I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

ONLINE TV: ABC GETS THE RIGHT IDEA.

I was wondering, even after I pointed it out to them directly, why ABC/Disney hasn't yet cracked down on all the episodes of Lost hosted on YouTube. (In a token effort to curtail people uploading entire episodes of television shows, YouTube has imposed a 10-minute file length uploading limit for non-paid members, but all that means is that people are cutting up shows into smaller chunks and uploading them anyway. And most of the episodes of Lost so far were uploaded long before YouTube imposed the limit, so the complete 42-minute episodes were still there last time I checked.)

But, while ABC is selling recent episodes of Lost at iTunes (which I can't use even if I wanted to since the software refuses to install on my antiqidated, steam-powered, Windows ME-running Dell computer), they are also preparing a trial version of a legitimate alternative to YouTube for us freeloaders.

From E! Online's Natalie Finn:

" ABC might soon stand for the Anytime Broadcast Company.

Furthering its quest to turn prime time into anytime, ABC announced Monday that four series will be available for free online viewing starting in May. The trial run--the first time a major network has offered multiple shows online--will last for two months.

New episodes of Desperate Housewives, Lost, Commander in Chief and Alias will appear on ABC.com the day after they air. But while you can now watch Eva Longoria mow the lawn, Jennifer Garner change outfits and Geena Davis govern at any time of day or night free of charge, there's a rub.

Those tuning into ABC's Internet offerings have to sit through commercials that cannot be fast-forwarded through. Sponsors such as AT&T, Ford and Toyota have already signed up."

About bloody time a major American network tried this. It just seems too obvious a thing to do, letting people watch full episodes of popular TV shows for free online, but with commercials included. (Yeah, I know Cartoon Network's Adult Swim does that too, to some degree, but I'm talking broadcast networks, not niche cable channels.) And the commercials are far less of an annoyance than having to pay for it (well, unless they start running that Yoplait Yop yoghurt drink commercial with the fucking hideous-looking computer-animated mouths which kinda look like zombiefied versions of Steven Tyler's mouth that always makes me hit the mute button and turn my head away from the screen whenever Teletoon plays it during commercial breaks while I'm trying to enjoy watching 6Teen).

Though I'm about 90% sure that Canadians won't be able to watch it, meaning I'll have to figure out the wonderful world of using proxy servers that aren't those free web-based ones that don't let you view video or upload zip files.




Anyhow, speaking of Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher is becoming television's highest-paid actress.

From the online version of Inside Entertainment.

"'Desperate Housewives' star Teri Hatcher is set to become the highest paid actress on television.
Hatcher has supposedly struck a deal with the series producers at Disney that cuts her in on a slew of the show's franchise options.
The deal could propel her earnings to US$6m on top of her regular salary currently set at US$315,000 per episode.
"[Hatcher] has been saying that, unlike the stars of 'Friends,' who ended up making a million an episode, she is not getting enough money," according to a source in the British newspaper The Mail. "Disney is desperate to keep her happy so has come up with a deal that gives her a cut of profits from the video game, board game and a planned online clothing store."

I don't honestly give a flying fuck one way or the other about Desperate Housewives, which is on opposite the Fox Sunday night cartoons so I've never even seen a single damn episode of it, and Teri Hatcher is a little old for me now, but I just wanted to mention this because Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi has, lately, been featuring a lot of celebrity caricatures in his blog, so I thought I'd mention Teri Hatcher so I could once again pimp my lovely-but-tattered 1993 drawing of a younger Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain as Lois Lane and Clark Kent in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, since it's one of the only celebrity caricatures I've done that I've scanned and put online (though it's not much of a caricature... more like a straight drawing based on a photo).



I did a few more drawings like that that I wish I could show you, like one of Tia Carrere in Wayne's World that I sent to a penpal in Iloilo City in the Philippines that I did a few months later (early to mid 1994), long before I had a scanner to save the picture. The Lois & Clark one I still have because I intended to send it to request a song on MusiquePlus, but never got around to sending it off because it was too big a drawing for a normal envelope.

posted by Steve Brandon @ 3:30 AM