Hot Off The Press: The Latest TV News and Information - Page 2619

TV Sports
Universal Sports to Debut 'Countdown to London' on April 18
By Mike Reynolds, Multichannel News - Apr. 14, 2012

With the Summer Olympics just months away, Universal Sports Network will begin providing a weekly look at the upcoming action in London via a studio news show.

Debuting April 18 a 8 p.m. (ET) -- 100 days from the start of the opening ceremony -- Countdown to London will take a comprehensive look at the most compelling stories leading up to the Games. The debut show will be 90 minutes, with each subsequent episode running for 60 minutes on Wednesdays. The show will anchor Universal Sports Network's exclusive coverage of Olympic qualifying and trials events over the next three months. The network supplied significant news and promotional support for NBCUniversal's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics from Vancouver.

Hosted by Craig Hummer, who has served as a play-by-play announcer for NBC's Olympics coverage, and Amy Bender, veteran studio host and reporter, the show will also feature a mix of analysts, including three-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Rowdy Gaines, four-time Olympic medalist sprinter Ato Bolden, bronze medalist in beach volleyball Holly McPeak and Olympic gold medalist gymnast Tim Daggett, along with a number of other studio guests.

Universal Sports, a joint venture of NBC Sports Group and Leo Hindery's InterMedia Partners, has transitioned from a multicast service to a cable network that is currently carried by DirecTV, Dish Network and a host of cable and other video distributors.

Countdown to London will feature a weekly rundown of all the most important Olympic qualifying and trials events taking place in the U.S. and internationally, including extensive highlights footage. The program will also showcase Olympic athletes through interviews and profiles, with scheduled guests including two-time Olympic gold medalists in volleyball Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, Olympic gold medalist gymnast Nastia Liukin, four-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Janet Evans, two-time bronze medalist sprinter Walter Dix, reigning Olympic gold medalist in decathlon Bryan Clay, world champion sprinter Carmelita Jeter and world champion hurdler Jason Richardson.

The show will feature a variety of recurring segments, including:

"The Countdown Conversation with Fred Roggin presented by Budweiser": Guest segment hosted by Fred Roggin as he sits down with Olympians of the past and present, beginning with 1972 Olympic gold medalist marathoner Frank Shorter;
"Reliving the Glory presented by Panasonic": Flashbacks to great moments in Olympic history with the airing of archived short films by legendary Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan.
"On the Web presented by Dow": A social media roundup of what Olympic athletes are talking about across social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and blog sites.
" Inside the Research Room": A check-in with the NBC Olympics production team to see what stories they areworking on heading into the Games.
Additional content will include event previews, breaking news coverage and a weekly update from a journalist from London.

"Countdown to London will capture the excitement and anticipation of the lead up to London as the world's best athletes prepare for the 2012 Olympic Games," said David Sternberg, CEO of Universal Sports, in announcing the program. "Universal Sports airs the most Olympic sports programming of any network year in and year out, so no one is better positioned than we are to deliver all the news about the London Games in the next 100 days."

http://www.multichannel.com/article/...n_April_18.php

Technology Notes
How the Tech Parade Passed Sony By
By Hiroko Tabuchi, The New York Times - Apr. 15, 2012

TOKYO.- The lights dimmed. The crowd hushed. The teleprompters flickered.

Kazuo Hirai stepped up and flashed a winning smile: it was show time. The scene was oddly upbeat inside the Sony Corporation last Thursday as Mr. Hirai, the company’s new chief executive, faced the cameras. He outlined a strategy that, he vowed, would return the troubled electronics giant to profit.

“The time for Sony to change is now,” said Mr. Hirai, who formally took up the C.E.O. post on April 1. He posed for the cameras, one finger held high in a No. 1 sign. “I believe Sony can change,” he said.

Outside Sony — and inside it, too — not everyone is quite so sure.

That is because Sony, which once defined Japan’s technological prowess, wowed the world with the Walkman and the Trinitron TV and shocked Hollywood with bold acquisitions like Columbia Pictures, is now in the fight of its life.

In fact, it is in a fight for its life — a development that exemplifies the stunning decline of Japan’s industrialized economy. Once upon a time, Japan Inc., not to mention Sony itself, seemed invulnerable. Today, Sony and many other Japanese manufacturers are pressed on all sides: by rising Asian rivals, a punishingly strong Japanese yen and, in Sony’s case, an astonishing lack of ideas.

No one was terribly surprised last week when Sony announced that its losses this year would be worse than it had expected. Sony, after all, hasn’t turned a profit since 2008. It now expects to lose $6.4 billion this year. The reason is plain: Sony hasn’t had a hit product in years.

The verdict of the stock market has been swift and brutal. Sony’s share price closed at 1,444 yen ($17.83) on Friday, a quarter of its value a decade ago and roughly where it stood in the mid-1980s, when the Walkman ruled. Sony’s market value is now one-ninth that of Samsung Electronics, and just one-thirtieth of Apple’s.

Even in Japan, where many consumers remain loyal to the brand, some people seem to be giving up on the company.

“It’s almost game over at Sony,” said Yoshiaki Sakito, a former Sony executive who has worked for Walt Disney, Bain & Company, Apple and a start-up focused on innovation training. “I don’t see how Sony’s going to bounce back now.”

