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Benton media news digest – Feb 2007

ANDREW TYNDALL OFFERS "NEWSTUBE"
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable]
Despite having been written off as obsolete amid years of ratings declines, the evening newscasts remain a vital cultural force. And Andrew Tyndall is still watching. As editor of the Tyndall Report, Tyndall has monitored and analyzed the way the newscasts cover various topics since 1987. Now he is inviting viewers to join him. His Website tyndallreport.com recently began offering an extensive searchable database of news stories complete with links to video clips of the segments. Each day, Tyndall posts a grid of the previous evening's newscasts -- organized by network, topic, reporter, dateline and the "angle" of the coverage. Visitors can click on thumbnail links to watch clips of the segments on the networks' Websites. Although the database goes back to only mid November 2006, it already comprises more than 1,300 links to clips.  
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6419196.html?display=Breaking+News

A THIRD OF US SURFERS TRIED WIRELESS
[SOURCE: Reuters]
One-third of U.S. Internet users have connected to the Web using a wireless network to send e-mails, check the latest news or read other things, according to a survey released on Sunday by the Pew Internet Project. The survey also found that 20 percent of Internet users now have wireless networks available at home, double the number recorded in January 2005. "We know that 'always on' broadband connections really deepen people's relationship to the Internet; adding 'on the go' to the mix takes this a step further," said John Horrigan, associate research director at the Pew Internet Project. "The convenience of wireless access gives people the chance to fire off a quick e-mail to someone while waiting in a doctor's office or check the news headlines on the way to work."  
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2518346420070225

* Wireless Internet Access
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/203/report_display.asp

* Wireless Internet Access Becoming More Common
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=56041&Nid=27757&p=368626

OLD MEDIA, NEW MEDIA
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Anne Becker]
Last year, almost 18,000 media employees lost their jobs -- the biggest group of layoffs since the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. Some of the world's biggest "old-media" companies -- including MTV Networks, NBC Universal, Disney and Discovery Communications -- are axing staffers in handfuls and hundreds. In one of the biggest reductions, Time Warner's AOL began cutting 5,000 employees in December, about 26% of its workforce. U.S. media companies announced they were slashing a total of 17,809 jobs in 2006, 88% more than in the year before, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a New York-based global outplacement firm that tracks layoffs. The cuts reflect a grim reality for these media giants: Staying ahead often means cutting heads. As viewers shift their media-consumption habits, TV operations are forced to take a hard look at how they have been run and staffed for years. And in many cases, they've realized, they just don't need the same people they used to.  
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6419245.html?display=Feature

OSCAR RATES PUSH THE ENVELOPE
[SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Meg James]
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ABC would like to thank General Motors, Bank of America, J.C. Penney and many others for shelling out $1.7 million for every 30-second spot they bought in Sunday's Oscar telecast. These advertisers also feel as if they've got a piece of the gold: The 79th annual Academy Awards will probably be one of the largest and most prestigious television events of the year, with an expected audience of more than 40 million viewers. The show is also one of the increasingly few events with enough built-in suspense for most viewers to watch in real time, rather than digitally record the show so they can zip past the ads. That's one reason advertisers are willing to pay an Oscar record price for a 30-second spot, an uptick from last year's $1.6 million, despite a droop in the show's ratings in recent years.  
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-oscarads23feb23,1,1635249.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business

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JESSE JACKSON SEEKS MORE DIVERSITY IN HOLLYWOOD
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Carl DiOrio]
On Tuesday, Rev Jesse Jackson met with Universal Studios President Ron Meyer about increasing diversity in the industry. Jackson's Tuesday meeting with Meyer and his planned sessions with various studio heads, talent agency executives and others are part of a continuing campaign by the civil rights leader's Rainbow Coalition to press for greater diversity in Hollywood's casting process and studio hiring. Citing data like a recent UCLA report showing low numbers of minority-oriented film roles, Jackson aims to convince industry elite that increased casting and hiring of minorities will broaden the creative scope of Hollywood entertainment and thus its revenue base. "We must go to each of the companies and agencies and urge them to make the industry open up and expand the market and the opportunities," Rev Jackson said Wednesday. "After all, we once did not know how big baseball could be until everyone could play. Right now, with the system (in) Hollywood, we don't know how big the entertainment market can be until everybody is able to participate."   
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2007-02-22T145548Z_01_N22381026_RTRUKOC_0_US-JACKSON.xml&archived=False

