4GM: And Network Television Dies Right ... Now

Back in this 4GM essay I talked about the perception wars -- that is, that the entertainment pipe would not change significantly until "the place we download" and "the place we watch our TV" intersect. On the tail end of all the portability and Apple stuff, I banged around the "console factor" -- rumors I'd heard that the XBox 360 was a stealth set-top box. This was the Monster in the Dark for Network television as far as I was concerned. The Networks, as arms of larger entertainment corporations, keep looking at downloadable content and DVD as downstream extensions of their identity. That made sense as long as there was no unified identity to supplant them down the pipe.

Well, game over. Gizmodo today leaks that new XBox 360 services will include full IPTV, downloadable content, video on demand, DVR functionality ... smack. When somebody smarter than I am writes the book ten years from now, this'll be the opening chapter hook. Chimp-easy download, no Bittorrent clients, no futzing with Divx files and home networking, that content smacks into my living room and the living rooms of, by the end of this year, somewhere around ten million people (assuming the 360 sells the projected 4 odd million this year.)

I've been skeptical of broadband as the newest solo pipe -- broadband's smacking around 3/4 of internet connectivity now, but internet connectivity's still around 65%, pegging broadband households at around, oh, 45%. DVD penetration's still at 81%, and we're not taking enough advantage of that. Download's still pig-slow for any file of reasonable size -- although for streaming VOD, well, it should be fine.

This was a (somewhat terrifyingly) masterful piece of work. For men 18-24, their XBox is their total entertainment hub. Microsoft created the perception first, and then tuned it in the direction they wanted it to go. It's typical Microsoft, too -- let Apple do all the fancy footwork, then come in and glom onto the concepts that work the best. Within a few years (and by "few years" I mean as soon as 18 months) we'll see Microsoft take advantage of the positive buzz from happy gamers -- the fine wedge of tech love - and offer a broadband entertainment box for non-gamers.

I'm in a bit of a rush this morning, so I'll jump back onto this on Monday. I just wanted to call dibs -- when you see the Joss Whedon channel on your XBox 360 Media Interface, remember this day.

The Triumph of Butt's Huge Head

I don't know how I missed this the first time, but Denis McGrath wrote a helluva thing about Canadian TV and in particular the fine spawn of Brent Butt's massive skull Corner Gas. Seeing as how I will soon be trying my hand in the Canadian TV market, it's good to get the heads-up.

For the uninitiated: Corner Gas 3-pack.

And the other fine Canadian show that's actually melted Warren Ellis' black heart ... in the extradimensional nullspace pocket where he stores the accursed thing: Complete Trailer Park Boys.

5 Answers

#2 is indeed false although, as guessed by Jacob Weinstein, only slightly. When in Boston I hacked around regularly with one band -- in Montreal I'd sit in on some random sets, but nothing organized. I can still, if pressed, hack my way through 12 bars of crossharp.

"1) Not only have I been to Las Vegas with Hilary Swank, but we went to a Star Trek convention together."

Promotion for The Core. We did San Diego, and then the two of us flew to Vegas together to do a big Star Trek convention (hello Paramount synergy). Spent the day together, had a lovely time. She's ridiculously sweet.

"3) I once wore a slinky green dress and sang Lisa Loeb's "Stay." And not on stage. "

I then slept with the person I sang it to. That's all you get of this story.

"4.) My first produced script was a murder mystery set on a cruise ship, ending with a swordfight."

My first produced script was actually a play, written while I was still in college for a friend teaching at my old high school. She wanted something original for her kids to perform that year, and I obliged. On the reread it's ... regularly amusing, if abominable in all other respects.

Yes, Pam, this is the one with the exploding seagulls.

"5.) During one of my TV specials, the camera cut to an audience shot and randomly, out of 2000 audience members, landed on my Dad and Lovely Wife."

The Just for Laughs special on Showtime, '94. The St. Denis Theater show which essentially got me my sitcom deal and launched my career proper. At least they were laughing. Would have been awkward if my Dad had been shaking his head, Lovely Wife agreeing.

Not technically about me, no, but there's not all that much more about me that I care to discuss.

There. I'll reserve the Swank/paparazzi story and how I owe Janeane Garofolo for my sitcom for another day.

5 Things You Don't Know About Me

I ordinarily don't much care for blog-memes, as I've said before, primarily because they're not memes. And that drives me a bit insane. Also, blogs are obscenely self-revelatory by nature, so it seems like guilding the matzah.

As I'm cleaning up the post-holiday rush, however, I'll take five to give one a shot. Been tagged by investigative reporter Dave LaFontaine to post 5 things you reader folk don't know about me. To make it even mildly interesting, I'll use Ezra and Neil's variation: 5 statements, one of which is not true. A fib. A prevarication, suh.

1.) Not only have I been to Las Vegas with Hilary Swank, but we went to a Star Trek convention together.
2.) While doing comedy, I also played harmonica in a blues band in Montreal for five years.
3. ) I once wore a slinky green dress and sang Lisa Loeb's "Stay." And not on stage.
4.) My first produced script was a murder mystery set on a cruise ship, ending with a swordfight.
5.) During one of my TV specials, the camera cut to an audience shot and randomly, out of 2000 audience members, landed on my Dad and Lovely Wife.

Guess away, and no cheating from the RL friends. I ain't tagging anybody -- if it's a meme it will replicate.

BSG Podcasts: My New Year's Resolution ...

... is even more screenwritery goodness. But hey, I'm still carrying the extra twenty pounds from last year, so my track record's not great.

Even so, our friend Denis reminds us that Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica podcasts are up on iTunes (also here). Episodic commentary? Spiffy, yes, but even more amazingly, he threw a recorder into the writer's room while they broke the end of Season Two. That shows an enormous amount of trust in both the writers and the audience. Personally, I cannot imagine a recorder in any of my writer's room, primarily because my beloved actors would be distressed at finding out how often they're called "theFUCKINGactors" or alternatively "the camera meat." If you want to write television, this chance to sample the room process -- the most weirdly indescribably element of TV -- is invaluable.