|
|
That’s what NY Times’ Charles McGrath asked in a story posted back on February 17th, and the fallout is fierce. Readers posted hundreds of comments on NYTimes.com, and PBS says it has received 5,000 comments since Jim Lehrer mentioned the story on the air on Monday. After all, PBS viewers are a loyal bunch.
20 comments February 21st, 2008
YouTube has been experimenting with overlay ads — lower-third graphics and text that appear at certain points in clips — and now Google says it will expand the program to Revver, Blip.tv, Brightcove, and 17 other partner sites. “This allows us to become a one-stop shop for people interested in in-video advertising,” said Christian Oestlien, a Google product manager.
Add comment February 21st, 2008
TVNewsday has a great write-up explaining the challenges facing IB, WorldNow and other web service providers as TV stations demand more flexibility and faster product development online. “The days of having a [one-size-fits-all] business partner for the web are over,” says Brian Buchwald of NBC’s Local Media Division. “Web strategies will develop less around these platforms and more around individual best-of-breed applications based on what providers can bring to market.”
8 comments February 21st, 2008
I was perusing Google News a moment ago and noticed a video link here:
I clicked it, and a YouTube player appeared embedded in the page:
The clip is originating from the Associated Press, via YouTube. Looks like Google News and AP have expanded their relationship to include video, embedded right in the page. Interesting, huh?
8 comments February 20th, 2008
NBC announced it would shift to a year-round schedule of new program debuts, an “endless season,” instead of just focusing on the fall season as networks have done for decades. If it succeeds, “it could alter an American cultural cycle that extends all the way back to the days of radio,” writes the NY Times. Meanwhile, NBC said it would modify some aspects of its upfront process, but it will still hold its annual advertising presentation in NYC.
3 comments February 20th, 2008
Chez Pazienza, the American Morning producer who was fired for blogging, has written a long post about his dismissal. Regardless of who you think was in the right, I found it interesting to note that Pazienza admits that “the profession I once loved and felt honored to be a part of has lost its way.” I think many producers in TV news feel the same way. Pazienza used his blog as an outlet, and it backfired.
8 comments February 20th, 2008
Have you seen Yahoo Pipes yet? The service allows you to take any data source, run just about any processing you could conceive, and reoutput the data stream in a variety of formats. For instance: I wanted to put a module with the items I post to Lost Remote on my Idaho Radio News blog. I took the Lost Remote RSS feed and pulled it into Pipes. I set a filter to only allow items with my name in the creator field - then hooked it to the output. I then ran the resulting RSS feed through Feed Digest and plopped the JavaScript down on the radio blog sidebar. This is a very simple example - the Pipes directory has dozens more.
4 comments February 19th, 2008
Jeff Jarvis calls it reverse syndication: big publishers pay smaller publishers to link to their material. Jarvis has a fascinating, albeit early-stage idea to help pay for expensive news coverage. He uses the New York Times’ Iraq coverage as an example. The NYT says it puts out nearly $3 million per year to cover the war zone.
Let’s say the Times says to Tribune company that it will provide all the reporting on Iraq for Tribune’s readers. But instead of charging Tribune for syndication, the Times pays Tribune a share of the ad revenue it gets from traffic Tribune sends to the Times.
He notes that publishers could compete - paying higher commissions for traffic. If you were a smaller publisher and were looking for quality content - content that you could aggregate - wouldn’t it be attractive to use an “upstream publisher” (my term) that pays you to link to them?
1 comment February 19th, 2008
Well, you’re in luck. Welcome to AngryJournalist.com. (Via Fimoculous)
3 comments February 19th, 2008
A new Samsung set-top box, called See’n'Search, is a search engine of sorts for your television. Using closed captioning and program listings, the box automatically searches the internet to give viewers more information on the shows they’re watching. In this video demo, a newscast on the Iowa Caucus popped up key topics: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama…etc, and you can click a topic for a variety of search results across Google, Wikipedia or even video. In the demo, the Samsung guy clicked Hillary Clinton and selected her website, which appeared full screen. While they have a ways to go on the usability front (as you can see, it’s a little cluttered), this approach to interactive TV — it doesn’t have to be pre-programmed, it just automatically correlates information on the internet — has tremendous promise.
3 comments February 19th, 2008
Today Toshiba officially pulled the plug on the HD DVD format, ending the format wars with Blu-Ray. “This was a very difficult decision to make…but when we thought about the trouble we would cause to consumers and our partners, we decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence,” Toshiba Chief Executive Atsutoshi Nishida told a news conference.
3 comments February 19th, 2008
- BBC inks deal to put TV shows on iTunes
- Martha Stewart buys Emeril’s show, website, cookbook
- Gates says Microsoft isn’t negotiating higher price for Yahoo
- Will Microsoft announce Netflix deal for Xbox?
- Clear Channel station deal to Providence Equity on the rocks
1 comment February 19th, 2008
The top show in American has now partnered with Apple to post performances, both music and video, on iTunes the day after they air on TV. Apple will also be a premiere sponsor of the show, just like Ford, AT&T and Coca-Cola. So, what kind of in-show placement will we see? Apple iPod and iTouch will become the show’s official MP3 player and the iPhone will become its official phone handset.
Press release follows below…
Read the full post 4 comments February 18th, 2008
Take a look at this graph from Ad Age:
Wow. While the media industry’s employment declines, there’s a surge of hiring in marketing consulting. Ad Age has all the details here.
7 comments February 18th, 2008
So why are so few reality shows produced in high-def? The cost, of course.
2 comments February 18th, 2008
The NBC owned-and-operated stations have canceled In the Loop With iVillage effective March 28th, reports TV Week. The show was heralded as the first true multiplatform daytime show, with web interactivity and live streaming. (Here’s our first story when the show launched, and the follow-up when it relaunched in Chicago.) TV Week reports that NBC station execs still believe in the concept, but low ratings ultimately doomed the show.
7 comments February 18th, 2008
Forbes has a great in-depth look at the battle brewing between the Associated Press and its newspaper members. It covers a lot of ground we’ve already talked about - but also focuses on the collectives changing revenue picture.
For decades, the newspaper industry accounted for the lion’s share of AP’s revenue. But during the 1990s, the news agency branched out into lucrative new lines of business, including broadcast video and online initiatives, making it less reliant on revenue from print outlets.
Newspapers only account for 30% of total revenue. Broadcast clients make up 37%, and online ventures bring in 15%. While the newspaper members are struggling - the AP clearly is not:
In 2006, the most recent year that financial data are available, AP posted net income of $13.3 million, down from $18.5 million in 2005, on revenue of $679.8 million, up from $654.2 million. For comparison’s sake, back in 1990 before AP got into broadcast video or Internet ventures, the cooperative posted net income of $7.4 million on revenue of $311.9 million.
Add comment February 17th, 2008
The TV industry isn’t the only one going through the end of the analog era. AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless will shut of their analog voice networks Monday - signaling an end to the first generation of cellular technology. AT&T says more than 99.9% of its traffic is already digital - and they’ve been pushing to get the final converts. There is still some fallout - some home security alarms use the analog network, as do older vehicles with OnStar. And this:
Among cell-phone subscribers, the analog sunset is most likely to hurt so-called “glovebox users,” said IDC analyst Scott Ellison. These are users, often elderly, who just keep a cell phone in the glovebox in case their cars break down. They usually don’t feel a need to update their handsets.
2 comments February 17th, 2008
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jan | Mar » | |||||
| 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 | ||
