About 90 percent of Americans pay for television, giving them scores of channels to choose from, but four free-to-air networks they can pick up with a “rabbit ears” aerial still account for 96 of the top 100 primetime programs. Audience inertia and brand loyalty built over decades mean that ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC still account for 40 percent of all primetime viewing. Their unique ability to attract mass audiences, particularly for live sport, has kept TV advertising healthy even as advertising dollars fled other media for Google and Facebook.
Arming Cable Against the Open Internet
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Cable television companies are distressed about how quickly Internet and mobile viewing are stealing customers. Now, technology firms want to sell them ways to offer the personal choice of mobile, while justifying the goodies that come to someone who pays for a subscription.
AT&T and Google’s plans to give Austin a gigabit is an experiment. Is it a good one?
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
AT&T executives will meet with Austin and Texas officials seeking the same concessions that Google is getting in order to build out its gigabit network. As someone who has followed telecom in Austin, and in Texas, this mostly means the ability to cherry pick where it will deploy its gigabit network. And that points to both the upside and downside of Google’s influence.
Belo’s Decherd: New Media Must Be Guided By Old Media Values
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
The Radio Television Digital News Foundation changed its name several years back to reflect the rise of digital media, but March 14 may have been the real milepost as the organization saluted Twitter as a First Amendment award winner. And while traditional journalists collecting their own First Amendment awards echoed salutes to the transformative impact of 140 characters and the technology that powers the Internet, the evening ended with Belo Chairman Robert Decherd advising/warning that investment in traditional journalism and its values should not be trumped by technology.
Recalculating the privacy debate after Google Maps penalty
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
By now, consumers and citizens may have detected a pattern: New technologies allow new types of privacy invasions, which then lead to ad hoc remedies – until the next type of intrusion. As the string of Google violations shows – along with dozens of new privacy laws passed since the 1970s – the pace of this cat-and-mouse privacy quest has quickened in the Digital Age.
Newspapers Turning Ideas Into Dollars
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
In America's embattled newspaper industry, some business innovations are showing clear signs of success, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center. While many of these are occurring on the digital side, some papers are generating new print revenue-through circulation gains, niche products and even sales reorganization.
CBS Bans SodaStream Ad. Where’s The Outrage?
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
CBS banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl spot because, apparently, it was too much of a direct hit to two of its biggest sponsors, Coke and Pepsi.
Dodgers, Time Warner Cable announce new channel: SportsNet LA
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
The name for the Dodgers' new television channel: SportsNet LA. The Dodgers and Time Warner Cable officially announced their television contract, with the team-owned channel starting in 2014. The deal, pending the approval of Major League Baseball, covers 25 years and is believed to be worth between $7 billion and $8 billion to the team.