Entertainment

The recent addition of ABC, ESPN and other Disney-owned properties to Apple's iTunes media service is just the latest move in the studio's aggressive push to increase digital delivery of its valuable content. Disney's willingness to make its content available the way consumers want it -- particularl...

Radio super personality Howard Stern's move to Sirius satellite radio may be a barometer of the new entertainment medium's likelihood to gain mainstream acceptance. While the move is inarguably significant, satellite radio still faces stiff challenges -- including the popularity of iPods and an upsu...

Comcast, the nation's largest cable television company with 21.5 million subscribers, announced it would follow in the footsteps of No. 2 Time Warner Cable and offer a "family friendly" package of TV channels. Comcast's G-rated offering bundles 16 stations, including Disney Channel, Discovery Kids, ...

Nielsen Media Research yesterday announced that it would provide national TV audience estimates that include viewing from Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) beginning with the week of Dec. 26, 2005. "Nielsen is keeping pace with the evolving ways that people watch television, thereby ensuring that our r...

Congress is leaving a special gift under the tree for Hollywood's film industry. Just before closing for the holidays, legislators introduced a new proposal designed to curb redistribution of movies. The Digital Transition Content Security Act would embed anticopying technology into the next generat...

Cingular Wireless yesterday became the latest provider to announce an on-demand streaming video service. Dubbed Cingular Video, the service debuts with a partnership with HBO and promises viewers personalized access to high-quality clips on high-speed-capable phones. Cingular Video plans to begin of...

Targeting yet another vertical in the search landscape, Google has introduced a music search feature that will return relevant information about artists, including links to sites where their music can be purchased. The feature does not represent a move by Google toward becoming a music retailer, but...

Eyeing the sweet spot of the digital music market now all but cornered by Apple's iTunes Music Store, Microsoft said it would partner with Viacom's MTV Networks to release a new online music service known as Urge. Urge is slated to launch early in 2006 and will be integrated into upcoming versions o...

Hoping to bridge the gap between traditional cable television and the Internet, three heavyweights from the two fields said they had forged a partnership to develop ways to make the two data-transport channels more open to each other. Comcast said it would work with Cisco Systems and Nortel as the f...

Verizon is upping the wireless broadcasting ante in a partnership with CBS Television, announcing that Verizon's V Cast multimedia service will stream some of CBS Television's most watched programs, including "CSI," "Survivor," David Letterman and "Entertainment Tonight," beginning this month. CBS ...

Research by the consultancy A.T. Kearney's telecom practice indicates that the Federal Communications Commission's proposal for "a la carte" pricing of cable TV programming may have an adverse impact on the development of Internet TV and Internet Telephony. Sweeping changes in telecom regulation cou...

In a bid to boost the profile of its subscription streaming music offering by making it available to all computer users, RealNetworks said it is testing a Web-based version of its Rhapsody service. Making a version of Rhapsody work with most Web browsers would make the service more mobile -- users c...

Just as it helped spawn a movement toward its wireless technology with Centrino, Intel is looking to put the PC in the pole position for home entertainment with its Viiv platform that is now supported by more than 40 software, content and service companies, including TiVo. Intel said its Viiv techno...

TiVo, the personal digital recorder company whose value proposition has long included the ability to let users fast-forward through commercials, said today it was working with several advertising and media companies to make it possible for users to search for specific TV ads they actually want to se...

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and BitTorrent yesterday announced a collaborative effort to curb film piracy. BitTorrent Founder and CEO Bram Cohen's technology allows Web sites to make large content files available online. The MPAA was concerned that the technology is frequently u...