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  • Fox, Toyota partner for ‘Prison Break’ mobisodes

    Fox, Toyota partner for ‘Prison Break’ mobisodes

    MUMBAI: A sponsorship deal has been signed between Fox Broadcasting and Toyota that will have the car maker as the primary advertiser for episodes of Prison Break set to air on mobile phones. Earlier this month, Fox had announced that it would be rebroadcasting its content on the internet, with a revenue share deal for its local station affiliates.

    Fox’s Prison Break will serve as the centerpiece of a new marketing partnership between several News Corporation divisions-including Fox, FX and Fox Mobile Entertainment-and Toyota that will include a series of mobisodes inspired by the show.

    The promotion coincides with the launch of Toyota’s new Yaris Liftback and Sedan and will comprise Fox Broadcasting, Fox Mobile Entertainment (FME), Fox Interactive Media (FIM) and the FX cable channel.

    The News Corp. subsidiary is teaming with Toyota to produce 26 short videos that are set to be released every few days for subscribers of Sprint Nextel Corp.’s Power Vision service.

    Saatchi & Saatchi LA will produce 10-second marketing messages for Toyota that will air at the beginning of each mobisode, followed by a two-minute episode that parallels the current Prison Break storyline.The Toyota vehicles will be prominently featured in the 26 mobisodes.

    Prison Break: Proof of Innocence introduces the character Amber McCall and follows her attempts to exonerate her friend L.J., who has disappeared after being framed for murder. L.J. is the son of the show’s lead character-death row prisoner Lincoln Burrows. The mobisode series is produced by Eric Young of Sparkhill, producer of the award-winning 24: Conspiracy series.

    Toyota VP of marketing Jim Farley noted, “We’re utilizing this emerging entertainment medium as a way to provide fans of Prison Break with details about the show courtesy of Yaris. Our partnership with Fox provides an exclusive portal to showcase Yaris to consumers in a fun way where they can discover more about the car on their own time.”

    Fox Interactive Media will also create a Toyota-branded Prison Break microsite within Fox.com, offering content tied to the series. Also, Fox is providing Toyota with “category exclusivity” for auto advertising during several upcoming Prison Break broadcasts, with the first airing today. Fox will also drive viewers to both the Toyota-branded microsite and the mobisodes with co-branded advertising in daily and weekly national publications. Toyota was also sponsor of the FX cable channel’s Prison Break marathon last month.

  • YouTube.com and Weinstein Co. to feature ‘Lucky Number Slevin’ content on Web

    YouTube.com and Weinstein Co. to feature ‘Lucky Number Slevin’ content on Web

    MUMBAI: Viral video site YouTube.com and the Weinstein Company will feature the first eight minutes of the thriller Lucky Number Slevin.

    Lucky Number Slevin is in theaters nationwide in US, which stars Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Lucy Liu and Bruce Willis. TWC is offering YouTube users an exclusive first glance of the first eight minutes of the movie on the web.

    In an official statement issued, this marks the first time that the opening of a feature film will be released specifically for the YouTube audience.

    The Weinstein Company executive vice president Gary Faber stated, “Audiences love the opening of Lucky Number Slevin — the twists and turns, all set up in this eight minute opening are one of the major reasons why word-of-mouth on the film has been so overwhelmingly positive. Deciding to partner with YouTube was a no-brainer — what better way to help fuel the film’s positive buzz than by partnering with the number one word-of-mouth website out there today.”

    “Bringing more entertaining and exclusive content to YouTube helps further our goal of providing the best video experience on the Internet,” said YouTube VP programming Kevin Donahue.

    “The Weinstein Company is one of the most progressive movie studios moving beyond traditional means to promote its films with original video programming on YouTube,” adds Donahue

    Lucky Number Slevin is a thriller that moves its way through an underworld of crime and revenge where nothing is as it seems. Set in New York City, a case of mistaken identity lands Slevin (Josh Hartnett) into the middle of a war being plotted by two of the city’s most rival crime bosses: The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) and The Boss (Morgan Freeman).

    Slevin is under constant surveillance by relentless Detective Brikowski (Stanley Tucci) as well as the infamous assassin Goodkat (Bruce Willis) and finds himself having to hatch his own ingenious plot to escape the maze alive.

    Also starring Lucy Liu, Lucky Number Slevin is directed by Paul McGuigan and written by Jason Smilovic. The movie is a MGM release of a TWC presentation.

