Items tagged with TV shows
Although being a geek was not always chic, geek culture has been celebrated in cinema and on television for decades in one form or another. In some ways, it is a genre unto itself. The appreciation of science, fantasy, and intellectual concepts have given birth to a wide range of both celebrated and cringe worthy flicks and TV episodes, from Weird Science and Revenge of the Nerds, to Star Trek and Star Wars. The list is long, and expands exponentially when you relax the criteria of what fits the mold of geek entertainment. Do Ghostbusters and Breaking Bad qualify? I would argue they do, in their own way, though I am less interested in coming up with a concrete definition of geek entertainment...
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Streaming providers such as Netflix and Hulu have both done pretty well with original programming. Each one has their gems—Strangers and Narcos are two that come immediately to mind for the former, while Quick Draw and Difficult People are hits for the latter. Seeing the success that others are having, it now appears that Facebook is interested in getting in on the action.According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the social networking site is currently in talks with Hollywood studios and agencies about the possibility of producing original television shows that would launch by the end of summer. It is said that Facebook would be willing to invest up to $3 million per episode, which is...
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Quick, if you had to choose one, which would you pick -- Hulu or Netflix? Both have their pros and cons, though in Netflix's favor, it doesn't force you to sit through ads. That's a huge bonus for people who don't believe they should be required to both pay for a service and watch commercials, even though that's how it works with cable and satellite TV.Regardless, this is the age of the Internet, and the same rules don't necessarily apply. At least that's how consumers think. With that in mind, Hulu is reportedly kicking around the idea of offering subscribers an advertising-free tier, one that would presumably cost more than the $7.99 subscription plan Hulu currently offers.The codename for...
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It's a day of mourning for TV show pirates, as one of the web's most popular portals for illegally downloading TV torrents -- EZTV -- has effectively been shut down. No, it wasn't the U.S. government that swooped in and ended the operation. Instead, EZTV's demise is the result of a hostile takeover.According to the investigative folks at TorrentFreak, EZTV's ultimate demise can be traced back to earlier this year when the .IT registry suspended the site's domain name due to inaccurate Whois information. The domain was made available a few weeks later, and like vultures circling a dying animal, scammers quickly picked it up.The scammers who grabbed the domain registered the company as EZCloud...
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Get ready to relive hysterical moments from the popular 1990s NBC sitcom Seinfeld. According to multiple reports, Sony Pictures Television is in advanced talks to sell the rights to stream reruns of the popular show to a streaming video service, though it's not yet clear which one will win the bidding war. So far it appears to be a three-way race between Amazon, Hulu, and Yahoo.What about Netflix? Citing a "person familiar with the matter," The Wall Street Journal says Netflix took a hard look at the show last year and decided not to pursue streaming rights, likely because of the asking price. Netflix has already paid Warner Bros. more than $500,000 per episode for Friends in a deal that's good...
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It's hard to believe that Amazon came into this world selling books, and while that business still thrives in digital form (Amazon makes a killing off its Kindle devices), the online retail giant has big plans for streaming video. With its Prime Instant Video service already in full swing and winning favor, Amazon has reportedly begun chatting with media companies about licensing TV channels. The idea is to offer users a new online pay-TV option delivered through its Prime Instant Video service. It's a move that would allow Amazon to cash in on the customers who dropped their cable or satellite service, which is an increasingly popular trend with so many streaming options available (Netflix,...
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Hulu, which is on the verge of posting record first-quarter revenue and subscriber additions, is reportedly reaching out to buyers to see if there's any interest in an acquisition. As the story goes, Hulu's board hasn't decided if a buyout is in the company's best interest, but it's certainly an option that's on the table and currently being explored. According to Reuters, which reported hearing about the potential buyout from "three sources close to the company," no formal offers have yet been made to owners News Corp and Walt Disney. Another option being explored is that one of the owners will buy out the other and take full control of Hulu. The challenge News Corp and Walt Disney face in finding...
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Online streaming video site Hulu is expected to announce that it has 2 million subscribers for its premium Hulu Plus service, The New York Times reports. Hulu Plus runs $8 per month and is available on a wide range of devices, most recently having been added as an app to the Xbox 360 console. That figure represents 500,000 more subscribers than what Hulu Plus had at the end of 2011. There's no single reason for Hulu's rapid growth, and instead a variety of factors deserve credit. Launching on the Xbox 360 no doubt helped push Hulu Plus to more people, but it's also worth mentioning that Hulu recently launched an original series called Battleground. Hulu's future, however, may depend on the company's...
