Archive for June, 2007
It looks like sweeps time on many major news sites, with Paris Hilton’s jail release leading the news. Not only is the story is given the lead treatment by the usual suspects, but it’s also the top story at the New York Times and the Washington Post. It also made Pravda. A bunch of frame grabs after the jump, but leave it to the Fox News website to come up with a headline that somehow manages to compare Paris’s release to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Dream”:
Click through the jump for more examples.
Read the full post June 26th, 2007
The state of Michigan is going through somewhat of a budget crisis. In an effort to shed light on the subject, the Lansing State Journal posted the salary information for all 53,000 of Michigan’s state employees online. Shocker: The paper is taking some serious heat. Public employees and unions are of course steamed - but even one Freedom of Information group isn’t happy - saying the mass posting could set back FOI efforts in Michigan The paper’s publisher says he isn’t having second thoughts: “But the issue isn’t the budget, it really isn’t, and it isn’t the context — it’s that people just don’t want their salaries published, even though it is public information.” What do you think? You can bet the database is generating big traffic for the paper’s site, and the information is public - but is it good journalism?
June 25th, 2007
Most of the items posted here detail what TV entities are doing to propel the Internet future. But for TMZ.com, the opposite is about to take place. The Time Warner-owned site will soon sprout a 30-minute syndicated newsmagazine. Founder Harvey Levin has been just about everywhere these days - truly out front of the story of the Paris Hilton media storm. “We work as hard at breaking a Britney Spears story as NBC would work on breaking a President Bush piece,” Levin told the NY Times in fascinating look behind the site’s star-studded curtain. TMZ’s influence is huge, according to Levin - “We’ve become like The Associated Press in the world we cover.” TMZ’s television cousin launches September 10. Need proof of TMZ’s influence? Check out the the 1,700+ Google News hits for the site’s name (without duplicates).
Slightly related: Larry King had to bump Michael Moore for his Wednesday exclusive with Paris.
June 25th, 2007
Today when I did my routine check of my favorite national sites I was surprised to see a newspaper site leading their page with video. On top of leading washingtonpost.com with video, it was shot by their own staff, and in a 16×9 player from Brightcove. I have screen grabs of the player after the jump.
Read the full post June 25th, 2007
This week, we record GET LOST via Skype, with Cory in Seattle and me in Boston. It’s the first episode of GL where we’re not actually together in a room and man, does it sound like it. Still, not bad considering we’re 3,000 miles and several beers apart. In this podcast, we discuss the recent trend of private equity firms purchasing local stations - and whether those stations’ web efforts are a “drag” on station values. We also chat about ABC News’s recent move to cut traditional jobs and beef up digital jobs. All that, in glorious monophonic sound, in this episode of GET LOST.
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June 25th, 2007
According to Broadcasting & Cable, the president of Belo Interactive, Wesley Jackson, is stepping down from that role as of September 1, 2007. Jackson cited family reasons for leaving the position. He was appointed president in March.
June 25th, 2007
As we previewed last week, today Blinkx took the wraps off AdHoc, an online video ad network that identifies keywords in video through speech recognition and targets ads accordingly. Press release with details below…
Read the full post June 25th, 2007
My favorite video podcast, Diggnation, is a production of Revision3, which just landed $8 million in funding as it expands its slate of technology-related video podcasts. (Revision3 is run by the same folks who head up Digg.) Revision3 now has secured rights to ten shows and is continuing to add more talent, reports Techcrunch.
June 25th, 2007
With all the attention paid to Katie Couric and ratings decline of CBS Evening News, the AP’s David Bauder takes a look at second place NBC Nightly News. He writes:
“All the attention paid to Couric’s tough start at CBS has overshadowed what’s been going on at NBC. In Couric’s first 39 weeks at CBS, she’s lost 287,000 viewers from the average of a year ago, a drop of 4 percent from predecessor Bob Schieffer’s audience. At the same time, “Nightly News” lost 533,000 viewers, or 5 percent, Nielsen said.”
