Did Digeo Blow $100K-Plus On a Razr-Like Remote?
by Todd Spangler, Kent Gibbons and R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 5/25/2009 2:00:00 AM
A few years ago, billionaire Paul Allen instructed the design team at Digeo, his Seattle-based digital video recorder company, to come up with a TV remote that was like a cell phone, according to a well-placed source.
Allen felt there had to be a better way to control a digital video recorder than the traditional cable remote, with its dozens of buttons. He’s known to be hands-on with many of his investments, including Charter Communications.
So the Digeo designers spent well over $100,000 developing a remote that literally looked like a mobile phone, this source said — it even flipped open like a Motorola Razr.
But when they presented the device to Allen, he took one look at it said, “I didn’t mean it had to look like a cell phone. I just meant it had to be as easy to use.” The project was subsequently abandoned, according to the source.
Digeo CEO Greg Gudorf, asked last week about the Allen anecdote, said nobody at the company had heard of the story.
In any case, Gudorf argued, the current remote control for Digeo’s Moxi HD DVR has a “very different feel from a cable remote” in terms of shape as well as functionality.
“Cable remotes often have to work across many different boxes,” he said. “Ours is specifically designed for the Moxi interface. The remote and what’s on the screen have to work together.”
That said, Gudorf added: “We’re always talking about new ideas.”
For more on the future of TV remotes, see this week’s cover story on page 20.
AMC, TCM Take Varied Paths to Peabody Pinnacle
Backstage at the Peabody Awards for electronic media excellence last Monday, The Wire enjoyed this juxtaposition.
First came the sexy cast of AMC’s Breaking Bad. They posed before the phalanx of photographers upstairs at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, then walked the media rope line, chatting with reporters about their honored drama.
The show centers on a terminally ill high-school science teacher, played by Emmy Award-winner Bryan Cranston, who starts making and hustling crystal meth to provide for his pregnant wife and disabled son after he’s gone. (Cranston wasn’t there: making a movie in Prague.) It was cited for its “curious, contradiction-laden narrative.”
A little while later, more quietly, in came Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne, clutching the statuette, with senior vice president of programming Charles Tabesh at his side. The channel was cited for its “continuing, powerful commitment to a central concept — the place of film in social and cultural experience.”
AMC started out as an ad-free classic-movies channel, like TCM. AMC began taking ads then branched into non-movie-oriented original fare, like the razor-sharp Mad Men (last year’s Peabody winner) and Breaking Bad.
TCM, at age 15, is still ad-free, with original content about ... classic movies.
“I hope it stays that way,” Osborne said. “Life is change, you never know what’s going to happen. But what makes our channel so great is the fact that we can show movies and present them they way they were meant to be seen. Movies were always made with a rhythm — like a Hitchcock film, that suspense. It really ruins it if you have breaks in the movies.”
Tabesh said TCM execs are proud it’s remained license-fee-supported. Many networks have added commercials— “and done great things when they change. AMC is one example, they’ve done great things in winning the Peabody today,” he said. “But it’s been really special for us to just be consistent.”
Added Osborne: “It’s nice to at least have one channel like that in our lives. An oasis.”
Tabesh then pointed out that TCM shows silent films, too, something you can’t really do if you’re trying to reach an ad-buyer’s target demographic.
The Wire isn’t completely sure if the last argument is a good one or whether Tabesh just broke bad.
Hot Time in New York For TNT’s 'Leverage’ Cast
The cast of TNT’s hot sophomore series Leverage was nearly on fire during the Turner Entertainment post-upfront press lunch in New York last Wednesday.
A bread-basket napkin placed too close to table candles briefly caught fire where Leverage cast members Timothy Hutton, Aldis Hodge, Christian Kane and Beth Riesgraf were sitting, along with The Wire and other representatives of the press.
A quick-thinking Kane extinguished the semi-charred napkin. That led Leverage co-producer Dean Devlin — who was also seated at the table — to proclaim table seven “the hottest spot in the restaurant.”
The Turner post-upfront lunch featured a cornucopia of its on-air celebrity talent. Along with Hutton, bold-face names included Kyra Sedgwick, Holly Hunter, George Lopez, Gloria Rubens, Tyler Perry and Ray Romano.
Will Smith was in attendance, too, stopping in to lend support to wife Jada Pinkett Smith, there representing her new TNT drama series, HawthoRNe. Classily, Smith mingled among the guests and warmly greeted all comers, including The Wire, while his missus chatted with various press and Turner executives.