    In addition to Lucky Number Slevin, Deep Focus, the advertising agency for TWC, has reached YouTube’s audience to promote recent films by posting trailers for Scary Movie 4, which has been viewed nearly 1.5M times on YouTube, and Clerks II, which is gaining steam with more than 200,000 video views on the site, informs an official release.

    “Prior to YouTube, there was no other way to premiere the first few minutes of a movie in a viral way,” said Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer.

    “With help from the YouTube community, Scary Movie 4 had a record-breaking box office release. With the upcoming release of Clerks II and with Lucky Number Slevin in theaters nationwide, we are excited to continue to find cool, new ways to bring our movies to market,” said Schafer.

  • Viacom acquires online game service for $102 million

    Viacom acquires online game service for $102 million

    MUMBAI: With a view to let Viacom and its MTV Networks unit connect online gamers, Viacom has acquired Xfire, a Silicon Valley company that makes free instant messenger software for computer game players.

    Owner of MTV Networks, Nickelodeon and the Paramount movie studios, Viacom said it will buy Xfire for $102 million in a bid to dominate the youth market on the Internet as it has on television.

    Social networking and online gaming sites are two of the hottest investment areas for top U.S. media companies as they try to hold on to younger consumers dividing their time between the Internet and traditional outlets like television.

    As part of MTV Networks, Xfire will be better able to maximize its advertising revenues through more aggressive marketing, greater global penetration and comprehensive integration with the company’s other digital and cable properties that address the gaming demographic.

    Launched two years ago in California, Xfire has 4 million registered members who use its software. Its 1 million active users average 91 hours per month, with an average session length of over three hours. The ad-supported application supports hundreds of the latest PC games and provides social networking, instant messaging and information for online gamers.

    Viacom’s chief executive Tom Freston said. “It’s a wonderful component of our overall digital strategy, particularly on the gaming front. Our key audiences are and probably will remain kids, teens, young adults–we want to be anywhere these audiences are. On both a strategic and an economic level, this is a terrific deal for Viacom. Xfire is far and away the leading PC gaming communications and community platform, has outstanding management, and is a perfect fit with our growing digital businesses at MTV Networks. It’s a bull’s eye against our young audiences.”

    Freston said Viacom continues to look at other Internet properties as potential acquisitions, mostly deals valued much less than $1 billion, and said further purchases were possible this year. At the same time, he said, Viacom is investing in building up entertainment channels it already owns into new formats for its audience.

    MTV last year acquired NeoPets.com, a site that allows users to invent and care for virtual pets. Rival News Corp. purchased social networking site MySpace.com as well as gaming company IGN Entertainment.

    Xfire’s services are advertising based and its features will be incorporated into MTV’s online properties. The company’s technology also allows users to share such entertainment as their favorite music videos, lending itself well to distribute video from MTV.

    Xfire has a distinct combination of tools, including:

    > Friend List for Gamers – Users can see when their gamer friends are online and what games they are playing.

    > One-Click Join – Users can see what games their friends are playing and use the one-click join feature to play alongside their friends instantly.

    > Xfire In-Game Messaging – Xfire users can send and receive instant messages while playing in many games without having to minimize or leave the game.

    > Stats Tracking – Through automatically updated player profiles, Xfire displays what games users are playing and how many hours they have played them.

    > File Downloads – Xfire’s file download system delivers demos, patches, trailers, and other files to users via a closed peer-to-peer distribution system.

    > Voice Chat – Allows gamers to talk to each other over a private peer-to-peer chat network.

    “Online gaming is an intensely social phenomenon, with millions of young adults around the globe interacting constantly. Xfire is the leading gamer community platform, and we look forward to integrating its services and user base into our multiplatform strategy at MTV Networks, which already includes assets like Neopets, GameTrailers, iFilm and more,” said MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath.

    McGrath said MTV would seek to expand Xfire’s base regionally, particularly in countries with ardent gaming communities like Japan and Korea. MTV will also promote the community network, possibly with plugs on its television shows and Internet sites.

  • Spielberg to get 2006 International Emmy Founders Award

    Spielberg to get 2006 International Emmy Founders Award

    MUMBAI: Steven Spielberg is to recieve the 2006 International Emmy Founders Award at the 34th International Emmy Awards Gala. The event will be held on 20 November in New York City. Last year’s recipient was Oprah Winfrey.

    This Award is presented for outstanding work that crosses cultural boundaries and reflects the commonality of the human experience.

