Hollywood

Can Apple save Hollywood?

Congress may have postponed the scheduled Feb. 17 transition to digital broadcast television on Wednesday -- ensuring that millions of rabbit-ear TVs won't go dark for at least another four months -- but that doesn't mean that the way Americans get their video entertainment isn't in the midst of wrenching change.

Take, for example, the story on the front page of Thursday's New York Times: Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Major MORE

What's Steve Jobs got up his sleeve?

The World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) that opens Monday morning in San Francisco would be a relatively obscure technical gathering of programmers and IT administrators - with sessions on "Advances in OpenGL" and "What's New in Objective-C" - were it not for one thing.

Steve Jobs.

The keynote address that Apple's CEO is scheduled to give starting at 10 am Pacific Time (1 pm ET) is perhaps the second most closely watched MORE

Sex and the iTunes Store

They're there: Carrie Bradshaw. Tony Soprano. Jimmy McNulty. Jemaine Clement. Seth Bullock. Julius Caesar.

Early Tuesday morning, somebody at Apple's iTunes Store flicked a switch and six of HBO's most popular series became available for download for prices ranging from $1.99 to $2.99 per episode. They are:

Sex and the City: $1.99 per episode
The Wire: $1.99
Deadwood: $2.99
Flight of the Conchords: $1.99
Rome: $2.99
The Sopranos: $2.99

As widely reported on Monday, the MORE

Apple's new Hollywood deal: Death of the DVD?

The news that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes let slip in a conference call on Wednesday -- that from now on Warner Bros. movies would come out as video on demand the same day as the DVD -- turns out to be bigger than he let on.

Apple on Thursday announced that not only would Warner Bros. titles be available for purchase on the iTunes store the same day and date MORE

Why iTunes movie rentals won't play on most video iPods

Sometimes you have to listen very closely when Steve Jobs promises something.

When Apple's (AAPL) CEO introduced movie rentals at Macworld two weeks ago, he demonstrated how films downloaded through iTunes could be sent with one click to an iPod, iPhone or iPod touch.

Then, according to my notes, he said something about "current generation iPods."

Those three words have got a lot of people on Apple's discussion boards hopping mad today. It MORE

Jobs wows the faithful; Wall Street is underwhelmed

SAN FRANCISCO -- Steve Jobs gave it his best, delivering a new must-have gadget called the MacBook Air, deals with a full house of compliant Hollywood studios, and more bells and whistles on his existing products and services in a 90-minute speech than most technology companies do in a year.

But Wall Street was not impressed; shares of Apple (AAPL) got hammered, falling more than 10 points during the course of MORE

Macworld 2008: How can Steve Jobs top the iPhone?

The Macworld Conference & Expo, Silicon Valley's largest technology trade show, opens Monday. But the moment everyone is waiting for comes Tuesday morning, when Steve Jobs makes his annual keynote address at San Francisco's Moscone Center.

Jobs has set a high bar for himself. At Macworld 2006, he introduced the first Intel (INTC)-based Macs -- sparking a burst of sales that nearly doubled Apple's (AAPL) market share from roughly MORE

What the Apple-Fox iTunes deal means

There are few things Steve Jobs loves more than a dramatic Macworld surprise announcement, but three weeks before his annual keynote speech, someone - my guess would be Rupert Murdoch - just stole his thunder.

Several sources this morning - including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal - are reporting that Apple (AAPL) and News Corp. (NWS) have struck a deal for a new video-on-demand service that could change MORE

iTunes video: Zucker walks, Murdoch talks

Two developments in the wake of NBC Universal's (GE) weekend exit from Apple's (AAPL) iTunes store:

Ruport Murdoch's Twentieth Century Fox (NWS) is reported to be "actively negotiating" with Apple to put new releases and catalog titles on iTunes beginning in early 2008. According to Rich Greenfield at Pali Research (link; activation required) several things have changed to break the deadlock, including growing levels of movie piracy and new flexibility on MORE

NBC pulls its TV shows from Apple iTunes

No more ad-free episodes of The Office, 30 Rock, Scrubs or Friday Night Lights for $1.99 each.

As promised, NBC (GE) removed all its content and that of its affiliates from the iTunes Store over the weekend after its contract with Apple (AAPL) expired.

That means no shows on iTunes from Bravo, mun2, NBC, NBC News, CNBC, NBC Sports, Sci Fi, Sleuth, Telemundo or USA Network. (Some shows aired on NBC but MORE