TV crew members still feeling effects of writers strike

The writers strike ended two months ago. But many in Hollywood remain on the brink.

Some are at risk of losing their homes. Some can't afford groceries. Others have filed for bankruptcy. Still others struggle to work enough hours to hold on to their health insurance.

... Although hard figures are not available, union officials say that thousands of crew members who normally would be busy at this time of year are still idled because of the sharp contraction in television production. Some union locals report a quarter of their members are sitting at home.

[The Los Angeles Times via [ TV t a t t l e . c o m ]

`Secret' of `Scarlet' is revealed

"Scarlet" may look like a new TV show and act like a new TV show — but it's no new TV show, writes the Associated Press. It's an LG marketing campaign for their new series of slimmer-than-slim LCD flatscreen TVs.

Instead of pointing out screen size and pixel resolution to potential buyers, "Scarlet" is pitched as "a new TV series" from director David Nutter, whose credits include "The Sopranos," "Smallville" and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

The big-budget advertising campaign stars model-actress Natassia Malthe as the sexed-up, butt-kicking, red-eyed heroine "Scarlet." There's no mention of LG — or even a prominent image of the TV itself — in the advertising materials or commercials.

... Billboards for "Scarlet" began popping up in cities like Paris, Los Angeles and Singapore about a month ago while commercials and online ads began appearing on sites like Gawker, Variety and E! Online as early as two weeks ago. They all led viewers to ScarletSeries.tv, a site that features a high-impact movie-like trailer.

The Social Benefits Of Converting TV Viewing Time To Web-Surfing

If you’ve ever lamented the time you’ve spent watching television sitcoms as wasted, Clay Shirky has an idea that may cheer you up about the future. As people spend more time online, Mr. Shirky suggests, they’re converting useless sitcom-watching hours into more productive endeavors. Buzzwatch reports.

In other words, spending one’s free time editing a Wikipedia entry does more for society than watching that “Seinfeld” episode with the “puffy shirt” for the eighth time.

Mr. Shirky, a technology pundit and New York University adjunct professor, recently published “Here Comes Everybody,” a book on how the Web and social-software tools that help people organize and collaborate are changing society.

... Of course, as Buzzwatch has learned—and as some readers have no doubt experienced—it’s amazing what you can get done on a laptop while watching a sitcom at the same time. Hear, hear!

BBC BRINGS PROGRAMS TO ITUNES STORE IN U.S.

BBC today announced that for the first time BBC AMERICA programming will be available for purchase and download from the iTunes store in the U.S. [via The Futon Critic]

"Making BBC programming available on the iTunes Store is key to the strategy of BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, in securing the broadest possible distribution for its huge range of television content. This new offering allows BBC AMERICA's viewers to further engage with the channel's hit shows and delivers highly addictive programming to a new audience."

CinemaNow to offer movie orders via cell phone

Privately held digital entertainment provider CinemaNow said on Tuesday that U.S. consumers would be able to use their cell phones to view movie trailers and order full-length movies to watch on their home television or computer through its mobile website.

The service, offered on Web-capable phones at href="http://uvumobile.mobi/cn">http://uvumobile.mobi/cn, would let U.S. consumers immediately buy or rent a movie when they hear about a new offering while they are out with friends.

[via Reuters]

The Hollywood Reporter brand relaunches

Before

After

The Hollywood Reporter gets a makeover inside and out, online and offline. I'll miss the old logo. Nothing says Hollywood like the the Hollywood in The Hollywood Reporter.

The Hollywood Reporter Monday completed a wholesale overhaul of its iconic brand, including a redesigned look and format for its print and digital publications, a revised editorial approach, expanded range of coverage and analysis and new industry data exclusive to THR-parent The Nielsen Company.

Cartoons of a Racist Past Lurk on YouTube

Among the millions of clips on the video-sharing Web site YouTube are 11 racially offensive Warner Brothers cartoons that have not been shown in an authorized release since 1968. The New York Times reports.

"Some of the cartoons were removed on April 16. A message saying the cartoons were no longer available because of a copyright claim by Warner appeared in their place. By evening the messages disappeared, and some of the cartoons were back.

