Media Industry Archive

Welcome to the future. Fire up your browser, and go to this part of NBC New York’s website. Do you see that window at the left labeled “Local Hot Spots?” Please click on one of the circles. I clicked on Houston Street, and it yielded 120 blog posts and one NBC news stories. This represents an example of what the media industry needs to do quickly in order to survive. Although...

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Gannett orders one week unpaid leave — CEO Craig Dubow announced a furlough program that asks employees to take one unpaid week off in the first quarter. While not required to cooperate, the company’s unions are asked to also participate. The furlough comes a few months after Gannett cut three percent of all employees. [Source: Editor & Publisher] Hearst seeks ideas from staff...

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Good to know that innovation and inspiration are still alive in the media business, despite the carnage all around. So, instead of focusing today on, say, the Gannett furloughs, let’s focus on this: MSNBC, in a deal with Screenvision, will screen Barack Obama’s inauguration live in 27 theaters in 21 major markets across the country. Free tickets can be had at MSNBC.com, if there are...

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The better part of a lifetime ago, when I was a young editor at my college paper, the Michigan Daily, most of us said we would be pursuing journalism careers after we graduated. These included Dan Okrent, Walter Shapiro, Howard Kohn, Robin Wright and many, many others. But, one fellow student, Bruce Wasserstein, chose a radically different path, as an investment banker and, eventually, LBO...

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Given how things have been going lately at Yahoo, it’s not all that surprising that the company reached for a technology executive, former Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz, to lead the company following the underwhelming tenure of former CEO and founder Jerry Yang. But that doesn’t mean it was the right move. Throughout Yahoo’s history as one of the Internet’s leading media...

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Blockbuster to offer video downloads — The movie rental retailer has announced a new partnership that will make its video library available for digital download. The move is thought to be in an effort to keep pace with Netflix, which has offered movie downloads for several months. [Source: CNET] New York mag writers to get pay cuts — The magazine’s staff writers were...

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Updating our report of four days ago, another media outlet, Current TV, is confirming our initial report about the pending layoffs at KQED this morning, with one important clarification, as noted below: Downsizing plan in the works at KQED A spokesman for San Francisco’s KQED-TV/FM confirmed the gist of a Jan. 10 blog report about imminent lay-offs at the station but denied that they...

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One of those nice little debates that make the web so enjoyable broke out the past few days, with David Carr of The New York Times arguing that what’s needed to save the newspaper industry is an “iTunes for news,” i.e., a way to get users online to pay for content. His point is that what Steve Jobs did for the music business (supplying a tool that inspires at least some users...

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Besides the fact they both attended Harvard Law, the resumes of outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, and Barack Obama’s apparent pick to replace him, Julius Genachowski, couldn’t be more different. Martin may be best known for his controversial management style, but he is also largely a creature of Washington, working at a DC law firm, serving on the...

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Tribune to go tabloid for street sales — On Monday, The Chicago Tribune will change the design of its paper to the tabloid style for street sales. Home subscribers will still get the traditional broadsheet paper. [Source: Chicago Tribune] Microsoft: current generation will last longer — Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division, has warned consumers...

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