Free Republic

Did anyone else see the Letterman Show tonight, Friday 8/15: when actor Ben Kingsley walked out to great applause, he walked up to Dave Letterman and said "God Bless American Enthusiasm!" and then repeated himself, "God Bless American enthusiasm!" Except CBS simply filtered out the word "God." Both times. Watching closely, I know I saw Kingsley's lips form the word "God" both times, his lips were clearly moving before I heard "...Bless American enthusiasm!" I thought I was imagining things, but it happened a second time!

CNN announced on Tuesday that it would assign journalists to 10 cities across the United States, a move that would double the number of domestic cities where the cable news network has outposts. But in a reflection of the way television networks are reinventing the way they gather news, the journalists will not work from expensive bureaus — rather, they will borrow office space from local news organizations and use laptops to file articles for the Internet and TV. When news happens, they will use Internet connections and cellphone cameras to report live. “We are harnessing technology that enables us...

Security researcher and author Kris Kaspersky plans to demonstrate how an attacker can target flaws in Intel's microprocessors to remotely attack a computer using JavaScript or TCP/IP packets, regardless of what operating system the computer is running. Kaspersky will demonstrate how such an attack can be made in a presentation at the upcoming Hack In The Box (HITB) Security Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during October. The proof-of-concept attacks will show how processor bugs, called errata, can be exploited using certain instruction sequences and a knowledge of how Java compilers work, allowing an attacker to take control of the...

Broadcast TV networks' upfront advertising sales will be down this year, posting a drop of between 2% and 14%, a leading Wall Street analyst said. A "material decline is probable given ratings declines, the disruption in the development cycle due to the recent writers' strike and economic woes," Jessica Reif Cohen of Merrill Lynch said in a report published yesterday. Next week, the broadcast networks will meet with advertisers, presenting their fall schedules in what are expected to be less lavish circumstances than in past years. Production disruptions from the 100-day Writers Guild of America strike, as well as uncertainty...

AS REAL-LIFE broadcasters get set to announce their fall schedules next week in New York, they're still scratching their way out of a trench, otherwise known as the worst season in the history of the network TV business. Not a single one of the new fall series broke through to a big audience, even the ones that looked can't-fail on paper, such as ABC's spinoff "Private Practice" and NBC's now-dead revival of "Bionic Woman." Every network except Fox has posted significant ratings declines for the season. Even as existing series have gradually returned from the three-month writers strike, viewers have,...

Many top shows are back but ratings continue to fall By Toni Fitzgerald Apr 30, 2008 The writers’ strike is long over, but broadcast ratings have yet to return to their pre-strike levels. A number of shows have fallen to season or series lows following their return after the strike, and most are down from last fall. It’s a pattern seen across every network as the May sweeps kick off. Last week ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty” posted their second-lowest ratings in adults 18-49, averaging a 6.5 and 2.5, respectively, in their first original outings since January. Fox’s “American...

MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII, April 7, 2008 – Dealing with a loved one’s deployment can be difficult. But for Marine families based thousands of miles from home, the challenges might seem even more daunting if not for an active family support network in place to help them. Carrie Heironimus, wife of Navy Lt. Brandon Heironimus, right, gets information about family-support programs at a table set up in Marine Corps Base Hawaii’s base exchange from Brenda Hawkins, left, administrative assistant for the Marine Corps Family Team Building program, and Cheryl Roy, center, the base’s readiness and deployment support trainer. Photo...

For decades, local TV stations in cities like Baltimore were cash cows for the companies that owned them. Even though one or two stations with the most popular anchors often came to dominate each market, everybody made money. Local TV was that surefire a business - even for last-place and poorly managed stations. But not today. More and more, the dominant story line for local TV news is one filled with talk of cutbacks, layoffs, lowered expectations and an urgent need to find new ways of doing business and winning viewers. This week, CBS announced a series of layoffs at...

