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Comcast looking to buy NBC?
Not sure how a story like this snuck under the radar on Friday, but the WSJ reports that Comcast and NBC are in the early stages of a buyout offer -- Comcast's plan is to control 51 percent of a new joint venture with current NBC owner GE. Needless to say, that would be a massive content industry shakeup, and it would bring over two dozen networks and stations under Comcast's control, from E! to NBC itself, as well as the Universal movie studio. Sure brings that whole TV Everywhere plan into sharp relief, doesn't it? Talks are said to be far apart and contigent on Comcast maintaining its credit rating by putting as little cash upfront as possible, but big companies like this don't poke around lightly -- we'll see how this one turns out.
Comcast denies possible purchase of NBC, claims it can only offer a window
Surprising absolutely no one who has ever waited for a repair or installation, an internet rumor Wednesday suggested Comcast is in talks to take advantage of an oddly scheduled window of availability to purchase NBC Universal. Whether it shows up on time is still up in the air, but with ownership of the media group divided 80/20 by GE and Vivendi the rumored deal would be worth $35 billion, with around $7 billion due Vivendi during this annual period when it can exercise a put option on the shares it owns. Time Warner and DirecTV owner Liberty Media have also been rumored as suitors, can anyone imagine NBC and Syfy under the same umbrella as Versus?
Disney grabs a piece of Hulu
Just as we'd heard, Disney has worked out a deal with Hulu that includes taking a piece of the streaming video site, joining NBC Universal, News Corporation and Providence Equity Partners as owners and bringing Disney TV shows and movies to the site. Expect Lost, Desperate Housewives, Greek, General Hospital and the like so show up after the deal closes, no word on any delay periods and the only content not mentioned in the deal appears to be ESPN related properties. Also sadly missing from the announcement? Any word of increased HD streaming on Hulu, lets hope they take a page from ABC.com and get right on that.
Battlestar Galactica Complete Series Blu-ray release confirmed
Waiting for Battlestar Galactica to come home properly has been the source of heartbreak more than once so far, but the upcoming Caprica DVD appears to confirm rumors we'll be seeing a full series Blu-ray set sooner rather than later. Internet rumors have pegged the date as July 28, and on the prequel's DVD release a promo is included referencing the complete series coming soon on DVD and Blu-ray high def, so get your pennies together, while it will certainly be expensive this should be the one that's worth buying -- if they didn't get rid of the technology for disc packaging yet.
Sci Fi Channel being rebranded as Syfy
You've got to love those marketing folks, right? In an effort to grab an "ownable trademark" that will be more easily recognized on EPGs and online video portals such as iTunes and Hulu, NBC Universal has decided it best to rebrand Sci Fi Channel as 'Syfy.' Phonetically, everything remains the same, but it's the visual difference that counts. The change is expected to take place on July 7th here in the US, with other regions following suit in Q3. We're still not sure we're hot on the whole MHD-to-Palladia thing, but we kind of dig this change -- agree / disagree?
NBC Universal content now available on PlayStation Network
Good news for Playstation 3 owners -- NBC and Sony have just announced that NBC Universal content is now available on the PlayStation Network. In addition to NBC shows like The Office, 30 Rock, and Heroes, new movie releases like Milk and Role Models will hit PSN day and date with the DVD release, and back-catalog titles like The 40-Year Old Virgin and The Big Lebowski should already be up. Pricing is ballpark with the competition: $2.99 to $5.99 for SD and HD rentals, and $9.99 to $14.99 for SD and HD purchases. Not bad, but we won't be happy until these fools drop the shenanigans and give us what we really want: Hulu. Make it happen, guys.
