Due to intense business travel toward the end of last week, I missed out on the latest bit of media world deal-making gossip: Rupert Murdoch is offering to sell News Corp.’s controlling stake in DBS provider DirecTV to fellow mogul John Malone. It seems that Rupert is tired of having Liberty Media’s Malone muck around in his business — Malone is News Corp.’s second largest shareholder, with $10 billion, or 19%, of the company’s stock.
It seems that Murdoch is also tired of DirecTV. CNBC quoted Murdoch as saying that DirecTV is a “turd bird.” What, exactly, is a turd bird? A bird that hangs around turd? A bird that eats turd? A satellite, also known as a “bird,” that is as worthless as a turd? It’s not good, whatever it is, and that makes sense because DBS is dying.
A Google search yields dozens of entries for “turd bird,” but they are almost all related to Murdoch’s comment. But…there are several vendors that actually sell bird sculptures made out of real animal turds. Here’s the best one. However, my favorite part of the “turd bird” Google search was the following AdSense Ad:
Anyway, memo to Murdoch: If you want to unload a lousy business, calling it a “turd bird” probably doesn’t help. Second memo to Malone: Don’t take the “turd bird” in exchange for all your News Corp. stock. News Corp. owns MySpace and a Hollywood studio and all kinds of cool stuff — its stock is bound to go up when it gets rid of the turd bird.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:12 PM | Print | Comments (0)As it turns out, Google may in fact be evil enough for Washington. The San Francisco Chronicle has this piece about Google forming a political action committee while simultaneously reaching out to Republicans. Google has filed the paperwork to register its PAC, Google NetPAC, with the Federal Elections Commission.
The committee will “support candidates who promote an open and free Internet for our users,” according to Google’s man in Washington, Alan Davidson. But, Google is still hanging onto some of its renegade roots by building in an employee committee that will vet the PAC’s contributions.
As usual, a board of directors will oversee the political action committee. But Google plans to add a second layer of advisers made up of employees to give them a voice in who to give money to and how much.
The company is also considering giving employees an incentive to contribute to the political action committee. The company would match any money they give with a charitable donation of equal value.
On the Republican front, Google has hired former Republican Sens. Dan Coats of Indiana and Connie Mack of Florida as outside lobbyists. The search giant, along with eBay and TechNet, will also hold its first fund raiser next week for embattled Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM).
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:25 AM | Print | Comments (0)
The New York Times’ Richard Siklos has this analysis of the boom in video, web video to be specific. During the past week we saw Apple unveil its still-doubted iTV unit and NBC launch NBBC, which will syndicate video around the web.
Although like Siklos I’m still not sure just how web video will pay off, I know it will pay off.
The good news — and my second point — is that there’s gold in them there hills. Video delivered over the Internet is clearly shaping up to be an actual business that advertisers are interested in. The broadcasting (netcasting?) of television programs and clips on the Web moves the debate away from Internet-versus-TV because if TV executives put their best material online and get paid for it, the proposition becomes Internet-cum-TV.
Siklos makes a point about the terminology. Do we “broadcast” video over the Internet? Are TV programs “aired” on the web? Does NBBC help web sites “show” videos?
I have the same problem when writing about cable TV — and I worked for the cable industry for a long time. Cable networks were trying hard to distinguish themselves from broadcast networks, therefore cable TV programs were not “broadcast” to viewers. Back then the term “cablecast” was a dreadful alternative and in any event it held political connotations in some circles (e.g. candidates for office “cablecast” their speeches).
We can always accurately say that videos are “transmitted” over the Internet or “distributed” over the Internet but the geek quotient in those words make them, at times, insufferably dry.
Siklos tosses out “netcast” as a possible term of art. To me, this made-up word has the same liability as “cablecast.” It’s a coined phrase that won’t catch on because it sounds forced, like some PR or management consultant made it up. Moreover, it’s perilously close to “webcast” which already has a defined meaning, namely the live or taped audio or video “broadcasting” of an event (usually boring, such as an earnings release analyst call, but sometimes fun, such as the Live 8 concerts ).
I don’t think there is a good term out there yet to refer to the act of putting non-event video on the Internet for viewing on demand. If someone has a good suggestion, I’m all ears.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:39 AM | Print | Comments (3)
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