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In Depth

Writers Strike News Roundup: Jan. 15

Grammys, WGA Hit Sour Note The Grammys will proceed without writers, as the Writers Guild of America has opted to not issue the award show a guild waiver for the telecast, Daily Variety reports. The WGA also informed the Screen…

Oprah Gets OWN Network Via Discovery Deal

Discovery Communications has made a deal with Oprah Winfrey to create OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN will be a multiplatform media venture. On cable it will take over the Discovery Health Channel, which is in 70 million homes, in…

YouTube Audience Grew 9% in December

A hungry online video audience offset the holiday traffic slowdown for video-sharing site YouTube, which grew its audience by nearly 9% in December. The site lured 68.6 million unique visitors last month, compared to 63.1 million in November, according to…

Lazarus Out at Turner, Three Move Up

Mark Lazarus, president of Turner Entertainment Group, is leaving the company as part of a reorganization. Three senior Turner executives have been promoted to president of their divisions, reporting to Phil Kent, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting. The three…

Writers Strike News Roundup: Jan. 14

Directors Put Hope Into Writers Talks The Directors Guild of America has entered into contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and could end up with a good deal in new media reuse, Daily Variety reports….

Toshiba Cuts Prices on HD DVD Players

Toshiba cut the prices of its least expensive HD DVD players in half, 10 days after Warner Bros. may have ended the next-generation format war by deciding to exclusively back Sony’s competing Blu-ray player. Toshiba’s suggested retail price for its…

1st Amendment Award Honorees Named by RTNDF

The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation announced the honorees for its First Amendment Awards dinner, to be held Thursday, March 6, naming professionals from across the span of TV journalism. The honorees are: Bob Schieffer, the CBS News chief…

CNN Launches Weekday ‘Election’ Hour

CNN is dedicating its 8-9 p.m. weekday hour, starting today, to campaign-related coverage through Super Tuesday on Feb. 5. “CNN Election Center” will be co-anchored from the campaign trail by John Roberts with assorted members of CNN’s anchor team from…

Every Baby Gets ‘Adventures’ on Demand

Every Baby Co. plans to launch a new season of its video-on-demand series “eebee’s adventures” on Comcast, Cox and Bresnan Communications systems on Jan. 21. The infant media company also plans to launch “eebee’s SongBooks,” a series of three music…

Video Sites Still Feeling Holiday Effect

Traffic to video sites continued to lag in the first week of the year, as vacations still dominated most people’s calendars. YouTube drew 30.7 million unique visitors for the week ending Jan. 6, down slightly from 31 million for the…