GOOGLE CEO Eric Schmidt phoned YAHOO‘s Jerry Yang on Friday to offer some sort of help in avoiding a MICROSOFT takeover. No details of the call have been released but there is speculation that it could involve Yahoo outsourcing its search business to Google. Google has posted a reaction to the takeover bid on its Continue Reading →
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MICROSOFT has made an unsolicited offer of $44.6 billion to purchase YAHOO, a 62% premium on the company’s market price at the close of business on Thursday. If successful, this would be the biggest technology takeover in history. Yahoo’s value has plummeted 18% during this year and the company has faced a losing battle against Continue Reading →
TNS MEDIA RESEARCH will begin receiving data from 100,000 DirecTV set-top boxes to analyze viewing patterns as part of a new service called TNS DirecTView. Households will be asked to join the service, which will record demographic data but be stripped of names and other identifying information. The new service will offer second-by-second ratings similar Continue Reading →
JEFF ZUCKER delivered the NATPE keynote yesterday, warning that the television industry is undergoing a “forest fire.” He discussed his decision to reduce pilot season and possibly curtail upfront expenditures as necessary steps toward “making less waste.” Zucker’s goal is to make NBC everywhere – from NBC.com to Hulu and beyond. He said the industry’s Continue Reading →
VERIZON announced that it has reached over 1 million FiOS TV customers, making it the 10th-largest multichannel service provider in the US. The company added over 700,000 customers during 2007, netting 226,000 in 4Q alone. The rapid growth rate means it will soon surpass Mediacom, which has 1.3 million cable subscribers. NIELSEN will use its Continue Reading →
MEDIAVEST is in talks with two cinema ad networks to transfer up to $100 million in prime-time TV ads to in-theater movie advertising. President of investment and activation Donna Speciale said that with ratings continuing to erode and a lengthy writers strike, “We can’t keep our money in TV.” The company is speaking with National Continue Reading →
YOUTUBE has updated its mobile site to include almost its entire library of videos, the social-networking functions and more. Users will be able to upload videos directly from phones to YouTube.com. YouTube also released a free downloadable application that can be installed on phones to access the video site without using a mobile browser. Combined, Continue Reading →
This article is about the flow of dangerous information in the information age — how will we determine what is dangerous and what might we do with it? I don’t believe that all people of faith are dangerous. I don’t think that all Muslims everywhere are plotting to kill me. I am not a bigot, Continue Reading →
THE FCC launches the highly-anticipated 700 MHz spectrum auction today. Bidding is anonymous and will last two months before winners are declared. Daily updates will be available on auctions.fcc.gov. NBC clarified its stance on pilot season, saying it will not cancel any pilot orders for the upcoming season but will scale back in the future. Continue Reading →
FOX and CW both released statements promising scaled-back and “truncated” pilot seasons. Fox has cut 8 scripts from 20th Century Fox while CW will drop around a dozen projects. ABC may reduce script orders by as much as 30%. Meanwhile, Jeff Zucker gave more details on his plans for scaling back NBC’s pilot season. He Continue Reading →