Media Industry Archive

If you’ve been following the discussion over whether online publishers should start to use micropayments to charge consumers for the content they consume, you no doubt know that one rationale given for why this hasn’t worked so far is the lack of a simple, iTunes-like system for charging consumers small amounts of money. Now, it appears that such a system is being built — but...

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Perfectly timed to coincide with tax season, Turner Entertainment exec David Levy is campaigning to get media buyers to rally around repealing what he calls “a legacy tax” — but what is really the premium advertisers pay to advertise on broadcast TV, even though nobody watches it anymore. The story, part of AdweekMedia’s extensive package on the TV upfront, contains some...

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Sixty-eight years ago, when he became managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, Barney Kilgore assumed custody of a broken business model. Since its founding over a half century earlier, in 1889, the Journal had thrived by supplying stock prices and market information to investors. But by the early 1940s, it had lost what had once been a virtual monopoly over such information, and along with...

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In case you haven’t read it yet, here’s the hilarious capitulation by WHDH Boston general manager Ed Ansin, who, earlier this month, claimed his station, an NBC affiliate, would not run Jay Leno’s coming 10 p.m. weeknight series. (NBC then threatened to pull the station’s affiliation): “Upon further consideration we have decided to telecast Jay Leno at 10 p.m. starting...

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If there is a central lesson for company executives, government leaders, and publishers as to how to protect your brand image in the age of interactive media, it is this: Know that you will be held accountable for your actions. Even as Twitter execs fight off charges that the micro-blogging service is being corrupted by the likes of Magpie, and its product-insertion (pay-per-tweet) campaigns,...

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I’m ready to stick my neck out and say that, as much as Sci Fi Channel devotees derided the network’s planned name change to Syfy, the quirky new name will not die a death akin to what happened to Tropicana’s recently redesigned juice carton. Sorry, my friends, but Syfy will live. Why? The channel has gone forward with what looks to be a relatively pricey ad campaign that...

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Every industry in crisis needs a good Obit site and since 2007 the newspaper industry has had one — Paper Cuts by Erica Smith. She uses Google Maps to graphically track layoffs, buyouts, and the eventual closures of newspapers around the U.S. Smith has been able to document at least 26,075 layoffs and buyouts during the present crisis — 2,112+ in ‘07, 15,866+ in ‘08, and...

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I’ve been blissfully out of touch the last few days — except for occasionally reading The Boston Herald, so I missed the fact that Twitter was infiltrated last week by a worm. A worm named Mikeyy. In fact, the back and forth about the worm has been, so, well, back and forth, that, not being sure whether its attacks were over, I finally got around this morning to downloading Tweetdeck, a...

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A quarter century ago, Marriott became the first major hotel company to partner with a major newspaper chain, Gannett, to provide automatic delivery of USA Today and other papers to its guest rooms. Today, the giant hotelier announced it will become the first major hotel company to end automatic delivery of newspapers to guest rooms. Marriott says that guest demand for newspapers has dropped 25...

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Founders may buy Skype back — The founders of Skype have been reportedly trying to solicit venture capital with a plan to purchase Skype back from eBay. The auction Web site purchased the online phone service from Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis for $3.1 billion in 2006. The founders have since funded the online video software Joost. Skype has grown since the purchase, however eBay has...

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