“Saturday Night Live” Figures It Out

Remember when the show couldn’t figure out what to do when Lazy Sunday became a YouTube hit? Now it’s using the Web to show what didn’t even get to TV.
SNL

News Byte

Airtime Raises $25M, Brings in Early Hulu Team by Acquiring Their Start-Up, Erly

Airtime, the soon-to-launch video start-up from the co-founders of Napster, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners, Google Ventures, and the Social + Capital Partnership, as first reported by TechCrunch and confirmed by the company. Airtime also acquired Erly, the young, KP-backed event-photo-sharing start-up created by the early Hulu product team.

Verizon Finds an Innovative Way for Customers to Bust Through Their Data Caps

The carrier details plans for Viewdini, a service designed to help its 4G LTE customers find videos from a variety of sources, including Netflix, Hulu Plus and Xfinity.
viewdini screen shot

“Lazy Sunday 2”: “Saturday Night Live” Revives Big Media’s First Viral Video

Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell are older and healthier. And they would like a check from YouTube.
lazy sunday 2 excerpt

Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future

Want to figure out what Yahoo’s new boss wants to do with the company? Look back at what he did last year.
Levinsohn

Stalking the Elusive Cord-Cutter: Pay TV Grew Last Quarter (Again)

It’s easier than ever to get what you want to watch without paying for TV. But you’re still doing it.
poltergeist

Voices

Content Is No Longer King

“Content is king” has been a long-lived mantra of media. And in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was true.

Cable Fee Fight Takes Another Turn as Dish Networks Uses iTunes, Netflix and Amazon as Weapons

Wait long enough, or pay enough, and you can see repeats of last night’s “Mad Men” in lots of places. So why pay to see it on cable last night?
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Amazon Gets Into the Sitcom Business

And the kids’-show business, too. Yet another big Web company says it’s going to make its own videos. How soon before Jeff Bezos finds a “Seinfeld”?
Seinfeld-Cast-seinfeld-43506_1024_853

Providence Gets Out of Hulu. What About Jason Kilar?

A payout for Providence means Hulu’s CEO and his management team can get liquid, too. So will they stick around?
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Hey Ladies! Guess Who Loves Web Video?

It’s Not TV, It’s Amazon