MTV Networks Chairman and Chief Executive Judy McGrath said of Web distributed content and TV content, at the Reuters Media Summit, “One does not diminish the other by any stretch of the imagination. That is kind of our hat trick.” Wow what a change around that is in the TV world.
Continue reading Is The TV Content Industry Finally Starting To Wake Up?
Category: Content Deals
Content Deals
Madonna, Material Girl In $120m Live Nation Rumour
The WSJ is reporting that the ever-innovative Madonna has been in negotiations with a number of parties about her forthcoming years in the music industry.
She’s going to be exiting her Warner Brothers contract soon, and it’s understood that Live Nation, a concert promoter, is trying to woo her with a 10-year / $120 million deal that would cover three albums, concerts, merchandise and licensing her name for use on products.
As we’ve reported, there’s been some major shifts in the music industry of late, such as Radiohead giving fans the option of name their own price for their latest album, and Alan McGee talking about giving the Charlatans records away.
Win Tickets For A Private Screening Of Friday’s England Rugby Match – On Top of BT Tower!
We’ve teamed up with BT Total Broadband to offer four pairs of exclusive tickets for a private screening of England versus South Africa rugby match this Friday, 14 September, 2007.
The winners will enjoy a prime view of the action of the world cup match with a private screening at the top of BT Tower with VIP hospitality.
What sort of VIP treatment? The prize includes a drinks reception, Wine Tasting, South African and English themed menu, interview with Celebrities, the live screening and a post-match analysis from experts. Pretty good bundle eh?
Continue reading Win Tickets For A Private Screening Of Friday’s England Rugby Match – On Top of BT Tower!
Wal-Mart Launches DRM-Free MP3 Download Service
Retail titans Wal-Mart have started offering digital music downloads on its Web site free of the copy-protection technology inflicted on most MP3 web sites.
Boasting thousands of albums and songs from major record labels like Universal and EMI Group, Wal-Mart’s service will let users download tracks free of any digital rights management.
Continue reading Wal-Mart Launches DRM-Free MP3 Download Service
BBC Worldwide/ O2 Mobile Content Deal
BBC Worldwide has knocked out another content deal, this time to UK mobile company, O2.
The deal, initially covering 300 individual pieces of content, includes video clips, wallpapers and ringtones from popular BBC TV programmes such as The Office, Little Britain, Doctor Who, I’m Alan Partridge, and League of Gentlemen. The various digital bits will be available, for purchase, from O2.
Peter Mercier who recently joined as Head of Mobile at BBC Worldwide shook with excitement, “O2 is the largest UK operator by subscriber numbers so this is clearly a great deal for us in terms of getting our content in front of consumers,” he continued that it showed to “in-house and indie production partners how BBC Worldwide continues to innovate in the digital media sector.”
Torchwood Sells to HDNet
The BBC Dr Who Spin-off, Torchwood, set and shot in Cardiff, Wales, has been sold to US TV network HDNet.
TreeHugger.com Sells To Discovery
The all-things-eco Website, Treehugger, has sold to US TV network Discovery.
Treehugger and it’s UGC site, Hugg.com, will fit into Discovery’s initiative called Planet Green, which has committed over $50m to spread the Green message, including the aim to introduce the first 24Hr Green TV Channel.
Continue reading TreeHugger.com Sells To Discovery
Virgin Media Sign Mobile/Broadband UK Football Deal
As we all know Virgin Media and Sky TV have been having a little spat.
Now Virgin Media are taking a leaf out of Sky’s book and signing up rights to distribute sports.
The Football League have signed a deal that will see the Coca-Cola Football League matches will be delivered to Virgin Media’s broadband and mobile phone platforms for the first time.
Starting on 11 August and running for two seasons, the highlights of league 1 and 2 will be available to watch on-demand for up to one week after transmission.
No surprisingly, Malcolm Wall, chief executive officer of content at Virgin Media, earnestly sang, “We’re committed to investing in great content for our customers and this new partnership will give football fans a genuinely value-added service.”
The Championship, as it’s abbreviated to by those who follow it, is the step down from the UK Premier League, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a load of cash involved with it. Deloitte are on record as finding that, in 2004-05, it was the richest non-top flight football division in the world.
Why?
No matter how poor, or not, football teams are, they do a very loyal fans, so much so that making their matches available on on-demand may encourage people to change their mobile or broadband provider. Or that’s the bet that Virgin Media are making.
Commercial terms were not disclosed.
HMV To Undercut iTunes With “DRM-free” Music Downloads
Music mega retailed HMV has announced that it will start selling “DRM-free” digital downloads from September 2007.
Over one million “DRM-free” tracks will be available for download at launch, including EMI’s full catalogue with big names like Coldplay, Lily Allen, Gorillaz and Robbie Williams.
They’ll also be existing content made available from other labels distributed by HMV’s digital partner, MusicNet, adding to the 3 million+ tracks already offered online by HMV.
Continue reading HMV To Undercut iTunes With “DRM-free” Music Downloads
WiiWare: New Original Games Channel Opening
Everyone’s favourite games console manufacturer (except Sony, perhaps), is opening up another channel of content for its Wii.
Nintendo have announced WiiWare, letting people purchase and download original games software.
Nintendo have offered a service to download reworked classic games – Super Mario Bros, etc – to the Wii since last November. Indeed, earlier this month they announced that 4.7m of these classic games had been downloaded already.
WiiWare will attempt to get legions of small software developers to create compelling, less-expansive games, without them having to be concerned with the hassle and cost of creating games on disk.
Nintendo expect the first WiiWare content to arrive early 2008 – so coders, get coding!