Business

Local TV Ad Sales Jumped by Almost One-Third in the Third Quarter, Outpacing Network TV

Local television advertising sales jumped by 31.7% in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, far outpacing network television ad sales, which grew at just 2.7%, reports B&C. The numbers come from a survey from TVB and Kantar Media,…

Last Season’s ‘American Idol’ Runner-Up, Crystal Bowersox, on Track to Outsell the Show’s Winner in Album Sales

The runner-up in last season’s "American Idol," Crystal Bowersox, is on track to outsell the season’s champ, Lee DeWyze, in first-week album sales, the New York Post reports. Bowersox’s first album, "Farmer’s Daughter," sold as many as 50,000 copies in…

Best Article We’ve Seen Yet About Why the Networks Are Reluctant To Deal With Google TV

Bloomberg has a lengthy piece by Sarah Rabil and Ian King about why the TV broadcast networks are reluctant to deal with Google TV. According to the article, "One sticking point is ads, which accounted for 63 percent of the…

Looks Like TNT’s Remake of ‘Dallas’ Is Finally Moving Forward, Without J.R.

TNT has been trying to get a remake going of the classic primetime soap "Dallas," and hoped it would include the iconic J.R., as played by actor Larry Hagman. Now, writes Nellie Andreeva at Deadline.com, "After one of the longest…

The Percentage of U.S. Who Subscribe to Wired Cable is Lowest It’s Been Since November 1989

"[W]ired-cable penetration represented 60.7% of households in November 2010, down from 61.7% in November 2009. The only time it had been lower was in November 1989 when wired-cable penetration was at 59.7%, writes TVNewsCheck, citing data from Nielsen. At the…

Video: Our Must-Read Story of the Day Is This Must-See Story About Apple’s App of the Year. It’s Called Flipboard, and It’s Just Been Improved. It’s an Ingenious Concept That Elegantly Marries the Magazine Format to New Media.

Seeking Original Content, YouTube Is In Talks to Buy Video Production Company

Google’s YouTube is in talks to buy a video production company, The New York Times reports. The company YouTube is targeting is Next New Networks, a web video production house, the article says. The proposed price wasn’t disclosed and the companies…

How Much are 140 Characters Worth? Investors Say $3.7 Billion (Which Breaks Down to $26.4 Million Per Character)

How much are 140 characters worth? In the case of Twitter, which received a new round of funding led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, it’s now valued at $3.7 billion, Bloomberg News reports. The social-networking service,…

Time Warner-Sinclair Dispute Could Go to Arbitration

Both sides in the retransmission consent battle between Time Warner Cable and Sinclair Broadcast Group have talked about going to arbitration to settle their dispute, a positive sign ahead of a Jan. 1 deadline when Sinclair’s 10 markets will otherwise…

Quite a Year for Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg. First, He’s Vilified in Acclaimed Movie That Could Win The Oscar For Best Picture. And Now He’s Been Named Time Magazine Person of the Year

Time Magazine, in naming Facebook founder its 2010 Person of the Year said it picked him "For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and…