|
|
A Honolulu newspaper had to point out to KM Communications that the call letters it selected for its new low-power digital station in Maui were… well, highly objectionable. The new station name? KUNT. “(It’s) extremely embarrassing for me and my company and we will file to change those call letters immediately,” wrote Kevin Bae, VP of KM Communications. (Thanks, discreet_chaos for the link of the week!)
23 comments July 29th, 2007
The Associated Press will shutter its ASAP service on October 31. ASAP was started in 2005 as a way for the AP to reach out to the younger, bloggier audience: ASAP offered multimedia, web-centric packages of materials. The AP says the division was simply not a financial success. It plans on using some of the ASAP multimedia elements in other AP offerings.
7 comments July 29th, 2007
A sampling of stories and links about the Phoenix helicopter accident:
- AZ Central: Colleagues struggle to report emotional news from collision
- Stories on Scott Bowerbank, Jim Cox, Rick Krolak and Craig Smith
- AP: Arizona crash a first for TV news choppers
- KTVK photographer: “Wow, what a punch in the gut”
- B-Roll.net: Forum of photographers talking about the crash
Add comment July 28th, 2007
When the news first broke about today’s tragic accident, TV newsrooms everywhere let out a gasp. The very nature of our business — moving from station to station — means that everyone knows someone from just about everywhere. And chopper accidents are especially traumatic because photographers, reporters, assignment editors, producers and news directors always have that fear living in the back of their minds. Newsrooms are families, and many of us have extended families in multiple markets.
KTVK’s Scott Bowerbank and Jim Cox
KNXV’s Craig Smith and Rick Krolak
Please take this opportunity to leave a comment with your thoughts, prayers and condolences for the KTVK and KNXV newsrooms and the families of the victims…
You can leave your condolences on KTVK’s site and KNXV’s site or below…
20 comments July 27th, 2007
La Voz and Arizona Republic photographer A.J. Alexander snapped this terrifying shot of the choppers going down shortly after they collided:
You can see more photos on AZCentral.com.
Add comment July 27th, 2007
The helicopters for KTVK and KNXV in Phoenix collided while covering a police pursuit, killing all four on board. For KTVK, pilot Scott Bowerbank and photographer Jim Cox died in the crash. At KNXV, pilot Craig Smith and photographer Rick Krolak were on board. (Screen grab from KPHO moments after the crash.)
KTVK’s anchors tearfully broke the news on the air.
AZCentral reports that KNXV pilot Smith was on the radio with KTVK’s Bowerbank in the moments before the crash:
“Where’s 3?”
“How far? Oh geez.”
“3, I’m right over you. 15 on top of you.”
“I’m over the top of you.”
The accident happened shortly after the driver of the truck being pursued jumped out and carjacked another vehicle. A witness said he noticed the choppers were flying too close together. “It was like a vacuum. They just got sucked into each other, and they both exploded and pieces were flying everywhere.”
“The news directors at the stations are members of our association, and our heart really goes out to them in a situation like this,” said RTNDA chair Barbara Cochran. “These pilots, they are very professional. They combine the skills of pilots and skills as journalists. It’s something that’s very, very sad.”
(First screen grab from KPHO’s chopper shortly after the crash. Second screen grab is from KTVK’s air as the anchors share the tragic news).
- KTVK’s coverage | live stream | mirror link to live stream
- KNXV’s coverage
- Arizona Republic
- KPHO coverage and live stream (in player on right)
20 comments July 27th, 2007
In today’s edition of David’s Daily Grump, Adobe is making me mad. I’m evaluating some software for various reasons, a fine Friday afternoon thing to do. After lengthy downloading and much time wasted (and yes I should have read the Premiere Pro CS3: FAQ first), I’ve learned painfully that it won’t run on my trusty G5 because i have a PowerPC processor and Adobe decided to only support Intel based Macs. A sound business decision? Sure, Apple isn’t making PowerPCs anymore, but there are piles of them out in the marketplace that have yet to depreciate and since Apples pretty much run like tanks, they are going to be there for a while. Adobe really impressed me at how they bundled InDesign into their early Creative Suite releases and priced them so that as everyone got the crucial Photoshop and Illustrator upgrades, they pretty much pushed Quark right out of the way. I have never seen a pagination program take that much marketshare that fast. When I saw that Premiere was going to be bundled into CS3 versions, I thought they were setting their sites on Apple’s Final Cut with the same vengeance. But, without a bridge or patch to trick out SSE2 support on PowerPC macs, I see a whole pile of possible customers who will be happily using Final Cut. You can be sure that Apple won’t provide it, and this won’t be a case of buying out Macromedia to swap the mighty Dreamweaver in for clunky GoLive. Grrrrumble.
2 comments July 27th, 2007
Enough of my game, print and advertising yakkin’. Here’s the latest ComScore report on online video. Measuring May 2007, nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video per user during the month. No surprise to see that sites in the Google family pulled down more than 20 percent of the 8.3 billion video streams served out during the month. YouTube alone accounted for 1.7 billion streams. Fox Interactive Media was a distant second with a mere 8.1 percent of the total.
Add comment July 27th, 2007
PlayStation 2 is the big winner in the first release of Nielsen’s new GamePlay Metrics, accounting for 42 percent of all metered gaming in the month of June. Nielsen will be providing monthly updates on game console use and PC game play. From the release:
68.1 million individuals used a video game console in June, playing an average of 7.5 days during the month. On the days they played, Xbox 360 users logged an average of 2.2 sessions, with an average session length of 61 minutes. In contrast, PlayStation 3 users’ logged an average of 1.9 sessions, with an average session length of 83 minutes, on the days they played.
