TVloop Blog

The last time we saw Jerry Seinfeld on NBC, aside from the quick cameo on 30 Rock, was in 1998 when Seinfeld came to an end after nine fantastic seasons.  But according to James Hibberd at The Hollywood Reporter, you could be seeing a reunion between Seinfeld and NBC in the fall.

So what’s the show about? Another sitcom showcasing Seinfeld’s comedic genius? Uh no. It’s a reality show focused on celebrity marriages. Huh? According to the article, the reality series tentatively called The Marriage Ref will attempt to help celebrity couples including actors, athletes, and others.  Evidently Seinfeld will spend most of his time behind the camera as executive producer but I’m sure he’ll spend some time in front of it as well.

The show is an interesting concept and definitely on the other side of the spectrum from what most people think of when they think of Jerry Seinfeld.  To get a sense of what fans are thinking, we took a poll of Seinfeld fans and the results are below:

Not surprisingly, 59% of fans reacted positively to the news but are taking a wait and see approach given the description.  31% of resondents are convinced that everything Seinfeld touches is gold and this new show should be no different.  And finally, 11% aren’t thrilled with the new concept.

I for one am very skeptical.  I was excited when I saw the title of the item in my RSS feed this morning, but after reading the article I’m very disappointed.  Getting Seinfeld back on TV in a sitcom would be fantastic, but a reality show is not quite what I had in mind.  The TVLoop community may be a little more optimistic, but I’m firmly in the “wait and see” camp.

It’s official, or at least as close to official as you can get to being official - the Arrested Development movie is actually going to happen.  According to E!Online’s Watch with Kristin, Michael Cera was the lone holdout of the original cast and he has now signed on to do the movie.

Arrested Development fans are already rejoicing within the TVLoop community based on a quick poll we did earlier today.  A whopping 95% are already counting down the days to the film’s release, which is anyone’s best guess right now since they don’t even have a script.  Whatever the case, the full poll results are below:

There are even some fans suggesting that the movie will change their lives.  I’m not sure how accurate that is, but 88,369 Arrested Development fans on TVLoop can’t be wrong.

Thanks for the props @sarah_crisman! If you want to follow us on Twitter, you can do that here.

It seems that you can’t surf the Web or turn on the TV these days without seeing a never-ending stream of reports about how broadcast TV is on the doward slide while more and more consumers are turning to the Internet for their television needs. Well Nielsen released some stats today that couldn’t tell a more different story.

According to the report, while US consumers are in fact watching more online TV, they’re also watching much more broadcast TV than ever before.  Here are some key stats from the report:

• Americans watched an all-time high 151 hours of television per month in Q408 - up from 145 hours in Q407
• Online viewers consumed over 3 hours per month of online video in Q408 - those numbers increase to 4 hours per month for those consuming mobile video
• Online viewers between the ages of 18-24 watch 5 hours of online video per month

Here are some other great data nuggets from The Live Feed:

The study also found:

>> The number of TV viewing hours tends to increase with age (except during teenage years)

>> Use of video on the Internet peaks among young adults; mobile video is highest among teens

>> Men watch video on mobile phones more than women; women continue to watch video on the Internet and TV more than men.

>> Viewers are using their DVRs for time-shifted viewing twice as much as they’re watching video online. Yet young adults are watching video on DVRs and online in equal amounts.

>> The work day (Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm) continues to be primetime for Internet video — which means a lot of workers watching TV in their cubes.

The Wall Street Journal published a great graph showing the some summary stats and the difference between Q408 and Q407:

The net of it is that television viewing in general is growing across all demographics. And while Internet and mobile viewing is on the rise, the TV is still king by a wide margin.  So it’s always going to be sexier to write about how Hulu and Boxee are going to take over the television industry, but in truth that is likely a long, long ways down the road.

Watercooler CEO Kevin Chou was interviewed by the LA Times today for a piece about Hulu removing its content from Boxee and TV.com over the last week.  In case you’ve been living in a cave, you can read all about this Internet video brouhaha at any of the following blogs:

• NewTeeVee
• TechCrunch
• TV By The Numbers
• PaidContent
• And about 100 others

There have been several theories as to Hulu’s rationale for pulling the content.  With regards to TV.com, it’s really of no great surprise since the relaunch of that site put it squarely in Hulu’s backyard.  Plus, I’ve read that there could still be some lingering bitterness that CBS didn’t joing FOX and NBC when Hulu was created a few years ago. The Boxee situation is a little stickier as that service is probably more competitive to Hulu’s parents than it is to Hulu itself.

In the LA Times piece, journalist Jon Healey mentions that Hulu could be concerned about the safety of its content on Boxee.  If that’s true, it could end up suffering the law of unintended consequences - meaning that in an attempt to keep FOX and NBC content safe from piracy, Hulu may actually increase illegal downloads. Without official Hulu support, Boxee users will have no choice but to use BitTorrent to get shows like The Simpsons and The Office.  I wrote a similar post about this very topic several months ago with Hulu again in the lead role after pulling It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes from Hulu.com.  If nothing else is clear about the online use of professional content, consumers will find ways to get it.

If Hulu’s reason for removing the content from Boxee is because Boxee’s ability to bypass cable networks when it comes to broadcast TV shows, then the company really could be swimming upstream. As Healey mentions in his post, there are a host of other hardware providers that do what Boxee does, and Hulu (or FOX and NBC rather) can’t stop them all.