10/25: Media Briefing for Thursday, October 25, 2007
Media Briefing for Thursday, October 25, 2007
Paul K. Taff, who brought Mister Rogers to public television and led Connecticut Public Broadcasting and later the Connecticut Broadcasters Association (CBA), is profiled in the Decatur, Illinois Herald Review. He facilitated Fred Rogers? move to national public television while head of children?s programming at the National Educational Television (NET) network in New York, the predecessor of PBS. He also brought public FM to Connecticut in 1978, and the call letters of the flagship station of Connecticut Public Radio honor him, WPKT 90.5. He continues as president emeritus of CBA at age 87. Mister Rogers? Neighborhood is seen weekday afternoons at 2:30 on Thirteen/WNET.
The marketing of brand label clothing to teenaged girls on television and in teenaged magazines is contributing to a culture of attitude and even bullying for the girls who are not perceived to have the correct clothes and are not wearing the ?correct? brand names. The Wall Street Journal reports.
The fight over indecency on television is now on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, says USA Today.
Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS) have made it clear that they will do whatever they can to try to stop FCC chairman Kevin Martin from holding a December vote on media ownership rule changes. If Martin does try to ?ram through? that vote, Dorgan said, they vowed to use a rarely seen procedural move, a resolution of disapproval, to invalidate it. Broadcasting & Cable reports. Senator Dorgan says he expects to gain support in Congress from those who feel strongly about the issue, reports Reuters.
The FCC? s sixth hearing on localism is scheduled for Wednesday at the agency?s Washington headquarters, but the hearing was just announced late yesterday. Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein have objected, saying it doesn?t give interested parties enough time to prepare. The purpose of the hearing is to gather information from consumers, industry, civic organizations and others on broadcasters? role in their local communities and proposed changes to FCC rules on consolidation of ownership of media outlets, says TV Newsday. The hearing is at Room TW-C305, FCC headquarters, at 445 12th Street SW in Washington, according to the FCC. The hearing will immediately follow the monthly open meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., says Broadcasting & Cable.
One of radio?s hottest-button issues - consolidation - took center stage at the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee?s ?Future of Radio? hearing yesterday. Parties representing both sides of each issue had a chance to make their points to Senators who most likely have already made up their minds on the issues. Free Press
research director S. Derek Turner called on Congress to ?send a message to the FCC to stop its rush toward more consolidation.? In prepared remarks, Turner said, ?Ownership rules exist for a reason: to increase diversity and localism, which in turn produces more diverse speech, more choice for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their local communities ... Our research conclusively demonstrates that more consolidation means less female and minority ownership. The Commission needs to first adequately study the issue of minority ownership before moving forward with any rule changes. It may be hard to believe, but they?ve never even conducted an accurate count of who owns the nation?s radio outlets. How can the FCC conduct any meaningful analysis regarding the effects of its policies if it can?t conduct a basic count of who owns what?? All Access.com reports.
A Phoenix, Arizona judge has released grand jury records from an investigation of a newspaper whose top executives were arrested after writing about a subpoena seeking information on news stories and Web site readers. Presiding Criminal Judge Anna Baca of Maricopa County Superior Court said she ordered the release partly because the Phoenix New Times published details from the Aug. 24 subpoena last week. Saying the investigation had been compromised, County Attorney Andrew Thomas on Friday canceled the probe of the Phoenix New Times and dropped charges against the two executives of New Times? parent company, Village Voice Media. Associated Press reports.
Former ABC World News anchor Bob Woodruff, very seriously injured in a bomb attack in Iraq, continues to improve. He has recovered to the point that he has returned to work full-time as a correspondent for ABC News on its various programs, including World News and Nightline. The New York Times reports.
California First Lady Maria Shriver won?t resume her TV news career and the late Anna Nicole Smith is the reason why. Shriver says the media circus surrounding Smith?s accidental drug overdose death last February led to her decision. ?It was then that I knew that the TV news business had changed and so had I,? Shriver said. ?I called NBC News and told them I?m not coming back.? Associated Press reports.
