Archive for January, 2008
QVC-owning behemoth Liberty Media purchased Meridian, ID-based BodyBuilding.com this week. As, um, KTVB.COM reports - BodyBuilding.com has become the leading source for the sales of and information about nutritional supplements. The company was founded in Boise in 1999 and has since grown to a massive $100 million a year business. The site also is working on “BodySpace” — a social network based on the body building community. BodySpace already has 135,000 registered profiles and was key to Liberty Media’s purchase.
January 10th, 2008
Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners have been given the green light to take the radio giant private by the FCC. CC is also working to sell its TV station group to Providence Equity Partners - and has sold or is selling all radio stations in markets smaller than 100 to a variety of buyers. The FCC approved the TV part of the transaction in November.
January 10th, 2008
Romenesko has the internal AP memo from LA bureau chief Frank Baker declaring “Britney” (who has been given one name status in the note) a big deal:
Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal. That doesn’t mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we’ll write something, we must expedite it.
So not only are they going to be on “Britney watch” - but they’re just going to wait for TMZ, et al to lead so they can follow?
January 10th, 2008
The Pew Internet folks have conducted a study that shows unique users to video-sharing sites (dominated by YouTube) have doubled over the last year. Meanwhile, Nielsen-Netratings numbers show that growth on some video sites has accelerated in the wake of the writers strike.
January 10th, 2008
Young Broadcasting hopes to sell KRON before the end of the first quarter. “Our decision to sell is based on the high level of interest in the property we have received,” said Young chairman Vincent Young. “It is purely a strategic economic decision, allowing us to benefit from the proceeds of the sale to further our future corporate initiatives.”
January 10th, 2008
As promised, the AP has rolled out new funtionality to its OVN affiliates that allows them to upload and monetize their own local video. “We’ve seen some early adopters dramatically increase stream counts by using this capability, which allows affiliates to keep all their video in one place, and which lets them sell local advertising against it,” said Bill Burke, AP’s director of online video.
January 10th, 2008
To correspond with the relaunch of Nightly.msnbc.com, MSNBC.com’s Newsvine has built a discussion club around the newscast.
You can watch NBC Nightly News clips and then comment on them, Newsvine style. You can also send Brian Williams a question, and he’ll pick a couple to answer every week. The discussion page lists all the users in the club, and you can drill down on their profiles to see what they’re writing. This is one of the first new features to come out of MSNBC.com’s acquisition of Newsvine, and I’m sure there are many more to come.
January 9th, 2008
I’ve written before about how brand consistency is one of the most damaging maxims for media companies trying to succeed online. And I just read this interview with Nancy Bruner, who heads up online development for Fisher Interactive (which owns KOMOtv.com here in Seattle, a competitor of mine). She says her biggest advice to broadcast companies “is not to do what most newspaper companies have done — use the web as an extension of the core brand. The web should be embraced on its own merits as a unique medium.” Exactly. Now, think of this from a broader perspective than whether your core site should continue to carry the same brand as your station (because it probably should at this stage of the game). Branding is such a powerful force at most TV stations that it carries considerable sway over new product ideas and development. Consciously or unconsciously, people think of new product ideas in terms of brand — how will it support the brand, extend the brand, reinforce the brand — but the brand is an embodiment of who you are and who you’ve been as a TV station. Yet as Lost Remote readers know, the web is not TV. Not by a long shot.
If you ask me my opinion of why most TV stations have done a poor job succeeding online, I’ll give you these four reasons: 1) lack of investment in people and technology 2) unwillingness to take necessary risks 3) TV-driven power structure which results in the inability for web management to quickly allocate resources as they see fit and 4) a bizarre addiction to brand consistency, which limits creative ideas up and down the organization.