    International Academy president and CEO Bruce Paisner said, “Steven Spielberg has a long and distinguished career in television. As in his movies, he has the ability to move us and entertain us in equal measure. The International Television Academy takes great pleasure in recognizing his contributions and his creative genius with our 2006 International Emmy Founders Award.”

    Spielberg’s began his career, working on Night Gallery, Marcus Welby, M.D., The Name of the Game and Columbo, among others. His TV movie Duel was released theatrically in some international markets, and his feature film career took off with the release of Jaws.

    He however continued to work in TV, creating the weekly anthology series Amazing Stories, Band of Brothers, Taken and Into the West.

    Future projects include a long-form production about World War II in the Pacific, the sci-fi production Nine Lives and On the Lot, an unscripted series that will allow aspiring filmmakers to vie for a studio development deal at DreamWorks.

    Spielberg’s philanthropic causes include the Righteous Persons Foundation and the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and he is the chairman emeritus of the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation.

  • 47 per cent UK viewers oppose licence fee hike; report

    47 per cent UK viewers oppose licence fee hike; report

    MUMBAI: A BBC-commissioned report into public attitudes to the licence fee showed 47 per cent of the 2,000 adults questioned said they opposed the principle of the licence fee being increased to help those who could not afford to upgrade to digital TV.

    The UK government is due to cease analogue transmission by 2012, when all homes should be able to receive digital output. The proposed terms of the new BBC charter being issued later this year hand the corporation new responsibilities for assisting in this process.

    The findings are part of an independent report commissioned by BBC governors. The research indicate that most viewers – if forced – would pay more than they do now for their annual licence. However, they would only be happy to do so if the extra revenue was spent on relevant services, and the standard of the BBC’s output did not deterioriate.

    The reserach has been undertaken as part of a consultation process over the future of the funding for the corporation, and asked Professor Patrick Barwise of London Business School to gauge licence fee payers’ opinions.

    According to BBC News, the fee – £131.50 for each household – generated nearly £3 billion of revenue for the corporation in 2004-2005.

    The reaction to a rise in the licence fee of £150 by the middle of the next decade – for which the BBC has asked the government – was that the number of people willing to pay for existing services would fall from between 75 and 80 per cent today to nearer 65 to 70 per cent. However, if it proceeded with the proposal, “it won’t be the straw that breaks the licence fee’s back”, Professor Barwise noted.

    The survey also suggests the public is broadly in favour of most of the new interactive services being planned by the BBC. These include a media player offering a chance to catch-up with an entire week of programming, which 80 per cent of respondents agreed was interesting and 76 per cent said they would be likely to use.

  • Adlabs Films to list demerged radio business, swap ratio at 2:1

    Adlabs Films to list demerged radio business, swap ratio at 2:1

    MUMBAI: Adlabs Films Ltd (AFL) board has approved the proposal for demerger of its FM radio business to a wholly owned subsidiary.

    According to the scheme, the shareholders of Adlabs will get two shares of the new company for every new share held. The new entity will be listed on the stock exchange, the company said in a release.

    The scheme also envisages amalgamation / merger of two AFL subsidiaries, Entertainment One India LTD and Mukta Adlabs Digital Exhibition Pvt LTD, with itself. “The aforesaid scheme will be subject to all requisite permissions, sanctions and approvals including, inter alia, of share holders, lenders, stock exchanges, High Courts, regulatory authorities,” the company said in a release.

    Adlabs had made its debut in film production in the year 2002 through its 100 per cent subsidiary Entertainment One India Ltd. A year later, the company entered into a 50:50 join venture with Mukta Arts for digital delivery of movies.

    Adlabs board has also recommended a dividend of 45 per cent (Rs 2.25 per share) for the year ended 31 March 2006, subject to approval at the ensuing annual general meeting.

  • BBC World Service’s English teaching initiative completes 10 years

    BBC World Service’s English teaching initiative completes 10 years

    MUMBAI: BBC World Service has announced that its English language teaching service celebrates 10 years online this month. The site receives 10 million page impressions a month – 19 million if one counts English Language Teaching material on partner websites.

    Special features on www.bbclearningenglish.com to mark the anniversary include:

    A mini retro site displaying classic pages from the archives
    A specially commissioned piece by linguist David Graddol discusses who will be learning English in the future and how and what they will be learning
    A blogging facility providing daily language support to individual bloggers via a teacher’s weblog

    The website also features Flatmates – BBC World Service’s first interactive soap; Ask About English, where experts answer users’ questions; and Keep Your English Up To Date, in which Professor David Crystal discusses new words.