The cartoons, known as the “Censored 11,” have been unavailable to the public for 40 years. Postings no longer appear if YouTube is searched for “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs,” a parody of “Snow White” and the most famous of the cartoons. But a search for “Coal Black” does find the cartoon.

WMAV01, a YouTube user who posted some of the cartoons and preferred not to give his name, wrote in an e-mail message that “these cartoons were never officially ‘banned’ by any law” and added that the cartoons had “historical value.”

Golden Years of Television Find New Life on the Web

Within the last few months, television distributors have opened up their libraries of classic content online, making thousands of episodes of programs like “The Twilight Zone” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” available free. The New York Times reports.

"On Monday, Warner Brothers is expected to add a new twist, announcing the rebirth of the WB broadcast network as an Internet destination and offering programs like “Everwood” online.

In putting old episodes online, broadcasters are tapping into the “long tail” of niche content that the Internet has monetized. While executives are reticent about the costs involved, and while syndicated and DVD sales remain dominant sources of revenue, the repurposing of long-dead shows is creating another new revenue stream for distributors."

Gay honour for TV hit Ugly Betty

Sitcom Ugly Betty has been honoured by a US gay lobby group at a Los Angeles awards ceremony.

The sitcom was named outstanding comedy series for the second year in a row at the Brothers & Sisters, took the best drama series prize.

Both Ugly Betty and Brothers and Sisters - which also received the same prize last year - feature prominent gay or transsexual regular characters.

[via the BBC]

Unwanted TV sets to surge in recycling centers

Recycling centers and landfills across the country are preparing for a surge of unwanted sets in coming months, reports The Washington Post, as next February, most TV broadcasts will be available only in digital form.

"As a result, sets that rely on antennas to receive over-the-air analog signals will no longer work on their own. At the same time, prices of digital TV sets continue to drop, luring consumers to upgrade.

... Last year, about 68 million TVs were thrown out, given away or recycled, according to the Consumer Electronics Association's estimates. That number could grow this year: About 14 million households rely on over-the-air broadcasts, according to the Nielsen Co.

Many municipalities have set up recycling sites and hold events specifically geared toward electronics, including cellphones, computers, stereos and VCRs. Bulky TVs are not always accepted, partly because they are more expensive to transport and recycle. Consumers often have to pay a fee of $10 to $50 to recycle a TV, which creates an economic incentive for them to toss it into the landfill.

Some regions are anticipating a 30 percent increase in the number of TVs dropped off at recycling centers, according to Anne Reichman, program director for Earth 911, an Arizona-based company that helps coordinate recycling efforts across the country.

"We're seeing retailers provide sales that will entice consumers to upgrade to a better, more energy- efficient, cooler TV," she said. "But we're not confident the old TVs aren't going to landfills."

Tribute to Norma Desmond dress

Scott Tallenger's Tribute to Norma Desmond dress features still and moving images from the film Sunset Boulevard.

Shown at 2nd Skin: Imaginative Designs in Digital & Analog Clothing," a runway fashion show held at the Exploratorium in San Francisco's last Friday night.

[via News.com]

Obama's Abercrombie Fans. For real? or product placement

Reel Pop picks up on a YouTube video of Obamas Pennsylvania primary speech to Hillary where three supporters are all wearing Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts.

As Bloggers speculated whether this was intentional or not (product placement or attempt to lure Abercrombie customers to Obama's side), a NJ company launched a blog selling t-shirts that are mashup of Obama's name with Abercrombie's logo.

That's thinking on your feet and as quick a turn-around as the two enterprising artists who came up with the vinyl MacAir Manilla Sleeve following Steve Jobs unveiling of his new super slim computer from a manilla enveloppe.

HBO picks up "Hung" - about a well-endowed man

A new season, a new shocker. Hung, a dark comedy, will definitely focus on a sizable endowment.

[Variety via TV Tattle]

Sex and the City Movie Trailer

Sex and The City movie trailer on YouTube. In theaters May 30th. Yay! Can't wait.

Hulu.com lets you Cut, Paste and Forward Web Video

The Guardian on some of Hulu.com's wonderful features.

"We all know about cutting and pasting from one document to another. Hulu.com lets you do it with video: select the bit you want from, say, an episode of The Simpsons and email it to a friend, post it to your blog or put it on your Facebook page.

