Group items tagged

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,

Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site without extra charge.

But executives of The New York Times Company said they could not yet answer fundamental questions about the plan, like how much it would cost or what the limit would be on free reading. They stressed that the amount of free access could change with time, in response to economic conditions and reader demand.

Still, publishers fear that income from digital subscriptions would not compensate for the resulting loss of audience and advertising revenue.

To fix the prime-time woes, NBC, under Mr. Gaspin, plans to spend more on development. It has deals with producers like J. J. Abrams, Jerry Bruckheimer and Brian Grazer. It made 11 pilots last year and plans to increase that number to 20 this year.

“I’m not trying to reinvent right now,” Mr. Gaspin said. “I’m really going back to basics.”

The ruling would allow Comcast and other Internet service providers to restrict consumers’ ability to access certain kinds of Internet content, such as video sites like Hulu.com or Google’s YouTube service, or charge certain heavy users of their networks more money for access.

Zucker’s critics are ranting that first he killed comedy, losing the NBC franchise of Thursday night “Must See TV,” where “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “Will & Grace” once hilariously reigned; then he killed drama, failing to develop successors to the formidable “ER,” “West Wing,” and “Law & Order”; then he killed the 10 o’clock hour by putting Jay Leno on at a time when people expect to be told a story; and then he killed late night by putting on a quirky redhead who did not have the bland mass-market appeal of Leno and who couldn’t compete with the peerless late-night comedian NBC had stupidly lost 16 years ago, David Letterman.

many of the changes are moving business schools into territory more traditionally associated with the liberal arts: multidisciplinary approaches, an understanding of global and historical context and perspectives, a greater focus on leadership and social responsibility and, yes, learning how to think critically