What it is: A newsroom computer system from Automated Data Systems in La Crosse, Wis.What it does: EZNews is an up-and-coming newsroom computer system found at universities and radio stations and is making inroads into commercial TV stations. About a…
The Michigan Court of Appeals last week overturned the $29 million judgment entered against “The Jenny Jones Show” in 1999 that stemmed from the murder of one guest, Scott Amedure, by another guest, Jonathan Schmitz. The court held that the…
If it weren’t for Jackie Lyons, `’Monk” might never have seen the light of day. When Ms. Lyons, who used to develop drama series for ABC Television, jumped to USA Network in November 2000, she brought with her the idea…
On Nov. 8, 1972, HBO made its first transmission-a hockey game followed by the 1971 film “Sometimes a Great Notion”-to a whopping subscriber base of 350.While recent motion pictures remain a staple of the pay-cable service, things have come a…
Consumer group representatives last week urged the Federal Communications Commission to slam the brakes on deregulation-at least long enough to let them respond to voluminous agency studies making a case for further relaxation of the agency’s media ownership rules.“This is…
Imagine this conversation among the executives at Nickelodeon: “How about a show about a yellow sea sponge who lives in an underwater pineapple? It’ll be a hit!”The premise sounds implausible, but `”’ has emerged as an unqualified success. In fact,…
How to shoot a hole in one the way Sony Pictures television Chief Steve Mosko recently did: Take MediaCom executive Jon Mandel up on his offer to stop long enough on your way to MIPCOM to wedge in a round…
The CBS- and Fox-owned TV station groups are blowing the lids off their 2003 earnings projections largely due to a more robust than expected advertising market and the positive early impact of duopoly economics.But there is more going on there…
She has been called busty, spacy, Twinkie-fattened and white trash. Anna Nicole Smith welters through her half-hour “reality” show each Sunday on E! Entertainment Television with a lawyer named Howard Stern, a devoted assistant named Kim, a frizzy poodle called…
They just never learn. Less than a year after a CBS-owned station in Pittsburgh sparked a big brouhaha by using the so-called Time Machine to compress programming and add local spots, another station, Meredith-owned NBC affiliate WSMV-TV in Nashville, is…