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Drew Carey debuted as host of The Price is Right today. Forget whether or not the host is right for a moment - this has to be one of the better ‘Price’ sequences you’ll see:
Update: It appears this YouTube gem isn’t from the first show, even though only one show has aired. A leak, perhaps?
14 comments October 15th, 2007
Time Warner announced today it will cut 20% of its AOL unit staff - 2,000 jobs. AOL lost 1.1 million subscribers in the second quarter (to which my cynical mind asks, “does AOL even have 1.1 million subs still?) Of course, AOL is trying to emerge from the subscriber-based business to an ad supported model.
“We’re now in a position to win as an advertising-supported business. We have a bright future as a company if we can execute on this vision,” AOL head Randy Falco told employees in a memo obtained by Variety.
1 comment October 15th, 2007
I just returned from the Edward R. Murrow awards dinner in NYC, and I have two highlights to share. First, 60 Minutes producer Michael Radutzky accepted the award for news documentary for the Duke rape case story. It was Ed Bradley’s second-to-last story (which also won a Peabody), and Radutzky’s emotional remarks honored Bradley as well as the Duke students wrongly accused of rape. Radutzsky had invested months in the story, and one of the students was in the audience with his family to witness the RTNDA awards ceremony. The second highlight was NBC News winning the overall excellence award. Before NBC News President Steve Capus accepted the award, RTNDA played a clip from a Martin Fletcher report in Israel. Fletcher was doing a story on the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel, and he was running from attack to attack — literally — beating the ambulances to the scene. At one scene, a woman was desperately trying to find her husband by calling him on his cell phone. He wasn’t answering. Then someone heard a phone ringing — next to a man’s body lying nearby. It was by far the most impactful clip of the night, and Capus reminded everyone of the risks that reporters, photographers and producers are experiencing in the Middle East to bring us these stories.
Meanwhile, RTNDA President Barbara Cochran suggested I check out the brand new RTNDA.org. Yes, RTNDA has finally relaunched the site, and it’s a tremendous improvement, featuring industry news, a directory of suppliers and job postings. And wait, there’s a blog with posts from our own Steve Safran!
Finally, a little editorial comment. Dozens upon dozens of awards were handed out tonight, with just three going to the web (CNN.com, KING5.com and WAFF.com), and each site did not get a “clip” like the TV or radio folks. I thank RTNDA for adding the web awards in the first place, and now it’s time to expand them to represent the millions of Americans who depend on the web for their news day in and day out.
3 comments October 15th, 2007
Just found this interesting tidbit in a press release from CBS Sports: “Since rebranding the service CBSSports.com this past August, users to the site have increased a healthy 27%. I have to wonder if that’s due to the site being easier to find with an easier URL, or if CBS is running more promotion for it. I’ve always believed shorter is better, and this may be one more case study to support that.
4 comments October 15th, 2007
CNN has a new breaking news alert desktop application that they launched through their breaking news e-mail lists today. I haven’t received any alerts yet, but it has a nice look to it. You can download Desktop Alerter here.
5 comments October 15th, 2007
Adweek reports that Google is off to a promising start creating a new TV advertising marketing while eBay last week admitted it is “disappointed” by the early response. Google says it has sold more than 100,000 spots to dozens of marketers since its May launch on Dish TV.
Add comment October 15th, 2007
Discovery Communications is acquiring the how-to site for $250 million. The plan is to add video to HowStuffWorks.com’s pages, as well as expand Discovery’s online footprint. This summer, Discovery bought TreeHugger.com. And last November, it bought PetFinder.com.
1 comment October 15th, 2007
Today at 2:30 p.m. ET, the National Association of Broadcasters will announce an “unparalleled consumer education marketing campaign” to reach TV viewers about the upcoming hard switch to digital. You can watch a live webcast of the press conference here. As many of you know, the vast majority of TV viewers have no idea what’s going to happen on February 19th, 2009, when their analog TV sets suddenly become snow — a transition that will have a massive impact on local television.
Add comment October 15th, 2007
LR pal Scott Kirsner writes a great piece in today’s Boston Globe that gives insight into the birth of Brightcove, which had its roots in the same Cambridge tech incubator as Maven Networks. Jeremy Allaire, who was on the board of Maven, raised enough money to start Brightcove and announced his intentions to Maven CEO Hilmi Ozguc in August, 2004. Ozguc was “mildly surprised,” and even though, as Allaire says, “(Maven) had complete transparency into what I was doing and what the business plan was,” things have been chilly ever since. A great story.
Add comment October 15th, 2007
The new business network from FOX launched this morning, along with website foxbusiness.com. I appreciate the quality of the video on the site, since my cable provider is not providing the channel for me to watch. The video is 16×9, embeddable, and a pop-out feature so you can surf the site while still watching your selected video. The site’s not perfect though, offering up “undefined story” errors 3 hours after the network launched, and several pages showing html coding. By the time you read this, they will probably have those problems fixed.
Check out the channel’s launch video here: Since FOX Business decided their embedded videos should auto play with audio, I’m not embedding it. How annoying.
Update from Cory: Anyone else having trouble loading the site? Verrry slow and buggy, like Michael said. And what does everyone think of the design?
13 comments October 15th, 2007
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