Our other mags
Main Guidomedia index

Media trends digest – 2007

How much election coverage is enough? 30 October
It’s been described by some as the YouTube election thanks to self-coverage on that site generated by several pollies, and has spawned a record number of election publications on the web (see our 17 October story).
The 2007 federal election seems to be generating a staggering amount of coverage – so how much is enough?
It depends on who you talk to. Crikey.com.au has taken to castigating newspapers if their coverage doesn’t dominate the lead half dozen or so pages each day, while itself producing two instead just one edition of its daily email newsletter.
However Margaret Simons at Crikey swims against the site’s editorial tide by arguing, “Of course the reality is that most people aren’t really thinking about much about the election at all. The picture conveyed by the broadsheets is thus quite out of kilter with the lives people lead…”
Full story

TV producers will argue there is clearly strong interest. The government and opposition leaders’ recent TV debate – which was actually pretty dull -- drew record audiences, with a cumulative number of around 3 million.
Meanwhile Stuff.co.nz reports: “The election. . . what election? Or so the readers of many of Australia's regional daily newspapers might ask.
“While the capital city papers, and particularly the broadsheets in the Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne triangle, pulp forests as they report and analyse the election campaign to within an inch of its life, many regional papers are giving it cursory coverage.”
Full story

But don’t take it too seriously…
While the serious coverage may seem overwhelming, there is plenty of fun to be had on YouTube, where people are proving more than willing to take the mickey out of the pollies. And the quality of some of it is remarkably high.
One of the better examples is The Howard V Rudd Election Rap, by The Axis of Awesome.
See this link
See also the Kevin 07 rejected advertising angle, which refers to Rudd’s “earnestness offensive” at this link.

Brace yourself for more net TV
The YouTube election videos are just the start of a new wave of internet-driven television, according to a report in The Australian.
It says: “Internet portal Ninemsn has helped to fund online drama Scorched and the second season of the award-winning comedy drama Forget the Rules, which is about to be screened on pay TV, will also be available on the Optus Zoo mobile service and online.”
Full story

News AGM scores praise and scorn
News Corp’s recent AGM in New York saw company head Rupert Murdoch both praised and scorned by local shareholder activist Stephen Mayne. The former publisher of Crikey, and now owner of The Mayne Report, led a shareholder vote to try to overturn News’ two-tier share system, which gives one class of share greater voting power than another. It drew considerable support but was unsuccessful.
Meanwhile Mayne was reported as bearing no ill-will, referring to Murdoch as “an absolute legend” who had stuck with the business for 55 years.
See this report from The Age; The Mayne Report

Fox Business News gets major backing
Reuters via Benton: Rupert Murdoch sketched out his plans for the Fox Business Network on Friday, saying he will spend years nurturing the new channel to win over more than half of the business news audience. The News Corp chairman and chief executive confirmed media reports that his media conglomerate intended to invest US$150 million to $200 million over three years in FBN, including about $70 million in fiscal 2008. Aiming to repeat the success of the Fox News Channel, which unseated CNN as the top cable news network four years after its launch, FBN is part of Murdoch's ambitions to build a global financial media powerhouse in print, the Internet and TV. (Ed’s note: the channel is reported to have reached 30 million subscribers in its debut week in the US.)
Full story

$1 billion net revenue projected
Reuters via Benton: At the end of its fiscal fourth quarter, News Corp said it would be "surprised" if its Fox Interactive Media Internet division revenues "do not exceed $1 billion with margins well above 20 percent." Also, on Thursday, the company cut its fiscal 2008 revenue outlook for its MySpace online social network to about $750 million from its prior target of over $800 million.

Is subscription the future for the music industry?
Local music industry groups are speculating that paid subscription to a label’s catalogue could be part of the business model of the future, as traditional revenue sources such as CD sales continue to erode.
"Lots of people do believe there is a viable business model based on subscription," Australian Recording Industry Association chief executive Stephen Peach told Media in The Australian.
Full story

Guardian rolls out US site
The Guardian in the UK has rolled out a US-specific website, after discovering one third of visitors to Guardian Unlimited were from that country.
Guardianamerica.com Editor Michael Tomasky said, "The Guardian's already huge US audience shows that they must be doing something right.
"What we'll try to do is to bring those American readers the best and most relevant of what London produces every day and combine it with political and cultural coverage of the states that is more geared toward a US audience's interests but staying faithful to the Guardian sensibility."
Guardian Unlimited; Guardian America

From Editor’s Weblog
BBC to slash 3000 jobs, 520 editorial
Following an unwelcome trend in the media industry, the British Broadcasting Company has announced plans that could cost up to 2800 employees their jobs. The unwelcome trend stems partially from the more omnipresent one, converged newsrooms.
Full story

Also…
See this interview at The Independent with Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News.
Link

User traffic increases after the closure of TimesSelect
Only a month has passed since New York Times ended the subscription-only TimesSelect, but readers seem to have caught on fast. Within the past month the now free Op-Ed section of NYTimes.com has more the doubled in unique visitors.
Full story

Murdoch's WSJ to go after NYT?
As the official takeover date of Dow Jones by News Corporation approaches, Rupert Murdoch suggested again broadening coverage in DJ's Wall Street Journal flagship to compete more directly with the New York Times, if not the entire American newspaper market.
Full story

User-generated content pales against that of professionals
This week, the self-described world's first Internet television network, ManiaTV, closed its doors to user generated content (UGC). Could it be because UGC just can't compete with professional content? What can newspapers learn?
Full story

New newsroom jobs: do newspapers need a search editor?
The Swedish paper Svenska Dagbladet recently spoke with Anne Spackman, editor-in-chief of the Times of London, about a new job in her newsroom, the "Search Editor"
Full story

US: The evolution of local news
With a newsroom that works first for its website, then the paper edition, and a daily local-news webcast which is also broadcast on television, the Naples News doesn’t consider itself just a newspaper. Editor Phil Lewis recently wrote an editorial documenting the local evolution of the paper.
Full story

Futurists Envision the Newspaper in 2020
What will the newspaper look like in 2020? The World Association of Newspapers asked 22 futurists, academics, industry insiders, internet pioneers and other media experts to envision the newspaper of the future, and their responses say much about the present state of the newspaper business.
Full story; Excerpts on the future

Bloggers gaining in credibility
From News via the MEAA: a recent report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), readers of internet news are just as likely to trust news they find in web blogs as mainstream media news sites. ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said a recent report by search engine Technorati showed the number of non-mainstream blogs in the 100 most popular information websites was increasing.
News.com.au link

See this ACCC link for Samuel's full speech -- Will the media survive the digital revolution?