MOVIES SHOOT FOR CHANGE
[SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Chris Lee]
Albie Hecht is an old hand at philanthropy. The former Nickelodeon president who greenlighted such hits as "SpongeBob SquarePants" has long been generous to children's charities. He has produced public service announcements and telethons, organized community outreach projects and created the Big Help, a campaign aimed at getting kids to participate in community service.  But when Hecht became concerned about the plight of young African war refugees, he decided to try something new: He financed a documentary about Ugandan schoolchildren who are struggling with the ravages of that country's 20-year civil war while competing in a national music contest. His film, "War/Dance," won the documentary directing award at the Sundance Film Festival last month. As it turns out, he is one of many media big shots who are trying to "make a difference" with a small, personally realized documentary.    
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-et-filmanthropy14feb14,1,5042074.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

THE AD-FREE CELLPHONE MAY SOON BE EXTINCT [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Sylvers]
 It will not be long before the 2.2 billion mobile phone users around the world consider it natural to tune into a 15-second spot before watching a video, sending a message or listening to a downloaded song between phone conversations. Or so they hope.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/business/media/14adco.html
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DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS BELIED BY FACTS
[SOURCE: Center for Media Research]
According to new and revised data from the World Association of Newspapers, newspaper circulation is growing and new newspapers are being launched at a remarkable rate. 1) Global newspaper circulation up 9.95 percent over five years and 2.36 percent over twelve months, 2) Daily newspaper titles surpass 10,000 for first time in history 3) More than 450 million copies sold daily, 4) In excess of 1.4 billion paid-newspaper readers, 5) Total free daily circulation more than doubles in five years, and 6) Even in North America and Europe, both circulation and the number of new titles have increased, according to the updated data. Timothy Balding, CEO of the Paris-based WAN, says "What we are seeing completely contradicts the conventional wisdom that newspapers are in terminal decline.... The fashion of predicting the death of newspapers should be exposed for... nothing more than a fashion, based on common assumptions that are belied by the facts."  
http://www.centerformediaresearch.com/cfmr_brief.cfm?fnl=070213

IS RADIO STILL RADIO IF THERE'S VIDEO?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Siklos]
The nation’s commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is in, of all things, video. Across the country, radio stations are putting up video fare on their Web sites, ranging from a simple camera in the broadcast booth to exclusive coverage of events like the Super Bowl to music videos, news clips and Web-only musical performances.  Whereas video was once said to have killed the radio star — according to the pop song by the Buggles that was the first video shown on MTV in 1981 — it is now emerging as an unlikely savior for an industry facing an array of challenges. In the age of YouTube and the radio talk show hosts Howard Stern and Don Imus as television stalwarts, this might not seem all that remarkable, except that the radio industry has been singularly tardy in embracing the interactive age. “This is no longer the age of ‘having a face for radio,’ ” said Dianna Jason, the senior director of marketing and promotions at Power 106, a Los Angeles hip-hop radio station. “This is a visual medium now.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/business/media/14radio.html

