The biggest American reality show on TV has finally joined the iTunes platform. Fox Broadcasting, Fox Interactive Media and FremantleMedia signed an exclusive deal with Apple to bring American Idol audio and video performances to iTunes as single song-sized snippets available the day after they premiere on air.

Audio performances of the top 24 contenders run 99¢ per song, and videos of the top 12 finalists performances will be priced $1.99/each from March 11.

Apple will also become one of the show’s premiere sponsors and maintain a branded presence on AmericanIdol.com, where some free streaming performances can be seen.

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american idol, apple, fox broadcasting

How do the corespondents of NBC News stay alert and up all night when covering the U.S. Presidential primaries? Adrenaline? The thrill of being on live TV? Nope. They get all drugged up on caffeine, sugar and gels.

Here’s a video that documents the talent of NBC News and their substance of choice.

Brian Williams (NBC Nightly News)
Power Bars and gels

Ann Curry (Today Show)
12 shots of Starbucks espresso

Tim Russert (Meet The Press)
Diet Coke & licorice

Mara Schiavocampo (NBC News)
gallons of Red Bull

I’m not exactly sure who at NBC News is in charge of scraping an over-caffeinated Ann Curry off the ceiling. Probably a poor intern.

Source: msnbc.com

live tv, msnbc, nbc, nbc news, presidential primaries

Call me crazy, but when a group of Police officers approach me holding guns and start yelling “Get down on the ground,” I’m gonna listen. This guy… not so much.

Watch this clip first from the popular American TV series “Dateline: To Catch A Predator”, then read my explanation. I’ve analyzed this YouTube clip frame by frame and watched it like 50 times. I think I’ve got it all figured out.

The perp unknowingly shows up at a “Dateline: To Catch A Predator” sting house looking for a sexual encounter with an underage teen he met in a chat room. After Chris Hansen pops out and basically tells him that he’s on national TV, the guy tries to put on his shoes and walk out the front door to freedom. But the cops are outside.

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When considering some of the most extreme environments on the planet, surely Antarctica, one of the coldest, driest and windiest places on earth (average temp of -56º F) comes to mind. Now imagine trying to conduct a live TV broadcast there. Sounds crazy right? My Direct-TV dish can’t even get a clear signal when it’s raining outside let alone an Antarctic blizzard. But on Nov. 5th & 6th the Today show will try when Ann Curry and Matt Lauer report live from Antarctica and the North Pole in a segment the Today Show calls The Ends of the Earth. This will be the first live simultaneous broadcast in history from the top and bottom of the globe.

When facing some of planet’s harshest conditions, how do you even begin to coordinate a live TV shoot? Well, it might not seem like such an insurmountable feat when you consider that there are 1,000-4,000 people living and working in Antarctica on any given day (mostly scientists and their support staff). In fact, there are several year around permanent research stations in Antarctica. According to this article, the Today Show recruited the help of one such research station supported by the National Science Foundation. The NSF’s established base in Antarctica has advanced technological capabilities including a pre-set data circuit that show was able use for transmission. Using this system paired with a software program called Qvidium, there was no need for satellites. So no matter what the weather is like, NBC will still be able to broadcast live.

The actual equipment in use for this shoot is pretty straightforward. The shoot will be a single camera shot using the Ikegami HLV55 with it’s feed hooked up to a laptop computer that runs the Qvidium software to stream live video. The Qvidium system transports and/or captures live video feeds for IP networks, including High Definition video. It enables this high-quality video transport over unconditioned IP networks, including wireless links and the Internet. It can operate on a single path due to the limitations of bandwidth.

As far as other equipment, goes it was all very standard. Nothing special was used with regard to the microphones, batteries, or the like. It seems as though Antarctica is pretty advanced for a giant desert of ice, especially when considering the fact that NBC’s director of production operations was easily reached on his cell phone down there.

Ironically it looks like the biggest challenge of this shoot won’t be technology, but rather making sure that the production crew stay warm. Also, the Antarctic Boomerang won’t make it an easy trip home.

You can track Ann Curry’s progress online here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/21487444

Brrrr voyage Ann!

[Sources: CaptClicker.com & Wikipedia]

ann curry, Antarctica, Ikegami HLV55, nbc, north pole, qvidium, satellites, south pole, The Ends of the Earth, today show

NBC News anchor Brian Williams tried to give a tour of his new TV studio live on the air but oops…. the studio DOOR WAS LOCKED!!!

I wonder how many people got fired for that? You can see the clip here on YouTube.com.

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A tearful Britney Spears fan named Chris Crocker posted a passionate video called Leave Britney Alone! on YouTube after the pop star’s disastrous MTV Awards performance. Crocker’s video has become an instant YouTube hit and has gotten about 4 million views.

In it, Crocker defends Britney’s widely-criticized performance at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, in which the troubled pop star appeared out of time and out of shape while miming the words to her new song “Gimme More.” It reminded me of Ashlee Simpson’s SNL un-synced disaster.