Google & Nielsen line up TV ad tracking
NY Times, via Benton: Google, which dominates the market for advertising on the Internet, seems to be hoping to do the same thing on television. The company is set to announce a partnership today with the Nielsen Company, the voice of authority in measuring television audiences, that will give advertisers a more vivid and accurate snapshot than ever before of how many people are viewing commercials on a second-by-second basis, and who those people are. At a time when digital video recorders are proliferating, advertisers are thirsty for any data they can get about who is watching their ads, who is fast-forwarding past them and where it makes the most sense to invest.
Full story

All it takes is one good story
The Drudge Report, which is widely recognised for only ever breaking one major story -- the Clinton/Lewinski scandal of several years ago – is still reaping the benefits. The NY Times reports: Matt Drudge came to national prominence a decade ago as a nemesis of the Clintons who used the Web to peddle, gleefully, the latest news and rumor generated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Now Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) is learning to play nice with the Drudge Report and the powerful, elusive and conservative-leaning man behind it. Because of the sheer number of people who look at it and because of the attention it gets from the media, what appears on Drudge can, for a few minutes or an entire day, drive what appears elsewhere, making it, “a force in the political news cycle for both the press and the campaigns,” said David Chalian, the political director at ABC News.
Full story; Drudge Report

Quality is up but freedom down – Hartigan

News Limited Australian CEO John Hartigan recently delivered the annual Andrew Olle lecture for the ABC, and used the opportunity to tackle what he sees as the myth of declining quality in journalism. He also expressed his ongoing outrage and concern at governments’ advancing restriction of freedom of speech. Here is a snapshot of what he said…

[People who have preceeded me in delivering this lecture] expressed dismay at the commercialisation of our media. They've warned how the digital age is corrupting quality. They've worried about the independence of the ABC. I agree with some of what has been said. A media willing to evaluate its flaws is more likely to do something about them.
But while journalists pursue the truth about others we also nourish myths about ourselves. Many have assumed the status of fact. One such cherished belief is that there is good journalism and there is commercial journalism and they are mutually exclusive. And in the battle between moral courage on the editorial floor and commercial imperatives on mahogany row money wins every time.
And that in the good old days the best journalism was a public service underwritten by the rude health of public broadcasting and the goodwill of benevolent proprietors. Whereas today, it is alleged that media organisations are almost solely focused on profit. And, it is said, they are far less concerned about ethics, objectivity, accuracy and fairness, or breaking important stories. That the real goal today is to inject the news with cynical prejudice in a race for readership, ratings and return on investment.
As a result, or so the myth goes, we're dumbing down. Investing only in entertainment and lifestyle content, gossip, chit chat and, voyeurism. Often the conclusion is that modern media organisations no longer have the conviction, the values, the freedom from profit targets or shareholder influence to sustain cultures that nurture good journalism.
So the argument goes.
I disagree with it. Passionately.
When I look back at our newspapers of 10, 20 or 30 years ago the best work would still stand up today. But in general our newspapers wouldn't. The same goes for television. Coverage used to be shallow, one-dimensional and shaped by a white Anglo Saxon male bully. Now they've got some competition.

On free speech…
As I said at the start, the value of journalism has never been greater. Because while journalism might be in good shape, information isn't. We live in times when press freedom - the freedom of speech - is more restricted than in living memory. And I don't say this lightly.
Years ago when I was editor of the Brisbane Sun, our fearless premier Joh tried to have me thrown in jail. He didn't like our coverage when he sacked every power worker in the State. Somehow it offended his notions of democracy. My liberty may not be threatened today like it was then but in general I think things are worse now.
I've spoken at length this year about the campaign for free speech so I just want to make a couple of points.
This is an expensive, time-consuming campaign. It won't be won easily or quickly. If we are successful it won't sell more newspapers or increase ratings or add a dollar to the bottom line. But it is an investment in journalism. The defence of press freedom is not a self-indulgent game. Freedom of the press, exercised responsibly, is the base line for freedom of speech generally in the community.
In response to the recent lecture on free speech in Sydney by Geoffrey Robertson, Attorney General Philip Ruddock said, and I quote: "Australia's freedom of information laws ensured ALL appropriate material is available to the public" end quote.
I'll be blunt. He is kidding. And his decision to ask the Law Reform Commission to conduct a review on limited terms of reference is a disgrace. The cost of fighting some of the battles is now so crippling that it does, occasionally, silence us when we should be heard. We are now seeing restaurant critics sued for venturing their opinion. Who's next? Will Roy Masters cop it for saying someone was off their game? Or David and Margaret for panning a movie?
Full speech at the ABC (Pic: News Limited)

Business for everyone? 18 October
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire has just launched a business channel on TV and online, aimed at every-day ‘mom and pop’ viewers, rather than the financially literate. It has been two years in the making and deliberately avoids jargon as part of its pitch.
In describing the launch, the New York Times wrote: this is not a network that caters to money managers or day traders. FBN provides economic news for people who don’t follow the economy very closely and hate to hear bad news. Sunny, informal and downright perky, Fox Business Network comes off as a blend of CNBC and a fifth hour of the “Today” show— with the underlying political drumbeat of Fox News.
More at NY Times; Fox Business Network

Quality counts for TV news
Boston Globe, via Benton: The past two decades have seen a marked shift in local television news across the country, away from in-depth coverage and toward speed and spectacle. Broadcast news, envisioned in the early years of television as a means of enriching civic life, has - according to politicians, media watchdog groups, and many TV journalists themselves - degenerated into lowest-common-denominator entertainment. Yet many who work in the industry have grimly accepted this: the market has spoken. But a study (now a book) published earlier this year - the most exhaustive ever conducted of local television news - suggests that the industry has severely underestimated its audience. In an unprecedented survey, a team of researchers under the auspices of the Project for Excellence in Journalism studied the minute-by-minute Nielsen ratings for newscasts from 154 local television stations over five years, more than 33,000 news stories in all. What they found is that quality sells. Sensationalism, the study suggests, does bring good ratings. But well-done, substantive TV news proves just as popular -- and often earns even better ratings. Viewers, the study found, are perfectly willing to watch stories on education policy or tax debates - in many cases they'll tune in to those stories but flip away from a segment on a celebrity divorce or a deadly highway pileup. And they'll consistently reward in-depth reporting with higher ratings than more cursory stories, no matter what the topic. The findings suggest that the shift to violence and voyeurism has left everyone worse off.
More; Book link

Mobile portals gaining ground
Mobile portal applications for mobile phones, which can work independently of telcos, are becoming more popular.
Toyota is reported to be employing the idea at car shows, where a user can download a web-style guide to the company’s show stand and use it at their leisure.
See this link to a story in The Australian

