comcast

American Idol Was Stolen From my TV by Local Fox Affiliate on COMCAST

by on January 22, 2012

in Entertainment, television

American Idol 2012 logo

While I was watching the SF and NYG championship NFL, I was seeing that American Idol was going to start right after the game.  In the last half hour of the game, they had an American Idol countdown, where it looked like American Idol would start just a few minutes before 8 p.m..  (Here on the West Coast)

The game ended, then my local Fox Affiliate on COMCAST came on and announced that American Idol was going to start at 8:30 while this local hack of a sports broadcasting show called ‘Out of the INBOX‘ had a recap of the game I just spent a few hours watching.

Seriously???  My short-term recall is not that bad…  I do remember the game.

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Courts Are Looking At Approving Profanity and “Nudity” on Television

by on January 11, 2012

in Entertainment, television

Brusimm Cinema Static TV NewsThough it may take six months to actually come to a conclusion, the U.S. Supreme Court is actually pondering the idea if censoring, to some degree, is even worth the effort in this day and age of cable TV and time-shifted viewing.

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The FCC is a powerful entity whose biggest, arch nemesis, Howard Stern, has been on Sirius XM satellite radio for the last few years… though Howard Stern is coming to America’s Got Talent.

But all joking aside, the FCC is becoming an antiquated entity with the rules it is enforcing and maybe the money spent there can be placed like say, into education programs so more teachers don’t lose their jobs?

Look, if the Nielsen Ratings org can adapt to streaming entertainment in their metrics, sooner or later the advertisers will embrace it more… seeing as how adverstisers spend nearly $10 billion per season on ads!

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Everyone behind the TV industry has been rather slow to adapt to what is evolving as far as watching TV goes, but if you think about it, TV is no longer about sitting down at 8pm to catch a TV show.  Today, “TV” is about when you’ll pull up your favorite show or on what device you might watch it.

Advertisers still base their funding decisions on live+7 TV ratings.  That’s counting who watches a TV show live, then they also take into account viewership for the next 7 days.  But like I noted, TV is no longer just, well, on TV any more.  It’s all over the place.   It’s on our phones, our computers, in our cars, it’s at the gas stations, at sporting venues and what not.

So when the Supreme Court starts pondering the idea of why worry about censoring time-shifted TV viewing, you know we’re starting to take a step in the modern era.

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Syfy Channel Continues to Veer Away from, Well, Sci-Fi Programming

by on January 10, 2012

in Entertainment, television

Syfy channel LogoThe Comcast/NBC owned network, the Syfy channel, looks like it’s going to continue veering away from its roots of classic science fiction TV and continue to take the dive into the realm of reality TV.  Or at least that’s my take on the matter.

Syfy channel was up 11% in viewers last year, making 2011 its most watched year ever.  And if they’re taking this new data and extrapolating out, then they can attribute this rise in viewers to the addition of all the reality TV programming they’ve added to the net.  (And yes, the so un-sci-fi like programming of wrestling.)

Driving home this premise of mine that they’re continuing down this reality TV programming path is the TV news that they’ve hired several key folks for alternative programming and a few key folks were added to the unscripted department.

Sigh.

Then they cement my fears with the following statement:

“On the heels of Syfy’s most watched year in history, we will be launching a record number of unscripted series in 2012.”

Saying that they will be focused on the continued growth of the Syfy brand.   Syfy Brand.

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Comcast’s Response to The Cancellation of Eureka

by on December 1, 2011

in Entertainment, television

EUREKA -- "Liftoff" 4011 -- Pictured: (l-r) Colin Ferguson as Jack Carter, Salli Richardson-Whitfield as Allison Blake

EUREKA -- "Liftoff" 4011 -- Pictured: (l-r) Colin Ferguson as Jack Carter, Salli Richardson-Whitfield as Allison Blake

As many of you all know, Eureka was canceled and its last season is coming up next year.

If you followed the media on the issue, it seemed that the timing of the cancellation was in line with when Comcast took over NBC.  There was even some snafu with some Syfy channel press releases first saying they renewed Eureka, then a few days later, releasing a statement that it was, instead, canceled.  It was noted that network management was said to have fought to keep the fan-favorite show in the schedule.

