Current News and Media Videos

Ad revenues are down for big media companies. Who’d have guessed? Gas prices are up so where are people going to cut expenses? On the expenses that aren’t 100% necessary and for many small businesses, advertising is one of those things that eats into the budget, especially if small business owners can’t easily spot or measure the ROI of the expense. But big companies have budgets too. And when hard times hit they’ll cut their expenses just like the small fries will. So this is where we’re at right now. Big oil had its hey-day and now the rest of us are eating dirt. Thanks Exxon Mobil. The news industry loves you.

The second story this week has more to do with legislation. The Senate has decided not to vote on the media shield law. It’s technical name is the Free Flow of Information Act. All but five Republicans want to vote on energy legislation before tackling the free flow of information law that keeps the public informed of important goings on in Washington. Well, they may not have their priorities right, but at least they have priorities, much like the Big Oil companies. The media thanks you.

Google’s market share has increased again. According to CNET, the search giant is up to 77.4% of the search ad market.

Yahoo!s share dropped by 2% to 17.8%. The Google-Yahoo! agreement that allows some of Google’s ads to be displayed on Yahoo! SERPs will give Google more than 90% of the search ad market. That has triggered some antitrust concerns with the Department of Justice and others.

Google has achieved the monolithic distinction of being among the companies that can’t wake up in the morning without crossing the line of evil business mogul. Microsoft crossed that line years ago. Now it’s Google’s turn, and from the looks of things, Yahoo! will never make it. We may soon see a search environment where Yahoo! is no longer a player and with Google dominating both the search and the search advertising industries it is possible that a forced breakup to protect consumers may be inevitable. But we’re a few years from that yet.

OMD Worldwide today announced that it has been awarded the global media planning and buying business for Intel(R) Corporation, following a review that began in December.

It is the agency’s second consecutive global win in 2008. In first quarter, OMD was awarded the Visa global media business.

Other finalists included incumbent Universal McCann and Starcom Digitas.

Rest of the Story Here

The atmosphere is thick with anticipation of the upcoming talks between company giants Microsoft and Yahoo. Reportedly, if Yahoo does not start talks this weekend, Microsoft could launch a hostile bid.

Microsoft stated that they will not raise their bid of $31 a share. They don’t feel that right now, after preliminary tests, that Yahoo is worth more than $46 billion. Yahoo stated that the proposed bid underestimates the potential value of the company.

Microsoft also stated that if talks do not take place or if an agreement cannot be reached, Microsoft will start looking elsewhere for future endeavours. Microsoft is looking to vastly improve their position in the online advertising market, especially in the highly lucrative aspect of search advertising, which Google dominates.

The battle of the corporate giants wages on. Yahoo! is strong, but they need backing power. A merger with the right company could increase profits and share value.

Microsoft approached Yahoo! earlier this year with a $42,000,000,000 offer to purchase and take over the company. Yahoo! feels they are worth more based on the latest reports.

Google has been in negotiations with Yahoo! to purchase all its search advertising for a broader search-ad outsourcing arrangement. This may cause regulatory problems though.

Time Warner AOL has recently entered negotiations with Yahoo! to purchase a 20% stake in the company. Yahoo! has not confirmed anything with AOL as of yet.

Which company has the best chance? Click the link below to find out more.

The Rest of The Story here

The Walt Disney Company and CTC Media Conclude Entertainment Licensing Agreement in Russia
MOSCOW, April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — CTC Media, Inc.
(Nasdaq: CTCM), Russia’s leading independent media company, has concluded a
major, multi-year licensing agreement with The Walt Disney Company’s
international TV licensing arm, Disney-ABC International Television. This
agreement covers the licensing of features, live action series, animated
series and made-for-TV movies for the CTC television network. The CTC
Network — the flagship of CTC Media — is the fourth-most watched
broadcaster in Russia with an average audience share of 11.3% in its target
demographic (everyone aged 6-54) in 2007.

The Rest of The Story here

Millennial Media Adds Verizon as a Client
Mobile advertising company Millennial Media announced a strategic agreement with Verizon Wireless to manage a large portion of the company’s mobile advertising inventory.

Verizon Wireless used to only work with AOL’s Platform A, which includes Advertising.com and Third Screen Media.

The agreement will allow Millenial Media, a cross-platform mobile advertising company, to deliver its banner and text ads to Verizon’s mobile web users.

Paul Palmieri, president and CEO of Millennial Media said, “Verizon Wireless has long been a leader in consumer mobile services, and we are excited to add them to our industry-leading networks of brand-name, premium publishers and carriers.”

Well, the wait is finally over and Bungie has released the details of all three new maps that will be featured in the upcoming downloadable map pack on Xbox Live April 15th.

