Splitsider

Amazon announced today that it will begin distributing comedy and children's programming directly to the consumer through their video streaming service, Amazon Instant Video. Amazon joining Netflix in the programming business is another step towards the content creation paradigm shift. Standard television ratings are plummeting, as people are looking for new ways to consume media. Amazon's hook is they are opening up submissions to anyone with a five-page treatment and a pilot script, which is everyone under 35 at this point. Once a month, they will choose a project and option it for $55,000, which a contact in the television industry explained, is about what cable networks [...]

Mitch Hurwitz and the cast of Arrested Development appeared together at a Netflix panel at the National Association of Broadcasters convention yesterday, and they gave up a whole bunch of details on just how this revival is gonna work. Vulture was there and captured all the juicy details.

Firstly, all 10 episodes are going to drop on Netflix streaming on the same day rather than them being released weekly like a traditional TV show. So that's good for the bingers: after this years-long wait, you'll be able to tear through the entire new season in less than five hours. As for what the episodes will actually be like: [...]

NBC has re-signed its agreement with Netflix for a few more years, ensuring that past seasons of shows like 30 Rock and Parks and Rec will be available for streaming, as well as new movie additions like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Great! But no more next-day stuff; everything will be delayed by a season, which is too bad.

This Sunday, Comedy Central will plugging their noses to keep from being overwhelmed with hash smoke and hippie musk in order to broadcast live from the comedy tent at Bonnaroo. From 6pm-9pm on their website and via various mobile devices, they'll stream a whole slew of performances live. Hosted by Jon Benjamin, the event will feature Lewis Black, Hannibal Buress, Donald Glover and JB Smoove with stand-up performances by Ted Alexandro, Craig Baldo, Bill Bailey, Nate Bergatze, Cheech Marin, Ralphie May, Tim Minchin, Eugene Mirman, Tig Notaro, Henry Rollins and puppet Improv group Henson Alternative's "Stuffed and Unstrung." A pretty good lineup, although when puppet improv comes on it [...]

As part of the lead-up to the 100th episode of 30 Rock tonight, NBC is releasing some online-only animated shorts featuring voices from the show. The first one is above, with Jack Donaghy showing off his superpowers in order to procure some froyo from a dastardly Brian Williams. But of course!

Donald Glover is performing a "secret" show tonight in LA under his hip hop moniker Childish Gambino. If you either don't live in LA or do but don't feel like waiting in line only to be crammed into a small space with a bunch of other sweaty people when it's easier to just stay home, it'll be streaming live on YouTube right over here. It kicks off at 8pm EST/5PM PST. Nice and early so you can still get to bed by 10pm afterwards.

HBO has been on a bit of a roll lately, with Game of Thrones capturing the imaginations of everyone who loves both dragons and depictions of doggy-style sex (read: everyone) and the imminent premieres of two of the most promising new comedies of the year, Girls and Veep (the first three episodes of both shows that were sent out to the press are truly excellent). The downside, of course, is that it'll cost you $15 bones a month to watch said shows. But the network is looking to get you on board with their premium offerings by teasing you with the premieres of the two new comedies free of [...]

I have no clue when my favorite television shows are on. Despite loyally following five or six different half-hour comedies over the past season, I have never actually turned on a television to do so. In fact, I don’t even own a TV — like many of my manically busy and digitally-incubated young brethren, I am perfectly comfortable catching up with my favorite shows using downloaded episodes or streaming video. For those more traditional than I, DVR and TiVo contraptions allow viewers to easily circumvent the time constraints of live television while keeping close tabs on their darlings of the tube. For audiences, this means less life-planning around TV programming [...]

Comedy Central is planning to stream live from the comedy tent at the famous mushrooms, body odor and music festival Bonnaroo on June 13th. It's going to be a three-to-four-hour stream, available on both ComedyCentral.com and mobile devices. They haven't announced who they'll be streaming yet, but the comedy tent lineup includes Donald Glover, Eugene Mirman, Louis Black, Hannibal Burress and a whole lot more.

Netflix just signed a new agreement with Fox to bring some more content to the streaming service, including Ally McBeal, the first season of Glee and the first two seasons of Sons of Anarchy. All fine and good! But the real news is that The Wonder Years is coming as well. Sing it, Joe Cocker!

It was just Thursday when we reported on Seth Meyers' new movie, Home for the Holidays, and how it was set to go into production later this year. And now comes word that he has a new series in the pipeline for Hulu. I guess he just get super bored being the head writer and Weekend Update anchor at SNL. Gotta keep the ol' brain active somehow! In any case, the show is called The Awesomes and is being produced by SNL/Fallon producer Michael Shoemaker. It'll be about "an unassuming superhero and his cohorts who battle diabolical villains, the ever-present paparazzi and a less-than-ideal reputation as second-class [...]

Last week, CollegeHumor unveiled "Fired," a 30 minute episode of their popular web series Jake and Amir. The episode was made available both as a $2.99 stream and a $13 DVD that also included outtakes, behind-the-scenes content, commentary, and 10 other Jake and Amir episodes.

I talked to Sam Reich, CollegeHumor's President of Original Content, about why they're trying this new model. "We have no plans to move entirely to the pay-per-view model. Advertising is our bread and butter," he told me. "That being said, we wanted to experiment with making something big and devoid of advertising, and the pay-per-view model was the only way we [...]

Chris Gethard is moving his show from the stage at UCB in NYC to public access TV and the internet, starting tonight. The first live-broadcast episode of The Chris Gethard Show hits tonight at 11pm. I have no idea what they've got planned, but I assume it involves degrading Chris somehow. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Here's something that will hopefully light a fire under the asses of the studios that are resisting putting their content online for streaming: TV ownership just dropped for the first time in 20 years. Now only 96.7% of American households now own sets, down from 98.9% previously. Maybe once it hits 95% they'll make Community available on Hulu Plus. Related: did you know that Community, amongst other Sony-produced shows, is available on regular Hulu but not Hulu Plus when streaming to TVs? And they wonder why people don't want to pay for this service.