* * * *

What went wrong is a tale of lost opportunities and disastrous infighting. It is also the story of a proud company that was unwilling or unable to adapt to realities of the global marketplace.

Sony’s gravest mistake was that it failed to ride some of the biggest waves of technological innovation in recent decades: digitalization, a shift toward software and the importance of the Internet.

One by one, every sphere where the company competed — from hardware to software to communications to content — was turned topsy-turvy by disruptive new technology and unforeseen rivals. And these changes only highlighted the conflicts and divisions within Sony.

With its catalog of music and foundation in electronics, Sony had the tools to create a version of the iPod long before Apple introduced it in 2001. The Sony co-founder, Akio Morita, envisioned as early as the 1980s marrying digital technology with media content for a completely new user experience.

It didn’t happen. Initially, Sony engineers resisted the power of the company’s media divisions. Then Sony wrestled with how to build devices that let consumers download and copy music without undermining music sales or agreements with its artists. The company went its own way: its early digital music players, for instance, used proprietary files and were incompatible with the fast-growing MP3 format.

By the time the different divisions had been corralled into cooperating, Sony had lost its foothold in two crucial product categories: televisions and portable music devices. It was late to flat-panel displays, as well as to digital music players like the iPod.

After disappointing sales, Sony pulled the plug on its answer to Apple’s iTunes, the Sony Connect online store, after just three years. It has not been able to offer up a comprehensive alternative since.

Lower-cost manufacturers from South Korea, China and elsewhere, meanwhile, are increasingly undercutting Sony and other high-end electronics makers. As Sony’s brand started losing much of its luster, the company found that it had a harder time charging a premium for its products.

“At this point, Sony just needs some strategy, any strategy, because that is better than no strategy at all,” said Sea-Jin Chang, chairman for business policy at the National University of Singapore and author of “Sony vs. Samsung: The Inside Story of the Electronics Giants’ Battle for Global Supremacy.”

* * * *

An area where Sony has found success — and perhaps one that most crystallizes the transition from stand-alone consumer electronics into a digital, Internet-centered world — is video games. Sony marketed its PlayStation 3 console, for example as an integrated entertainment system that serves as a hub in the living room, connecting the Internet and television.

But Sony’s obsession with hardware has marred that strategy. A delay in developing the console’s Blu-ray DVD player forced Sony to push back its release. Sales suffered because the PlayStation 3 cost much more than rival models from Nintendo and Microsoft. Sony was also slow to move into the world of online games, giving Microsoft a head start.

Sony’s woes mirror a wider decline in Japanese electronics. Though executives here are quick to blame a strong yen, which hurts exports, a deeper issue is that once-innovative companies seem to have run out of ideas. And when a nation can no longer compete on abundant labor or cheap capital, ideas and innovation are paramount.

Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers “have lost their technology leadership in many areas,” Steve Durose, head of Asia Pacific telecommunications, media and technology ratings at Fitch Ratings, said in a recent industry commentary.

“Ten years ago, these companies were major technology innovators, the creators or leading developers of many electronic products and trendsetting devices such as televisions, digital cameras, portable music players and games consoles,” Mr. Durose said. “Today, however, the number of products remaining where they can boast undisputed global leadership has narrowed significantly, having being usurped or equaled by the likes of Apple and Samsung Electronics.”

Both publicly and privately, Sony’s top management shows a deep understanding of many of these fundamental challenges: the need for different sections of the company to work better together, for a more unified user experience, for innovation.

But Sony’s recent leaders have had trouble wielding authority over the sprawling company. Sony remains dominated by proud, territorial engineers who often shun cooperation. For many of them, cost-cutting is the enemy of creativity — a legacy of Sony’s co-founders, Mr. Morita and Masaru Ibuka, who tried to foster a culture of independence. But the founders had more success than recent executives in exerting control over division managers.

Executives complain privately of recalcitrant managers who refuse to share information or work with other divisions. One executive said he was startled to discover that a manager whose position had been eliminated had been rehired under a different title. (“Or maybe he never really left,” said this executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of angering his bosses.)

In 2005, such challenges prompted Sony to select Howard Stringer, a British-born American businessman, as C.E.O., rather than Ken Kutaragi, the brains behind PlayStation. Mr. Stringer had a record as an agent of change: as head of Sony in the United States, he oversaw music, movies and electronics there and eliminated 9,000 of 30,000 jobs.

At his first news conference as C.E.O., Mr. Stringer declared that he would “accelerate cross-company collaboration, thereby revitalizing the company and promoting creativity.”

But not even Mr. Stringer, who has stepped aside for Mr. Hirai but will remain as chairman, could break down all the silos at Sony.

The company still makes a confusing catalog of gadgets that overlap or even cannibalize one another. It has also continued to let its product lines mushroom: 10 different consumer-level camcorders and almost 30 different TVs, for instance, crowd and confuse consumers.

“Sony makes too many models, and for none of them can they say, ‘This contains our best, most cutting-edge technology,’ ” Mr. Sakito said. “Apple, on the other hand, makes one amazing phone in just two colors and says, ‘This is the best.’ ”

Sony’s online strategy is problematic as well. The company has yet to come up with an integrated common platform to deliver music, movies and games, each of which, until recently, had its own network, with other platforms like the PlayMemories photo- and video-sharing services to boot.

