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DOWNLOAD BIZ HAS TO CHANGE, OR DIGITAL SALES WILL BE PLAYING A SWAN SONG
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR:]
[Commentary] Nearly six years after the introduction of iTunes and the iPod, online music has failed to interest the vast majority of the world's music consumers. Which is no doubt why Steve Jobs recently called for an end to copy-protection software on digital songs. Something has to change, or iTunes and its ilk will never break into the mass market. It's certainly not that people don't want to buy stuff on the Internet. Amazon.com's sales soared in 2006. Blue Nile is thriving selling diamond jewelry, and eBay sells millions of cars. Getting people to buy songs ought to be a snap. But for the majority of people, downloading songs is too hard and too frustrating. Some of that problem is the digital rights management (DRM) software that limits where and how songs can be played. It makes iTunes songs playable only on iPods, Rhapsody subscription songs playable only on certain devices, and so on. The record companies believe DRM keeps people from pirating music, which may or may not be true. But DRM definitely keeps people from buying online music. As Jobs says, if consumers could buy music from any online store and play it on any device, the entire industry would thrive. There are other reasons downloads are stalled. People who grew up with CDs — or vinyl LPs before that — like the packaging and cover art, and like to get songs deep in an album that are not hits but grow on you over time. At 99 cents a song, digital downloads don't offer enough value to give up the packaged CD niceties. Especially when pirated music is so easily available for free. If digital downloads are going to take off, they probably need to be DRM-free, simpler to buy and much cheaper. Then again, that will only happen with the record companies' blessing, and since they get 90% of their revenue from CD sales, maybe they just don't care about taking digital downloads to the mass market.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20070214/maney14.art.htm

LIBERTY SWAP NETS CBS TV STATION
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Mike Reynolds]
The day after John Malone’s company moved toward finalizing an agreement with Time Warner Inc. for the Atlanta Braves, Liberty will trade its holdings in CBS Corp. for the broadcaster’s TV station in Green Bay (WI), home of the (in)famous cheeseheads. Liberty exchanged 7.6 million shares it held in CBS, roughly 1% of the company, for WFVR in Green Bay and its satellite, WJMN in Escanaba, Mich. The deal, with the companies valuing the station at $64 million, also gives Liberty $170 million in cash. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter, subject to FCC approval. As for the Braves transaction, Liberty is swapping 60 million of its 171 million in Time Warner for the ballclub, which is valued at some $460 million, 18 Leisure Arts craft magazines owned by Time Inc. and $1 billion in cash.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6416282.html?display=Breaking+News

IS RADIO STILL RADIO IF THERE'S VIDEO?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Siklos]
The nation’s commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is in, of all things, video. Across the country, radio stations are putting up video fare on their Web sites, ranging from a simple camera in the broadcast booth to exclusive coverage of events like the Super Bowl to music videos, news clips and Web-only musical performances. Whereas video was once said to have killed the radio star — according to the pop song by the Buggles that was the first video shown on MTV in 1981 — it is now emerging as an unlikely savior for an industry facing an array of challenges. In the age of YouTube and the radio talk show hosts Howard Stern and Don Imus as television stalwarts, this might not seem all that remarkable, except that the radio industry has been singularly tardy in embracing the interactive age. “This is no longer the age of ‘having a face for radio,’ ” said Dianna Jason, the senior director of marketing and promotions at Power 106, a Los Angeles hip-hop radio station. “This is a visual medium now.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/business/media/14radio.html
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ANNA AND ASTROTURF TRIGGER A WEEK OF TABLOID NEWS
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
For the first time this year, “tabloid gold” fever seized at least some of the news media last week in a significant way, according to PEJ’s News Coverage Index from February 4 to February 9. Though it only made up two days of coverage, the sudden death of Anna Nicole Smith was the No. 3 story in the news last week, almost edging out a bloody week in Iraq. Smith's demise consumed a staggering 50% of the cable newshole PEJ examined on February 8 and 9. Those are levels reminiscent of those pre-9/11 celebrity sagas -- think Princess Di and JFK Jr. Had it fallen more in the middle of the week, the Smith coverage, which made up 9% of the newshole in just two days, would have doubtless knocked news of events in Iraq out of the No. 2 spot in the news (at 10%) and come close to knocking out the debate at home over Iraq strategy as the No. 1 story of the week (it made up 12%). It was enough to overshadow what had been a good tale of sex and almost murder that preceded it -- news that diaper-clad astronaut Lisa Nowak allegedly tried to kill a romantic rival. Nowak still made the Index’s top five story list (6%). Coverage of the 2008 White House race, which got a boost from Rudy Giuliani’s statement of candidacy, was the fourth biggest story at 8%.
http://www.journalism.org/node/4096