Crocker berates the media for their treatment of Britney since the awards show and says fans should be thankful she decided to perform. Here’s a transcript of his rant:

“How f**king dare anyone out there make fun of Britney after all she’s been through. She went through a divorce, she had two kids … and now she’s going through a custody battle. All you people care about is readers and making money off of her.

She’s a human. She hasn’t performed on stage in years. Her song is called Gimme More for a reason - because all you people want is more, more, more, more, more … leave her alone. You’re lucky she even performed for you bastards. Leave Britney alone … please.”

Crocker, who has posted other YouTube videos about Britney Spears, said on the Howard Stern Sirius satellite radio show yesterday that he was “not acting” and was “really crying.”

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britney spears fan, mtv awards, mtv video music awards, video music awards, youtube

MTV’s latest reality show - A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila - is built around the dishy, scantily clad singer/model who is reputed to have the most friends in the history of MySpace (2,009,335 at last count).

Tila’s career began at the age of 18 when she was discovered at a shopping mall by a Playboy scout and was offered a chance to model nude for the magazine and did a test shoot. Tila was featured as Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the week on April 22, 2002, and a couple weeks later became Playboy’s first Asian Cyber Girl of the Month.

Besides MySpace and Playboy, Tila is also known for her photo spreads in Stuff, Maxim, and her role as host of the popular Fuse TV show Pants-Off Dance-Off.

MTV ordered 10-episodes of Tila’s elimination-format dating show. It’s slated to premiere on October 9th on MTV (USA).

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A ventriloquist from Texas has won the $1 million prize in the final of the second series of America’s Got Talent. Terry Fator beat reggae singer Cas Haley in the NBC hit show which is judged by Osbourne, David Hasselhoff and Piers Morgan as well as voters from the viewing public.

Terry Fator impressed the audience, at home and in the studio with with his turtle puppet’s rendition of Roy Orbison’s hit ‘Crying’, followed by a duet with Kermit The Frog.

In third place was Beatboxer Antoinette “Butterscotch” Clinton and in fourth, 14-year-old country singer Julienne Irwin.

The Texan ventriloquist has been booked for a headlining show in Las Vegas next month.

Reference for posting: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk

Can an Asian-American ever hold the American Idol title? Paul Ethan Hahn says a resounding “yes” and Internet video might be his Ace in the Hole.

Paul grew up in Murray Hill, New Jersey and has always been a big country fan. He also loves the hit FOX-TV program American Idol. And if Paul has his way, he’ll be the first Asian country singer on American Idol.

“I wanna make Paula Abdul cry and show that jerk off Simon how to sing. I want to be the next American Idol!” Paul quips.

This week, Paul Hahn entered an online FOX 29 Philly Idol contest and hopes that a hi-tech edge will help him bypass the massive lines outside the first round of judges.

FOX 29 posted an open American Idol audition on their website. The winner gets to perform live on Fox’s morning show, Good Day Philadelphia, and gets to bypass the first round of judges at the open American Idol Philadelphia auditions later this month. To enter, all you had to do was upload a video of you singing.

Paul recorded his American Idol demo using his Apple MacBook Pro laptop, with a built in iSight camera, and the video editing program iMovie.

“It was so easy,” says Paul. “I just opened iMovie, recorded about a minute sample of my singing, burned a DVD and threw it into the mail. The whole process only took about 10 minutes.”

Since Idol’s first season, we’ve seen Kelly Clarkson belt out high notes, a plethora of Sanjaya hairstyles, and even a contestant who went on to win an Oscar. But we haven’t seen any serious Asian-American contestants get a real shot at the Idol crown (sorry but William Hung doesn’t count).

Will Paul’s dream of telling off Simon and getting to sing a country song on American Idol come true? Can Internet video voting give this American Idol hopeful a back door to stardom? That’s in the hands of you, the voters.

You can watch and vote for all the top 10 Philadelphia contestants, including Paul Hahn, on FOX 29’s web site: http://media.myfoxphilly.com/idol/idolvote.html. The top 5 get to perform live on FOX 29’s morning show Good Day Philadelphia and the winner gets to bypass the massive lines at the Philadelphia open auditions for season 7.

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Merry Miller is the Senior Programming Director for The Learning Annex in New York, USA. She was named as one of the 40 “rising stars” in 2007 by Crain’s magazine and is a former Miss Dallas. But that’s where this “rising star” starts to fade.

In late July of 2007, Merry conducted a poorly done interview with Holly Hunter on ABC News Now’s segment “What’s The Buzz.” Since its broadcast, the disastrous interview has been heavily viewed on YouTube [link] and other online video sites.

Not only were the interview questions awful, but for some reason Merry decides to phonetically read off the teleprompter - like a child. She also gives the wrong month for Holly Hunter’s show premiere (June instead of July) and accidentally encourages viewers to go to nbcnews.com not ABC News.com.