Now, these disjointed services, developed by far-flung units, are being forced into the Sony Entertainment Network, which Sony says will be its overarching content delivery platform.

The services “have different looks, feels and user-experiences” and are “super-disjointed,” said a former Sony executive who left in frustration. He spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he did not want to hurt relations with his former employer. “Sony has been talking networks for so long, but there’s really nothing very tangible,” he said.

Sony’s woes hurt not just Sony, but also Japan. In the United States, new technologies are often developed by young companies not held back by their past. These upstarts eventually replace slow-to-adapt giants. But in Japan, no major electronics manufacturer has joined the industry’s top ranks for over a half-century. And, though struggling, companies like Sony continue to lure some of the country’s top talent.

Still, the creative destruction of global capitalism is a touchy subject in Japan, where public opinion still sides with established names. When Tomoko Namba, founder of the successful mobile games company DeNA, remarked in 2010 that companies like Nintendo and Sony “had reached retirement age” and that she hoped DeNA would be the first new Japanese tech company in decades to go global, she set off a firestorm in the Japanese blogosphere.

* * * *

Where will Sony go from here? Experts say it will have to start exiting some product lines. It has already spun off a chemicals business, for instance, and some analysts wonder about its money-losing TV business.

Mr. Hirai, the new C.E.O., has said that the company will focus on three businesses: mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets; cameras and camcorders; and games. But he says Sony will not retreat in TVs. “It’s at the center of every home,” he said last week. “It is part of Sony’s DNA”

Some analysts wonder if Mr. Hirai — who previously ran the money-losing games and TV businesses — is the right man to lead Sony. A protégé of Mr. Stringer, he appears to have been appointed as much for his ease in English as his management skills, analysts say.

“The bottom line is: if you want to be perceived as a creator of cool tech, you have to create cool tech. The challenge for Sony is that those examples have not been there, and they haven’t been there now for a number of years,” said Steve Beck, founder and managing partner at cg42, a management consulting firm that focuses on brand vulnerabilities at top tech companies. “The tarnish on their brand has definitely begun.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/te...ref=technology

Business Notes
Movie tickets: Charge more for hits, less for flops, analyst urges
By Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog

It's time for studios and the cinema industry to stop charging the same price to see any movie any day of the week, a media industry analyst said in a strongly worded research note Friday.

"Movie exhibitors are operating with the largest amount of excess capacity of any industry we could find in the free world," wrote Todd Juenger, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research. Nearly 93% of theater seats go unfilled, he said, including 99% between Monday and Thursday.

Over the years, many industry players and observers have called for "variable pricing" for movies. The basic idea is that the more popular films should cost more to see, while those that don't pack theaters would get a discount. But theater owners and studios have resisted, in large part because they are concerned about the negative perceptions that would come from some new offerings costing less to see than others.

Currently, the only variable pricing at cinemas typically occurs for matinees and evening shows, as well as children or senior citizens' tickets versus adults. On occasion, exhibitors quietly and without fanfare offer discounts for showings during the week, but virtually never as a matter of an advertised policy.

Juenger noted that everything from airplane tickets to hotel rooms and even DVDs at Wal-Mart have some degree of variable pricing. "The only industry we could think of that is remotely similar to movies in terms of flat pricing with big spikes in utilization is fast-food," he observed.

The analyst claimed that with higher pricing "The Hunger Games" could have grossed $250 million worldwide on its opening weekend, compared withthe $219 million that the Lionsgate release actually collected. "I also submit that [the costly flop] 'John Carter' could have eked out more total revenue, especially post-opening weekend, by lowering prices," he added.

Of course, with domestic box office receipts up 20% so far this year, providing a bright spot at a time when DVD revenue continues to fall, it's doubtful that Hollywood is looking to shake things up in the near term.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...t-pricing.html

Yep she was there....surprised she wasnt listed since shes officially credited on the single.

Speaking of SNL eli manning will be the host on kentucky derby night.

Hopefully hes a united way volunteer just like his brother.

That might actually lure me back to the theater occasionally. Interesting idea to say the least.

I would actually return to a theater for a discount Tuesday 10am showing!

[BTW, golf courses suffer from the same malady as theaters. Prime 8am tee times cost no more than less popular 2pm times. Some courses offer a late-day "twilight" discount.]

Still no word on HD, which was supposed to show up in January.

Well, I think this is a bad idea. My wife and I already only see a handful of movies at the theater a year and the occasional animated movie with my daughter because of the price of tickets. The ones we go see are typically the big summer blockbusters so, if they raise the price for those movies even more we'd probably never go. Much cheaper to wait a few months for the BD.

TV Notes
Female TV cops are everywhere now, but it was Angie Dickinson who started it all
By David Hinckley, New York Daily News - Apr. 15, 2012

When Angie Dickinson is clicking through TV channels these days and she sees Kyra Sedgwick playing Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on TNT’s “The Closer,” she smiles.

“It feels like seeing one of my children,” Dickinson says.

Okay, as it happens, Sedgwick recently had Henry Louis Gates trace her ancestry on PBS’ “Finding Your Roots.” Angie Dickinson didn’t show up anywhere.