There were deep cuts at ABC News in New York this week as more than 20 employees in the finance and operations departments were informed that their jobs were being eliminated as part of an ongoing restructuring project that began last spring. pink slip “This new structure will streamline how we receive our finance and operations support. It will also make that support more directly responsible to those at ABC News who depend on it the most. And it should move us forward faster and more effectively into the evolving digital world,” ABC News president David Westin said in an...

My colleague Brent Baker has painstakingly documented how the big three broadcast networks have gone out of their way to avoid labeling scandal-scarred New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a “Democrat.” An examination of the fifteen ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows through Wednesday night finds Spitzer was called a Democrat just 20% of the time — twice on CBS, once on ABC, and never on NBC. So how do the networks treat Republicans involved in sex scandals? Always, always as Republicans, and as problems for their party. Last July, Louisiana Senator David Vitter’s name surfaced in...

With voters turning out in record numbers for the presidential primaries and two Democrats still locked in a tight race for the nomination, cable news networks have seen their ratings soar over the past six months. And it's coming as broadcast networks slip. Through the beginning of March, the most recent numbers available, ratings for the network nightly newscasts are all down year to year among the key adult demographics. But even more worrisome for the networks, the sharpest declines have been among the very adults 18-34 who account for some of cable news' biggest gains since the primary season...

It’s official: the networks no longer cover news, they slap it onto the bottom edge of their regular programming like Post-it notes. There were crawls (“Huckabee drops out”) and brief updates, but viewers who wanted to immerse themselves in the speculation and suspense — and Tuesday night was arguably a more critical and dramatic election than Super Tuesday — were relegated to cable news. Not that CNN and its brethren did a bad job. It’s just that Tuesday night’s showdown between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton was momentous. Not having a prime-time election report on ABC, CBS or...

After months of improving security in Iraq, the big network morning shows on Friday cited one horrific suicide bombing as proof that “mayhem and misery are back in Baghdad,” as CBS correspondent Mark Strassmann put it. But over the last five months, the broadcast networks have consistently reduced their coverage of Iraq, as if the story of American success in Iraq is less worthy of attention than their old mantra of American failure in Iraq. Media Research Center analysts tracked all coverage of the Iraq war on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from September 1 through January 31,...

Exclusive: After Obama Complaints, CNN Bans James Carville And Paul Begala From Appearing As Analysts Until Dem Primary Is Settled January 24, 2008 -- 7:11 PM EST

The slow but steady erosion in the power of primetime television is about to change the fundamental structure and financial clout of broadcast TV's perennial cash cow, warn advertisers, which pump more than $9 billion a year into the three-hour nightly window. With its waning audience, lack of a breakout hit in two seasons and with the writers' strike about to render the TV landscape barren of any new scripted shows, media planners and ad buyers are predicting: * The decades-long three-hour primetime window could shrink by one-third to just two hours a night. * The growth of less-expensive reality...

Study says 38.4 million will tune in via Internet Some 38.4 million homes worldwide will receive TV via the Internet by 2012, according to research by Informa Telecoms and Media. “In the shorter term we are forecasting 10.6 million IPTV households by the end of 2007, double the 2006 figure,” said Adam Thomas, Informa media research manager. “Much of the growth has come from service launches by European telcos.” Last year IPTV worldwide generated revenues from subscriptions and VOD of less than $1.5 billion. By 2012 this figure is forecast to reach $14.7 billion.

Striking screenwriters on Thursday night dismissed a new set of proposals from producers as “a massive rollback,” and called on their members to continue their walkout with fresh resolve despite a plan to continue talks on Tuesday. In a move to end a nearly four-week-old strike by writers, Hollywood’s studios and networks — represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — earlier in the day offered a new package of proposals that includes a revised offer for payments related to movies and shows distributed via new media. In a statement, producers said the new package, styled a...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2007 – Coalition forces wounded one suspected terrorist and detained 19 others today during operations to disrupt foreign terrorist networks in central Iraq. -- Southeast of Fallujah, coalition forces targeted an associate of an al Qaeda network responsible for insurgent activities in the region, including car-bomb and improvised-explosive-device attacks. As coalition forces arrived at the target building, they were engaged by two armed men. The ground force engaged and wounded one of the men. The second surrendered. -- Coalition forces conducted three coordinated operations south of Samarra targeting associates of an al Qaeda senior leader involved in...

