BC Crawler

Tuesday: Zucker on Change, Wolf Blitzes?, Esteban Colberto and More...
January 22, 2008

By Alex Weprin

[Time for Change] NBC-Universal chief Jeff Zucker told the Finanical Times that NBC was going to use the writers strike as a means of changing the way the company conducts its business. Including greatly scaling down the upfronts and moving away from the traditional pilot season, and more towards year round development. While this may not be news to those in the industry, this is the first time that a network chief has opened up about the possibility. Zucker told the Times: “I think there were a tremendous number of inefficiencies in Hollywood and it often takes a seismic event to change them, and I think that’s what’s happened here,” he said of the strike, predicting that “the development process will change forever.”

Zucker also hinted that NBC was interested in patching things up with Apple. NBC pulled their content from iTunes when their contract expired in December. NBC wanted more flexibility in pricing and bundling shows. The company did recently make a deal with Apple that would see movies produced by Universal available for rent on iTunes.

[Its Not YouTube, Its HBO] Attention HBO fanatics: if you live in Wisconsin, are an HBO subscriber and have Time Warner Cable service and a Windows PC, great news! You can participate in HBO’s test of HBO on Broadband, which allows you to download episodes of HBO shows for watching on your computer. While the new service is a step in the right direction, Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider doesn’t think it will work. By only including a selection of their programming, HBO may hobble the service, and eventually people may be so turned off as to not bother checking to see if any new material is there. With HBO On Demand already so popular, HBO on Broadband is not distinguishing itself. Also, Time Warner is expected to roll out caps on broadband usage, obviously HBO’s service would cut into that usage dramatically, turning what it is now a free program into a very very expensive one.

[Wolf Blitzes Candidates at CNN Smackdown] Or not. Actually, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was very quiet during the debate. In fact, he was criticized for being too quiet. Blitzer largely stepped back, letting Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards exchange blows with little interruption. Edwards criticized Blitzer during the debate for letting Clinton and Obama attack one another while not letting him respond. As Blitzer said later, moderating a debate is a damned if you do damned if you don’t kind of affair. If you ask to many questions you get criticized, and if you don’t ask enough you get criticized.

Speaking of: former NBC newsman Tom Brokaw came up during the debate, with Obama criticizing Clinton for lavishing former President Reagan with praise in Boom! Brokaw’s latest book. TVNewser has the video.

[Back to the Table] Informal talks between the WGA and AMPTP are expected to begin as soon as today. The WGA is also feeling heat from some well regarded members to get back to negotiating, especially with the DGA signing a deal that includes internet residuals. At the very least there is a starting point to begin negotiating. However, if a deal is not signed soon, as in before the Oscars, then the strike is going to go for the long haul, with any sort of resolution unlikely until SAG’s contract expires at the earliest.

[Breaking News: Some Reality TV is Fake!] Omarosa is famous for being mean on an old season of The Apprentice. Now she is on the cast of The Celebrity Apprentice, because apparently their barrier for “celebrity” is so low as to include her, someone almost no one could possibly recognize. Well, apparently during the taping of the celebrity show, Omarosa approached Americas Got Talent host Piers Morgan and asked if they could have a “showmance,” a faux reality TV romance that would extend their time on the show and, according to the NY Post, potentially reap future monetary benefits. Morgan responded:  “And I just looked at her and I thought, ‘What a pathetic creature.’ And I said to her, ‘You really are a deluded woman.’”

Omarosa says it was the other way around: “He said, 'I would do damn near anything to go to the end of this show.' And he said, 'Think about it: The two of us together would make a fierce team.' And I was looking at him, and his disgusting rotten yellow teeth, and I just couldn't believe it. I was completely disgusted by the idea.”

Its reality TV folks, what do you expect? Please end this strike soon….

[Esteban Colberto Entrevistas Lou Dobbs] This video has been making the rounds through the Web. It is a January 2007 interview on The Colbert Report with Lou Dobbs. However, the crew at The Colbert Report spliced in a new character, Esteban Colberto, who asked Dobbs questions in Spanish, and a hilarious opening scene in which Esteban and two lovely ladies cross a fence in the studio. For a while people thought that the interview was the real deal, until internet commenters noticed that the answers Dobbs gave were the same as the ones he gave a year ago. All in all, a very funny piece of material.

Posted by BC Crawler on January 22, 2008 | Comments (0)