Archive for December, 2009

YouTube to carry ‘Five’ shows

The UK’s smallest private terrestrial web Five, recently inked a deal with YouTube to make available 3000 plus hours of content available free on their website.

This move comes in the wake of other such partnerships made recently between YouTube and Channel 4, a British broadcaster.

The second web in the world to have entered a deal of this nature with YouTube, Five will include programmes such as ‘Neighbours’, ‘Home and Away’ and even local hit TV shows like ‘The Hotel Inspector’ and ‘The Gadget Show’. All programmes will be available, however, only in the United Kingdom.

Five’s deal with YouTube is similar to the Channel 4 tie-up, and is non-exclusive, while allowing the web to keep on offering video-on-demand on its own websites as well as other third party websites and services.
Hit fairly badly by the decline in UK advertising, Five’s new deal with YouTube should provide to be a fairly profitable venture – even though critics insist that such partnerships only dilute value of its airtime.

Dawn Airey, Chairman and CEO, Five said: “This is a tremendously important deal for Five because in one fell swoop it extends the reach of our content beyond linear TV and our own existing websites to a new audience of younger, upwardly mobile, and web-savvy individuals — an audience that advertisers are equally desirous of attracting. Importantly, it extends the availability of legally available long-form content online, thereby dealing a blow to web piracy.”

Summit to Release Polanski’s Ghost Writer

Summit entertainment plans on releasing Roman Polanski’s latest film in the US sometime in early 2010. The film originally titled “The Ghost” will now be released as “The Ghost Writer.” Polanski is the director behind great films like “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby.”

Polanksi has been in Sweden on house arrest while awaiting an extradition hearing. He is expected to be extradited to face charges of having sexual intercourse with a minor. The alleged offense happened in 1977. He has avoided the US since the charges were first filed. If he is convicted, 77-year old Polanski will most likely face prison time ending his career as a successful film director.

The film stars Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor, and Kim Cattrall. The screenplay was adapted from the novel, “The Ghost” written by Robert Harris. The book won the International Thriller Writers’ Award for best novel of 2008 setting this up to be a great film.

The movie will be focused around Brosnan’s character, Adam Lang a former British Prime Minister, writing his memoirs. His aide drowns, and he hires a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) to help finish the book. The story quickly evolves into a mystery that includes political and sexual intrigue, and the threat of Lang facing a war crimes trial. A mystifying secret is hanging over Lang that threatens to damage fragile international relations.

Summit Entertainment was originally only a sales agent for the film, but after seeing a cut of the film, they have decided to handle distribution. The entertainment group is the distributor of the Twilight teen vampire films.

The Academy unveils visual effects contenders

The Motion Picture Academy recently unveiled its list of 15 visual effects contenders for next year’s Academy Award. Notably missing from the list this year are “Night at the Museum 2” and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, both of which are visual effects heavy films and were expected to be in contention.

Heavily represented on the list with five pictures is Lucas Film’s Industrial Light & Magic with “Avatar,” “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince,” “Star Trek,” “Terminator Salvation” and “Transformers 2.” Digital Domain, who won the coveted prize last year with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” comes in a close second with four films in contention “2012,” “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” “Star Trek” and “Transformers.”

Three of the films in contention this year are in stereoscopic 3D. “Avatar,” “Coraline” and “G-Force.” Stereoscopic 3D is a technique that creates an illusion of depth and you need special 3D glasses to be able to view it properly.

Below is the entire list of 15 films in contention:
Angels & Demons
Avatar
Coraline
Disney’s A Christmas Carol
District 9
G-Force
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2012
Watchmen
Where the Wild Things Are

The executive branch of the visual effects committee will select seven finalists from the current list of contenders. The winner of the much sought after statue will be announced at the Academy’s Goldwyn Theater on January 21, 2010.

