GenDigital

CBS To Launch Broadband Network

In an bid to beef up its online offerings CBS will soon launch a broadband channel to be called innertube. The announcement comes on the heels of CBS' very successful run streaming games from the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament earlier this year. The network said over 5 million people visited the site downloading some 20 million streams. Among the new programs that will be available on innertube is Greek to Chic, a makeover reality show featuring college students. The rumor is the network may offer streams of older hit shows like The Brady Bunch and I Love Lucy, but that remains unclear due to current agreements with other cable networks.

Summer Movie Season Kicks Off

As you all know by now movie ticket sales were down last year, although among teens and college students, tickets sales remained flat. The 2006 summer movie season (which gets earlier and earlier each year) unofficially kicks off today with the release of "Mission Impossible 3". And that is just the start. In a couple of weeks the theaters will be full of big budget, big action films like "X-Men 3: The Last Stand," "Poseiden" and of course the much hyped "Da Vinci Code." Both "MI:3" and "X-Men 3" should generate substantial Gen Y theater traffic while "Poseiden" and "The Da Vinci Code" is more of toss up for the younger market. We'll see what transpires beginning with this weekend's box office receipts.

Woke Up This Morning, Got Myself...A Video Game?

Just as the season is really starting to gain some traction, you will soon be able to get your Sopranos fix with a new video game due out in the fall. In this game, the player assumes the role of Joey, one of Tony's henchmen. The game was created by THQ and will be available for the new Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2. Probably one of the best attributes of the game is the voices are the real voices of Tony, Paulie, Christopher and Silvio. This should keep die hard Sopranos busy while they wait for the next season to air.

Idol Update: Teen Sensation Paris Bennett Comes Up Short

She was the last of a dying breed, the only teenager left in the competition, that is, until last night. Even with the singing pedigree (Paris' grandmother is Grammy Award-winning singer Ann Nesby), Paris wasn't able to make it to next week. After posting with my teen and college friends on Myspace, I realized this was probably the most expected exit to date, unlike Kellie's departure last week. Hey, when all is said and done, this kid is only 17 and clearly has a bright performing future ahead of her, if of course she wants it. So, who will be gone next week? I'd say Elliot Yamin will be following the young Miss Bennett unless he stages a pretty dramatic comeback.

Bottlers Voluntarily Bow Out Of Schools

The big three: Coke and Pepsi and Dr. Pepper, announced yesterday they would start removing their soft drinks beginning this fall. Under the agreement between the soft drink companies and health advocates, students in elementary school would be served only bottled water, low-fat and nonfat milk, and 100% fruit juice in servings no bigger than eight ounces. Students in middle school would have their serving size increased to 10 ounces. And, in high school, low calorie juice drinks, sports drinks and diet sodas would be permitted and the serving size would be increased another 2 ounces to 12 ounces. I understand the part about not having regular soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi in elementary school, but what's the problem with sports drinks like Gatorade and Powerade?  Although the plan is voluntary, the American Beverage Association expects 35 million public school children to be affected eventually. The plan will take at least a couple of years to complete, so there is still plenty of time for junior and miss junior to keep downing regular Coke and Pepsi.

Did Lindsay Steal Paris' Guy

Yesterday I posted about the end of the Paris/Stavros relationship according to People magazine. Now today, a new wrinkle (one with red hair) has apparently come into play. According to Life & Style, the Greek shipping heir was hanging out with Lindsay Lohan at an L.A. club and later at a Hollywood hotel. Lindsay, the third favorite female celeb among college men, has a new movie coming out May 12th called "Just My Luck."

WWE Will Utilize The Third Screen

WWE, that's World Wrestling Entertainment, which by the way still remains heavily popular with a segment of the teen and college male audience, plans to launch a series of mobile initiatives. WWE plans to produce up to 75 new short videos each month, which will be available for customers of all major wireless networks including Cingular and Verizon Wireless. The videos will be sold to consumers directly by the WWE as well as through existing video-subscription packages sold by the wireless carriers themselves. In addition to the video content, the WWE mobile plans also call for a series of new alerts, ringtones and wallpapers.

A Second Case of Plagiarism For Harvard Sophomore

  A reader called into the New York Times yesterday to alert them to new similarities between Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswananthan's teen book "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" (which was pulled from shelves after the first plagiarism accusation came out last week)and another book written by a British author. Much like the first story published last week, the passages are strikingly similar. May be if one passage (may be even to) had some similarities, we could call it just a coincidence and leave it at that. But, for this young woman who is already under the microscope, three similar passages will most likely end her writing career at the age of 19. The spokesperson for Alloy Entertainment, the book packager that helped Kaavya develop the book (or may be even wrote it for that matter, that is the rumor) declined to comment...gee, I wonder why?

Splitsville For Paris and Stavros

Paris Hilton and Greek shipping heir boyfriend number #2, Stavros Niarchos, have called it quits according to the Simple Life star's publicist. In recent months, Paris' rating on the Campus Trends Celebrity Top Ten List has improved to number 7 overall. We'll see if this latest happening has any effect on her standing when the new Top Ten Lists come out next month.

To Re-Energize, Sprite Gets Funky

To invigorate sales Sprite is kicking around some very unconventional spots. From the same ad agency who brought you Burger King's famous (or infamous) subservient chicken to those somewhat weird Volkswagen commercials with the talking black thing who encourages the target audience of young people to "drive faster," comes a whole new strange effort. Apparently, the thinking from agency creatives is the weirder, the better when it comes to engaging Gen Y. They might be onto something. Some of the not-no-normal scenes include: two sumo wrestlers painted yellow and green that crush a man's head; a woman being revived by miniature Asian nurses and a man whose eyeball turns into a mouth.