Recently in Television Category

I saw over at the Reuters that Sony Pictures is going to have its own channel (called PIX) on AT&T's MediaFLO when it launches in May.  According to Sony, it will feature a number of films at launch, including Ghostbusters.

 

While I admit that MediFLO is cool (it allows you to watch TV on your mobile phone) I've never thought about using it for an extended period of time.  I had MobiTV on my Treo 650 back "in the day" but don't think that I was ever in front of it for more than 20 minutes.  Total.  Between the small screen size and lack of opportunity to watch, I never really saw it as a must-have feature.  Ok, so I can watch a little TV if I have some down time or if I'm riding a bus.  Awesome, but I don't have the kind of time throughout my day to watch an entire episode of Friends, much less a whole movie.  Most people do their TV watching at home, and I'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would use their phone as opposed to their TV.  I mean, maybe if you don't want to miss your favorite contestant on "Idol" when nature calls...

 

Eric Berger, the VP of Mobile Entertainment at Sony Pictures Television had this to say

 

"We recognize that people are on the go with their mobile phone and coming and going," he said. "This isn't for people looking to view a movie for the first time. It's OK to miss the beginning."

 

Miss the beginning, the end and probably most of the middle too?  PIX seems really cool on paper but it feels more like AT&T is just looking for something to differentiate its MediFLO from VZW's, which has been around for over a year as opposed to looking for a really innovative new feature.  I just don't see a lot of people being too thrilled about being able to watch 3 minutes of a movie on their mobile when they have some downtime.  Not even if it's Ghostbusters.

 

 

Full article at Reuters.

It's been less than a week since the 700mhz auction winners were revealed, but already Google is making its' next move, and treading close to territory that Microsoft has stepped in before and failed: that of so-called White Spaces, the signal "between" the new DTV channels. 

The focus of Google's latest lobbying effort is the so-called "white spaces" portion of the TV spectrum, the unused slivers that lie between regulated TV signals. A coalition of US technology companies, including Google, has argued for some time that those pieces of spectrum could be assembled to support a new high-speed wireless service.

Technical challenges have hindered that effort and reinforced claims by US broadcasters that a new service would interfere with the surrounding TV signals.

Most embarrassingly, a Microsoft device failed FCC tests last year, although the software company said later that part of the machine had been broken and a repaired version had operated adequately.

Google proposed Monday what Mr Whitt called a "belt and suspenders" approach to the technology. Along with the controversial "spectrum sensing" approach used by Microsoft and others, which tries to identify which parts of the spectrum are in use to avoid interference, it backed a Motorola plan that would prevent a device from transmitting on a particular wave length until it had received a specific "all clear" signal from a local transmitter.

Google also went further in suggesting that parts of the spectrum should be off-limits entirely.

Could the two giants get along on this issue? We'll see...

Ok, so this is total nonsense, but I think it fits into the "whatever else the editors think will make you laugh, cry, or think during the work day" part of the mission statement here...

 

 

Believe in Your Dreams

For the first time in 30 years, the Supremes are making a comeback...to broadcast indecency cases. The Associated Press reports that the SCOTUS (as we inside-the-Beltway like to call them) has granted cert (another legal buzzword for "ok, let's hear it")  to FCC v. Fox Television Stations, 07-582.

First off, I'll note that the FCC has a dismal record before the Federal courts. I don't have time to run the numbers, but they lose many more than they win. Normally the Government comes in with a huge advantage, but this agency is simply the Washington Senators of litigation. To bring as many appeals as they do, I guess "they gotta have heart..." On the other hand, Paul Clement, while a great advocate, is still no match for his predecesor, that master Long Ball Hitter Ted Olsen, or even Shoeless Joe from Hannibal Mo'. (Seriously. Go rent Damn Yankees before I post another YouTube clip).

Technically, this case only concerns the Billboard Music Awards show in which expletives uttered by Cher and Nicole Richie were broadcast over the public airwaves in 2002 and 2003. More well known is the seperate case that NBC has brought challenging the FCC's fine against them for broadcasting Bono's use of the "F-word" during the 2003 Golden Globes.

Note that the FCC is the appellant in this case. They are asking the highest Court in the land to overturn a decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York which struck down the Commission's rules on "fleeting expletives." In that 2-1 ruling, the Circuit Court rapped the FCC on the knuckles for changing its' policy and failing to explain the rationale for doing so. The Appeals Court decision nullified the policy until the FCC came up with a better explanation, and also skeptically noted that any such explanation would still be unconstitutional.

Note that the 2nd Circuit hit the FCC with the equivilant of a legal 1-2 combination. The left hand, the procedural grounds rejection is a swift jab, but the constitutional argument is a knockout uppercut with the right glove. 

The government's position is interesting, to say the least. Quoth the AP:

Solicitor General Paul Clement, representing the FCC and the Bush administration, argued that the decision "places the commission in an untenable position," powerless to stop the airing of expletives even when children are watching.

