A month before its scheduled premier, a work print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has leaked to the Internet. While Fox claims the leak is a "rough cut without FX, music, and may contain an April Fool's virus," many torrent users, who think it's a "pretty decent" version, seem to be holding off on viewing the film until it is in theaters, or are watching the rough cut in anticipation of "how awesome" the CGI effects will be once post-production is complete. Most certainly a snafu on Fox's end, the leak begs the question: is this a serious screw up or just good viral marketing?
Former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller has been named the Head of Digital Media Businesses for News Corp. Miller, who ran AOL from 2002-2006, will oversee MySpace, IGN Entertainment and News Corps share of Hulu. Upon appointing Miller, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch said "Our focus moving forward is twofold: to enable our digital businesses to flourish as individual entities and to bolster the digital strategies of our core media properties by treating them as central to, and not separate from, the enterprise."
After months of negotiations, The Weinstein Company and NBCU have finally reached an agreement over Project Runway, which will air on the Lifetime Network. The first five seasons of the successful fashion oriented show aired on Bravo!, an NBCU network, before The Weinstein Company signed a five-year deal with Lifetime and NBCU filed a violation of contract rights lawsuit. The disagreement has been settled out of court, with Harvey Weinstein saying "I want to personally congratulate Jeff Zucker and NBCU on their success in the litigation and thank Jeff for resolving this in a professional manner."
CBS Sports announced that they will once again stream the Masters over the Internet. Masters Live will include coverage of "Amen Corner", as well as "15 & 16 live", and a Masters Extra channel, which will cover the course one-hour prior to network broadcast. In addition to being available on Masters.com and CBSSports.com, Tiger Wood's first major since his knee surgery will also be available as a free iPhone app.
The Department of Justice is set to exonerate Senator Ted Stevens on seven counts of making false statements. Stevens, who at 85 lost his bid for re-election amidst scandal, will walk free after the DoJ deemed the prosecutions mishandled witnesses and withheld evidence. Unfortunately, Stevens was not charged with making false statements about the Internet, which he called "a series of tubes."
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net.