 Fox to Start
Saturday Night Cartoons
Long known for its
Sunday night cartoons headlined by "The Simpsons," Fox is
planning to offer new animated material late on Saturday nights and on
an experimental new digital channel. The network said
Sunday that the new effort will be led by Nick Weidenfeld,
the former head of program development for the Cartoon Network's
Adult
Swim series. The cable network has run a popular series of
late-night cartoons on weekdays that has successfully reached a young
male audience that TV executives consider valuable and elusive.
Saturday's 90-minute cartoon block would begin at 11 p.m. ET. Fox
hasn't programmed aggressively in late nights and hopes the new series
will provide some competition for NBC's "Saturday Night Live," said Kevin Reilly,
Fox entertainment president. It will start in January 2013.
Reilly, during a news conference, offered hints but left an air of
mystery around the future of some popular Fox prime-time shows like
"House," ''Glee," ''Fringe" and "Terra Nova." Fox
appreciates its Sunday cartoons like "The Simpsons," which will soon
air its 500th episode. But success there left relatively little room
for experimentation.
 Big City Nights... Scorpions Story
Deutsche Welle is producing a
90-minute documentary, Big City
Nights - The SCORPIONS Story, for release in 2013. A description reads: A
legendary band calls it quits. The Scorpions
are by far the most successful German rock band and one of the most
successful international acts of all time. After more than 40 years and
2,000 concerts in 60 countries, they will make their final curtain call
and step away from what has defined them for decades – their
fans,
their tours and their way of life. And along the way, the band will
show once more what they do best: playing live. They will be performing
more than 200 concerts in their final three-year tour and using the
time to record a farewell CD with original and covered songs. The doc will debut on German TV
network DW-TV and will be
avail on DVD for the rest of us headbangers.
 Comcast Feathers NBC Universal
Comcast
Corp. has finalized a deal purchasing a majority stake in NBC Universal for
$13.75
billion, giving the nation's largest cable TV operator control of the
Peacock
network, an array of cable channels and a major movie studio. They even
changed the corporate logo, removing the Peacock and Universal globe.
Does anyone really understand what that means?
Simply America's largest cable tv company has purchased the oldest
broadcast television network, Universal Studios, and a slew of cable
channels. Not to say that the inmates are running the prison, but this
is history in the making. Nobody ever would think decades ago that the
a mere cable operator could own an actual broadcast network! Now just a
dime a dozen. One company will have control over of a lot of
entertainment content, and the right to distribute it any way they
like! It really is a new era of monopolies, and the ramifications
of this deal with trickle down to a new century of media players. It
will also effect how we see our favorite TV shows, movies, music,
news... and yeah, everything else! Brace yourself for the madness!
______________________________
|