The FCC has pending before it "hundreds of thousands of complaints" regarding the broadcast of expletives, Clement said. He argued that the appeals court decision has left the agency "accountable for the coarsening of the airwaves while simultaneously denying it effective tools to address the problem."

 

One explanation for the Supreme Court revisiting the 30 year old FCC v. Pacifica decision is that the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia is pondering the weighty question of whether or not Janet Jackson's brief flash of jewlery-covered nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show was indecent and deserves a fine. The Supremes generally intervene to resolve such "split circuit" decisions.

To give some background, I'll return to the AP article:

The new policy was put in place after a January 2003 broadcast of the Golden Globes awards show by NBC when U2 lead singer Bono uttered the phrase "f------ brilliant." The FCC said the "F-word" in any context "inherently has a sexual connotation" and can trigger enforcement.

The Fox programs at issue are a Dec. 9, 2002, broadcast of the Billboard Music Awards in which singer Cher used the phrase "F--- 'em" and a Dec. 10, 2003, Billboard awards show in which reality show star Nicole Richie said, "Have you ever tried to get cow s--- out of a Prada purse? It's not so f------ simple."

Two questions come to mind. 1) are the "thousands" of complaints that Solicitor General Clement refers to actual complaints, or "click to complain" form letters, and 2) did anyone actually watch the Billboard Music Awards?

If a "celebrity" utters an expletive and noone is tuned in, should we even care?

Ok, so I checked out the public version of Hulu last night and was a little disappointed with the layout.  The player is framed (top and bottom) by very white areas.  The one on top has information for the video that you're waching and the one down below has additional episodes as well as a YouTube-esque comments area.  It's really weird because the player is very black.  It makes for a very claustrophobic feel.  There's a "pop out" feature that will launch the video in its own window, but a) it's a lame extra step and b) the original player keeps going so you're trying to launch two of the same video running out of time with each other.  You can go full-screen but the resolution isn't as good.

 

As far as content is concerned, I'm undecided.  I was watching a few episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and was loving the third season episodes I hadn't seen yet.  The weird part is that they had season 3 (most recent) and season 1.  No season 2.  I understand that they can't have every episode of every show.  I mean, are they going to have 33 years of 90-minute SNL episodes?  Of course not.  Why they would leave out a season of a series with a total run of 32 half-hour episodes is a little beyond me.  Commercials are a winner, though.  Each episode I watched had a 15-second lead-in commercial and 2 more 15-second commericals within the episode.  45 seconds of commercials as opposed to around 8 minutes?  Awesome!

 

I'm going to check out a movie tonight (but not "The Big Lebowski" because I've seen it an obscene amount of times) and see how it goes.  I wouldn't mind a block of commericals in front of the flick, but would be pretty annoyed by commercial breaks during the movie.  Also, I'm curious about censorship.  "It's Always Sunny..." made me confirm that I was over 17 (and in 1-up over YouTube it remembered my age when I tried to watch another TV-MA episode) so I wonder if that same confirmation would allow for un-censored movies.  Another question I need to try and answer is "If I'm not old enough, can I see the 'TV version' of the movie?"  If the answer is "yes," that'd be kind of awesome, as opposed to a "Sorry, you're too young" message.

 

Overall, I'm pleased, so far, with Hulu.  It offeres what it said it would, which is a legal venue to watch copyrighted video material from major networks and studios.  The only major flaw I see is in the style, which I think will probably be dealt with once they're a little more "broken in."

 

I'll update tonight or tomorrow morning (remember, I'm a Pacific Time kind of guy) and let you know how movies worked out.

Hulu is opening to the public tomorrow, March 12th.  Reuters and Time both have posts about it today.  A major bit of info the two of them added is that there will be Warner Brothers TV content (yay for "Buffy" reruns) and movies from Lionsgate.

 

Something that caught my eye about it is that people are stunned that someone would try and compete with YouTube.  Am I the only one who thinks that the two can coexist and would actually share viewers as opposed to compete for them?  Let's take a (very simplified) look at what the two sites do.

 

Hulu provides a legal venue to watch television shows and movies on your home computer.  The thing about it that struck me (as per my original post) is that I can see things that I missed because of scheduling or a lack of signal.  But content-wise, these are re-distributions of "traditional" video entertainment.

 

YouTube is generally homemade content.  The bulk of the "professional" content are music videos.  The rest of the pro stock is generally a much shorter format or are from indie sources - not major studios or TV networks.

 

The point I'm getting at is that there are all these people saying "Ooooooh, YouTube is gonna win" while I don't see it as a competition.  That's another reason why Hulu is such a smart idea.  They aren't trying to compete with YouTube.  They're offering something that YouTube can't.

 

On an additional note, Hulu should officially be ready at midnight, Eastern time.  I'll totally be heading over to hulu.com at 9pm Pacific and see if I can't get in.

