Posted by truecreek on December 30, 2009 under More Dam News | 
By John Eggerton
For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer.
The business model is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and the local stations that carry the networks’ programming. Cable TV and the Web have fractured the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming.
That will play out in living rooms across the country. The changes could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills, as the networks and local stations squeeze more fees from pay-TV providers such as Comcast and DirecTV for the right to show broadcast TV channels in their lineups.
The networks might even ditch free broadcast signals in the next few years. Instead, they could operate as cable channels — a move that could spell the end of free TV as Americans have known it since the 1940s.
“Good programming is expensive,” Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns Fox, told a shareholder meeting this fall. “It can no longer be supported solely by advertising revenues.”
More of ‘Business Model Unraveling for TV Networks’ here.
Posted by truecreek on December 24, 2009 under More Dam News |
The Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Project and Internet Project combined forces to write an in-depth look at Internet penetration across racial and ethnic categories in the U.S.
A summary of the major findings:
From 2006 to 2008, Internet use among Latino adults rose by 10 percentage points, from 54% to 64%. In comparison, the rates for whites rose four percentage points, and the rates for blacks rose only two percentage points during that time period. Though Latinos continue to lag behind whites, the gap in Internet use has shrunk considerably.
For Latinos, the increase in Internet use has been fueled in large part by increases in Internet use among groups that have typically had very low rates of Internet use.
· While U.S.-born Latinos experienced a two percentage point increase in Internet use from 75% in 2006 to 77% in 2008, foreign-born Latinos experienced a 12 percentage point increase during the same period, from 40% to 52%.
· In 2006, 31% of Latinos lacking a high school degree reported ever going online; in 2008, this number was 41%. In comparison, Latinos with higher levels of education experienced three to four percentage point increases in Internet use.
· Internet use among Latinos residing in households with annual incomes less than $30,000 increased 17 percentage points from 2006 to 2008. For Latinos in households earning $30,000 to $49,999 annually, Internet use increased two percentage points, and for Latinos in households earning $50,000 or more annually, there was no change in Internet use.
Read the entire survey, Internet Use Grows Fast Among Latinos, here.
Posted by truecreek on December 21, 2009 under More Dam News |
Looks like buying Walt Disney Co.’s ABC Radio stations in 2006 was an unfortunate business decision for Citadel.
By Mike Spector and Sarah McBride
Citadel Broadcasting Corp., the third-largest radio broadcaster in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy over the weekend, the latest victim of the travails facing media companies.
Citadel, which owns and operates 224 stations across the country, listed assets of about $1.4 billion and more than $2.4 billion in debt.
The company, like many print and broadcast media outfits, faces stiff competition, shifts in consumer habits and a harsh advertising climate.
More on Citadel Files for Bankruptcy here.
Posted by truecreek on December 17, 2009 under The Work |
