The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog is reporting that Apple is having meetings with TV networks to see if they'd be interested in having their programs available on iTunes in a deal where viewers would pay a monthly flat fee to watch the shows.
Obviously, many networks already offer various shows on iTunes, but this would be a scenario where Mac and PC users of iTunes would pay a $30 a month subscription in order to watch TV shows. And that would be all shows, not just paying for each show that you want to watch.
While we wait for the World Series to be over and The Simpsons (and other Sunday night FOX shows) to return, here's something fun: a list of the 14 most awesome fake products from the show (The Simpsons I mean, not the World Series).
I'm sure that there have been a gazillion funny products over the years on the show. I can't even remember more than a few of them. But this list brought back a lot of memories of certain episodes with great fake products, including: Malk, Cheezus H. Rice, and Nuts and Gm (Together At Last!).
If The Real Housewives of Atlanta can record an upbeat party tune, why not (the beautiful and mysterious) Kelly Kapoor and (the pretty) Erin Hannon from The Office? They may fictional characters on a sitcom, but they are just as real as the Housewives. And their debut song, "Male Prima Donna," is a lot more fun than tardiness in regards to the party.
Kapoor and Hannon are the new singing sensation Subtle Sexuality, and "Male Prima Donna" dropped just after midnight this morning. They already have a Web site, a merchandise page with t-shirts, mugs, and tour posters. es, they list several dates in and around the Scranton, PA area and one in Ithaca. If you happen to be in the Dickson City, PA area tonight, you can catch the tour kickoff at Idle Hour Bowling Karaoke.
This is a rather interesting video. It's a stop-motion depiction of The Flintstones, from the 2001 Cartoon Network movie Flintstones on the Rocks. Specifically, it's a dream sequence that features Fred Flintstone bowling and saving another woman (not Wilma). All the Flintstones sounds are here, all made to look like one of those holiday specials we see every year. Love the music too.
[via Boing Boing]
It's something we see almost every Sunday during the fall/winter: CBS football coverage runs long, which means that 60 Minutes starts late, which means The Amazing Race starts late, which means Three Rivers starts late, which means Cold Case starts late, which means local news starts late. Sometimes it means that one of the shows won't get shown at all, which is what happened to Cold Case a couple of weeks ago.
Now you can be alerted to when the shows are going to be delayed because of football (or tennis or golf). You can sign up for CBS Eye Alerts, and they'll e-mail/text you when sports coverage run over.
This won't make you any happier, but at least you'll know it's coming. Though I think you can turn on CBS and figure it out for yourself.
Two very unique comedies will get a time slot on an equally unique cable network.
Conan O'Brien's "Conaco" production company and actor Rob Corrdry both scored spots on Adult Swim for two new live-action sitcoms.
O'Brien's company won a spot for Eagleheart, a show about a fading TV star who wins a chance for glory once more on a production in Texas, but constantly clashes with the low-level TV exec in charge of the show.
Corrdry's medical drama spoof web series Childrens' Hospital will also go to Adult Swim. The channel will show re-edited versions of the episodes that aired on TheWB.com as well as produce new ones. Corrdry originally pitched the show to Comedy Central, but negotiations broke down with the network, probably because the show didn't have enough bimbo strippers and shirtless fat guys to fill their quota (cough, Secret Girlfriend, cough).
Hey you. Yeah, you - guy wasting company time by watching last week's episode of Heroes on Hulu. Enjoying it? Well, get ready to cough up some cash to find out what happens next.
In a move that we've all long feared was probably inevitable anyway, Chase Carey, deputy chairman of News Corp. (one of Hulu's co-owners) annouced that Hulu would begin charging users. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Hulu's fees could start as early as 2010.
Other campaigns have popped up on the web over the past few years to save shows. While most of them are unsuccessful, once in a while a network will actually listen. This happened to Jericho after fans of that show sent so many nuts to CBS that the network finally decided that producing another seven episodes of the show would be cheaper than having fans send even more nuts to them and having to get rid of them somehow.
