Coda

Voom Gets Madden

Gameplay HD is in the game with “EA Sports 2007 Madden Challenge.”

Voom’s high-definition channel devoted to the world of video gaming has created a new TV series capturing the action from competitive tournaments built around Electronic Arts’ popular Madden NFL Football game. Gameplay HD will kick off a seven-part series at 1 p.m. on Feb. 2, the day before Super Bowl XLII.

Produced in the 1080i format and Dolby 5.1 surround sound, the 2007 Madden Challenge presented by Best Buy series will showcase the players via profiles and other segments exploring the culture of the game, as well as coverage of regional tournaments culled from events held in 17 NFL stadiums. The series, now in post-production, culminates with cameras focused on the Dec. 12 to 13 finals at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, where the 2007 Madden Challenge champion was crowned and awarded $100,000, according to Gameplay HD executive producer Rob Faris.

Best Buy gains TV exposure via signage at the competitive stops and the players sporting jerseys emblazoned with the electronics chain’s logo. Mark DeAngelis, vice president of programming for Gameplay HD, said the parties are working toward pushing promotional materials, touting the series and the service, into Best Buy outlets.

In the first one-hour Madden show, Gameplay HD will introduce each of the 24 finalists and how they qualified “on the road to L.A.” Subsequently, Gameplay HD will air six half-hour shows combining feature segments and the action from the brackets.

Highlights and series clips will also appear on EASports.com and GameplayHD.com, after the shows debut on the network.

— Mike Reynolds

WGA Write-Off Keeps Write On

The strike by the Writers Guild of America is now entering its eleventh week without so much as a whisper of new negotiations with major producers.

The union claimed some small victories: It reached an agreement with United Artists Films, the production company toplined by Tom Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner. The Weinstein Co., one of Hollywood’s largest independent filmmakers, reached its own interim agreement with striking writers.

Also on the positive side: The WGA completed an agreement for 500 news writers, editors and other production personnel at CBS, who had been working without a valid contract since April 2005. On the negative side, the strike caused the cancellation of the Golden Globes gala, and the WGA West cancelled its own Feb. 9 awards show.

All of which is raising questions about the Academy Awards telecast, scheduled for Feb. 24 on ABC. Last week, the Walt Disney Co.-owned network remained confident that the Oscars show would go on as planned. Stay tuned.

— Linda Haugsted and Linda Moss

Trunk Show at CES

Las Vegas — The best visual stunt at CES: Panasonic president Toshihiro Sakamoto wheeled out on stage what he claimed was the world’s biggest plasma TV — a whopping 150-inch set, which appropriately had a picture of an elephant on it.

The mammoth 150-inch TV has native resolution of 4096 by 2160 pixels, four times that of “full HD” 1080p displays.

The only catch: Nobody today produces video for such screen resolution, so you’d need a custom content-production job to take full advantage of the 11 feet of real estate.

Later in the keynote, Panasonic showed a concept called Life Wall. Designed to take up the entire wall of a living room, it would provide an interactive display to give family members access to personalized programs and information, as well as a range of communications options.

Sakamoto also brought out a prototype of Panasonic’s next-generation, ultra-thin plasma TVs and demonstrated a wireless HDTV set that eliminates the need to run cables.

When Comcast CEO Brian Roberts came on stage to introduce the portable digital video recorder that Panasonic developed for the operator, he quipped to Sakamoto: “Between that wireless HD demo and the 150-inch TV — can I get some sort of deal?”

— Todd Spangler

'Golf’ Suspension For Woods Words

New York — The Golf Channel last week suspended commentator Kelly Tilghman for two weeks after she said during a Jan. 4 telecast that young players on the PGA tour should “lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley.”

Tilghman made the comment while talking about what young PGA tour players need to do in order to bridge the gap with Woods, the world’s top golfer.

“The Golf Channel regrets the poorly chosen remarks made by Kelly Tilghman on a recent broadcast and, again, extends our apologies to anyone who was offended. There is simply no place on our network for offensive language like this,” Golf said in a prepared statement.

Woods wasn’t bothered by Tilghman’s comment, according to a statement from his agent, Mark Steinberg. “Regardless of the choice of words used we know unequivocally that there was no ill-intent in her comments,” he said. “This story is a non-issue in our eyes.”

— Steve Donohue

EchoStar Beams Up Olmstead

New York — EchoStar Holding named Dean Olmstead president of satellite services at the company, which recently separated from EchoStar and holds some of the company’s satellites, uplink and transmission assets, including its Sling Media unit.

Until recently, Olmstead served as an advisor to Loral Space & Communications for its satellite service businesses, which completed a merger with Telesat in October 2007, and he served on Loral’s board of directors.

— Steve Donohue