There is a new definition for ?Trash TV.? With the digital rule on the horizon, outmoded sets are piling up. With earlier generations of analog televisions reaching the end of their functioning lives, and flat-screen technology replacing the familiar cathode ray tube, local officials and private recyclers say Massachusetts has been experiencing a bumper crop of discarded television sets in recent years. The Boston Globe has the story.
Conservatives are left without a voice on ABC?s The View . When Elisabeth Hasselbeck bade farewell to her co-hosts on The View Tuesday, it was all hugs, well-wishes, and baby-product endorsements. But as Hasselbeck begins her two-and-a-half month maternity leave, the political landscape is shifting as well. America?s most dangerous conservative - or so some liberals see it - is leaving TV for a while. Hasselbeck, the apple-cheeked blonde with the football-player husband, consistently draws a brand of hatred from the left that Hillary Clinton generates from the right; ?screechmonger? is one of the more printable slurs hurled at her from the blogosphere. Barry Manilow has called her ?offensive.? The Boston Globe reports.
The Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time in Fairfield County, Connecticut have been sold to the owners of the Denver Post, who also own the Danbury News Times and Connecticut Post of Bridgeport. This leaves the Norwalk Hour as the only daily in Fairfield County not owned by the Denver Post group. The Hartford Courant reports.
Apple, which has been so successful with music, is encountering obstacles in video. When it comes to video content ? hit television shows such as Heroes and The Office and movies ? Apple? bargaining position isn?t strong. For the second time in a year, Apple is getting significant resistance from a content creator that would rather turn its back on the mighty iPod than capitulate to Apple CEO Steve Jobs? pricing demands. And now, some music companies are starting to reexamine their relationships with Apple. And after December 1, when Apple?s contract with NBC expires, all shows that NBC Universal owns, past and present, will disappear from the site. That includes shows from Sci Fi, USA and Bravo cable channels, says the Washington Post.
For years people have been able to do their banking via computer ? and more recently via the browser on their cell phones. Now Wells Fargo is offering some limited information via text messaging. The banking giant announced this week that both individual and small-business customers can get their account balances, check for recent activity and get contact information via text messages sent to their cellphones, reports the Sacramento Bee.
The Dolan family, which built Cablevision Systems Corp. into one of the most successful cable TV providers in the country, is going to have to keep dealing with public stockholders for the foreseeable future, reports Associated Press. The outcome leaves Cablevision, which also owns Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, as an independent company. And it ends, for now, two years of work by the Dolans, the colorful dynasty that controls the cable empire, to take it private. While the rejection was not unexpected, it demonstrated the increasing skepticism about public-to-private transactions and whether shareholders are getting a fair price. No other deal of this size has ever been rejected; the next-largest deal to be voted down was an effort by the investor Carl Ichan to buy Lear, the auto parts maker, for $2.4 billion last year. The New York Times reports. The Dolans are disappointed, notes Broadcasting & Cable.
AT&T has been trying to establish cable TV service in Connecticut and is already serving several thousands of customers who were hooked up until the state halted the company. The state is trying to have all the rules governing the existing local cable systems in the state apply to AT&T as well. But this ?ruling protects the cable cartel,? says the Hartford Courant in an editorial.
Microsoft has bought a 1.6 percent stake in the social networking site Facebook for $240 million, reports Associated Press. Microsoft has won a high-profile technology industry battle, says the New York Times. It?s betting on a Web ad boom, says the Wall Street Journal and is paying top dollar, says the Seattle Times. With the deal, Microsoft is one-upping Google, says the San Jose Mercury News. The move values Facebook at $15 billion and also bolsters a new method of Internet advertising, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The social networking site had been wooed by both Internet giants, says the Los Angeles Times.
God Tube is a social networking site for believers, says the Hartford Courant.
