Broadcasting & Cable’s Business Editor John M. Higgins died Monday night of a heart attack. John was only 45. I had the pleasure of serving on a panel with John earlier this year and regularly traded emails with him. John was a keen commentator on our industry, an acerbic wit and a terrific reporter. Lost Remote has linked to many, many of his stories over the years. B&C has set up a page where John’s friends are sharing their memories. We offer our condolences to the Higgins family and everyone at B&C and Reed Business Information. Farewell, John.
Newslab tracked 28 TV stations in Midwest markets for the month leading up to the election. Not surprisingly, they found the average 30-minute newscast contained 4:30 minutes of election ads and 1:43 of election-related news coverage. “[They] failed in their responsibility to provide an adequate amount of substantive election coverage” that might have balanced out the ads, said Joyce Foundation VP Larry Hansen. Meanwhile, the NAB called the study “shoddy” because it ignored other political coverage, such as debates, outside the confines of a 30-minute newscast.
It’s been a month since CBS began its partnership with YouTube, and the network has uploaded 300 videos. Since that time, the clips have racked up a total of 29.2 million views for an average of 857,000 views a day. Many of the clips are from CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show, and the network says ratings have risen 5 and 7 percent respectively since the YouTube deal began. “Although the success of these shows on YouTube is not the sole cause of the rise in television ratings, both companies believe that YouTube has brought a significant new audience of viewers to each broadcast,” reads the press release. More details below…
For the first time, Google has risen above $500 a share, which works out to a market value of $154,570,000,000. The stock’s journey began at $85 in August 2004.
The pervasiveness of video cameras is further demonstrated by the video of the bizzare, racist rant Michael Richards made this past weekend in response to hecklers while he was doing standup. An audience member recorded it with a cellphone video cam. Richards has apologized. Note: The video contains foul and racist language
As announced last summer, MSN Video has started posting full episodes of the canceled but brilliant series Arrested Development, one of my favorite shows. Five episodes are up now, with three additional episodes to be added every three weeks. (Oddly, you have to do a search to find it. Update: It’s right here.)
A new Nielsen survey, which tracked the behavior of 400 iPod users, found that 2.2 percent of content played on video iPods are TV shows, movies or video podcasts. Measured by time, it works out to 11 percent. The rest is music, or to a lesser extent, audio podcasts. While these numbers may sound low, when you consider how much people listen to music on their iPods, it’s not surprising. I routinely watch video podcasts along with the occasional TV show, and it’s in the same 11 percent range. I play all my music on my iPod (home stereo, car stereo and via headsets) which works out to a much larger chunk of time. What I do find interesting, though, is just 2 percent of time spent on iTunes is spent watching video.
Comcast is expected to announce a deal with Disney to offer some of ABC’s top shows on video on demand for free, reports the Wall Street Journal. Desperate Housewives, Lost and World News with Charles Gibson are among the VOD shows, as well as selected programs from ESPN, the Disney Channel and Toon Disney. But to keep affiliates happy, the ABC shows will only be available in markets where the network owns a station. (CBS is the only other network to offer its primetime shows on VOD for free, but again, only in markets where the network owns a station.) Also, Disney has agreed to release new movies on VOD within 15 days after the respective DVDs go on sale. (WSJ sub. req.)
WaPost national political editor John Harris and reporter Jim VandeHei are quitting the paper to start the Capitol Leader, a new multimedia publication that’s backed by Allbritton Communications. The website and newspaper will partner with WJLA-TV (owned by Allbritton) as well as draw from regular features on CBS Face the Nation and CBS This Morning. (WSJ sub. req.)
The gatekeepers’ legal worries about user-contributed content have one less leg to stand on after the California Supreme Court ruled that Web sites cannot be sued for libel for publishing inflamatory information supplied by other parties. Cory adds: This is a big ruling with profound implications for citizen journalism. The court ruled that people who claim they were defamed in an Internet posting can only seek damages from the original source of the statement. A big victory, although I’m sure we’re not hearing the end of this. Safran adds: This is a debate Cory and I have disagreed upon for years. (Not the liability issues, but simply what a court would rule.) I am happily proven wrong, and give full credit to my good friend, the Honorable Representative from Seattle. Johnson adds: … I got nothin’. Just wanted to have the last word after all the addenda.
Boston’s CBS affiliate, WBZ-TV, has announced it will once again call itself WBZ. The station has been forced to go by the utterly identity-free CBS4 in recent years, but is absolutely best known in Boston as “‘BZ”. (Logo to the right is from early ’90s.) You know that cliched line about how a station’s name “means news”? WBZ actually does “mean news” here because its radio station, WBZ-AM is all-news and goes back to 1921. The TV channel went by “WBZ” for about 50 years. People know it. With channel numbers becoming meaningless and networks increasingly going around the affiliates, it’s especially important to establish and stick with a brand. What’s especially surprising about this shift is that WBZ is a CBS O/O - and you have to think it would have been that much harder to get the change made. Next up: the station will mercifully get to rebrand its website’s mouthful of a url: cbs4boston.com.
Full release, after the jump.
After a firestorm of criticism, News. Corp. said today that it has canceled the O.J. Simpson book and Fox television special “If I Did It.” The network quotes News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch as saying he decided that the project was “ill-considered.” Several Fox affiliates had chosen not to broadcast the special, in which Simpson talks in hypothetical terms about his role in the killings.
After listening in on the conference call, it’s clear this partnership between Yahoo and seven newspaper companies is bigger than first reported. Called a “deep strategic partnership” with “major commitments” over multiple years, the deal involves unprecedented collaboration between traditional media and a portal. The motivation for Yahoo is clear: “We believe the local segment is largely untapped,” said Yahoo CEO Terry Semel. The ability for Yahoo to expand its advertising (search, graphical and classifieds) into the local market is a huge boost. Not to mention, the value of pulling in more branded local content. The motivation for newspapers: expose newspaper content, classifieds and advertising to a larger, younger audience — and dramatically speed up product development with Yahoo technology.
