TVSquad

You might think that after finally breaking through at the Daytime Emmys and winning the golden statuette in the category Outstanding Host(s), the folks at ABC's The View would be resting on their laurels. Not so. The View is shaking up their production effective immediately.

According to Bill Geddie, executive producer, they're going to try and make The View more interactive, which is code for using email and web cams and other newfangled Internet sort of things to reach out to the viewers.

Ben Silverman is leaving NBC to start a new media company.

A lot of people are going to rejoice over this news because they think that NBC hasn't been the same since he took over the entertainment department at the network. While he did bring The Office and The Biggest Loser to NBC, a lot of viewers have been confused by other moves at the network. Another show that Silverman had a hand in, The Jay Leno Show, will debut in September. We'll have to see how that goes.

It's about damn time. The folks behind Hulu are making deals with broadcasters in the U.K. to offer their service to U.K. residents. Hopefully as a result of this, TV Squad won't have to apologize to Brits every time we post a clip from Hulu (at least most of the time... some current American shows like Heroes won't be available in the U.K. due to rights issues).

I'm secretly hoping this also means that some British content will be available to United States viewers. It would somewhat ease my frustration with my cable provider, who can't seem to justify carrying BBC America in their channel line-up no matter how many times I ask. It would be nice to satisfy my Brit TV craving without resorting to Netflix (or, even worse, The Pirate Bay).

Given how protective both countries are of their content, it wouldn't surprise me if this deal fell through. Regulation is a bitch, but Hulu is making some pretty big bucks right now for an Internet venture and I can't see how the media conglomerates behind this deal could be that resistant to profit.

So Microsoft has launched a new search engine called Bing. It's supposed to revolutionize the search game and take on Google, but who knows if that will ever happen (I think that "search" and "Google" are the same in the public conscious right now). Here's the new commercial for Bing. It's well-done and dramatic and tries to say a lot, but is it persuasive (beyond the initial "hey, I think I'll check out Bing.com!" thought we'll all have)?

[via AdFreak]

Researchers think this whole "Internet as a television" concept may be slightly overblown. In a survey, only 8% of teens aged 12 to 17 say they use the Internet to watch television.

Well, duh. You know why that is? Because computer monitor screens are still relatively small ones that go on a desk while television screens tend to be much larger and better for overall television watching.

There's also the factor that most of the time programs are initially shown on television and then move to the Internet. For those who are eagerly awaiting the new episode of Dollhouse, they will likely go to Fox on Friday nights rather than Hulu.

Let's not discount that online television is a relatively new phenomenon.

I predict that eventually the Internet will be streamed directly into one's television via your cable or television provider (and I won't discount satellite at this stage) and then online television viewership will go up. Until then, we're still mostly stuck with the traditional model.

Have you caught Kevin Pollak's new online talk show? It's titled Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, appropriately enough, and it airs (can we still say that if it's on the web, "airs?") every Sunday at 5PM PT. So far he has had a variety of guests on, including Mad Men's Jon Hamm, Levar Burton, Paget Brewster, and Alex Albrecht. It's a fun little show, with a casual atmospshere and a Charlie Rose-like set. Here is his interview with Matthew Perry (yes, that's really him on Twitter). Sure, they talk about Friends, but also tennis, Studio 60, Old Spice commercials, and this.

Everyone is on Twitter, even the guys in the Late Show with David Letterman technical department.

Seeing as this is the new year and all, I figured today's column would concentrate on the future. My original plan was to write extensively about what television will become following the detonation of the Yellowstone supervolcano -- who's ready for static?! -- but in the spirit of Hope (tm), I scratched that in favor of something a bit more positive.

My guess is that the numbers break down this way: 90% of you have no idea at all who Leo Laporte is, 7% kinda sorta remember him from the ill-fated ZDNET cable channel, and 2% of you are TWitTs like me. (The other one percent? Spambots worried about my "girth").

It's time to get to know Leo, because over the last year he has single-handedly created a brand-new paradigm for how TV is going to be viewed on the net ... kinda.

There was a time during the early days of television where what happened on a scripted show remained within the confines of the small screen. Then came the wonderful world of the Internet and the amazing potential that it had. Soon enough, reality and imagination began to merge. Now, it's a near given that a TV show will utilize the Internet to maximize its viewing potential.