UK Xbox Live users gain access to NBC Universal films
Yeah, this is as international as international gets, but it's simply too high-impact to wait for a weekly roundup. Announced at a London event by UK Head of Xbox Neil Thompson, Xbox Live users in the United Kingdom will finally have access to NBC Universal films. The move comes nearly a year after this same announcement was made in the US, and while there's been no word yet, we're crossing our fingers that the pond jump is just one of many that'll take place.[Via Joystiq]
GE lets loose premium details about premium HDTV line
When we heard last September that General Electric was aiming to enter the "premium" HDTV market, we all had a brief laugh and continued on about our day. Apparently, our doubts are completely unfounded. According to an interview with numerous GE executives tied in with the initiative, the GE-branded sets will be serious contenders. In fact, bigwigs are hoping to make their sets "a top-tier brand that rivals the likes of Sony, Samsung, and Sharp." The secret sauce is the differentiation, as GE is looking to stuff internet connectivity, wireless audio and many other "advanced features" onto its sets in order to show up rivals. Among the early prototypes shown at CES earlier this month was a 46-inch HDTV with a GLT edgelight that utilized white Luminus LEDs and GLT's lightguide blades. It's also looking to expand into wireless video boxes with 1080i support, which means the sky really could be the limit here. Obviously, we're keeping our skeptic hats on until a commercial device hits the market, but you can definitely color us intrigued.[Image courtesy of DecoRadios]
Bigpoint is poised and ready to invade US markets
USA Network and the SCI FI Channel are getting ready for a blitz of online games coming their way from Bigpoint. Peacock Equity Fund, which includes NBC Universal, recently bought a majority stake in the German game producer and are planning to distribute their browser-based, free-to-play titles on network sites.Previously planned titles, including a game based on the hit series Next Top Model, are still in the works. Bigpoint is also expanding across Europe through partnerships with MTV Networks International to promote their 26 browser games to users in nearly a dozen countries. They also offer a handful of downloadable games and a veritable plethora of mini games to over 43 million registered users.
Cablevision gets official with four NBC Universal HD channels
We absolutely knew they were on the way, but if you needed a little affirmation from the carrier itself, Cablevision has announced today that it's adding four more high-definition channels to its iO TV lineup. Effective immediately, customers can expect to see Bravo HD (745), CNBC HD (771), SciFi HD (748) and USA HD (738) in the EPG, bringing the grand total to a very respectable 68 high-def networks. There's no word on when the next batch will arrive, but why not enjoy these for a minute before hankering for more?
IMMI tracks ad exposure / effectiveness via cellphone, trips privacy alarms everywhere
Hunker down and find that tin foil cap, pronto! Privacy advocates, we've a new target for you to bang on: Integrated Media Measurement. The 4,900-person media research company is looking to take advertising measurement to a whole new level (or new low, as it were) by embedding tracking modules within cellphones. In short, the module picks up audio from ads and records information about the exposure; in the future, if you were to purchase whatever product you heard about (like seeing a movie that was plugged), it would register a hit and deem you a sucker. As of now, the only testers with these freaky phones are individuals who signed up for this stuff, but you better believe major marketing firms (and TV / movie studios in particular) are perking their ears up and begging to know more.[Image courtesy of Corbis, thanks ugotamesij]
NBC replaces Weather Plus with Universal Sports
If you thought for one second that when Weather Plus was killed that NBC was going to actually dedicate all of its allotted bits to bring you the HD you desire -- sans all the macro-blocking -- think again. We are glad that NBC learned that there aren't many people interested in yet another weather outlet, but evidently the next at bat is a 24/7 sports channel that's already available in some NBC Universal owned and operated affiliates. Universal Sports will consist of 2400 hours of live sports coverage a year combined with 5000 hours of classic sports replays. The local stations will also be able to air a few of its own commercials as well as some local sports and sports related programming, which might be cool. Although we recognize the desire of DTV stations to find profitable uses for its extra bits, we don't approve if it interferes with the main programming. So this combined with NBC's recent track record in sports has us very skeptical -- you know messing up Football Night in America and things like the 12 hour Olympic sports delays.
NBC kills useless, bit stealing, Weather Plus channel
If you've ever tried to enjoy a sporting event on NBC, you've probably noticed that when the action really starts getting good, your picture quality goes south, and fast. This phenomenon has been thanks to 90 of the NBC affiliates around the country deciding to steal bandwidth away from the primary HD feed and dedicate the bits to a 24-hour weather channel called Weather Plus. Well after four years of trying, NBC Universal decided that if you can't beat 'em join 'em, and instead bought a stake in The Weather Channel, which thankfully ended up meaning no more Weather Plus. The bad news is that the macroblock loving fools are already starting to think about what other crappy SD programming can go in its place.
General Electric partners with Tatung for "premium" GE-branded HDTVs
Who says there are too many players in the HDTV realm? With current mainstays partnering up like it's going out of style, we've found two firms that see something no one else does. General Electric has just announced a joint venture with Taiwan-based Tatung in which the pair plans on making two million HDTVs annually when production gets going in 2009. The two hope to capture at least 5% to 10% of the global TV market in due time, and according to Peter Weedfald, president of North America and global chief marketing officer for the JV, the resulting product will be a "premium brand" that will be "very competitive with current leadership brands." We'll be interested to see what all becomes of this, and hopefully we'll have some prototypes to gawk at come CES / IFA / CEDIA 2009.[Image courtesy of VintageTVSets]
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, the DRM of the future?