January 9th, 2008
This is sweet. A company called Eye-Fi has managed to embed WiFi functionality into a camera memory card. So as you snap photos, it will automatically upload them to any one of 17 different photo and social networking sites (Flickr, Facebook, etc.) that you designate (assuming you’re connected to a WiFi service, like your home network.) The Eye-Fi cards cost $99.99, and it won Yahoo’s “Last Gadget Standing” award at CES.
And CNET’s annual CES “Best in Show” award goes to… the Philip’s Eco TV. The 42-inch 1080i LCD not only saves power, but it can dynamically dim the backlight to correspond to material on the screen — which according to Philip’s, improves the image. Green is in, folks.
January 9th, 2008
In a content partnership, CBSNews.com’s politics pages will soon feature headline feeds of the most popular political stories on Digg. Also, users will be able to Digg CBSNews.com stories (which is already an available feature, but perhaps they’ll make it more visible?) “This is part of our strategic plan to open CBSNews.com to diverse news, analysis and voices from across the Web,” Michael Sims, CBSNews.com’s VP of editorial content, said in a statement from the company. “We are simultaneously exposing our content to the greater Digg community to help encourage more discovery and sharing.”
January 9th, 2008
With Hillary Clinton taking - and keeping - an early lead last night in the New Hampshire primary, talk on MSNBC turned to how wrong the media swarm was in predicting the race for Barack Obama. I was watching when Tom Brokaw joined Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, and the elder statesman of TV news had some wise words (via TV Decoder):
MATTHEWS: We’re going to have to go back and figure out the methodology, I think, on some of these.
BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to go back and do? Wait for the voters to make their judgment.
MATTHEWS: What do we do then in the days before balloting–
BROKAW: What a novel idea–
MATTHEWS: –We must stay home then I guess.
BROKAW: No, no, we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today what moved them to vote. We can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that had not been fully explored in all this.
But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed and trying to stampede and affect the process.
January 9th, 2008
Thirteen Belo TV sites have become the exclusive video provider to Yahoo News in their respective markets (see an example here). Belo joins with the CBS O&Os, bringing Yahoo’s total to 18 of the top 25 markets with local TV video partners. Press release follows below. (Full disclosure: I work for a Belo station that is part of this deal.)
Read the full post January 9th, 2008
Both Robert Scoble and Sarah Meyers have been “eventcasting” live from CES. Scoble is reporting live via his cell phone on Qik. (Watch a live interview he did with the YouTube founders here.) And self-described “lifecaster” and internet cutie Sarah Meyers is packing around a high-def camera, microphone and laptop with an EVDO card to webcast live via both PopSnap and Mogulus (she started on Justin.tv). You can see how she does it in this ZDNet video clip. Thanks to Lost Remote reader Dave for tipping us on the story. He writes, “My key takeaway with this years’ 2008 CES is the year which live mobile video has come of age.” Amazing stuff, especially when you realize that everyone with a smart phone is able to webcast live from just about anywhere.
ZDNet interviewing Sarah while she videotapes herself interviewing the ZDNet reporter, and it’s all live. How strangely meta.
January 9th, 2008
Time Warner has invested up to $12 million in GaiaOnline.com, a virtual world for teens. Gaia says it reaches 3 million teens and grosses $1 million a month in the sale of virtual goods.
January 9th, 2008
- CNN, MTV, Showtime, CBS Sports, Bravo win Technology Emmy Awards
- AP names ENPS executive Bill Burke as new director of AP’s online video
- NBC.com unveils slate of new entertainment content for ‘08
- ABCNews.com Politics traffic jumps 771% for last Saturday’s debate
January 8th, 2008
In an interview with Las Vegas station KVBC, a CES spokesperson said the organization is considering moving its annual confab to another, more affordable city. “We’ve heard from our attendees, from our exhibitors… that the rates of hotels during the International CES are increasing out of proportion from what they think it should be,” said Jason Oxman. No kidding. As anyone who’s tried to book a room for CES knows, hotel rates are blown up to astronomical levels. As much as 5 times the regular rate with 3-day minimums. It’s out of control, and I’m glad CES is calling them on it.
