CNBC has been pumping up its online “Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge” for the past several months. BusinessWeek notes that the gambit paid off for CNBC.com - with site traffic tripling over the course of the game. But, there’s a hiccup: BusinessWeek says a flaw allowed contestants to start the process of making a trade before the 4 p.m. ET trading day ended (companies reporting after hours earnings were top targets). A player could leave that browser window open - and see if the stock took off in after hours action. If it did, a contestant could execute the trade at the 4 p.m. close price. CNBC has promised to launch an “aggressive investigation,” and hasn’t yet announced a winner. As the name of the game implies, a million bucks are on the line.
NBCU parent company General Electric and Microsoft discussed buying Dow Jones in a competing offer to News Corp., reports the Wall Street Journal. But the parties couldn’t reach an agreement. “The breakdown of the NBC-Microsoft talks is a further sign that the options for Dow Jones may be narrowing,” reports the Journal. (WSJ sub. req.)
NBC Universal’s syndicated Access Hollywood show is teaming up with Yahoo! to create a new branded hub for celebrity dirt, according to TV Week. Yahoo’s new site - “omg!” - launches Monday morning. Yahoo! used to team with Entertainment Tonight, while Access used to be in the MSN camp. AccessHollywood.com will continue to stand alone, but NBCU plans to revamp it this fall - with social networking features and the like. Like the TMZ show, Access will begin providing content to affiliates with the new site launch.
Broadcasting & Cable’s Michael Malone has a good overview of many of the daily newscasts popping up on newspaper websites lately. Could they compete with TV? The Roanoke Times, for example, publishes its daily video newscast at 3:30 p.m. “It’s meant to be before the day’s major newscasts,” says Roanoke Times Multimedia Editor Seth Gitner. “After the noon news but before the 5 p.m.” But some TV execs aren’t worried. “I’m not terribly concerned,” said Allan Horlick, president and GM of Gannett’s WUSA. “A lot of what goes into a TV newscast is the appeal of the presenters because of their communication skills…. If you don’t have credible presenters, [the user] can just click on the stories.” Truth be told, The Roanoke Times’ webcast is seen by just 200-500 unique users a day, according to B&C’s report. Which in fact, mirrors the success many TV sites have had with their newscasts/webcasts, even with their credible TV anchors.
Personally, I don’t believe online newscasts will succeed unless they have something truly unique — they cater to an underserved area, for example. Otherwise, why not just click on the stories you want to read or watch? But I’d like to read your take on it, as well as your reaction to Horlick’s quote about the importance of personalities…
Adds Michael Rosenblum in comments below: “As long as newspapers mimic local tv news in their presentation they will be far behind. But if newspapers can wrap their heads around a webcast instead of a tv newscast on tv - (ie, zefrank with local content), they might break through.”
Adds Angela: “I think we need a new model for the web. I agree that linear newscasts don’t work and they do receive very few views no matter who serves as anchor. Outside of great weather events, the webcast we produced at my former newspaper just didn’t fly, and it was good by TV standards. The audience wants something different. We weren’t committed enough to figure out what that was.”
YouTube may not have invented the “embed this” concept, but it certainly helped popularize it. Now Google’s video play has updated its embedded player interface. You can jump ahead in a video timeline (even if the part you want to skip to hasn’t downloaded yet). The most notable changes come when you finish a video. The last frame of video shrinks down, and you are presented with a series of thumbnails of related videos. Here’s a (very random) 3 second video so you can see it in action:
The NYT admits it’s an unusual opinion piece. “Editorial pages generally do not compliment the competition,” the editorial in Sunday’s paper begins. “Mr. Murdoch has promised not to diminish The Journal. At the same time he acknowledges that as a veteran newsman, he likes to meddle in his news properties, which include The New York Post and Fox News. We hope he remembers that The Journal’s respect for its readers and the readers’ trust in The Journal are entwined. Lose one and you lose the other.”
Apple is in talks with Hollywood studios to offer movies on iTunes to rent for a limited number of days for $2.99 each, reports the Wall Street Journal.
When the new MyFOX websites launched last July, it was a huge improvement over the previous version of the FOX O&O sites. Well, now it appears that same system is being offered to some affiliates for their own use, under the MyFOX branding.
It appears the FOX affiliates of LIN TV and Sinclair are rolling out the new sites. Nearly all the LIN TV FOX stations have the new sites: WNAC, WALA, WVBT, WUPW, WLUK. For Sinclair’s FOX stations, the rollout seems to be a bit slower: WPFO, WRSP, WCCU.
I’m happy to announce that we’ve added two talented bloggers here on Lost Remote. Don Day heads up KTVB.com and zIdaho.com, two innovative sites based out of Belo’s KTVB in Boise. And Michael Gay works at Hearst-Argyle as the executive producer of the group’s TV station sites, based out of Internet Broadcasting’s building in Minneapolis. Both are long-time readers of Lost Remote — as in waaaaay back to the early days — and we’re very excited to add them to the blogging ranks.
CNBC has been pumping up its online “Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge” for the past several months. BusinessWeek notes that the gambit paid off for CNBC.com - with site traffic tripling over the course of the game. But, there’s a hiccup: BusinessWeek says a flaw allowed contestants to start the process of making a trade before the 4 p.m. ET trading day ended (companies reporting after hours earnings were top targets). A player could leave that browser window open - and see if the stock took off in after hours action. If it did, a contestant could execute the trade at the 4 p.m. close price. CNBC has promised to launch an “aggressive investigation,” and hasn’t yet announced a winner. As the name of the game implies, a million bucks are on the line.
NBC Universal’s syndicated Access Hollywood show is 
When the new 