But there’s a direct line from Brenda Leigh Johnson back to Sgt. Suzanne (Pepper) Anderson, the cop that Dickinson played on “Police Woman” from 1974 to 1978.

“Police Woman” broke a lot of TV ground. It proved, for the first time, that a woman could carry the lead in a successful prime-time network drama.

It also showed a woman could play a cop — which, prior to “Police Woman,” the men in the TV biz considered about as likely as a golden retriever playing “Rhapsody in Blue.”

Dickinson, who is 80, doesn’t frame Pepper in the vanguard of modern feminism. In 1987 the Los Angeles Police Department gave her an “honorary doctorate” for her groundbreaking role and she joked in her acceptance speech that this meant she could now be addressed as Doctor Pepper.

Still, she says, “I’m proud of what we did,” and there’s no denying that of all the traditional male TV bastions that women have infiltrated, police departments are among the most visible.

They’re almost as visible as news anchor seats, and the actresses who play cops say it can be a lot more fun.

“I do as many of the physical stunts as I can,” says Piper Perabo, who plays undercover operator Annie Walker on USA’s “Covert Affairs.” “I end up with a lot of bruises, but it’s very satisfying. It definitely keeps me in shape.”

“I was on the range yesterday learning to shoot a gun,” says Elisabeth Moss, who plays the gentle Peggy Olson on “Mad Men” and is now in New Zealand filming “Top of the Lake,” a miniseries in which she plays Detective Robin Griffin. “I love being able to stretch out and do something totally different like this.”

She wouldn’t have had that chance in the olden days. Sixty years ago, when a Quaker pacifist played by Grace Kelly picked up a gun and killed the black-hearted villain who was aiming to shoot her husband in “High Noon,” it was so shocking every heart in the theater stopped.

Today, it’s almost impossible to turn on prime-time television and not see a dame packing a piece.

From Poppy Montgomery on “Unforgettable” to Angie Harmon on “Rizzoli and Isles,” Robin Tunney on “The Mentalist” or Sarah Jones of “Alcatraz,” bad guys do not relax because the good guy coming after them is a woman.

Cop ensemble shows from “Law & Order” to “NYPD Blue” always remember to include women, and the newest is no exception. The CBS drama “NYC 22,” which launches Sunday night, features Leelee Sobieski’s Jennifer Perry and Judy Marte’s Tonya Sanchez.

Now sure, there may be some element here of a quota system, like the way TV shows fill racial diversity quotas by finding the white star a black “best friend.”

Showrunners also find female cops useful because they put romance and sex on the table.

The famous “will they or won’t they” dance with Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis on “Moonlighting” flowed into Kim Delaney marrying Jimmy Smits on “NYPD Blue.” It continues today with romantic-tension shows from “The Mentalist,” “Unforgettable” and “In Plain Sight” up to the crown jewel, “Castle.”

Whole episodes of “Castle” have revolved around Stana Katic’s Kate Beckett fretting that she has blown her chance with Nathan Fillion’s Richard Castle.

Wild guess: She hasn’t.

Katic also personifies another truth about female TV cops. Since beautiful people sell on TV, a good number of female TV cops, detectives and other law enforcement agents look like they walked right off the fashion runway. Harmon’s Jane Rizzoli and Maggie Q’s Nikita are among those who come to mind.

But Mireille Enos, who plays the brooding and fashion-indifferent Detective Sarah Linden on AMC’s dark “The Killing,” says she thinks female characters open up police dramas in ways that go beyond sexual attraction.

“I just think women react to situations differently,” she says. “It allows the show to explore other perspectives.”

Real-life police departments, for what it’s worth, may agree there’s some value in that notion.

In 1970, about 2% of real-life law enforcement officers were women. While firm numbers are hard to come by, the U.S. Department of Justice estimated in 2008 that the figure was 15%-20%.

Anecdotally, it was widely reported that there was a huge jump in female police applications soon after “Police Woman” went on the air.

Whatever the numbers, a woman with a uniform and a gun shouldn’t startle anybody these days, in real life or on television.

And who knows, maybe it adds a little extra dimension of satisfaction for the good guys and TV viewers if the cop who busts or shoots a murderer, child molester, rapist or other lowlife happens to be a woman.

All you have to do is the math to know that sooner or later, at least on television, that is going to happen.

“I certainly won’t take all the credit,” says Angie Dickinson. But she can’t resist recalling a scene in the movie “Atlantic City,” when Burt Lancaster has killed the bad guys who were after Susan Sarandon and declares, “I did this.”

“I feel a little bit like that,” she says, “when I see Kyra Sedgwick.”

Even if they aren’t blood kin.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...icle-1.1060525

Here the AMC chain discounts shows before 12 noon to only $6. This is typically the only time we see the movies. But during this time of year they only have the morning shows on Saturdays and Sundays. But I think in the Summer they expand to some of the week days.

They have been doing this for several years around here. My GF and I very rarely see a night movie. It's almost exclusively a show before noon for $6 a ticket.

The only time I have been to a movie in the last few years is when I was on vacation in Florida and to beat the heat of the day we started going to matinees. Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds was out. The last one before that was Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers which I received a free ticket from buying the collectors edition.

