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June 28, 2007
360AM: HBO's Peep Show
HBOVoyeur takes viewers on a multiplatform journey; FTC supports cable's anti-net neutrality stance; Sprint-MSO JV changes leadership; Playboy on iPhone; and more Thursday news.
By Shirley Brady
Cable360AM — News briefing for Thursday, June 28 »
HBO unveils a buzz-seeking fake series today in an unprecedented (for Home Box Office) TV, online, video-on-demand and on the ground (at least in New York) multiplatform push. HBOVoyeur is a series of short films that, in a nod to Rear Window (and Ikea?), dramatize life in different apartment units of a single New York building. The shorts, which can be viewed here on Blip TV, form the backbone of a marketing stunt. A public screening is scheduled tonight in New York, where the films will be projected onto the side of an apartment building at the corner of Broome and Ludlow streets. The shorts also debut today on HBO on Demand and on HBOVoyeur.com. A blog, thestorygetsdeeper.com (with fake NYC phone book) launched a few weeks ago to start teasing the campaign. Interesting digital move for a network that just killed its HBO Media Lab and fired its top new media execs. Separately, HBO just tapped Oracle for "expanding media distribution." [WSJ.com]
Sprint Nextel's John Garcia is stepping down as president of the Sprint-MSO cable wireless joint venture, with former BellSouth exec Keith Cowan hired to run the JV consortium. Garcia's new title is SVP, product management and development. More details in Sprint's release.
FTC chairman Deborah Platt Majoras yesterday came out against net neutrality, good news for Comcast and other cable operators. NCTA pres/CEO Kyle McSlarrow praised the FTC for "comprehensively examining the competitive forces, both economic and policy, at work in today's Internet." [Dow Jones | AP | Reuters]
Time Warner Cable responded to Mid-Atlantic Sports Network's request for arbitration, but the cable operator is not changing its tune: TWC NC spokesperson Melissa Butcher tells Raleigh's News & Observer MASN's Orioles and Nationals' games are "of little interest" to its customers.
Playboy announced iPlayboy, a package of free wallpapers, videos and MP3 files for Apple's mega-hyped iPhone launch tomorrow.
WWE head Vince McMahon addressed steroid charges in the Chris Benoit murder-suicide on The Today Show this morning; details here.
Microsoft hired Prudential Equity analyst Kathy Styponias as GM, Media & Entertainment Group. She has moved from New York to Redmond, WA.
Qwest asked the FCC to earmark $500 million for rural broadband deployment. [Rocky Mountain News]
MySpace today launches MySpace TV in a bid to take on YouTube, which now has a bigger share of the U.S. market than the next 64 video-sharing websites combined, reports Hitwise analyst LeeAnn Prescott. MySpace TV will let users "mash up" videos later this year and will feature content including movies and TV shows that will also be showcased on the upcoming News Corp./NBCU Web video portal, notes the New York Times. Google, meanwhile, is now the top mobile site in the U.S. and the U.K., reports M:Metrics.
• PROGRAMMING
A&E Networks signed a HD VOD deal with Comcast for five hours per month of A&E programming.
CNN's Paris Hilton-fest yesterday included heavy in-program promotion, with a countdown clock on Paula Zahn's show that preceded Larry King's softball hour with the post-jailed heiress, and a scathing post-mortem on Anderson Cooper 360, where Cooper admitted his disdain for Hilton and the interview. Sicko director Michael Moore told Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's The Daily Show last night his first hour-long LKL appearance was bumped for Hilton; he's rescheduled for Friday.
FX shocked Rescue Me fans last night with the death of a key character. [New York Post | TV Guide]
Lifetime tapped former Hallmark Channel CEO Margaret Loesch to exec produce The Landry, a TV miniseries based on V.C. Andrews' five-novel series. Loesch's The Hatchery and Jaffe/Braunstein are co-producing, notes Variety. Lifetime also paid about $10 million to license five theatrical movies: Georgia Rule, Because I Said So, Notes on a Scandal, Waitress and In the Land of Women, Variety reports. The New York Times invited real army wives to watch Lifetime's top-rated Army Wives series: "despite their concerns about authenticity and the program’s propensity for sudsy dramatic license, this group mostly found Army Wives entertaining, well acted and able to shed some light on their real lives. ... 'The plotlines were fabulous,' said Deborah Stellfox, who has two children and whose husband, Lamar, has been in the military for 26 years. 'The problems were the technical aspects. Hollywood writers writing about the military is like men writing about childbirth.'"
MTV added Virtual Pimp My Ride, feature a 3-D Van Nuys with drag racing strips and customizable (pimpable?) car challenges, to its online MTV virtual universe.
MTV Networks signed a deal with the World Cyber Games to televise the tournament's finales on Spike TV starting this fall. [New York Times] MTVN's AtomUploads user-generated video site, which replaced AddictingClips in May, doubled to 2.23 million users in its first month.
TNT's The Company premieres Aug. 5 with limited commercial interruptions, sponsored by Ford and Quiznos. TNT and TBS inked a "rare theatrical-movie pre-buy" for Rush Hour 3, with a license fee based on 12% of box office receipts, which could cost Turner up to $24 million for a four-year term if the movie grosses $200 million or more. HBO gets an 18-month pay-TV exclusive before the sister basic cable networks share Rush Hour 3 starting March 2010; New Line's Fracture, also part of the deal, will premiere on Turner's drama/comedy nets in Nov. 2009. [Variety]
USA greenlit To Love and Die, a one-hour series about "a fun-loving thirtysomething (Shiri Appleby) with abandonment issues." Tim Matheson and Frances Fisher co-star. [Hollywood Reporter]
- Shirley Brady
• Click here for Wednesday's 360AM news briefing »
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