Ok, we are not sure if we like this idea or not. The thought of sitting a baby in front of a TV just scares the crap out of us. Yet, we all know whether it’s Teletubbies, Baby Einstein, or the latest on PBS…your baby as well as ours will likely be watching some TV. We just hope, that parents truly get it…you use the programs to interact with your child and not to baby sit your child.

The new, round-the-clock channel is called BabyFirstTV. For $9.99 a month, it will be available initially by satellite through DirecTV and later through cable TV providers as well.

TV offerings already abound for older toddlers, and a lucrative ? though controversial ? market has developed for baby-oriented videos, attracting the Walt Disney Co. and the makers of Sesame Street, among others. But until now there had been no ongoing TV programming aimed at infants.

“This is the first channel dedicated to babies and their parents ? transforming TV from its original purpose into a way for them to interact,” said Sharon Rechter, BabyFirstTV’s executive vice president for business development and marketing.

“The fact of life is that babies are already watching TV,” she said. “That’s why having BabyFirstTV is so important ? what we want to offer is completely safe, commercial-free and appropriate content.” KDKA.com.

With my wife still away on travel for work, my two-and-a-half year old son and I continue to turn our house into the bachelor pad we’ve always wanted. For our Friday movie night we decided to turn it up a notch. Pow! While the wife likes the cute and cuddly shows and fuzzy cute cats..we’re men and we sometimes need to watch shows that only men watch. So what did we watch? A movie about dogs. Not cute cuddly dogs either! No we watch on DVD a story about a BIG RED DOG!

Yep, that right. We watched Clifford’s Really Big Movie. Why is Clifford a real man’s dog? Well while he may like his family, and he may like his friends…there is only one thing that he really needs to make him happy. As long as he has a nice big bowl of Tummy Yummies he’s perfectly happy. Ahhh…finally a movie the boy and I can really get into!

Every Holloween our Zoo?invites children to dress up for Holloween?in?their annual Zoo Boo.? Our then?two year-old son was dressed?as his favorite character, Boots from Dora the Explorer. However, a large number of children were wearing constumes that I didn’t recognize.? With bulging fake muscles and the letter “i” on the front of the costume I pretty much figured the kids were dressed as?super heroes, but I?could not identify the show.? You see my experience?with children shows?was?for the under two-year old crowd and I was just glad that my son didn’t dress up as a teletubbie!? Finally,?another?parent?was able to help me out and say that the?kids were dressed like the?Heroes from?The Incredibles.

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?Well in the world of toddlers, six months can make a difference!? For our?family?”movie night” last Friday we purchased the Incredibles on DVD (in widescreen may I add).? The?kid?held interest through the whole movie, the humor kept Dad tuned in, and the?near G-Rated cartoon violence kept Mom at peace.? All and all, it was an incredible Friday night!

I know this has already made the Internet rounds, but I’m too impressed to not post it here. A remake of The Simpsons introduction we all see everytime the cartoon starts was done by Sky TV for airing in the UK. Only this introduction uses real actors and not animated characters! A link to the video can be found at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw . The following excerpt is from a Reuters-Yahoo article:

Painstakingly crafted by Sky (BSY.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and its ad agency Devilfish, the video was originally intended as an on-air promotion for the Sky One network, which airs new episodes of “The Simpsons” in the UK.

The company decided to release it on the Internet as part of a word-of-mouth brand building exercise, tapping into the red-hot Web video sector.

“If we had only showed it on air, you might turn to someone and say that was really cool,” said BSkyB communications director Matthew Anderson. “Putting it online, there’s a fantastic discussion between millions of people — it’s bringing the Simpsons to them instead of having them tune in.”

After less than a week, the video has been viewed millions of times at online video sites like YouTube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw) and Google Video.

Earlier this week, we discussed here at Like that Idea how NBC’s handling of people posting “amateur” video clips of Saturday Night Live skits on Internet servers. We took no issue with NBC’s claim of copyright, but argued that as copyright holders it may have been a better business decision to allow fans to post such skits on sites. In our opinion, they should have considered it free advertising reaching their intended target. The whole NBC-YouTube episode was our first if three example of how TV networks have lost touch with their audience.

Since our posting, we’ve noticed some bigger fish also picking up on the story we first saw on CNET. One of those bigger fish includes the Motley Fool which argued a day after us some of the same points we made:

After all, the runaway success of “Lazy Sunday” had little to do with its original airing on SNL. But given YouTube’s growing popularity among the young audience that NBC surely covets, I’d have to say that for now, this seems like a rather shortsighted move. Much like the music recording industry’s often heavy-handed tactics, NBC’s decision to pull the plug might irritate the same customers it’s trying to attract.

