Ernie Anastos of FOX News meant to say “keep plucking that chicken,” but ended up saying something that he’ll regret later. Silly anchorman, haven’t you learned from Ron Burgundy that sometimes people tend to trick you with the teleprompter. The video of the slip up on YouTube has become a viral hit and is inching close to about one million views. The engagement curve monitor used by Visible Measures, a video analytics company shows that a lot of people keep rewinding to see if the anchor is saying plucking or not. I thought that this anchor slip up was funny, but the bird feces landing in the reporter’s mouth was the funniest of all time. What is your favorite anchor man slip up of all time? Bill O’Reilly’s “we’ll do it live?”

Below is the video of the slip:

5to1 is a start-up that launched out of stealth mode at the TechCrunch50 conference. The company aims to make it easier for advertising companies to sell off remnant advertising. Remnant advertising is inventory that was unable to be sold due to ad space or time.

Many people that view news websites will notice there is quite a bit of ads that seem totally irrelevant from the publisher’s brand. The team behind 5to1 includes former Fox Interactive executives Jim Heckman and Ross Levinsohn. 5to1 even raised $4.5 million in seed funding.

5to1 helps get rid of the ineffective ad campaigns that only benefit the networks selling the campaigns. The end goal of the service is to increase the quality and revenue of advertisements.

Late last month, I wrote about how FOX plans to place Twitter messages on the re-runs of Glee and Fringe. I wrote that it was a good idea, but it turns out that whoever designed the appearance of the Twitter responses and messages for the TV show did a terrible job.

The Twitter messages controlled a large chunk of the screen real estate and even covered the faces of some of the characters. On the forums over at MonstersAndCritics.com, an anoynmous commenter wrote that the Twitter pop-ups was the “most annoying thing I have ever seen.” Another commenter wrote “take it off the screen so we can see the show.”

What I would have done differently if I was in charge of this experiment was to make a scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen. Having pop-ups over the characters faces does not do any good for Twitter or the show itself.

FOX TV show Fringe is adding a new feature to their repeat shows.  The new feature utilizes Twitter commentary to add some flavor to the show.  In each repeated show (”tweet-peats”), there will be an on-screen scrolling of Twitter messages from the cast and the producers.

The first time they will be doing this will be at Thursday at 9PM on FOX.  Josh Jackson (cast), John Noble (cast), Jeff Pinker (producer), and J.H. Wyman (producer) will have their Twitter accounts connected to the show.

On the same day, there will also be a pilot of the show Glee which will also have Twitter commentary from cast and other staff.  To become involved in the “tweet-peats,” check out the Twitter accounts of both shows:

http://www.twitter.com/FRINGEonFOX and http://www.twitter.com/GLEEonFOX.

And also don’t forget to subscribe to the Pulse2 Twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/Pulse2DotCom.

In the United States, many of you will notice a big red box movie vending machine that allows you to rent a movie for a day at the price of $1.  Up until now, Hollywood studios were willing to provide Redbox whenever there were new releases.  However Redbox started selling the newly released DVDs for $7 on the open market after there were several rentals.  The studios did not like this idea at all.

Now News Corporation and Universal Pictures are withholding newly released DVDs from Redbox as part of a lawsuit.  Since studios are starting to withhold DVDs, Redbox is purchasing the DVDs themselves from Wal-Mart and other retail companies which is cutting into their own profits.

On the other hand, Sony Pictures has signed a 5 year deal for supplying DVDs to Redbox.  However Sony Pictures DVDs had to be destroyed after Redbox reached a certain rental limit for each DVD rather than reselling it.

This past Wednesday, Fox ordered that new release DVDs should not be given to Redbox until 30 days after they have been available for sale.  This policy will be effective starting October 27.  Fox said that the $1 rental price is “grossly undervaluing” their movies.

While Fox ordered a 30 day delay, Universal Pictures insisted on a 45 day delay policy.  Redbox refused this deal.  So Universal cut them off altogether.  Redbox sued Universal for cutting them off and claimed that antitrust laws were broken.  In Delaware, a federal judge is expected to make a ruling.

Redbox is not prohibited on renting out DVDs that they purchase themselves because of the first-sale legal doctrine law.  According to the doctrine:

“Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 (3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord.”

Sony will be selling its movies to Redbox for $460 million over the next 5 years.  Considering that Redbox vending machines has 17,900 kiosks and plans to launch an additional 8,500, that price is a bargain for what they would have to spend in retail stores.  Redbox is owned by Coinstar.

[via The Associated Press]

Earlier this week, Paula Abdul announced she was stepping down from American Idol as one of the judges.  To reach her fans in real-time about the announcement, she turned to Twitter to make the announcement.

“With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return to #IDOL. I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent,but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day1become an international phenomenon,” tweeted Abdul.  She’s straight up now telling you that she’s going to be leaving forever, oh oh oh!

