We last wrote about the upcoming Jimmy Fallon show quite some time ago, noting that NBC would be using THE INTERNET to create “buzz” and a “following,” so that when the show launched—the first episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon airs this Monday night—there would already be some sort of audience. We’ll see how that turns out; NBC and Conan O’Brien look to be fairly… → Read More
Now the DTV Delay Act succesfully navigated through the US Capitol, there are some large, looming questions. Primarily, now that the analog switch-off is optional until June 12, what stations will switch off when? And is the Government going to pump more money into the bankrupt DTV vouchers program? → Read More
The brains behind NBC’s wunderkind video site, George Kliavkoff, is leaving NBC at the end of ’08. George came to NBC over two years ago as the companies chief digital officer and laid the groundwork for Hulu’s success. Under his watch, Hulu became a digital revenue cash cow for NBC and a legitimate alternative to YouTube for content providers. The site might not post as many… → Read More
Fire up iTunes and you’ll find, for the first time, TV shows from the four major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) in HD. It’s still $2.99 per HD episode, and that includes a standard-def version of the TV show for your iPhone or iPod. HD shows now include hits like Lost, CSI, 30 Rock and The Office. But we all know The Shield is the best show on TV now, so whatever. → Read More
The real Office Let’s all congratulate NBC for seemingly having figured out how to prevent its great content, like clips of Saturday Night Live, from appearing on the likes of YouTube and Dailymotion. Well done, chaps! NBC told CNET that it’s gotten to the point that unauthorized video clips (like from the Olympics or The Office) are removed so quickly that there’s hardly a soul… → Read More
NBC had a huge week thanks to the financial troubles being experienced on Wall Street and its new relationship with Apple.
CNBC.com was the chosen destination for investors and businesspeople alike this week as the instability on Wall Street led to the site’s largest audience ever. For the first time in its history, CNBC.com served 1 million unique visitors on Monday and racked up 14.6 million… → Read More
Just in case you missed the brief announcement a couple days ago, HDTV shows are now on iTunes. Yup, and NBC is back giving away an episode of its best shows. All you need is iTunes 8. Battlestar Galactica The Office Lipstick Jungle Heroes In Plain Sight Monk Psych Life Eureka 30 Rock via TUAW → Read More
NBC shows being on iTunes isn’t a case of NBC begging Apple to let it come back, but a case of Apple caving into some of NBC’s demands. Let’s all predict Apple’s imminent demise! NBC left iTunes last year because Apple didn’t let it set its own prices for its content. That has now changed. NBC said that it’ll be selling certain, older TV shows for 99 cents a pop… → Read More
About damn time. ABC is the last major network to make the HD jump but the network is using the Democratic National Convention to premier their nightly news in high definition. Both ABC World News, as well as Nightline, premiers tonight in 720p high definition. Following the DNC, and the Republican Convention after that, World News is going to return to the NY studio which they will, of course… → Read More
Despite its special Silverlight-powered Website and more than 2,000 hours of online video, it looks like NBC flubbed its opportunity to make its Olympics Web revenues more than a rounding error. NBCOlympics.com may have streamed 72 million videos and racked up 1.2 billion pageviews, but Yahoo Sports still edged it out with an average of 4.7 million visitors a day versus 4.3 million (source… → Read More
NBC has turned to Denon with help on the audio control for this years Olympics. As it turns out, this is the fifth straight Olympic games that Denon has been involved with. The AV company suppled NBC with their top of the line gear for work in post-production. Denon’s flagship audio/video receiver, the AVR-5308, plus a DVD-1940 are installed in the Executive Board Room, while two AVR-2808… → Read More
There is a nausiating amount of ’08 Olympic video coverage this year, and all we really want to watch is a little Table Tennis. There is so much video recording that for every 24 hour day, there is 212 hours being recorded onto massive media servers. Seagate hooked NBC up with 20 Omneon MediaDeck servers that hold a total of 500,000 gigabytes, or 500 terabytes, for the task. Plus, while the… → Read More
NBC is lame. I’m sorry. They are making it really hard to watch videos of the Olympics anywhere but on their site. That would be fine with me, but as a user with an older Mac, I’m shut out. Their video only works on Windows machines and Intel-powered Macs that support Silverlight 2.0. Yes, I am bitter. And yes, I need to upgrade my computer. (Admitted lameness on my part). But… → Read More
Just noticed this graphic as NBC took a commercial break during Olympic coverage. Can’t wait to watch the upcoming “SWIMMMING” events. Nice work there, NBC. You’d fit right in here at CrunchGear. As we always say, “Proofreeeading, schmroofreedninng.” → Read More
The NFL will broadcast games online this fall, bucking its previous “the Internet is evil, sue, sue, sue!” methodology. The NFL’s broadcast partner, NBC, will stream select games this season, streams that appear to be the real deal. That is, NBC will stream the very same TV feed that you’re used to watching, complete with John Madden’s insightful commentary. Boom, squiggly… → Read More
