How educational are children’s educational TV shows on commercial channels? Not very, suggests a new study by Children’s Now, which finds that only 1 in 8 programs listed by TV stations as “educational/informational” in fact offer education of “high quality.”…
As former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin gives interviews to various TV outlets this see, she is “unleashed but not humbled,” the New York Times says. Her interviews began airing before her running mate, John McCain, got his post-election say…
Disney is bidding against Fox to move the college football Bowl Championship Series to ESPN, USA Today reports. Fox’s $82.5 million a year deal runs through next season. “The BCS is obviously an attractive television property, but we simply have…
A Los Angeles Times columnist says it’s time for the cable industry to switch to an a la carte system that would allow subscribers to pay only for the channels they want to watch. “I never watch ESPN. When I…
Al Gore’s Current Media eliminated about 60 positions, but said it created 30 new jobs, leaving it with a staff of 410 employees, according to CNET. Sources tell CNET the networks will be shifting from shorter, user-generated videos to more…
Generating big ratings while covering the stock market collapse has earned CNBC budget cuts, the New York Observer reports. CNBC is expected to have to lower spending by 10%. It wasn’t clear if staffing would be an area where CNBC…
While Thursday night’s game between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets on NFL Network will also be broadcast by a local station in Boston, Patriot fans in other New England towns will have to get satellite or…
HBO is developing a new series with Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis based on his childhood, Daily Variety reports. The project, “Scar Tissue,” will focus on Kiedis’ relationship growing up with his father. The singer is teaming…
Citigroup is forecasting that ad spending will be down 1.8% this year and 3.6% in 2009, Bloomberg reports. “We believe U.S. advertising spending will see the first back-to-back annual declines since at least the 1950s,” a Citigroup analyst wrote in…
An updated forecast by the Television Bureau of Advertising calls for a 7% to 11% decline in ad revenues at local stations, Television Week reports. Before the economy cratered, the group had predicted a 2% to 5% decline. —Jon Lafayette