Another surprising tool is the search function. If a particular TV show or a film isn't one of the 400 TV series and 100 movies on the site, it doesn't give a "no results" message. Instead, it looks across the entire web to find legitimate (ie, non-pirated) video, and offers links to it - even if it sends users away from Hulu. So if someone searches for Desperate Housewives, a link will appear to abc.com - a rival network.

Another great thing about Hulu.com is that they are considering moving beyond the US market. According to Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu: "We very much have ambitions to be a global site but we want to walk before we run," he says. "We would be very hesitant about launching in a territory without stellar content. In the US we took our time to make sure we had great content. We don't think that a service is built to last unless it is worthy of remark. And that will be our mantra."

'Google Me,' the movie

We've all googled our names, but how many of us have actually wanted to meet our "Google twins" or "Googlegangers"? That's the premise behind the new documentary, Google Me.

CNET News.com's Kara Tsuboi sits down with filmmaker Jim Killeen and learns about the six other Jim Killeens he's met around the world through Google searches.

You can sign up on the movie's YouTube page to be advised when the full feature documentary will be posted for free - but for a limited time only.

Video Comments On All TechCrunch Blogs

TechCrunch has been testing a new video comment feature on their blogs.

"You’ll see the link to leave a video comment at the end of the comment stream on every post. You can choose to leave a text comment or a video comment. You’ll need to create a Seesmic account to start leaving comments, and that account will allow you full access to Seesmic as well as any other blogs that begin to use the plugin."

Related: - TMZ.com lets readers post audio comments to their blog. Video is next

Making Money, the How-To Way

Some 25 years after “Jane Fonda’s Workout” topped the home-video charts in the United States, Americans’ fascination with instructional videos has shifted to the Internet, where a virtually unlimited amount of shelf space guarantees there is something for everyone. The New York Times reports.

"Learning how to turn a flashlight into a laser is not a top priority for most people. Yet Kip Kedersha’s step-by-step instructional video that teaches how to do just that has been seen online by more people (1.88 million) than live in Manhattan (about 1.6 million).

Mr. Kedersha’s online library of 94 videos includes tips on how to chill a Coke in two minutes, simulate a gunshot wound and start up a PC quickly.

Many of the clips have been played hundreds of thousands of times, turning Mr. Kedersha into the top earner on Metacafe, a video-sharing Web site that pays the makers of popular videos. In little more than a year, the site has written him checks totaling $102,000.

... Plenty of entrepreneurs and financiers are hoping that the wave Mr. Kedersha has begun to ride is a long way from cresting. In the last two years, investors have put tens of millions of dollars into start-up companies with names like WonderHowTo.com, VideoJug, Howcast, ExpertVillage and Graspr, which are all hoping to become the YouTube of how-to video clips.

These start-ups have attracted former television executives and veterans of Internet giants like Google, Yahoo and MySpace."

TV and the Web: Backchannelmedia

XConomy reviews Backchannelmedia.com, a Boston company that gives broadcasters and advertisers a new marketing channel by adding a Web bookmarking function to TV programming.

"Unless you’re watching carefully, you may not be aware how many times every day TV broadcasters flash Web URLs at you on the screen during their regular programming (not to mention during commercials, many of which also contain Web addresses). The problem is that most URLs are hard to remember, and few viewers have a pad and pencil or an open laptop handy to copy them down.

Backchannelmedia has come up with a fix for that.

Basically, broadcasters insert a code into their programs that causes a special icon to appear on your TV screen alongside a URL or any other “call to action.” If you click OK on your TV remote while the icon is showing, Backchannelmedia will send you the link electronically for later reference. You can view all of your saved links at Backchannelmedia’s portal site, or you can have them e-mailed to you."

Trashman's AIDS claims just trash-talk

An American named "Trashman", who sparked global fury by appearing in YouTube clips boasting of deliberately infecting thousands of women with AIDS, has been revealed as a faker. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The masked African-American man claimed to have infected over 1500 women with the deadly HIV virus, but the move was all a desperate effort to garner publicity for his porn sites.

The clips had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times before they were removed from YouTube and many media outlets fell for the ruse, including FOX News. YouTube users were quick to petition to have him kicked off the site.