Television's top writer-producers threw their collective weight behind the striking Writers Guild of America on Wednesday in a move that could accelerate the disappearance of some of the nation's most popular prime-time shows, including "Desperate Housewives," "Lost" and "The Office." In staging a very public rally in front of Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, the 100 or so writer-producers of some of TV's highest-rated programs ratcheted up the pressure on the studios and producers who only a day before had threatened to withdraw scores of lucrative contracts with writers. The support from the top was crucial since these writer-producers --...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2007 – Coalition forces killed three terrorists and detained nine suspects today during operations to disrupt al Qaeda and foreign terrorist networks in central and northern Iraq. During an operation west of Abu Ghraib, coalition forces targeted an alleged associate of several senior terrorist leaders in Kirkuk. Reports also indicate the targeted individual has information about foreign terrorists in the area. As the force secured the target, several men, one of whom was armed, maneuvered toward them. The suspected terrorists did not comply with the force’s instructions. The armed men continued to maneuver toward coalition troops, who...

Film and TV writers, actors and crew members are canceling vacations, working overtime and squirreling away savings while they still can. Talent agencies, postproduction houses and equipment rental shops have drawn up plans to cut costs and payrolls while caterers and special-effects houses scramble to find jobs that reduce their dependence on the entertainment industry. All over Hollywood, people are bracing for a strike. snip The networks have been looking through their libraries for reruns and various unscripted programs such as game shows that they could use in the event of a prolonged strike. The danger is that TV viewers,...

Big debuts fail to bring in big audiences By RICK KISSELL If early returns are any indication, it could be a challenging fall for the broadcast networks: Four new series got a jump on the competition with early bows Wednesday night, but none seemed to excite auds. Fox's "Back to You" and "Kitchen Nightmares" looked solid but unspectacular, while CBS' "Kid Nation" fared OK but didn't open to the kind of numbers commensurate with the publicity and controversy it had generated over the summer. And CW's "Gossip Girl" scored big with female teens but didn't do a whole lot in...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2007 – Coalition forces conducted two operations today targeting facets of the al Qaeda network that conduct attacks and facilitate the movement of foreign terrorists in northwestern Iraq. Several armed men engaged coalition forces during a raid in a desolate area six miles from the Syrian border. Coalition forces returned fire, killing six armed men. Coalition forces also discovered two men hiding inside a tent, one of whom detonated a suicide vest he was wearing, killing only himself and the other terrorist. Coalition forces found several suicide vests, weapons, rockets, grenades and $18,000 in U.S. currency at...

As the fall television season fast approaches, the four major broadcast networks are betting big that a lot of their viewers will be parked in front a computer screen instead of a TV. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox this year will offer more free full-length shows than ever via on-demand streaming through their own Web sites as well as through a network of third-party sites, with revenue coming from advertising. That's on top of established tactics of distributing short clips and teasers on sites like YouTube, or selling full-length episodes as downloads through iTunes. The push to deliver more shows...

BAGHDAD - U.S.-led forces swooped into the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City on Wednesday, killing 32 suspected militants and detaining 12 others in fighting and an airstrike targeting alleged smuggling networks from Iran. Iraqi police and witnesses said nine civilians were killed in the attack, which occurred hours before Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Tehran for his second visit in less than a year. Iraq, which like Iran is majority Shiite, has managed a difficult balancing act between Tehran and Washington since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, trying to maintain good relations with its powerful neighbor while not...

