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TV Shows on DVD I’d Like To See

March 21, 2006 by Jim Connelly

One of my favorite niche sites out there is Gord Lacey’s TV Shows on DVD, which is exactly what it claims to be: a place where you can learn about TV Shows on DVD. It’s essentially a compendium of news/rumours/release dates (Battlestar Galactica 2.5 is coming out in early September?!?), reviews, and a place where you can vote for shows that haven’t quite made it to DVD.

Anyways, just for the hell of it, here’s my list of shows that I’m still waiting to see on DVD (or On-Demand) (or even downloadable):

[Read more…] about TV Shows on DVD I’d Like To See

Filed Under: Hot Topics Tagged With: DVD, Televison

The Daily Loper – March 21, 2006

March 21, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • A guide to Beck and Scientology for journalists and fans
    OK first Isaac Hayes and now Beck?! That’s it, I’m heading to the Celebrity Center for a personality test.
  • FBI, you’ve got mail — NOT!
    The FBI can’t afford email. Uh, where the hell is all of our tax money going?! Maybe they should just use GMail.
  • "South Park" Keeps Chef
    After watching Matt and Trey on Letterman I’m convinced this Chef thing is some kind of hoax.
  • What’s eating Bill Gates?
    Sounds like he’s given one BillNote too many.
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    This afternoon’s (12:37PM 03-21-2006) search on YouTube for "Natalie Portman Raps" returned 2 results. You begin to wonder if this little excercise has any point.
  • A Bit of Paid Stuff, For Free
    Congoo is new service that lets you preview normally paid content or pay for the whole article. Two questions: will anyone remember the name of this service tomorrow and why do I need a special toolbar just use it?
  • Lunch with Ben Bradlee: From Guadalcanal to Iraq
    Reporting on the death of newspapers may be premature — which is why ours has gone unread for weeks now.
  • Cable TV Producers and Union Quarrel
    SAG says strike (maybe). Hollywood should be happy that the guilds are focused on basic cable. It’ll give them a little breathing room before the next big (really big) strike threat.
  • SanDisk Confident About Taking Market Share Away from Apple
    Nice looking player from SanDisk. If only they had some sort of iTunes Compatibility Kit.
  • Audiences Offered New Way to Buy Products They See on TV & Film With Launch of StarStyle; ‘American Idol,’ ‘Real World Key West’ Among Initial Shows
    Meanwhile, in Hell, Satan just laughs and laughs . . .
  • Report: Microsoft Working on iPod, PSP ‘Killer’
    Origami?! That’s last week’s news.

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

Press Room? I Said Rest Room!

March 21, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

You’d be hard pressed to find a more digital savvy group of people than the ones who attend SXSW Interactive. The vast majority of conference attendees are armed with laptops and logged onto the ubiquitous wireless available throughout the City of Austin. Most of the attendees have at least one blog that they post to on a regular basis (I think the average is actually 2.32 blogs per attendee, but I’m having trouble fact checking that number). It’s like an army of field reporters have descended on a conference to provide coverage from every possible angle.

Don’t believe me? Check out:

  • Stories on this year’s SXSW on Technorati
  • Photos from this year’s SXSW on Flickr

All of this just makes the fact that there is still a SXSW Press Room seem that much more archaic. What the hell happens in that room? Seriously, what sort of special accommodations could “real” reporters need that aren’t already available to every attendee?
I’ve racked my brain on this one and the only things I can come up with are:

  • Comfortable chairs
  • Fax Machines
  • D Cell Batteries

On the last day of the 2005 conference renowned CSS Guru Eric Meyer was called to task for daring to take photos of his friends without proper press credentials. I guess security hadn’t notice the 9,000+ session photos uploaded to flicker over the previous four days. Meyer played along and was ultimately granted a press pass for his camera. Apparently media credentials are now just a bureaucratic formality.

Meanwhile, the SXSW Press Room lives on, like some kind of vestigial organ completely out of place in the 21st century.

