By Ken Liebeskind
MILAN, ITALY --The advent of Internet TV accelerated last week with the introduction of Babelgum, a new Internet TV network launched by Silvio Scagli, the founder of Fastweb. The announcement follows the recent launch of Joost, a network that has succeeded in reaching an agreement with Viacom to broadcast some of its content.
Babelgum “expects to carry content from major studios, but specifically lends itself to niche content, which although professionally produced and high quality, rarely receives airtime on traditional television platforms,” according to Erik Lumer, Babelgum’s co-founder/CEO.
Content is arranged in thematic channels, including news, sports, documentaries, fiction and animation that can be accessed on demand. Content owners will be able to create their own branded channels and users can configure personalized channels with content scheduled to fit their tastes and interests, Lumer said.
Babelgum will be ad-supported and free to users. “We are building an infrastructure that will deliver targeted advertising,” Lumer said. “It is envisaged that advertising will be incorporated into programming in much the same way as it is in existing broadcast television models. The difference is that user profiling will deliver sophisticated online marketing tools to enable highly targeted promotion of goods and services.”
When asked what type of ads will play at Babelgum, Lumer said, “Advertising formats are currently under development, however it is envisaged that advertising will initially follow the practices established in the traditional broadcast television model, both program sponsorship and timed inserts.”
He said Babelgum will sell advertising, but content providers and third party networks may sell it, too.
Lumer declined to compare Babelgum with Joost, saying “Players like Joost and Babelgum are developing an entirely new and global market. It is a market that offers great promise for all the participants.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More