The video subscription streaming war being waged between Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings got a little nastier yesterday with Bezos gaining access to 20th Century Fox’s TV and movies for Amazon’s Prime streaming service.

The deal, which covers 2,000 titles, is valued at $100 million.

Meanwhile, Netflix is hoping a deal with DreamWorks Animation would erase the memory of a past few weeks.

The Street rewarded both companies with a small uptick in share price on a positive day in the markets. Netflix rose 2.2 percent to $132.22, while Amazon gained 2.8 percent to $229.85.

Among the titles headed to Amazon are TV shows such as “The Wonder Years,” “24,” “Office Space” and “The X-Files,” and movies such as “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

The deal brings the amount of content available to Amazon to around half that available on Netflix. Amazon also has deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Television among others.

The content deals come just in time to help market Amazon’s new low-cost tablet, reportedly called the Kindle Fire, which is being unveiled tomorrow.

Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente estimated that Amazon is paying somewhere around the $100 million mark for the Fox deal but notes that it does not include some on-air shows such as “Glee,” and “Sons of Anarchy,” that are part of Netflix’s package.

Paul Levinson, a media professor at Fordham University, said: “For Amazon and Fox, it’s a brilliant move. It helps them compete with Apple iTunes and Barnes & Noble.”

Separately, news that Netflix signed its second content deal in the past week, this time with DreamWorks Animation, drew criticism from some quarters that Netflix overpaid. Netflix also tied with Discovery last week.

Time Warner’s HBO let DreamWorks Animation out of its deal early allowing it to tie with Netflix. The pact was to run until 2014. Netflix is estimated to be paying $30 million per movie which, if correct, is $10 million more than a reluctant HBO was paying, according to sources familiar with that deal.

Netflix consumers won’t see titles until 2013.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/amazon_adds_fox_flix_in_deal_q6ZfKauTpSpT4vskYHEGbP#ixzz1ZGR7xqIr

As mind-boggling as Fringe can be, devoted fans of the Fox TV series probably have no need for a refresher course about the show’s now-elaborate mythology. Yet “Past + Present + Future” – a new series of recap videos that launches today at Fox.com – is worth checking out for longtime viewers (and is a must for newbies curious to check out the sci-fi drama in the wake of its acclaimed third season), especially with Dr. Walter Bishop himself doing the narration. The first installment provides a big picture overview of the series. The second installment – called “A Tragic Past” – begins the deep dive exploration of the saga. 

John Noble makes for an engrossing, entertaining guide, his sonorous voice finding the right balance of gravity and wink. “Bishop and Bell were once the Lennon and McCartney of science, lab partners intent on pushing the boundaries and blurring the perceptions of reality,” Noble narrates, just ahead of a memorably hilarious clip from the show in which the actor’s mad scientist character explains, with grave seriousness: “When Belly and I were younger men, we regularly ingested large quantities of LSD.” (Cut to: Joshua Jackson’s droll reaction shot. “You don’t say?”) The recap series is a compressed, chronological summary ofFringeverse history, providing a clear, coherent picture of Fringe’s epic puzzle narrative. “It’s like a condensed Reader’s Digest version of Fringe,” Noble tells EW via email. “It will tantalize and entice Fringe fans, new and old, with the rich and extraordinary story we’ve been telling for 66 episodes, and prepare them for the ongoing adventures in Season 4.”

Which, by the way, begins Sept. 23.

As for my theory that the title “Past + Present + Future” is a cryptic clue to the newly created jumbled-up Dr. Manhattan-meets-Minkowski spacetime nature of the Fringeverse in the wake of Peter’s reality-rebooting quantum leap in the season 3 finale – and that the mysteries ofFringe can be explained either as a mash-up of C.S. Lewis’ unfinished final novel The Dark Tower and Stephen King’s cycle of Dark Tower novels… or as a fancifully odd adaptation of the two-part album series “Past:Present:Future” by the Dutch pop band Ch!pz — no sane individual associated with the show, including Noble, cared to comment.

The countdown to Fringe Friday has begun.

Twitter: EWDocJensen

As the sun sets over Jerusalem’s Old City and a performer plays a mystical solo on a curved ram’s horn, Glenn Beck appears before an audience near the southern wall of the Temple Mount, a sacred site for both Jews and Muslims that they have battled over for centuries.

The jocular, baby-faced former Fox News personality, who once blithely referred to President Barack Obama as “a racist,” looks like a preacher in his dark suit, purple tie and wire-framed glasses as he delivers a fear-mongering speech at his Restoring Courage rally on Aug. 24, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Sept. 12 issue.

The global economy is collapsing, Beck warns; the U.S. and Europeare descending into anarchy, and Islamic terrorists are on the verge of achieving their ultimate goal: the annihilation of Israel.

“The world is burning,” Beck says, his voice shaking with emotion. “Whatever we’ve thought would never change, whatever we’ve grown to think is solid and strong and durable, is under siege. You don’t have to be a prophet to know that things aren’t going so well in the world. The threats are mounting. Evil is growing. And darkness is falling.”

Outside the Old City’s walls, several dozen Israeli protesters can be heard chanting, “One, two, three, four, Glenn Beck no more! Five, six, seven, eight, Israel doesn’t need your hate!” Beck ignores them. Continue Reading

Zooey Deschanel fans, today is your lucky day: Fox has released the first episode of the actress’ new sitcom, New Girl, online for free, a full two weeks before the show debuts on television.

The episode, which debuts on September 20th, has been released on iTunes this morning, where it will remain for free until the day of its television airing; the episode will also be made available for free streaming on Fox.com and Hulu on September 13th, then disappearing on September 20th, as well as making an appearance on Hello Giggles, the group blog that Deschanel writes for. After September 20th, the show will vanish from the Internet—well, officially—until September 28th for everyone apart from Hulu Plus members.

(MORE: Plenty of Chances to Meet Fox’s New Girl)

Although releasing free clips of shows on iTunes has become commonplace promotional tactics in recent years, this is only the second time an entire episode has been released for free before its official onscreen debut—it’s worth mentioning that New Girlhas unofficially aired in certain markets as a special preview—and Fox was behind the idea last time, as well.

That said, the network’s experience with Lone Star—the show that was given this treatment last year—doesn’t exactly provide a promising picture of what lies ahead (that series was cancelled after only two episodes for low ratings). Despite critical praise, the audience for Lone Star‘s first episode (the episode released online ahead of time) was described as ”so bad that there was no silver lining to find on this mushroom cloud.”

Here’s hoping that Deschanel’s charm offensive is more successful.

[via Tuned In]

MORE: Shocker: Piracy Rises After Fox Delays Hulu Shows

Read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/09/06/newer-girl-fox-puts-show-online-for-free-two-weeks-before-its-tv-debut/#ixzz1XIQSZhe9

Timing is money. Just ask Fox Networks. Last week it started barring everyone but paying customers from watching its TV shows online until eight days after they first run.

It’s one way TV networks are angling for more dollars from the digital revolution.

Other ways that networks may get them are via “enhanced” advertising and by reselling old shows online, perhaps made with streaming services such as Netflix (NFLX) in mind.

News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox began its Internet blockade Aug. 15. To watch shows on a computer the first eight days after initial airing, viewers will need to log in with a password from a participating TV service provider.Dish Network (DISH) is the first and Fox says more are coming soon.

Data on the first week’s viewing at Dish aren’t available, but “we’re pleased to be the first provider to offer the Fox programming and we wholeheartedly support programmers who authenticate their programming vs. giving it away,” Dish spokesman Marc Lumpkin told IBD. Continue Reading