Now the ABC is trying a variant
The broadcaster explains: the application can be downloaded to most mobile internet-enabled phones, regardless of carrier. Check your handset's compatibility and read the complete download instructions at abc.net.au/mobile. This site also includes details of our election night SMS service, offering seat by seat results on request.
The first ABC trial of an Off Deck On-device Portal (ODP) application was by triple j at the 2007 Splendour in the Grass event where details of concert schedules were available via mobile. The level of interest in the Federal Election is an excellent opportunity to provide this type of service to a significantly larger audience and to apply the lessons learnt to future ABC ODP projects.
ODPs are increasing in popularity and usage in overseas markets as they provide a visually rich and intuitive platform that can be offered by a content provider, outside the telcos' 'walled gardens'.
The ABC mobile portal is a Java application that gives access to selected ABC content using the phone's data connection. It will be stored in the phone's Applications folder and can be deleted when no longer required. In this instance, the cost to the user is limited to 55 cents for the initial SMS request then data charges from the user's mobile phone carrier.
ABC mobile portal

Australia scores poorly on press freedom
Australia has scored poorly on the latest international report on press freedom, released by Reporters Without Borders, though its position has improved a little from last year.
The country is currently ranked 28, behind New Zealand (15), the UK (28) and ahead of the USA (48). Iceland and Norway shared top spot.
Report

Bloggers a target
From the report: the Internet is occupying more and more space in the breakdown of press freedom violations. Several countries fell in the ranking this year because of serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information.
In Malaysia (124th), Thailand (135th), Vietnam (162nd) and Egypt (146th), for example, bloggers were arrested and news websites were closed or made inaccessible. “We are concerned about the increase in cases of online censorship,” Reporters Without Borders said. “More and more governments have realised that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it. The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.”
At least 64 persons are currently imprisoned worldwide because of what they posted on the Internet. China maintains its leadership in this form of repression, with a total of 50 cyber-dissidents in prison. Eight are being held in Vietnam. A young man known as Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years in prison in Egypt for blog posts criticising the president and Islamist control of the country’s universities.

Digi radio should include video
Peter Harvie, the head of the Austereo network, has said that digital radio stations should have their licence conditions altered so they can broadcast video. Digital radio receivers commonly show graphics on a small screen – very often song covers – but have the ability to receive moving images.
The proposal has sparked an interesting debate, with the inevitable question raised: how then would it be different to television?
See this story in The Australian

Local version demonstrated
From Digital Radio Australia: Australian commercial radio broadcasters have unveiled what the future of radio might look like – a digital radio-enabled mobile phone that allows users to view, navigate and store visual content such as images and slides broadcast by radio stations.
More

From Editors Weblog
US: WSJ editor to head Pro Publica
Paul Steiger, long-time top editor of The Wall Street Journal, is to assemble a group of investigative journalists, who will offer their work to news outlets. An all-new way of doing journalism, which will be driven by trial and error.
More

USA Today travels abroad
Gannett Co and Tribune Co are joining forces to publish and syndicate a special and international weekly edition of USA Today, outside of the US.
More

UK: Daily Mirror to revamp
The Daily Mirror will be revamping its website early 2008, for the second time in a year. The site will emphasize comments and user-led content. Editor Richard Wallace also criticised newspaper giveaways and described the editorial evolution of the print product.
More

BusinessWeek redesign rethinks print
BusinessWeek’s new formula, with its emphasis on webby features, might spark a reinvention of print thinking. Managing editor Bruce Nussbaum concurs: the result “is a new kind of print medium that I think will be the model for magazines to copy.”
More

UK: 30 per cent growth rate for top newspaper websites
The rate of growth of UK’s top three national newspaper websites is three times that of overall UK internet growth.
More

UK: Guardian and Observer to open archive
Guardian News and Media is to make its entire archives available online as a paid-for service. Over 1.2 million pages of content will be open to the public in November.
More

Paid or organic search?
One of the numerous issues faced by website owners is whether to pay for prominence in search engines or rely on an organic listing. The latter can be a lot more work, but has greater credibility. Melbourne IT discusses the issue at this link

US moves closer to a shield law
Reuters via Benton: The House of Representatives defied a White House veto threat on Tuesday and overwhelmingly passed legislation that would protect reporters from being jailed for refusing to reveal confidential sources. By a vote of 398 to 21, the House sent to the Senate a bill that would prohibit prosecutors from forcing reporters to reveal confidential sources, except under limited circumstances. The margin of the House vote was more than the two-thirds majority needed to override a possible veto by President George W. Bush. The bill was prompted by prosecutors' threats to jail reporters who didn't cooperate in several high-profile cases, including the BALCO steroid scandal in San Francisco and the CIA leak investigation in Washington. The White House said the bill would hurt national security by making it too difficult to prosecute leaks of classified information.
Reuters; Broadcasting & Cable

Facebook settles predator issue
Reuters via Benton: New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that Facebook, the fast-growing social network Web site, has agreed to settle a child safety probe. The site has come under fire from state regulators for failing to do more to police their sites against adults who prey on teenagers, one of the biggest groups using social network sites. Under the terms of the settlement, Facebook has agreed to begin addressing any complaint within 24 hours of being told of inappropriate content -- involving such things as nudity, profanity or harassment -- by a user or e-mail correspondent. The company will tell the complaining party the steps it has taken within 72 hours when the complaint has been submitted via an independent e-mail. In addition, the company has agreed to allow an independent examiner to oversee how Facebook handles such complaints. The attorney general will have a say in who gets hired as examiner. The examiner will report to the New York attorney general every six months over a two-year period on Facebook's compliance.
More

Email truncates communication
CS Monitor via Benton: management consultant Ken Siegel says e-mail has become the perfect way to avoid solving problems. "E-mail is not a communication device, it's a broadcasting device," says Siegel. "It will actually truncate communication. And in the truest sense of the word, it has become a psychological dependency. We have convinced ourselves that we can't live without it."
More

Who trusts ads?
Nielsen Media Research recently released a global advertising report, revealing who are the most and least trusting nations in the world, when it comes to advertising.
It found Filipinos and Brazilians (67 per cent) to be the most trusting overall of all forms of advertising, while trust among Danes (28 per cent), Italians (32 per cent), Lithuanians (34 per cent) and Germans (35 per cent) were the lowest in the world.
Also, not surprisingly, it found word of mouth to be considerably more persuasive than any form of advertising.
See the summary at Nielsen

Election feeding frenzy 17 October
The upcoming federal election (24 November) has effectively sparked a new industry – poll websites. Just about every major news outlet has an election-specific site, with several showing a high degree of sophistication.
Rich content such as user-produced video is common and there is a wealth of blog-style commentary from a dizzying range of commentators.
The increasing demands of media and the resultant ramping up of the pace when it comes to discussing issues was something commented on by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in a retirement speech.
He said: “The news schedule is now 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It moves in real time…it all happens with outstanding speed. When I fought the 1997 election - just ten years ago – we took an issue a day. In 2005, we had to have one for the morning, another for the afternoon and by the evening the agenda had already moved on.”
Crikey.com.au exemplifies this, by producing two daily subscriber newsletters (instead of the usual one) during the run-up to the poll. One of the interesting web features is the use of a panel of cab-drivers as commentators.
Full Blair speech; Guidomedia Movers & Shakers page

