Today ABC and AOL announced that ABC.com's broadband video player will be available through AOL. There are several interesting things to note here. First of all, ABC has been timid to allow it's episodes to be streamed on third party sites such as News Corp's Myspace or Google's You Tube. ABC said that they want to control the quality, and probably revenue, by making folks use ABC's own player. Just as ABC was getting criticized for not syndicating its programming to internet portals, they announced they would be making an announcment about a deal in the near future. Now if anyone was wondering which web portal would be the first adopted home for ABC content, they should have been able to figure it out. A few weeks ago, Disney and Warner Brothers, sister company to AOL announced that Warner Television shows that air on ABC, such as Pushing Daisies, Big Shotts, and Men in Trees, would be available on ABC.com even though the shows are not produced by ABC. Of course, since AOL and Warners are related, the handwriting was on the wall. ABC will still sell the ads and use their player, which will be branded "ABC.com on AOL." In addition, ABC affiliates will still be able to sell ads based on where the viewer is located, which of course makes the affiliates happy. Disney seems to have stuck a happy medium. They control the experience and the ad sales while offering their content on an additional platform. Finally "Lost" fans take note. Since Warners and Disney have gotten cozy you might still see a new J.J. Abrams show on ABC. He left Touchstone Television(now ABC Studios) to go make new shows for Warners. But since they only own HBO and part of the CW, if they want one of his new shows to have a broad audience base, it might just end up on the American Broadcasting Company.
Quick Takes:
Parks and Resorts: Epcot, as it aproaches the International Food and Wine Festival, issued a press release discussing the dinning changes at the park. It looks like I will be eating there a lot in the near future. I went with Doobie and Rebekah to the first of the new restaurants, Tutto Italia. Doobie went in to great detail, so check out his blog, but to sum up I agree with him; the food was good, but not worth the cost.
Studio Entertainment: Yesterday we talked about how "G-Force" will be taking "Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader's" slot on the 2009 film slate. Here is a little bit about "G-Force". The film follows a group of intelligent animal commandoes working for a government agency trying to prevent an evil billionaire from taking over the world. The movie will be directed by visual effects supervisor Hoyt Yeatman and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
Consumer Products: The National Retail Foundation, announced that they could have the worst holiday season in five years with sales only increasing 4% which is below the ten-year average of 4.8%. Recently, Disney talked about how ABC and the theme parks have not seen any signs of an economic slow down, but Disney Consumer Products might. Luckily, this is the smallest of Disney's segments, so Disney will not be hurting too much, if the holidays end up being as disapointing for retailers as expected. I wonder if Children's Place will continue to have trouble meeting their commitments to Disney if they have a less than stellar holiday season.
Video of the Day:
Today's video comes from ABCNews. On 20/20 this week, they will profile Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus. Of course as a news orginization, the fact that Hannah Montana and Billy Ray's new CDs are part of the magic of The Walt Disney Company like ABC is a pure coincidence. Anyway to promote the show, 20/20's Intouch Webcast has this clip.