Quarterlife - Microsoft - Amazon - MSNBC - Apple - MediaBytes February 28, 2008

QUARTERLIFE debuted on NBC with a 1.6 rating and a 4 share in the 18-49 demographic, pulling in only 3.86 million viewers. It finished well behind ABC and CBS for the hour and viewers trailed off in the second half of the show. Creator Marshall Herskovitz said the show “bombed” and that it “shouldn’t have been on a network to begin with.” He thinks cable is a more appropriate outlet for the show.

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION fined MICROSOFT a record-setting $1.35 billion fine for antitrust violations. Microsoft failed to comply with a 2004 ruling of the commission and is the first company in 50 years to be fined for blatantly ignoring a an antitrust decision. Overall, the European antitrust issues have caused Microsoft $2.3 billion in fines.

AMAZON is experimenting with new video overlay ads for user-generated videos. Users can upload videos and choose to insert specific product ads at specific points. When viewers click the ad and purchase a product, the creator gets paid an affiliate fee. Videos can be embedded on blogs and social networking profiles, just like any YouTube video. The service essentially lets content creators choose an advertiser, selecting anything from an iPod to a specific book. This could work well for product reviews, product placement or just user-chosen contextual ads.

MSNBC drew 7.8 million viewers for this week’s contentious Democratic debate, reaching its largest audience ever. The audience was over twice as big as MSNBC’s previous high of 3.7 million during the start of the war with Iraq. The show was simulcast on several NBC affiliates and 500,000 additional viewers streamed the debate on MSNBC.com.

APPLE will host a special event on March 6 to unveil its plans for an iPhone SDK and “some exciting new enterprise features.” Steve Jobs had previously promised to release the SDK by the end of February. COO Tim Cook confirmed the company’s goal of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008, saying Apple has “really good confidence” that it will hit the target.

NEWS CORP and LIBERTY MEDIA officially completed the deal giving Liberty a 41% controlling stake in DirecTV in exchange for its 16% ownership of News Corp.