Here’s a selection of some what is available:
Google; News; Fairfax; ABC; ninemsn;
Crikey; Prime media; Yahoo i7; MySpace + Channel 10;
Australian Electoral Commission
Blogs
Pollbludger; Mr Behemoth; ABC unleashed; Australian Politics 2.0; Larvatus Prodeo; Mr Mumble

Conference call
Call for papers: Australian Journal of Emergency Management -- Emergency Media and Public Affairs Conference
Submissions are invited for presentation at the research stream of the Emergency Media and Public Affairs conference to be held 25-27 June, 2008 and for subsequent publication in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management.
The aims of the Emergency Media and Public Affairs Conference are:
To benchmark the best media liaison and public affairs responses to disaster across Australia and to share lessons learned by practitioners and researchers ;
To provide ample opportunity for discussion on topics of common concern to all practitioners so that ideas can be generated and solutions canvassed ;
To provide a common meeting ground for practitioners and researchers for discussions on various aspects of emergency response and action plans ;
To allow researchers to share their findings with practitioners and other researchers.
The theme for the conference is “Excellence in Crisis Communications”. Conference organisers are seeking academic research that will contribute to further understanding of crisis communications, including journalistic practice, especially that relating to emergencies.
Papers accepted for the research stream of the conference will be double blind peer reviewed and accepted for publication in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management. The journal is published quarterly and is mailed to the emergency management community in Australia and selected international organisations.
Please send a 200-word proposal that also contains name, position and contact details to the conference co-chair, Barbara Ryan at ryanb@usq.edu.au by Friday, 23 November, 2007. Submitters will be notified of their success or otherwise by Monday, 3 December, 2007.

An inconvenient judgement for Gore 13 October
Times Online: Al Gore’s award-winning climate change documentary was littered with nine inconvenient untruths, a judge ruled yesterday.
More

A convenient judgement for Gore
AFP: The Nobel Peace Prize committee on Friday turned its sights on the battle against global warming by giving the 2007 award to former US vice president Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
More

Coming events – from the Media Alliance
Regional journalism convention: the 6th Regional Journalism Convention will be held in Ballarat on Saturday, 27 October alongside the inaugural South East Australia Regional Media Awards. Speakers include John Silvester, 2006 Walkley-winner Anthony Radford, ACA's Nick Coe, ABC's Kathy Bedford and The Courier editor, Angela Carey.
Register at this link or on 1300 656 513.

NSW Sydney freelance journalists' group: three successful authors describe how they used their journalistic skills to research and write books. Speakers are Paul Ham, Mark Abernethy and Helen O'Neill. Tuesday, 23 October at 6.00pm for 6.30pm at AB Hotel, 225 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW 2037, Phone 9660 1417. Fee is $10 for Alliance members; $20 for non-members; $5 for students.
RSVP: aid@alliance.org.au or call the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance at 1300 656 512.

NewMatilda.com In Conversation Series -- Is online media dumbing down journalism? NewMatilda.com will be holding the first of its In Conversation Series panel discussions at the University of Technology, Sydney at 6.00pm on 17 October. Speakers include Liz Jackson (Four Corners), Peter McEvoy (Senior Producer, ABC) and Dylan Welch (Online Journalist, smh.com.au). University of Technology, Sydney, No.1 Broadway, Building 2, Level 4 (entrance level), Room 22. Strictly limited places, so please RSVP by emailing: enquiries@newmatilda.com or by calling (02) 9211 1635 by Friday, 12 October. This is a free event.
Media Alliance

Reality poverty 11 October
Alertnet.org: Given how hard it is to get aid and development stories on mainstream TV, you can hardly blame aid agency World Vision for cooperating with producers who wanted to make a show challenging entrepreneurs to come up with a fresh approach to reducing poverty. In "Millionaires' Mission", a four-part series on Britain's Channel 4, eight successful businesspeople - worth more than a billion dollars between them - grapple with the challenge of improving living standards in a remote Ugandan village. With only three weeks and a budget of $250,000, they make a catalogue of embarrassing errors. But without the blunders, what would viewers learn? AlertNet's Megan Rowling analyses the show.
Alertnet; Channel 4

Humphries CBE
Barry Humphries has been named a Commander of the British Empire in recognition of his 50-year career – this despite his irreverent alter-egos (Dame Edna and Sir Les) who have mercilessly lampooned the titled.

Talkback at the crossroads?
Theaustralian.com.au today speculates that talkback radio is at a crossroads with the retirement of John Laws – which leaves a gap at 2UE and several rural stations – and the ageing profile of his colleagues.
It says: the format, which has thrived in Australia more than any other country, faces a possible turning point as the generation that has greyed with Laws, Alan Jones, Ray Hadley, Neil Mitchell, Ernie Sigley and others grows even older and the the first generation X-ers join the last vestiges of the baby boomers as consumers of talkback.
More

Beware the Daleks
Christmas could reap some very unpleasant surprises in the homes of Dr Who fans this year. A gift company has developed a spectacularly ugly Dalek mask with a voice changing function which allows you to do realistic “Exterminate!” impersonations…
UK sales are expected to be particularly good, thanks to the weather. The Guardian reports: retailers said a surge in the popularity of entertainment characters could be due to the summer's bad weather, which led to increased cinema attendance. The weather led to a two per cent drop in sales of bicycles, scooters and outdoor play equipment in August, one of the worst sales slumps the industry has suffered.
Toy link; Guardian

Struggling e-paper firm raises more capital
Paidcontent.org: Cambridge, Mass.-based E Ink, a maker of digital paper technologies, has raised a $16 million venture round, reports PE Hub. According to the company’s site, the round was its fifth, bringing its total amount raised to $150 million since 1997, from investors including Intel, Motorola, Special Situation Funds, and Toppan Printing, among others. The company’s technology has a range of uses, although it’s most notably used in the Sony Reader (ebooks) — largely a market disappointment. While ebooks and digital paper more broadly continue to be hailed by some as a next big thing, it’s fair to wonder whether after 10 years and $150 million, the company and its market will ever get there.
E Ink; Paidcontent.org

Print mags to adopt animated ads
Mediaweek.com: The October 4 issue of Wenner Media’s Rolling Stone sports an impossible-to-miss lenticular ad for the Fox TV network, featuring characters from the net’s Sunday-night lineup whooping it up on a roller-coaster ride, their images changing as the reader tilts the ad. Meanwhile, an eye-popping ad for NBC’s new series Bionic Woman that appeared in Time Inc’s Entertainment Weekly went one further, with the heroine’s mechanically enhanced winker lighting up as readers turned the page.
Those executions may be just the beginning of a creative and technological revolution in print ads. As marketers look for more ways to capture the attention of media-saturated consumers, publishers are exploring much more intricate ad units, up to and including ads that feature video.
A media buyer and another industry source confirmed that Time Inc, a sponsor of the MIT Media Lab, is working on technology and has looked at prototypes that would put moving pictures on a page.
More

