FCC rule change could kill off Boxee — and require set-top boxes for basic cable

A provision of the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act that requires cable companies to provide unencrypted basic-tier cable could soon become obsolete, putting the life of young set-top box-maker Boxee in jeopardy.

A rule change, supported by the cable companies, is currently being considered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would enable the encryption of basic tier cable. A decision could be made in just a few weeks time.

The change would force … Continue Reading

YouTube boosts its channel lineup with a Reuters partnership and celebrity news

To help boost the quality and amount of original programming available, YouTube is launching a handful of new premium news-related channels to its site, which includes two celebrity and entertainment channels and an offering from Reuters.

The video site previously committed $100 million to seeing its original-content strategy through. Other original content channel partnerships include Madonna’s DanceOn, World Wrestling Entertainment’s Fan Nation, and exclusive bits from the Onion News Network.

Two of most recent channels, … Continue Reading

GetGlue prepares to take social TV mainstream with $12M in funding

It’s not in the same league as Facebook or a Twitter, or even half the size of Instagram, but GetGlue’s highly-specialized social network for entertainment watchers could be on its way to superstardom.

On GetGlue, more than two million die-hard entertainment fans check-in to television shows and movies, over the web or from mobile devices, to share their enthusiasm and get rewards for their viewing behaviors. Seventy five major television networks have already taken notice, … Continue Reading

How we watch TV now: Viewers are going mobile and multi-tasking

How do you watch your favorite TV shows? Chances are, you’re still using that traditional TV in your living room, but according to a report from Nielsen audiences are increasingly going mobile to consume videos and television.

Nielsen released its 2011 State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report Monday, which looks at all the data collected by the company over the course of the past year to paint a bigger picture of how we consume … Continue Reading

Samsung & Sony split up their LCD joint venture with a $934M buyout

Samsung and Sony are splitting up their LCD panel joint venture, the companies announced.

Samsung will be buying all of Sony’s shares of the venture, S-LCD Corporation, for KRW 1.08 trillion, roughly $934 million.

Pending regulatory approval, the deal is expected to close by the end of next month, January 2012. As a result of the deal, Sony expects to record Q3 2012 losses of roughly $847 million, but it expects this one-time loss to … Continue Reading

With Google TV channels on YouTube, it’s time to chuck cable

Google’s announcement Friday of its plan to bring a hundred channels of new Hollywood-produced content to the Web  may well be a watershed moment for television.

Here’s why: It’s one more big step toward weaning me from the rip-off that is cable TV.

Cable television, known mainly as Comcast in my neighborhood of San Francisco, is charging way too much — about $65 a month for the most basic package.

And now Google, through its … Continue Reading

From smartphones to televisions, how Apple will avoid the fate of RCA

The economics of the consumer electronics industry dictate that on a long enough timescale, all products will become low-margin commodities. The companies that make products household names are destined to fade from the public’s memory. Will Apple suffer the same fate as others before it, such as RCA, who revolutionized television sets in a similar fashion but were relegated to the dustbin of history decades later?

It’s products will most certainly be commoditized, but thanks … Continue Reading

Apple analyst says the 50-inch “iTV” is coming soon

Senior research analyst Gene Munster says an Apple-made TV could be coming as soon as the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013.

In a quote to Business Insider, the Piper Jaffray web expert said, “We believe Apple is investing in manufacturing facilities and securing supply for LCD displays. These displays could range from 3.5″ mobile displays to 50″ television displays.

“More recently, in September 2011, we met with a contact close to an … Continue Reading

Steve Jobs claimed he had “cracked” the code for an integrated Apple TV

Apple is planning an easy-to-use, advanced television, according to comments made by the late Apple founder Steve Jobs to his biographer.

“I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud,” Jobs reportedly told the biographer, Walter Isaacson.

“It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”

The comments, made to author Walter … Continue Reading

Sony recalls 1.6M Bravia TVs as consumers report fires & melted sets

LCD television sets that spontaneously melt or catch on fire only sound awesome. In reality, they’re the kind of thing that can endanger and inconvenience consumers, and lead to product recalls.