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DOWNLOAD BIZ HAS TO CHANGE, OR DIGITAL SALES WILL BE PLAYING A SWAN SONG
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR:]
[Commentary] Nearly six years after the introduction of iTunes and the iPod, online music has failed to interest the vast majority of the world's music consumers. Which is no doubt why Steve Jobs recently called for an end to copy-protection software on digital songs. Something has to change, or iTunes and its ilk will never break into the mass market. It's certainly not that people don't want to buy stuff on the Internet. Amazon.com's sales soared in 2006. Blue Nile is thriving selling diamond jewelry, and eBay sells millions of cars. Getting people to buy songs ought to be a snap. But for the majority of people, downloading songs is too hard and too frustrating. Some of that problem is the digital rights management (DRM) software that limits where and how songs can be played. It makes iTunes songs playable only on iPods, Rhapsody subscription songs playable only on certain devices, and so on. The record companies believe DRM keeps people from pirating music, which may or may not be true. But DRM definitely keeps people from buying online music. As Jobs says, if consumers could buy music from any online store and play it on any device, the entire industry would thrive. There are other reasons downloads are stalled. People who grew up with CDs — or vinyl LPs before that — like the packaging and cover art, and like to get songs deep in an album that are not hits but grow on you over time. At 99 cents a song, digital downloads don't offer enough value to give up the packaged CD niceties. Especially when pirated music is so easily available for free. If digital downloads are going to take off, they probably need to be DRM-free, simpler to buy and much cheaper. Then again, that will only happen with the record companies' blessing, and since they get 90% of their revenue from CD sales, maybe they just don't care about taking digital downloads to the mass market. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20070214/maney14.art.htm

WHY DIGITAL MUSIC SHOULD BE SET FREE
[SOURCE:  Financial Times, AUTHOR: John Gapper]
[Commenatary] The average iPod user has only 22 DRM-encrypted songs on his or her device out of 1,000. The rest of the songs are either pirated illegally from friends or copied legally from the owner's CD collection. There is no excuse for piracy. Every so often, someone tries to justify it by mumbling about how companies overcharge for CDs and he is doing what Robin Hood would have done. But since any pirate can buy a CD and distribute the music on it without difficulty, DRM does not curb those that it should. Some music industry executives hope one day to replace CDs with copy-protected discs but that is a distant prospect. Until then, DRM merely affects the law-abiding, who find it an annoying and inflexible encroachment on their legitimate property rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e70775e0-ba05-11db-89c8-0000779e2340.html

(requires subscription)

TV NEWSROOMS LAG ON DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Paige Albiniak]
According to the Radio-Television News Directors' annual study of diversity, blacks in TV newsrooms are at 9.5%. And 4.2% of all TV news directors are African-American. Also, the study states, overall minorities in TV newsrooms are at their second-highest level ever: 22.2%. Likewise, 13.2% of all TV news directors are minority, the second-highest that number, too, has ever reached. But with the total U.S. minority population at 33.6%, all employment numbers fall short. "The number of people in broadcast news has declined in general," says Gary Wordlaw, a former news director and now general manager of CBS-owned WUPL New Orleans. "So the number of minorities looks greater proportionate to the total number. There's been no significant change for years." To do that, there are clear steps that TV stations and the companies that own them can take, some executives say. First, the industry needs to make it easier to get promising people into the employment pipeline by identifying and training them earlier and by offering them paid internships. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415583.html?display=News

CRONKITE: QUEST FOR MEDIA PROFITS HURTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
In a keynote address at Columbia University, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite warned that pressures by media companies to generate ever-greater profits are threatening the very freedom the nation was built upon. said today's journalists face greater challenges than those from his generation. No longer could journalists count on their employers to provide the necessary resources, he said, "to expose truths that powerful politicians and special interests often did not want exposed." Instead, he said, "they face rounds and rounds of job cuts and cost cuts that require them to do ever more with ever less.'' "In this information age and the very complicated world in which we live today, the need for high-quality reporting is greater than ever," he said. Cronkite said news accuracy has declined because of consolidations and closures that have left many American towns with only one newspaper. And as broadcasters cut budgets and air time for news, he said, "we're all left with a sound bite culture that turns political campaigns into political theater." The former anchor urged owners of media companies -- newspapers and broadcast alike -- to recognize they have special civil responsibilities. "Consolidation and cost cutting may be good for the bottom line in the short term but that isn't necessarily good for the country or the health of the news business in the long term,'" he said. http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=39215199158185