Papers share with bloggers
LA Times via Editorsweblog.org: The Los Angeles Times traces back the evolution of newspapers’ view of bloggers. In the past, they “wanted nothing to do with bloggers,” but now newspapers “are posting and plugging them and even sharing advertising revenue.”
The Washington Post added a sponsored blog roll to its site earlier this year. So did the Guardian in the UK. The blogs listed span across a variety of topics and if the Post sells an ad on one of the blogs, it splits the revenue with the bloggers. "Any new information source is a potential competitor to a local newspaper. Smart newspapers are figuring out they don't have to fight with those competitors -- they can make alliances with them," said Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review.
More at Weblog; LA Times home

The ethics of filtering
CS Monitor via Benton: Despite Burma's record of repression, it's probably legal for American companies to sell Internet filters there, export lawyers say. But is it ethical? Moves are afoot in Washington to take a harder line against censorware exports. High-profile congressional hearings last year examined the roles of Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco in helping China censor the Internet. Rep Christopher Smith (R) of New Jersey has introduced the Global Online Freedom Act, a bill that would, among other things, study the feasibility of restricting censorware exports. There is some debate over whether such filtering software merits real concern. In Burma, the regime ultimately decided to shut off the country's Internet access after it appeared unable to selectively filter out antigovernment communication.
More

Not so free speech
LA Times via Benton: If you're displeased with the way a company treats you, you're free to air your feelings in public, right? Not necessarily if you receive high-speed Internet access from AT&T or Verizon. Buried deep within both companies' voluminous service contracts is language that says your Net access can be terminated for any behavior that AT&T or Verizon believes might harm its "name or reputation," or even the reputation of its business partners. AT&T and Verizon say they've never enforced the can't-criticize-us contract terms, which have been in place for years. But the provisions highlight yet again the danger to free expression when a relative handful of private companies serve as gatekeepers to information networks. Whether it's a rock star ranting against President Bush or a disgruntled customer griping about shoddy service, how free is free speech in the digital era?
More

50 years of Louie the Fly
The Australian newspaper today marks the 50th anniversary of ad campaign character Louie the Fly, which has been voiced by the same actor – Ross Higgins – for all those years. And who was Louie's creator? Best selling author Bryce Courtenay...
Story; Louie the Fly website

Google’s 37 billion searches
Newsobserver.com via Benton: An obscure California-based Internet search firm, called Google, does most of the 1.4 million searches done on the web every minute. According to comScore's qSearch 2.0 service, more than 37 billion searches worldwide went through Google in August. That's about 60 per cent of all searches, higher than Google's 50 per cent in the United States. Yahoo Inc was second worldwide with 8.5 billion, followed by Baidu at 3.3 billion, Microsoft Corp. at 2.2 billion and NHN at 2 billion. In China, one of the few countries where Google isn't dominant, Baidu shows how one regional player "can break into the top five globally by their complete control of a very, very large market," said Bob Ivins, comScore's executive vice president. Baidu's numbers would likely keep increasing, he said, with China's online population.
More

From Editors Weblog
USA: ABC News preps one-man foreign bureaus
ABC News is creating one-person foreign bureaus to boost its coverage in Africa and India, among other places. The foreign reporter-producer will be equipped with the latest in hand-held digital technology.
More

Washingtonpost.com to launch Web 3.0
The Washington Post is planning on a relaunch of its website next spring. After Web 2.0 comes Web 3.0, which will emphasize reader engagement and the development of mobile capacities.
More

France: Libération launches blog regional edition
The national daily Libération has launched an online-only regional edition in Lyon – which is in fact a blog. Something for newspapers to consider, even nationals, as they are pressure to provide more local coverage but have few resources to do so.
More

Online Papers Go Fox Hunting 8 October
Backgrounder: Media heavyweights the New York Times and Financial Times have recently abandoned their subscription-based services for premium content on their websites. While the papers have cited increased ad revenues generated by free sites, Brienne Callahan examines the difficulty in ignoring the Fox in the room: the Wall Street Journal and its new owner, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch. See this link

TimesSelect pay wall comes tumbling down 4 October
It's ironic that a publication called PaidContent reported on the end of the ill-fated two-year-old TimesSelect paid content strategy for the New York Times. As online advertising soars, newspaper publishers have taken perhaps the dimmest view of paid content in years, with new Dow Jones owner Rupert Murdoch seriously considering taking down the Wall Street Journal's online paid wall as well. The Times said it was taking in $10 million per year in revenues from TimesSelect but thought it could make even more by opening up the Op-Ed columnists and most archives for free to the open web. "Think about this recipe -- millions and millions of new documents, all SEO'd [search engine optimized], double-digit advertising growth," NYTimes.com GM Vivian Schiller told PaidContent. Times Reader and the online crossword feature will still cost money.
The Economist also recently went free online, but the Financial Times and Globe and Mail still have a mix of paid and free content for now. According to the Globe and Mail's Grant Robertson, newspaper execs are saying that "Internet advertising has become too powerful and too lucrative to block non-subscribers from your website." BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis said TimesSelect never made sense on the conversational web, hurting the Times editorialists' standing on the world stage, while providing a stark contrast to the SEO success of the Times' About.com division. As for making up the TimesSelect revenues in ads, the Chicago Tribune's Steve Johnson isn't so sure, saying the archives are mainly interesting to researchers. He questioned the value of a Times print subscription, but admitted "the white flag has been waved on the notion that content in the digital realm is worth anything close to what it is in the tangible world."
Online-publishers.org

Forget spam, bacon is the real problem
The Age: Just when you thought you were finally overcoming spam, a new email scourge is clogging inboxes around the country.
Unlike spam, bacn (pronounced "bacon") is solicited email, but which you do not want to read now, or even at all…
More

Scandals damage sports media value
The Australian: Sports scandals are destroying the marketing value of sporting celebrities…the head of one of the world's largest sports management groups has warned.
Octagon president Rick Dudley said, "With the 24/7 news cycle, these things are analysed and (affect) general interest in sport, and even with all the controversy you have to wonder: is there a tipping point?”
More

Social sites challenge major net players
The Australian: Social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo are gearing up for a concerted assault on the dominant Australian internet players....
More

Also…
From Mindshare: 'We believe that the very concept of friendship is being rewired through social networks and whilst the major players in social networks (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc) favour the young right now we expect this phenomena to spread to other audiences – for example LinkedIn operates as a sort of social network for business people, with over 8 million users worldwide.'
More