Sony is recalling around 1.6 million of its Bravia TV sets for precisely that reason. A faulty component of sets sold since 2007 may lead in some cases to overheating, smoke, melting parts and even fire. Sony is offering in-home evaluations to Bravia TV … Continue Reading

Just like with TV, there’s a prime-time for apps too

Mobile app usage peaks at around 7 pm during the day, according to the mobile analytics firm Flurry. The data shows that, just as there is with television, there is a prime-time for mobile apps as well.

Mobile app users generally use their apps from 3 pm to 10 pm, with the peak time being around 7 pm. That’s slightly off from the usual television prime-time, which lasts from around 7 pm to 11 pm. … Continue Reading

Your company is not the next TV Guide, says TV Guide Digital

TV Guide Digital has a message for online entertainment guides calling themselves the next TV Guide:

“There is only one TV Guide, and that’s TV Guide,” says Christy Tanner, the executive vice president and general manager of TV Guide Digital.

Tanner reached out to VentureBeat after we published the story “Fav.Tv ain’t your grandmother’s TV Guide.” We received pitches from about a dozen other companies saying they’re the next TV guide, as well. Tanner … Continue Reading

Flix Futures: Media Predict pays people to bet on Netflix growth

Media Predict is a marketplace where people get paid to place bets on which media will fly and which will flop.

As we publish this story, Media Predict is launching a real-money Netflix futures market (image below). It lets people with a Media Predict account put down real money and bet if Netflix will have more or fewer than 20 million users in the fourth quarter of 2011.

After recent pricing changes and last night’s … Continue Reading

Apple is working on a television for 2012, sources say

Apple is almost certainly working on a digital television based on its iOS operating system, according to multiple sources in Silicon Valley.

An Apple-based television makes sense in light of Apple’s continued expansion out of the computer industry into the larger consumer electronics market. But is it real?

Multiple reports, as well as sources interviewed by VentureBeat, support the rumor, which is widespread among the gadget industry.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, a longtime Apple

… Continue Reading

Best Buy moves into the connected TV business with Tivo’s user interface

Internet-connected TVs are becoming a lot more mainstream. The latest sign: Best Buy is announcing its own house label model, dubbed the Insignia Connected TV.

Best Buy, the nation’s largest gadget retailer, hopes to capture more margin in the increasingly competitive electronics business by selling its own equipment under Best Buy’s house brand, rather than selling more gadgets under a manufacturer brand name such as Sony or Samsung. It’s a strategy that has been working … Continue Reading

Analyst: Four reasons an Apple TV set could happen in 2012

Piper Jafray analyst Gene Munster has long speculated that an Apple-branded television set — not to be confused with the Apple TV streaming box — is likely headed to market by the end of 2012.

In a recent report covered by Business Insider, Munster outlined four general reasons for his logic: the debut of Apple’s iCloud service, the general direction of the App Store across multiple devices running iOS, some TV-related patents Apple filed recently, … Continue Reading

Broadcast media discovery app Shazam raises $32M from Kleiner Perkins and others

Music and broadcast media discovery app developer Shazam announced that it has raised $32 million in its most recent round of funding.

Shazam builds an application that gives iPhone and other mobile device owners a way to discover new content by listening to music or television broadcasts. The application “listens” to the sounds of the music or a television broadcast after a user “Shazams” it, or activates the app. It then checks that sound file … Continue Reading

A channel change: Will Apple start selling televisions?

Apple has had modest success with its Apple TV set-top box for streaming movies and music into homes. But the company might be exploring getting into the business of selling televisions.

If Apple does it right, it could disrupt yet another category of consumer electronics, in addition to the smartphone and tablet categories where it has succeeded beyond its wildest hopes.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company recently posted a … Continue Reading

Hulu's owners at odds over future of television

Here’s a shock: the three main corporate owners of Hulu are at odds with each other and with Hulu management over the online TV service’s basic strategy. Who could have guessed?

The Wall Street Journal reports that News Corp. (owner of Fox) and Disney (owner of ABC) want to pull some of the ad-supported shows they make available free via Hulu. They complain that the streamed shows are biting into their other, more lucrative (for … Continue Reading