If you do the funny math and look at how NBC/Syfy kept renewing the show each year, though the ratings weren’t stupendous, it seemed to do well enough for them.  Then, along comes Comcast, who took over NBC, and from the outside looking in, it sure seemed to be curious timing that not long after they took over, Eureka was canceled.

I also took it upon myself to guess ever further that the company making billions in a down economy knows how to make money and where to trim the fat to keep the profits moving at a healthy pace.

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Want A Good Laugh? Think $60 ‘On Demand’ Movie! [updated]

by on October 7, 2011

in Entertainment, movies

Brusimm Cinema Static Movie NewsHere’s one that makes me go “SAY WHAT?”  The movie Tower Heist is coming out to movie theaters November 4th.  It stars Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller.

Tower Heist is about a group of people that discover they’ve become a victim to a Ponzi scheme, go on the offensive and robs his residence.

If you are thinking of heading out to the movie theater to catch it, hurry!  Because shortly after the theatrical release, on November 23rd, COMCAST is planning on releasing the movie to their video on demand service, On Demand,  while it’s still in the movie theater.  And they plan on charging $60 for that rental.

Yep, that’s not a typo.  Once you start laughing your ass off, you can continue reading…

Check out this weird spin-speak:

“This experiment will allow the two companies to sample consumer appetite for this film in this window at this price while allowing the film to achieve its full potential at the box office.”

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Dear CBS & COMCAST, Where Is ‘Person of Interest’ On My VoD Service?

by on October 4, 2011

in Entertainment, television

Brusimm Cinema Static TV NewsDear CBS, when Person of Interest debuted, starring Michael Emerson and James Caviezel, I unfortunately missed it.  But never fear I thought!  COMCAST has boasted proudly about carrying every show on their VoD service called On Demand.

So I wasn’t worried.  It will show up!

Alas, I was a bit disappointed because the next day Person of Interest did not show up on the VoD menu!  Eh, not worries, right?

Some shows, like for example, FX’s Justified episodes  ALWAYS showed up, but they did so seven days after an episode aired.  Like clockwork.

So I waited.  I’m insidiously patient.

But then after last weeks episode of Person of Interest, the show didn’t show up on COMCAST’s VoD.  I just double checked tonight and under TV shows, in the alphabetical listing, on my COMCAST VoD, Person of Interest is still missing in action.

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Is Comcast To Blame for the ‘Eureka’ Cancellation?

by on August 10, 2011

in Entertainment, television

EurekaTV Fans everywhere are recovering from the news that Syfy has cancelled Eureka, the longest running scripted Syfy series on the air.   Being that among the genre fans, this show seemed to be the most popular show on Monday nights*, the cancellation report came as a shock to many.  And yet, with each new TV season, more core sci-fi/fantasy series seem to be getting shoved to Mondays and Fridays, then subsequently, getting the boot.

Though we’re in the midst of the 4th season of Eureka and we do have a 5th season coming, and now, with an extra episode added to next season so the writers can create a proper ending, the end is a wee bit off, but it is coming.

Fans reactions to the cancellation seem to be focused on the understandable frustration and angry aspect of losing one more TV fave from the tube and from this network in particular.  Many folks are threatening to cancel their cable packages/tiers that had the Syfy channel in it and using other colorful metaphors to describe how they feel about the network.

Before you tie Syfy to the stake and light the pyre, you should keep something in mind:  Syfy, whose parent network is NBC, is now owned by Comcast.  Yes, we now have to add the newest ingredient to the programming decision makers, Comcast.

I was reminded of this scenario when it was driven home when Eureka‘s co-exec producer Amy Berg (Eureka, Leverage, The 4400) used Twitter to make the following public note:

“Everyone is asking why. It’s simple, really.”

“We are the network’s golden child in every way, except profit margins. Fact is, #Eureka is an expensive show to make.”

“And we could not maintain the quality of our show with the cuts it would take to make us profitable for Syfy’s new parent company.”

“Our creative execs at Syfy fought hard to keep us. Trust me, they LOVE us. We just couldn’t make the numbers work.”

