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TechCrunch is reporting that Yahoo is poised to announce its acquisition of Maven Networks, which powers video for Fox News, CBS Sports, CNet, and Scripps Networks. The reported price tag is in the $150 million range.
1 comment January 31st, 2008
Broadcasting & Cable reports Young Broadcasting is cutting $20 million across its station group. The numbers are daunting: 10 people cut from WTEN and as many as 15 from WKRN. “The higher-priced talent was the first to go,” reports B&C. In fact, if you visit WTEN.com’s station bios page, you’ll see the message, “Please come back in a few days to check out our brand new ‘Meet the NEWS10 Team’ page!” Recently, Young said it was exploring the possibility of selling its San Francisco station. “Young keeps saying it’s not about KRON, but it’s all about KRON,” said one station consultant who asked not to be named. “They went over a bridge too far in going after KRON.”
2 comments January 31st, 2008
NY Times’ Brian Stelter reports from NATPE that “the hottest topic was online syndication.” For example, some stations are now streaming the Warner Bros. sitcom “Two and a Half Men.” But the interesting part here is some of Stelter’s pointed statements about local TV sites:
“Local stations know how to use their Web sites to deliver sports scores and updates on school closings, but they have shown little ability to lure viewers with original content or to convert page views into dollars.”
“A majority of local television stations now sell video advertising on their Web sites, but in most cases they are just playing catch-up.”
“The success or failure of stations’ online ventures will ultimately rest on their promotional abilities. Viewers of local TV are often reminded to go online for weather and traffic updates, but often they go to the site of their local newspaper instead. And when they want to see television shows online, they gravitate toward the networks’ Web sites.”
Ok, Lost Remote readers, what do you think? Painful, but true?
23 comments January 31st, 2008
Good news for TiVo. First off, TiVo’s stock shot up as much as 29 percent after winning a federal appeals court ruling in its ongoing patent dispute with Dish Network. As Variety reports, this could bring more licensing deals to the table. Also, CBS has signed with TiVo for its “Stop Watch” service, which provides second-by-second aggregate viewing data from a panel of 20,000 subs.
1 comment January 31st, 2008
Ars Technica has a review of a slew of new search tools that Google has put in Labs for people to pick apart.
- “Alternate views for search results” - includes map, timeline and “more info”
- “Keyword suggestions” - just like what you get on the Firefox toolbar
- “Keyboard shortcuts”
- “Left hand search navigation”
- “Right-hand contextual search navigation”
2 comments January 30th, 2008
How’s your top screen full look these days? Lots of ads, logos, tickers, promos, logos, anchor heads, whizzing this, rotating that? Got a nice in-your-face eyeblaster? Maybe a giant page slider? Cool!
OK. Maybe not. It’s as if we think our users owe it to us to wade through all that crap just to read the frickin’ news. All I want is to know what’s going on. OJR’s Robert Niles - a former newspaper reporter - sums it up: “Readers owe you nothing.”
They have no responsibility as citizens to read your reporting, and no responsibility as consumers to look at your ads. The have the right, and ability, to go about their lives without ever once glancing at your publication…
And…
You can, and should, design your website, or your newspaper or magazine, in a way that draws readers’ attention to your ads or in-house promotions. But when your design crosses the line and forces readers to look at ads they don’t want, you encourage those readers to look elsewhere, jeopardizing the readership levels that makes your business sustainable.
11 comments January 30th, 2008
If you look at CNN.com’s U.S. News section and inside some of the stories, you’ll see some stations among the links that are not affiliated with Internet Broadcasting. Like WABC, for example. Looks like CNN.com is broadening its linking strategy to include all CNN affiliates. (Full disclosure: I work at KING5.com, which is affiliated with CNN.com, and we were linked inside a story today.)
Adds Brink in comments below: “CNN is developing a new relationship with affils and has been making calls to web producers, soliticing their contributions. They’ll place the links to the stories they like best on CNN.com. Kinda like Fark, actually.”
