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Blockbuster and TiVo Join To Deliver Digital Movies - NYTimes.com

Blockbuster and TiVo Join To Deliver Digital Movies - NYTimes.com.

Blockbuster and TiVo Join to Deliver Digital Movies
By BRAD STONE, Published: March 25, 2009

With its lingering debt problems resolved for now, Blockbuster is pinning some of its hopes on a digital future.

The struggling video rental chain will announce a partnership with TiVo on Wednesday to deliver Blockbuster’s digital movie library over the Internet directly to the televisions of people with TiVo digital video recorders.

As with similar deals TiVo has struck to make digital video services from Amazon and Netflix accessible from its set-top boxes, no money will change hands between the companies. But Blockbuster also said it would sell TiVos at many of its 4,000 stores in the United States, taking a typical retailer’s cut of sales. The two companies plan a joint marketing campaign to promote the new service, which will start in the second half of the year.

I have TiVo Series 2 dual, and will try this out when available; so far, I've used it for Amazon's movies and free content, but not Netflix.

The Prisoner - Patrick McGoohan - Very Short List

The Prisoner - Patrick McGoohan - Very Short List.

JANUARY 19, 2009
A cult classic comes in from the cold

Bored by his role in Britain’s popular Danger Man series (Secret Agent in the USA), Patrick McGoohan — who died last week at 80 — created The Prisoner. This surreal, subversively comedic example of the paranoid style aired in America in the summer of ’68, and it fit the cultural moment to a T. Now you can watch all 17 episodes again, online, in high-quality streams presented by AMC.

Watch The Prisoner at AMC’s Web site.. a remake is coming soon...

The TV Watch - ‘CSI’ Farewell - Leave Us the Maggots - NYTimes.com

The TV Watch - ‘CSI’ Farewell - Leave Us the Maggots - NYTimes.com.

The TV Watch
Goodbye, Grissom, Leave Us a Maggot
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY, Published: January 14, 2009

Men are such babies.

The tender farewell to Gil Grissom (William L. Petersen) as he retires from the Las Vegas Crime Scene Investigation unit was stretched over two episodes and ends Thursday night on CBS in a tableau of bitten lower lips and suppressed tears.

It’s not just Grissom’s colleagues who are feeling bereft. “CSI” has fiercely loyal male fans, and many of them are misting up over their own lost youth and eight years devoted to watching Grissom examine maggots, blood spray patterns and decayed flesh. Grissom has found a successor, Dr. Raymond Langston (Laurence Fishburne), a pathologist and college professor who seems to share Grissom’s slavish work ethic and kindly reticence.

But Langston is not his only successor. Simon Baker, who plays Patrick Jane on “The Mentalist,” the new CBS hit, is a greater threat to the Grissom legacy. More than any other show, “The Mentalist” signals that intuition is the big new thing, while forensic science and nerdy, obsessive lab workers are old hat.

Grissom, the lead investigator on the show, makes a forlorn plea for his life’s work in his last episode. “People lie,” Grissom tells Langston. “The only thing we can count on is the evidence.”
...

Multimedia
Preview: 'CSI'

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Prisoner star McGoohan dies at 80

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Prisoner star McGoohan dies at 80.

Prisoner star McGoohan dies at 80
Page last updated at 19:11 GMT, Wednesday, 14 January 2009

[image caption] Patrick McGoohan - Rex Features McGoohan wrote and starred in The Prisoner from 1967

Emmy-winning actor Patrick McGoohan, best known for starring in cult 1960s TV show The Prisoner, has died at the age of 80.

He died in Los Angeles after a short illness, his film producer son-in-law Cleve Landsberg told Associated Press.

McGoohan played the character Six in the surreal 1960s show, filmed in the north Wales village of Portmeirion.

He won two Emmy awards for his work on TV detective series Columbo, playing different characters. The first came for an episode of the series in 1974, with another 16 years later.
...
See also his obituary.

Tops In 2008: Top TV Programs, Single Telecasts | Nielsen Wire

Tops In 2008: Top TV Programs, Single Telecasts | Nielsen Wire.

Tops In 2008: Top TV Programs, Single Telecasts
December 12th, 2008 Posted in Consumer, Media And Entertainment, Nielsen News, Online And Mobile

Nielsen has issued a year-end look at the most popular trends among Americans during 2008, covering everything from the top TV programs to the most popular consumer packaged goods.

FOX’s “American Idol” was the top TV program of 2008, according to Nielsen. Tuesday night broadcasts of “American Idol,” through December 7, drew 15.5% of U.S. TV households, on average, while Wednesday night “American Idol” broadcasts drew an average of 15.3% of all TV households.

Viewers with DVR access gave NBC’s “Heroes” the biggest bump any primetime program received in 2008. The average TV audience for “Heroes” increased by 35% when timeshifted viewing within seven days of a program’s original air date was factored into Nielsen’s ratings. FOX’s “Fringe” and ABC’s “Lost” also drew large audience boosts — +26% and +25%, respectively — from DVR viewers. The 2008 Superbowl, which drew 43.1% of all U.S. TV households, was the most popular single telecast of 2008.

