Media News - Thursday, November 06, 2008

US newspapers rush out new copies to meet demand

Leading US newspapers said Wednesday they had been forced to fire up their printing presses again to keep pace with demand as consumers sought out mementos of Barack Obama's historic election. In the capital, about 400 people formed a queue in front of the office of The Washington Post to buy the newspaper after copies sold out across the city early in the morning. The Post, which increased its normal print run by 30 percent, said it had decided to produce an extra 250,000 copies of a special commemorative edition. The New York Times said it had increased its normal morning print run by 35 percent but had gone back to press to produce another 75,000 copies. The Chicago Tribune restarted its presses in the morning after the initial print run of 690,000 copies sold out in the early hours. The Tribune's vice president of operations, Becky Brubaker, said the second run would number up to 120,000 papers. The Chicago Sun-Times said it had printed extra 'tens of thousands' of copies but had also been forced back to press. For those who were unable to buy the historic edition of their favorite paper on the street, the Internet auction house e-Bay listed hundreds of copies of the day's New York Times, Chicago Tribune and other papers for sale, many for hundreds of dollars apiece. Newspapers were not the only news sources in demand as CNN.com and other online news sites reported record traffic on Tuesday. CNN.com said it received the largest daily audience in its history Tuesday with 30 million unique visitors, more than double the previous record of 13.4 million unique visitors during the Democratic primaries on Super Tuesday. (AFP)

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Google abandons deal with Yahoo

Google has decided to abandon its advertising partnership with Yahoo to avoid having a 'protracted legal battle' with regulators. The deal involved Google providing some of the advertising around Yahoo's search results and would have been worth USD 800m (EUR 618m) a year to Yahoo. It was originally announced in June but has faced anti-trust objections. Yahoo said in a statement it was disappointed that Google had decided not to fight for the deal in court. Yahoo was relying on the deal with Google to help to placate shareholders angry about Yahoo rejecting Microsoft's takeover offer. Google said it would not allow the prospect of a legal battle to distract it from its core mission. Yahoo's management has been under pressure since rejecting the USD 33 a share offer from Microsoft, which valued the company at USD 47.5bn. Yahoo shares were trading at USD 14 each on Wednesday. Now that the Google deal has fallen through, Yahoo may find itself having to try to do another deal with Microsoft, although Microsoft has publicly said it is no longer interested. (BBC News)

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Netherlands: New law will protect sources of bloggers

Journalists, bloggers and other opinion-makers in the Netherlands are to get the legal right to protect their sources under new legislation published by Dutch justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin on Tuesday. The minister has decided not to impose a strict definition of a 'journalist' so that other people can join public debates. But Hirsch Ballin stressed that there could be occasions when the public interest may outweigh the right to protect confidential sources and that a judge will have to make a ruling in these cases. The right of journalists to protect their sources is to be enshrined into Dutch law following a warning from the European court for Human Rights last year. The warning came after Dutch reporter Koen Voskuil was held in custody for 18 days for refusing to reveal the identity of a source. (NRC international)

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Canadian papers start to feel chill

Canadian newspapers have not suffered as badly as those in the US - until now. There are growing signs of a significant downturn as advertisers begin to desert. Large publishers, such as Torstar Corp and Canwest Global Communications, are among those that stand to be hurt the most. Torstar, which publishes Canada's largest-selling paper, the Toronto Star, has cut 270 jobs at its stable of urban and regional newspapers around Toronto. But its chief executive, Robert Prichard, says the economic outlook remains gloomy. The Star's ad revenue fell 8.5 percent in the last quarter and newsprint prices jumped 18 percent. Meanwhile, Canwest - Canada's biggest publisher of daily newspapers - has cut the print presence of its flagship National Post daily in two provinces to save on distribution costs. A third major publisher, Quebecor Inc, is expected to report poor numbers tomorrow at its Sun Media chain of tabloid dailies. (San Diego Union-Tribune via Greenslade blog/Media Guardian)

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US top court considers television dirty words case

The Supreme Court appeared divided on Tuesday over a U.S. government crackdown on dirty words on television as the justices carefully avoided uttering the two four-letter expletives at the heart of the case. In considering the policy that subjects broadcasters to fines for airing a single expletive blurted out on a live television show, the justices and the lawyers who argued the case instead referred to the 'F word' and the 'S word.' Several liberal justices seemed concerned over how broadcasters could prevent dirty words from being aired at live events like sports contests and whether the words might have other meanings beyond sexual or excretory connotations. Some of the conservative justices appeared supportive of the crackdown adopted by the Federal Communications Commission against the one-time use of profanity on live television when children are likely to be watching. The Supreme Court during the 60 minutes of arguments reviewed broadcast indecency standards for the first time in 30 years. A ruling is expected in the first part of next year. The FCC, under the administration of President George W. Bush, has embarked on a crackdown of indecent content on broadcast TV and radio after pop star Janet Jackson briefly exposed her bare breast during the 2004 broadcast of the Super Bowl halftime show. Before 2004, the FCC did not ordinarily enforce prohibitions against indecency unless there were repeated occurrences. (Reuters)

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Germany’s first gay TV channel hits the airwaves

Germany has a new television channel that loves men. TimmTV is the country's first broadcaster to focus on gay and lesbian programming. Already established in much of Europe, gay TV's taken longer to reach Germany. Germany's estimated 3.6 million gay men got a new option on Saturday, Nov. 1, when wiling an evening away in front of the TV. TimmTV, the country's first ever broadcaster to openly target gay men as its main demographic, is aiming to draw in their families and friends as well as lesbians and a few so-called metrosexuals for six hours each evening and possibly around the clock if the station proves profitable. TimmTV's programming plans do not represent any major changes to Germany's private broadcasting landscape. Essentially, the station, like many private German channels, is relying on popular English language series, dubbed into German. The channel also promises to tackle serious issues, including discrimination faced by Muslim gays and the persecution of homosexuals under Adolf Hitler. There will also be documentaries on stars and celebrities who make waves in the gay community, such as Rupert Everett, Susan Sarandon and Liza Minnelli. In the short term though, most of these programs will be produced elsewhere, while the channel simply purchases the rights to broadcast the shows in Germany. While TimmTV, which executives had hoped to launch last year, is new to Germany, similar channels, like PinkTV in France and Serbia, Gay.TV in Italy and Canada's Pride TV, have been targeting their programming at homosexuals for years. (Deutsche Welle)

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