MOMMY BLOGS HURT TV
[SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Matea Gold]
This season has seen a significant erosion of the morning shows' demographic sweet spot: 25- to 54-year-old women. Almost 450,000 of these women -- coveted by advertisers because of their household purchasing power -- turned off the three broadcast morning programs so far this season, a decline of 10% compared to the same point last year, according to a Times analysis of Nielsen Media Research data. (Male viewers the same age also fell by 9%, but they make up a much smaller portion of the audience.) It's difficult to trace the exact cause of the drop. It comes after two popular morning hosts, Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, left their shows to be evening news anchors. At the same time, the advent of "mommy blogs," the growing popularity of online news sites and the ever-more-frantic press of daily life appear to have led many women to forgo the morning ritual of watching TV. News executives are sanguine about the ratings dip, calling it a short-term fluctuation. They attribute it in large part to the unseasonably mild winter in much of the country until recently, noting that temperate weather draws people outside, and away from their television sets. But could it have something to do with the content of the shows? "Watching morning television for me is the equivalent of reading People magazine in the dentist's office," said Jenny Lauck, a mother of three who writes for websites from her home in Santa Rosa, Calif. "They don't have anything new or particularly relevant to my life. It seems like a lot of fluff. I feel like I can get information faster and cleaner on the Internet." http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-et-women9feb09,1,5139801.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

CAN APPLE CONVINCE RECORDING INDUSTRY?
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Jefferson Graham]
Record labels have consistently rebuffed calls by digital music executives to sell songs online without copy-protection restrictions. But now that the CEO of the predominant online music retailer has joined the chorus, will labels pay attention? "Apple is the fourth-largest music retailer," says Phil Leigh, an analyst at Inside Digital Media. "The labels have to listen. Jobs carries a lot of weight." According to the NPD Group, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target are the top three music retailers, followed by Apple, then Amazon. But Ted Cohen, a former top executive at record label EMI, says DRM is justified, because "we need to protect content." If Jobs is truly serious about taking off restrictions, Cohen says, he should sell Apple software without restrictions on how many people can use it, and sell Disney and Pixar movies on iTunes without copy restrictions. Jobs is Disney's biggest shareholder, and the former CEO of Pixar. "Prove you're serious and take a bold stance," says Cohen. "Otherwise, I find it all a bit disingenuous." http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20070208/2b_drm08.art.htm

* Fans, labels are split on unlocked music plan
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-music8feb08,1,6406795.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business

* Music industry group fires back at Apple
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/16646518.htm

* A lock on the market
[Commentary] DRM systems hurt the people who actually pay for music by making the tracks they download harder to use. The record labels (and the Hollywood studios too) should stop trying to use DRM to give people less than what they're used to getting when they buy songs and concentrate instead on developing compelling new ways to discover and enjoy music.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-jobs08feb08,1,4288858.story?coll=la-news-comment

GOOGLE AND CABLE FIRMS WARN OF RISKS FROM WEB TV
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Lucas van Grinsven]
New Internet TV services such as Joost and YouTube may bring the global network to its knees, Internet companies said on Wednesday, adding they are already investing heavily just to keep data flowing. Google, which acquired online video sharing site YouTube last year, said the Internet was not designed for TV. It even issued a warning to companies that think they can start distributing mainstream TV shows and movies on a global scale at broadcast quality over the public Internet. "The Web infrastructure, and even Google's (infrastructure) doesn't scale. It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect," Vincent Dureau, Google's head of TV technology, said at the Cable Europe Congress. Google instead offered to work together with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks' high-quality delivery of shows. One cable chief executive, Duco Sickinghe from Belgian operator Telenet, said it was "the best news of the day" to hear that Google could not scale for video. Research group Gartner estimates that 60 percent of the Internet traffic that is uploaded from computers is peer-to-peer traffic, mostly from consumers swapping films and TV shows through select user groups and BitTorrent. (The research found that 39% of Internet traffic is spam so just 1% of traffic was found to be "productive work.") http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2007-02-07T230017Z_01_L0767087_RTRUKOC_0_US-CABLE-WEBTV.xml&WTmodLoc=InternetNewsHome_C1_%5bFeed%5d-2