It is too expensive and other people typically make the experience less than enjoyable. Plus, with a 60" screen and BD why go to the theater?

Love the seinfeld ep "the movie" where they go see "Checkmate" but end up seeing "Rochelle, Rochelle" a young girl's strange erotic journey from Milan to Minsk.
Jerry keeps missing his set at a comedy club, Elaine has seat holding, popcorn, soda problems, Kramer wants a papaye king hotdog & George keeps losing his ticket stub + Jerrys friend has a great bit about famous people stuck in traffic.

Its a good one.


edit:
per Jim Nantz the NFL 2012 schedule will be released as was expected on Tuesday April 17 @ 7:00pm....NFLN & ESPN will both have LIVE shows !!!!!!!!

TV Notes
Monday's TV Highlights: 'Smash' on NBC
By Los Angeles Times' 'Show Tracker' Blog - Apr. 15, 2012

[ALL TIMES LISTED ARE PACIFIC TIME]

UMA THURMAN channels her inner Marilyn Monroe on a new episode of the drama “Smash” at 10 p.m. on NBC.

SERIES

Top Gear: This auto-centric series from across the Pond rev's up for another season (5 and 8 p.m. BBC America).

Warren Jeffs: Fallen Prophet: The convicted leader of a radical polygamous sect is profiled (6 and 10 p.m. Biography).

Richard Hammond's Crash Course: A star of “Top Gear” tries his hand at driving tanks and other oversized vehicles in this new series (7 and 10 p.m. BBC America).

The Substitute: Unsuspecting students get the chance to win serious cash in this new quiz show (7 p.m. MTV).

Oprah's Lifeclass: The Tour: Inspirational speakers Deepak Chopra, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Tony Robbins and Iyanla Vanzant take part in a live event in Toronto (8 p.m. OWN).

Hart of Dixie: “Smallville's” Justin Hartley guest stars in this new episode of the Rachel Bilson drama (9 p.m. KTLA).

Eureka: The sci-fi series about a small town filled with super geniuses is back for another season (9 p.m. Syfy).

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations: Your host is in Kansas City for some barbecue and a meet-up with indie rockers the Black Keys in this new installment (9 p.m. Travel).

Where Are They Now: This new installment gets you caught up with the cast of the hit sitcom “Full House” (9 p.m. TV Guide).

Castle: Guest star Adam Baldwin reunites with his former “Firefly” and “Serenity” costar Nathan Fillion on a new episode of the mystery-drama (10:01 p.m. ABC).

[CLICK LINK BELOW FOR ADDITIONAL MONDAY PROGRAMMING]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/show...hlights16.html

Technology Notes
Do you need a box for digital cable?
By Rob Pegoraro, USA Today

Question: Comcast is converting my cable TV to all-digital. They say I'll need to get a cable box, but what if I only want to watch the local stations?

Answer: Like many other cable operators, Comcast has been upgrading its local systems from analog to digital over the past few years. This transition unrelated to the switch to digital over-the-air broadcasts that we finally made in 2009 should free up an enormous amount of bandwidth on its systems for faster Internet access and a wider range of channels.

The "cable-ready" tuners on some analog TVs can't read the stream of ones and zeroes that make up a digital cable feed. If you've been using one to watch standard cable fare like ESPN or the Weather Channel without a box, you'll need a digital-cable adapter a much smaller add-on than a regular cable box, in many cases free from Comcast for that set.

But if you own a digital TV and only want to watch local broadcast stations (or public, educational and government channels, but not anything else), you don't need a box or an adapter.

Your DTV should almost certainly include a QAM ("quadrature amplitude modulation") tuner that will allow it to receive those minimum-service channels just by plugging your TV into the nearest cable jack.

Getting entry-level cable this way can be a chore, as I've found. Without the benefit of the usual program-guide interface, those channels can appear in a long, apparently randomly-sorted list and then, as readers have reported, they may also move around on that list. You also can't get anything beyond those basic channels, because cable operators usually scramble everything else.

Yet QAM tuning does work, even if the occasional service rep may tell you otherwise.

That's not guaranteed to be the case in the future. Following a successful trial by Time Warner Cable in New York, the cable industry has been lobbying the Federal Communications Commission for permission to encrypt these channels as they do the rest of their lineup. QAM tuners, unlike digital-cable adapters or boxes, can't decode scrambled transmissions; in return, cable operators say they could activate service remotely instead of sending a truck to a new subscriber's house.

(Disclosures: One of my freelance clients, the Consumer Electronics Association, has qualms about this proposal. Another, Discovery Communications, owns a few cable channels.)

One possible outcome to this debate, as I noted in a post for CEA, would be to trade QAM encryption for a commitment to support an FCC proposal for box-free TV tuning, called AllVid, that would work with cable and satellite systems alike. That would be terrific. But it would also be years away.

For now, if you want to watch a full set of cable channels without a box and don't want to have to worry about future QAM encryption or its current hassles you have basically one option. That's to get a TiVo digital video recorder or one of the handful of other devices to support CableCard reception.

Tip: Don't watch SD versions of your HD channels

If you've paid for an HDTV and a high-def TV package, why put up with a standard-definition version of a channel you already get in much better quality? But that can easily happen when cable or satellite program guides list an SD copy of a channel first, with its HD flavor somewhere up in the 300s, 400s or 800s on the guide.

