Media & Entertainment

DIRECTV will launch a new video on-demand service in the second quarter. To overcome the technical limitations of satellite, the service will use a dual strategy to deliver content. Certain films will simply be broadcast and recorded to a customer’s DVR behind the scenes, where they can be purchased later for instant playback. Other titles Continue Reading →

HULU is now open for business, offering a wide selection of ad-supported television shows and films. The site appears to have dropped registration requirements, allowing users to quickly and easily begin watching content. Creating an account enables advanced features, such as subscribing to specific shows and creating an online queue of episodes. CEO Jason Kilar Continue Reading →

HULU will officially launch on Wednesday, offering full-length episodes of 250 television series, 100 feature-length films and some of the top online video content. The News Corp – NBC U venture has gone all-out, adding new programming from Lionsgate, Warner Bros. TV Group, the NBA, the NHL, the Onion News Network and more. Of course, Continue Reading →

APPLE unveiled an impressive suite of iPhone developer tools and demoed iPhone applications created by major software companies. EA showed the game Spore running on an iPhone, displaying impressive graphics. Salesforce.com, Sega and AOL also showed off new iPhone applications. Starting in June, iPhone apps will be sold through iTunes as well as through a Continue Reading →

APPLE will host its iPhone special event this morning at the company’s Town Hall. Steve Jobs is expected to reveal plans for allowing third-party applications to be installed on the iPhone. Apple’s invitations for the event also promised “some exciting new enterprise features.” MICROSOFT has decided to use the video player of MOVE NETWORKS in Continue Reading →

KEVIN MARTIN said he is willing to conduct testing of the digital transition in a few markets before taking the switch national next February. The FCC chairman had formerly claimed there was not enough time for testing. However, FCC member Michael Copps has continued to push hard for the tests and appears to have persuaded Continue Reading →

THE DISNEY-ABC TELEVISION GROUP has officially announced Stage 9, a new digital media studio. The studio’s first project is “Squeegees,” an online comedy show about a group of bumbling window washers. The 5-minute episodes will be released on Mondays and Fridays on both YouTube and ABC.com. However, this “new media” studio made a decidedly “old Continue Reading →

THE RECORDING INDUSTRY lost a major ruling in Atlantic v. Brennan when a federal judge in Connecticut ruled that merely making music available to other users is not evidence of copyright infringement. The judge also found that no proof of infringement was supplied by the record companies that brought the suit. With two of three Continue Reading →

Scott Boyarsky, Director of Program Management at the Walt Disney Internet Group called me to chat about an extraordinary website called newsclipper.org. It’s extraordinary for a bunch of reasons (which I shall explain) but the most interesting part of our conversation centered around a simple, unavoidable truth: newsclipper.org does exactly what you or I might Continue Reading →

SHELLY PALMER and KEVIN MARTIN will talk about the transition to digital television on BLOOMBERG TV today at 12:10 ET. THE FCC is backing down from a plan to force TV stations to air up to 12 PSA’s per day warning viewers about the upcoming digital transition. Instead, the Commission is expected to accept a Continue Reading →