Group items tagged

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.

Move over Hawkeye Pierce, looks like Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints just took your ratings crown along with the Super Bowl title. A record 106.5 million people watched the Saints write a storybook ending to their dream season by beating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV on CBS, according to Nielsen. That's not only the biggest audience to date for the Super Bowl, but the biggest audience for a televised event ever -- barely knocking off the finale of \nCBS' "MASH," which averaged almost 106 million viewers when it ran in 1983.

"The Internet, which many feared would draw viewers away from television, appears to be having exactly the opposite effect - at least when it comes to coverage of major events. Brian Stelter writes in The Times that TV executives have noticed big spikes in viewership of the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Grammys and other special events that some of them trace to the effect of social networking sites."

"Social media blogs complain about too much advertising on NBC's Vancouver Olympics. And yet NBC has released new viewer data showing that in virtually every single category - including brand recall, engagement, and other marketing metrics - numbers are up for advertisers who bought into the winter games. Viewership is up right now, too: some 25% higher than the 2006 games in Torino, Italy."

NBC, with its exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics, cut away from the closing ceremonies to debut its new marriage show starring Jerry Seinfeld. Outraged viewers took to twitter, and the incident raised an interesting question of balancing exclusive rights against commercial interests.

"On average, viewers watch FLO TV for 30 minutes a day while commuting, sitting at their desks, or waiting in line. The service is available in more than 100 U.S. cities now."

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.

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.

"Who has time to sit on the couch and watch TV anymore? In the last 10 years, broadcasters have lost 25 percent of their audience. So to win back some viewers, the industry has a plan to grab their attention while they are on the move. Beginning in April, eight television stations in Washington, D.C., will broadcast a signal for a new class of devices that can show programming, even in a car at high speed. In all, 30 stations in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Washington have installed the necessary equipment, at a cost of $75,000 to $150,000

FreeAllMusic.com offers free downloads in exchange for active engagement with ads. "iTunes meets Hulu." Says that rather than paying for songs, viewers select among a menu of ads to watch. Leads to active engagement and better retention, which allows charging higher ad rates.

YT is out to increase the amount of time that viewers spend on the site, which is currently 15 mins per day. They spend 5 hrs per day on TV, so YT execs see that as their main competition. How to make YT viewing experience more like TV? More sticky? Need to generate new models for search suggestions ("discovery," a la Netflix and Amazon, or social media, a la Facebook). Also need to explore models for pushing content, Amazon.

This article talks about how local news programming shouldn't blame Jay Leno for losing viewers, but instead to look at their programming and realize that local news has "become a faceless commodity."

Bravo is hoping to make some of its programming more interactive with viewers' phones.

"The Oscar statuette became a pawn in a public brawl between the Walt Disney Company and Cablevision on Sunday, a dispute that prevented more than three million viewers from watching the beginning of the Academy Awards show until a tentative agreement restored the signal 14 minutes into the telecast."

"The trial, which should begin by this spring, will transmit up to 20 channels of free and premium programming using signals from eight mobile DTV stations: WDCA (Fox Television Stations); WUSA (Gannett Broadcasting); WPXW (ION Media Networks); WRC (NBC Universal); WHUT (Howard University/PBS); WNVC (MHz Networks); WNUV (Sinclair Broadcast Group); and WFDC (Univision Communications). "One of the key advantages of mobile DTV is the built-in ability to measure viewer activity, giving broadcasters a much better picture of what consumers are actually watching, when they watch, and where," said Brandon Burgess, OMVC President and ION Media Networks Chairman and CEO."

"Three million cable customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will see their ABC station go to black (or something like it) early Sunday morning unless The Walt Disney Company and Cablevision either strike a deal or extend their tense contract negotiations. Cablevision's contract to carry the ABC station in New York City, WABC, expires at midnight, and the two companies are in a standoff over how much Disney, which owns ABC, should be paid for the right to retransmit the signal."