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AMC's free streaming TV includes 'The Walking Dead' and 'MST3K'
AMC is joining the ranks of high-profile TV networks in streaming shows for free during the COVID-19 pandemic. To start, it's making the first half of The Walking Dead's tenth season free to watch from the AMC website and apps until May 1st. IFC, meanwhile, is offering free full seasons of comedy shows throughout April, including Mystery Science Theatre 3000. BBC America is offering free nature documentaries like Attenborough and the Giant Elephant, while SundanceTV's first season of Liar and other shows will be available until April 14th.
AMC Games' first title is the intentionally boring 'Airplane Mode'
Desert Bus won't be the only big name in town for games that are purposefully, excruciatingly boring. AMC is marking the start of its game publishing division by unveiling Airplane Mode, a game from Bacronym that tasks you with sitting through a nearly six-hour transatlantic flight... in real time. You have to stave off the tedium using the all-too-familiar resources of a cramped coach seat, including the (sometimes flaky) in-air WiFi, outdated shows on the seatback entertainment system and crossword puzzles in the airline's travel magazine. It's not even predictable -- you may have to deal with random delays, turbulence and crying babies.
'Orange is the New Black' hackers may have stolen 36 other shows
When the hackers who swiped Netflix's unreleased Orange is the New Black season warned that they had shows from other TV networks, they might not have been kidding around. TheDarkOverlord has reportedly provided DataBreaches.net with a "preview" of the shows it obtained from Larson Studios, and it looks like there could be 36 more titles in the mix -- many of which you've likely heard about. The mix includes recent and yet-to-air episodes of Fox's New Girl, FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, IFC's Portlandia and CBS' NCIS: Los Angeles, among others. There are also singular titles like the Vin Diesel movie XXX: Return of Xander Cage as well as Netflix's Bill Nye Saves the World and a YouTube Red original.
AMC's channels come to PlayStation Vue
If you were intrigued by PlayStation Vue as a substitute for cable TV but refused to sign up until you could watch The Walking Dead, it's time to hop aboard. Sony has added AMC Networks to Vue's channel roster, giving you AMC proper as well as IFC, Sundance and WEtv. Be prepared to pony up if you just have to catch Portlandia, though -- while you'll get AMC and WEtv in the base Access package, IFC and Sundance are only available if you've subscribed to Core or Elite. This certainly isn't the best deal if you care about AMC or IFC above all else (Sling TV offers it as part of its $20 bundle), but it'll make Vue a better value for your cord-cutting dollar.
Sling TV now includes AMC and IFC in its $20 cord-cutter package
If you're still hearing arguments against cord cutting, your frenemies are probably saying that you can't watch Better Call Saul, Mad Men and Portlandia without resorting to piracy. Now that IFC and AMC are joining Sling TV's basic $20 a month "Best of Live TV" package, you can shove their words right back into their stupid jerk faces. For the moment, you'll only be able to watch the shows as they're broadcast, but Sling is promising that on-demand services are coming soon. In addition, the long-promised "Hollywood Extra" bolt-on will launch, offering movie content from EPIX and Sundance TV. We'd make a labored pun about you slinging your cable subscription into the trash, but someone else probably already did it.
Peripheral Vision 002: Marc Maron
In 2009, Air America relieved Marc Maron of his duties for a third and final time. He'd co-hosted the station's drive time show Morning Sedition before being given the reigns on his own titular evening program. By show three, he was relegated to the station's kitchen, joining fellow Boston comedian Sam Seder for the short-lived web video show Breakroom Live. Naturally, Maron did what any down-on-his-luck radio host would in his place: he started a podcast. "I think in the beginning, I just needed to talk to someone," he explains. "I was going through a very difficult time. I'd certainly been humbled by love and by show business." WTF wasn't the first podcast by any means, but over the last few years, it's become one of the most popular, thanks to Maron's frank and engaging conversations with comedians and other show biz types. More recently, the program has served as the basis for Maron, an IFC show starring the host as himself, which will enter its second season next year. On this second episode of Peripheral Vision, we sit down with the host to discuss the power of the medium, the trouble with Twitter and making a name for yourself from the comfort of your own garage.
Dish Network settles Voom HD lawsuit, AMC comes back on the air tonight
Dish Network customers have been without AMC and its family of channels since July 1st, but thanks to a settlement between the satellite company and Cablevision's former Voom HD unit, AMC will be back on the air starting tonight. The possibility of a settlement leaked out late last week via a court filing, and it looks like Dish CEO Charlie Ergen will avoid taking the stand Monday after all. According to the terms, Dish will hand over $700 million in cash plus its 20 percent stake in Voom, and receive 500MHz of video and data spectrum licenses in 45 areas. In a separate deal, Dish and Cablevision spinoff AMC Networks have a new multiyear deal that should bring back AMC (on channel 131) in time for The Walking Dead to air tonight, and all of its other channels (IFC, WE tv, Sundance and for the first time, Fuse) starting November 1st. While Dish had previously claimed the channel deal was being held up by AMC's distribution of its shows via iTunes, Netflix and Amazon, now that lawsuit is over those concerns seem to have faded away.
