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NBC CUTS HIT TELEMUNDO
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Allison Romano]
As part of NBC's plan to cut 700 jobs and save $750 million, the corporation is overhauling local news at a half dozen of its Telemundo stations. NBC-owned outlets in San Jose, Calif., Houston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Phoenix, and Tucson, Ariz., will shutter local news operations and take one of three regionalized feeds for early-evening and late news from the new Telemundo Production Center. The stations will still be able to insert stories from reporters in their markets. NBC says the changes will improve efficiency and news quality. But critics feel that centralized news operations run the risk of homogenizing the product in an already underserved Hispanic market. Under the plan, newsrooms in six markets will be downsized into bureaus. Remaining reporters and photographers will contribute stories and cut-ins to the newscasts, and a number of jobs will be eliminated. NBC, which owns 15 Telemundo stations, will say only that the cuts represent 5% of the network's workforce, but they're expected to include on-air talent, producers and technical operators.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386387.html?display=News
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386387.html?display=News
ELECTIONS' EFFECT ON MEDIA
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Washington lobbyists are expecting that the US House of Representatives will be controlled by Democrats next year and think the Senate is a toss-up. If Congress does change hands completely, committee assignments should end up following seniority. Unlike the Republicans under Newt Gingrich, who bypassed some senior members after the 1994 Republican House victory, Democrats tend to hand out plum assignments by seniority. That would place Michigan's John Dingell atop House Commerce, Hawaii's Daniel Inouye chairing -- or perhaps co-chairing -- Senate Commerce, and Massachusetts' Ed Markey heading the House Telecommunications Subcommittee. According to lobbyists, who unsurprisingly declined to talk on the record, if the issue is media ownership, a new Hill regime could spell trouble for deregulatory-hungry broadcasters. If FCC Chairman Kevin Martin tries to move a new set of deregulatory rules, Markey would likely try to block them. Video-franchise reform would almost certainly not pass in a lame-duck session, although it probably wouldn't pass even if Republicans managed to win both houses, thanks to its linkage to network neutrality.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386377.html?display=News
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6386377.html?display=News
ANALYSIS: A DEM WIN COULD STIFLE OWNERSHIP REFORMS
[SOURCE: MediaWeek, AUTHOR: Todd Shields]
A victory in the Nov. 7 elections could give Democrats power to block Republican-led attempts to relax media ownership regulations. Democrats also might seek legislation requiring cable operators to carry multiple digital channels from each local broadcaster, and could seek increased subsidies for consumers switching to digital TV. Such policies are among the most-watched as Washington’s telecommunications community braces for elections next Tuesday in which Democrats seem likely to gain control of the House and possibly the Senate. Little change, however, is expected with broadcast indecency where both parties have backed stiffer penalties.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10033...
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003316045
CONGRESS ON TECHNOLOGY ISSUES: ALL TALK AND NO ACTION
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Rep Zoe Lofgren]
[Commentary] As we approach the November elections, America's technology leaders should be asking what the 109th Congress has done for the tech sector and American innovation. From my perspective, the answer is a whole lot of talk, and not nearly enough action. The need for stronger congressional leadership and decisive action to help industry spur innovation could not be clearer. Nearly a year ago, an expert panel at the National Academics declared itself ``deeply concerned'' that the scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding, bluntly warning that ``we are worried about the future prosperity of the United States.'' If Democrats win control of Congress this fall, on our first day we will adopt policies to include the whole Congress, not just one party, in dealing with the challenges America faces. We will work with all interested House colleagues in order to turn Pelosi's innovation agenda into reality. This will mean good things for Silicon Valley as well as our nation's tech sector and a better future for all Americans.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/15883776.htm
Congress on technology issues: all talk and no action
US TV BROADCASTS LEAVING SOME CUBANS IN THE DARK
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Marc Frank]
Cuba has jammed the latest anti-Castro television programing beamed over by the United States, according to an informal survey of Cubans who tried to watch the shows that included baseball's championship series. But the U.S. agency that oversees the effort said it was "confident" Cubans were seeing the programs. The Bush administration has pledged to strengthen TV Marti broadcasts in hopes of undermining Cuba's communist government, provisionally headed by Defense Minister Raul Castro while his brother, President Fidel Castro, recovers from intestinal surgery. TV Marti, part of the U.S. government's International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), officially began new aircraft-based broadcasts on Tuesday to baseball-crazed Cuba, starting with game three of the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers.
