“Every summer, as the glacial ice melts around Nome Alaska, a handful of fortune seekers hunt for gold in the most unlikely of places: the bottom of the Bering Sea.”

“Meet the salty and unique characters who dive to the frigid ocean floor, spending hours hunting gold from custom built, sometimes barely seaworthy rigs.”

Apparently Shawn Pomrenke, a star of the show and co-owner of one of the biggest gold dredge’s on the sea, was arrest for DUI on December 9th. He’s accused of leaving the scene of an accident, driving without insurance, DUI, and 3rd degree assault.

Shawn allegedly backed into a pedestrian carrying grocieries while attempting to exit a parking spot. He left the scene and continued onto the highway where he was subsequently pulled over by Nome, Alaska police and given a breathalyzer. The device revealed a BAC of .125, twice the legal limit for operating an automobile.

He was arrested and charged with the crimes. Discovery Channel has made no comments on the events.

This means that Netflix streaming customers will have access to past seasons of shows from the Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet. Note – “past” seasons, not the most recent seasons. The release mentions that the highlights from this agreement are popular shows like Man vs. Wild, Say Yes to the Dress and River Monsters.

Unfortunately for Netflix, this new deal is unlikely to completely reassure customers who have been rattled by the series of changes that Netflix has already enacted or announced. It is a significant content acquisition for Netflix, however. Until now, Discovery shows like Man vs. Wild, Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs weren’t available at all to watch instantly. This is a pretty nice catalog of TV to add to the watch now collection.

The agreement will also add content from the Investigation Discovery, Science and Military Channel.

“Netflix is pleased to announce the renewal and expansion of our relationship with Discovery,” said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. “With television shows playing an ever more important role for Netflix, Discovery is one our finest suppliers of top quality programming. We look forward to bringing our members the wide range of the additional episodes and series covered in this deal.”

As far as content for their streaming service, the last big announcement that Netflix made was that they were losing all of their Starz programming. Unable to negotiate a new deal, Starz Play will vanish from Netflix streaming in February 2012. This is huge loss for Netflix, as Starz provides a lot of the new release content as well as films and shows from Walt Disney and Sony.

This new content won’t make up for that, but it definitely shows that Reed Hastings wasn’t lying when he said that the money saved from the Starz agreement would be put to good use finding more content.

The somewhat bad side of this for Netflix is that the agreement is only a “two-year non-exclusive licensing agreement,” which definitely shows Discovery’s hesitancy.

From the Wall Street Journal –

“We don’t know” yet what will happen as a result of the Netflix deal, Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav said, although he acknowledged that the deal includes “meaningful economics” for the owner of the Discovery Channel, TLC and Science.

Of course, the tumult at Netflix regarding the recent split of the streaming and DVD services in two companies (the Qwikster thing) has many people worried about the future of Netflix.

Moving forward, will other content providers be hesitant when it comes to agreements with Netflix? That’s yet to be determined, but for today, chalk this one up as a win for Netflix – albeit a decidedly minor win.

The show’s premise itself is interesting, but what adds to the intrigue of the entire program is that they are pursuing a very smart strategy to let anyone take part in this social experiment by signing up for an online simulation of a global pandemic, that uses your own Facebook friends as characters in the "unfolding drama of the survival of humanity." This technique of using your real friends as the backdrop for a fictional experience created online is something that has been growing in use through efforts such as the popular "Elf Yourself" holiday greeting card campaigns last holiday season.

  As this virtual experience around The Colony unfolds, it will be interesting to watch how it adds a real dimension to viewers of the show and (hopefully) synchronizes the experience so what is happening in your virtual version of The Colony mirrors what is happening in the show. The virtual experience so far has a combination of fake updates from your friend networks intermixed custom videos that seem to have been created to support the show from people like Cali Lewis. If this part of the social experiment works to engage viewers, we will likely see more networks and programs in the fall using this fictional virtual experience as a way to engage their most passionate fans. Assuming we all survive, of course.

Comments

The social media game is set to be released in November on Facebook.  The game will be available only in North America.

"Deadliest Catch has always been one of our favorite Discovery Channel shows," said Brian Laing, CEO, Hive Media.

"The perils of the Bering Sea and the camaraderie shared by the ship captains and crews makes a great platform for building a social game."

The "Deadliest Catch" game will allow players to be captains of their own crab boats and navigate the Bering Sea to cast and harvest pots while attempting to profit in a dangerous environment as they work their way to the top of the leader board.

"Integrating the series into a branded social game is a great way to give Deadliest Catch fans an ongoing interactive experience," said Elizabeth Bakacs, Vice President of Licensing for Discovery Channel.

"We look forward to working with Hive Media to bring the real-world adventures of Deadliest Catch to social gaming."

The Facebook game will follow the launch of the Deadliest Catch console game this fall. It will complete a three part interactive gaming experience for Deadliest Catch fans, also including a mobile game.

The social media game is set to be released in November on Facebook.  The game will be available only in North America.

"Deadliest Catch has always been one of our favorite Discovery Channel shows," said Brian Laing, CEO, Hive Media.

"The perils of the Bering Sea and the camaraderie shared by the ship captains and crews makes a great platform for building a social game."

