Can't get enough Katie Couric? She debuts a new webcast Tuesday, @KATIECOURIC, that's devoted exclusively to one-on-one interviews. First up: Fox's Glenn Beck, who among other things makes some surprising comments about the way he voted in the 2008 election.
NFL: Coming to a computer near you
If you want to see how television is splintering into what seems like a million different delivery platform, just take a look at NFL coverage. Not only will all of NBC Sunday Night Football games be available on the web this fall, Direct TV is experimenting with making its NFL Sunday Ticket package -- which enables subscribers to see up to 14 live games every Sunday -- available on your computer.
The NFL Sunday Ticket package will be available only in Manhattan this fall. For $350 ($50 more that television subscribers pay), fans who can't get Direct TV because their line of sight is blocked by skyscrapers will be able to pick up the games on a computer or cell phone. If all goes well, Direct TV will start rolling out the offer across America next fall.
But no need to wait until then if you want to watch football on your laptop. All 17 Sunday-night games will be available at NBC.com and NFL.com. The sites' videoplayer will allow the high-definition stream to be be replayed in slow motion or switched to four different camera angles. By next season, it'll probably come with telestrator software, too, so you can diagram plays for your buddies or dog.
'Grey's Anatomy' and pals come to Hulu
A couple of months ago, ABC announced it was joining NBC and Fox in the online video service Hulu. This week ABC's programming is finally turning up on the site. Grey's Anatomy became available Monday, and other shows like Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Scrubs and I Survived A Japanese Game Show will start popping up over the next two weeks. The rest of of the ABC corporate stable -- ABC Family, Disney Channel, Soapnet and more -- will follow. Just repeat after me: We don't need no stinkin' digital TV set.
Twitter on television
When Rick Sanchez last fall began integrating the social-networking site Twitter into his afternoon CNN show, most people thought it was a weird novelty from a network trying desperately to preserve its ratings against a charging MSNBC. Now Sanchez is the most recognizable face during CNN's daylight hours, and Twitter is everywhere -- every anchor and reporter in television news (and even the poor peasant TV critics who write about them) uses it to chat up readers and viewers.
Now, however, the beast is loose from its cage. Twitter is about to launch a takeover of television. The Twitter braintrust isn't calling it that, of course. The've merely announced that they're teaming with Reveille Productions (Ugly Betty, The Office) and Brillstein Entertainment (The Sopranos) to develop an reality competition show in which fans try to find hidden celebrities. (Because, you know, people like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears sometimes are out from under our gaze for entire quarters of an hour and what's up with that?) But mark my words -- this time next year, we'll all be speaking in 140-character bursts, and sentences like this one will be things of the p
Who needs a TV set? ABC joins online service Hulu
Television took another giant step into broadband Thursday when ABC joined NBC and Fox as a co- owner of the online video service Hulu. That means many ABC shows -- not just primetime hits like Lost and Desperate Housewives, but soaps (General Hospital), talkers (The View, Jimmy Kimmel Live) and oldies from the network library (Commander In Chief, Hope & Faith) will now be available from Hulu. Some programming from the ABC Family and Disney channels, and even some old Disney movies, will also show up there.
Even before ABC joined the party, viewers watched 380 million videos at Hulu in March. With CBS already offering shows online at its own site, the need to own an actual television -- or, if you're a network, a television station -- is dwindling away.
'Rockville, CA': the shorter cousin of 'Gossip Girl' and 'Chuck'
It's a plot twist way too silly to fit into his teen soap operas Gossip Girl or The O.C., too fantastic for his sci-fi spy spoof Chuck: Josh Schwartz, the hottest young producer in broadcast television, turns his back on TV to make five-minute webisodes for the Internet. But it's true.
''It sounds crazy, I know,'' concedes Schwartz, 32, whose Web series, Rockville, CA, has just started screening at thewb.com. ``Everybody else in television wants to make movies so they can tell stories in 90 minutes. And I want to go five minutes.
``But that's the state of my attention span these days. I watch five minutes of a show, and I'm ready to change the channel. I don't know whether it's the onset of adult ADD or just the way we've all been programmed.'' Read what Schwartz has to say about Rockville, CA, Gossip Girl, Chuck and the future of television in my story in Sunday's Miami Herald.
Joaquin Phoenix: YouTube Man of the Hour
Watch for Joaquin Phoenix, Space Cadet on a prime-time schedule this fall. His catatonic appearance on Dave Letterman's show Wednesday night was viewed on the Internet more than 2.5 million times in the first 36 hours.
