It's 8am - and i'm up way too early, but it's to go to hear what Lloyd Braun has to say about Yahoo's future in the entertainment biz.
Braun says he's opening an office in Santa Monica zdnet
With Terry Semel running the place, and now former ABC program head Braun running Media and Entertainment - seems like Yahoo has set it's sights on owning the entertainment/hollywood franchise.
In terms of how he's going to do that - it's clear he's still getting his feet wet and learning about the internet. The one thing he said that I thought should have turned some heads was "If i knew then what I know now, I would have take 50% of my media budget from ABC and moved it to the internet." Yowch.
After a spin to the floor and an over-priced sandwich - it was back to ballroom "K" for "The Reality of Reality." No huge revelations here - other than the last question when an audience member asked one of those questions that most of the time get laughed off. the wanted to know of anyone on the panel ever considered putting Christians and Muslims in a reality show face off. Ben Silverman actually took the question -and said that he hoped all of his shows had some value - and then let it out that he'd tried to convince former President Bill Clinton to host a reality show based 'peace talk' for Network TV. If anyone could pull that off - it would be Ben.
And finally - Thursday AM - Mark Cuban had the line of the day from the "Next Big Thing" panel when he announced that his film division would release "The Smartest Guys in the Room" would be released on the same day and date on HDnet Movies and in his Landmark theatres.
Said Cuban - the industry is Pyra-phobic (fear of pirates) and the only reason that people pirate movies because the get sold the buzz from big marketing and then can't get the movie (since it's not out on VOD or DVD).
Interesting to see how he does - as he pointed out, since he owns the film, the theatres, and the TV network, he can afford to promote the TV net at the expense of box office if it helps him grow the company overall.