Take Psych for example. In a conversation that took place during last week's episode Shawn made reference to the fact that his father Henry was angry because he didn't have as many friends on Facebook as his son. Of course, that signaled the purveyors of the World Wide Superhighwaynet to take a look to see if it was true. Turns out, Shawn was correct: he has more friends than his father does. Henry only has two friends -- Shawn Spencer and Shawn Spencer. Poor Henry! Meanwhile, Shawn has a total of 50 friends over two different profiles.

However, neither of them can compare to one Burton "Gus" Guster. When it comes to friends on Facebook good ole Gus has a total of 108 on two profiles. Now we really know who everyone loves on Psych!

If I were to sit down and think about it, I would guess that I've watched five or six hours of television every single day since 1970.

Now, that might seem like an outlandish number to many people. After all, didn't I go to school and later work? Yes I did. But I can honestly say that when I got home from school I watched TV until 11 at night, every single night, and a lot more during the summer (and I even found time to go outside to play baseball!). Today I have the TV on from approximately 8 AM until well after midnight. That's a lot of TV watching over the years.

I thought of that when I read this article that says Americans are watching more television than ever.

Comcast-owned internet media portal Fancast is expanding its content library through a partnership with Viacom. The upshot is that for the first time, you'll be able to catch full length episodes of two of Comedy Central's most popular shows: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. While you can currently find clips of each show on the program's website, there's no way to watch a single episode from start to finish over the web.

Fancast will also be adding South Park and select content from other Viacom properties including MTV Networks, Nickelodeon, and BET Networks. You can already find a wide range of TV shows and movies on Fancast thanks to partnerships with CBS and Hulu.

A little while back, TiVo teamed up with home automation software maker Crestron to allow TiVo users to control their light switches, thermostat, and other information through their Series3 and TiVo HD set top boxes. But it appears that a side effect is that anyone can now connect to their TiVo units via telnet, and blogger Dave Zatz figured out that means you can use simple command line codes to replicate TiVo remote control functions from pretty much any internet connected device. In other words, you can use an iPhone as a TiVo remote control.

The easy part is that all you have to do is figure out your TiVo's IP address, use Port 31339, and you can start entering commands. The complicated part is that you have to type out commands like "ircode pause," and "ircode thumbsup," instead of, you know, using your TiVo remote control and just pressing those buttons.

But now that we know this is possible, it's probably just a matter of time before we see third party developers writing TiVo remote control applications with pretty interfaces for the iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, and other internet connected gizmos.

God, I love living in the early 21st century. We are at an unprecedented nexus of high-powered video-editing software, an amazing distribution medium for amateur videos, and the highest virgin nerd numbers since Oxford's math department circa 1885. You put all these factors together and you wind up with videos like the one that follows after the jump.

What is it? Just as the title tells you, it's two minutes of all the "what's" ever uttered on Lost. Maybe the writers of Lost rely too heavily on that particular interrogative or maybe any show deep into its fourth season will have accumulated that many "what's", but either way the video you're about to see is strangely entertaining. I use the word "strangely" because it's not really funny, or clever, or, actually, you know, entertaining, but you still enjoy watching it anyway. Check it out for yourself...

For years now fans of The Simpsons have broken the pause buttons on their DVD and, back in the olden days, VCR players in order to get a glimpse of the intro to that long-running program. Particularly the section between Marge and Maggie driving home from the supermarket, and Homer pulling into the garage, which seems to just whip by in a blur. We've been able to catch glimpses of what actions are taking place, but we never got the full panoramic picture.

Until now, that is. Thanks to an apparently anonymous source, this entire scene has been made into a panorama showing everything that goes on.

(S04E03) You know, I really don't know what to say about tonight's Office that isn't going to sound like the same old song that I've been singing since the start of this season. As I was watching the second half of the show tonight, I was actually worried about what I was going to say in my review. On the one hand, I feel the need to be honest. But, on the other hand, I'm much happier when I don't have an inbox filled with comments telling me how much I suck.

It's quite the moral dilemma. Of course, you'll have to follow me over the jump to see which decision I made...