NBC has two big sports events to make hay from in 2012: the Super Bowl and the Summer Olympics from London. My big question: will NBC make 3D hay out of one or both? Television set makers and other 3D advocates, getting attacked from many sides for the slow 3D adoption among the public, could use some encouraging words from NBC. Of the two, the Olympics is the surer thing, since there will be hundreds of live 3D coverage hours produced from London, and the BBC is on board to run a fair chunk of them. As for the Super Bowl, so goes National Football League chief Roger Goodell, so goes NBC.
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The more time ticks by, the less chance NBC/NBC Universal owner Comcast gives itself to fulfill its promise of launching three independently-owned channels on all of its cable systems, three owned or managed by people/organizations of color–by January 2013. After receiving more than 100 network proposals from African-Americans and Latinos this spring, there’s no word when Comcast will announce those three channels, three out of eight minority-owned channels turning on before the end of 2018 as part of acquiring NBC Universal. Getting three nets from conception to more than 20 million digital cable households within 16 months is a humungous order. As Tyler Florence says on Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race, let’s get rolling.
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More and more, YouTube is becoming a great repository for outstanding TV from the 1950s and 1960s, whether your taste is for drama, sitcoms, variety hours or game shows. Even better, YouTube now offers more of these programs in their entirety (some with the original commercials intact), so you don’t have to keep clicking 10-minute segment after segment. Still hold the view that Google would reap a fortune if YouTube became a video-on-demand TV attraction carried by cable and satellite distributors. Imagine what a classic TV VOD venture would do. What say you, Google?
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Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson passed away this past weekend at age 88, one of those people dedicated at his craft and dependable to deliver any kind of performance. His 1968 Oscar-getter for Charly was rooted in “The Two Worlds Of Charlie Gordon,” a live episode of United States Steel Hour in 1961 where he played the lead role. Robertson acquired the rights to “Flowers For Algernon”, the classic Daniel Keyes story from which “Two Worlds” was adapted, then held his ground for years to get the movie produced. For Playhouse 90 a few years earlier, Robertson co-starred with Piper Laurie in “Days Of Wine & Roses,” again the forerunner of an acclaimed, Oscar-decorated film. He also leaves behind starring roles in “A Hundred Yards Over The Rim” and “The Dummy,” a pair of memorable journeys into The Twilight Zone. Memorable TV we and future generations will savor deeply.
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Picked up interesting feedback on my recent Tomorrow columns about Google TV and Telemundo’s reluctance to put Olympics coverage in primetime. Will address that next time. For the meanwhile, keep the responses coming by using the comment space below. Thanks to all for checking in.
Until the next time, stay well and stay tuned!