Lin sites drop World Now, go with Fox
Lin TV is pulling its 29 stations off World Now and switching to a “hybrid relationship” with Fox Interactive Media. “It’s our brand on top of their technology,” said LIN Senior VP of New Media Robert Richter. “It allows us to custom develop specific items we want to build.” WPRI is the first non-Fox Lin [...]
Cox’s WPXI launches new design
Pittsburgh’s Cox station, WPXI.com, has launched a new design, and the other Cox sites are expected to follow soon. The design follows the trend for TV sites toward clean, simplified designs that reduce their reliance on TV branding (the masthead features weather coverage, not anchor heads). WPXI.com’s site also includes an embedded video player on [...]
Layoffs at Zillow despite big growth
Startups are heeding the advice of their investors and cutting costs fast in the face of a major recession. For one, Zillow announced today that it’s laying off 25 percent of its staff despite a 42 percent increase in traffic over the previous year. Zillow CEO Rich Barton explains it well: “We concluded that we [...]
NBC should give Leno the 10/9c slot
(Not local media, but humor me?) Next year, NBC will shift its late-night lineup for the first time since 1992. Jay Leno will leave the Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien will step up to his timeslot and Jimmy Fallon will take over at 12:35am.
Tribune gives notice to drop AP
Tribune becomes the first major newspaper group in the country to give AP the required two-year notice to drop the service. Of course, it remains to be seen if Tribune plans to cancel or is using the notice as negotiation leverage. But it seems these cancellation notices are gaining momentum as the newspaper industry continues [...]
Analyst: ‘Soft metrics’ ads to decline
“All eyes are on 2009,” said Canaccord Adams analyst Colin Gillis. “Display-advertising business models are under siege, as revenue visibility is increasingly unpredictable…. Display remains the domain of brand advertisers, and with its softer metrics is more readily seen as a source of spend that can be reduced.” And what about search? “We continue to [...]
Big innovation at small Vegas paper
Geneva Overholser over at OJR wrote a nice little post on the innovative spirit at the Las Vegas Sun, one of my favorite local sites in the country. The dead tree version of the Sun is a small paper. But the Sun’s site can go toe-to-toe with anybody. We’ve written before about some of the [...]
Murrow, 50 years ago today
“This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box.” –Edward R. Murrow, October 15, 1958
Updates are a little slow…
… because we’re working on something new for Lost Remote, which may launch as early as this weekend. So stay tuned…
Domain typos are a million dollar business
Harvard University professor Ben Edelman charges Google is making millions off of typo URLs, domain names of trademarked brands that are off by one letter. The real sore spot here is that the owners of those brands buy them as key words, so if you type in BankofDAmerica.com, one of the AdSense ads that flies [...]
A deeper look at the new NBC sites
Terry Heaton has a good write-up analyzing the new NBC owned-and-operated sites, of which the first, NBCChicago.com, launched a few days ago.
KTRK helicopter crashes, 2 killed
Just over a year after four people died when two TV choppers collided in Phoenix, there’s word out of Houston that KTRK’s chopper has crashed, killing the pilot and photographer on board. Details from KTRK, video from KHOU and more from Chron.com.
SNL bits now more popular off-TV than on
Back in the 1990s, SNL was must-see TV, especially for those who might not have had something better to do on a Saturday night. Now? What’s the point? You’re just going to see the best parts viraly anyway. Whether it’s a clip on cable news, a link to Hulu or something you found on YouTube, [...]
Web revenue for newspapers stalling
The New York Times on newspapers: “The growth in online advertising they saw as their salvation has slowed to a crawl.” Newspaper site revenue actually fell 2.4% in the second quarter, after 17 straight quarters of growth. More bad news: overall online advertising is strong – just not at the local paper sites. The story [...]
NBC ready to launch new sites
Here’s the release on the news we teased last week about NBC’s “local media” (O&O) sites. NBC says the sites will no longer be “an adjunct to its local television station,” and will add in content from print, online pubs., bloggers and others. WMAQ launches first – this afternoon, followed by the rest of the [...]
Local briefs: Clear Channel, Google, Obama
- Clear Channel radio stations now available via iPhone app – Google Maps debuts search-related text ads – Obama campaign buys 30-minute chunk of airtime on NBC, CBS
NBC O&O set to launch new site
WMAQ’s NBC5.com is teasing a whole new look with this slideshow. Details are somewhat sparse, but it’s long been rumored that NBC will move away from IB for another solution. The new site appears to be AJAX-riffic – and has new features like neighborhood geo-targeted news, UGM tools and enhanced search.
NBC to subtract WeatherPlus
This comes as no surprise – but NBC says it would have happened even without the Weather Channel deal: NBC WeatherPlus will be gone by the end of the year. B&C says the NBC Affiliate Board, which co-owns the channel, said it wanted out. All the details haven’t been worked out yet – but the [...]
Dish Network to pay TiVo $104 million + interest
Dish Network is about to transfer a huge chunk of change to TiVo, Inc. It’s not a new partnership or a stock swap – instead Dish has to pay $104 million plus interest for patent infringement. TiVo won this case several years ago – then lost a long series of appeals. The US Supreme Court [...]