The media network is dead! Long live fragmentation! Kind of. A panel of online media experts debated the future of the industry at Fortune’s iMeme conference in San Francisco on Friday. It probably shouldn’t come as a huge shock that these Web executives predicted more doom and gloom for so-called ”old media” and good times ahead for the Internet companies. The general consensus was that the traditional media networks, your ABCs, CBSs, NBCs and Foxs of the world, are losing relevance in an era of MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. Michael Jackson, the president of programming for IAC (IACI), the Web...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - CBS and ABC fell to their lowest ratings among the coveted adults 18-49 demographic in two decades last week, as reruns and summer alternatives drove viewers from their couches. CBS managed to win the week in total viewership, while NBC and Fox -- the most successful last week with original reality -- tied in adults 18-49, according to Nielsen Media Research data issued Tuesday. NBC also had the top two shows for the week in the demo, "America's Got Talent" and "Dateline." CBS and ABC are the second and third networks to reach their lowest...

NEW YORK (AP) - Some of the most creative thinking in television these days has nothing to do with comedy or drama. It's about the commercials. Fueled by a growing sense of desperation, networks are inserting games, quizzes and mini-dramas into commercial breaks. They're incorporating more product pitches into programming. Two experimental programs without traditional commercial breaks will premiere this fall. NBC has even called on Jerry Seinfeld for help. This is all being done to stop viewers with DVRs from fast-forwarding through advertisements, or to circumvent those that do. Adding to the urgency, this week Nielsen Media Research begins...

He may have come down from the trees, but prehistoric man did not stop swinging. New research into Stone Age humans has argued that, far from having intercourse simply to reproduce, they had sex for fun. Practices ranging from bondage to group sex, transvestism and the use of sex toys were widespread in primitive societies as a way of building up cultural ties.

Last year, around the time that CBS agreed to pay an estimated $15 million a year to lure Katie Couric away from NBC, it spent several million dollars more in licensing fees to coax another nationally known television personality from the NBC station in New York to the one owned by CBS: Judge Judy. By installing “Judge Judy” from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., in place of the lower-rated “People’s Court,” CBS — and WCBS, its New York station — were hoping to bolster the ratings of the local news that followed her syndicated program. That, in turn, was supposed...

Last year, almost 18,000 media employees lost their jobs—the biggest group of layoffs since the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. Some of the world's biggest “old-media” companies—including MTV Networks (MTVN), NBC Universal, Disney and Discovery Communications—are axing staffers in handfuls and hundreds. In one of the biggest reductions, Time Warner's AOL began cutting 5,000 employees in December, about 26% of its workforce. U.S. media companies announced they were slashing a total of 17,809 jobs in 2006, 88% more than in the year before, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a New York-based global outplacement firm that tracks layoffs. The cuts...

Cisco Systems Inc. is warning users that nearly 80 of its routers are vulnerable to a hack tactic that got play last week. Dubbed "drive-by pharming" by Symantec Corp. and university researchers who first publicized the danger in a paper, the attack involves luring users to malicious sites where a device's default password is used to redirect them to bogus sites. Once they are at those sites, their identities could be stolen or malware could be force-fed to their computers. In an advisory posted Thursday, Cisco listed 77 vulnerable routers in the lines sold to small offices, home offices, branch...

In a spate of deals that could undercut the role of cable and satellite companies, several TV networks including Nickelodeon, Showtime and Starz have reached agreements with Microsoft Corp. to let people watch their Web programming on TV sets. Starz, a cable-movie service owned by Liberty Media Corp., has struck a deal giving viewers TV access to its movie-download services on the Web. Showtime, a premium-movie channel owned by CBS Corp., has agreed to a similar arrangement for its Showtime Interactive Web site. As with those two deals, Viacom's Nickelodeon cable channel has made arrangements with Microsoft to let people...

Dare we call it a trend? For the second consecutive week, Charlie Gibson's ABC World News edged Brian Williams' NBC Nightly News for first place among 25-to-54- year-old viewers. No big deal to the world at large, but it's a streaking comet in the galaxy of network news, where advertisers pay a premium to reach 25-to-54-year-old adults. Being No. 1 among total viewers makes for nifty bragging rights, but it's 25-to-54 that carries the freight. "I'm a little reluctant to call it a trend at two, but who knows," says World News boss Jon Banner. "If it is a trend,...

