Showbiz Sandbox 539: What the Roku and YouTube TV Dispute Means For Streamers
May 4, 2021
Roku and YouTube TV are locked in a very public dispute over a distribution agreement. Roku claims YouTube is playing games with its user data, while YouTube says it won’t share its user data with Roku. Now the YouTube TV app has been removed from the Roku channel store and if the fight escalates Roku could block the service entirely. We explain how this dispute could shape how viewers access streaming services in the future.
Meanwhile the Grammys are dumping the nominating committees which made the big decisions on major categories. These secret committees were originally created because the voters at large were missing obvious critical and commercial successes like The Weeknd.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including how SAG-AFTRA is creating a certification for on-set intimacy coordinators, John Mayer will host his own music program and hockey gets a streaming payday.
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Showbiz Sandbox 533: Behind The Scenes At The Most Challenging Grammys Ever
March 16, 2021
Working within strict health and safety guidelines the producers of the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards telecast were uncertain how the show would come together or even when it would take place. David Wild knows this first hand. He was the lead writer and one of the producers on this year’s show. Wild joins us to detail all the challenges of pulling off music’s biggest night amidst a global pandemic.
Meanwhile, nods for outstanding achievements in motion pictures were announced en masse over the past week with the BAFTAs, Cesars, Directors Guild, American Society of Cinematographers and many more leading up to, finally, this year’s Oscar nominations.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including a trip to this year’s Berlin Film Festival, how Drake is dominating the music charts and Disney+ continues its staggering growth.
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Showbiz Sandbox 516: What Went Wrong With Quibi
October 27, 2020
Quibi, the bite-sized content platform founded by media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and business leader Meg Whitman, has been mocked since it was first announced. Now after six months and $2 billion, Quibi is kaput. Unable to find an audience, and despite a fruitless attempt to find a buyer, Quibi is officially shutting down.
The company insists people were gunning for them from the start, but the simple truth is that Quibi always seemed like a solution in search of a problem. Besides, however good the content may have been, it was going to be very hard to convince people to plunk down $5 a month just to watch random videos while commuting.
Of course we also cover some of the week’s top entertainment headlines including Netflix misses its third quarter subscriber goal, television ratings for live sports events plummets and box office continues to soar in China and Japan.
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Showbiz Sandbox 165: Neil Young Sings The Praises Of His New Digital Music Format
October 1, 2012
Singer-songwriter Neil Young has never been a fan of digital music. The rock legend despises the inferior audio quality of MP3s and CDs so much that he released an anthology of his of his music on Blu-Ray; the only medium that could hold digital files large enough to offer the quality Young demanded. Taking his quest for high fidelity one step further, next year Young will launch Pono, a portable music player and audio platform that uses technology to provide studio quality sound.
Time will tell whether high quality digital audio and Young’s notoriety will be enough to attract consumers to Pono, though the Beatles aren’t waiting around to find out. EMI is releasing the bands entire catalog of albums on vinyl LPs. Remember those? Now all we need is a phonograph to play them on.
Meanwhile the movie awards season has begun to heat up leaving pundits speculating whether Disney might have not one, but three, entries in this year’s Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars; “Brave”, “Frankenweenie” and “Wreck It Ralph”. How ironic that Seth MacFarlane, creator of the hit animated television series “The Family Guy”, has been tapped to host this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
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