September 2011

French papers team up to break Apple stranglehold

Apple's tight control over media content on its iPad is about to fall foul of some of France's most powerful newspapers and magazines, which hope that by teaming up they can stop the technology giant from dictating the terms of their distribution. The bid by eight publications, including newspaper Le Figaro and sports daily L'Equipe, is the latest sign of growing disillusionment among some global publishers over what they consider Apple's rigid terms and high commission of 30 percent.

The French publications, which also include business daily Les Echos and news weekly le Nouvel Observateur, have launched a digital kiosk to sell individual issues on the iPad and will soon add subscriptions and bundled offers. They are also negotiating with Apple as a collective, and will not sell their products on Apple's own kiosk, dubbed the Newsstand, set to launch next month, without key concessions.

Time Warner Cable to Expand Low-Price Package That Excludes ESPN

Time Warner Cable will offer more broadly a low-priced programming package that excludes sports channels including Walt Disney’s ESPN. The company will offer it in markets on the East Coast during the next few weeks, said Robert Marcus, president and chief operating officer of New York-based Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable system after Comcast Corp. West Coast availability will follow, he said. The offer had been previously tested in New York. The low-priced service may help Time Warner Cable stem losses of subscriptions from cash-strapped customers, Marcus said

The Web's rapid release cycle -- and how IT departments can tame it

Nowhere is the intersection between the consumer world and the enterprise domain more significant than on the Web.

In the consumer space, we depend on services like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and Amazon; in the corporate world, we have custom line-of-business applications and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications such as Google Apps and Office 365. The same core set of technologies and infrastructure underpins both, and this creates quite a conundrum for many enterprises. The consumer world favors a policy of rapid releases, which is anathema to business. Thanks to Web browsers and Web apps, however, corporate IT departments increasingly find themselves forced to adjust to this newer, faster world. So how can businesses respond?

iPhone, Android users worry about security, but don't know what to do

iOS and Android users don't seem to share the same views on much when it comes to the mobile space, but they both appear to have concerns about security threats to their devices. According to recent data from the NPD Group, users of both platforms are worried about having their credit card info stolen, device theft, hackers accessing personal information, harmful apps, and unwanted location tracking. Very few have chosen to do anything besides worry, however.

Nielsen Discloses Major TV Ratings Glitch, Could Impact Millions In TV Ad Buys

A week after unveiling an aggressive plan to convince the ad industry to use its new Facebook panel as the "GRP" for online advertising and media buys, Nielsen began informing clients about a major snafu with the one that generates GRPs for the multibillion television advertising marketplace.

Nielsen said the glitch has been generating incorrect data for most of this year for GRPs and the reach and frequency estimates used as the basis for most TV advertising plans. Nielsen said the problem is under investigation, but some agency executives already believe it could lead to big problems with their TV audience guarantees that could result in millions of dollars in "makegoods" from television networks.

Unite To Ignite

[Commentary] Teens want to unite to ignite. They want to change the world. Teens want brands they support to be a part of the solution to solving the world's problems. They want corporations to do more than give money to a cause; they want them to make 'doing good' a part of their daily business. Teens will not support a cause-marketing program that is a wolf (marketing) in sheep's clothing (cause marketing). How do you build your brand and change the world? Here's what teens told us they want -- the top 9 list.

Be authentic. Repeat: Be authentic. No gimmicks.
Engage them with more than 'stuff' and self-interest.
Be transparent.
Do not use cause marketing to fix a bad or broken product.
Don't bore them.
Keep it simple.
Be relevant.
Understand what motivates them.
Educate people and move them to action (emotion).

New Telergee Study: Rural telco operating margins declined again

A new financial survey of small rural telcos offers good and bad news about the rural telecom industry today.

On the plus side, small telcos’ Internet business continued to be strong. On the downside, the telcos once again saw operating margins decline. The survey also found that small telcos with video and wireless businesses continue to struggle to earn a profit with those business lines, while telcos with CLEC operations saw margins improve. The Telergee Alliance, a group of accounting firms that specialize in the rural telco market, has conducted the survey, called the Telergee Benchmarking Study, for several years. This year’s survey drew 221 responses, which should be a representative sample of the 800-odd incumbent rural telcos nationwide. It is based on data for calendar year 2010.

White House: We Gave LightSquared Plenty Of Grief Over GPS

The White House is pushing back against charges of favoritism towards a telecom firm LightSquared, citing numerous instances in which Administration officials have raised concerns about its plan to create a new wireless broadband network.

The White House argues that the favoritism charges don't add up because they've raised complaints about the GPS issue from the start. Lawrence Strickling, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, repeatedly cited the GPS issue in a Jan. 2011 letter to Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski, saying that it "raises significant interference concerns that warrant full evaluation." The FCC ended up granting a conditional waiver to LightSquared to move ahead -- but only if they could demonstrate through testing that their plan would not impact GPS. A number of officials who have testified to Congress on the matter have reported that testing thus far has found significant problems, assessments that the White House believes should insulate them from claims their testimony was inappropriately tweaked.

News Corp COO Chase Carey: “Nothing We've Seen” To Support Allegations That 9/11 Family Phones Were Hacked

News Corp COO Chase Carey bobbed and weaved today when audience members at the Goldman Sachs Commmunicopia Conference asked questions that touched on the company’s hacking and police bribery scandals. “The media noise has been surreal around it,” he says. “The truth will come out. The issues will work their way out.”

He did note that there’s “nothing we've seen” to support the allegation — which the Justice Department is investigating — that News of the World may have hacked phones of families of 9/11 victims. Carey wouldn't rule out the possibility that News Corp might renew its effort to buy the 61% of BSkyB that it doesn't already own. “We'll continue to be a shareholder. … We have a lot of flexibility if and when something arises.” He added that he’s “not going to get into speculating” about whether UK officials might force News Corp to give up its current shares in the satellite power.

Cord-cutting thwarted for now by big media: Nomura

Big owners of television networks and studios have taken "intelligent actions" that have thwarted the threat of so-called "cord-cutting" for now, according to Nomura Securities analyst Michael Nathanson.

Investors have worried that cable-TV subscribers would increasingly cancel or downgrade their service and get much of their movie and television viewing from Netflix, Amazon, and other online streaming video providers. But in a research note, Nathanson said traditional media has done much to preclude that possibility. Their moves "include limiting the availability of premium content in deflationary settings while providing legitimate alternatives to emerging online models," Nathanson said. "Perhaps the most important recent data point of a 'smarter industry' was Starz' decision to walk away from a potential renewal with Netflix," he explained.

Benton

Search