The reason why Abdul left was because she was seeking a better raise, but did not get one.  Personally I don’t think its that much of a huge loss considering that Abdul was seen as a flip-flopper.  During the auditions for Paula’s replacement, Katy Perry and Victoria Beckham have been lined up as interim judges.

CBS is working on ways to compete against Hulu.  The CBS.com website has been thoroughly enhanced to stream high-quality episodes of their TV shows and these videos are linked to TV.com, a website that is owned by CBS as well.  Hulu removed their shows from TV.com recently.

In March, TV.com received about 679,000 unique U.S. visitors and streamed 3.4 million videos.  In February, TV.com has about 330,000 unique U.S. visitors and streamed only 1.6 million videos.  Hulu received abut 8.9 million U.S. visitors in March and streamed 349 million videos.  Hulu is run by NBC and FOX.

[via BusinessInsider]

Hulu, the video website run by NBC and FOX has loads of popular shows that they allow people to watch. They have three seasons of Arrested Development, new episodes of Family Guy, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Chuck, Heroes, etc. Now a source at Silicon Alley Insider says that a deal for Disney content to appear on Hulu is basically done.

That means on Hulu we would perhaps see content from ESPN, ABC, and some Disney movies. If the deal works out with Disney and ABC shows starts to appear on Hulu, that only leaves CBS out as the outcast. ABC and CBS both currently steam shows on their website. CBS has very good quality, but ABC not as much.

[via BI/VentureBeat]

Redlasso is a company that used to provide clips from news programs to bloggers to embed on their own websites.  NBC, FOX, and CBS did not like Redlasso ganking their clips so they decided to sue the company.  But FOX suddenly had a change of heart.

Fox made a deal with Redlasso now.  Redlasso will be able to use video news content from 27 of FOX’s regional news stations.

Redlasso started in 2007 and was heavily used by The Huffington Post.  What Redlasso was doing was illegal.  They recorded and distributed TV content without the permission of the stations.  Last May the company received a cease and desist letter and the company ignored them for the most part.  Last July FOX and NBC filed the lawsuit against Redlasso and the site discontinued their services shortly after.

FOX’s content will be available through Redlasso starting in April.  Bloggers will be able to use clips which could be as long as 10 minutes through Redlasso.  Redlasso CEO Al McGowan started that lawsuits with all other television networks have now been settled.  The company is currently looking for ways to expand content offerings.

My guess is that Redlasso struck a deal that involves advertising revenue sharing with FOX.  We may see ads in the clips that Redlasso offers to bloggers.

[via TechCrunch]

The video website that was put together by FOX and NBC has turned one years old.  The company has done a lot in that one year.  Currenly the website is top 300 on Alexa and sits at #49 on Quantcast, indicating that they get a good number of hits every month.  They even had their first commercial which aired during the Super Bowl and starred Alec Baldwin.  That commercial resulted in a 50% increase in traffic.

Before Hulu was introduced, many people doubted that the company would ever match YouTube’s success but they’ve proved the world wrong.

A feature that Hulu will be rolling out soon is a social network within the site.  This is where you can inform other users what you are watching.  Hulu has about 1,150 shows and about 550 movies on the site.  They had about 24 million viewers in January and streamed 250 million videos.

[via USA Today]

Daily Fill
News Corporation (NASDAQ:NWS) has a web incubator called Slingshot Labs.  One of the results from the incubator is Daily Fill, a gossip and entertainment blog.  In January alone, DailyFill had about 1.3 million unique visitors during the beta release.  News Corp plans to use the DailyFill to compete with Time Warner’s TMZ and independent blogger Perez Hilton.  The Daily Fill is covered with Photos, News, Celebrity Gossip, and blog posts.  The DailyFill opened out of Beta a few days after Nick Denton’s Defamer blog was rolled into Gawker.com.

Chernin’s Departure
Recently Peter Chernin, head of News Corp’s Fox film stepped down after 12 years.  This left Rupert Murdoch in a compromised position.  Especially when Slumdog Millionaire walked away with 8 Oscars this past weekend.  Slumdog was made by Fox Searchlight.  Murdoch indicated before that he was interested in his children running the company one day.  But there are many other contenders.

Below is a list of Murdoch’s direct reports:

1. CFO, David DeVoe
2. General Counsel, Lawrence Jacobs
3. Global Marketing/Corporate Affairs, Gary Ginsberg
4. Fox Film, Jim Gianopoulos and Tom Rothman
5. Fox News/Fox Business Channel/TV Stations, Roger Ailes
6. Fox Network/Entertainment Cable Networks/RSNs, Tony Vinciquerra
7. News Corp. Europe/Asia, James Murdoch
8. Myspace/FIM, Peter Levinsohn
9. News America Marketing/NY Post, Paul Carlucci
10. Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, Les Hinton
11. Harper Collins,  Brian Murray
12. News Limited, James Hartigan
13. Government Affairs, Michael Regan
14. Human Resources, Beryl Cook
15. Content, Anthea Disney

Who will fill in for Chernin, best known as being Murdoch’s number two?  Maybe we’ll see a reality show on FOX to determine the next executive.