LOCAL TV'S ONLINE REVENUES UP 41% IN 2006
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: ]
The growth in local television's online advertising hit 41% in 2006 and the outlook for 2007 projects local online advertising to grow by as much as 55% across local markets, according to a new survey released by TVB. During 2006, local television stations sharpened their focus on the Internet, increasing their online ad revenues to $399 million. By the end of 2007, the report predicts, that figure could hit $618 million. The survey shows that many stations are using the Web as a publishing platform, taking aim at their newspaper and yellow pages rivals by offering classified and directory advertising and have gained nearly a point of share in the past year ("no small feat in the high-growth environment of local online advertising," the report says). Several stations captured more than 15 percent of all locally spent online advertising in 2006. The survey showed that a total of seven categories comprised half of all online ad categories, and in particular, real estate, health, high-tech and automotive dominated. The report recommends that local broadcasters: 1) rethink the mass-media mentality with an eye toward viewing the Internet as a mass of niches; 2) hire a dedicated sales force; 3) give strong consideration to launching a real estate section; and 4) consider spin-off sites that may not be branded to the station. "[W]hat was once viewed as cotton candy now seems to be a vital nutritional supplement to broadcasters' health." http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/02/07/daily.13/

* For more see http://www.tvb.org

INTERNET TECHNOLOGY TESTS AT&T'S BID FOR TV SUBSCRIBERS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Grant peter.grant@wsj.com]
AT&T's big bet on using Internet technology to vault ahead of rival cable operators in the television-distribution business is beginning to look more like a long shot. The telecom giant says it has rolled out its so-called U-verse service in 11 cities. But that's four fewer than promised, and the technology seems to remain mostly in the trial phase. AT&T executives acknowledge they aren't fully marketing U-verse because the service can't yet handle a surge of customers. AT&T counted just 3,000 customers at the end of the fourth quarter, unchanged from three months earlier. Meanwhile, AT&T executives last month admitted for the first time that there were problems with the software for U-verse provided by Microsoft, its primary vendor on the project. That's a concern not just for AT&T, but for telecom companies world-wide that bought Microsoft technology to run TV services using Internet protocol, or IP, to transmit signals. It isn't clear how serious the problems are because AT&T and Microsoft executives won't discuss them. The delays plaguing U-verse have fed criticism that AT&T and Microsoft overreached, trying to get more out of Internet technology than it's capable of delivering at this time. The skeptics include vendors, former employees and competitors. If AT&T did overreach, it was out of necessity. The company faces pressure to get into the TV business from cable companies that are luring away tens of thousands of customers with their "triple play" offers of phone, TV and high-speed Internet services. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117080773641100240.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

(requires subscription)

GOOGLE'S SCHMIDT PITCHES 'SELF-GOVERNING' NET
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
Google CEO Eric Schmidt's nightmare scenario for a future Internet looks like this: As billions more people go online, those in power are so "freaked out" about the misuse of personal information that they suffocate the Web with stifling regulations. Under that "undesirable" construction, a small number of companies become gatekeepers, forcing Internet users to interact in "highly regimented" ways that rest on verifying their identities, Schmidt said in his keynote speech at a luncheon event hosted here by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Google chief said he remained optimistic that the Internet will instead tend toward a self-governing set of people and communities. But he acknowledged that "true anonymity is extremely rare...and can be very, very dangerous." In that vein, a middle-ground scenario that supplies "enough insulation so you know who you're dealing with" could also arise. http://news.com.com/Googles+Schmidt+pitches+self-governing+Net/2100-1038_3-6156821.html?tag=html.alert

* Google CEO: Internet's role in freedom still expanding
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/06/HNgoogleceowebfreedom_1.html

* Google Still Searching For Recognition in D.C.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/06/AR2007020601768.html