The "Deadliest Catch" game will allow players to be captains of their own crab boats and navigate the Bering Sea to cast and harvest pots while attempting to profit in a dangerous environment as they work their way to the top of the leader board.

"Integrating the series into a branded social game is a great way to give Deadliest Catch fans an ongoing interactive experience," said Elizabeth Bakacs, Vice President of Licensing for Discovery Channel.

"We look forward to working with Hive Media to bring the real-world adventures of Deadliest Catch to social gaming."

The Facebook game will follow the launch of the Deadliest Catch console game this fall. It will complete a three part interactive gaming experience for Deadliest Catch fans, also including a mobile game.

The social media game is set to be released in November on Facebook.  The game will be available only in North America.

"Deadliest Catch has always been one of our favorite Discovery Channel shows," said Brian Laing, CEO, Hive Media.

"The perils of the Bering Sea and the camaraderie shared by the ship captains and crews makes a great platform for building a social game."

The "Deadliest Catch" game will allow players to be captains of their own crab boats and navigate the Bering Sea to cast and harvest pots while attempting to profit in a dangerous environment as they work their way to the top of the leader board.

"Integrating the series into a branded social game is a great way to give Deadliest Catch fans an ongoing interactive experience," said Elizabeth Bakacs, Vice President of Licensing for Discovery Channel.

"We look forward to working with Hive Media to bring the real-world adventures of Deadliest Catch to social gaming."

The Facebook game will follow the launch of the Deadliest Catch console game this fall. It will complete a three part interactive gaming experience for Deadliest Catch fans, also including a mobile game.

The social media game is set to be released in November on Facebook.  The game will be available only in North America.

"Deadliest Catch has always been one of our favorite Discovery Channel shows," said Brian Laing, CEO, Hive Media.

"The perils of the Bering Sea and the camaraderie shared by the ship captains and crews makes a great platform for building a social game."

The "Deadliest Catch" game will allow players to be captains of their own crab boats and navigate the Bering Sea to cast and harvest pots while attempting to profit in a dangerous environment as they work their way to the top of the leader board.

"Integrating the series into a branded social game is a great way to give Deadliest Catch fans an ongoing interactive experience," said Elizabeth Bakacs, Vice President of Licensing for Discovery Channel.

"We look forward to working with Hive Media to bring the real-world adventures of Deadliest Catch to social gaming."

The Facebook game will follow the launch of the Deadliest Catch console game this fall. It will complete a three part interactive gaming experience for Deadliest Catch fans, also including a mobile game.

"The launch of discovery.baidu.com represents an important step in building stronger brand awareness and consumer loyalty for Discovery in the key Chinese market," said Greg Ricca, President and CEO, Discovery Networks International.

Greg Ricca
Discovery Networks Int’l

"This deal with Baidu furthers Discovery’s strategy of increasing reach and distribution in key markets around the world while further leveraging the global appeal and long shelf life of our content categories with an innovative new partnership."

Baidu will operate the website and Discovery will be the exclusive content provider. The content offerings will be ad-supported with Baidu and Discovery sharing revenue from third-party advertising sales.

The agreement expands Discovery’s presence in China, where the company first began broadcasting in 1998 with several channels including the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Travel & Living, Discovery Home & Health and Discovery Science.

Baidu is the fastest growing Chinese online platform and accounts for 73 percent of the search market. In 2008, 246 million users in China used search engines, with the total number of request for web page searches exceeding 150 billion. In 2009, the number of search engine users in China is on track to surpass 300 million.

Discovery filed the patent infringement suit against Amazon in U.S. District Court in Delaware alleging that the sale of both versions of the Kindle violates a patent Discovery received in 2007.

John S. Hendricks

"The Kindle and Kindle 2 are important and popular content delivery systems,"Discovery said in a statement.

"We believe they infringe our intellectual property rights, and that we are entitled to fair compensation. Legal action is not something Discovery takes lightly."

Discovery is seeking damages and royalties to compensate it "for any future infringement" of the patent. Discovery and founder John Hendricks "were significant players in the development of digital content and delivery services in the 1990′s," the company said. "Hendricks’ work included inventions of a secure, encrypted system for the selection, transmission, and sale of electronic books."

Last month, the Authors Guild raised objections about Amazon’s Kindle 2 text-to-speech feature saying it violated audiobook rights. Amazon revised its policy on the feature to allow copyright holders to decide if they want to enable it.
 

Discovery Communications purchased the U.S. branch of HowStuffWorks six months ago for $250 million. The marketing campaign includes 30-second spots on Discovery’s online properties along with its TV properties.

HowStuffWorks has a monthly audience of 15 million visitors and hopes that its new campaign will increase that number. Since Discovery purchased the property the site has seen a 50 percent increase in traffic.

In Google search results, HowStuffWorks has improved its ranking but still lags behind rivals Wikipedia and About.com.

Discovery’s strategy is to drive traffic to HowStuffWorks by promoting the site on its cable channels, which includes Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel and Planet Green. Discovery is running a month long promotional campaign in July called "Keep Asking" that will feature 30-second ads on television and banner ads online in order to promote HowStuffWorks.

"This new campaign supports the site’s core value proposition of ‘making you smarter’ by motivating people to go beyond the first layer of information and get the underlying explanation, which they can find at HowStuffWorks.com," said Jeff Arnold, CEO of HowStuffWorks.com