Publicly Funded Journalism Effort Looking For, er, Funds

What follows is an item from the (Phil) Matier and (Andy) Ross column on SFGate earlier this week. It’s about the Bay Citizen, which, according to @jayrosen_nyu, (who attributes this to Bay Citizen Editor Jonathan Weber) was funded to the tune of $14 million, with $5 million coming from San Francisco philanthropist Warren Hellman, but [...]

In the Cable Wars, Content Companies Continue to Get Feisty

Suddenlink is a small cable operator (about a million subs) in the south and southwest. But it’s the scene of just the latest skirmish in the ongoing wars between content providers and distributors, a war that in the new digital world continues to go better for the content owners. And for we the consumers, it’s [...]

Why Fox News Continues to Roll

It’s about time. People don’t have any. For the ninth straight year Fox News is cable television’s top News Network. This year, it beat CNN and MSNBC combined. And, the top five cable news programs among 25-54 year-old viewers were all on Fox: The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity, Glenn Beck, On the Record and, get this, [...]

Changes at CNN Reflect the New Reality of Convergence

Troubled news channel CNN reorganized its reporting structure yesterday, taking a giant step in the right direction. Consolidating the many CNN news operations under one structure is apparently a “Key recommendation of the One CNN project” which appears to be moving the worldwide news operation toward the kind of convergence that will be necessary in [...]

New Indications that Media and Advertising are Improving.

Good news on several fronts in the media world this week. According to Advertising Age, the media business saw a real turnaround this year. After a disastrous 2009, during which the 100 Leading Media Companies saw revenues fall (they dropped 3.8%) for the first time since Ad Age started paying attention in 1981, the picture [...]

Net Neutrality. One Small Step…One Giant Leap

Just getting a Net Neutrality law on the books is huge. It does make the statement that the Internet has to be open to everyone. It tries to tell everyone to play fair. Like so many laws, though, there will ultimately be a series of court cases and challenges that determine just how much protection [...]

Hulu Pulls Plug on IPO – It’s about Content!

Online Video web site Hulu quietly pulled the plug on its planned IPO this week. The company had hoped to use the money raised by selling stock to buy more rights to content that it could put up on its platform. Now it has shifted its attention to other forms of fund raising, including new [...]

Kramer on Fox Business: Why Businesses Need to Understand the Four C’s

Liz and Larry talk about the changing media landscape and how that will trickle down to a changing playing field for all businesses. We also show some examples of businesses that seem to get it. The solution for most: businesses will need to communicate differently with all their constituients. They will have to learn the [...]

You Gotta Love Their Honesty and Conversational Tone

Content Starts to Flex its Muscles

Another major skirmish is heating up in the media business. As I predicted would happen in my new book C-Scape, the balance of power has begun to shift from the distributors — like cable and satellite tv companies — to the Content Creators, who are beginning to understand that the new world gives them countless [...]