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=televisionNews&story...
UNIVISION'S NY STATION FINISHES SECOND IN RATINGS
[SOURCE: MediaWeek, AUTHOR: John Consoli]
Univision's New York City TV station, WXTV-Univision 41, for the first time since the implementation of Local People Meters by Nielsen Media Research, has finished second overall in the marketplace ratings for its 6 p.m. weekday local news telecast.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=10033...
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003316022
PROVIDENTIAL POWELL?
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable]
Providence Equity Partners is reportedly one of the venture capital firms kicking the tires on Clear Channel. If so, it could bring a familiar name back into the media consolidation gambit. Clear Channel became the poster company for media consolidation during the last round of attempted deregulatory ownership rule rewrites at the FCC under then Chairman Michael Powell. The purchase by Providence would link Clear Channel with Michael Powell yet again. Powell is employed as a senior adviser to Providence Equity, which was where he landed as a consultant on "regulatory issues in the media" among other things, after leaving the FCC in March of 2005. But this time, Clear Channel could possibly become the poster company for de-consolidation.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138/post/1870005187.html?ni...
* Clear Channel's Founders Stand to Get Windfall
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116218211210507555.html?mod=todays_us_pa...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138/post/1870005187.html?nid=2960
LOCAL GROUP WANTS TO BUY TRIBUNE'S BALTIMORE SUN
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Robert MacMillan and Jessica Hall]
A group of local investors has told Tribune Co. that it wants to buy the Baltimore Sun newspaper, even as private equity firms lined up on Friday to submit takeover offers for the whole company. The local group, called the Baltimore Media Group, is led by area publisher Ted Venetoulis, and includes 15 to 20 civic and business leaders.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=industryNews&storyID...
IN EARLY NEWSPAPERS, ONLY 'MR SILKY MILKY' WOULD BE IMPARTIAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Cynthia Crossen]
Early U.S. newspaper publishers scoffed at the idea that they should hide their political prejudices under a cloak of objectivity. Editors who tried to remain relatively detached were mocked by their competitors. Circulation and advertising revenue couldn't support a newspaper, but government jobs or printing contracts could. When the political candidates they supported were elected, loyal editors expected pork or patronage, and their journals became "virtual branches of the government," wrote Eric Burns, author of "Infamous Scribblers." As America's population and literacy grew, newspaper publishers found it economically advantageous to reach out to different kinds of readers, not just members of their own parties. And when the Government Printing Office was created in 1860, editors had less to gain from cozying up to politicians.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116216815220307359.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
(requires subscription)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116216815220307359.html?mod=todays_us_marketplac…
LAWMAKERS' CHANGES SPARK TAKEOVER TALK
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Raphael Minder]
Just days after Australian lawmakers endorsed a loosening of the country’s media ownership rules, the sector is already awash in takeover speculation as domestic and foreign groups jostle to take full advantage of the legislative overhaul. The corporate excitement reflects the long wait for such a reform. Promised by John Howard, the Liberal prime minister, at the time of his first electoral victory in 1996, it is designed to put an end to almost two decades of stringent curbs on media takeovers and foreign ownership. The laws were originally put in place by the Labor government to prevent concentration of media ownership across platforms and to protect Australian media against foreign predators. The reform could take several more months to come into force as the government tussles with media companies over the planned award of two new digital television licences, one of which will be devoted to mobile TV or Internet services. John Fairfax, the newspaper group, is among those that have argued that this would unfairly benefit TV companies by allowing them to control new mobile TV services.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/761f5ac0-650d-11db-90fd-0000779e2340.html
(requires subscription)
Lawmakers’ changes spark takeover talk