cablewithaview
07-31-2006, 11:56 PM
Alert Bloggers Rescue Sleeping-Tech Video
It's the viral video that won't die.
The consumer-made video of a Comcast Corp. installer (since fired) who fell asleep in a subscriber's home while on hold with his home office cropped up again July 14 in a more prominent forum: ABC's Nightline.
The retransmission of that segment for podcasting and on-demand platforms became a mini, albeit misplaced, controversy when a blog, The Consumerist (www.consumerist.com), accused Comcast of censoring the video.
On July 17, the blog (subtitled “Shoppers Bite Back”) posted an item titled “Comcast censored Nightline. Help us nail 'em.”
Seems one of the bloggers was actually in the news segment, reported by Martin Bashir, on how consumers use the Internet to tweak companies with which they are dissatisfied. The blog noted the segment, as redistributed on Comcast's on-demand portal, The Fan, left said blogger on the cutting-room floor. The segment ran — absent the part with the anti-Comcast consumer clip.
True, the Comcast segment wasn't included, but that wasn't Comcast's doing, according to the company.
“Comcast receives thousands of news segments from ABC for Comcast.net, and has not edited any of those segments, including the Friday Nightline episode about blogs. We post them as we receive them,” Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said.
After the online criticism, cable-company officials checked in with Nightline. Apparently, as the episode was being encoded for repurposing, a technician cut it off at a commercial break without realizing there was more to the segment.
Comcast asked ABC to re-encode the entire segment and then posted it in its entirety as soon as the new version was received, Khoury noted.
The blog noted the “plausible” explanation, but conspiracy theorists in the topic string criticized the “convenient” mistake, saying they'd find it more believable had the other corporate criticisms used to illustrate the piece, including ones against America Online, been mysteriously dropped instead.
Video Parody Resurfaces, Sprout Host Gets Fired
An old viral video caused problems in another area, leading to the firing of a preschool programming host at PBS Kids Sprout, sending angry parents to the Web to vent about the loss of a popular performer.
Melanie Martinez hosted the interstitials in The Good Night Show, a program that primes toddlers for bedtime on PBS Kids Sprout, the on-demand partnership of Comcast Corp., Sesame Workshop, HITS Entertainment and PBS Kids.
But when a video show made seven years earlier in Martinez' career surfaced on Google Video, the programming venture let the host go.
The clip, titled “Technical Virgin,” features Martinez dressed as a schoolgirl in a white blouse and plaid skirt, standing in front of what looks like an urban school building. The dialogue initially sounds like an abstinence public-service announcement, with the teen vowing not to jeopardize her future by getting pregnant. But then she declares she'll protect “her future” by indulging only in anal sex.
In a response to parent inquiries about the firing, PBS Kids Sprout posted a response on its Web site, noting the “dialog in this video is inappropriate for her role as a preschool programming host and may undermine her character's credibility with our audience.”
Parents and other fans turned to blogs to express their dismay. Some indicated they are not concerned about Martinez' past work as their toddlers were very unlikely to happen upon the tasteless video. They, well, can't even sit up, let alone go online.
“Unless she gets hit in the head and starts spouting off about — and demonstrating — the virtues of oral sex and masturbation on the air during The Good Night Show, I don't see how her past should be a problem,” wrote Lisa Goldstein on The Huffington Post. She described Martinez as her 2-year-old's first crush.
The “technical virgin” Web site is hosting a petition advocating “Host Melanie's” rehiring. As of Friday, about 1,000 people had signed it.
'Battlestar' Bombshells Fall Ahead of New Season
In matters dealing with the television future, Multichannel News contributor Mary McNamara passed along various “bombshells” on her blog (m2tv.typepad.com) from a panel at ComicCon in San Diego last week with stars and producers of Sci Fi Channel hit Battlestar Galactica. It returns Oct. 6.
Spoilers are most definitely ahead.
According to McNamara, “They candidly prepared viewers for an intense, dark and brutally honest third season, and warned that viewers would be 'saddened.' The series will explore issues ranging from suicide bombers to pandemics and some characters will depart.”
Executive producer David Eick said that as season three begins, New Caprica (the planet now inhabited by the humans who fled their world in a space flotilla that includes Galactica) is still occupied by Cylons, their robotic enemies.
Among the human characters, divisions have set in. One character “in particular is missing a vital part of his anatomy.”
After listeners groaned, Eick said, “Yeah — think about that on the way home. It ain't pretty. It's a very dark and provocative and a challenging beginning of the tale of what happens to these people on New Caprica.”
Edward James Olmos, who plays Galactica's commander, Adama, repeatedly called BSG “the darkest show I have been on. And I say that with love because, basically, it makes you think.”
Olmos said the series will explore the psychology of suicide bombers who “take out five Cylons. It becomes incredibly dark. And an incredible journey as we step into this world for the third season — much more so than any season than we've had.”
Added Olmos: “In the show this year we are going to touch the issue that is most affecting the planet which is the pandemic — which is coming, and you all know it's coming, and yet no one is really preparing for it. The bird flu pandemic. Until it hits you like it hit in 1918 and took out 40 million of us, you don't really get it.
“And in this case, we use it the same way the English used it against the indigenous people here in the United States. Human beings use it against the Cylons. And we spread a pandemic amongst them. And it's incredibly difficult to take. It's just incredible.”
Some viewers might well want to heed Olmos's warning that it might be “better to watch CNN, OK?”
