Every fanboy got his panties in a bunch when a trailer for The Watchmen, Alan Moore's 1985 graphic novel about masked vigilantes, previewed before The Dark Knight several weeks ago. Watchmen holds a special place for most comic book lovers; it was one of the first comics, along with Maus, to earn the title of graphic novel (though it was released in sections) due to its meta-commentary on the traditional world of superheroes and crime fighters. Watchmen deals with some pretty dark and complex subject matter, and when details were leaked about the cast of heroes (young and hip, as opposed to the comic where they were older and washed up), and the director (Zack Snyder, who adapted Frank Miller's 300, to mixed reviews), there was some rumblings of trouble in geek and non-geek communities alike. Despite a giant marketing tie-in at this year's Comic-Con, Watchmen seemed doomed to have the impossibly high expectations of a super-hero action piece that also says something, resting on its shoulder. That is, if it even gets released now.
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Well, it's been a good ride. After months and months of being bombarded with reasons to feel embarrassed for Sherri Shepherd, Today and Good Morning America concert performances, and an endless loop of Anderson Cooper, TV video clipping service RedLasso says it's shutting down. It just might have something to do with the little lawsuit that NBC and Fox just filed against it for copyright infringement. So there will be more more daily embed links to the most recent stink filling up our airwaves … unless you're a paying customer: business clients will still get their clips. (Doesn't that put RedLasso at more risk of claims that it's profiting from others copyrighted works?) And all the videos that have been posted thus far? They should soon be made unavailable. Which might come as a surprise to those working at RedLasso, who, not four hours ago, wanted to let us know about Feist performing on GMA. CONTINUED »
Following up May's cease and desist letter, NBC Universal, Fox News, and the Fox Television Stations today will jointly file suit against Redlasso, the defiant clipping service all of them refuse to credit with making tons of their programming more popular than they ever could. (NB: CBS, originally involved in the case, doesn't seem to be attached to the lawsuit.) [NYO]
Former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, who once auctioned himself off on a date with two other men, announced his retirement earlier this month. Now, he's headed to out to pasture where many high-profile ex-athletes end up: television sports. He's signed with Fox to be an analyst on Fox NFL Sunday, where he'll be paid to take the shit-talking out of the locker room and into the living room.
Last month, the big broadcast networks NBC, CBS, and Fox filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against RedLasso, the video clipping service used by many blogs to post footage of Dancing With the Stars contestants falling down and Fox News anchors displaying their whiteness. While RedLasso argued they wanted to work with television content producers to create a good-for-everyone revenue-sharing model, the networks took a different approach: stop stealing our content and building your business on it.
Funny, then, that the same companies responsible for trying to kill RedLasso are using the very service on their own websites.
Sadly, it appears those interning at 20th Century Fox have not learned the lesson of Chrissy Torres, the University of Southern California student who thought airing her complaints about her gig – like her boss giving her a "Meryl-Streep-in-Devil-Wears-Prada long list of things to do one day, 3 hours before I had to leave" – would be a good idea.
Some of her fellow interns aren't so pleased with her actions. Which is why they're doing some blogging of their own … aimed at Torres. CONTINUED »
… and she's Chrissy Torres, who's likely out of an internship, like, right this second. Not only did she give away the damning details about her identity while blogging about her internship, she also listed the fact that she was interning at Fox and contributing to CollegeOTR.com, where the blog was published, on her Facebook profile. Idiot.
Bad news, kiddos: The USC student who was said to be interning at FNC is actually just interning at one of the bajillion divisions of Fox (okay, it's 20th Century Fox in LA). Not that writing about her experience there is any less stupid.
By slashing the number of commercials for two new dramas, Fringe (fall premiere) and The Dollhouse (January premiere), Fox has been able to command 35-40 percent premiums for regular 30-second commercial spots.
It's all part of the network's Remote Free TV initiative, which hopes that by eliminating the amount of total commercial time, viewers will become more engaged in the programming and, thus, less likely to skip through the ads. (Gimmicks like this one have helped Fox sell out 70 percent of its upfront primetime commercial spots, and they could finish sales by the end of the week.) [MW]
Advertisers like it because it eliminates commercial clutter, where so many ads are squeezed into a single block of programming that marketing messages can be easily lost amidst the inundation.
Viewers like it because it means they'll have to hit the fast-forward button less often.
Fox insists it didn't intentionally run American Idol a smidge long to cut off Ryan Seacrest revealing the winner's name to DVR viewers. "The winner, by 12 million votes, of ‘American Idol’ 2008 is David —," was how things might've appeared on your end after sitting through what was essentially a two-hour ad for The Love Guru. [NYT]
RedLasso, the sometimes buggy but generally reliable embeddable video service, was handed a copyright infringement lawsuit this week by the major TV networks, who want it shut down for distributing their content.
With a huge 24 million unique visitors a month, it's clear RedLasso serves a purpose. But so did Napster, and one industry in particular wasn't pleased with its reach.
So what's RedLasso to do? The company still hasn't responded formally to the lawsuit, but they have said one thing: We've got the blogs on our side! CONTINUED »
You know all those lovely clips of The Daily Show, Good Morning America, Dancing With the Stars, and American Idol that blogs have been able to publish with growing ease and selection in the past few months?
The joyride may be over.
In a dust up we kind of expected to see, and are surprised took so long to form, RedLasso (the company behind the embeddable clips) is being taken to court by NBC, CBS, and Fox for copyright violations. [Reuters] They're not so happy that their programming has been reduced to bite-size segments for anyone to watch gratis. CONTINUED »
Though its mega-franchise American Idol saw ratings drop off this season – will tonight's season finale vote tally even break records? – Fox will be crowned the winner of the 2007-08 television season, with the ratings numbers to beat the competition. Nevermind that all together, network TV audiences fell by a whopping 10 percent this season over last, though Fox is up 5 percent. [Variety]
This week's news that networks are turning to Americanized foreign series to save cash? Here's your primo example of how this could be either genius or a disaster: Fox is picking up Hole in the Wall, the hugely popular Japanese "human Tetris" game show, where contestants must bend themselves into shapes to fit through a wall cut-out, or get forced into a pool. Its United States arrival, however, isn't too much of a stretch; Hole is already broadcast in 16 regions, including Australia, Russia and Denmark. (ABC, meanwhile, is picking up obstacle course series Wipeout, a take-off on Japans 1980s show Takeshi's Castle.)
So how to tell whether this show is going to take off in the U.S.? YouTube clips of the show have been viewed millions of times. Each.
Did you happen upon a herd of cows around NYC yesterday? Or a group of Segway riders? It was all part of a marketing campaign for Fringe, the new Fox sci-fi drama from J.J. Abrams that took over NYC yesterday, the same day the show was announced.
Starring Joshua Jackson and debuting this fall, Fringe focuses on a weirdo research scientist, his son, and a FBI agent who connects them.
So what's behind the publicity stunts? CONTINUED »
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