What's in a name? Yahoo!'s 9 vs. ABC's Nine

Back in July Yahoo! launched it's first new online production in months, simply called The 9. It's a slicker, more structured, but not necessarily more enjoyable videoblog ala Rocketboom.

Host Maria Sansone dishes on the 9 hot things online - ironic that many of the stories profiled are from YouTube, not from Yahoo! Video. The show's producers - or perhaps Yahoo!360 - are wanting to keep traffic on a Yahoo! property and are not distributing the show via RSS - an odd choice imho.

Imagine my surprise when I recently passed a bus advertising The 9. Whoa, NewMedia is really going old school to find audience. But upon closer inspection I saw it wasn't Yahoo's The 9, but a new ABC drama called The Nine. With the tagline "Only They Know" the show is a dramatic episodic about nine survivors of a bank robbery featuring a strong, recognizable cast - nothing remotely related to Yahoo!'s slick videoblog.

Given the lengthy development cycle for a dramatic series like ABC's Nine, it most certainly can lay claim to the name first. Interesting in our wild west of online media and blatant online copyright infringment, not even show titles are sacred anymore. No word if ABC is pursuing legal action but ironic that Yahoo! Media Group head Lloyd Braun is former Chairman of ABC Entertainment Television.

thr note - see previous post on Yahoo! Media Group's woes