Stern, Ratings, CES, MacWorld Expo: Not Just Another Day in Mediaville
Labels: Apple, CBS Radio, CES, HD Radio, innovation, Jointblog, MacWorld, Media, Media Trend Watching, Net Neutrality, Radio, Ratings, Satellite, Sirius, Stern, Steve Jobs
January 9th turned out to be quite the media day.
Howard Stern started off the day celebrating one year satcasting his radio show on Sirius radio, complete with omelet bar and plenty of bagels for Artie Lange.
Stern's one-year impact? Certainly a major contributer to Sirius subscriber gains of more than 2.8 million new listeners. Which explains Stern's huge stock reward announced today worth an estimated $83 million.
Stern's also much happier censoring himself instead of being verbally shackled by the FCC, allowing him to deliver radio that is "free-form, free-flowing, one big party." Stern's satellite success has brought Sirius plenty of new sat radio listeners and, according to Mel Karmazin, $300 million more than Wall Street originally forecast for Stern's first year. But, Newsday asks, at what cost?
Whatever. The King of All Media is better than ever.
And CBS Radio was left reeling, as explained by the NY Daily News. Today's Fall ratings book results began rolling out today; the Stern-escape effect still shows.
Meanwhile, looks like HD Radio may be benefiting due to Stern's move to satellite radio. According to Forbes.com, the major disruption in morning radio habits once Stern left forced listeners to consider new options. Some went to Sirius or XM or just another terrestrial radio station. But, now that prices have dropped and more formats have been made available, some radio listeners are beginning to check out HD Radio, including at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Will HD Radio (now with 1,200 stations available and increasing) eventually challenge satellite radio's position?
Speaking of new electronics...
The annual MacWorld Expo trumped the CES getting all news outlets talking while also giving Steven Jobs some TV time on ABC's World News with Charlie Gibson. ABC News got two-minutes alone using the brand new Apple iPhone, which won't be released for sale until June.
That hasn't stopped iPhone envy, impressing fans with the sleek design which promises to "reinvent the phone". Many are thrilled with this latest example showing the genius of Apple design.
Although Cisco apparently isn't too happy.
Jobs countered previous speculation suggesting iTunes sales were slowing down. In fact, he says, iTunes has now sold more than two billion songs, 50 million television episodes and over 1.3 million feature-length films have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store, making it the world's most popular online digital media store.
And now, AppleTV (or iTV) will be coming to a living room near you, too.
Speaking of mobile phones, Yahoo! inked new Mobile 2.0 distribution deals with a variety of wireless providers for its newly enhanced mobile product Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, as well as a newly launched mobile search platform, dubbed oneSearch.
Lastly, fresh-back-in-session Congress led by the Democrats formerly introduced a new Net Neutrality bill, which is good news for all media trend watchers.
Lots of media news with potential long-term impact. Wonder what the new media landscape will look like one year from now?
posted by Unknown @ Tuesday, January 09, 2007,
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What is Net Neutrality? A Battle for Content Control
Labels: brand building, Jointblog, Net Neutrality
Net neutrality to save the Internet remains a hot political and media trend watching topic. Right now, the web remains "neutral"...open to all who choose to access it, allowing content to be freely and naturally distributed -- uncensored, without corporate influence controlling what you see, search or find. Natural organic search results are based on search engine algorithms measuring content authority value matching keyword terms.
Time magazine (and other mainstream publications) says 2006 was the first time user-generated media trumped mainstream traditional media in this week's "You are the Person of the Year" issue.
Big Media Owners, though, are vigorously trying to figure out better ways to capitalize the Internet, as paid search, banner ads, subscriptions and general advertising models can produce only so much potential revenue.
For the past couple of years, some global media pipelines (cable companies, phone companies, broadband providers, etc.) have been pushing Congress to change the Internet's "net neutrality" laws. Big Media hopes to create a "tier" system -- creating a basic access level and a premium access level.
This would mean some Internet content potentially could be no longer part of the Internet's "public domain". Depending on how much you pay might determine how much access to the Internet you have. This has many social and ethical ramifications.
If allowed and enacted by Congress (which tabled the issue last summer), an Internet no longer neutral could also dramatically impact the entire concept of this Web 2.0 user-generated content era. It's a battle of control between Media Owners and Media Users...the most-important on-going media trend to watch in the New Entertainment Ecomony.
With issues like copyright infringement, illegal download file sharing and Hollywood gossip blogger Perez Hilton, has any industry ever encountered a set of strategic choices more fraught than the ones the media business confronts today?
Despite the challenges, keeping the net neutral is essential.
This YouTube video shows how you can Save The Internet and keep it "net neutral".
posted by Unknown @ Tuesday, December 19, 2006,
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