Archive for September 9th, 2006
Despite a flood of criticism for distorting reality, ABC is moving forward with plans to air “The Path to 9/11” on Sunday and Monday nights. The network made a few tweaks, but that wasn’t enough for former President Bill Clinton, whose lawyers wrote Disney’s Bob Iger a pointed letter. “Despite press reports that ABC/Disney has made changes in the content and marketing of ‘The Path to 9/11,’ we remain concerned about the false impression that airing the show will leave on the public,” reads the letter. And if that’s not enough, President Bush has asked the networks for airtime at 9 p.m. ET on Monday night — right in the middle of the miniseries’ second half. But ABC plans to interrupt the film for Bush’s 20 minutes and then return to it when he’s done.
September 9th, 2006
The number of TV stations deciding to preempt or delay CBS’ award-winning documentary “9/11″ this Sunday now comprises about 10 percent of the country. So CBS announced that it will make the show available in its entirety on CBS.com following the West Coast airing of the broadcast. Station groups like Pappas are concerned that the FCC will pursue fines over the documentary’s coarse language. CBS, to its credit, has not edited out the language since the documentary’s first airing in 2002.
September 9th, 2006
Because I’m armed with a DVR, the only time I watch TV commercials is during live sports. So imagine my surprise when I saw this ad during a break in college football on ABC: It starts with two guys fast-forwarding their DVR through a football game, a TiVo-like bar at the bottom of the screen. “Come on, get to the good stuff,” one guy says, as they forward through a touchdown. Then up pops a shot of a Nissan truck driving through mud in slo mo. “Ooh, that’s it. Niiiice. Look at that,” they say. “I could watch that all day.” Then the Nissan graphic comes up at the end of the spot. “One more time?” one guy asks. “Sure.” And they rewind it back. Spot then fades to black. Is Nissan’s ad agency really dumb enough to think guys will fast-forward through a touchdown to watch a truck ad over and over again? Apparently so.
September 9th, 2006
You will not, in your lifetime, find a more entertaining speaker than Michael Rosenblum. His vision of the “radical shift in the context of who makes television” is based upon a world of small video cameras, laptop editing and the empowerment of, well, everyone. Controversial among professional photogs, Rosenblum has worked with KRON and WKRN to move their newsrooms to the Video Journalist (VJ) model. I won’t do his part standup, part professorial presentation any sort of justice here. Instead, I’m just going to bullet point his observations.
An animated Michael Rosenblum holds court at the WKRN bloggers meetup
Read the full post September 9th, 2006
Click though rates on ad banners? Less than one percent. Maybe a tenth of a percent. Click through rates on summary feeds from RSS? According to Dana Vanden Heuvel, Director of Business Development from Pheedo, it’s an astonishing 12%. There is money to be made there, and that’s what Dana addressed at the WKRN blogger gathering. Pheedo is, natch, an RSS advertising company. And yes, he offered his services. But the crowd listened. After all, bloggers like money too.
September 9th, 2006
Only one criticism of the WKRN blogger meetup here in Nashville – it’s at the audience, not the sponsor. How is it that, in a room of 25 – 30 local bloggers, nobody is liveblogging this? Come on, gang. A local station is reaching out. It’s worth writing about.
September 9th, 2006
As far as we can tell, Brittney Gilbert is the first person hired by local news specifically as a blog producer. There is some debate on the matter, so we can’t say definitively, but she’s documented. Close enough. The important point is that she was an unpaid blogger who was plucked out of the blogosphere and asked to join a local news organization – and keep her voice. Brittney produces NashvilleIsTalking.com. I spoke with Brittney about her gig – what she likes, doesn’t like, and what surprised her about life in a local newsroom. Her honest, very bloggy-answers, after the jump…
Read the full post September 9th, 2006
Your less-than-humble correspondent is in Nashville today liveblogging a meetup put together by WKRN, the forward-thinking ABC affil. Mike Sechrist, the station GM, has invited area bloggers to come and chat. It’s the third such gathering he has put together. It’s an inspired idea. So many stations fear bloggers: “What if they write something bad about us?” Sechrist understands the community of news concept, and has invited people into the conversation. LR Mentor Terry Heaton is here, as is Michael Rosenblum. Check in for the liveblog.
WKRN GM Mike Sechrist, enjoying a little AM coffee
September 9th, 2006