Keeping ‘Glee’ in tune

When writer-director-producer Ryan Murphy approached music supervisor PJ Bloom about the possibility of producing an episodic musical on show choir, he was more than bemused. He said he was not even sure whether it was a great idea or a really bad one. However, he went on to sign him, and Murphy’s Fox series ‘Glee’ went on to become one of the biggest new hits of the 2009-2010 TV season. It created not only the launching pad for a top-10 hit album but also set the foundation for a collection of top iTunes tracks.

Glee’s success was completely unexpected as music-driven TV dramas have been known to flop, with evidence in such failures in TV shows as ‘Cop Rock’ and ‘Viva Laughlin’.

However, the logistics of the show proved to be no easy task, with the securing of licenses of some of the biggest songs in the world by top artists for the episodic musical being their biggest challenge. The pilot show featured Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, which was a fair struggle to nail the rights for, but its appearance helped the show to produce one of its best selling iTunes tracks to date.

Other major songs that almost ended in a disaster included Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ and John Lennon’s rock anthem ‘Imagine’.

While ‘Glee’ remains popular amongst fans, Columbia Records is now issuing a second soundtrack album as well. Bloom holds steadfast to the fact that the show appeals to a larger audience and says its uniqueness goes far beyond its versions of familiar pop tunes. “It is not just the music — you have characters that touch everyone…our reality exists in a relatively low-income part of Ohio. We are talking about somewhat impoverished kids, and they are not always the best-looking. These are all very real characters, and these are cross-sections of the true America. I think people are able to make that connection.”

Comcast, GE unveil NBC U deal

Comcast Corporation and General Electric finally unveiled the $37.5 billion merger that will see the end of GE’s 23-year ownership of NBC. This also marks the end of the industrial conglomerate’s venture into the media business. As part of the deal, Comcast gets the 51% controlling stake while GE holds onto the remaining 49%. GE also reserves the right to sell back the remaining shares over a seven-year period commencing three and a half years after the deal is completed. Comcast’s controlling stake is reported to cost $6.5 billion in cash along with the contribution of most of its cable channels and digital assets to the new NBC U.

The Roberts family who were the founders of the Cable pioneer Comcast controls it tightly. They have long had aspirations to expand the company’s scope into Hollywood. The company went from being a medium-sized cable operator to No. 1 nearly overnight, when it made the $72 billion purchase of AT&T’s cable systems in 2002.

Comcast has pursued the NBC U deal over the past few years without much success. The defining moment came recently when GE’s former NBC U partner, French Telco Vivendi decided to sell its 20% percent stake paving the way for Comcast to step in. “With this transaction, I believe our company is strategically complete,” said Comcast chairman-CEO Brian Roberts.

A five-member board of directors consisting of Roberts, Comcast COO Steve Burke and Comcast chief financial officer Michael Angelakis, GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt and GE chief financial officer Keith Sherin will oversee the NBC U.

‘Flash Forward’ sets winter hiatus

ABC has called a long hiatus for the thriller “Flash Forward”. The show will take a three month long break this winter. According to promos aired on the channel, the show will return on March 4. While the finale was broadcast on schedule, the original return date was to be in January.

There are several reasons behind the decision to delay the show’s return.
The American Idol juggernaut returns in January to be followed by the Winter Olympics in February, so it seems to be logical to keep the show out of the fracas till the appropriate time. Producers of “V” also made the same decision way before the premiere of the show. “V” returns in late March and will move into a post “Lost” slot at 10 p.m. The Alphabet is not the only network to freeze shows; Fox has also given time off to “Glee” (four months in fact) and “Lie to Me”.

The late call for “Flash Forward” may be due to the fall in ratings the show has experienced since its decent opening. The critics are growing in numbers due to the direction the show is taking. These critics are former fans of the show who are growing wary of the story. The decision to let go of Marc Guggenheim from “Flash Forward” and faltering production in November to tweak the story are some of the reasons why fans are up in arms.

But more importantly, the burning question right now is how the break will affect the show’s April 29 episode, a date which is crucial in the show’s mythology.