BlogHer, an online network of female bloggers, has announced a partnership with iVillage and Women@NBCU, a new content and marketing intiative by NBC Universal. The partnership includes a $5 million Series B round led by Peacock Equity (a fund run by NBC Universal and GE) along with previous investor Venrock Capital. iVillage, Oxygen.com, and BravoTV.com will also obtain access to BlogHer’s… → Read More
On Friday we wrote about how NBC were partnering with Microsoft and others to use the Olympics coverage as a test-bed for researching new user habits in viewing content between online, television and mobile. The web experience at NBC is powered by Silverlight, also giving Microsoft its first large-scale opportunity to gain distribution for the new web platform. It seems that there are very high… → Read More
Citizen journalism seems all the rage these days, with normal people breaking news to the world with their mobile phones and portable computers. News sites like GroundReport and CNN’s iReport are offering users outlets for their eyewitness stories, and with emerging mobile broadcasting products like Twitter and Qik, we’re only going to see the trend continue to grow. In keeping with… → Read More
Genuinely funny, last night’s episode of The Office (Hulu link) showcased the gravity of the situation between Apple and NBC. The long and short of it is, Michael wanted to create a mix CD using “M3Ps” for the office’s new human resources guy, who’s actually a girl; Michael falls in love with her immediately, or “love at first see with my ears.” Rather… → Read More
NBC is giving away free episodes of hit shows on the iPhone (and Touch). All you have to do is go to NBC.com on an iPhone and you will get the invite to watch full episodes. This doesn’t make sense to me. Yesterday, we find out that they will sell their shows on the Zune for the same price as Apple. Then, they turn around and give it away for free to iPhone users. If NBC was trying to… → Read More
Cesar over at Zune Insider is clearing things up regarding the piracy countermeasures and he’s saying MS has no plans to filter content on the Zune. Don’t you to toy with my affections, Cesar. We have no plans or commitments to implement any new type of content filtering in the Zune devices as part of our content distribution deal with NBC. We think some folks in the industry were… → Read More
NBC’s president of digital distribution, J. B. Perrette, explained in an interview the various reasons they recently chose to go with Zune for the distribution of their shows online. Perrette says that first of all, they liked that Microsoft was more flexible with the pricing. I can see that, I think Apple’s a little stiff on that front. But NBC’s other beef with Apple was the… → Read More
Devin already gave us most of the details of Microsoft’s new Zune Marketplace yesterday, but with today’s official announcement comes additional information. First, lots of folks, including the AP, are making a big deal about the presence of NBC content on the new Marketplace. You may remember that NBC and Apple went their separate ways last year when Apple refused to cede to… → Read More
Jason Kilar, the CEO of NBC’s web-TV site Hulu, has suggested at NAB that Hulu may be on its way to other net-enabled gadgets. He says they’re “ripe for the Hulu experience,” whatever that is. Sounds like a psychedelic rock band from Japan: The Hulu Experience presents OTOFOKASURENZU. Moving on: Kilar also talked about picking up cult hits like Felicity and Arrested… → Read More
Pity the media conglomerate that tries to enforce copyright by demanding the modification of an extremely popular and user-friendly piece of hardware. NBC’s Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff says they’re wary of releasing its TV shows on iTunes due to the large amount of pirated content on iPods. And since people use iTunes to put stuff on their iPod, maybe pretty please could… → Read More
Quarterlife, the made for MySpace TV show that became the first internet show picked up by a TV network has bombed. According to Nielsen Ratings for Tuesday night, Quarterlife managed only 3.86 million viewers for its 10pm debut on NBC, compared to the fan resurrected but short second season of Jericho with 6.9 million viewers and Primetime: What Would You Do Now? with 7.6 million viewers. → Read More
[photopress:upsideholly.jpg,full,center] Thanks to striking writers, who are striking thanks to your changing media/entertainment consumption habits, NBC says this is a great time to completely re-think the way television is produced. No more pilot seasons, no more song-and-dance to prospective advertisers, no more glut. No more Hollywood excess, in other words. Pat yourselves on the back, writers… → Read More
[photopress:attcensorship.jpg,full,center] Who’s ready for some ISP-level Internet filtering, all in the name of protecting copyright? After all, copyright is what makes us a civilized, just people. Without it we’d be still be living in caves. At CES, representatives from NBC, Microsoft and AT&T said that the time is about the right time to start seriously considering blocking, or… → Read More
After the fallout between NBC and Apple earlier this year, I wondered what was going to happen with NBC’s bevy of hot content. You can’t tell me Chuck, Heroes, The Office and Life aren’t good shows. I like to torrent said shows on occasion if I miss an episode, but that becomes tedious at times and a pain in the butt if I download the wrong one. Yes, I know that I can watch them… → Read More
It would be tempting to come up with a snarky headline for this story, such as “TiVo changing channels”, but we’ll spare you. In fact, we’re going to make a general summarization: TiVo is doing better than analysts thought it would, and that’s because it’s concentrating on working with content providers, not just using what they create. NBC, for example, after… → Read More
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