The Legendary Map Pack will consist of:

GHOST TOWNPhoto courtesy of Bungie
AVALANCHEPhoto courtesy of Bungie
BLACKOUTPhoto courtesy of Bungie

These maps will cost 800 Microsoft Points which is equivalent to $10.00 USD. Since then, the Heroic Map Pack has been offered as a free download. For more on the Heroic Map Pack, click here.

I predict there will be a day when most of what you read in the mainstream press will come from a blog or somewhere else on the Internet.

Some people will read that prediction and say, “They already are”. Some will say, “Duh. I knew that”. And other people will say, “This guy is out of his mind. That will never happen”.

Some people call it Blogging. Some call it the New Media. Some call it Citizen Journalism. But anyone who doesn’t think of blogging as legitimate journalism is in for a rude awakening.

Blogs Influence Journalists, Nearly all Facets of News Coverage

Blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news but also influencing the tone and editorial direction of reporting, according to a survey of US journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group.

New media (social media and blogs) are having an impact on many aspects of reporting, particularly the speed and availability of news, Brodeur said.

Newspaper fell behind tv news because newspapers can’t bring you up-to-the minute news. TV news will fall behind or already has fallen behind the New Media, Blogs, because they can’t get the news any faster than bloggers can and journalists don’t get it as fast in many instances.

Another thing to point out is that there are a lot of bloggers who go much further in depth on a story and are more dogged in tracking down sources than journalists are. Bloggers don’t have a publisher with an agenda. Bloggers don’t have a marketing department that tells them the type of stories they need on the front page to sell newspapers.

Citizen Journalism critics say that bloggers are not as reliable as reporters. That’s bunk. It has been a very very long time since journalists who work for newspapers and TV stations were reliable sources for news.

From NYTimes reporters who plagiarized stories to those journalists who President Bush paid to write favorable stories about his No Child Left Behind education policies, journalists in the mainstream press have repeatedly shown they are no more reliable than the average joe who writes a news blog.

Now all newspapers and TV news shows are seen as far left or far right by people. Fox news is seen as far right and CNN as far left. In talk radio you have the al franken’s VS the rush limbaughs.

So the news we get on radio, TV, and newspapers is not unbiased, fair, or balanced as all of these claim they are. Add that to the fact they are owned by mega news corporations that have their own political, social, and marketing agendas and you cannot possibly be still under the impression that the mainstream media is more reliable than citizen journalists who write blogs.

Yes blogs can be slanted far left or far right as well. Usually they are much more open about that though. Fox news claims to be fair and balanced and claims they are not far right, while Redstate.org states right in their rules for posting on the site, “The purpose of this site is promote conservative and Republican ideals.”

Citizen Journalism is much more honest and straightforward about their intent than mainstream media. Mainstream Media has a bunch of lawyers, stock analysts, marketing people, and others who judge a story’s value not on how valuable that news is to the public, but how it might imact their advertisers, their stock prices, and whether or not it might get them sued.

The biggest impact of blogs is in the speed and availability of news.

Over half also said that blogs were having a significant impact on the “tone” (61.8%) and “editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting.

“While only a small percentage of journalists feel that blogs are helpful in generating sources or exclusives, they do see blogs as particularly useful in helping them better understand the context of a story, a new story angle, or a new story idea,” said Jerry Johnson, head of strategic planning at Brodeur, during the “Taking the Blogosphere Seriously” seminar at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

With some mainstream journalists it has already happened. With others it will happen. They will be at a point where before they write a story or run a story in the mainstream press, they will check the blogs first to see how the public might react to that story or to get new ideas and angles for that story.

Many people who have been blogging a long time have always predicted this to happen. Now it is happening.

The Rest of The Story on journalists and bloggers here

I think the answer to that question is absolutely yes. There is so much content to read on the web and so many news sources, people do not have to pay subscriptions to get good content.

In 1995 there was so much free porn on the web that no one was going to sign up for memberships to paid sites. Soon the free porn virtually disappeared and the porn industry became profitable.

As long as there is free news on the web, charging subscribers to read your news is a bad business plan. A better plan is to make your content better and more appealing than everyone else’s content and sell advertising to make your money.

An example; Here is a website that believes you will pay Rs. 149 per catagory for their news. If Rs stands for India Rupees, then thats just a little over $3 per catagory, so it isn’t too bad, buit others charge a lot more than that and believe you will pay for it.

Here is an online newspaper that wants $75 from you for 10 articles. It specifies that this is for Internet Users among others.

Almost any news you can write about has also been written about on some other blog or news website where you can view it for free. People just aren’t going to pay for what they can get for nothing.

What is your take on this? Do you pay for your news still? I understand if you like to still get your newspaper, but do you pay for your news online? Why?