FCC

The NEW YORK TIMES, GANNETT, and TRIBUNE CO. all announced first-quarter results. The Times profits fell 26%. Gannett profits were down 10.5%. Tribune showed no profit — losing $15.6 Million. GOOGLE acquired Marratech’s video conferencing software. The software provides document-sharing and communication via video, text, and VoIP. It will compete with Cisco’s WebEx. COMCAST urged Continue Reading →

CBS is preparing to announce a huge web distribution initiative. The network will provide television programming to several web outlets, including MSN, AOL, Joost, and the forthcoming NBC Universal-News Corp. video service. VONAGE CEO Michael Snyder has left the beleaguered company. A patent infringement lawsuit from Verizon has the company in “crisis mode.” MGM will Continue Reading →

MySpace will hold an online Presidential Primary vote next January. Most major candidates have created profiles on the social networking site. Barak Obama has the most MySpace “friends” by a very large margin. The FCC issued a statement, saying they would not reconsider the current ban on in-flight cell phone use. Notably, a soon to-be-released Continue Reading →

Get ready for two great conferences in March. First, meet me in Los Angeles on March 19th for OMMA. I’ll be moderating and hosting the Online Video track with Keynotes from Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post and Jason McDonell, marketing director for Frito Lay’s Doritos brand (“Crash the Superbowl”). Then we’re off to San Continue Reading →

There's a business school case study about the fledgling airline business in the early part of the 20th century. According to the story, after the Wright Brothers flew their airplane, some entrepreneurs decided that they should fund an aircraft company. They thought about where to get the money and decided to seek out one of the richest, most powerful corporations in America. They arrived at the offices of a giant railroad company and made their presentation. The executives listened attentively to the pitch and then summarily dismissed the nascent aviators, telling them, "We're in the railroad business, not the airline business." Continue Reading →

TO LISTEN TO HOWARD STERN’S new radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio, you need a satellite radio receiver and a paid subscription to the service–or do you? The show is being rebroadcast (albeit slightly delayed) on a bunch of “pirate” radio stations. It’s all over the Internet in the form of podcasts and progressively downloadable Continue Reading →

Cable and Congress are at it again. During a hearing that was supposed to be about indecency, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin brought up a study which “concludes that purchasing cable programming in a more a la carte manner in fact could be economically feasible and in consumers’ best interest.” The idea of a Continue Reading →

An old friend of mine sent me an email a few days ago that went something like this … “Maybe you can help me out.  I’m looking for sponsors for our Podcast show.” One has to be a friend to have a friend, so I dutifully visited his website and listened to a few of Continue Reading →

“What’s next … washing machines?” asked Judge Harry T. Edwards in a strongly worded decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.  They unanimously agreed that the Federal Communications Commission overstepped its authority in adopting the rule stating, “In the seven decades of its existence, the FCC Continue Reading →

CBS’s Tallahassee, FL affiliate WCTV didn’t want to interrupt its popular early-morning newscast to cover the Pope’s funeral.  So, President/GM, Nick Waller decided to feed it to his sister station, UPN affiliate, WCTV-DT which is broadcast on their (government-mandated) digital tier. Utilization of the digital tier with this kind of technique is becoming more commonplace.  Continue Reading →