11 posts and columns on Variety

Viral Video: Chinese Senior Choir Sings Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”

in Media on November 10, 2011 at 10:26 am PT

The headline kind of says it all.
lady-gaga-bad-romance-official-video-6_crop

Cameron Diaz and “Bad Teacher” Come Early to Apple, Amazon

in Media on October 12, 2011 at 5:35 am PT

Another Hollywod “window” experiment.
bad teacher

Now on iTunes, for Free: A Show You Can’t Watch on Fox for a Couple Weeks

in Media on September 6, 2011 at 4:36 am PT

Fox usually wants you to watch its shows on your TV, not your PC. But for now, it’s happy to let you watch Zooey Deschanel and her pals on “New Girl.”
new girl

Online Sales Play Role in Helping Harry Potter Break Box-Office Records

in Commerce on July 15, 2011 at 5:19 pm PT

Harry Potter’s final installment of the massively popular film franchise is on its way to breaking all kinds of records, assisted by nearly magical online and mobile presales that took place in the 45 days leading up to its debut.
potter

News Byte

What the Flock? Angry Birds Game May Migrate to Hollywood.

in News on August 25, 2010 at 12:11 am PT

Did you know it was possible to milk birds? For a demonstration, just keep an eye on Finnish mobile game maker Rovio as it tries to parlay its Angry Birds puzzler from a worldwide iPhone and iPad megahit into a major cross-platform franchise: Toys, comics, TV shows, even a full-length feature film. Given the difficulty of making a big score in the app market, Rovio intends to squeeze every last bit out of its winner. “It doesn’t make sense (to produce a slate of different games) when you have a hit of any caliber,” CEO Mikael Hed told Daily Variety.

Microsoft Bails Out of “Family Guy” Windows 7 Episode After Actually Watching “Family Guy”

in Media on October 26, 2009 at 3:40 pm PT

Remember Microsoft’s plan to use “Family Guy,” Fox’s ribald, off-color cartoon sitcom, to promote Windows 7? No more, says Microsoft, which is pulling out of plans to sponsor a special episode of the show scheduled to run Nov. 8. What happened? Apparently, Microsoft realized that “Family Guy” is a ribald, off-color sitcom.
barfyFamilyGuy

Pay Up: The Wall Street Journal Tries Charging Web Subscribers for Mobile Access

in Media on September 17, 2009 at 12:36 pm PT

Rupert Murdoch has been pushing The Wall Street Journal to raise its prices. Here’s one way to try it: Levy an additional fee for subscribers who want to use the paper’s iPhone or BlackBerry apps.
rupert-murdoch

Are Network TV Ad Sales Terrible? Or Just Bad? And When Will We Know?

in Media on August 10, 2009 at 7:52 am PT

As predicted, TV ad sales are down. And as predicted, TV networks are hoping they come back sometime in the next year, along with the economy. In the meantime, what do cheap TV ad prices do for Web video sales?
the_office_promo_pic_nbc

Sold! Hollywood Blog Queen Nikki Finke Goes to…Mail.com.

in Media on June 23, 2009 at 6:26 am PT

The Nikki Finke auction is over, and the winner is…Mail.com. Jay Penske’s Mail.com Media Corporation, which owns the Mail.com email service and a small portfolio of Web sites, has acquired the blogger, whose Deadline Hollywood Daily is a must-read for Hollywood.
nikki-finke

Amazon Announces Video Service You May Actually Want to Use

in News on July 17, 2008 at 8:05 am PT

About the best thing to be said about Amazon Unbox, the mediocre, odiously restrictive, video download service the retailer launched last year, is that it was … er … Windows-only, I guess. Which, obviously isn’t saying much.