You don’t have to look between the lines to see that she notes that the cuts needed to renew the show to make it profitable for Syfy’s new parent company.  In other words, it looks like Syfy is being dragged even deeper into the business realm of return of investment, or the balancing out of cost vs investment.

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Does Your Comcast ON DEMAND Seem Messed Up?

by on August 8, 2011

in Entertainment, television

Cinema Static Observation

I noticed a few weeks ago how my Comcast (Xfinity) On Demand menu is starting to get messed up with the episodes and how long they stay on the menu.  It seems pretty whacky.

I get quite a few shows now that have older episodes that are on the menu, but the newest episodes seem to only show up for a day or two then exit, stage right.

I tried catching Rookie Blue on the on Demand menu.  They have last week’s and an episode that aired on July 21.  But the episode I missed that took place on July 28th is gone and last week’s episode (8/4) was set to go away on the 8th.  Of August.

I’m not sure what’s up, but it’s annoying.  Very annoying.  It’s becoming an undependable resource for catching older episodes of shows.  Then again, this example was an ABC network example and it’s possible I’m just being driven to ABC’s website to watch their shows there.

It ain’t working for me though.  That’s for sure.

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  – Cinema Static on Twitter & Facebook     – BruSimm on Twitter & Facebook
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Name Changes for Picasa and Blogger; Bits About FB ‘Chat’ and ‘Google+’

by on July 13, 2011

in consumer

Consumer Bits - Consumer news, information and opinion

In case you didn’t know, Google is looking to integrate services into their new social platform.  That, of course, is totally expected.  But what I didn’t know was that this deed will involve renaming some services to do so.

I’m not sure why, except for the possible idea of brand consolidation and recognition… which makes sense.  Any TV entertainment news fans remember when Syfy rebranded themselves from ‘The Sci-Fi Channel’…  and though folks didn’t like it, it makes perfect sense to rename yourself something that won’t be confused with any other term.  Look at how Comcast is slowly trying to rebrand themselves with their XFinity brand name taking over aspects of their business.

So too, it looks, like Google is making the same move.

They’re renaming Picasa to “Google Photos” and Blogger is becoming “Google Blogs.”  These renaming conventions in and of itself, definitely make it clear who the apps or services belong to, that’s for sure.

But this is only an update, not a removal of Blogger.  These transitions will be happening in the next six weeks, which is in timing with the official public launch of Google+.

I’ve already been tooling around with Google+.  I’ve been driven over there because I fairly sick of how Facebook forces options on users.  The latest is, if you haven’t noticed, how your FB CHAT window is now ALWAYS ON.  Sure, you can go private, but when you close out your session and go back either later that day or the next day, it’s back on.  No longer does ‘Chat’ retain the settings you wish it to.

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Hulu For Sale? Looks Like It

by on June 22, 2011

in Entertainment

HuluAccording to Deadline, Hulu is up for sale, and with that development, they point out that the adventure of Hulu-Plus, where subscribers are charged for premium content, may very well be a busted business play.

It’s also pointed out that with Netflix charging hard into the arena of streaming entertainment that the big nets are drooling over the money they could get from Netflix and possibly torpedoing their own play with Hulu.

Part of the problem though with the sale is that they can’t promise all the content that comes with it.  The buyer of Hulu would have to fork up the cash then fork out more cash to buy into programming deals with the networks.

I have to wonder out-loud with this new development, if the Comcast On-Demand scenario didn’t already preclude this sale as an warning of sorts.  When Comcast added ABC and FOX and such back into their On-Demand service, they did so, but disabled the FF option so you can’t get past the ads.  (Which are just as loud in On-Demand!)

I also think with the new disable feature in the On-Demand process, that it negates the bonus of watching shows that way.  I used to be able to snag a show and watch for 40 minutes.  But now that I have to have it play for the full 60 minutes, I’m stuck trying to schedule out my live-watching versus my DVR-like watching.  The Comcast On-Demand scenario loses and suddenly, I’m not watching some shows any more.  For my household, it’s a fail to have added these networks back into the fray and lock you out of FFing content.  (On principal, I hit mute and walk away to do my laundry or something else.)  I apologize to the advertisers, but this situation forces me to make a tough decision.

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