AMC dropped from Dish Network, cuts a new deal to stay on with AT&T U-verse
As June expired, so did AMC's contract with both Dish Network and AT&T U-verse. While negotiations continue with AT&T and its channels remain on for the moment, AMC is already firing at Dish for dropping its channel immediately (after shifting it to an entirely different channel number a few weeks ago), claiming no negotiations have even taken place. As we heard in May, AMC maintains that the real issue is a court case between the two over the Voom HD debacle. For its part, Dish is telling customers the problem is fee increases requested by AMC and "devaluing" its programming by offering it on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon.com. As a result it's swapping in commercial-free HDNet Movies for AMC, and replacing two other AMC channels, WE and IFC, with Style and HDNet (soon to become AXS TV). We'll see how these negotiations go -- it's not too bad now but let's see how viewers react once the new season of Breaking Bad starts airing July 15th. Update: As we went live, AT&T has announced it reached an agreement with AMC Networks, so it's only Dish Network that's on the hotseat now. [Thanks, @soulfliesfree]
First Hong Kong Apple Store to open this year
The South China Morning Post reports that Apple will open its first retail store in Hong Kong later this year. The International Finance Center (IFC) Mall in the central district of Hong Kong Island will host the new 15,000 square foot location. A second Hong Kong Apple store, a 20,000 square foot shop in Hysan Place in Causeway Bay, is planned for 2012. According to the Morning Post, Apple negotiated a 10-year lease for the retail space in the IFC mall. The company will spend an estimated US$20 million to construct its first store in Hong Kong and up to $9.2 million a year on rent. An Apple spokesperson told the Morning Post the IFC store "will be similar" to Apple's high-profile retail locations in London, Paris, and Shanghai. Located near two office towers and a soon-to-open Four Seasons Hotel, The IFC mall houses approximately 200 shops representing about 100 different international brands. Hong Kong is home to about 7 million people and hosts approximately 32 million tourists a year. Apple opened its first store in China in July, 2008. The four locations in China -- two in Beijing and two in Shanghai -- each receive over 40,000 visitors a day, says Ron Johnson, senior vice president of retail operations for Apple. That is four times the traffic to Apple's stores in the rest of the world. The company plans to open a total of 20 new stores in China this year. Apple has 323 retail stores worldwide.
Fred Armisen gets caught in a technology loop, discovers MiND-Fi
Sometimes our modern life can feel overwhelming. Sometimes it can feel like it's all too much -- like everything is happening at once, and you've got no control over anything. Sometimes, the gadgets we buy to make our lives simpler end up making them a lot more complicated. We suspect that similar sentiments drove the brains behind the new IFC sketch comedy show Portlandia (Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein) to come up with the bizarre, hilarious video in this post. Just a word of warning -- once you see it, you can never un-see it. Watch at your own risk... after the break.
DICE awards now on IFC.com, check out the Jay Mohr monologue here
If you missed the live stream of the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (i.e., the DICE awards), and don't want to wait for the "broadcast premiere" this Friday, the whole thing is available now in chunks on IFC.com. The first two clips cover Jay Mohr's (Gary Unmarried, Action, Go, Mr. Nikki Cox) 40-minute monologue, while the rest is the awards ceremony -- and, well, the "Indiana Jones sequel" Mohr wanted swept those. The reason we decided to drop the Mohr monologue after the break was because we're guessing there will be "edits" for TV, including some inside jokes about Richard Garriott and Bobby Kotick (in particular, the 6:45 mark during the second clip). We're not sure if the general television audience will "get it," but we trust that you all will.
CBS, Comcast On Demand Online partnership faces off premium vs. free internet streaming; 17 cable channels jump onboard
After stocking up on premium networks with HBO and Starz, Comcast's On Demand Online project has added its first broadcast TV partner, CBS. One of the worries regarding TV Everywhere / On Demand Online has been what it would mean for free streaming portals like Hulu, with broadcasters potentially shifting content behind pay-tv walls to keep people from dropping cable and satellite TV subscriptions. CBS has been the notable Hulu holdout, although it has also pushed forward with free streaming on its website, including March Madness and even upping the resolution of its Flash video to 1080p. Further conflicting the issue? 17 more cable networks (A&E, AMC, BBC America, DIY Network, Fine Living Network, Food Network, Hallmark, HGTV, History, IFC, MGM Impact, Sundance Channel, WE tv, E!, The Style Network, G4 and FEARnet) have also announced plans to join the 5,000 subscriber trial. Just like the previous agreements, it appears customers should expect access during the trial to reflect a lot of what CBS and the others already offer through standard VOD but now with more placeshifting goodness. While media execs watch the bottom line, we're just hoping the stated CBS strategy of "open, non-exclusive distribution of our content in a consumer friendly way" (from the press release, available in full after the break) could push Hulu to add more HD, or at least unblock the PlayStation 3 & Windows Mobile.