Some TV providers have realized this problem. Cablevision's HD boxes, for example, tune in HD versions of network channels even if you select the single-digit numbers traditionally reserved for their SD identities. DirecTV provides a "hide SD duplicates" setting among its program-guide options. And Comcast's latest guide features a "Watch in HD" button that should alert you when a program is available in high-def on another channel.

In other cases, you'll have to hide SD channels from your program guide (such as on AT&T's U-Verse) or set up a favorites list of HD channels that excludes their low-resolution siblings (for instance, on Verizon's Fios TV).

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/product...ble/54262372/1

Technology Notes
NAB 2012: London Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies to be Shot in 8K Resolution
By Carolyn Giardina, The Hollywood Reporter - Apr. 15, 2012

LAS VEGAS--The opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics as well as portions of events including track and field, swimming and basketball will be captured in 8K resolution, which is 16 times that of HD.

Japan's NHK has been developing an Ultra-HDTV system called Super High Vision (SHV), and through a joint project between NHK, BBC, and Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS), this system will be tested at the 2012 Olympics.

Yoshiaki Shishikui, head of advanced TV systems research division, NHK Research, outlined testing plans, Sunday at the NAB Show's Technology Summit on Cinema, co-produced with the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. As part of the presentation, he explained a test delivery system that will be used to transmit the 8K images to public viewing events in London and Japan.

NHK has been developing a complete SHV system, including cameras and recording devices, and plans to begin experimental broadcasts in Japan during 2012.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...olution-312288

It's amazing how dated Seinfeld has become. Sure the dialog is still funny but nearly every plot and situation they find themselves in wouldn't work today. Cell phones mean that all the miscommunication, missed appointments and losing each other along the way wouldn't work.

cellphones were around then.
Although I didn't get my first cell phone until 1994.

So, what is on between 10:00 and 10:01?

You know what I mean. They were not cheap or ubiquitous as they are now.

with this the price of popcorn will go through the roof.

Used to really like Seinfield - from day one - in fact I still do - watched it all the time - including re runs - then the Michael Richards thing happened a few years ago and I had to stop watching anything he was in - too bad cause I always enjoyed his character on the show - to each his own I guess.

FIOS also has the "Watch in HD" button.

I paid $20 for my first cell phone in 1994. That is cheaper than what I've paid for each of the cell phones I've owned in the 21st century. It was a Nokia portable phone, which of course was larger than the phones today, but I could still put it in my pocket. Now granted the minutes cost more than they do now but it was still much cheaper than going to use a pay phone which is the reason I got one. So I wouldn't have to always stop and use a pay phone when I needed to talk to someone and was away from a land line.

TV Notes
Winning ways: Fast cars and superstars
'Top Gear' returns for its 18th season on BBC America
By Louisa Ada Seltzer, Media Life Magazine - Apr. 16, 2012

What "This Old House" is to home repair shows, "Top Gear" is to car shows.

The long-running program, which makes its 18th season premiere on BBC America tonight at 8 p.m., is popular for one simple reason: You don't have to love cars to love the show.

"Gear" mashes car stunts, celebrity appearances and in-depth features into every episode, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. One week it may be funny and light; the next week it may be serious and dark, like when those infamous car crashes occur.

The show also has worldwide appeal, like "Old House," another hallmark of an enduring program. It's shown in 170 countries and claims to have an audience of 350 million viewers. Of course some of those aren't exactly legit views. "Gear" is one of the most illegally downloaded programs on the internet, according to its producer.

The show is birthing a new American spinoff tonight as well. Co-host Hammond will also be hosting "Richard Hammond's Crash Course," which visits people who work with cars in the United States. It's the first time Hammond has worked extensively in the U.S., and it comes six years after he suffered a terrifying crash on "Gear" that resulted in brain damage.

Both shows should help give BBC America a lift after a good start to the year. The network averaged 103,000 viewers 18-49 during first quarter, according to Nielsen, up 5 percent over last year.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/art...superstars.asp

Interestingly (or not), a subplot in the finale was whether it was appropriate for Elaine to make an important call on her (enormous) flip phone.

Some of the circumstances of the show are dated (another episode that comes to mind is George attempting to avoid his girlfriend's calls so they can't break up prior to a big event), but I think the humor is pretty timeless.

Because the characters are so well developed, it doesn't matter that the circumstances no longer make sense. We can still identify with Jerry, Elaine, George, etc. even if we can't always relate to the circumstances they find themselves in.

Business Notes
DreamWorks Animation joins Wal-Mart disc-to-digital launch
By Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times' 'Company Town' Blog - Apr. 16, 2012

DreamWorks Animation is joining Wal-Mart's disc-to-digital service as it launches today.

The Glendale studio will make all of its previously released DVDs, including the "Shrek" and "Madagascar" series and "How to Train Your Dragon," available for consumers to convert into digital copies stored on Wal-Mart's Vudu service.

It's the sixth Hollywood studio to join with Wal-Mart, which will charge $2 to make a copy of a movie in the "cloud" that can be accessed from any compatible digital device ($5 to convert the movie to high-definition). It launches Monday in about 3,500 Wal-Mart stores across the U.S.

