-
Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Mar 28, 2014
March 28, 2014
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
The Internet:
Well, this oughtta ratchet up the digital video-watching wars. Amazon plans to stream video content for free.
Sources tell the Wall Street Journal the new service will be similar to YouTube or Hulu and likely include Amazon's original series ("Betas") as well as licensed programming.
Amazon has spent $1 billion acquiring content and producing original programming for its streaming service. However, it hasn't yet caught up with competitors like Netflix. Amazon's current advantage over Netflix, however, is that an Amazon Prime membership offers unlimited video streaming and brings access to the company's original video content as well as benefits across the site, such as free high-speed shipping.
Amazon hopes to pay for it all with ad dollars and by inviting more people to join the Prime membership, $99 annually. (Maiman)Sucking the life out of the wire services:
More KIMYE blather: Turns out Vogue magazine had nothing to lose by putting the fun couple on the cover. As Media Post's BARBARA LIPPERT explains, the mutual benefit is obvious: "After seven years on the E Network, and with a failing clothing line in Sears, the Kardashians are a dying brand. And as a once-prestigious product and cash cow, Vogue is, like so many other major magazines, just limping along."
Lippert says Kanye has 10.3 million Twitter followers and Kim has 2.3 million, while Vogue's single-copy month-to-month sales as of the end of 2013 totaled 267,849 (and THAT's a decrease of 20 percent from the previous year). While Lippert acknowledges that Kim and Kanye's fans are not Vogue readers, if even five percent of them buy the issue, that would double the previous month's newsstand sales of the magazine. (Kaye)Grace notes:
CHRISTINE McVIE is officially back with FLEETWOOD MAC. The singer-keyboard player left the band 16 years ago and has not toured with them since "The Dance" tour in 1998. Christine made a surprise appearance with the Mac onstage in London last year, and now she's back for good. The classic lineup of Fleetwood Mac will hot the road this fall with the "On With The Show" tour.
It kicks off on September 30th at the Target Center in Minneapolis, and wraps on December 20th in Tampa, hitting big arenas all the way across North America. That will also include a spot on the "Today" show's Summer Concert Series at New York's Rockefeller Plaza on October 9th. There is also talk that Christine and the band will record a new album after the tour. (Marino)Animal Stories:
A family in Sweden were chased out of their home by a giant rat.
44-year-old ERIK KORSAS says the rodent was twice the size of a normal rat. It even attacked the family's cat. Erik says he was away for a few days on business when his wife called to say there was a mutant rat in the kitchen. At first he thought she was exaggerating but the pest control experts called out to kill it say the beast measured 16-inches. And, that's not counting the tail.
Korses adds, "The kids were afraid it would come back to life as some sort of zombie rat." (Still) -
-