CBS is touting the upcoming Hawaii Five-0 episode “Kapu (Forbidden)” as a television first — the ending will be picked by those watching in real time, via Twitter and site voting. It’s an interesting experiment, but maybe not the right audience for it.
Comcast struck a new agreement with Disney that gives it access to a wide range of content from ABC, Disney and ESPN networks across a number of screens and platforms. The 10-year deal also stipulates that the companies will collaborate on developing applications for new devices.
Don’t worry, John Locke fans, Lost won’t disappear from Netflix, and other ABC content will remain on the service as well. Netflix and Disney re-upped their licensing agreement, which keeps current shows on the service and adds a bunch of new content as well.
Netflix is getting a whole bunch of content from ABC and ABC Family, including shows like Scrubs, Ugly Betty and The Secret Life of the American Teenager under a new agreement with Disney announced today. The deal also introduces a new 15 day window.
Social TV is a big trend this year, so we’re always eager to see how it’s being adopted out in the wild. While talking to us about his platform’s recent Twitter integration, View2Gether‘s CEO Chris Adams also shared some nice stats on how his company’s white-label social viewing service is being used by ABC Family’s show GREEK.
View2Gether is currently being used by ABC Family to create viewing parties around its show Greek. ABC Family had been using Lycos for social viewing. (The network did not provide a reason for switching vendors in time for our post.) The latest Greek season started on March 30 and within 18 hours of the show’s premiere, more than 50,000 people watched the show using the View2Gether platform. Additionally, the show averaged 35,000-40,000 social viewers a week online after that. Viewing parties averaged 15 people in attendance.
Other View2Gether clients include CBS Interactive’s (s CBS) Australian video portal Adikted.tv and Sony (s SNE), which plans to roll out the service territory by territory across 34 of its sites internationally, starting this summer. The Sony deal will include Crackle, so you’ll presumably be able to chat about that knife stuck in the head of Zoe Bell while watching Angel of Death.
Read More about It’s No Myth, View2Gether Shares GREEK’s Social TV Stats
YouTube Adds Title and Ratings to Embeds; upper left-hand corner shows how many stars the video received (anyone else think it’s ugly?). (Mashable)
Tremor Media Partners with comScore; two companies working together to come up with the online equivalent of TV ratings. (TVWeek)
Panache Enables Flash Ads in Silverlight; the move could get more publishers to adopt Silverlight. (Contentinople)
ABCFamily.com Picks Up My Alibi Web Series; the show was originally shown on Take180.com and features a high level of audience participation. (MediaWeek)
CBSNews.com Launches New Web Series; Washington Unplugged is a 15-minute webcast hosted by Bob Schieffer that covers politics in Washington. (AdWeek)
Caprica Will Be on DVD and Digital Download Before Broadcast; two-hour Battlestar Galactica prequel to be available on April 20 of this year, won’t be shown on TV until 2010. (EOnline)
Popular videoblogger Brigitte Dale scored a deal with ABCFamily.com. NTV chatted with her via IM about her ideas on what makes a great video blog, if she plans to change formats for the new series, and what term she prefers for vlogging.