[Watch episodes and clips of Dollhouse and other shows at SlashControl.]
Full disclosure: back in the day, Baywatch was a guilty pleasure of mine.
Having said that, I certainly don't want it to return, either as a TV show or a big screen movie or a video game or even a set of glassware. But I do like this Funny or Die video below, which shows the return of Nicole Eggert. Hey, she still looks OK to me!
AskMen.com has released the list of the 49 most influential men of 2009 (not sure why it's 49 and not 50) and there are several TV people on the list, including FOX News anchor Shepard Smith, chef Mario Batali, and Seth MacFarlane.
But the number one person? The person who AskMen thinks is the most influential? He's from TV too, and he's actually fictional.
Every time I watch a TV talking head like Glenn Beck, I usually walk away with the same thought I had every time I walked out of my economics class in college: "What the hell were they talking about?"
That's because there isn't anything journalistic or scientific about their pontifications. It's all "gut talk," particularly Beck who throws around more wild and unfocused theories about the ongoing war between "us vs. them" than a homeless preacher in a bus station. Chances are if you actually sat down and simply asked him "what did you mean by (x)", he would give you a 1,700 word answer that answered everything but the question you asked him.
Television has been trying to cram 3D technology into our eye sockets ever since it realized that offering some kind of gimmick with their product could distract some audiences from the fact that it sucks. 3D TV will only impress three groups of people: children, heavy LSD users who are out of LSD, and the people who helped bring it to a Best Buy near you.
HBO, however, has done something much more interesting and creative with interactive entertainment by applying the 3D concept, not to just the screen, but the story and characters. I hope you've got lots of newspaper down, because your mind is about to blow.
Have you noticed how many spokespeople that Geico has? They have the lizard, the cavemen, that creepy stack of money with the eyes, and now they even have commercials where potholes and pipes talk to car owners. You don't usually seem one company with so many TV commercial icons.
The lizard is still popular though, and he's in more places than ever. Like videos made by famous YouTube stars.
[via Adfreak]
I don't know where this "Autotuning" came from, but I like it. Sometimes it seems forced, but other times it's so spot on that it actually creates a good song and not just a goofy, funny curio.
The latest is from the PBS TV show Cosmos, something I really enjoyed years ago, and features Carl Sagan (with a cameo by another famous scientist and author). This is really well done, sort of techno meets progressive rock. I love how it's not just stringing his words together, but there's actually a chorus.
Here's one for Billy Mays.
If all of the people who watched the first two episodes of The Beautiful Life signed this petition...well, the show would still be canceled (if you had TBL in the office "which show will get canceled first" pool, congrats!).
Cancellations + the web = instant petitions. A TV show used to just die and then that would be it. Oh, sometimes something happens where a show gets a second chance (exec taking a chance, summer reruns getting good ratings, the show doing well on DVD, buzz, etc), but it's a long shot. And now, whenever a show is canceled the web gives us the opportunity to create and/or sign a petition to get the show renewed.
The Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital blog is reporting that Apple is having meetings with TV networks to see if they'd be interested in having their programs available on iTunes in a deal where viewers would pay a monthly flat fee to watch the shows. 
While we wait for the World Series to be over and 
If The Real Housewives of Atlanta can record an upbeat party tune, why not (the beautiful and mysterious) Kelly Kapoor and (the pretty) Erin Hannon from 
It's something we see almost every Sunday during the fall/winter: CBS football coverage runs long, which means that 60 Minutes starts late, which means 
Two very unique comedies will get a time slot on an equally unique cable network. 
Hey you. Yeah, you - guy wasting company time by watching last week's episode of Heroes on Hulu. Enjoying it? Well, get ready to cough up some cash to find out what happens next.
... not who you think.
Every time I watch a TV talking head like Glenn Beck, I usually walk away with the same thought I had every time I walked out of my economics class in college: "What the hell were they talking about?" 
If all of the people who watched the first two episodes of The Beautiful Life signed 
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