12 comments January 30th, 2008
First MTV debuted a virtual world called Laguna Beach. Then Pimp my Ride. And Virtual Hills, Virtual Kaya, The Real World and Virtual Newport Harbor. And now MTV and partner Makena Technologies have launched a… virtual skate board park. Sweetness.
3 comments January 30th, 2008
Investigative reporter Bill Dedman and the rest of the MSNBC.com team posted an original story today that discovered that more than 17,000 bridges in the U.S. went more than two years between safety inspections. MSNBC.com acquired inspection data for 100,000 bridges through a FOIA request, and then mashed the data with Microsoft Virtual Earth, so you can see the condition and inspection schedule for bridges along your route. Cool.
1 comment January 30th, 2008
While Facebook has experienced tremendous success after opening up to developers, now MySpace has finally decided to do the same. You can start signing up for APIs now, and it’ll go live on February 5th.
2 comments January 29th, 2008
Beginning this morning, WSJ.com will debut a new feature that lets you see which stories are popular with your Facebook friends. Called “SeenThis?” and powered by a company called Loomia, the feature will only activate once you opt-in. Users can also grab a widget of the feature — which would also show popular stories from other selected publishers — to add on their Facebook profiles. If you ask me, this is VERY cool, and it’s a nature addition to the “most popular” and “most emailed” features that are now available on nearly every news site.
Update: NBC.com and CNET sites will also use the new feature
Add comment January 29th, 2008
The FCC may soon approve a plan that would require local TV stations to run at least four 30-second spots a day informing consumers of the upcoming switch to digital TV. As the deadline approaches (just over one year away), the requirement may jump to as high as 12 spots a day. Broadcasters, who are already running DTV spots on their own schedules, say they haven’t been bombarding the airwaves because set-top converter boxes are not yet generally available. (WSJ sub. req.)
4 comments January 29th, 2008
Landmark Communications says it plans to sell KLAS in Las Vegas and WTVF in Nashville. But no word yet on its most valuable asset: The Weather Channel and Weather.com.
3 comments January 29th, 2008
As expected, Yahoo announced job cuts that add up to 7 percent of its workforce. The company’s Q4 profit was $206 million, down from $269 million a year ago.
Add comment January 29th, 2008
In a speech at NATPE, NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker confirmed earlier reports that the network is cutting back on its pilot season and eliminating its annual upfront presentation. “We believe the big show is a vestige of the last decade. Every year, the big question at the upfront presentation of our new schedule is: How fast can the show be over?” Zucker said. NBCU will still sell upfront ad inventory, but through one-on-one meetings. The prevailing theme in all of this — which certainly isn’t new — is the need to “change the cost structures in the industry.” On the digital front, Zucker said the challenge with NBC.com and Hulu.com, for example, is “to effectively monetize them so that we do not end up trading analog dollars for digital pennies.” He said the industry’s next biggest challenge is to create a next-generation video advertising model.
Add comment January 29th, 2008
This ought to be interesting. Quiznos created a contest for users to submit video ads showing its superiority to Subway. Then Subway sued, saying that some of the ads make false claims. But since Quiznos didn’t make the ads — just solicited them — should they be held liable? The outcome could have deep ramifications for not only user ads, but content as well.
2 comments January 29th, 2008
It’s been a few years since we attended NATPE in Las Vegas (because it doesn’t compare to NAB and CES on the technology front, among other reasons.) But it’s still a destination for 7,000 to 8,000 TV execs on the hunt for programming. If you’re interested, TV Week has the event covered, and the magazine is even shooting… video!
1 comment January 29th, 2008
- America’s Funniest producer launches new site Reality.tv
- FoxSports.com on MSN’s Super Bowl coverage plans
- Digg.com nearly triples registered users in one year’s time
- Metacafe teams with Endemol for web video game show
Add comment January 29th, 2008
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