Distance Ed Ideas -

• MarketWatch's Jon Friedman's Covers Media, Media Writers
  Jon Friedman of MarketWatch has been profiling prominent U.S. media writers for the last few weeks on Fridays. He writes a column that runs three times a week at MarketWatch. I came across this looking for material on Ken Auletta, but it looks like his other profiles are interesting as well. In addition to Auletta, he's looked at Keith Kelly of the N.Y. Post, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, and Michael Wolfe of Vanity Fair.
• NBC, ReganMedia, and the Runaway Bride
  We would all generally agree that it is improper for the major television networks to pay a source for an interview with cash or a check. But sometimes the payment can be part of a larger package. USA Today's Peter Johnson looks at the connections between the runaway bride, Katy Couric, book and movie agent Judith Regan, a potential made-for-TV movie, and an alleged payment of $500,000. Sounds to me like the synergy deal from hell.... Take a look at Johnson's column for the full analysis.
• Viacom Board Votes to Split Company in Two
  Media giant Viacom is planning to split into two separate publicly traded companies - one will deal with cable, the other with broadcasting. Does this really mean that the company is becoming two smaller ones? I don't think so. This is just something that would matter to financial analysts. (USA Today)
• Media Business - NBC Universal Buys Last Part of Universal
  Mogul Barry Diller has sold off his last piece of Vivendi Universal Entertainment to NBC Universal. So NBC Universal is now the sole owner of the movie studio. But wait! NBC Universal is owned 80 percent by General Electric (the parent of NBC) and 20 percent by Vivendi Universal. Got that straight? There would be a quiz tomorrow if I could figure it out.... (USA Today)
• BET Founder Robert Johnson To Retire
  Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson announced Wednesday that he will be retiring at the end of the year. One of the nation's first black billionaires, he founded the first network for African Americans. (Washington Post)
• How Is The Alternative Newspaper Business Different From the Mainstream Media?
  When it comes to merging competing properties together for synergy and profits, there is no difference. Howie Kurtz gives the scoop on the merger of New Times and the Village Voice.
• Everything From the Margin Moves To The Center Dept. - More on the New Times - Village Voice Merger
  You know, if you changed the names from alt-publishers New Times and Village Voice to Rupert Murdoch and Gannett, the story would largely read the same... Oh, I forgot, the story does have Murdoch's name in it as the former owner of the Voice. As you may recall, New Times and the VV recently decided to stop their long-time alt-weekly war and get married instead. The surprising part is that this link is to an excellent commentary on the merger that ran in NT property Westword.
  
• Have Video Games Reached the Status of Mass Media?
  I have been raising this question for several years now. I think that video games have gradually becoming more and more movie/TV like every year, and no one does this better than game publisher Rockstar. Say what you like about the Grand Theft Auto series (and there's a lot to be said about them!), it has redefined what video games can be. (Newsweek)
• • • Paramount (Viacom) To Buy Independent Studio Dreamworks
      Dreamworks, the independent movie studio started by media giants Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, is being purchased by Paramount, which is in turn a unit within media conglomerate Viacom. This was the end of the line for the attempt to run a United-Artists-style studio by and for the filmmakers. (Washington Post)
    • AOL Founder Calls For Splitting Up Time Warner
      AOL founder Steve Case, in an op/ed piece in Sunday's Washington Post, suggests that it is time to undo the merger of internet giant AOL and oldline media corp Time Warner. (A merger Case was largely to blame for responsible for. Case also talked about his commentary with readers in an online chat.
      
    • Viacom and CBS Splitting Up (Sort Of)
      Viacom announced last June that it was planning on spinning off the CBS broadcast television and radio properties into their own company. That transition is now approaching, with stocks for the two companies being traded separately. But as I said back in June, this is more a way to bolster stock prices than really split up the companies. Don't see this as a real divorce. Look at it more like an elderly couple who get a paper divorce so that they can receive better Social Security benefits. (Forbes)
      
• • • Disney and Pixar to Merge
      Disney is merging with (acquiring?) computer animation studio Pixar for $7.4 billion in stock. As you may have noticed, every film Pixar has made (Toy Story I & II and the incomparable Incredibles, to name just a few) has been a blockbuster hit. Pixar's chair and major stock holder is Steve Jobs, founder and CEO of Apple Computer. The merger will make Jobs the largest Disney stockholder and will give him a place on the Disney board of directors. Given that Apple is positioning itself more and more as a digital media technology company rather than just a computer maker, this could get really interesting. (And Steve Jobs says he isn't trying to become a Hollywood player. Right.)
      
    • The WB and UPN Hook Up To Become The CW
      The WB network (owned by Warner Brothers) and UPN (owned by CBS/Viacom) have both been losing money, and neither has managed to attract much of an audience, so what are they doing? What any good media properties would do. Merge! But what will this new network be called? The CW.... Excuse me, does neither Warner Brothers nor CBS have anyone at them with any notion of marketing? Anyway, that means that now instead of two networks nobody watches, there will now be two. (Of course, people made snarky comments like that about the Fox network, and look where it is now.) (USA Today)
      

• Who Are The Media?
  When you think about "the media," you typically think about the channels that you see – the cable networks, the movies, the newspapers, the CDs, the magazine, etc. These links take you to the corporate side of the media business rather than the entertainment/news side.

  • Who Owns What
    Want an up-to-date list of what all of the major media companies own or control? Columbia Journalism Review’s Who Owns What site is perhaps the most informative of the group, giving detailed, up-to-date information about the top six media companies, and many of the slightly smaller ones as well.
  • Time Warner
    You know the various Time Warner media sites, but here is the company’s corporate site. This site contains a mixture of corporate news, financial data, and previews of upcoming Time Warner products.
  • Disney
    Go beyond Mickey Mouse for the inside look at the Disney Corporation. Disney is somewhat unusual in that it doesn’t separate it’s corporate site from it’s content promotion site, though Disney as a brand is much more significant and known to the public than any of the other major media companies. Disney has an well-developed internship program that many business and journalism majors will be interested in.
  • Viacom & CBS
    Get the latest on the business side of MTV and Nickelodeon. Along with the standard business information, there is a fascinating page here that gives a graphic links to all of the Viacom properties. It provides a wonderful illustration of the range of media controlled by one company. Viacom and CBS are now trading as separate stocks, though the ownership of the companies hasn't really changed.
  • Bertelsmann
    Chances are very good that most of you will not be familiar with Bertelsmann as a company, though you have probably heard of the BMG recording label.
  • News Corporation
    Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is truly global in scope, as the brand logos on the News Corp. homepage so clearly illustrate. The News Corporation site has links to the company’s various properties ranging from the racy London tabloid the Sun (Check out Page 3 on the Sun if you're curious; I won't give you the link.), to the Fox broadcasting services.
  • General Electric/NBC-Universal
    The merger of NBC and Universal under ownership of GE was completed in 2004. This makes NBC the last of the Big Four networks to be associated with a major movie studio/content provider. But General Electric is much more than just a media corporation.