New York City area cable provider and ISP Cablevision is in a contract renewal fight with yet another content provider. This time, it’s ABC’s flagship broadcast station WABC that wants more money, and Cablevision has raised the stakes in the passive-aggressive public service announcement wars. They’ve redirected customers’ cable boxes to a special channel where a looped announcement plays, and have started a YouTube channel to get the word out to any non-customers who might happen to care. [More]
No More Daily Show Or Colbert Report On Hulu
By March 2, 2010
The New York Times is reporting that Viacom plans to pull its Comedy Central programming from Hulu next week because it can’t reach an agreement with the video site on compensation. In a post today on its blog, a Hulu executive notes that Hulu was “unable to secure the rights to extend these shows,” and that they’ll be gone as of 11:59 pm PST next Tuesday, March 9th. After that, you can continue watching them on TheDailyShow.com and ColbertNation.com. [More]
Did NBC's Coverage Of The Winter Olympics Suck?
By March 1, 2010
As a product, NBC’s broadcast of the 2010 Winter Olympics seemed pretty disappointing to a lot of online users. TechCrunch points out that a recent analysis of comments on Twitter, blogs, and forums, shows a wide range of dissatisfaction with NBC’s coverage, with the biggest percentage focused on content: 19% of the complaints were about the tape delay of events (what a former NBC sports exec once called “plausibly live”), and 20% were about there not being enough actual sporting events shown. [More]
Quick, Someone Develop Adblock For Online TV Commercials
By February 8, 2010
The ratings company Nielsen–the company you can blame for bad stunt-casting and stupid plot devices during sweeps week–is going to start rolling in data from online viewings of commercials this fall, which means networks will start using online viewing stats to help sell ads this time next year. What this means: if a network uses the new Nielsen rating system, “shows seen online will have to have the same group of commercials that run on TV,” reports AdAge. [More]
Conan And Aziz Ansari Talk About Thread Count
By January 14, 2010
Aziz Ansari wants everyone to know that the sheets he bought at Bed, Bath & Beyond were not of the quality he’d been promised. [More]
Non-Crisis Is Over: Fox, Time Warner Reach Agreement
By January 1, 2010
Fox and Time Warner Cable have settled their differences, and come to an agreement regarding Fox content over Time Warner’s cable network. [More]
This Customer Is Not Impressed By Time Warner Cable's Revamped DVR Service
By December 14, 2009
This past summer, Time Warner Cable introduced a new DVR service to subscribers. The New York Observer noted at the time that some of the changes–namely the “Start Over” feature that lets you watch something from the beginning even if you just switched to it–were nice. At least one customer, however, doesn’t agree. In fact, now that he’s given the revamped service a 4-month trial run, he’s ready to list the problems with it, some of which sound suspiciously anti-consumer. [More]
Another Example Of How To Go Cable-Free
By December 11, 2009
We’ve posted before about how to break your cable habit without giving up on TV altogether–it’s possible, but can’t happen without some work on your end. This week, the New York Times’ Nick Bilton explained how he and his wife have combined their existing devices with a few new ones to create a content stream that enables them to watch what they want without cable. [More]
10 Great Commercials Of 2009
By December 9, 2009
Time just published its “Top 10 Any Category We Can Think Of” issue, and buried in there is a group of 10 great ads from the past year. Well, maybe not “great”–I would rather shove Norplant in my eyes than watch Evian’s rollerskating babies spot, but some of the other ones are pretty good. There’s also some great music in the list, including “Rapper’s Delight,” a Radiohead track, Bach, and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. [More]
Domino's Pulls Ads From 'Jersey Shore' Show
By December 7, 2009
MTV’s gross new reality show, Jersey Shore, goes too far into offensive stereotype land as far as Domino’s Pizza is concerned. After seeing the first episode last week, the pizza chain asked MTV to stop airing its ads during the show, apparently before anyone starts complaining. But really, there’s no way you can eat Domino’s and maintain abs so ripped that you call them “The Situation,” so maybe it’s for the best. [More]
TiVo Sends Me Bill I Don't Owe, Cuts Off My 'Lifetime' Service
By December 2, 2009
Lee’s TiVo saga is enough to scare you off from gift cards and lifetime service subscriptions from the company. It’s a long, not easily summarized tale, but as things stand now, Lee is without service, stuck with an unwarranted $97.64 charge and has a gift card that won’t work. [More]
Creator Of Baby Einstein Vids Admitted In 2005 She Didn't Know What She Was Doing
By October 29, 2009
A website that focuses on female entrepreneurs interviewed the creator of the Baby Einstein video line back in 2005. As Boing Boing pointed out yesterday, her explanation of how she developed the videos is pretty funny. Well, Boing Boing calls it “damning,” but it’s funny that everyone—Disney included—took the product line so seriously.
Streaming Cable Content: For Comcast Subscribers Only
By October 24, 2009
Yesterday’s news that Hulu soon plans to start charging for its service actually came fresh on the heels of Comcast’s announcement that it’s about to officially launch online streaming video for subscribers to both their cable TV and Internet services.
Hulu Will Start Charging For Content Soon
By October 23, 2009
As board member Jon Miller forecasted a few months ago, streaming video powerhouse Hulu plans to start charging for content soon. Subscription-based? Pay per use? Nobody knows. What we do know is that the Consumerist community wasn’t fond of the idea back in June. [Entertainment Weekly]
Man Says Best Buy Policies Prevent His TV From Being Fixed
By September 8, 2009
Russ used to have a TV, but now all he has are problems. He summarizes his 52-inch Insignia (Best Buy‘s House Brand) HDTV’s decision to check out, then goes into Best Buy’s bumbling attempts to fix it.
How Digital TV Has Let You Down
By September 1, 2009
Last week NPR tore into TV networks for failing to live up to the promises it made to Congress in the late 1990s when the industry pushed to receive its slice of the digital spectrum for free.
Black Blogger Alliance Hits Talk Show Host Where It Hurts
By August 12, 2009
After Glen Beck called Barack Obama a “racist” who “has a deep-seated hatred for white people” on a Fox News show, a coalition of black bloggers went after the controversial talk show host, causing Procter & Gamble and other advertisers to pull ads from Beck’s talk show, Mediabistro’s TV Newser reports.