    And there are interactive teaching games Back of the Net and Commentary Box and a range of short audio programmes with quizzes, glossaries and downloadable scripts on lifestyle and entertainment.

    For teachers of English, weekly lesson plans based on topical news stories are available.

  • Todd Phillips is MTV Asia senior VP communications

    Todd Phillips is MTV Asia senior VP communications

    MUMBAI: MTV Asia has announced that Todd Phillips is its senior VP, communications.

    Phillips will provide leadership and direction to the corporate and regional Asia-Pacific communication teams, manage media relationship with trade and consumer media, support key MTV Networks International communications strategies and manage all internal and external company messaging. Mr. Phillips will be based in Singapore and report directly to MTV Asia Pacific president Nigel Robbins.

    Robbins says, “Todd has been a global pioneer for our brands and an integral part of MTV Networks’ development in Asia and Australia. His passion for our brands, keen knowledge of linear and digital media and experience throughout the region makes him the perfect choice to lead our communications efforts in this exciting time of growth.”

    Phillips has been part of the MTV Networks communications team since 1990. He served as Publicity Manager for MTV on STAR TV in Hong Kong, spearheaded communications efforts for the re-launch of MTV Asia and the launch of MTV Mandarin in Singapore in 1995, and managed public relations around the Australian launches of Nickelodeon, MTV and VH1.

    He served as VP of corporate communications for MTV in Los Angeles until 2001, working across all the brands and businesses under the MTV Networks umbrella including television networks, feature films, online and broadband properties, and consumer products.

  • ESPN moves TDSAT against Pune cable op ICC for recovery of dues

    ESPN moves TDSAT against Pune cable op ICC for recovery of dues

    MUMBAI: ESPN Software India has approached the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) for recovery of dues from Pune’s biggest cable operator Intermedia Cable Communication.

    ESPN, in its petition to TDSAT, claims that the amount pending from the ICC for the signal provided between December 2004 and June 2005 is approximately Rs 7.7 million plus 12 per cent interest.

    However, ICC in its response filed today before TDSAT, claims to have orally communicated to the broadcaster that ESPN was free to discontinue its signals, and has argued that it is therefore not liable to pay any amount.

    ESPN has filed the case at TDSAT ahead of Fifa World Cup 2006, which will kick off from 9 June.ESPN had entered into an agreement with ICC to distribute signals for the period December 2003 up to December 2004. Following the expiry of the agreement, the two did not sign any fresh deal and ICC continued to distribute the ESPN signals till June 2005.

    ICC, in its reply today, states that it had orally communicated to ESPN not to distribute the signals anymore. And thus ICC is not liable to pay any amount for the period December 2004 to June 2005.

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, an ICC spokesperson said, “The case will be heard at Tdsat soon and thus it will be known if there is any amount due.”

    But, according to ESPN officials, “We have filed for recovery of money for services render.”

    It is worth noting here that in December 2004, broadcast regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had allowed for a 7 per cent increase (basic tariff excluding taxes) in cable rates. The change in tariff was effective from 1 January, 2005.

    According to sources close to the developments, ESPN has to prove before TDSAT that the signals distributed to ICC have been passed to consumers and that the latter has collected money for the same. The ICC has declared a subscriber base of approximately 39,750 in Pune.

    TDSAT will be hearing the matter on 9 May — Petition No. 91(C) of 2006 ESPN Software India Pvt Ltd vs Intermedia Cable Communication Pvt Ltd.

  • Fox bids ‘Final Goodbye’ to ‘That 70’s Show’ next month

    Fox bids ‘Final Goodbye’ to ‘That 70’s Show’ next month

    MUMBAI: US broadcaster Fox bids farewell to one of its longest-running series the sitcom That 70’s Show next month.

    It will air the retrospective special That ’70s Show: The Final Goodbye on 11 May 2006. In India the show airs on Star World.

    The special celebrates 200 episodes and eight seasons by taking a look back at some of the most memorable moments from the show.

    The special will feature interviews with all the cast members and director, as well as past guest stars such as Brooke Shields, Bruce Willis, Luke Wilson, Lindsay Lohan and The Rock. It will also feature exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and up-close-and-personal segments taped with many of the cast.

    Additionally, the special will include outtakes from classic episodes and never-before-seen clips rescued from the editing room floor. The special will also give viewers an inside look at the final week of taping the show, including some of the funniest and most touching moments as the cast brings their eight-year journey to a close. The series finale and 200th episode of the sitcom airs on 18 May 2006.