[via VentureBeat, BI]

  
Facebook is “currently the leading social network” stated Joel Cheatwood, SVP of Development at Fox News. “They also have a user that’s a little older and a little more sophisticated.”

FOX News, a television subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE:NWS.A) has made a deal with a social network.  And guess what… It’s not the News Corporation social network subsidiary, MySpace.com.  FOX News signed a partnership with MySpace.

Why did FOX News sign with Facebook?  Perhaps this is because MySpace signed a deal with MSNBC speculates The New York Times. 

Tomorrow, Facebook will be launching a channel for FOX News on the social network complete with a wall, reviews, polls, photo submissions, discussion boards, etc.  Through Facebook, FOX News viewers will be able to post individual videos on their profiles, create playlists, and share clips. 

“Facebook’s continued growth and demographic profile makes them an increasingly important alternative outlet for viewers and fans to digest news and customize FNC content in a casual and fun environment,” added Cheatwood. ”The enhancements and added features to our existing page will provide current FNC ‘friends’ with a better experience and attract additional Facebook members to make our page an active part of their profile.”

Related Link:
1. MarketWatch

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is working wtih Seth MacFarlane on a new cartoon advertising project.  This coming September, MacFarlane will be launching a new series called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy” which will only be available on the Internet.

Google will be syndicating the cartoon comedy series through AdSense. Instead of a static ad, Google will be laying out a video for the cartoon series on select websites that target the intended demographics.  The videos will have ads embedded within them.  The project will be in two minute clips in a series of 50 clips.

“We feel that we have recreated the mass media,” stated Kim Malone Scott, Director of Sales & Operations Google’s AdSense division.

The division of Google that handles these distribution services is called Google Content Network.  Google provided MacFarlane with data regarding how long people tend to watch web videos before moving on to new content.

MacFarlane is the founder, voice actor, screenwriter and producer of Family Guy and American Dad.  These two programs air on FOX.  One of Family Guy’s most famous characters is Glen Quagmire.  Quagmire is known for saying “Giggity, Giggity, Giggity” when he finds himself attracted to a woman.

Seth MacFarlane spoke at Harvard for Class Day a couple of years ago.  The speech is available on YouTube.

[Source: NYT]

“What comes out of this community is that we’re taking 2000 of our loyal viewers and giving them a seat at the table in the decision-making process,” stated Melva Benoit, FOX’s Senior VP of Audience Intelligence and Research Strategy.

FOX Networks, a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE:NWS.A) is teaming up with social networking company, Passenger to create a private community for FOX fans.  This private community will give FOX feedback on their marketing/shows.  Over 2,000 FOX fans were invited to preview upcoming shows and networks with TV producers.

This community will have a say in what shows are released by FOX on TV.  The community will also input ideas in FOX’s overall marketing strategies.  Passenger also worked with ABC on a similar initiative. Other high-end brands like Coca-Cola, AMEX, and Mercedes worked with Passenger as well.

“These communities are for very purposeful interaction, which sets them apart from standard communities providing an environment for hanging out,” stated Justin Cooper, co-founder of Passenger.

Passenger was co-founded by Justin Cooper and Andrew Leary.  Passenger have raised $20.5 million in funding thus far [VentureBeat].  Passenger is based in Los Angeles, Calif.

“Bringing Flektor’s unique Web-based tools to MySpace will enable users to make their profile even more unique than they already are,” stated Clint Brauer, VP of Marketing for Flektor. “The glitter text, slideshow creator and polling feature applications were developed by Flektor as another means of self-expression and we are thrilled to share them with MySpace users.”

Flektor, the profile enhancement tool built around MySpace profiles and is owned by Fox Interactive Media/News Corp. announced recently that they will be lauching several easy to setup applications called MySpace Apps.  These tools include Pimpin’ MySpace Slideshows, Truth Polls, and Glitter Text.  MySpace Developer Platform is powering the applications.

The widgets created through Flektor does not require users to import images or create separate Flektor accounts.  By using MySpace’s Developer Platform, Flektor is able to connect their own widgets to an individual’s MySpace user direct account.

Flektor applications will have safe access to a user’s friend list, interests, photos & photo albums, video, status, and moods.  Flektor was started in 2006 and is based in Culver City, Calif.  The company was acquired by News Corp./FOX Interactive Media in May 2007. 

Information Source:
[1] Business Wire: Flektor to Launch Glitter Text, Slideshow Creator and Poll Applications on MySpace