As we've noted before, "Lost" benefits from my TiVo and saving to watch at timeshifted time, and repeated viewings...

The Mercury Theatre on the Air: The War of the Worlds

The Mercury Theatre on the Air: The War of the Worlds.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air: The War of the Worlds

The finest radio drama of the 1930’s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. This site has many of the surviving shows, and will eventually have all of them.

• The War of the Worlds  (October 30, 1938)
  Real Audio • MP3 • Checksums
  
  

Check out this article about the Mercury Theatre production of "The War of the Worlds" as covered in the recent issue of The Scout Report. Happy Halloween!

`Mad Men' makes a splash bigger than its ratings : North County Times - Californian

`Mad Men' makes a splash bigger than its ratings : North County Times - Californian.

`Mad Men' makes a splash bigger than its ratings
By LYNN ELBER | Thursday, October 23, 2008 8:45 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES - "Mad Men" draws a slice of viewers as slender as Don Draper's 1960s neckties, yet the TV drama unquestionably is all the rage.

There was a "Mad Men"-themed category last week on "Jeopardy!" along with an online game. A "Mad Men" homage is tucked like a fancy chocolate treat into the Nov. 2 Halloween episode of "The Simpsons."

Fashion designer Michael Kors cited "Mad Men" as an inspiration. The show's beautifully retro-styled stars are on magazine covers. A "Mad Men" DVD was spotted at the elbow of Barack Obama aboard his campaign plane.

Shatner's Denny Crane TV's best fiction

Shatner's Denny Crane TV's best fiction.

Shatner's Denny Crane TV's best fiction
Shelley Fralic, Vancouver Sun, Published: Wednesday, July 30, 2008

In television, as in life, the memorable characters stay with us forever, their delightful idiosyncrasies ingrained in the part of our brain that stores the quirky stuff.

The truly great characters of the small screen, for instance, include ribald Karen Walker of Will & Grace, neurotic George Costanza on Seinfeld, brazen Patsy Stone from Absolutely Fabulous, and the frenetic Dust Bunnies that live under The Big Comfy Couch.

But there is one character that stands above the rest, by far the best work of fiction created by a scriptwriter since television became a universal North American household appliance in the 1950s and forever changed the cultural landscape.

That would be Denny Crane, the skirt-chasing, politically incorrect, stogie-puffing tough but tender lawyer on Boston Legal.

It's Friday last, early in the afternoon, and William Shatner has just left the Los Angeles set of Boston Legal and is heading home, chatting on his Bluetooth headset as he navigates through traffic.

Love the show, grown to love Shatner as never before.. I want to be him at my own 77, laugh.. I treasure "Boston Legal," and as the last season unfolds on my TiVo, I'll be there.. just finished a book I'd meant to read for a long time, "Star Trek Memories," by Shatner.. I'll have to grab his new autobiography...

George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com.

George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71
    By MEL WATKINS, Published: June 24, 2008

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.

A sad loss for us, a great comedic mind, that would not be quiet, or gentle, or tame.. he was an original, like Hope or Benny or Miller, and he will be missed...

The Mike Wallace Interview - University of Texas School of Information

The Mike Wallace Interview - University of Texas School of Information.

The Mike Wallace Interview

“Whether you agree or disagree with what you will hear, we feel that none will deny the right of these opinions to be broadcast.”

In the early 1960’s, broadcast journalist Mike Wallace donated 65 recorded interviews made in 1957-58 from his show “The Mike Wallace Interview” to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. The bulk of these were 16mm kinescope film recordings, some of the earliest recordings of live television that were possible, and that survive today. Many of these have not been seen for over 50 years, and they represent a unique window into a turbulent time of American, and world history. From Senators to strippers, Ku Klux Klansmen to Nobel Prize winners, Mike Wallace has interviewed them all, and we invite you to view The Mike Wallace Interview .

On Tim Russert | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

On Tim Russert | The Trail | washingtonpost.com.

Dan Balz's Take
On Tim Russert
By Dan Balz

On the Sunday night before this year's Iowa caucuses, a crowd had gathered at a school gymnasium just outside Des Moines, awaiting the arrival of former president Bill Clinton. Half an hour before the event was to start, a sandy-haired man with a familiar face and a big smile slipped into the press pen. It was Tim Russert, on the beat. Within seconds, the former president was an afterthought.

Heads turned and suddenly out came digital cameras and cell phone cameras, all trained on the host of "Meet The Press." Ever gracious, Russert posed for photo after photo, bantered with his many fans and admirers and all the while tried to pull out of them some sense of what was going to happen in the caucuses. In an era of celebrity journalists, Tim Russert was at the pinnacle of both halves of that rarified universe.

What set him apart was the sheer exuberance he brought to his profession, the incredible energy he poured into everything he did, the amazing knowledge he had of American politics and the insatiable curiosity he had to know more. He could go nowhere without drawing a crowd; he went, not to play to that crowd, but because he knew they could teach him something that he didn't know.