IFC in Theaters begins day-and-date HD video on-demand screening this month
IFC in Theaters has been offering day-and-date premieres of independent theatrical flicks through video on-demand for a couple of years, but now comes word that this month it will begin offering them in high definition on Cablevision and Comcast. Starting June 17, $7.99 (a buck premium over SD) will be the price for avoiding a trip to the local art house theater, which sounds more than worth it if you don't have one nearby, or just really want to avoid (other) hipsters.
IFC short film contest takes inspiration from LittleBigPlanet
LittleBigPlanet's influence is going beyond video games and into the realm of films. The Independent Film Channel used LBP's mantra of "Play, Create, Share" as the theme for a film-making contest it was holding a few months back. While directors didn't have to use LittleBigPlanet in their film shorts (and none of the finalists did, by the way), they were tasked to take inspiration from the game's atmospheric "art and act of creating." Sadly, you won't get to see Sackboy turned into a movie star with these films. Check out the winning short film, "Papercuts," after the break.
Starz broadens offerings by landing multitude of licensing deals
Aside from producing its own original series, Starz Entertainment is also looking to outsiders to broaden its content offerings. In a recent announcement, the channel discloses that it has just closed a multitude of deals that will net it a "bevy of first run and library titles from Summit, Lionsgate, Hallmark, IFC, the Samuel Goldwyn Co., First Look and Fremantle." Better still, that material can be distributed via a variety of methods including all 16 of its linear channels, Starz HD, Starz On Demand and Starz Play (its broadband video download service). Eager to know what titles these deals will bring? Try 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, By Dawn's Early Light, Call of the Wild, Bye Bye Birdie, Hound of the Baskervilles and Rear Window -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
IFC teams up with Blockbuster for rental, lock stock and barrel
IFC Entertainment has entered a two-year exclusive rental agreement with Blockbuster. What's interesting is that it shows the new face of media today: Blockbuster gets a 60-day exclusive rental window covering both physical and digital rental, and the new title will not be available for retail sale in any format during this period. After the first 60-days, Blockbuster retains exclusive physical rental rights for three years. Sounds like a great deal for Blockbuster, and it should definitely give them a shot in the arm in their independent offerings. Meanwhile, those of us hoping see a raft of indies up for rent via other mechanisms just cried a little.
Assassin's Creed film contest announced
Ubisoft and the Independent Film Channel have announced today a short film contest for the upcoming Assassin's Creed release. The prize is an Xbox 360, a copy of Assassin's Creed (for the Xbox, natch) and $10,000, which must be the sweet spot for short film prize money because that's exactly how much Nintendo gave away for their recent Short Cuts contest. In addition, the short film will also be included in the Limited Edition release of the game and will also air on IFC in November to coincide with the game's November 9 release.According to the press release, the short film must be six minutes in length and "based on Assassin's Creed themes" -- whether or not this includes the hinted-but-unconfirmed science fiction twist is unknown. Aspiring filmmakers can submit their entries to the IFC Media Lab starting today. The press release also states that the winner will be announced on or before November 30, but since the game (and presumably the Limited Edition) is coming out up to three weeks before that, we're hoping a decision is made earlier.
Be an assassin, film it, win cash and prizes
The time has come to blend your fanboy love of Assassin's Creed with your movie making talents. IFC and Ubisoft are hosting an Assassin's Creed Short Film Contest where they want you to film an assassin inspired short film and send it in for a chance to win cash and prizes. Sounds fun doesn't it? Entries must be six minutes or less focusing on the assassin lifestyle, history, and the overall stealth killing mystique. The top three short films will be included in the limited edition version of the game and be aired on the IFC network. Not only that, but the grand prize winner will also receive $10,000 cash ($2,500 for runners-up) and Xbox 360 hardware. Get your assassin film making material together as entries are being accepted from now through August 20th. Happy filming.[Via IGN]
IFC films now available in iTunes Store
IFC Entertainment has just announced the immediate availability of select independent films in the iTunes Store, including IFC's 2007 Independent Spirit Award (think Oscars for indies) nominees. All thirteen films, six of which are nominees for the award ceremony this weekend, are available for purchase at $9.99. The other films are previous Independent Spirit Award nominees, highlighting some of the most critically acclaimed titles in IFC's catalog. Film titles include Me And You And Everyone We Know, The Thin Blue Line, Pizza, Sorry, Haters, Camp, Go Tigers!, and others. Also available are free podcasts dedicated to each of the movies with behind-the-scenes footage and discussions. No word on potential future releases from IFC.
