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KARE-TV (large market), WYFF-TV (medium) and KCCI-TV (small) all won station of the year awards in the National Press Photographers Association’s annual Best Of Photojournalism competition. Andy Shilts of KMSP-TV has been named the TV news photographer of the year, and Joshua Shea of KCNC-TV is the new video editor of the year. Congrats all! You can watch the winning video clips here.
1 comment March 13th, 2007
NBC’s corporate counsel sent a six-page letter to Google last week, reports the NY Times. The letter threatened to sue the company “if, among other things, Google failed to deploy filtering technology.” Google says it’s working to fine-tune the promised filters, and gave no estimated time to launch. Meanwhile, NBC has inked a deal with user video site VMIX.com to create an “NBC Channel” featuring full-length shows like Heroes, 30 Rock and Scrubs. “Since its inception, VMIX.com has distinguished itself by employing human content screeners to filter inappropriate content and to protect the intellectual property of content, both copyrighted and user-submitted,” reads the VMIX press release below…
Read the full post 4 comments March 13th, 2007
The web’s power to link communities is nowhere more apparent than it is among religious groups. You’ve seen religious sites, faith-based community sites and places of cyber worship. But dig (or Digg) this stat from WaPo:
“…the number of Web pages dealing with God, religion and churches increased from 14 million in 1999 to 200 million in 2004. Religion now nearly rivals sex as a topic on the Internet: A search for “sex” on Google returns about 408 million hits, while a search for “God” yields 396 million.
As we saw here at LR when we posted about James Cameron’s investigation into “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” all you need to do is mention religion and you’ll draw in people you’ve never even had visit your site before. Online faith discussion is a worldwide phenomenon:
“Some sites offer rites from baptism to confession to conversion to Judaism… Sikhs listen to podcasts of prayers… (and Muslims download schedules of prayer times and recordings of sung verses from the Koran.”
The article focuses on Saranam.com, a website in India that sells Hindu pujas - ritual ceremonies - to be performed at distant temples.
5 comments March 13th, 2007
I fear I’m coming close to writing the epitaph on Bud.TV and it will read as follows: “Good idea, badly executed.” The concept is great - start your own broadband video channel with branded entertainment and subvert the old broadcasting model. But Bud.TV, as we noted at the time of its Super Bowl launch, made several terrible choices - the lack of good programming was certainly among the most prominent. It was Cory who wrote of the onerous registration process that included the requirement you enter your mobile phone number: “…asking for my mobile phone number is over the top. I’ll never watch, and neither will most people, which will doom this to failure.” And that appears, indeed, to be the case. Still - it’s not all Anheuser Busch’s fault. Attorneys general from 23 states are looking into whether Anheuser Busch is doing enough to keep out the kids through their age-verification process. (Which, obviously, is a joke.) Why? It’s not like you can download beer. Someone else will take this concept and be successful with it. Don’t write off the concept - but it may be time to kick the keg. (From the Hollywood Reporter Business RSS)
2 comments March 13th, 2007
In its first-ever acquisition, Bravo has picked up TelevisionWithoutPity.com, a TV fan site. Co-founders Tara Ariano and Sarah Bunting will remain editors of the site (they met in a Beverly Hills 90210 chat room). The site pulls in one million uniques and 30 million page views a month. By adding the site to Bravo’s online properties — BravoTV.com, BrilliantButCancelled, OutzoneTV.com and GetTRIO.com — Bravo will double its total page views. The selling price was not released. Press release after the grab…
Read the full post 12 comments March 13th, 2007
CBS MarketWatch points out that Google’s stock has dropped 15 percent since it purchased YouTube. “Investor optimism regarding YouTube was misplaced,” said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry. “Google is failing to do anything with YouTube.” It’s important to point out that YouTube is just a drop in the bucket for a company the size of Google, but public perception — which has a big impact on Wall Street — is another matter. Google’s stock dropped 2.58 percent today (the Dow dropped 1.97 percent), and Viacom was basically flat. (Thanks, Saundra!)
Add comment March 13th, 2007
Jeff Jarvis, who’s well known for his thoughts about “exploding TV,” has this to say:
“I’ve been reading Viacom’s boneheaded $1 billion complaint against YouTube. Viacom complains about YouTube but, in truth, they’re complaining about their own viewers. They whine about theft but, in fact, they’re whining about recommendation, about their audience finding them more audience. Viacom is trying, singlehandedly, to turn the TV industry into the music industry. They are trying to spread stupid…. I’ll requote the guy from Morgan Stanley below: You can’t obstruct markets. You have to anticipate them. You need to go with the flow.”
Adds Baker in comments: “Is this what you call going with the flow; submitting to the fact that media will always be hacked, made free, and when one of these sites reaches a critical mass and is bought out by one of the richest companies in the world, it’s incumbent upon the producer to figure out the business model for every instance and permutation of their copyrighted content? Wow.”
Adds Dave: “When Napster finally shut down, there was no legal download service (like iTunes) to fill the void. So the piracy continued (on Scour, WinMX, Kazaa, etc) until the music industry’s business model changed. TV is now going through the same thing. Sure it’s not profitable now and there’s no guarantee it will be profitable, but I can guarantee you one thing, you take away the copyrighted content on YouTube, it will just migrate somewhere else until something changes.”