Oral Roberts, one of the country?s first televangelists with a national profile, visited the university named after him and said his son and the administration are totally innocent of charges by three former Oral Roberts University professors that they were wrongfully fired or forced to retire. ORU?s board of regents is stepping up its role at the college following allegations made in the lawsuit, chairman George Pearsons said in an interview. ?The board is very quickly becoming . . . much more hands-on,? said Pearsons, pastor of Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas. ?The board has the oversight of the university, and we?re responsible for what goes on,? he said. ?We have every right to ask questions, to investigate.? The Tulsa World reports.
One-time news photographer Matt Braatz is now the top tech for NBC owned and operated TV stations, responsible for keeping all 10 on the air and making sure they have the gear they need to produce not just for broadcast, but for the Web, mobile and whatever other new media comes along. TV Newsday reports.
In Vietnam, a TV star has fallen from grace and her show cancelled after sex video made its way onto the Internet. In Vietnam?s sexually conservative culture, women have been taught to remain totally chaste until marriage and then faithful to her husband even if he cheats, according to Associated Press.
Marxists once referred to religion as the opium of the people, but in today?s China it is the music promoted on state-monopolized radio that increasingly claims that role. China?s leader, Hu Jintao, has talked since he assumed power five years ago about ?building a harmonious society,? an ambiguous phrase subject to countless interpretations. But Chinese musicians, cultural critics and fans say that in entertainment, the government?s thrust seems clear: Harmonious means blandly homogeneous, with virtually all contemporary music on the radio consisting of gentle love songs and uplifting ballads. In recent weeks, television networks have come under intense pressure from Beijing to purge their programming of crime and even mildly suggestive sexual references. The New York Times reports.
In a major strategy shift, the Cambridge, Massachusetts foundation that plans to provide laptop computers to poor children around the globe is asking wealthy individuals and corporations to help pick up the tab by purchasing hundreds or thousands of the machines. The Boston Globe reports.
Opie And Anthony, whose morning radio show was jettisoned by WYSP 94.1 Philadelphia, are offering their show for free to any Philadelphia station which will broadcast it, says the Philadelphia Daily News. Their show continues on WXRK 92.3 New York, WMOS 104.7 Montauk, Long Island, and a national network of stations and on XM satellite radio.
Paul K. Taff, who brought Mister Rogers to public television and led Connecticut Public Broadcasting and later the Connecticut Broadcasters Association (CBA), is profiled in the Decatur, Illinois Herald Review. He facilitated Fred Rogers? move to national public television while head of children?s programming at the National Educational Television (NET) network in New York, the predecessor of PBS. He also brought public FM to Connecticut in 1978, and the call letters of the flagship station of Connecticut Public Radio honor him, WPKT 90.5. He continues as president emeritus of CBA at age 87. Mister Rogers? Neighborhood is seen weekday afternoons at 2:30 on Thirteen/WNET.
The marketing of brand label clothing to teenaged girls on television and in teenaged magazines is contributing to a culture of attitude and even bullying for the girls who are not perceived to have the correct clothes and are not wearing the ?correct? brand names. The Wall Street Journal reports.
The fight over indecency on television is now on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, says USA Today.
Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS) have made it clear that they will do whatever they can to try to stop FCC chairman Kevin Martin from holding a December vote on media ownership rule changes. If Martin does try to ?ram through? that vote, Dorgan said, they vowed to use a rarely seen procedural move, a resolution of disapproval, to invalidate it. Broadcasting & Cable reports. Senator Dorgan says he expects to gain support in Congress from those who feel strongly about the issue, reports Reuters.
The FCC? s sixth hearing on localism is scheduled for Wednesday at the agency?s Washington headquarters, but the hearing was just announced late yesterday. Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein have objected, saying it doesn?t give interested parties enough time to prepare. The purpose of the hearing is to gather information from consumers, industry, civic organizations and others on broadcasters? role in their local communities and proposed changes to FCC rules on consolidation of ownership of media outlets, says TV Newsday. The hearing is at Room TW-C305, FCC headquarters, at 445 12th Street SW in Washington, according to the FCC. The hearing will immediately follow the monthly open meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., says Broadcasting & Cable.