McNamara's report on ComicCon appears on pages 18 and 19.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6357498.html
It's the viral video that won't die.
The consumer-made video of a Comcast Corp. installer (since fired) who fell asleep in a subscriber's home while on hold with his home office cropped up again July 14 in a more prominent forum: ABC's Nightline.
The retransmission of that segment for podcasting and on-demand platforms became a mini, albeit misplaced, controversy when a blog, The Consumerist (www.consumerist.com), accused Comcast of censoring the video.
On July 17, the blog (subtitled “Shoppers Bite Back”) posted an item titled “Comcast censored Nightline. Help us nail 'em.”
Seems one of the bloggers was actually in the news segment, reported by Martin Bashir, on how consumers use the Internet to tweak companies with which they are dissatisfied. The blog noted the segment, as redistributed on Comcast's on-demand portal, The Fan, left said blogger on the cutting-room floor. The segment ran — absent the part with the anti-Comcast consumer clip.
True, the Comcast segment wasn't included, but that wasn't Comcast's doing, according to the company.
“Comcast receives thousands of news segments from ABC for Comcast.net, and has not edited any of those segments, including the Friday Nightline episode about blogs. We post them as we receive them,” Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said.
After the online criticism, cable-company officials checked in with Nightline. Apparently, as the episode was being encoded for repurposing, a technician cut it off at a commercial break without realizing there was more to the segment.
Comcast asked ABC to re-encode the entire segment and then posted it in its entirety as soon as the new version was received, Khoury noted.
The blog noted the “plausible” explanation, but conspiracy theorists in the topic string criticized the “convenient” mistake, saying they'd find it more believable had the other corporate criticisms used to illustrate the piece, including ones against America Online, been mysteriously dropped instead.
Video Parody Resurfaces, Sprout Host Gets Fired
An old viral video caused problems in another area, leading to the firing of a preschool programming host at PBS Kids Sprout, sending angry parents to the Web to vent about the loss of a popular performer.
Melanie Martinez hosted the interstitials in The Good Night Show, a program that primes toddlers for bedtime on PBS Kids Sprout, the on-demand partnership of Comcast Corp., Sesame Workshop, HITS Entertainment and PBS Kids.
But when a video show made seven years earlier in Martinez' career surfaced on Google Video, the programming venture let the host go.
The clip, titled “Technical Virgin,” features Martinez dressed as a schoolgirl in a white blouse and plaid skirt, standing in front of what looks like an urban school building. The dialogue initially sounds like an abstinence public-service announcement, with the teen vowing not to jeopardize her future by getting pregnant. But then she declares she'll protect “her future” by indulging only in anal sex.
In a response to parent inquiries about the firing, PBS Kids Sprout posted a response on its Web site, noting the “dialog in this video is inappropriate for her role as a preschool programming host and may undermine her character's credibility with our audience.”
Parents and other fans turned to blogs to express their dismay. Some indicated they are not concerned about Martinez' past work as their toddlers were very unlikely to happen upon the tasteless video. They, well, can't even sit up, let alone go online.
“Unless she gets hit in the head and starts spouting off about — and demonstrating — the virtues of oral sex and masturbation on the air during The Good Night Show, I don't see how her past should be a problem,” wrote Lisa Goldstein on The Huffington Post. She described Martinez as her 2-year-old's first crush.
The “technical virgin” Web site is hosting a petition advocating “Host Melanie's” rehiring. As of Friday, about 1,000 people had signed it.
'Battlestar' Bombshells Fall Ahead of New Season
In matters dealing with the television future, Multichannel News contributor Mary McNamara passed along various “bombshells” on her blog (m2tv.typepad.com) from a panel at ComicCon in San Diego last week with stars and producers of Sci Fi Channel hit Battlestar Galactica. It returns Oct. 6.
Spoilers are most definitely ahead.
According to McNamara, “They candidly prepared viewers for an intense, dark and brutally honest third season, and warned that viewers would be 'saddened.' The series will explore issues ranging from suicide bombers to pandemics and some characters will depart.”
Executive producer David Eick said that as season three begins, New Caprica (the planet now inhabited by the humans who fled their world in a space flotilla that includes Galactica) is still occupied by Cylons, their robotic enemies.
Among the human characters, divisions have set in. One character “in particular is missing a vital part of his anatomy.”
After listeners groaned, Eick said, “Yeah — think about that on the way home. It ain't pretty. It's a very dark and provocative and a challenging beginning of the tale of what happens to these people on New Caprica.”
Edward James Olmos, who plays Galactica's commander, Adama, repeatedly called BSG “the darkest show I have been on. And I say that with love because, basically, it makes you think.”
Olmos said the series will explore the psychology of suicide bombers who “take out five Cylons. It becomes incredibly dark. And an incredible journey as we step into this world for the third season — much more so than any season than we've had.”
Added Olmos: “In the show this year we are going to touch the issue that is most affecting the planet which is the pandemic — which is coming, and you all know it's coming, and yet no one is really preparing for it. The bird flu pandemic. Until it hits you like it hit in 1918 and took out 40 million of us, you don't really get it.
“And in this case, we use it the same way the English used it against the indigenous people here in the United States. Human beings use it against the Cylons. And we spread a pandemic amongst them. And it's incredibly difficult to take. It's just incredible.”
Some viewers might well want to heed Olmos's warning that it might be “better to watch CNN, OK?”
McNamara's report on ComicCon appears on pages 18 and 19.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6357498.html