Earlier: Viacom sues YouTube for $1 billion, lawsuit a major legal test
18 comments March 13th, 2007
Google’s response to Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit:
“We are confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and believe the courts will agree. YouTube is great for users and offers real opportunities to rights holders: the opportunity to interact with users; to promote their content to a young and growing audience; and to tap into the online advertising market. We will certainly not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube and its ability to attract more users, more traffic and build a stronger community.”
Add comment March 13th, 2007
USC’s Annenberg School announced its annual Cronkite Award winners for excellence in political journalism today. WBAL-TV and my station KING-TV won for overall achievement in local TV. NBC and Hearst-Argyle’s stations won on the group level. ABC News This Week with George Stephanopoulos took the award for best network program, and ABC News’ Brian Ross and the ABC News Investigative Unit won a special achievement award. Full list…
Read the full post 1 comment March 13th, 2007
The clock continues to tick for analog broadcast, with rabbit ears set to become a historic curio at midnight on Feb. 17, 2009. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is responsible for distributing the required digital converter boxes to keep older televisions functioning in the new digital broadcast world, laid out their plan to help houses make the switch. Every household, regardless of whether it needs a box, will be eligible to receive two coupons worth $40 each that can be used to buy two converter boxes. The coupons must be requested between Jan. 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009. As of 2005, the FCC said there were 15.4 million television households in the United States that received over-the-air signals only, excluding satellite users who use antenna to get local stations. While groups like the NAB and CES praised the rules, no one knows what the converter boxes will look like or how much they will eventually cost.
5 comments March 13th, 2007
The Mouse is going for a bold community play with Family.com, a new site launching later this week for moms who are increasingly looking to the Internet for answers and information about raising their children. Analysts at Forrester and Jupiter find it interesting that Disney, which is famous for content control, is putting so much stock into looping in people and content from the outside on the site. Screen grab…
1 comment March 13th, 2007
Viacom’s $1 billion suit is a wake-up call for user video sites and a test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA provides a safe habor against copyright liability if online service providers promptly remove copyrighted material when asked to do so. The key question here is what happens when users continue to upload copyrighted material faster than the site can remove it? As Viacom alleges, this continuous process of takedown orders and removals and resubmissions of content provides a lag time that YouTube is profiting on. Without filtering technology — the critical missing link — Google has a real legal challenge on its hands (although it’s likely that Google would settle before it winds its way through the courts.) What do you think? Post below…
Adds Jason in comments: “As much as I love YouTube and blame content providers for not easily providing video players that can be embedded and shared… I don’t see how they even have a shred of a defense here. YouTube makes tons of money. Largely off of other people’s copyrighted work. It seems like theft to me.”
Adds invitedmedia: “Sorry, but since the court often moves in decades rather than days it will serve YouTube NOT to settle before it winds its way through the courts.”
Adds Charles: “If this helps YouTube to take copyright infrigments/theft more seriously, good for them. I love watching clips uploaded illegaly, but if content providers can legally put them up, I’d be just as happy. On another note… $1 billion? That would hardly dent the Google dynasty, wouldn’t it? Or will Google be the next Microsoft; rich and powerful, but sued on a regular basis?”
8 comments March 13th, 2007
As many have expected all along, Google’s YouTube has been slapped with its first major copyright lawsuit. After demanding YouTube remove its clips on February 2nd, Viacom has just filed a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube. The suit alleges that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of Viacom’s programming have been available on YouTube and that these clips have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times. Viacom is also seeking an injunction to prevent any more copyrighted clips from appearing on YouTube. Viacom released the statement:
“YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws. In fact, YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden - and high cost - of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement.”
It doesn’t take long to find Viacom clips on YouTube today, despite that takedown order back in February. YouTube still hasn’t delivered on filtering technology promised for the beginning of the year that would block copyrighted material from appearing on the site, and this delay has soured its relationships with media companies.
Full Viacom statement below…
Read the full post 8 comments March 13th, 2007
In his keynote address at South by Southwest Interactive, Dan Rather praised the Internet as a powerful medium for news, but spent most of his time lamenting the present state of the craft and why he thinks the public has lost faith in journalism. “In many ways, what we in journalism need is a spine transplant,” he said.
9 comments March 13th, 2007
NPR came into being when a couple of administration officials snuck “and radio” after every mention of “television” in LBJ’s Public Television Act, which was sent from the Oval Office to Capitol Hill in February of 1967. Washingtonian Magazine takes a long look at the road NPR has taken to become a thriving news organization and wonders if it has lost its roots along the way. The once freewheeling alternative network now has more foreign bureaus than the Washington Post and draws 26 million listeners a week. It is also financially sound and nearly independent from the body that created it - only one percent of NPR’s revenues come from Congress.
1 comment March 13th, 2007
The Scripps TV sites (with the exception of my own site, WCPO.com, which will launch very soon) have relaunched on the Inergize Digital Media CMS and the Dayport video platform. The stations have a common look with horizontal navigation and a video player on the main page. Great job, everyone!
Screen grab of newly-launched ABC15.com in Phoenix.
7 comments March 13th, 2007
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