One of radio?s hottest-button issues - consolidation - took center stage at the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee?s ?Future of Radio? hearing yesterday. Parties representing both sides of each issue had a chance to make their points to Senators who most likely have already made up their minds on the issues. Free Press
research director S. Derek Turner called on Congress to ?send a message to the FCC to stop its rush toward more consolidation.? In prepared remarks, Turner said, ?Ownership rules exist for a reason: to increase diversity and localism, which in turn produces more diverse speech, more choice for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their local communities ... Our research conclusively demonstrates that more consolidation means less female and minority ownership. The Commission needs to first adequately study the issue of minority ownership before moving forward with any rule changes. It may be hard to believe, but they?ve never even conducted an accurate count of who owns the nation?s radio outlets. How can the FCC conduct any meaningful analysis regarding the effects of its policies if it can?t conduct a basic count of who owns what?? All Access.com reports.
A Phoenix, Arizona judge has released grand jury records from an investigation of a newspaper whose top executives were arrested after writing about a subpoena seeking information on news stories and Web site readers. Presiding Criminal Judge Anna Baca of Maricopa County Superior Court said she ordered the release partly because the Phoenix New Times published details from the Aug. 24 subpoena last week. Saying the investigation had been compromised, County Attorney Andrew Thomas on Friday canceled the probe of the Phoenix New Times and dropped charges against the two executives of New Times? parent company, Village Voice Media. Associated Press reports.
Former ABC World News anchor Bob Woodruff, very seriously injured in a bomb attack in Iraq, continues to improve. He has recovered to the point that he has returned to work full-time as a correspondent for ABC News on its various programs, including World News and Nightline. The New York Times reports.
California First Lady Maria Shriver won?t resume her TV news career and the late Anna Nicole Smith is the reason why. Shriver says the media circus surrounding Smith?s accidental drug overdose death last February led to her decision. ?It was then that I knew that the TV news business had changed and so had I,? Shriver said. ?I called NBC News and told them I?m not coming back.? Associated Press reports.
There is a new definition for ?Trash TV.? With the digital rule on the horizon, outmoded sets are piling up. With earlier generations of analog televisions reaching the end of their functioning lives, and flat-screen technology replacing the familiar cathode ray tube, local officials and private recyclers say Massachusetts has been experiencing a bumper crop of discarded television sets in recent years. The Boston Globe has the story.
Conservatives are left without a voice on ABC?s The View . When Elisabeth Hasselbeck bade farewell to her co-hosts on The View Tuesday, it was all hugs, well-wishes, and baby-product endorsements. But as Hasselbeck begins her two-and-a-half month maternity leave, the political landscape is shifting as well. America?s most dangerous conservative - or so some liberals see it - is leaving TV for a while. Hasselbeck, the apple-cheeked blonde with the football-player husband, consistently draws a brand of hatred from the left that Hillary Clinton generates from the right; ?screechmonger? is one of the more printable slurs hurled at her from the blogosphere. Barry Manilow has called her ?offensive.? The Boston Globe reports.
The Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time in Fairfield County, Connecticut have been sold to the owners of the Denver Post, who also own the Danbury News Times and Connecticut Post of Bridgeport. This leaves the Norwalk Hour as the only daily in Fairfield County not owned by the Denver Post group. The Hartford Courant reports.
Apple, which has been so successful with music, is encountering obstacles in video. When it comes to video content ? hit television shows such as Heroes and The Office and movies ? Apple? bargaining position isn?t strong. For the second time in a year, Apple is getting significant resistance from a content creator that would rather turn its back on the mighty iPod than capitulate to Apple CEO Steve Jobs? pricing demands. And now, some music companies are starting to reexamine their relationships with Apple. And after December 1, when Apple?s contract with NBC expires, all shows that NBC Universal owns, past and present, will disappear from the site. That includes shows from Sci Fi, USA and Bravo cable channels, says the Washington Post.