Filed Under: Medialoper Tagged With: Eric-Meyer, Journalism, Medialoper, Newspapers, Press, SXSW, SXSW2006, SXSWi

On CBS’s Verizon

March 21, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

Our in-house CBS analyst tells us that CBS has put a rare right foot forward in its new deal with Verizon Communications. Like all new cable channels, Verizon’s Fios TV (yes, that’s really the name) needs content. The solution? Pay CBS approximately fifty cents a subscriber for the privilege of, yes, broadcasting network content.

Though both parties are mum on the actual fee structure, Leslie Moonves is chortling and rubbing his hands together. Verizon is a little more subdued:

Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe wouldn’t confirm that the company is paying fees. “Value flows both directions,” he said.

Unlike ABC, CBS is standalone company — no cable network behind it to provide back rubs and rebroadcasts. Since lost advertising dollars are into production money, Moonves and team needed to get creative with cash flow in order to produce more product (also, bump up executive bonuses, but that’s probably a side consideration, this being Hollywood and all). Getting cable networks to pay on a per-subscriber basis for content is, actually, a pretty smart move (so smart, CBS is negotiating with AT&T in the same manner). Whether other cable operators fall for the same trick remains to be seen.

Verizon will pick up CBS-owned stations in various markets, approximately 18 stations.

  • Verizon Will Pay to Run CBS Shows on New Service

Filed Under: Mediacratic, Television

Radio Killed The Radio Star, Part One

March 20, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

Part One: The Music Industry Doesn’t Have A Clue, And The Government Isn’t Helping Either

Remember when it was just video killing the radio star? Today, it’s the Internet and satellite and the iPod and, let’s be frank, general boredom with the medium. Does radio have a future in a digital world?

This was the topic of a SXSW panel called “The Future of Radio” (perhaps it’s a sign of the times that the podcast doesn’t seem to be online yet, but the video is — link below). Panelists included moderator Kevin Smokler, Celia Hirschman of Downtown Marketing and KCRW, Roman Mars of WBEZ, Elise Nordling host of Indie Pop Rocks from SomaFM, and Tim Westergren of Pandora, bringing together lifelong radio listeners, public radio professionals, Internet radio stars, and purveyors of social networking applications.

Before the session started, I eavesdropped on a conversation between two long-time radio professionals. At one point, the man said, “I’m very, very interested in podcasting.” And I’m thinking, “So you should be, so you should be.”

[Read more…] about Radio Killed The Radio Star, Part One

Filed Under: Marketing, Mediacratic, Radio Tagged With: CARP, Celia-Hirschman, DMCA, Elise-Nordling, Future-of-Radio, Internet-Radio, Kevin-Smokler, Pandora, Roman-Mars, SomaFM, SXSW, SXSWi, Tim-Westergren, WBEZ

The Daily Loper – March 20, 2006

March 20, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • Google sued for falling web traffic
    In other news, Microsoft sues Medialoper for failing to do an Origami story this week.
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    Today’s (01:20PM 03-20-2006) search on YouTube for “Natalie Portman Raps” returned 2 results.
  • Startup to Wed Mobile Games, Live TV Shows
    The ultimate convergence between cell phones and television or just another way to keep people from talking to each other?
  • Chef’s Quitting Controversy
    Maybe Isaac Hayes didn’t quit willingly. As recently as Jan, he was defending the now infamous Scientology episode, but he’s been ill since then, so maybe somebody quit for him. Dun! Dun! Dun!
  • How to right the copyright wrongs
    Media companies are using DRM to undermine traditional copyright. This is a British perspective where they still have something resembling traditional copyright laws. In the US we have a thing called the DMCA that pretty much eliminated the rights of the commons.
  • TiVo Has Been Cutting Out More Than Just the Commercials Lately
    Software glitch leads to missing final moments of episodes; luckily, TiVo can fix the problem, which makes the networks who purposely try to game the time-shifting experience still the worst offenders in the new world.
  • Increasingly, the news ‘scoop’ is found online
    Finally, the end of the pointless local news teasers: “Comet to crash into Earth in the middle of the night. Learn more on our 11 p.m. broadcast.”
  • Nets to Fight FCC Indecency Fines
    Good for the networks. It’s about time someone fought back on this.
  • DVD format clash continues with Sony announcement of Blu-ray release date
    Target release date: July. Target price: 00. Target audience: people with money to burn, yet young enough not to remember VHS vs. Beta. So basically popstars, trust funders and athletes.