The most played PC game was a blow-out as “World of Warcraft” took the prize being played more than four times as much as any other PC game.
2 comments July 27th, 2007
In a story that seems like it was written for LostRemote commenter Hart, Fortune’s Mark Gunther gives us “Can the Washington Post survive?” Gunther lays it all out: the declining revenues in print, the increased focus in multimedia journalism, the hyperlocal strategies. Having earned a slew of industry awards in every category from design to advertising to journalism, washingtonpost.com is arguably the best of the breed without even taking into account the 131-year-old ink-and-paper giant that bred it. CEO Don Graham poured millions into the online operation while other publishers were doubling down in print and would later pay the price.
But even the most successful online newspaper doesn’t pull down enough cash to compare to advertisers’ perceived value of print: “Advertisers paid about $573 million last year to reach readers of the company’s newspapers, predominantly the 673,900 daily and 937,700 Sunday subscribers to the Post. Advertisers paid only about $103 million to reach the eight million unique visitors to the Post’s Web sites each month.” And later in the article, Mark gives us this warming chestnut:
Getting a bigger share of national spending will be even harder, because advertisers who want to reach news readers have so many other places to spend their money - other newspapers, TV news sites, Yahoo and MSN, news aggregators like the Drudge Report and Huffington Post, even blogs. “You’re almost always going to be able to find inventory,” says Jordan Bitterman, director of media for Digitas, which buys Internet advertising for American Express, AT&T and General Motors. “So the buyer has more leverage than in the print category.”
Anyway you look at this, it isn’t a pretty picture for anyone in the news business. Print is bleeding, but our customers, the guys like Jordan Bitterman who buy our advertising space, go to bed happy at night knowing they don’t need to pay us a lot to reach our online audiences.
8 comments July 26th, 2007
Just came from taking the family to “The Simpsons Movie,” showing here in Aruba at the cinema in Oranjestad. It started playing on Wednesday, and methinks the theater is breaking the embargo. The movie “opens worldwide” Friday. This version has Spanish subtitles, and I’m guessing it arrived in the mail a little early. Given the amount of fake Gucci, Prada and other assorted merchandise one can find here, not surprised they’re a little loose with embargo dates. As for my three word, spoiler-free review: Good. Not Scratchtastic.
7 comments July 26th, 2007
The Associated Press and other outlets today are reporting a “dramatic fall” by singer Beyonce Knowles. The AP story says the clip is on YouTube. But most of the items now have been pulled, and carry this tag: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Sony BMG.” You can hear the song she is singing in the background… therefore - the clip MUST BE PULLED!
Update: I just found it on Break.com - about 25 seconds in.
26 comments July 26th, 2007
Lost Remote has frequently posted about the extremely restrictive (and sometimes zany) NFL guidelines for local coverage of games. Yesterday RTNDA Executive Director Barbara Cochran sent a letter to Roger Goodell requesting a meeting to discuss local coverage guidelines. Some of the issues RTNDA would like to cover include limitations on use of video and audio online, requiring photojournalists to wear the logos of NFL sponsors during games, and the exclusion of regional cable news channels from covering games. Now’s our chance to air our grievances. What other issues should RTNDA bring up with Goodell? You can also e-mail your thoughts to rtnda@rtnda.org.
7 comments July 26th, 2007
With Brian Stelter settling into his new gig at the New York Times, the “new” TVNewser has stepped out of the shadows after blogging for several weeks (and full time since Brian signed off Friday). As Jossip already tipped - former MSNBC EP Chris Ariens takes over as editor of the blog. But as he notes in his first bylined post, he won’t be alone. Most notably, Philadelphia Inquirier metro writer Gail Shister will be contributing, as rumored. Shister spent 25 years on the TV beat before the paper moved her to the metro desk this month. Variety contributor/author Diane Clehane and consultant/former TV reporter Alissa Krinsky round out the “new” ‘Newser.
Add comment July 25th, 2007
Of all the reasons for News Corp. to jump in to the business news fray, is it any wonder that the fact that there’s a killing to be made would be chief among them? TVWeek’s Michelle Greppi figures CNBC takes home $680 million between ad sales and subscriber fees - with Bloomberg News pulling down another $50-$100 million. Analysts think the forthcoming Fox Business Network will take some of CNBC’s take, but also increase the size of the pie.
1 comment July 25th, 2007
The online video site that hopes to bring TV content to the masses via an innovative peer to peer network just crossed the million user mark. Niklas Zennström let the number slip at a Skype press event. Joost, of course, is still in beta.
3 comments July 25th, 2007
A host of television shows set to debut or return this fall already have episodes floating around on Torrent networks, leading some to speculate that the “massive leak” is anything but piracy. Episodes of Weeds, Chuck, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Pushing Daisies, Californication, Reaper and Brotherhood can all be picked up online right now.
8 comments July 25th, 2007
Ten days ago I wondered which newspaper would be the first to take the plunge and stop printing and go online only. Who knew it would be this soon. The Weekly World News announced it will stop printing its crazy stories and instead distribute its news product via a direct telepathic link to users. Or online. Whichever.
Yeah, so it isn’t a major daily dumping its print product, but the WWN is seeing a similar trend to some of its so-called “real news” cousins. Circulation fell from 46% from 2004 to 2006. The Loch Ness Monster, Elvis, JFK, Bat Boy and Amelia Earhart are rumored to be planning a farewell bash for the paper to be held on a sound stage in LA decked out to look like the surface of the moon.
Plus: Check this out - ABC News put together a slideshow of some classic WWN covers.
2 comments July 25th, 2007
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jun | Aug » | |||||
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | |||||