HBO Joins the Movie Download Derby

HBO Joins the Movie Download Derby.

Video on Demand, January 21, 2008, 7:01PM EST
HBO Joins the Movie Download Derby
The Time Warner unit is launching HBO on Broadband, allowing consumers to watch movies and its pay-TV shows on the Web for "free"
by Ron Grover

It seems you can't read the news these days without coming across a new, improved, gee-whiz service that will make downloading movies and TV shows easier than opening a jar of peanut butter. DVD-by-mail service Netflix (NFLX) is gearing one up. Sony (SNE) just expanded its offering; same for TiVo (TIVO). And of course, Steve Jobs announced his new, improved Apple TV and video iPod on Jan. 15 with all the fanfare that only Apple (AAPL) zealots can muster (BusinessWeek.com, 1/16/08).

Here's the latest entry in the what-you-want, when-you-want-it movie download race: HBO, Time Warner's (TWX) iconic superbrand pay-TV service. The new service is called HBO on Broadband, and while Comcast (CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts mesmerized a recent Consumer Electronics Show audience (BusinessWeek.com, 1/11/08) with visions of TV shows and movies capable of streaming lickety-split across his cable TV wires, the guys from Time Warner are offering what is clearly a work in progress.

Worst.. not a work in progress, this is way below HBO standards.. it's not free HBO on my computer for subscribers; it's some trumped up, expensive, convoluted, ripoff plan by some beancounters to make money (again) for something we already bought the privilege to see earlier.. so, it's a ripoff scheme.. and I am becoming more and more convinced the FCC with its hand-off cable policy, is one of the worst mistakes the Bush administration has let loose on the land..
Think about this Time Warner monopoly and what they're up to.. they just announced they are going to charge the "heavy" broadband users for downloading from the Internet.. hello? don't you read the service providers' history? NO ONE has been able to charge that premium, and you won't get it either.. and right after they say they will charge "heavy" downloaders more, they go to a service offering with HBO that will *require* heavy downloading? ..You will see Time Warner subscribers bail in droves to satellite, as I'm thinking of doing (again).. and this same Time Warner monopoly has now come up with a way for them *and* HBO to make money off of something that has already been paid for once, by charging for it *again* for your computer.. this is colossal ignorance of the modern media landscape, and consumers.. I really expected more of real decent service from HBO; this is definitely their low point, right up there with ending the "Sopranos" and having nothing nothing in the queue to take its place....

ALA | DTV Transition

ALA | DTV Transition.

Digital TV Transition

• Introduction
  
  
• What You Need to Know
  
  
• For Librarians
  
  
  • DTV Awareness Week!
  • DTV Flier
• More Information

Introduction
On February 17, 2009, the era of analog broadcast television in the United States will end, as the nation completes its transition to an all-digital system. While this change will mark the end of the traditional analog method of broadcasting over-the-air television, it won’t signal the end of free broadcast television, and your favorite broadcast programs and local television stations will still be available.

Consumers that subscribe to a "pay" television service such as cable and satellite aren’t likely to be affected by the switch, but if you currently receive analog television over the air or via an antenna, you’ll need to take action to continue watching your favorite stations.

Countdown to LOST Season 4 Premiere.. Jan 31, ABC, 9pm..

So, it's countdown time to LOST Season 4.. January 31, 2008, ABC, 9pm Pacific, 8pm Central time.. I can't wait.. I hope to get the Season 3 DVD for Christmas, we shall see..

Thanks to John Moats for permission to use his countdown to LOST Season 4 Premiere clock here.. way to go, John!   

   

'CSI: NY''s Second Life Adventure Was Delightful -- But Not Revolutionary. At Least Not Yet. - Digital Life Blog - InformationWeek

'CSI: NY''s Second Life Adventure Was Delightful -- But Not Revolutionary. At Least Not Yet. - Digital Life Blog - InformationWeek.

'CSI: NY''s Second Life Adventure Was Delightful -- But Not Revolutionary. At Least Not Yet.
Posted by Mitch Wagner, Oct 25, 2007 03:59 PM

CSI: NY's episode in Second Life was a total blast. I went into it with pretty low expectations, and was delighted throughout. It was a heck of a lot of fun -- and it got Second Life right in spirit, even though the SL portrayed on the show was much faster, more stable, and had much better graphics than the real thing.

The TV show devoted its Wednesday night episode to a mystery in Second Life. The fabulous team of well-groomed detectives comes upon a body that looks like an avatar -- green hair, pearly skin, leather miniskirt, antigravity breasts. They learn that the victim -- or "vic," as we street-smart persons say -- was popular in Second Life. One character refers to her as a "cybercelebrity," dropping the word casually, as though it's something anybody has ever said in real life.

Another character refers to her as "the Paris Hilton of Second Life." Ever since I heard that line in a preview a couple of weeks ago, I've been telling women in Second Life, "I thought you were the Paris Hilton of Second Life." And then I grin and wink. The cyberchicks dig that.