nbc universal

Vivendi Sale Paves Way For Comcast Takeover Of NBC

Prepare for a new player to enter the television and movie arena, as Vivendi and General Electric have finally reached a deal that will see the French company selling its share in NBC-Unversal, paving the way for a Comcast buyout. Long-rumored, GE reached a final agreement to purchase Vivendi’s 20% of the company late yesterday.…

Comcast Is Buying Up NBC Universal

Comcast and GE are in the “midst of due diligence” for a deal that would give a Comcast 51 percent stake in NBC Universal, and GE 49 percent. It would merge with its own cable networks. The sticking point, for now, is Vivendi’s 20 percent stake and its asking price of $6.3 billion. But, since…

Did Apple Actually Bow to NBC to Get 30 Rock Back on iTunes?

One of the smaller, but still significant announcements yesterday was that NBC was coming back to iTunes and that they’d be one of the channels offering TV shows in high-def—for $2.99. Buried in that, even, is that they’ll sell a bunch of older shows for just 99 cents an ep, and offer discounts to Season…

Microsoft Developing Copyright Filter for Zune, Will Block Pirated Content

Yesterday, NBC jumped aboard Starship Zune after its protracted breakup with iTunes. It’s clear why—and going with NBC’s pricing was only part of it. Saul at the NYTimes says that Microsoft has agreed to develop a copyright filter that would block pirated content from being played on Zunes. Which is exactly what NBC was demanding…

NBC Wants iTunes to Block Pirated Content from iPods

NBC Universal Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff: “We’d love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We’d love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes.” Obviously NBC did, until they walked out. In order for them to come back, they want more money per show (still) to “reflect…

NBC To Put 3,600 Hours of 2008 Olympic Games on MSN (in Silverlight)

In his CES keynote tonight, Bill Gates (and Bob Costas) announced that NBC would broadcast 3,600 hours of games from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics via MSN on the nbcolympics.com site. The video will be both live and on demand, with over 30 simultaneous live broadcasts. The cool thing is that finally, people who love…

NBC Hooks Up With Netflix to Deliver More TV on Your PC

NBC has become quite the digital distribution whore, like they broke up with their longtime lover and are slutting it up to make them jealous or something. Their latest partner is Netflix.com, where subscribers can watch Heroes eps the day after they air—the release curiously avoids the word “stream”—as well as past eps of 30…

NBC Snaps Up Pop-Up TiVo Ads, Second-by-Second Viewer Ratings

NBC and TiVo have inked a nice little deal for ads and ratings. On the ad side, advertisers who buy spots on any of NBC Universal’s networks—NBC, Sci-Fi, Bravo, etc.—can insert TiVo “tags” that’ll pop up an icon for viewers to click on to get more product info. And make sure you see what’s being…

AT&T Considering Scary, Content-Recognizing Anti-Piracy Filter for Entire Network

Remember YouTube’s content filtering system? AT&T is mulling setting one up across its whole network. BusinessWeek’s reporting AT&T’s in talks with NBC Universal and Disney to possibly use content-recognition tech developed by Vobile—a company they’ve all invested in—to block pirated material from being sent to and fro along its network. https://gizmodo.com/youtube-antipiracy-video-identification-system-enters-b-311557 The setup would work…

NBC Wanted to “Experiment” with $2.99 TV Show Pricepoint on iTunes, Cut of Apple Hardware Sales

Nearly two months after the fizzle out between NBC Universal and Apple during contract negotiations, NBC U CEO Jeff Zucker spills what some of the contested terms were. Most surprising is that NBC asked for a cut of hardware sales. Not the fact that they wanted a cut, but that they actually asked for it—they’d…

Viacom, Disney, Microsoft and Others Form Justice League of Copyright

A smorgasborg of media companies—Viacom, Disney, News Corp., NBC Universal, CBS, and others, including Microsoft—have formed a coalition laying out guidelines for protecting copyrights online. Their “principles” include using technology to wipe out copyright no-no content generated by users, as well as shutting it out before it hits the public intertubes. You’ll notice GooTube isn’t…

NBC refutes Apple’s version of their spat: “We never asked to double the wholesale price for our TV shows. In fact, our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together…” This is turning into a bad Aaron Sorkin script. [Mac Rumors] https://gizmodo.com/apple-balks-at-5-per-show-demand-gives-nbc-the-boot-f-295641

NBC Universal Pulling the Plug on iTunes Content

NBC Universal is ending its iTunes support, meaning no more “Heroes,” “The Office” or “To Catch a Predator” in the iTunes store after December, when the current contract expires. What makes the rift somewhat serious for Apple is that NBC is iTunes’ biggest video supplier, pulling in about 40 percent of downloads. On top of…

Pray You’re Not on “The List”: Sylar Coming to Your Cell Phone On Demand

NBC Universal is teaming up with MobiTV to bring its TV shows to the small(er) screen: Full-length episodes of “Heroes,” “The Office,” “Monk,” and “Battlestar Galactica” will be available over the air on demand for $1.99 (awesome) but currently only for “a 24-hour viewing period” (not awesome). Also part of the announced deal are several…

More Execs Bring the Hate for YouTube

Fresh off the Viacom slap, NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker and News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch lined up to take their shots at GooTube. https://gizmodo.com/viacom-bullies-youtube-into-removing-100-000-videos-234001 Zucker whines that “YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It’s proven it can do it when it wants to.” It sounds strange, considering…