We've heard this about this dream so many times before, DRM that will make digital media as easy to use and as consumer friendly as a physical medium like DVD. We'd normally be quick to disregard this as yet another DRM "ecosystem" for digital media, but the list of players backing the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (or DECE) has us taking notice. As impossible as this seems, if anyone could make it happen, it'd be a group composed of: Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, Fox, HP, Intel, Lions Gate, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, VeriSign, and Warner Bros -- yes, we also find it hard to believe that all these companies are working together. We'll have to wait until January at CES for the ins and outs of how this would actually work, but we do know it'll be based around a "rights locker" which will amount to a website where digital purchases will be stored -- we assume this is where VeriSign fits in. Oh, and Apple is noticeably absent from the list
NBC Universal to carriers: add temporary HD channels or live without Olympics streaming
For a whole slew of individuals across America (particularly those with lackluster Time Warner Cable lineups), the addition of two new temporary high-def stations has been quite the treat. Just prior to the start of the Beijing Olympics, many cable carriers opted to add in an HD Soccer and HD Basketball channel, but if you thought they were just doing so to be nice, you thought wrong. After scads of CableONE subscribers in Idaho were flat shut out of live online streaming, a bit of digging revealed the problem: NBC Universal bundled online streaming into a "premium package" with the previously mentioned stations, which CableONE declined to offer. For the CableONE users, the story does end in on a high note -- they are getting three permanent HD channels instead. For everyone else loving the convenience of online streams, at least you can sleep easy knowing that minor increases in your future bill will likely be used to pay for it. Then again, what is free these days?
Comcast and Charter tout enhanced Olympics 2008 coverage
Just in case you thought only AT&T and DirecTV are the only ones lining up HD video on-demand offerings for the Olympics (scheduled to kick off tomorrow with women's soccer ahead of the August 8 opening ceremonies), as Comcast and Charter just dropped some details on their plans for the Beijing Games. For the most part HD VOD plans seem identical to the offerings from other providers, with 15-20 daily updates and highlights sorted by sport, while Comcast promises more than 700 hours of HD on NBC HD, Universal HD and USA HD, plus multiple live NBC feeds on Comcast Central. Charter however has highlighted a few different features , with plans to carry the NBC Olympics Soccer Channel and NBC Olympic Basketball Channel in HD on top of the NBC and Universal HD feeds, plus foreign language TV coverage. Since no one person can hope to keep up with all the coverage (and don't forget the 2,200 hours of streaming video planned for the NBC website), plan for HD VOD to be the lifeline keeping you updated with your sport of choice.Read - Comcast PRRead - Charter PR
Universal HD claims there's more than the Olympics going on in August
Universal HD hopes to pump up its lineup around the Beijing Olympics, featuring Olympic Trials highlights in "Olympic Athlete Weekend" on August 2 and 3. Beyond just the coverage around the events in China there will also be plenty of extreme sports and boxing coverage all month. The news that season 4 Battlestar Galactica premieres on the station next month would be more exciting if this were last year and the Sci Fi HD simulcast hadn't launched already, but in case you didn't/don't have the station yet, there you go. Hopefully when the offices are moved from LA to New York -- along with Sleuth and Chiller -- NBC Universal will find some more compelling original content to fill the time after the Olympics are over.Read - Universal HD presents an Olympic themed August in honor of the Beijing OlympicsRead - Emerging nets moving to New York
NBC lays out 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage plans
Just in case it didn't really sink in last August, NBC is gearing up to air 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage this year. Yeah, 3,600 hours. So, how are mere plebeians supposed to watch that much content? With a couple HD DVRs, you ought to have no troubles at all. Hailed as the "most ambitious single media project in history," NBC Universal will be broadcasting across seven different NBC networks: NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo and Universal HD, as well as NBCOlympics.com. Granted, this is speaking strictly of coverage here in the United States, but there's no denying that nations across the globe are doing their best to snatch up as much of the Games as possible. For a complete rundown of what to expect just under a month from now, bookmark the links below.Read - NBC announces Olympics plansRead - Coverage listings
NBC Universal hopes to push HD-focused ads during Olympics
Not like you couldn't piece this one together yourself, but NBC Universal isn't going to let this opportunity pass it by. Just like the run-up to the SuperBowl, it's planning on using the Olympics as a campaign platform for HD. Reportedly, affiliates will be "provided with on-air, direct mail and bill stuffers to promote HDTV content sales, as well as material designed to retain current HDTV subscribers." In other words, expect to see an onslaught of ads coaxing folks into making the jump to high-def if they haven't already. Gotta love those marketing gurus, eh?
