March 11, 2008

Disney Parks' VOD Gets Catty

Cat Got Disney's VOD, No Deal at NBC, Hulu Set, The Unemotional Dr Malone, Hornets Nest, Awards for HDNet and other news

NEWS BRIEFING FOR TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2008

It would be easy to gloat about how the mighty have fallen, but we won't. Good day.

The Mouse doing business with a Cat? It seems so as Disney Parks/Resorts soon will receive promotional help from Chef Cat Cora, who will appear in programs for Disney Travel on Demand, the VOD channel that promotes Disney Parks and Resorts. The VOD channel begins its second season on Time Warner Cable and Cablevision systems. Also an Iron Chef, Cora’s shows will note the parks’ culinary attractions, Disney said today. Also appearing on other 7-8-minute shows will be talent from Hannah Montana and High School Musical, among others. Cablevision viewers are able to click a button on their remote control and receive a call from a Disney travel agent. The talk-to-agent feature had a 23% conversion rate during year one, Disney said.   

An interesting partnership, Lifetime, THINKFilm and Netflix’s Red Envelope Entertainment acquired N American rights to Phoebe in Wonderland, which just premiered at Sundance and stars Patricia Clarkson, Felicity Huffman and Bill Pullman. THINKFilm will release the film this fall, Lifetime will have exclusive TV rights and Netflix will have non-exclusive DVD and streaming rights.  All three will brand and market the indie drama.

Oh the ironies of cable. Dish yesterday reached agreement with Cox Sports Television to carry New Orleans Hornets basketball games, but NBA fans with DirecTV and Charter remain in the dark. Charter says CST’s rates are too high, while DirecTV feels there’s not enough interest to pick up the games, an AP story at si.com says. CST carries most Hornets games. Prior to Monday’s agreement, games were available only on Cox Cable, blacking out some 250,000 residents on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. [AP] 

HGTV and Food Network will simulcast their respective standard-def and HD feeds to affiliates beginning March 31, allowing HD households to watch Food and HGTV in HD at the same time the shows run on the standard-def channels. Since launching in 2006, HGTV-HD and Food Network-HD have carried programs on a separate schedule.

NBC-Universal is not for sale, even after the Olympics, GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt says in GE’s annual report, to be released tomorrow, The NY Times reports. Other news outlets have speculated that GE’s biggest asset could be on the block after the summer games. [NYT]

And speaking of NBC, Hulu, its free Web site video project with Fox and others, will be available tomorrow, The NY Times says, adding that Hulu will add content partners Wednesday, too. [NYT]

Sundance Channel’s second season of primetime programming bloc The Green will be available one week before premiere at On Demand, beginning March 25. And Robert Redford has taped MSO-specific PSAs urging viewers to tune in and take action. In other green news, Discovery named Tom Carr SVP, Marketing, for Planet Green. He’s a former Marketing SVP for TNT.

Mark Cuban is beaming over HDNet World Report grabbing two first place awards at the 74th annual National Headliner Awards, sponsored by The Press Club of Atlantic City, N.J. The first award was for the doc The Forgotten War: Fighting Terror in the Philippines; the second was for news magazine piece A Silent War, A Violent Peace: Uganda's Child Soldiers. Both pieces will re-run March 18 at 9pm ET.

I’s tough being a public figure these days, someone’s always following, even if you’re not governor of NY. The good Dr John Malone was tailed Monday during his court case in Delaware against business partner Barry Diller. Malone was on the stand for 5 hours (think of the opportunity cost). The revelation  the media got out of that one is that Dr J admitted to The NY Times he doesn’t emote well. [NYT]

Briefly Noted
As expected, Tucker Carlson (bow tie and open collar) is out at MSNBC, replaced by NBC’s David Gregory at 6pm. And NBC’s Andrea Mitchell gets an MSNBC show of her own at 1pm daily. [NYT]

Broadcasters will not suffer in the upfronts from remorse over the writers strike, The Hollywood Reporter says. [THR]

Steve Smith in the Daily Pilot of Newport Beach, CA, marvels at “people who complain about the garbage on television, then complain that they can’t get good service to watch it,” as he endorses TV Turnoff Week (Apr 21-27). [DP] 

AT&T is pushing Tennessee for state franchising, The Mountain Press reports. [MP]

TechCrunch columnist Erick Schonfeld says Google’s lead in directed TV ads means cable’s Canoe project better start paddling fast. [SA]  An analyst for Parks Associates, Harry Wang, agrees in his blog. [PA]

Got a tip? Contact sarenstein@accessintel.com and sgoldstein@accessintel.com

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