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

The New Music Model: DIY

March 20, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

By now, everyone knows the story of Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah: independent band finances own record, manufactures disks, ships copies, plays Letterman, lands on the soundtrack of an Office episode, and sells 90,000* and counting copies. All without a major label deal. For every record sold, the band is putting major cash in the bank; rather than a royalty after certain costs, they’re getting the whole enchilada after costs.

And that’s before you factor in live performances and merchandise. Now whether or not this band is a flash in the pan, one thing is clear: you can have success without the machine. Other bands are looking at this model, and thinking that DIY isn’t just for punks anymore. As we wrap up our coverage of this year’s SXSW festival, we turn our attention to music, and how the bands are viewing the future.

[Read more…] about The New Music Model: DIY

Filed Under: Mediacratic, Music Tagged With: Clap-Your-Hands-Say-Yeah, Four-Day-Hombre-SXSW, Indie-103.1, Indie-Music, major-labels, Neil Young

The Daily Loper – March 19, 2006

March 20, 2006 by Lopy

Todays links of interest:

  • Sirius reaches accord with Universal, Warner Music
    Sirius agrees to pay Universal & Warner Music extra fees because they dared make a player that allowed — gasp!! — individuals to record songs for future playback!! Universal & Warner will pass the fee back to consumers in form of lower CD prices. Not.
  • YouTube: Natalie Portman Rap Search
    This afternoon’s (03:26PM 03-19-2006) on YouTube for "Natalie Portman Raps" returned 2 results.
  • Scientology vs. ‘South Park’ — The Tom Cruise Episode Controversy
    As always, Matt & Trey sum it up: "So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!"

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

The Weekly ‘Loper – March 19, 2006

March 19, 2006 by Jim Connelly

While you were figuring out ways of getting around your Network Admin policy of cutting you off from March Madness, we were dissecting the panels we attended at this year’s SXSW:

  • Librarians vs. The Search Giants – Sure, that sounds like a particularly bad Monty Python skit, instead, it’s a spot-on recap of a SXSWi panel about the issues surrounding the digitialization of books.
  • My Sony Settlement, Part 1 – Is there anything more disheartening than being part of the winning side of a class-action settlement against a evil multinational?
  • Fast, Cheap, and Redefining News: Rocketboom – Can people still create quality content without being backed by huge corporate infrastructure? Duh!
  • The Darknet Panel: Meet the Consumer – Wanted: a way to be anti-piracy without being anti-consumer.
  • Nick Denton is the Most Generous Man on the Internet – Another report from SXSW, but less on a hard-hitting panel discussion, and more about free drinks and pool playing Roombas. Really.

Filed Under: The Weekly 'Loper

LaLa Love You

March 19, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Sometimes new media media ideas get retrofitted into older media. A perfect example of this is a start-up called LaLa, which takes distinctly new media concept — using the Net to share files — and applies it to an older technology, the Compact Disc.

Part MySpace, Netflix, eBay and iTunes, La la incorporates pieces of each: Users list online the CDs they both want and have. In the process, they find others who share the same taste in music. Then, when one user requests a CD that another person owns, the owner drops it in the mail in a pre-paid envelope. The receiver is billed $1, plus 49 cents for shipping; the shipper pays nothing.

It’s devilishly simple, of course, and 100% legal.

[Read more…] about LaLa Love You

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: CD, file-sharing, iPod, LaLa, RIAA

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2700: Thelonious Monster – “Sammy Hagar Weekend”
  • Certain Songs #2699: Thelonious Monster – “If I”
  • Certain Songs #2698: That Petrol Emotion – “Sensitize”
  • Certain Songs #2697: That Petrol Emotion – “Big Decision”
  • Certain Songs #2696: that dog. – “hawthorne”

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