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Couch potatoes are discovering that it doesn't make sense to keep forking over money to cable companies when they can simply stream the shows they want to watch, when they want to watch them. It's not just a handful of TV viewers cutting the cord, either. According to a research report by The Convergence Consulting Group, LTD., around 2.65 million pay TV subscribers have ditched their cable or satellite provider in favor of Web-based content since 2008. Over a million pay TV subscribers cut the cord in 2011 alone. By 2012, the research group estimates that cord cutters will reach 3.58 million large, which represents 3.6 percent of the pay TV community. Image Source: Flickr (jonny.hunter) It's...
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Give it another couple of generations and America's young folk will think of DVDs the way the current generation thinks of VHS. DVDs are a dead format in the making, and they've already begun their march down death row. Find that hard to believe? Consider this -- according to IHS Screen Digest, in 2012 Americans will pay to consume 3.4 billion movies online, which works out to over 1 billion MORE movies than what are consumed on DVD and Blu-ray combined.. This, says IHS Screen Digest, puts "the final nail in the old idea that consumers won't accept premium content distributed online." But the question is, will content providers accept it? Interestingly enough, DVDs are expected to generate more...
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I'm fully aware of the oxymoron in the title, because after all, how can a single stream be concurrent? It can't, and that's exactly my point. Netflix got itself in a bit of hot water a few months ago when subscribers reported the streaming service was tightening the reigns on the number of concurrent streams, enforcing a strict limit laid out in Netflix's Terms of Use. Technically, Netflix is supposed to limit concurrent streams to as little as one per customer in some instances. Here's the official verbiage: Some membership plans allow you to watch simultaneously on more than one personal computer or Netflix-ready device. If you are on the Unlimited Streaming plan, the Unlimited Streaming +...
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If you were unable to access your Netflix streaming service last night, don't feel bad, you weren't being singled out by a higher power. Instead, Netflix suffered yet another service outage on Tuesday night, this latest one lasting roughly four hours, according to reports. "Netflix is up and on as usual," Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said in an email to subscribers. "Last night we had an unanticipated and rare technical issue that interrupted the service for about four hours, since fixed." Actually, South Park's intrepid news crew got it wrong. It was just Netflix that was out, not the entire Internet. The technical issue itself might be rare, but outages on Netflix are slightly more common....
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We're still waiting on peace in the Middle East, but in the meantime, D-Link is coming through with perhaps the next best thing -- the awesome Boxee Box. Starting in January, the Boxee Box will expand its reach into both the Middle East and Africa, letting parts of the rest world know what all the fuss is about. The funky looking Boxee Box is one of the better media streamers out there, particularly after the latest update which fixed a boatload of issues (you can read about them here). Some of the apps and content providers baked in include the BBC, Last.fm, CNET, CNN, Channel 4, Comedy Central, Facebook, ITV, MTV Music, mySPaceTV, YouTube, Flickr, and Picasa. Full press release below. D-Link...
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Will you shed a tear for the DVD format when it's dead and gone? What about for Blu-ray? Don't worry, neither one of those formats is on the verge of going belly-up, but that comes as little consolation to film studios and retailers who can do nothing but sit and watch as sales for these formats continue to slump. According to The Digital Entertainment Group, both sales and rentals of DVDs and Blu-ray discs fell 7 percent to $10.9 billion so far in 2010, and according to the British Video Association, sales last year were down as well. Why the downfall? The economy is certainly playing a role, but so too is the digital revolution. On-demand content is being piped through TVs, set-top boxes, game...
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While some reports seem to point to NBC returning to iTunes, that seems unlikely, as the Zune Marketplace, along with the changes to the Zune 2.5 software, has added NBC to the fold.Notable in the deal is NBC Universal's inclusion, as the company's programs disappeared from Apple's iTunes Store in December following disputes over pricing and bundling. "Partnering with Zune will allow us to develop innovative content offerings for their customers, including flexible pricing and packaging options beginning this fall," said JB Perrette, president of NBC Universal Digital Distribution. NBC Universal will offer NBC's "The Office," "Heroes" and "30 Rock." Also on offer will be programming from Viacom's...
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