APPLE'S JOBS CALLS ON MUSIC INDUSTRY TO DROP DRM
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Yinka Adegoke and Duncan Martell]
Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs on Tuesday called on the four major record companies to start selling songs online without copy protection software known as digital rights management (DRM). Jobs said there appeared to be no benefit to the record companies to continue to sell more than 90 percent of their music without DRM on compact discs while selling the remaining small percentage of their music encumbered with a DRM system. "If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies," he said in a statement. Apple has been under pressure in Europe to make iTunes music compatible with players other than the iPod. On January 25 Norway's consumer ombudsman said Apple must open access to iTunes by October 1 or face legal action. "Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies toward persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free," said Jobs about the European action. Apple's iTunes Music Store is currently the world's largest digital music outlet, having sold around 2 billion songs since its launch in 2003. It has more than 70 percent market share of all digital music sales in the United States. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2007-02-06T234532Z_01_WEN3678_RTRUKOC_0_US-APPLE-ITUNES.xml&WTmodLoc=TechNewsHome_C1_%5bFeed%5d-2

* Apple's Jobs calls for DRM-free music
http://news.com.com/Apples+Jobs+calls+for+DRM-free+world/2100-1027_3-6156763.html?tag=html.alert

* Jobs Calls for End to Music Copy Protection
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/technology/07music.html

* Despite lawsuits, digital music downloads grow
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2007-02-07T010522Z_01_N26295384_RTRUKOC_0_US-PIRACY.xml&WTmodLoc=TechNewsHome_C2_technologyNews-1

IS THERE "ENOUGH" BROADBAND COMPETITION? AND HOW HIGH IS UP?
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge 2/5, AUTHOR: Harold Feld, media Access Project]
[Commentary] Last week, the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau released the latest round of metrics on broadband deployment in the U.S. Called "High-Speed Services for Internet Access: Status as of June 30, 2006," the 23-page report assures us that just about every zip code has access to multiple "high speed" Internet services (defined as 200 Kbps in one direction) and that many zip codes even multiple providers of "advanced services lines," which provide an astounding 200 kbps in BOTH directions! Unsurprisingly, this has kicked off the usual argument about whether we have "enough" competition so that we don't need net neutrality or any other rules to keep the Internet open. Allow me to suggest a different approach. Asking if we have "enough" competition is a rather meaningless question. Like so many things "competition" is a rather flexible concept, and focusing on whether there is "enough" competition is about as useful as asking "how high is up." The real questions, from a policy perspective, are two-fold. 1) What do we need to do to get cheap, fast broadband for everyone? 2) What do we need to do to make sure the Internet stays as open, free, and productive at the edges as possible? http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/813

PARENTS WORRY OVER KIDS TV (REUTERS)
U.S. parents are more worried about the amount of time their kids spend watching television or meeting friends on Internet social networks than about sex or alcohol abuse, according to a study released on Monday by Insight Research Group and commissioned by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based group that studies the impact of media on kids. Some 57 percent of  parents surveyed were either very concerned or strongly concerned about children spending too much of their time with different media outlets. By comparison, about 45 percent of parents said they were as concerned about their kids engaging in sex or using alcohol. Parents also saw themselves as bearing the biggest responsibility for the way media affects their kids, well ahead of the companies that create TV shows or Internet content, who ranked third on the list. TV viewing topped the list of media categories that worried parents, following by Internet use and playing video games. Listening to the radio and reading magazines were deemed as the safest types of media, according to the poll.

http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2007-02-05T202231Z_01_N05444191_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-KIDS.xml&WTmodLoc=InternetNewsHome_C1_%5bFeed%5d-9

* See Common Sense Media press release:
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/news/press-releases.php?id=48

* See complete survey
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/news/pdfs/National-Parent-Poll.ppt

• Study Finds Next Big Media Backlash Could Be, Well, Media
•  

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=55011&Nid=27187&p=368626

* Parents rate high as Internet controls -
Software packages aren't enough to protect children from online threats

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/05/BUGV1NT4RG1.DTL&type=tech

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