Fox, Warner Shows, MTV Network Shows, etc. on iTunes, Peer Impact, Guba; 3 Pieces on 'The Office'

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Fox, Warner Shows, MTV Network Shows, etc. on iTunes, Peer Impact, Guba; 3 Pieces on 'The Office'

Video-sharing site Guba has paired with Warner Bros. to distribute licensed Warner Bros. content online. The site, through its "Guba Premium" section, has begun offering more than 200 Warner Bros. movie titles including Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, as well as the TV programs Babylon 5, The Dukes of Hazard, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons. The content can be downloaded and played on computers, streamed to a TV or loaded to portable video devices. The price starts at $1.99 per movie title for unlimited viewing within 24 hours. They can also be bought. Older movies will go for $9.99 and new movies, released the same day as their DVDs hit stores, will go for $19.99. TV shows will go for $1.79 an episode. For more information on Guba, click here.

Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. will make select movies and TV shows available for download through a peer-to-peer content delivery network run by Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based Wurld Media Inc. Peer Impact's video offering, launched today, is the availability of television episodes for rental from both the Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. libraries. This unprecedented model allows consumers to download television shows such as The Loop, Firefly, The Dukes Of Hazzard and Babylon 5 for a full 24-hour viewing period with prices as low as 99 cents per episode. Movie rentals are also available and include current and library titles for $2.99 to $3.99 through the service's new version of software platform, known as Peer Impact 3.0, which adds a video component to the already diverse content offering previously available. For more information and to download Peer Impact 3.0, click here.

MTV Networks and Apple(R) today announced that new television programming from Spike TV, Nick at Nite, TV Land, Logo, MTV and The N is now available on the iTunes(R) Music Store (http://www.itunes.com). iTunes now offers over 150 TV shows for $1.99 per episode for viewing on a computer or iPod(R). MTV Networks' programming has been a huge success on iTunes since debuting earlier this year, with Comedy Central's South Park alone selling over one million episodes.
Following are some of the shows that will be available:
TV Land: Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg, hosted by legendary comedian, producer and director David Steinberg, is a one-on-one comedy forum where celebrated performers including Larry David, Martin Short, Bob Newhart, Jon Lovitz and George Lopez open up about their personal lives and careers.
Nick at Nite: Fatherhood, the animated comedy series based on Bill Cosby's best-selling book of the same name; Hi-Jinks, the hit hidden-camera series where adults play good-natured pranks on kids of all ages.
Spike TV: Blade: The Series, the network's first original scripted action-adventure/drama, builds upon New Line Television/Marvel Studio's successful movie trilogy and brings the main character into new story lines. The two-hour premiere episode will be offered for free, exclusively on iTunes today through July 11. TNA: iMPACT, the wrestling alternative that delivers high-risk athletic entertainment, integrating well-known superstars with the best up- and-coming talent. Disorderly Conduct, an adrenaline-packed series with outrageous video footage pulled from police precincts across the country.

And in more iTunes news, USA Network will get in the game, too. USA Network, in partnership with Lionsgate, the industry's leading independent film entertainment studio, have made available episodes of The Dead Zone for purchase on iTunes. This is the first of myriad platforms being considered jointly for electronic sell-through opportunities around the hit series, which debuted its fifth season Sunday, June 18. The show's season five episodes will be made available for purchase on iTunes the day after their broadcast premieres.

NBC's hit comedy The Office (Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:00 p.m. ET, moving to 8:30-9:00 p.m. ET in the fall) goes digital when the first of 10, original stand-alone webisodes premieres on NBC.com on Thursday, July 13. The serialized, weekly arc will star the accounting staff of the Dunder Mifflin paper company in an edge-of-your-ergonomically-designed-seat whodunit. In the first of 10 webisodes, each about two-three minutes, the Dunder Mifflin accountants -- Angela (Angela Kinsey), Kevin (Brian Baumgartner) and Oscar (Oscar Nuez) -- discover that $3000 is missing from the Scranton office, and no one is above suspicion as the crack team of numbers crunchers tries to solve the mystery -- before turning on each other. Rainn Wilson, Melora Hardin, Phyllis Smith, Kate Flannery, Leslie David Baker and David Denman also star.

NBC and YouTube, Inc. announced a strategic partnership that will combine NBC's quality programming with YouTube's vast audience to enhance the entertainment experience on YouTube while engaging viewers in innovative new ways to promote NBC's Fall program lineup and other preferred shows over the next year. The agreement also includes an integrated, cross-promotional advertising relationship on the YouTube service and significant on-air promotion provided by NBC. Under the terms of the agreement, NBC will create an official NBC Channel on YouTube to house its Fall Preview area with exclusive clips to promote NBC's The Office. In addition, over the next year, NBC will upload several video presentations and longform promos per week to the NBC Channel on YouTube from primetime and late-night programs like Saturday Night Live, The Office, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. YouTube will also promote NBC's videos throughout the site.
Additionally, NBC will launch a contest for its hit comedy The Office where people can submit their own creative 20-second promotional videos to NBC's YouTube Group (www.youtube.com/theoffice). NBC will publicize the campaign on air regularly during the first three weeks of the contest, encouraging YouTube users to enter. User-generated videos must be compelling and entertaining and create interest for potential viewers to watch The Office. Examples can be seen in the NBC YouTube Group. The contest runs June 26 through July 21. The winning video will air within the network broadcast of The Office during the month of August. NBC will also offer a "how-to" video featuring writer-producer Bill Lowery, who normally writes and produces all the network's promos for The Office.

Yes, even more news The Office...well, sort of. The French have their own version, Variety reports. But Gallic paybox Canal Plus is taking its cue from the BBC for its first fictional exploration of the workplace. It has adapted Brit cult comedy The Office by helmer-scribe duo Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Gervais stars in the Brit version as David Brent, the oily boss of a firm that sells paper in a dreary suburb. With Gallic workers' aversion to authority and readiness to strike, French labor relations seem rich with comic possibilities. Le Bureau began airing May 25 in a 10:50 p.m. slot, and has garnered respectable, if not sensational, numbers. It will reach a wider audience when the paybox moves it to a Sunday 8:30 p.m. unencrypted slot this summer. Film subsid Studio Canal will release a DVD of the six-episode series in August. A half-season of three episodes based on original French material is slated to shoot in November.