“The world is changing rapidly,” said William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews, when asked why he’s partnering with Yahoo. “We think going it alone will just take too long, and we think we can get there much faster doing it this way.” This is a key admission. Local media companies have been struggling online, especially in technology and local search (35 percent of all searches are local), and technology heavyweights as well as hundreds of startups are making a serious run at local. Can local media companies, standing on their own, succeed without a major partner? The newspaper consortium above chose to partner with one of the heavyweights. It will be interesting how this will put pressure on local TV sites to speed new products to market, expand distribution and get scale in advertising. (Disclosure: I work for a Belo TV station.)
AOL, MSN and Yahoo say they’re all but sold out of their premium ad inventory for the holidays. “The biggest inventory sold months ago,” said Yahoo’s Diane Rinaldo. One of the more popular ad packages: home page roadblocks, where a single client dominates all the major ad positions over a given period of time.
Philadelphia’s NBC station is planning on remaking its early evening news block to a single anchor, long-form format that focused more on investigative, health and consumer stories. “The idea is to go back to putting the emphasis on storytelling and on the reporters,” says VP of News Chris Blackman. “For a while, the feeling was that, the more you threw at people, the better chance you had to not have them turn away. You weren’t giving them a chance to breathe. I think that really underestimates the intelligence of our viewers.” Blackman said the station will downplay the traditional local news fare. “You can put a reporter on a crime story or a car crash, and, quite frankly, you could have told the story just as well with a voiceover and a sound bite.” I think it’s a smart move that will pay dividends in an area they may not even expect: the web. Many local TV sites are riddled with crime and other reactive stories, but a focus on proactive, relevant storytelling will result in a more engaging experience online. But a little advice: don’t hold those stories until air and still be aggressive with breaking news online.
Prime Cities Broadcasting, Lin Broadcasting and Pappas Broadcasting are refusing to air Fox’s upcoming special, “O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened” which airs on November 27th and 29th. One critic calls the special “the most despicable sweeps-month stunt in history,” and there’s a good chance more Fox stations will jump on the boycott bandwagon in the days to come.
Seven media groups have signed a wide-ranging deal with Yahoo to share content, advertising and revenue. MediaNews, Hearst, Scripps, Belo, Journal Register, Lee and Cox are included in the partnership, representing 176 daily papers. “This is a transformational deal for the newspaper industry,” said William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group. “This relationship will significantly extend our local assets to a much wider audience, and gives us the technology required to fulfill the growing demands of advertisers and consumers.” In the first phase of the deal, newspapers will sell job postings on HotJobs, as well as use HotJobs’ technology to run their own career ads. Then during the next year, the partnership will be extended as newspapers begin displaying their stories and local ads on Yahoo’s online network. Yahoo, in turn, will make available local event listings, maps, search technology and other content and tools on the newspapers’ sites. In a nutshell: newspapers gain a larger and younger audience, and Yahoo expands its ad network into local markets. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal comes on the heels of Google’s announcement that it will use its technology to sell ads in the print editions of 50 newspapers. It’s also interesting to note that this partnership will be a big shot in the arm for participating newspaper sites on the distribution, sales and technology front, which adds up to more competition for local TV sites. (Full disclosure: I work for a Belo TV property.) Update: Listen to the webcast here, as well a PDF presentation with more details here. Press release follows below…
Back in the early days of Lost Remote, we hosted an email discussion group for web producers. Today, in an experiment, we’re bringing it back for TV and interactive staffers. Called “The Circuit” and powered by Google, we’re offering three separate groups:
Lost Remote Producers: For web and mobile producers to talk content Lost Remote Developers: For web and mobile developers to talk technology Lost Remote Revenue: For sales and business development execs to talk revenue
The idea here is to exchange ideas and resources, as well as talk through some of the more critical issues of the day. And there are plenty of them, in fact, more than ever. I know what you’re thinking, you already get too much email. That’s why we’re keeping the lists focused and moderated. Promotional (or unnecessary) messages won’t make it through. So sign up, give it a try and let us know what you think. (And thanks to everyone on Sunday who offered feedback on how to set this up.)
Broadcasting & Cable’s Business Editor John M. Higgins died Monday night of a heart attack. John was only 45. I had the pleasure of serving on a panel with John earlier this year and regularly traded emails with him. John was a keen commentator on our industry, an acerbic wit and a terrific reporter. Lost Remote has linked to many, many of his stories over the years. B&C has set up a page where John’s friends are sharing their memories. We offer our condolences to the Higgins family and everyone at B&C and Reed Business Information. Farewell, John.
As 
Comcast is expected to announce a deal with Disney to offer some of ABC’s top shows on video on demand for free, 
Boston’s CBS affiliate, WBZ-TV, has announced it will once again call itself WBZ. The station has been forced to go by the utterly identity-free CBS4 in recent years, but is absolutely best known in Boston as “‘BZ”. (Logo to the right is from early ’90s.) You know that cliched line about how a station’s name “means news”? WBZ actually does “mean news” here because its radio station, WBZ-AM is all-news and goes back to 1921. The TV channel went by “WBZ” for about 50 years. People know it. With channel numbers becoming meaningless and networks increasingly going around the affiliates, it’s especially important to establish and stick with a brand. What’s especially surprising about this shift is that WBZ is a CBS O/O - and you have to think it would have been that much harder to get the change made. Next up: the station will mercifully get to rebrand its website’s mouthful of a url: 
After a firestorm of criticism, News. Corp. said today that it 
Philadelphia’s NBC station is 
Seven media groups have signed a 