From Editors Weblog
Training journalists how to count
As most newspaper stories contain figures and numerical facts, it would make sense to train journalists how to read correctly through numbers and reduce mistakes – especially considering that journalists aren’t typically adamant about math.
More
98% newspaper mistakes go uncorrected
Almost half of the articles published by daily newspapers in the US contain one or more factual errors, and less than two per cent end up being corrected, reports a study. It’s time to increase both the size of correction boxes and reporting accuracy.
More
Will papers lose to Google News wires?
Since Google News announced its deal with four major international news agencies to publish their content, the reactions have been varied among analysts and newspapers. Will this short-circuit newspaper websites, or give additional attention to their original reporting?
More
US: 25 years later, USA Today still ahead
Gannett’s USA Today, the most-read national title, will celebrate its 25th anniversary this Saturday. The ‘McPaper’ changed the newspaper landscape by giving readers what they wanted and bringing the TV format to print. How can those strategies be applied nowadays?
More
UK: Telegraph launches video on demand
The Telegraph has launched an on-demand video news service. Telegraph News Now provides a daily seven-minute recap of news stories that can be viewed individually or in one sequence.
More

Honour among music-lovers – Radiohead hopes so
Herald-Sun: Radiohead, one of the world's most influential bands, plans to sell its new album from its website as a download and let fans choose what they want to pay.
With music sales in decline globally for seven successive years, the industry is engaged in a debate over how best to reverse the trend.
The band will also offer a special edition boxed set for $95...
More; Radiohead

From the Media Alliance
Fairfax postpones format change: The much-discussed size reduction of Fairfax flagships the SMH and The Age will not now happen until the second half of next year at the earliest according to a report in The Age this week. The plan to slice seven centimetres from each page to a new width of 34 centimetres -- the size used by The New York Times until last month -- would require significant alterations to Fairfax's printing presses at Tullamarine in Melbourne and Chullora in Sydney and cost an estimated $40 million.
More
Meanwhile, according to Editor & Publisher, US-based publisher, Gannett Co Inc is considering a second shape shift. Having reduced the size of its 85 daily papers in the US, shifting its presses from a 52-inch web to 48 inch web, the company is looking at the feasibility of shifting to a 44-inch web size, which would mean its papers are reduced to 54cms by 27cms.
More
Ballarat will host a regional media conference on 27 October. Numerous workshops and events are on offer and it is open to non-members. See this link.
Media Alliance

Web publishing tip from Melbourne IT
Search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN love sites that are rich with unique content like blogs. Web spiders easily crawl and hence rank such sites quicker than others. Thus, it is imperative that your blog has a steady stream of original articles. Make sure that these articles are regularly updated to keep the search engine spiders interested.
More

Video & search are growth drivers
Mediapost: Online video and global search will drive a 30% growth in worldwide Internet ad spending to $33.72 billion this year, according to the latest forecast from ZenithOptimedia, which was released on Monday.
"We have revised our forecasts for Internet advertising upwards yet again," the Publicis-owned global media agency reported. "We now forecast 29.9% growth this year (up from 28.6% three months ago) and 85% growth between 2006 and 2009 (up from 82%). Online video and local search are the new, fast-growing segments, but display, classified and the rest of search are still growing rapidly as well.
"We now expect Internet advertising to account for 9.5% of all expenditure in 2009, fractionally up from the 9.4% we forecast three months ago," the forecast adds.
Newspaper share is expected to decline from a 29% share of world ad spending in 2006 to 26.2% in 2009.
More

TV networks tune up online video strategies
You need a TV guide for more than just the programming these days. If you are trying to follow the networks' various web strategies, you can easily get lost. CBS recently revamped its website with more social media features, while making more deals to distribute its content on other video sites, while also launching EyeLabs so people can remix its video. Fox made a deal with iTunes to distribute seven of its fall premieres for free, while NBC pulled its shows from iTunes and started offering its own free downloads with ads embedded (and not skippable). Not to be left out, ABC announced it would distribute its shows via AOL Video, its first move outside of its own site and iTunes.
What do all these moves have in common? The networks are realizing they aren't going to beat all the other video destinations online, so they might as well play along. Despite Viacom pulling out of YouTube and NBC pulling out of iTunes, most networks are emulating CBS' "promiscuous" delivery of video online, with NBC and News Corp. planning their own Hulu startup as well. The L.A. Times reports that CBS execs met with Silicon Valley Internet companies to learn more about how to approach the web. They learned to have more respect for their audience, and it shows on their revamped website, which highlights viewer forums and widgets. "Think: community, community, community, plus water cooler," CBS Interactive honcho Quincy Smith told the Times.
Online-publishers.org

Yahoo/newspaper alliance shows promise
Newspaper companies beset by declining print ad revenues and readership have some possible bright spots ahead. That's the finding by Deutsche Bank analysts who believe the 17 newspaper companies that allied with Yahoo could see online ad revenue growth rates jump by 20 points in 2009, from 20 per cent to 40 per cent. The analysts used the experience of Lee Enterprises as an example, with the newspaper chain seeing boosts in ad growth from its co-branded HotJobs site with Yahoo. Deutsche Bank had three possible scenarios, depending on overall ad growth, with the most conservative seeing online ad growth of 25 per cent, and the most bullish seeing 50 per cent ad growth in '09 and '10 for newspaper companies.
Meanwhile, Nielsen reported that overall online ad growth was 23 per cent in the first half of 2007, about half the growth rate from the year-ago period. ClickZ notes that it's difficult to gauge online advertising growth rates because each research firm uses different methodologies and measures different types of ads in their surveys. When the IAB's Randall Rothenberg addressed the Mixx conference recently, he called the 26.8 per cent growth for online ads (via PricewaterhouseCoopers) in the first half of the year "torrid" despite it being less than the 37 per cent growth rate in the year-ago period, according to ClickZ's Kate Kaye. "Though the reports would have us believe that online spending is scorching, it might be smart to temper that a bit, considering both Nielsen and TNS also reported slowing web ad spending growth," she wrote.
Online-publishers.org

Real reality TV, via webcam 2.0
LA Times, via Benton: A growing number of people are turning cameras on themselves and on their worlds, broadcasting the results in real time. Lifecasting comes naturally to today's youths, who are used to living their lives in public, posting details of every hookup and breakup on their Facebook or MySpace pages. Anyone with a laptop, webcam and Internet connection can do it. As with any new medium, people are trying to figure out the rules of etiquette. The budding phenomenon raises questions about the privacy of people who may not want to appear in the live streams, as well as copyright implications of, for example, broadcasting music that's playing in the background. But companies such as Los Angeles-based Ustream and Justin.tv in San Francisco are racing to become the dominant purveyor of such live, unfiltered programs. In the last year, the technology behind live streaming has become so cheap that start-ups such as Mogulus, MyStreams and Veodia can afford to give it away in hopes that they can make money through the mainstays of TV's reality shows: advertising and product placement.
More

Faifax & mobile media devices
Journalism.co.uk: Fairfax has launched a wide-scale program to equip its reporters with sophisticated mobile devices that allow them to upload video, audio, pictures and articles directly to their digital publications while on the move.
Mike van Niekerk, Fairfax's editor-in-chief of online, talked to Journalism.co.uk about the necessity of getting technology in reporter's hands…
More

