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As you know, Marty Yudkovitz is the Vice-chariman of the Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards.  The cut and paste from Reuters follows.  In other TiVo news the company is launching an SDK (software development kit) for third party developers.  What does that mean to you?  Lots of new home-brew and third party TiVo-centric software, downloads, Continue Reading →

I sat in a conference room at Universal Music Group a few months ago with some very high ranking officials and was surprised to hear one marketing executive tell me that music videos were, “valuable content” and, “UMG should be compensated when a network or show airs them.”  I asked her the obvious question, aren’t Continue Reading →

The New York Times published a front-page article about MythTV this past Sunday (1/30/05).  MythTV is one of dozens of home-brew PVR (personal video recorder) websites – it basically is a DIY TiVo.  However, the Times lumps it into a genus of technologies dedicated to helping people steal pay-per-view and premium television.  The builders of Continue Reading →

One of the most interesting things at the NATPE convention this week was Google’s new video search tool.  In its present state, it is not very useful – however – one of its probable futures could significantly change the way about half of us watch television.  Here’s their official press release, it’s a quick read.  Continue Reading →

We are living in interesting times and nowhere is the effect of change more evident than here in Las Vegas at the 2005 NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) convention.   The highly conglomerated syndication business is represented.  But as one high-ranking executive of Columbia Tri-Star told me, “… we’ve had to learn how Continue Reading →

You just never know what Ted Turner is going to say. Today, he was into world politics and mentioned that “… several thousand unguarded nuclear warheads posed the biggest threat to our safety. Voting for the AOL/Time Warner merger was the biggest mistake he ever made. The $1,000 Social Security check he receives from the Continue Reading →

Two particle physicists are sitting at a bar discussing string theory.  Two guitarists are sitting close enough to overhear the conversation and one says to the other, “So … What kind of strings do you use?”   Dumb guitarist jokes are going to have to be rewritten now that Gibson is finally going to add Continue Reading →

Since Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, I have been rhetorically asking my clients, “… can you tell me why the number one consumer music product is now manufactured by a computer company and the number one consumer electronics company isn’t even in the game?”  My answer was validated in the following article.  Let’s hope that Continue Reading →

The NY Post Reports: In a rare blow for Cablevision patriarch Chuck Dolan, the company announced last night that it had entered a deal to sell its Voom satellite business to Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar for $200 million. Voom — part of Cablevision’s Rainbow Media unit — had been Dolan’s pet project, but twice in recent Continue Reading →

From: Charles and Tom Dolan Yesterday, Cablevision’s Board of Directors in a split vote passed a resolution to sell or dispose of Rainbow DBS, i.e., VOOM and VOOM 21. While this news is startling, we wish to assure you that the board’s action is not in the slightest way a negative reflection upon you or Continue Reading →