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Broadcasting and Cable conducts a sit down interview with Steven Waldman, senior advisor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, to discuss the Governments role in balancing old and new media. Subsidies and media industry economics are also discussed.

"In a lengthy article in New York magazine that hit the Web late on Sunday, writer Gabriel Sherman quotes a source high up in the media industry echelon who says Murdoch is "pretty tightly wound up over Google and has been ready to sue them...He doesn't trust them at all." The lawsuit, presumably, would come if Google refused to stop indexing News Corp. search results without paying a fee for them."

Seattle-based interactive ad agency Razorfish has been sold twice in three years, operating against a seemingly constant backdrop of industry speculation about its fate. But the uncertainty appears to be over, now that the dust has settled on ad giant Publicis Groupe's purchase of Razorfish from Microsoft for $530 million - the second-biggest deal of 2009 in Washington state mergers and acquisitions.

Video game software sales across the world's three largest markets--the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom--fell 8 percent in 2009, according to a joint report issued Wednesday by a consortium of industry analyst firms.

Forget the last 10 years of post-Napster industry annihilation - Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) is now seeing growing income from both music sales and music publishing - but only if you factor in overseas sales; the U.S. business is still in rewind...

"Although Apple won plaudits from the book publishing industry for offering it more control over pricing and a richer split of sales - publishers retain 70 per cent of sales and have control over the customer pricing of books - the revenue sharing plan makes less sense for recurring charges such as subscriptions, publishers said. The concept of giving away close to a third of subscription sales over an indefinite period was difficult to accept, publishers said. "Thirty per cent forever changes the economics," one media executive in discussions with Apple said. "You can imagine we feel less good about it. Should (subscriptions) be treated differently than single item sales?""

"Mr Jobs articulated his belief that a "functioning media" is vital to a "functioning democracy" and how his "gorgeous" device would help safeguard that role...The question haunting publishers is whether they will suffer the same fate as the music industry, which was hit by Apple's 2003 deal to unbundle the album format by offering downloads of individual songs via iTunes."

Google recently acquired one of the largest mobile ad companies, perhaps indicating that the nascent industry could take off in the next few years.

The FCC is holding a Mrch 4 workshop to examine the future to media industries.

Explains strategic challenges faced by bc network news. NBC in strongest position, while ABC and CBS consider merger with CNN. Pressures toward cost cutting and consolidation in the industry. But where will growth come from?

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.

"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

"The future of print media is digital. Just as new printing techniques revolutionised the industry and gave birth to full page color images in print media, digital content will change the way we read and consume print media in the future. The ideals and stories will (hopefully) still be there at the heart of digital media but consumers will be given the opportunity to delve deep into the articles. Digital media will put elements that enrich the reading experience - like rich colour photos that can be enlarged, video, sound, animations and 3D images -at the fingertips of every reader"

The music industry in Sweden has filed for the Stockholm District Court to enforce a ruling from last October that would require the founders of The Pirate Bay (a file sharing site) to pay a fine of 500,000 kronor (US$ 71,000) if the site was not shut down.

Analysts are changing their forecasts on the growth of the in-game advertising industry. 

The Obama administration is backing $675,000 in damages a Massachusetts student must pay the Recording Industry Association of America for file sharing 30 songs.

Consumer groups urge action on the cable industry's TV Everywhere, which the groups claim will limit online television development and access to protect traditional cable business models.

"International cable company Liberty Global Inc. has reached a deal to sell its stake in a Japanese telecommunications-services provider for $4 billion, a transaction that will help it focus on consolidation of the European cable-TV industry."

Industry watchers pull varying lessons from the year's retail wreckage, predict return to growth in 2010.