The lone holdout among the major film companies is Walt Disney Studios. However DreamWorks is the first independent to take part -- Lionsgate and The Weinstein Co. are also not yet participating.

Getting as many studios to particpate -- and to offer as many of their movies as possible -- is critical for Wal-Mart in growing the service, which it hopes will help stem declining revenue from DVD sales. The more movies from their shelves that they find they aren't able to convert to digital, the more discouraged potential customers are likely to be.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...al-launch.html

Critic's Notes
How Investigation Discovery Scares Up Women Viewers -- and Tests Their 'Intuition'
By Tim Molloy, TheWrap.com - Apr. 16, 2012

Investigation Discovery is growing fast with an old trick for luring its predominantly female viewers: Scaring and titillating them with stories of shocking crimes, then making them feel like they can help catch the perpetrators.

Along the way, the network says, they may even learn to avoid becoming victims.

Investigation Discovery's lineup includes a slew of shows that prey on women's fears of murderous husbands or mystery assailants out to abduct them or their children. A recent ad campaign for the new show "Fatal Encounters" imagines a murder victim's thoughts from beyond the grave: "If I hadn't opened that door, I might be alive today," says the ad, which accompanies an image of an attractive blonde woman peeking over a door chain.

The network's audience is about 60 percent female, though network president Henry S. Schleiff says it is the only female-skewing network that men might enjoy alongside their wives and girlfriends.

"It's really about the mystery," he told TheWrap. "And women, in particular, are very intuitive, and they love the puzzle solving. And they love the idea of using their intuition - so do guys - but they love the idea of sort of saying, 'I knew it wasn't the person who you thought did it, and that the evidence pointed to. I knew all along it was someone else.'"

The network's nickname, ID, couldn't be more fitting. It is both an abbreviation and a succinct explanation of exactly what the investigators -- onscreen and at home -- hope to do to the bad guys.

ID's stories about real crimes, often with twist endings, are "titillating from every perspective," Schleiff said. But they may inform as well as entertain. Women can pick up safety tips from shows like "Stalked," or learn to "keep their antennae up" from "Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?" he says.

ID serves as a sort of safe zone for its armchair detectives, where not even the most delicate sensibilities are in danger. It wisely avoids depicting the violence acts described on its shows, said Marla Backer, an analyst at Hudson Square Research.

"You don't see a tremendous amount of graphic violence, and there's a reason for that," she said. "They know the channel skews female, and they want to keep it that way."

She credits ID with identifying a "clearly underserved" and compelling genre.

The Trayvon Martin case - in which Internet sleuths have pored over 911 calls and even examined Martin's tweets, thinking they might help crack the case - is only the latest reminder of our human instinct to investigate. The Casey Anthony trial similarly fueled people's sense that they might crack the case, just by watching it.

In some cases, viewers do have valuable information. More than 1,100 fugitives have been captured thanks in part to tips to "America's Most Wanted," which moved to Lifetime after Fox canceled it last year.

But most of the time, viewers are watching for the thrills. Schleiff notes that mysteries and procedurals have always thrived on television, and that scary storytelling goes back to images of beasts on cave walls.

The former Court TV and Hallmark executive, who also holds a law degree, says the 24/7 emphasis on crime and mystery is what makes his network unique.

"I'm embarrassed to tell you," he said. "I don't think it's the most original idea. But the idea of curating it and putting it under one umbrella - that's the originality."

It's working. In the first three months of this year, ID has grown 40 percent in total viewers and 55 percent in viewers 18 to 49 in total day audience. No network of its size or larger - it averages 585,000 daily viewers - has grown so much in total viewers in that time, and no network of any size has grown so much in the 18-49 demo.

It grew dramatically in primetime as well, expanding by 20 percent in total viewers and 24 percent in the 18-49 demo. Of networks with as large a primetime audience as ID's -- it averages 696,000 total viewers -- only TBS and VH1 grew by larger percentages in both total viewers and the 18-49 demo. AMC, benefiting from the hit "Walking Dead," posted a larger primetime gain in the demo, 29 percent, but a smaller gain in total viewers.

ID's schedule often resembles a rogue's gallery of frights. "Behind Mansion Walls" looks at what happens when "family dynasties implode, high-stakes divorces end in bloodshed and rich decadence turns to death," according to ID's website. Another show, "Nothing Personal," looks at murders for hire.

"Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?," meanwhile, taps into Scott Peterson-inspired anxieties. It has spawned a spinoff about babysitters, blind dates, and other potential threats: "Who the (Bleep) Did I ______?" will fill in the blank each episode.

All of ID's shows share a similar blend of sympathy for the victims, disgust for the killers, and a sense of hope that they may one day be caught. They linger ever-so-briefly on grim details that also could be be evidence. (Especially if the people watching at home are actually detectives.)

A recent segment on "Dark Minds" - in which the hosts work with an unidentified serial killer to find new insights into old cases - perfectly carried out the ID formula.

One of the hosts, soul-patched, leather-jacketed crime author W. William Phelps, begins with a voiceover about an 11-year-old girl murdered 39 years ago outside Rochester, N.Y. She was one of three victims whose first and last names, in each case, began with the same first letter as the name of their towns. Because of this, the killings are collectively known as "the alphabet murders."

