Broadband Content Bits: Barely Digital; 'PG Porn'; Discovery; WMG/YouTube Snares Band's Site
This story was written by Tameka Kee.
Next New Networks spoofs tech sector with new site : The production/distribution company behind the Obama Girl series is branching into tech video with Barely Digital. The site will highlight trends, news and events in the tech scene with snarky video clips; it's aimed at men aged 18-35. Next New Networks has launched 16 video sites since its inception in 2007, including TMI Weekly with journalist/web celeb Julia Allison and VOD Cars for auto enthusiasts. Release.
Spike TV picks up PG Porn Webisodes : The network picked up 11 episodes of James Gunn's PG Porn, a comedic web series that pairs adult entertainment stars with mainstream actors, sans sex; the pilot episode gained more than one million views when it debuted on Spike.com last year. New episodes of PG Porn will premiere each month, followed by behind the scenes footage and cast interviews. Safran Digital Group (backer and producer of the Xbox Live series Horror Meets Comedy) and Good Boy Productions co-produced the show. Release.
*Discovery* is rolling in online video : The company is repackaging 23 years-worth of TV content for the web at a furious rate, according to the NYT. Last year Discovery's in-house editing division created about 4,500 online videos from content across its 13 networks, including shorts for how-to site HowStuffWorks, 30- to 40-second clips of animal predators for the Animal Planet site and a number of original series. Discovery's EVP of digital media Josh Freeman said that despite the challenges in the video ad space, the budgets were already there to support the company's efforts.
Warner's YouTube spat snares band's site : The ongoing battle between Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) and YouTube over the licensing fees for WMG artists' videos has drilled down to individual bands' sites. Mashable notes that rock band Death Cab for Cutie's videos weren't accessible on its own site Sunday; fans were greeted by this message instead: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by WMG"a sign that the clips had originally been embedded from YouTube. The band has since removed the clips' embed codes, replacing the blocked videos with authorized links, but the issue (documented first by social news site Reddit over the weekend) highlights the precarious position artists are in when the real owners of their digital content start exercising copyright claims.
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By Tameka Kee