 

Article at Reuters

 

Article at Time

CNNMoney.com had an interesting story about Hulu.  For those of you (like me) who are just hearing about it, Hulu is a joint project between NBC and FOX - that's right, a partnership between NBC and FOX - with the aim of providing a legal online venue for viewing their content.

Here's a little bit right from CNNMoney.com's  article

In May, Providence Equity Partners offered a cool $100 million for a 10% stake - giving the nascent operation an astonishing valuation of $1 billion.

But the secret of Hulu's initial success - the thing that made believers out of the skeptics - is the power and simplicity of the website itself. Hulu's creators focused with almost obsessive attention to detail on the user's experience. The first thing you see when you visit Hulu is a big screen offering a TV clip with a prominent "watch now" button. You can scroll through a half-dozen of these featured offerings, browse the most popular episodes, or search shows by name - from vintage NBC series like McHale's Navy to the latest episode of Fox's The Simpsons. Hulu even lets you search for competitors' content, like ABC's Desperate Housewives. "If it's legally available anywhere on the web, we want to take you to it," says Kilar.

For folks like me, this is great.  I'm in an area where over-the-air Television signals are sporadic at best and I can't afford pay TV.  I am a huge nerd was turned on to Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles and was told that FOX.com had full episodes available online.  I checked it out, and it's true!  At the time I checked it out they had from episode 4 through the second-to-last episode.  The ads only totaled about 3 minutes per episode, and only the most recent episodes even had ads at all.  You can go all the way up to full-screen and it looks great.  They also post incredibly fast.  The season finale was last Monday.  The site says that new episodes will be up "1-2 days after the TV broadcast."  The finale (in its entire 2-part glory) was up on Tuesday.  

I'm really impressed with what FOX has done and am anxiously awaiting my "invitation" to sign up with the Hulu Beta.  If you check out their site you can watch whatever the current featured video is.  I personally think that everyone should register for a beta account, if for no other reason than to let FOX and NBC that they've got the right idea.

This is something that I've talked about before when I posted on a Retuers article about how somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of Americans get their news online as opposed to from traditional (TV/Radio/Print) sources.  Old media companies can sit back in fear of the internet and throw out the occasional insult or they can embrace it.  As I said before, I'm a firm believer that the ones who are of the embracing variety are going to see the most success.

Something else it brings to mind is the current net neutrality row.  Much like BitTorrent and VUZE, Hulu could see its users suffer bandwidth losses and in turn have their usability limited by ISPs who favor their own VoD content but hide behind "reasonable network management."  Maybe Hulu, with its incredibly powerful partners, can stand up for net neutrality and fight the big internet providers on a level playing field.

To end on a more positive note, is there anyone reading who already has a Hulu account?  Let us know what you think about it.

Here's the scoop from Reuters:

 

March 4th, 2008, filed by Kenneth Li

Bids for Landmark Communications's Weather Channel are due next week in an auction seeking to fetch up to $5 billion, according to several sources, in what is shaping up to be one of the most sought-after cable properties this year.

NBC Universal, Time Warner, CBS and Comcast have been identified as interested parties, although one source says it's unlikely bidders would be willing to pay the list price.

Privately held Landmark put its publishing and TV assets up for sale in January as part of a plan to break up the company. Landmark owns newspapers including The Virginian-Pilot in hometown Norfolk, The News & Record of Greensboro, North Carolina, The Roanoke Times and nearly 50 community newspapers.

 

I've never really followed the Weather Channel.  The few times I checked it out I would never see my weather.  I wonder what the content rammifications of a buy would be. 

 

Everyone - What do you think some fresh blood would do for the weather channel?  Is there anything you'd like to see them do that would make you watch?

I broke down last night and got a Magnavox DTV converter box last night.  The part of San Jose that I live in is pretty bad as far as television signals are concerned.  With the DTV box ($49.97) and a DTV antenna ($14.97) I am able to get a few stations.  It's kind of an all o rnothing proposition, but the stations that do come in look amazing.  Both the signal and picture waulity are unrivaled in any over-the-air broadcast I've ever seen.  Also, there are "sub-channels" like they always mention in HD Radio spots.  I haven't really messed with them, but NBC11 has an all-weather sub-channel, and that'd be pretty cool if I ever remembered to worry about the weather.

 

I didn't watch much because it was late-ish and there wasn't much on.  Tonight, however, the reason I bought the darned thing is on.  That reason is Law and Order.  Also of note, I haven't seen a new L&O in forever, so if anyone dares to bother me between 10 and 11 pm PST tonight I'll...well, I just won't pick up the phone.

 

All in all, the DTV transition is an amazing boost in quality for those of us without pay TV.  Mishandled, sure.  Worth the wait?  I'm thinking "yes."

Just FYI, Vincent O'Onofrio (aka L&O:CI's Bobby Goren), totally upstaged Hillary on SNL tonight.