MPAA, Bollywood Studios Join Forces to Fight Film Piracy

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Mumbai, India – The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced this week that it has
partnered with seven Bollywood film studios to address movie piracy in India, the
Associated Press reported.

MPAA member studios in the U.S. will fund the effort, which is similar to
partnerships the trade group and lobbying organization has established in
Europe and Hong Kong.

Among the targets of the
coalition’s efforts will be camcorder piracy in movie theaters, said to account
for 90% of all pirated DVDs.

"More and more, the growth of film is outside
the U.S. Hollywood is now looking at the world as their marketplace," Dan
Glickman, outgoing head of the MPAA, told AP.

"The Indian film industry
now understands their product is getting stolen at significant rates."

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uxsnc
(AP)

http://www.mpaa.org

March Madness Video Player Serves 3.4 Million Hours on Day 1

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
– CBSSports.com (NYSE: CBS) said on Thursday that its NCAA March Madness on Demand video
player served 3.4 million hours of live streaming to 3 million unique visitors
during the first day of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship on
Wednesday.

The company said both figures represent "the largest single day
of traffic for a live sport event on the Internet," and a 20% increase
over 2009 figures.

The company added that its branded "Boss Button,"
which users at work can click on to quickly replace screens of basketball video
with a business-like image, was clicked over 1.7 million times.

CBSSports.com said the most-watched game from the first day of the tournament was
the double-overtime Florida
vs. BYU matchup, with 521,000 hours of streaming video and audio, while the
most-watched hour was 2:00-2:59 p.m. ET.

 

Related Links:
http://www.cbssports.com/info/about/press/2010/mmod10day1

Report: Google May Exit China on April 10, Detail Plans Monday

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

Shanghai – Google (NASD:  GOOG) may opt to exit the Chinese market on
April 10, if a quote from an unnamed sales agent for the company published in
China Business News is to be believed, The Wall Street Journal reported. "We’ve
gotten news saying Google will leave China on April 10, but this piece
of news has not yet been confirmed by the Google side," the report in
China Business News reads, according to The Journal’s translation.

The report
also cited an unnamed employee of Google China
as saying the company would announce its intentions with relation to China on
Monday.

Sources were unsure whether Google would simply shutter its
China-based search engine, or completely exit the country.

The company
announced it would stop censoring its search results in China — a requirement by the Chinese government
— and consider leaving the country, after a hacker attacks on the Gmail
accounts of Chinese human rights activists that were found to originate from China.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uxqfb
(WSJ)

http://snipurl.com/uxqbe
(China Business News)

Report: Apple Has Sold "Hundreds of Thousands" of iPads

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
2

New York
– Apple (NASD: AAPL) has already sold "hundreds of thousands" of units of its
forthcoming iPad tablet computer via pre-order, The Wall Street Journal
reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

However, The Journal’s
sources say that Apple has "narrowed the device’s scope," including
shelving for now its desire to offer bundled TV subscriptions — due to
resistance from networks.

The company is now reportedly pressuring TV producers
to reduce the price of TV shows from $1.99 or $2.99 to 99 cents.

Networks are
reportedly worried such a price cut could cut into the fees they collect from cable
and satellite TV providers, although The Journal notes its sources believe
Apple may reach deals for 99-cent shows with some providers by the time the
iPad ships.

Some publishers are also experiencing difficulties in repurposing their
magazine content for the iPad, largely due to the device’s lack of support for
Adobe Flash.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uxo8p
(WSJ)

Lionsgate

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Activist Investor Icahn Launches Takeover Bid for Lionsgate

By
Mark Hefflinger
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0

New York – Activist investor Carl Icahn, who recently made a
bid to increase his stake in film studio Lionsgate (NYSE:  LGF) from 18.9% to 30%, on Friday
expanded his bid to include all outstanding shares he does not already own. The
offer price remains $6 per share in cash for Lionsgate shares that would
increase Icahn’s stake to at least 50.1%. Icahn has previously used his wealth
in part to look to acquire large enough stakes in companies, such as Yahoo,
Take-Two and Blockbuster, so as to control board seats, and effect some form of
change at these companies.

Icahn opposes Lionsgate’s participation in an
auction for the film libraries of MGM and Miramax, and aims to replace the
current board of directors and management of Lionsgate.

"I believe that
Lions Gate’s management should not further leverage up the company to purchase
a film library without allowing shareholders the opportunity to decide whether
increasing exposure to this segment is wise," Icahn said in a statement.