For years people have been able to do their banking via computer ? and more recently via the browser on their cell phones. Now Wells Fargo is offering some limited information via text messaging. The banking giant announced this week that both individual and small-business customers can get their account balances, check for recent activity and get contact information via text messages sent to their cellphones, reports the Sacramento Bee.
The Dolan family, which built Cablevision Systems Corp. into one of the most successful cable TV providers in the country, is going to have to keep dealing with public stockholders for the foreseeable future, reports Associated Press. The outcome leaves Cablevision, which also owns Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, as an independent company. And it ends, for now, two years of work by the Dolans, the colorful dynasty that controls the cable empire, to take it private. While the rejection was not unexpected, it demonstrated the increasing skepticism about public-to-private transactions and whether shareholders are getting a fair price. No other deal of this size has ever been rejected; the next-largest deal to be voted down was an effort by the investor Carl Ichan to buy Lear, the auto parts maker, for $2.4 billion last year. The New York Times reports. The Dolans are disappointed, notes Broadcasting & Cable.
AT&T has been trying to establish cable TV service in Connecticut and is already serving several thousands of customers who were hooked up until the state halted the company. The state is trying to have all the rules governing the existing local cable systems in the state apply to AT&T as well. But this ?ruling protects the cable cartel,? says the Hartford Courant in an editorial.
Microsoft has bought a 1.6 percent stake in the social networking site Facebook for $240 million, reports Associated Press. Microsoft has won a high-profile technology industry battle, says the New York Times. It?s betting on a Web ad boom, says the Wall Street Journal and is paying top dollar, says the Seattle Times. With the deal, Microsoft is one-upping Google, says the San Jose Mercury News. The move values Facebook at $15 billion and also bolsters a new method of Internet advertising, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The social networking site had been wooed by both Internet giants, says the Los Angeles Times.
God Tube is a social networking site for believers, says the Hartford Courant.
Oral Roberts, one of the country?s first televangelists with a national profile, visited the university named after him and said his son and the administration are totally innocent of charges by three former Oral Roberts University professors that they were wrongfully fired or forced to retire. ORU?s board of regents is stepping up its role at the college following allegations made in the lawsuit, chairman George Pearsons said in an interview. ?The board is very quickly becoming . . . much more hands-on,? said Pearsons, pastor of Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas. ?The board has the oversight of the university, and we?re responsible for what goes on,? he said. ?We have every right to ask questions, to investigate.? The Tulsa World reports.
One-time news photographer Matt Braatz is now the top tech for NBC owned and operated TV stations, responsible for keeping all 10 on the air and making sure they have the gear they need to produce not just for broadcast, but for the Web, mobile and whatever other new media comes along. TV Newsday reports.
In Vietnam, a TV star has fallen from grace and her show cancelled after sex video made its way onto the Internet. In Vietnam?s sexually conservative culture, women have been taught to remain totally chaste until marriage and then faithful to her husband even if he cheats, according to Associated Press.
Marxists once referred to religion as the opium of the people, but in today?s China it is the music promoted on state-monopolized radio that increasingly claims that role. China?s leader, Hu Jintao, has talked since he assumed power five years ago about ?building a harmonious society,? an ambiguous phrase subject to countless interpretations. But Chinese musicians, cultural critics and fans say that in entertainment, the government?s thrust seems clear: Harmonious means blandly homogeneous, with virtually all contemporary music on the radio consisting of gentle love songs and uplifting ballads. In recent weeks, television networks have come under intense pressure from Beijing to purge their programming of crime and even mildly suggestive sexual references. The New York Times reports.
In a major strategy shift, the Cambridge, Massachusetts foundation that plans to provide laptop computers to poor children around the globe is asking wealthy individuals and corporations to help pick up the tab by purchasing hundreds or thousands of the machines. The Boston Globe reports.
Opie And Anthony, whose morning radio show was jettisoned by WYSP 94.1 Philadelphia, are offering their show for free to any Philadelphia station which will broadcast it, says the Philadelphia Daily News. Their show continues on WXRK 92.3 New York, WMOS 104.7 Montauk, Long Island, and a national network of stations and on XM satellite radio.