Media & bloggers become targets in Burma 2 October
A Japanese photo journalist has been shot, several other foreign journalists intimidated, the web has been shut down to stop bloggers, and privately-owned newspapers have decided to cease operating rather than run government propaganda – welcome to media in Burma, since the recent uprising in support of democratic reform
The journalist-run Democratic Voice of Burma reported: Many privately-owned weekly news journals in Burma have decided to stop publication in protest at official demands to publish pro-government propaganda.
Burmese authorities are ordering the publications to print articles written by state media and other stories blaming the All Burma Student’s Democratic Front and the National League for Democracy for the protests.
“They are forcing us to publish their announcements and propaganda in our publications and we can’t let them do that to us,” said a Rangoon journalist.
Kumudra, Seven Days, Pyi Myanmar and many other news journals have decided to stop or suspend publication, and have already informed the censor board of their decision. Rather than give the real reason for their decision, they blamed the ongoing instability which is preventing journalists from being able to go out and report.
More

The International Federation of Journalists has interpreted the situation somewhat differently, claiming: Military censors threatened reprisals against journalists who challenged the regime by refusing to follow its demands. A local source in Burma has also reported that the Burmese regime yesterday ordered the closure of some privately-owned newspapers that refused to print government propaganda.
Link

Some blogs have remained available because they exist on foreign servers, though their owners cannot update at the moment. Nevertheless they remain witness to some of the horrors which have occurred in the country.
The blog by Nyein Chan Yar reports on how communications were shut down, and runs photos of the aftermath of a government-backed raid on a monastery.
Link

Another blogger, Ko Htike, based outside Burma, has managed to maintain updated and often sketchy reports alongside some gruesome images.
Link

Meanwhile The Australian reports that bloggers have been central to getting the protest message out to the rest of the world: While the veteran democracy activists, and then the Buddhist monks, marched in their tens of thousands against the military regime, it was the country's amateur bloggers and internet enthusiasts who brought the images to the outside world.
More

BBC acquires Lonely Planet
Media release: BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), has acquired Lonely Planet, the leading travel information group, in a deal that will build the Lonely Planet franchise around the world.
The privately owned business is being sold by Tony and Maureen Wheeler, who founded the company in 1972, and John Singleton who became a shareholder in 1999.
John Smith, CEO of BBC Worldwide, said: "We are delighted to be announcing this acquisition today. Lonely Planet is a highly respected international brand and a global leader in the provision of travel information. This deal fits well with our strategy to create one of the world's leading content businesses, to grow our portfolio of content brands online and to increase our operations in Australia and America."
Lonely Planet, which has significant operations in the UK, California and Australia, is led by Judy Slatyer (CEO) and her management team, who will be staying with the business. 
Lonely Planet's global headquarters will remain in Melbourne.
Maureen and Tony Wheeler, joint founders, who will retain a 25 per cent shareholding in the company, said: "Joining BBC Worldwide allows us to secure the long-term future of our company within a globally recognised media group. In our discussions with John and his team, we felt that BBC Worldwide would provide a platform true to our vision and values, while allowing us to take the business to the next level."
BBC announcement; Lonely Planet; BBC news report

(Editor's note: The BBC announced some months ago that it was interested in expanding its brand an business into international markets and this is proof of the claim. Lonely Planet is a local publishing icon, famously begun with a cheap travel guide to Asia produced on the owners' kitchen table. The rumour mill says around $250 million changed hands, though there is no confirmation of this. See this link for the company history. And this link for a story from The Guardian on what the BBC plans for the enterprise. The purchase follows a major restructure for the British broadcaster, announced in 2006.)

Walking around money
The Financial Times this week reports on a controversy about the practice of PR firms in China providing journalists with cash assistance.
It reports: Such payments -- called "transport money" by public relations firms - are a ubiquitous feature of Chinese media events, but one that critics say skews coverage in an increasingly competitive news market.
"It's awful. It's an embarrassment for Chinese journalism . . . and it's corruption," says Ying Chan, director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. "It's not that journalists endorse endorse this - people live with it knowing it is wrong."
Full story

Also from the Financial Times…
When is a blog not a blog? The Huffington Post now boasts over 50 staff…
More; Huffington Post

Acquisition a threat to democracy?
Bloomberg: British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc may be forced to sell its 17.9 per cent stake in ITV Plc, the biggest UK commercial broadcaster, because the holding hurts competition, the British antitrust regulator said.
UK entrepreneur Richard Branson criticised Rupert Murdoch's influence over the UK’s media, saying in December it amounted to a “threat to democracy”.
More

Prime to try net TV 1 October
The Australian: Prime Television is backing a push to launch the first suite of free, advertiser-funded internet television channels covering all program genres in Australia. The regional media operator is the main shareholder in Becker Group, which will launch an internet protocol TV venture called Moonlight TV on 1 December.
More

Mac radio fires up web news
The Macquarie radio network has started up a news-dedicated website, called Live News, that gives every appearance of wanting to give some of the more established players, such as Fairfax, ninemsn and News Corp a run in the internet market.
See this link

Net privacy regs needed soon -- Google
Reuters via Benton: National regulators need to agree on a basic set of global privacy protections for the Internet within the next five years, a senior official with web searcher Google said on Monday. Peter Fleischer, the firm's global privacy counsel, said three quarters of countries had no Internet privacy standards at a time when the amount of sensitive personal and financial data on the Web was soaring. Google -- itself criticized for the threat it poses to personal privacy -- says the firm's business agenda, the world economy and the Internet could suffer unless more is done to ensure basic privacy on the Web.
More

Back to Gyngall for Nine
Network Nine has re-employed David Gyngall as its head in an effort to turn around its failing fortunes, a project expected to take a couple of years. PBL CEO Ian Law told The Age newspaper: “We've got to make sure … we avoid the issues that have probably plagued the network in the last two to four years."
More: The Age

Plus…
Mark Day comment (The Australian): Gyngell won’t have the luxury of going back to the way it was. The old days of monolithic networks spending up big to attract mass audiences are gone forever.
He will have to guide the network into a new era by adapting old practices and inventing new ones.
It’s new territory, with few guideposts warning of quicksand.
More

Politics a popular road for journos
The Australian reports there are close to a dozen former journos aspiring to take a seat in Canberra in the upcoming Federal election.
Full story

Meet the Press meets MySpace
Myspace users are able to submit video questions to guests on the Ten Network Sunday morning program, Meet the Press.
More: SMH

NZ telco to be split – should this have happened here?
Findancial Times via Benton: New Zealand's government confirmed on Wednesday that Telecom Corp, the nation's biggest listed company, must split into three operating divisions by early next year. David Cunliffe, communications minister, said Telecom, a former state-owned monopoly, has until the end of March 2008 to separate into wholesale, retail and networks units. The operational separation is designed to boost competition in New Zealand's telecommunications sector and encourage high-speed Internet services. It builds on an earlier government directive requiring New Zealand's biggest telephone company to give rivals such as TelstraClear, owned by Australia's Telstra, greater access to its local loop - the copper wires that link telephone exchanges to customers - by later this year.
More

