2006 October - Lost Remote TV Blog

Travelistic wants to be the YouTube of travel video. Founder Nicholas Butterworth, who was the former head of MTVi, said he sees Travelistic as a hybrid of user-generated and licensed material to offer “multiple points of view.” Butterworth also has plans to launch other niche user video sites in the near future. Screen grab…

7 comments October 23rd, 2006

CBS prez blames local news for Katie’s lower ratings

CBS News President Sean McManus says Katie Couric’s ratings are being hurt by her lead-ins - local newscasts. McManus says Dan Rather had the same problem, and says that “If the perception is we should be growing faster, I’d like to, but the fact is we’re not.” Courics numbers for last week should be encouraging - they show 6% growth over Bob Schieffer’s audience from the same time a year ago.

11 comments October 23rd, 2006

AOL to sell Paramount movie downloads

AOL has announced it will start selling downloads of Paramount movies for $9.99 to $19.99 apiece. DRM ALERT: The files will only be WindowsMedia compatible, and you will only be able to transfer them to three devices.

Add comment October 23rd, 2006

Lieberman targets online content

So why do the most clueless lawmakers when it comes to the internet want to restrict or regulate it? There’s Sen. “Tubes” Stevens, of course. And now Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose website crashed and burned from the primary election day traffic — and then his staff mistakenly blamed the opposition for hacking it — says it’s high time the internet is regulated to protect children. The big bad internet.

2 comments October 22nd, 2006

PaidContent debuts new look

Speaking of redesigns, our friends at PaidContent have launched a spiffy new look. They moved from WordPress to Expression Engine. I know Rafat has been looking forward to this day for years. Congrats!

5 comments October 22nd, 2006

Hollywood Reporter site rolls out clean redesign

A sequel that’s better than the original! A must surf! If you visit one site today… They’re not announcing it until Monday, but you can now check out the redesign of the Hollywood Reporter website. It is following the welcome trend of focusing on the content instead of overdesigning the site. It no longer tries to look like the magazine, and is a major overall improvement. Good RSS breakout by section. And LR Pal Steve Bryant’s blog, Reel Pop gets prominent placement on the front. The site also doesn’t try to give the hard sell to subscribe to its dead trees version. Overall, I really like what they’ve started here - now let’s see a ton of video. The HR is ideally positioned to have lots and lots of broadband video on its site. They’ve got the right ad market to profit off video clips. Grade: Boffo.

4 comments October 22nd, 2006

Do I love nerd humor? 1.

Here’s one for LR’s favorite T-shirt fan, Rex. (Available from ThinkGeek):

13 comments October 22nd, 2006

TV station reported accurately, loses suit anyway

A Kansas jury has ordered KSNW-TV of Wichita to pay $1.1 million in damages to a man it named as a suspect in the BTK murders. And nobody is disputing the station reported the truth. Some things worth noting: the plaintiff, Roger Valadez, had his house searched in connection with the killings. The station reported that. In fact, the jury even agreed the station was right in calling him a “suspect.” The jury took issue with the extent of the coverage and was especially struck by the station’s ND’s testimony that he hadn’t taken Valadez’s feelings into account when deciding to run Valadez’s name. (Valadez was cleared in the case.) The kinds of arguments we comfort ourselves with in our editorial meetings don’t always mean something to actual juries, gang. Read the story.

3 comments October 21st, 2006

Study: 14% of Americans have internet addiction

A study by the Stanford University of Medicine finds it’s no coincidence “webhead” shares the same suffix as “crackhead.” “Nearly 14% of those surveyed say they find it difficult to remain away from the Web for days at a time… Almost 9 percent have at some point tried to hide their surfing habits from family, friends or others… (And) Just under 6 percent said personal relationships were hampered by their excessive Web surfing.” Not me. I like spending Saturday nights online. I can quit any time I want.

8 comments October 21st, 2006

Politicians urge NYTCO to avoid cuts at Boston Globe

A collection of Massachusetts politicians has signed a letter urging the Boston Globe’s owner against making further cuts at the newspaper. The Globe’s revenues have been dropping, and cutbacks are likely. The politicians take the Times to task for downsizing the paper since purchasing it in 1993. Reporters at the paper just rejected a contract offer that tied their raises to the newspaper’s revenue - but did not include revenue from the paper’s profitable Boston.com website. (Disclosure: My client, NECN, is an online partner of Boston.com.)

3 comments October 21st, 2006

Lawmaker outraged by sniper video on CNN

CNN has triggered quite the controversy with a story it aired on Thursday that featured insurgent video of snipers shooting U.S. troops. The video never showed the moments of impact, but the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) said CNN has become “the publicist for an enemy propaganda film.” And that’s not all. He’s urging the Pentagon to kick out all of CNN’s embedded crews. CNN executive producer David Doss defends the decision on the 360 blog. “Whether or not you agree with us in this case, our goal, as always, is to present the unvarnished truth as best we can,” he writes.

33 comments October 21st, 2006

$600 for a share of Google stock?

With Google’s earnings announcement, analysts scrambled to raise their targets on Google stock, which closed at $459.67 today. The most aggressive target? $600 a share. Google’s stock closed up 7 percent today, adding about $10 billion to the company’s market value in a single day.

4 comments October 20th, 2006

Fox News: Kicking ‘em when they’re down

Totally editorial here. I have to say, I have kind of enjoyed Fox News’s good-natured taunts at CNN. They’re kind of funny and clever some times, and it’s usually a fair fight. But there is absolutely no place for Shep Smith’s gloating over the troubles at 30 Rock. Pride goes before a fall, Shep. Here’s what he said about the NBC changes:

SHEP: Man alive, the craziness happening across the river! What in the world is going on at NBC? We’re expanding here, you may have noticed. Expansion here. But NBC says it plans to slash about 700 jobs, or 5% of its workforce. That includes cuts in the news division. So if you’re a terrific producer, or a great writer, and think you understand fair and balanced, would like to work over here where we’re expanding, send me an email…. The move follows three years of falling profits and problems at that MSNBC; they’re struggling over there. They will move some of their operations to NBC headquarters in New York’s Rockefeller Center, also another NBC facility in Northern New Jersey. Our friends over there, we wish them very much well.

Smug, sarcastic, insincere and smacking of the schoolyard bully. Viewers look at our business as a whole. This kind of gloating continues to tar everyone. We can’t very well take politicians to task for “hurting America” if we’re doing the same. Knock it off. (Transcript via Inside Cable News)

18 comments October 20th, 2006

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