Nielsen Media Research will offer clients raw data on how many people watch commercials minute by minute, giving television networks and advertising buyers new information to wield in a dispute over how to calculate prices for TV spots. Story continues below... A Nielsen spokesperson Thursday said the roll-out of the raw data on broadcast commercial viewership will begin in a couple of weeks. Data on cable commercials will be available in late April and syndication commercial research will start flowing in late May. The ratings company unveiled the plan to offer the data during a meeting it held Thursday for...

NBC Uni reorganization sees Turner exit ad post By Paul J. Gough Dec 4, 2006 NEW YORK -- NBC Universal is expected to announce a reorganization as early as today that will see longtime ad sales chief Keith Turner -- who has left the company after eight years in the job -- replaced by veteran General Electric executive Mike Pilot. In addition, the company will redistribute the duties of former NBC Uni Television Group president and chief operating officer Randy Falco and soon-to-depart cable/new-media chief David Zaslav. Pilot at present is president GE Capital Solutions, U.S. Equipment Financing. Pilot, who...

POLITICS AND SALES MAKES FOR strange bedfellows. In the wake of Keith Turner's sales exit, NBC Universal Television will hand over its TV advertising selling reins to an outsider with no TV sales experience. Mike Pilot, who has been president of the commercial-finance division at General Electric, according to executives close to the company, will step into Turner's role. It is not known what exact title Pilot will carry. But he will take over the ad responsibilities of Keith Turner, who was president of advertising sales at NBC Universal Television Group, and that of Turner's former boss Randy Falco, who...

Local subscribers of EchoStar Communications, also known as DISH Network, were slated to lose ABC, NBC, CBS, CW and Fox stations because a federal court order directed them to stop importing broadcast channels from out-of-market areas.

Just six days after carrying its first live pro football game, NFL Network announced an deal with Insight Communications at midnight this morning which will see the eighth largest cable distributor carry the network’s remaining Thursday and Saturday night NFL games. While Michael Willner’s Insight was one of the first operators to agree to carry NFL Network – striking a deal in March 2004 to put the network on its digital basic tier – the company had resisted paying a surcharge that would give it rights to carry the network’s prized football games. Insight didn’t distribute NFL Network’s Kansas City...

U.S. networks reject ads for Dixie Chicks doc Last Updated: Saturday, October 28, 2006 | 4:52 PM ET CBC Arts Two American television networks — NBC and CW — have rejected advertising for the documentary Shut Up & Sing, a movie about the Dixie Chicks' controversial statement against the U.S. president and the invasion of Iraq, according to the company that is distributing the film. Officials at NBC say they were in talks about the television ads and were prepared to negotiate what could be included in the ad, when Weinstein Co. decided to send out a press release about...

Posted on Thu, Oct. 26, 2006 Gail Shister | The pros sound off on impact of NBC cuts By Gail Shister Inquirer Columnist NBC News can slash its budget many ways, but don't ask anchors and correspondents to give up the Benjamins, advises ex-CBS News chief Andrew Heyward. "It's very bad for morale. People take it very personally. When you actually pay somebody less, it tends to have a disproportionate psychological impact on the employee, in my experience." NBC News bossSteve Capus said this week that if enough on-air types took salary cuts at contract time, it could save jobs....

THE DECISION TO GUARANTEE 2006-07 upfront advertising deals solely on "live" TV audience ratings may have cost the TV networks hundreds of millions of dollars in potential ad revenues. That's the conclusion of a MediaDailyNews analysis based on conversations with top media buyers, TV sales executives and Nielsen ratings trend data through the first three weeks of the new TV season. To date, delayed viewing from digital video recorders is contributing another tenth of a Nielsen rating point to each of the Big 3 network's prime-time ratings, which buyers estimate could be worth as much as $86 million per network...