ITV to sell classic shows on iTunes

ITV is to make a range of classic programs including Brideshead Revisited and Inspector Morse available for sale through iTunes.

The deal, which will be the first time that ITV has made TV shows available for sale via a third-party website, will see more than 260 hours of archive shows made available via Apple's iTunes UK store.

[via The Guardian]

TBS To Mac Users: No Seinfeld For You!

Silicon Alley Insider reports that TBS, which has broadcast "Seinfeld" for years, has started putting episodes online - for Microsoft Windows users that is.

That's really interesting, because following the writers strike and running out of new shows and episodes to watch online, I've been watching Seinfeld and about three weeks ago, all the Seinfeld videos on YouTube were removed. "We're sorry, this video is no longer available" was the message that appeared. It happened before my eyes, maybe because of the TBS move.

Mac users can always head out to Tudou.com, the Chinese are huge fans of Seinfeld and not Microsoft-centric.

Full-length shows, even movies, growing on cellular

Forget short clips and "mobisodes." Cellphone providers are ramping up their full-episode TV offerings, from "Lost" to "The Office", and even movies. USA Today reports.

"Today, only about 7% of mobile subscribers (cell and data) watch video on their phones, he says. But the industry is poised for major growth: Mobile video revenues at domestic carriers jumped to $308 million in the last three months of 2007 from $112 million in the same period a year earlier, according to Nielsen Mobile.

... Mobile users are willing to watch for extended periods, says Nielsen Mobile's Nic Covey. Nearly half (47%) say their average session lasts 15 minutes or longer; 25% watch 30 minutes or more.

Says Covey: "Enough consumers watch mobile video for those lengths of time and enough consumers are interested in name-brand programming that this level of mobile viewing could be just as big an opportunity as clips."

South Park. No internet.

Our worst fears. No Internet.

[via mobuzz.tv]

BitTorrent sees big growth, LimeWire still #1

BitTorrent is the hottest thing in P2P right now—a just-released study shows 19.5 percent growth in BitTorrent use during a 12-month period ending in September 2007. LimeWire is still the most popular P2P app, however.

[via ars technica]

Sony reportedly negotiating PS3 video distribution

According to the The Los Angeles Times, "Sony Corp. is reportedly negotiating licensing deals with studios to distribute videos online - as early as this summer - through a long-promised service for the PlayStation 3."

[via the Associated Press]

Google Knows You Skipped A Commercial

Technology from Google submitted to the US Patent Office shows how they can tell when someone viewing a video skipped an ad, reports WebPro News.

"Plenty of people watch videos online, but successfully making money from their viewing habits continues to prove a challenge. Even Google and its top online destination, YouTube, may not be receiving the results they desire.

They will know who opted to skate over advertising in the video, to a certain extent. A Google patent application about targeted video advertising answers the long-time question, did someone actually watch an ad or not?"

Logo from Marketing.fm.

YouTube coughs up record royalties to PRS

According to the The Inquirer, "UK's Performing Right Society (PRS) believes that composers, singer/songwriters and music publishers are going to be getting bumper payouts this year and for a while to come, after a deal between the organisation and the video sharing website, YouTube.

Already in the first three months of 2008, the PRS claims to have doled out an unprecedented £110m ($219m) to their talented musical muses, which is apparently a good 30 per cent more than they had to shell out last year.

This, the organisation believes, is mostly thanks to a licensing deal struck with the online video giant YouTube, which now pays royalties on clips of songs (original or covered) uploaded and watched on the site."

Video surfaces of man stuck in elevator for 41 hours

A time-lapse video of a man trapped in an elevator for 41 hours has become something of an Internet sensation after surveillance camera footage emerged after nearly a decade, reports Newsday.

"The video of Nicholas White's Oct. 15, 1999 ordeal in an elevator in New York's McGraw-Hill building was posted online to accompany an article in the April 21 edition of The New Yorker.

A condensed look at White’s ordeal, as captured by the building’s security cameras, can be seen on the magazine's Web site and had been viewed more than 280,000 times on YouTube by Monday. morning.

It's TV-Turnoff Week (for some)

For some (not me), today is the start of TV-Turnoff Week.

[via The Washington Post]