"I
believe that the best course for Lions Gate is to pursue a strategy aimed more
at the consolidation of film and television distributors, as opposed to the
acquisition of library assets," he added.

"First we objected to [Icahn’s] offer
by saying he was trying to acquire control of Lions Gate without paying a
control premium," Lionsgate spokesman Peter Wilkes told The Wall Street
Journal.

"Now, he’s trying to buy the whole company without paying a
control premium, so this is even worse."

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uxnyb

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100319-708447.html

http://www.lionsgate.com

Panvidea Lands $2 Million for Video Encoding Services

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York
– Panvidea, a provider of on-demand video preparation, processing and
distribution services, has raised $2 million in its first round of venture capital
financing, led by DFJ Gotham Ventures.

Contour Venture Partners, eValue,
NYCSeed and Wider Wake Network also participated in the round.

Founded in 2007
as mPOINT, New York-based Panvidea provides encoding and other preparation
services for video set to be distributed on-demand.

The company will use the
funds for ongoing product development, and to re-launch the brand within the
market.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/uxnda

http://www.panvidea.com

Introducing Android on TV?

By
digitalmediawi
-
0

Here’s an excerpt from an interesting post from digital media veteran Robert Tercek (current President of Digital Media for the Oprah Winfrey Network) on the joint efforts of Google, Intel and Sony to bring to market Internet enabled TV sets: “Lately, speculation about the future of television has been dominated by news of 3D TV sets. But another aspect of television has been quietly evolving with less fanfare: TV sets that connect directly to the Internet. This trend is potentially much more disruptive than the introduction of 3D displays.
Now a secret joint effort by Google, Intel and Sony to enter this field in partnership has been revealed. It will bring Google’s Android operating system and Chrome browser to TVs and set top boxes.”

For more on this, see the articles below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/technology/18webtv.html?src=linkedin
Tercek’s Blog: http://tiny.cc/20pLo

DMW Exclusive: Gene Simmons' NGTV Files for Bankruptcy

By
Joakim Baage
-
3

Los Angeles – Online celebrity news and entertainment site No Good TV (NGTV), backed by entertainment industry veterans including company chairman Gene Simmons, also of the rock band KISS, and Al Cafaro, music industry veteran and former chairman and CEO of A&M Records, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on February 25.


Kourosh Taj, co-president and head of programming, confirmed the news to DMW on Thursday in an email: “NGTV filed for chapter 11 protection primarily to implement a reorganization plan with the cooperation and consent of our senior secured lenders.”

NGTV caters to the 18-34 demograpic and describes itself on the website as “the world’s largest producer of uncensored celebrity news and entertainment programming.”

Headquartered in a 24,000 square foot production facility in Beverly Hills, NGTV boasts a 10,000-hour library of exclusive, uncensored originals, as well as ‘directors cut’
music videos. The company’s technology partners include Akamai, Brightcove, DoubleClick, Avid, Sun Microsystems, Digidesign, IBM and StorageTek.


NGTV videos have been very popular on YouTube and the company claims to be the third most-watched YouTube partner, with 445 millions views and counting.

In November 2008, Variety wrote that reality TV specialists Mark Burnett Prods. ("Survivor," "The Apprentice") became an equity partner in No Good TV when it entered into a partnership to develop some of NGTV’s privately-funded content into traditional television series.


"I have been very impressed with the fiscal responsibility exhibited by NGTV," Mark Burnett told Variety at the time. "It becomes very profitable for them to shoot a show for network or cable because the costs are low enough, even in a low ad market like this one."

NGTV has not revealed any details as to whether it plans to emerge from bankruptcy as a fully functioning company, if they are going to sell off assets or whether staff being are being laid off in connection with the reorganization.

Related links:
http://www.ngtv.com

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117995417.html?categoryid=14&cs=1

http://tinyurl.com/ygw2jhk (DMW previous coverage)

 

Pandora Accounts for 44% of All Internet Radio Royalties

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Austin
– Streaming music service Pandora last year paid out over $28 million in
royalties to SoundExchange, which distributes digital music royalties to labels
and artists, Digital Music News reported, citing remarks from CEO Tim
Westergren. That figure — which does not include publishing royalties paid by
Pandora — represents roughly 44% of all Internet radio royalties collected,
and just over 1% of the overall radio marketplace. Pandora recently disclosed
that it generated $50 million in revenues in 2009.


 

Related Links:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/031710pandora/view

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