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ray Noorda, the former Novell Inc. chief executive hailed as "The Father of Network Computing" and one of the early leaders of the software industry, died on Monday of an Alzheimer's-related illness at his Utah home, his venture capital firm said. Noorda, 82, is also credited as one of first high-tech executives to take on Microsoft Corp. over its dominance on the desktop and with helping to create the reseller approach to boost sales by allowing partners to offer its software. Noorda served as president and chief executive of Utah-based Novell from 1983 to...

For many television executives, particularly at cable channels that carry a lot of commercials, Nov. 18 might be a good day to be out of the office. That is the day Nielsen Media Research is scheduled to release, for the first time, formal ratings for commercial breaks. The ratings will show advertisers how many people watch their ads, as opposed to the programs that carry them. As the date approaches, nervousness is increasing in the TV industry as executives ponder what the data might show about their particular networks. The industry expects Nielsen's data to show a noticeable ratings decline,...

Three years ago, some dismissed social networking Web sites as a fad, a place where the geek-minded could fluff their personality on a Web page. They’re now the hottest thing on the Web, with almost daily word of older companies suddenly becoming hip by jumping in. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reported that Yahoo YHOO is in serious talks to buy the popular social networking site Facebook.com for as much as $1 billion. Investors and companies are jumping into the business in a frenzy not seen, many observers say, since the days of...

Who's Afraid of TV 2.0? If you work at NBC Universal, beware the ides of September. Peacock staffers are sweating bullets over the impending release of what the company is calling TV 2.0, a proposed top-to-bottom reorganization of the network to streamline it for the Internet age. While NBC Universal Television Group honcho Jeff Zucker is pitching the project—recommendations are due mid-month, according to one source—as a visionary look to the future, staffers suspect it will be a merciless look at the bottom line. "Everyone is waiting for the ax to fall," says an NBCer. "There was a board meeting...

Commentary: Cable companies need to rethink their models BERKELEY (MarketWatch) -- This week the French-based Holersoft announced the release of Free Internet TV. This is a simple and downloadable Windows application that allows you to watch more than 1,200 live television channels from 100 countries by streaming media. While this isn't pure IPTV where these streams can be sent to the TV set in high definition, it does show you some of the potential of accessing TV stations on a global basis. Last night I watched a Cuban station (with a mysterious English translation), a game show on Vietnam TV...

LONG BEACH, Ca., Aug. 21 /Christian Newswire/ -- His Nesting Place, a pro-life home for unwed mothers will be featured on FX Networks "30 Days" program this Wednesday, August 24th at 10:00PM. Morgan Spurlock, producer of Super Size Me, sent his video crew along with pro-choice activist, Jennifer from Atlanta Georgia, to His Nesting Place for 30 days. During these 30 days Jennifer lived in the home under the same guidelines as any pregnant woman in a crisis pregnancy situation would live. Jennifer was required to help out around the home as well as volunteer at the crisis pregnancy center...

Infighting and Weak Ad Sales Hurt Both New Companies; Questioning a Media Fad 'I Have No Second Thoughts' On Jan. 3, Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone stood on the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange and heralded the split of his media conglomerate. "The world has changed," he declared after he rang the opening bell. Seven months later, the world indeed has changed -- but not entirely in the way Mr. Redstone predicted. The decision to separate the fast-growing MTV Networks from the more mature CBS TV and radio operation coincided with a sudden slowdown in cable-TV ad sales....

"You people obviously still don't get it, but you will soon," wrote right-wing blogger Jerry Hurtubise in an irate letter to the Columbia Journalism Review, sounding the death knell of the mainstream press. "It's over, you clowns. Now, when you lie, we will report it, every time." The army of die-hard "Kossacks" assembled in the Riviera's ballroom to hear Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zúniga couldn't have agreed more. They roared in approval as Moulitsas spent nearly half his keynote address repeatedly deriding "the media elite." At the Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas in early June, the attacks on...