Explains Brian Williams, “I, honest to God, couldn’t tell you what the ratings are and couldn’t tell you that for days on end,” he said. “It really is immaterial in a way. There isn’t anything we can do on a given day to tweak.”
June 25th, 2007
The NY Times reports that News Corp. and Dow Jones are close to coming to terms on the stickiest point of the proposed acquisition: editorial independence. And the Journal reports, “Talks have speeded up ever since the Bancrofts last week gave Dow Jones’s board the power to negotiate with News Corp. Both sides described the negotiations as constructive, and said that an agreement in principle for News Corp. to acquire Dow Jones could come together quickly. ” (WSJ sub. req. for second link)
Plus: The NY Times’ investigative piece on Murdoch is out today
June 25th, 2007
Found this amid my travels online: April’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco had a session called “The Lost Remote: The Internet Video Revolution.” And we weren’t even invited. Harumph.
June 25th, 2007
Broadcasting and Cable tallies up the flurry of TV station sales to private equity firms and comes up with $50 billion in deals. News Corp., LIN, CBS, Nexstar, Pappas, New York Times Co. and Clear Channel have all put some or all of their stations on the block recently. Some analysts wonder if the logjam is just the “flavor of the month” for PE firms - and worry that clouds could be building on the horizon for the business as traditional revenue starts to fall. Are last-minute online efforts at local stations actually a “drag on value” in the face of the Googles (and even newspapers) of the world? Bill Hague, senior VP for Frank N. Magid Associates notes that many stations aren’t seeing big success online: “We can count on one hand the stations who are winning the game online.”
June 24th, 2007
Rupert Murdoch has been trying to purchase the Wall Street Journal to boost his new Fox Business Channel. Well a past adversary is back and trying to keep it from happening. Brad Greenspan, who founded MySpace.com, entered the bidding with a $1.5 billion offer to take a 25% stake in Dow Jones with a focus of helping wsj.com and marketwatch.com. This offer comes two years after he tried unsuccessfully to stop Murdoch from buying MySpace. “I do not believe any current publicly disclosed acquisition offers for Dow Jones fully recognise the potential which Dow Jones’ unique assets, properties, and brands represent,” Greenspan wrote in a letter to the board.
June 23rd, 2007
It’s summer and school’s out for Michael Eisner’s Emmy-nominated web series “Prom Queen.” The show wrapped up this week, after 80 webisodes and over 15 million streams. Now there are plans to roll out a summer spinoff called “Prom Queen: Summer Heat.” The spinoff will debut in August with 15 two-minute webisodes.
June 23rd, 2007
In a plan announced Friday, ABC News will be beefing up their digital division by cutting positions in their traditional TV division. ABC News President David Westin said in the memo that the plan is to “re-design the division to reflect the growing importance of our digital offerings - and their centrality to our future.”
June 23rd, 2007
I just stumbled across the DC bureau page for McClatchy Newspapers. The site ties together the organization’s original reporting, blogs, political cartoons and columns. The site has open comments, and (for now at least) no ads. Banner ads running on McClatchy properties promote the site.
(Disclosure: I compete against a McClatchy newspaper as part of the day job).
Adds Howard in comments: “The site is just a week old, and we’re planning to introduce a number of new features, mainly aimed at greater interactivity (video commentary uploads, better user generated forums, etc)… And I promise, we’re working on that part about few ads.”
June 23rd, 2007
Got twenty minutes? Apple just posted a full video tour of the iPhone - the most detailed look at the new gadget yet.
Update: Slate.com is looking for the “most fawning piece” of iPhone worship from the media…
June 22nd, 2007
The Tribune websites are launching redesigns (except the latimes.com), and the first to launch was OrlandoSentinel.com. Why is this news for us? Well, many TV stations compete against a Tribune paper. Although, I’m challenged to call this a newspaper website, as I see plenty of video, weather and traffic. Even their story pages have better video placement than most TV sites I’ve seen. The site includes comments and ratings by readers on stories and photos. The slideshows are embedded and not a pop-up. Oh, and there is only one branding logo on the page. How many TV stations do that? Overall a nice, clean redesign. I just wish they killed the vertical navigation.
June 22nd, 2007
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