A shot from the floor. More on the CES 2008 Flickr page.
January 8th, 2008
Did you do some awesome online reporting this year? Want to win ten grand for it? Enter the Scripps Howard Journalism Foundation’s National Journalism Awards and take a shot. Full details after the jump.
Read the full post January 8th, 2008
Boston’s CBS O&O is going all out for the New Hampshire primary. WBZ & WBZtv.com will do a special three-hour show tonight online and on co-owned WSBK. A special web chat will be hosted by a political roundup, and the on-air anchors will use the discussion to help guide the night’s coverage. WBZ will wrap up with a newscast at 11pm, with the entire effort being dubbed an election “Triplecast.”
January 8th, 2008
Just a quick brag here: A bunch of my graduate students at American University’s School of Communication are up in New Hampshire covering the primary live as part of a special inter-session course led by Lynne Perri, Bill Gentile and Dotty Lynch. Everyone is doing a great job on the live coverage, and a number of the students will be producing mini-documentaries when they return from the field. You can check out their live work at The American Observer. Click here for more about the course and other details. A couple of students were interviewed on C-SPAN earlier in the day and showed some of their clips on air. Way to go gang!
January 8th, 2008
After a few months in beta, Comcast is taking the wraps on Fancast, its online video service. At first glance, it looks similar to Hulu (Comcast-owned ThePlatform is helping power Hulu), with full shows available from NBC, CBS, Fox, Bravo, FX and more. But Fancast also has some nifty additions, like a TiVo-like personalization feature that asks you a few questions and then suggests upcoming shows you might want to watch on your cable system (hmmm, it’s suggesting I watch “The Bad News Bears” tonight on TNT.) And coming soon, you’ll be able to program your DVR via the site. Fancast also plans to add in-depth content on movies and TV shows, a la IMDb, which could be migrated to a set-top box in the future.
Updated: The other big announcement from Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts is “Project Infinity.” The centerpiece is a new high-speed internet service called “wideband” that promises that users can download an entire high-definition movie in four minutes instead of as long as six hours with DSL. Plus, Comcast is planning to offer a huge menu of on-demand films — ultimately 6,000, up from its current 300 — along with 1,000 clips of HDTV video. Here’s the Project Infinity press release and the Fancast release.
January 7th, 2008
With the threat of pickets from the WGA and promises form SAG members to not cross the picket lines, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has decided to cancel this weekend’s Golden Globe awards. But you can watch an exciting press conference to announce the winners.
January 7th, 2008
In his speech at CES, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang demonstrated a beta version of Yahoo Go 3.0, its mobile platform, which will soon include mobile widgets from third-party content providers like MTV and Facebook. But the biggest news is Yahoo is opening “Go” to third party developers, similar to Google’s earlier “Android” announcement. While Google has more developers on board, Yahoo is hoping that its greater mobile penetration will lure top programmers. “We’re committed to creating the best and richest mobile experience for all consumers,” Yang said. And similar to its web strategy, Yahoo hopes that people use “Go” as its mobile start page.
January 7th, 2008
A little non-CES news that’s making headlines…
- Philadelphia’s KYW-TV fires controversial anchor Alycia Lane
- WashingtonPost.com hires outside firm for major redesign
- Washington Post admits it “incorrectly” reported RIAA story
- Stewart, Colbert back on the air without writers
January 7th, 2008
Despite being told the site wouldn’t launch until Wednesday, it looks like NBC News launched Nightly.msnbc.com tonight. You can check it out now. The site features a large video player with a lot of “web only” clips. I’m a huge fan of content being produced that compliments what is aired, and this presentation showcases it well. Share your reviews in comments!
Also, MSNBC.com video is now embeddable, as promised.
January 7th, 2008
As previously announced by NBCU, but now the redesigned site is live.
Plus, here’s NBC’s CES blog with a video tour of their monster booth.
January 7th, 2008
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