"Wanda's strangled body was found battered and bruised in this wasteland outside the town of Webster," says Phelps, who then meets with a local reporter at the "wasteland," a stretch of roadside grass.

After the reporter explains that the killer left the girl at the scene and drove back away, Phelps intones: "A human being. Somebody's baby. Just tossed out of a car like a piece of garbage."

"Yeah. No care whatsoever," says the reporter.

More voiceover from Phelps: "Wanda had been raped. But unlike Carmen's attack, this time, there was more than just bruising. The killer had left something behind."

Cut back to the interview, and Phelps telling the reporter: "We're talking about semen in the panties of one of the victims here."

"Exactly," the reporter says. "That's the evidence that they're sure that it would match, if they found the right person."

It's all there: A terrifying crime described in hard-boiled language ("wasteland," "garbage"). Graphic but potentially helpful detail ("semen in the panties") -- disclosed only after a dramatic pause. And finally there's a bit of hope that the crime might one day be solved.

Perhaps with your help.

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-pos...ion-test-36988

TV Sports
Mayweather takes jabs at Merchant
By Michael Hiestand, USA Today - Apr. 16, 2012

Yes, it's boxing — where hype can be more valuable than a good left hook. Still, Floyd Mayweather Jr., on an HBO24/7 show that premiered Saturday night, injected a fun subplot into his $60 HBO pay-per-view fight May 5 against Miguel Cotto: Whether he'll talk to Larry Merchant.

Mayweather, in the series the network uses as a sort of infomercial for bouts, says there's no way he'll talk to HBO boxing analyst Merchant, adding, "You can put 10 Larry Merchants in the ring with Floyd Mayweather, and they could all be 21 (years old), and they're all going to come up short."

There's history to this. After a Mayweather fight in September, Merchant questioned him on-air about whether he'd fought fairly. Mayweather then offered free advice to HBO — that it should fire Merchant. The reason, he told the analyst: "You don't know (expletive) about boxing." Merchant responded with something (sadly) rarely heard from sportscasters with athletes: "I wish I was 50 years younger, and I would kick your (expletive)."

And Merchant, 81, later told USA TODAY Sports he felt good about that yearning for lost youth. "I don't regret much," he said. "If I were to regret something, it wouldn't be this. … In hindsight, I'm happy the way it came out."

HBO spokesman Ray Stallone said Sunday about the Mayweather fight, "It's our plan for our announcers to perform their typical roles."

Mayweather obviously knows marketing. His last four fights each drew more than 1 million buys, and he and Manny Pacquiao are the sport's two biggest draws. Maybe he and Merchant could choreograph some wrasslin'-type moves for a showdown.

Spice rack: That suspended Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen is drawing attention for his take on Fidel Castro is a lucky break for the MLB/Showtime series TheFranchise, coming July 11. MLB spokesman Matt Bourne said Sunday that MLB never considered halting production on the show or switching teams. … The old ESPNZone bars were ahead of their time in putting TV screens in restrooms. New ESPN research on consumer use of its mobile devices finds 37% of users use them in bathrooms. … Nielsen research finds 17% of consumers say they like Tiger Woods— compared with 52% liking Phil Mickelson— while 3% say they consider Woods down-to-earth. Millions of people think Woods is down-to-earth?

Worth a replay: NBC NHL analyst KeithJones on the roughhousing in Sunday's Pittsburgh Penguins-Philadelphia Flyers playoff game: "The tough guys have a tendency to lose their minds when the skill guys are fighting." Makes sense. … Fox's Joe Buck, on Los Angeles Angels vs. New York Yankees on Saturday, when Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez ran into each other: "That's a half-billion-dollar collision." … If you missed it, go online for ESPN's Outside the Lines on Sunday, which looked at how Southern Methodist cross country runner Monika Korra, from Norway, dealt with being raped in Dallas. Well-reported.

Cowherd's call: Michelle Beadle, the co-host of ESPN2's SportsNation weekday talk show, whose ESPN deal is up, notes to TheBigLead.com that uncertainty in her future includes whether co-host Colin Cowherd will stay on the show. "We've started to talk about life after Colin," she said. "I think everyone right now is trying to figure it out."

ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys on Sunday suggested the network was open to other TV roles for Cowherd with or without Beadle. "He has a long-term deal with us, which includes his radio show," Soltys said. "He has the option to leave SportsNation at the end of the year. If he chooses to do that, we would have a conversation with him about another TV show."

Running numbers: All NHL playoff games, for the first time, are on national TV via NBC and its cable channels NBCSN and CNBC as well as the NHL Network. That means total playoff viewing will likely increase, although individual game ratings might drop because audiences will be pulled in more directions. But early box office looks good: After NBCSN's national ratings were up 22% for its first two days of coverage, NBC's Washington Capitals-Boston Bruins game Saturday drew a 1.5 overnight (1.5% of households in the 56 urban markets measured for overnight) — up 36% from last year's comparable coverage.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colum...par/54303344/1

SUNDAY's fast affiliate overnight prime-time ratings -and what they mean- have been posted on Analyst Marc Berman's Media INsight's Blog