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Discussion of Comcast and NBC Merger, including opening promises from Comcast to preserve local over-the-air broadcasting and increase programming for children and minorities.

Air America, the long-suffering progressive talk radio network, abruptly shut down on Thursday, bowing to what it called a "very difficult economic environment."

Article providing an analysis of the collapse of Air America, and what that means for progressive talk radio.

"Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts and NBC Universal President & CEO Jeff Zucker faced a barrage of questions Feb. 25 in a marathon--over five hours with one break--hearing in the House Judiciary Committee on their proposed joint venture, their third Hill visit in as many weeks as they push for government approval of their $30 billion joint venture.\nDuring that time, the pair defended their records on diversity, and in some cases pledged to do better, reiterated their pledges to keep NBC free and over the air, and their programming available to competitive distributors."

"Of the 81 percent of states surveyed that use Twitter, 83 percent of them use it to relay traffic incidents, while 80 percent use it to relay road closings and 63 percent use it to communicate emergencies such as hurricanes and tornados. Other information released by state DOTs on Twitter include referrals to Tripcheck and new video updates, fires, accidents, construction projects and delays, press releases, state responses to the Recovery Act, air quality, transit information and 511 information. "

NBC owns the U.S. rights to the Vancouver Olympics, and, for this Olympics, it has clamped down on online live streaming of events. Only hockey and curling will be shown live online, with all other events either shown live on television or held for tape-delay airing on prime time or late night television, says the industry publication Broadcasting & Cable in a story Monday. The Web site for CTV, the Canadian network with rights to the Olympics in that country, is live-streaming events, but NBC has made sure that computers with U.S. IP addresses can't log onto the CTV site.

Video of Luge Crash raises interesting discussions about copyright and Fair Use. Google would not comment on the particular video but offered this general statement. "We approach each video individually, and we do not prescreen content. Instead, we count on our community members to know the Guidelines and to flag videos they think violate them. We review all flagged videos quickly, and if we find that a video does break the rules, we remove it, usually in under an hour." And, interestingly enough, regular TV broadcasters, with no licensing agreement with the IOC, are employing the fair use argument and airing the clip. Yet YouTube, and other online outlets are so terrified of the constant bullying from content creators that they're not going to take any chance and are taking the video down. In the end, nobody wins, people don't have access to the information, online video sites lose viewers and trust from their users and the IOC comes out as trying to hush up an unpleasant situation and (mis)using copyright law to do so.

Congressional hearings for the Comcast/NBC case are scheduled for Feb. 4. There are many opponents to the deal, including consumer activists and media watchdogs, Local affiliates are concerned that Comcast could "gradually migrate some or all of the most compelling sports, news and entertainment programming and talent away from free, over-the-air distribution on NBC to its newly owned cable channels that are made available only to paying subscribers, such as Bravo and USA Network."

"There's an iPhone App for CBS News and the network's content is available on FLO TV, both distributed via devices with the type of audience data the network seeks. Seidel said the network elected not to participate in the Open Mobile Video Coalitions because it has no audience authentication for over-the-air, mobile DTV."

For more than 70 years, royalty payments for air time have flowed to the songwriters and music publishers but not to the musicians or record companies. Now there is a renewed drive to revisit that arrangement, and in recent weeks the volume of the discussion has increased several decibels.

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Comcast Corp.'s proposed takeover of NBC Universal would test the future of free, over-the-air television, U.S. Representative Henry Waxman said as Congress began considering the deal. "Many are concerned that this transaction could result in the best of NBC's programming being transitioned to a pay-TV service," Waxman, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said today.

Big changes in measurement methodologies. Refocus on time-shifting measurement.