on a new agreement with Apple, news wires are buzzing that NBC will not renew its long term contract with Apple. Neither side has issued a public comment.
Is this negotiating brinkmanship? The end of partnership? A consequence of Hulu? Theories abound.
At issue, and often reported, are a combination of factors. For one, major media companies have been increasingly vocal about their frustration with Apple’s fixed pricing model. They want more leeway to bundle products together or premium price new releases. Apple, fearing such structures would complicate the user-experience and alienate customers has refused.
Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 08-30-2007
Usually when a company’s name or product becomes a verb, or otherwise enters the vocabulary of pop culture lexicon, it means the company created something pioneering (and usually lucrative) or utterly atrocious. For Tivo (Nasdaq:TIVO), the pioneering title is an unquestionable fit but the moniker of lucrative is more elusive. People may be "Tivo-ing" shows but TiVo isn’t making a lot of money. Wednesday after the close of Market, Tivo reported earnings for their second fiscal quarter. The numbers were uninspired. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 08-27-2007
Fans of South Park can sleep easy for a few more years. In a deal signed Friday, Comedy Central’s most lucrative and most enduring (11 seasons and counting) franchise, the irreverent comedy cartoon, will see at least three more years of new episodes. The program (and its creators) will also take the reigns of its online destiny as part of a joint venture that creates a web destination at South Park Studios.
To date, South Park and its legions of fans have languished in the absence of a legitimate, authorized, Internet distribution platform for anything and everything that is South Park. For certain, there has been availability of content – offerings on Comedy Central’s home site, legions of fan sites – but with Viacom (parent of Comedy Central) embroiled in a billion dollar suit with YouTube over copyright violations, legal video clips, outtakes and other stock haven’t been widely available. Even Joost which has a partnership deal with Viacom has not had the ability to broadcast South Park.
Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 08-20-2007
While the theories of technology convergence lend themselves toward the marriage of the set-top box and the TV, the stand alone TV peripheral isn’t ready to go away. Just the opposite, from Apple TV to efforts from Cisco and Motorola to Tivo, the set-top box continues to try and reinvent itself as its own model for a convergence device.
Entering the fray with a Hollywood caliber entrance (in the form of a substantial new financing) is Building B, a year old company founded by former semiconductor entrepreneur and Harvard professor Buno Pati and Chaired by Phil Wise, the former CTO of Sony of America.
Building B hasn’t gone far beyond cryptic descriptions and buzzwords in public description of their stealth startup and in-development hardware but they have convinced investors there’s substance behind their speech. In a first round, just closed, the company has secured $17.5m
Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 08-8-2007
You know you live in a consumer culture when advertising spots become entertainment on their own. Today, NBC Universal announced the planned roll out of their next step into Internet video – an advertising only video site. To clarify, this is not an ad supported video website (well, technically it’s that too) but this is a site showing nothing but video ads.
The site, which is named Didja (in tribute to the opening line of the water cooler conversations they hope their programming will inspire), will launch in early 2008, Variety reported. The site’s roll out will be staged to follow the launch of NBC’s other video effort, New Co, (which is its much larger joint venture with News Corp to build a true YouTube rival called).
The Didja site will showcase both new and old TV ad footage. It’s expected that advertisers will have the opportunity to pay for featured billing or placement similar to the way sponsors buy top search result placement with sponsored search. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert,
Rupert Murdoch’s media empire spans the globe (for a map see here). With such breadth and scope (and in the wake of the $5b purchase of Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones) it was easy to almost overlook another acquisition but sometimes the little things can be as telling than the big.
For $11.3m, NDS Group (Nasdaq: NNDS) , an UK based subsidiary of News Corp, is buying a small Israeli streaming video company called CastUP.
Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 08-3-2007
Discovery Communications is moving ahead with confidence into new media. A day after acquiring a popular environmental lifestyle site to be a companion site for a their soon to be launched Planet Green channel, the company has also announced they will be making first run full length episodes of some of their programming available online.
Beginning August 3rd , Discovery will premier Meerkat Manor, a program its Animal Planet cable channel, online a week before airing the episodes on television. Episodes of Discovery Channel’s program Dirty Jobs and The Learning Channel’s new tattoo art spin off LA Ink will also air online (both of those programs will debut on television and then be made available online a day later). Click to Read More
