Media Industry Archive

This interview last night between CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and Carol Smith, senior vp, chief brand officer of Elle doesn’t really tell it like it is in the magazine industry or at Elle. This, despite the fact that in the excerpt above, Smith goes to great pains to explain how these days in the magazine industry, no one talks about “growth” but “market share.”...

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Obama names CTO — During his weekly address, President Barack Obama has named Aneesh Chopra the country’s first chief technology officer. Previously, Chopra worked in the health care industry and is currently Virginia’s CTO. While CTO, Chopra led several initiatives, such as creating a contest encouraging developers to create an iPhone application targeted to middle school...

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As players take the field to begin a brand new season, Major League Baseball has another debut to worry about. The league’s MLB Network and online video platform MLB.TV got their first taste of live action on Sunday’s Opening Night, and other content providers should sit up and take notice. Major League Baseball has managed to do what many sports leagues can only dream of: get...

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Four days after she went missing, a 14-year-old Denver girl, Jennifer Frisina, was found safe at a friend’s house and returned to her family this week, largely due to a massive organizing effort by various people around the country who heard about the case and sent out alarms via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. Much of the credit goes to a reporter for the online Denver...

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It’s hard to imagine a business able to lose ~ $500 million a year without any apparent concern, unless of course it is owned by the richest company in the world, Google. But, of course, that is exactly the case for YouTube. Here is my perspective: I’ve been working inside and with media start-ups in one capacity or another since 1971. Since 1995, these have mainly been online...

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In the current climate, TV networks are doing all they can to save cash. The frugal mindset has kept the networks in a timid mindset, afraid of taking any risk with new programming. However, cost-savvy networks already have a perfect model to consider when introducing a new show to audiences on the cheap: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. As the new host of Late Night on NBC, Fallon and his crew...

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As the proposed settlement by Google of a class-action lawsuit by authors over its Google Book Search rushes toward an impending judicial resolution, it’s become apparent that it’s time to pull the emergency brake on this one. Memo to judge: “Slow it down, please! There is simply too much at stake here.” Six weeks ago, I welcomed news of the settlement, mainly because...

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All the world loves conflict and personality bashing. If you doubt that, look at the favorite fodder of news programs, reality TV, and talking head political programs. (That is, if you can tell the difference among them these days.) And ABC is pushing an in-house domestic tousle, with chef Emeril Lagasse and evening news anchor Charlie Gibson both claiming that the other stole some recipe for...

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You’ve probably already read the headlines about Google’s first quarter, in which the company reported revenue was up by a measly (for Google) six percent compared to the first quarter of last year and down by three percent (unusual for Google) compared to the fourth quarter. But you probably haven’t waded through the transcript of yesterday afternoon’s conference call,...

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God it’s fun being right. As I had speculated earlier this week, one way YouTube is going to get around its YouTub-iness (i.e. videos of restaurant workers sticking cheese up their nose), is to open a professional content site to go up against Hulu. To see it live, click here. Those relieved sighs you hear are coming from media companies and advertisers who finally have their own playpen...

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