US Political spending doubles despite YouTube
USA Today via Benton: Presidential candidates, the political parties and interest groups will spend at least twice as much as they did in 2003-04 on TV ads before nominees are chosen, campaign advertising experts say. A record $100 million or more will likely be paid to put campaign ads on the air by the time the Republican and Democratic races are effectively over, likely some time in February. And the allure of posting ads for free on YouTube and at campaign websites won't replace broadcast TV because that "old media" is better suited for reaching voters, the experts say. "We had $45 million spent on campaign ads in what was the primary race in 2003 and 2004," says Evan Tracey, chief operating officer at the Campaign Media Analysis Group of TNS Media Intelligence, which measures political advertising. "It's easy to say there will be two times that. It certainly goes to $100 million." "I would say doubling 2004 is a conservative forecast," says William Benoit, a communications professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia who studies political advertising. Their forecasts depend in part on an assumption that about half the states will have held contests by Feb. 5. It's possible that both the Democratic and Republican nominees will have been determined by the end of that week. If one or both contests extend further, spending on primary ads would go up even more.
More

Plus…
From Mediaweek via Benton: Political candidates from both parties are demonstrating a stubborn devotion to traditional media, along with a cautious streak that is holding them back from truly embracing the web as an outlet for political ad dollars. Despite Americans' rapidly changing media habits, the panelists predicted that most spending will remain on TV and other tried and true outlets. "When it comes to paid media, candidates are about seven years behind," said Richard Kosinski, vp of political advertising, Yahoo. Kosinski estimated that most candidates were planning to spend roughly one percent of their total media budgets online, versus the seven percent that most mainstream brands typically spend on the medium.
More

Web worries don’t stop access for kids
Reuters via Benton: Most US parents said their children had encountered "issues" like bad language, sex or advertising online over the past year, but they are not stopping their kids' Internet use, according to a new study. A survey by market researcher Harris Interactive of 411 parents of children aged between 6-18 who use the Internet found 71 percent admitted their child had encountered at least "one issue" with the Internet within the past year. But four out of five parents said the Internet helped their children in school and only three in 10 parents -- or 31 percent -- said their children spent too much time online. Rather than banning or restricting online access, parents were found to be taking an active role in monitoring their children with 93 percent engaging in some sort of monitoring activity, said the survey released on Tuesday.
More

Online trials lead to Hollywood unrest
LA Times via Benton: A number of new web series reflect the networks' headlong drive to harness the Internet and lure a young, and increasingly elusive, audience. Yet the online rush has heightened tensions between the major studios and networks and the unionized actors and writers who fear being shortchanged by this new digital frontier. To handle much of the web work, networks are relying heavily on nonunion scribes and guild writers who are quietly working outside of union contracts. In some cases, networks and television studios have created separate nonunion companies to create original online entertainment on shoestring budgets. They also have launched digital studios that serve as "farm teams" for new concepts on the Web that might one day get drafted for the major leagues of prime time. The issue of how to compensate talent for work distributed online is central to contentious contract talks with writers -- and could trigger the first major strike in Hollywood in nearly two decades.
More

News by popular vote
CS Monitor: If you could create a newspaper based on what you and your friends like to read, would it look different from the front page of The Christian Science Monitor? Or The New York Times? Or even your local paper? Now, thanks to the Internet, you can. Social network news websites make it possible by allowing users essentially to vote on what they consider news. The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) decided to explore the differences between what the editors of The New York Times considered a top story as opposed to the readers of three user-driven sites: Del.icio.us, Digg, and Reddit. The PEJ people also included Yahoo News's Most Recommended, Most Viewed, and Most E-mailed in their study. What they found was interesting, but not unexpected for anyone who frequently reads both sources of content.
More

Talking fish on TV
Washington Post: Your chances of seeing a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender character on the broadcast networks in prime time this new TV season are about the same as your chances of seeing a talking fish or caveman.
More

Facebook in US$10bn take-over talk
NY Times via Benton: Some people laughed at Mark E. Zuckerberg when he reportedly turned down a $900 million offer last year for Facebook, the social networking Web site he founded three and a half years ago. But Microsoft, Google and several funds are considering investments in the fast-growing site, according to people with knowledge of the talks, that could give the start-up a value of more than $10 billion. While discussions were still in the early stage, these people said that Microsoft was considering an investment of $300 million to $500 million for a 5 percent stake of the company. Google is also said to be interested in an investment. Facebook’s valuation could go even higher as the two rivals create the kind of competitive bidding situation that has recently driven the acquisition prices of other start-ups into the stratosphere.
More

Why China shut down 18,401 websites
CS Monitor: The Chinese authorities are in the midst of an unusually harsh crackdown on the Internet, closing tens of thousands of websites that had allowed visitors to post their opinions, according to bloggers and Internet monitors in China. The new censorship wave appears linked to next month's 17th Communist Party Congress, a key political gathering that will set China's course for the coming five years. Party leaders generally prefer to meet undisturbed by criticism. Censors and Web-hosting firms always keep an eye out for unapproved views on sensitive subjects, often deleting them. But this campaign seems more indiscriminate. In recent weeks, police nationally have been shutting down Internet data centers (IDCs), the physical computers that private firms rent – from state-owned or private companies – to host websites offering interactive features, say industry insiders. "With the approach of the Party Congress, the government wants the Internet sphere silent, to keep people from discussing social problems," says Isaac Mao, one of China's first bloggers, who is now organizing a censorship monitoring project. "Shutting down IDCs is a quick and effective way of shutting down interactive sites."
More

Free ad-supported video server software
Userplane, the application platform for online communities and a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, announced an upgrade to its Webrecorder, providing the application to online publishers as a free, ad-supported tool for the first time.
With Userplane Webrecorder, websites can enable their users to easily record and play back audio/video messages.
More: Feedburner

Online-only news analysis
Editors Weblog has just done a three-part analysis on the recent developments on online-only news publishing:
Part 1
MinnPost.com: can traditional print journalists strive online – and how?
Part 2
LePost.fr: when traditional media experiment with all-new approaches to journalism
Part 3
Rue89.com: pro-am success story shows path to newspapers

The Economist leaks to blogs for online buzz
The Economist has identified influential US bloggers and leaks tips and stories to them, in order to create online buzz before the articles are published in the magazine.
More: Editors Weblog

Return to top

See our media trends archive for earlier stories. See our Benton index for USA media stories.

Use this tool to search our site or the web.

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web www.guidomedia.com www.allflying.com www.allwomensport.com

Job Watch
See our jobs page.

Free Newsletter
Try our newsletter. Every week or so we email a free summary of media trends stories and jobs. See our subscription page.

Movers & shakers
See our selection of speeches & papers on media issues... click

Spin City
The Editor's occasional blog… click