However, this story doesn’t end. From this episode there are two more examples that can be drawn for how TV networks have lost touch with their audience.

Example 2: Many of the TV networks deny up to twenty percent of their audience from accessing their content fully.

This isn’t something new, but it is still amazing to me the number of large companies that don’t make their Web sites compatible with anything other than Windows and Internet Explorer (IE). Even those articles discussing Windows and IE favorably can’t hide the fact that 20 percent of Americans do not use IE. Instead those users use alternative browsers such as Firefox (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac) and Safari (Mac). NBC is of course one of these companies that have yet to recognized how much the Internet and its users have evolved in the past five years. From the CNET article:

The video continues to reside on NBC’s official “SNL” site, though its embedded video player appears to work only with Windows.

Reading the CNET article you would believe that it’s only the Linux and possibly Mac crowd that need to worry about not being able to access the videos from the NBC site. However, when likethatidea.com visited NBC.com, using Windows XP and Firefox 1.5, we were prompted with a message that not only said you needed a Windows operating system but also Internet Explorer 5.5 or greater. So not only are the Linux and Mac users out from accessing the video but also Windows users using a non-IE browser.

Once again, the videos are NBC’s property and they can do what they wish. However, you just have to wonder why a network that wants to attract a younger and hipper audience to their network programming would do such a stupid thing. How many real businesses would survive pushing away 20 percent of their customers? I argue not many, especially those that are out of touch with their audience.

Example 3: Networks, such as NBC, insult their audience without even knowing what they’re doing wrong.

Let me ask you, if you sent an e-mail to a company that expressed concerns with a service or product not meeting your expectation, what would you expect in their reply? I think most of you would expect at a minimum a form letter that replied back addressing your concerns. Well I wrote back to NBC and they sent me back a form letter, but it so badly written that it barely touched on my concerns. In fact, it suggested I fill out one of their surveys! Yes, that’s how to calm a customer down…ask them to take additional time out of their schedule to fill out a survey.

However, the most insulting part of their response was in the final line of their reply, a reply responding to my concerns about not being able to properly access their Website without Internet Explorer. I’ve posted NBC’s response to my e-mail below and will let you judge it on its own merits.

Thanks for your email. NBC values your comments, but unfortunately, due to the volume of emails we receive, we cannot respond to each one. Please check our FAQ section to see if your question is answered there:http://www.nbc.com/faq/Since we cannot accept unsolicited scripts, show ideas, or other creative material, any such submission by email will be deleted without being read.We would also like to hear more of your opinions about television and the programs you watch. If you would like to share your feedback with us by becoming part of our viewer panel, please visit the following link:http://www2.rresults.com/1809998/index.cfm?s=50 Once you join, you’ll occasionally be invited to take Internet surveys, which are fun to do and usually take about 5 minutes to complete. The information you give will have an impact on the television programs you enjoy.Thanks for logging on to NBC’s websites.

Dora the Explorer ? my son is absolutely enthralled with her! This is his show of choice when he gets to watch TV. It is a very good show ? teaches a number of things to include Spanish! He could count to 10 in Spanish before he could count to 10 in English and that was right around is 2^nd birthday. A very good educational show as well as a main character that I think my son has a crush on (plus he loves Boots the monkey as well)!

A couple years ago when I heard that they would be doing a remake of Battlestar Galactica, the late 1970’s television series, I didn’t want to get my hopes up to high. As a kid, I treasured that series and I just didn’t want a good show to be ruined by a remake. Then the rumors began to fly. Two of my favorite male characters in the series, Boomer and Star Buck, were now female characters. The look of the Cylons was being changed with a number of them looking like humans not machine. In fact Boomer was no longer human…but one very confused Cylon. On and on these rumors came and went. To make it all worse…the rumors were true! They called this Battlestar Galactica reimagined. How could I enjoy watching this remake trash everything I knew about the original series?

Reimagining the series evidently was the best thing to happen to a television science fiction series in a long time. The show is not only a darker version of the original, but probably a series that better reflects the reality and complications humanity has faced and will always face. You put a group of survivors together and after a short time complications will develop. The reimagined show has made sure the story told has “grown-up” just as much as the series original fans have.

The new Battlestar Galactica is not only better than the original series, it is in my opinion the best science fiction series currently on television. Evidently, I’m not alone as the series has won several awards including a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and rated the number one show in 2005 in Time’s Best of 2005 for Television. If you have already missed the first season and a half I recommend checking out the series on DVD (clicking on pics above will take you to Amazon).