First look at new MSNBC/NBC News studios

NBC News will debut its new studios on October 22nd with Morning Joe on MSNBC at 6am, following through the net’s shows that day, and NBC Nightly News at 6:30pm ET. Inside Cable News has screen shots and video of the new facility.

10 comments October 11th, 2007

LIN TV to launch YouTube channels

LIN Television has announced plans to launch YouTube channels for its 31 stations, according to Broadcasting & Cable. The plans will make LIN the second broadcast group to produce YouTube channels for local stations, the first being Hearst-Argyle which launched its channels back in June. (Disclosure: I work for Hearst-Argyle and was one of the managers involved in the Hearst-Argyle YouTube launches.)

10 comments October 11th, 2007

Sneak peek of new Current.com

The site is now in beta (invite only) and InteractiveSalsa has a screen grab.

1 comment October 11th, 2007

Weather Channel partners with MySpace

MySpace will be getting a new weather section thanks to a partnership announced this week by Weather Channel Interactive. According to Reuters, the MySpace weather section will feature current conditions and five-day forecasts as well as national and regional maps, weather headlines and weather and climate-related video content.

1 comment October 11th, 2007

Valleywag: Yahoo Newspaper Consortium in trouble

Members of the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium take note: Valleywag has some troubling news:

Yahoo executives keep touting the company’s deal with a “consortium” of newspapers. But from what we hear from insiders, the “consortium” is just a bunch of paper, with no real technology designed to power Yahoo president Sue Decker’s grand vision. Newspaper partners are growing increasingly skeptical that Yahoo will ever deliver. No wonder doubts are growing regarding Yahoo’s grand alliance. Aside from HotJobs, the job-listings site Yahoo bought which has long partnered with newspapers, what substance is there?

Valleywag also points us to Alan Mutter’s Reflection of a Newsosaur, who spoke with online newspaper folks who have a dim outlook on the program.

“We aren’t anywhere near matching the initial gains,” says an online executive at one of the earliest publishers to partner with HotJobs. “We are struggling and I don’t see how we are going to make it.” If this experience proves to be commonplace, it would throw cold water on the idea that hefty, double-digit advances in online sales in the next few years could help Yahoo’s newspaper partners offset an appreciable portion of their declining print revenues.

As always, the best idea is to build your own local advertising networks and not to rely on third parties.

2 comments October 11th, 2007