Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, explains how he has created a media empire. The division is on track to achieve $700 million in operating profit this year.
Executives at Microsoft are fond of saying that its subscription gaming service, Xbox Live, should be thought of as a cable channel.
The company is even producing shows for users: it is in the middle of the second season of “1 vs. 100,” an interactive version of a game show that was on NBC.The content ambitions do not end there. Microsoft has held in-depth talks with the Walt Disney Company about a programming deal with ESPN, according to people close to the talks, who requested anonymity because the talks were intended to be private.
For a per-subscriber fee, ESPN could provide live streams of sporting events, similar to the ones available through ESPN 360,
Similarly, users of the Sony PlayStation can tune into BBC shows and see Weather Channel updates, as well as stream Netflix. Last week, Netflix extended its streaming service to the Nintendo Wii.
console makers have a significant head start. Nearly 60 percent of American homes now have at least one console, according to the consulting firm Deloitte, up from 44 percent three years ago.
In November, Nielsen started to track “1 vs. 100” play and ad views. The pilot program “is the tip of the iceberg,” said Gerardo Guzman, a director for Nielsen Games; eventually, he hopes to generate TV-style ratings.Mr. Kroese said Xbox advertisers were “very interested in being able to compare the media buy on Xbox to other media buys they do.”
Explains why television remakes of TV series always fail whereas movie adaptations of TV shows have a better track record. Nevertheless remakes of Rockford Files, Charlie's Angels, and Hawaii Five-O are forthcoming.
As part of the True Blood promotion, users who check in to the show during the season premiere will receive the “Truebie” badge, marking them as viewers of the show. And as Tunerfish tries to establish influence among its users, it will track those who get other members to check in to the show. If a user has 10 of his or her contacts also check in, that Tunerfish user will get the “Maker” badge.
Japanese cell phone novels extend user generated content into published works, and offer niche story telling targeted at and often created by teen girls.
An withering critic of NBC's decision to limit online streaming of Olympic events to curling and hockey, in what the author describes as an attempt to force viewers into traditionally measurable media.
Update on the court case between Arbitron radio ratings and Spanish Broadcasting Systems over SBS's refusal to encode their signals so that Arbitron can measure audience. SBS claims that Arbitron's measurment under counts Hispanic listeners and hurts their advertising rates.