Merry Miller, welcome to the TV Disaster Hall of Fame! I’m sure NBC loved the plug.

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Unfortunately Silverchair has postponed 4 California shows on their current U.S. Tour to allow singer, Daniel Johns to recover fully from a case of laryngitis. Daniel caught the viral throat infection earlier this week after flying from Sydney/Los Angeles/Toronto/New York/Los Angeles in just four days. As you might have heard, the laryngitis severely impeded Daniel’s vocal performance on the “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” last Tuesday. If you haven’t seen the video yet, here’s a clip of the Leno performance I found on YouTube. It’s tough to watch, especially if you’ve ever had laryngitis before. Daniel basically had to scream through the most of the song. When the camera zooms in on Daniel’s face you can clearly see he looks like he’s in pain.

While his Doctor had initially been hopeful that Daniel’s laryngitis would clear up “in a day or two”, he has since advised that the Silverchair frontman should “avoid singing for 4 to 6 days” in order to be guaranteed of making a full recovery. The Doctor also advised that singing during this time could risk permanent damage to Daniel’s voice so the band has no choice but to reschedule the 4 California shows and to apologize to the fans who will be inconvenienced by this change.

Dates for the rest of Silverchair’s Young Modern World Tour are not expected to be affected in any way by this temporary throat infection.

MethodShop.com recently did an interview with Silverchair. They were very excited about this new album and really looking forward to touring the U.S. again. I hope Daniel’s laryngitis doesn’t derail the tour too badly. They’ve had everything from an eating disorder to reactive arthritis screw up their previous tours.

Silverchair’s new album, Young Modern, comes out July 24th.

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daniel johns, reactive arthritis, silverchair, tonight show with jay leno

A lighter and paper shredder helped make Mika Brzezinski the “symbol of television journalism’s guilt trip” about Paris Hilton. Brzezinski used both to destroy a script calling for her to read about Hilton’s release from jail on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program recently. Part serious, part an act, it has become an Internet sensation. More than 2 million people have watched a clip of the incident on YouTube, around 10 times the number who watched it live on TV. Apparently, she’s not the only one sick of the socialite.

“Among journalists it touched a nerve because I think we’re tired of pretending this is important,” she said. “We also know that, deep down inside, our viewers know that we don’t believe this is news. They can’t. They can’t think we’re that dumb.”

Brzezinski, who left CBS News last year, has been working as a news- reader and on-air foil for Joe Scarborough on the show MSNBC is trying out to replace Don Imus in the morning.

Hours after Hilton’s June 26 catwalk to freedom, Joe Scarborough (widget) and Brzezinski discussed one of the day’s other big stories at their show’s opening: influential Republican Sen. Richard Lugar’s declaration that President Bush’s Iraq strategy wasn’t working.

It was then Brzezinski’s turn to sum up the day’s news. She looked down at her script and Hilton was the top story. She froze.

“I could not get through the first three words without crumbling,” she said. “My skin was crawling. This was our lead? On a day like this? To me, it was just the ultimate Paris Hilton out-of-control moment. We’ve gone too far and we’ve got to stop. That was all real. There was nothing planned about that, and I believe we got a little snappy.”

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Looks like they have someone for the lead in the US version of Life on Mars. The Hollywood reporter is reporting that Jason O’Mara who starred in Resident Evil: Extinction will play the lead in David E. Kelley’s time-travel drama pilot for ABC.

The US version of the hit BBC series sees a detective time travel back to the 1970s after his girlfriend is missing.

The project, from 20th Century Fox TV, David E. Kelley Productions and Kudos Film & Television, was ordered as a pilot this past development cycle, but production was pushed to summer because of difficulties casting the lead.

Kelley is executive-producing the pilot with Kudos’ Stephen Garrett and Jane Featherstone.

Reference for posting: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire

Don Herbert, who explained the wonderful world of science to millions children on his Nickelodeon cable TV show “Mr. Wizard’s World“, has died after a long battle with multiple myeloma. He was 89.

Herbert used basic experiments to teach scientific principles to his TV audience via an in-studio guest boy or girl who assisted in the experiments. Herbert liked to perform his scientific experiments as “tricks” to get the kids hooked, then explain the science behind it later.

Herbert wrote several books, including “Mr. Wizard’s Supermarket Science” and “Mr. Wizard’s Experiments for Young Scientists.”

In recent years, he helped set up his website mrwizardstudios.com.

[Via latimes.com]

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On Tuesday, the American soap opera, Days of Our Lives, debuted on iTunes (US). Full episodes of the soap will be offered at the standard $1.99, but consumers will be able to shave off 50¢ per episode by ordering a 20-episode multipass for $9.99.

iTunes Link: Days of Our Lives

The producers of the show have had several conversations about including bonus scenes from Days of Our Lives in the iTunes version, though nothing has been decided yet.

Days of Our Lives will now be the most widely distributed daytime soap in the U.S., with episodes available on broadcast (NBC), cable (SoapNet) and online (iTunes).

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