August 2012

There was a time when the broadcast networks provided nonstop prime-time coverage of the conventions. Now, an hour a night is about all the networks can stomach. There was also a time when the conventions provided a lot of excitement and real news. Now the conventions are little more than infomercials for their own parties and vicious attacks on the rival party. There is a lot of preaching to the converted and few surprises.

Ironically, it was television coverage from the broadcast networks that played a key role in turning the conventions into snooze fests. Battles on the convention floor, real debates over platforms and the choice of a running mate were fine when there were only print and radio reporters around. Video changed everything. Both parties soon recognized it wasn't in their interest to let anyone see how the sausage got made. For the networks, that lack of action meant fewer viewers, which made the millions of dollars needed to cover conventions harder to justify. It is not as if the fact that the broadcast networks are mailing in their coverage means that there is nowhere else to turn for viewers. Cable channels -- CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Bloomberg and even little Current TV -- will be providing heavy-duty coverage. There is also no shortage of convention coverage on the Web for all those cord-cutters out there. Broadcasters could use their digital channels to carry more convention coverage so those few people who don't have a pay-TV service are not shut out. That would be a money-loser, but it would also remove some of the criticism about their blase attitude toward the conventions.

Google bought ailing mobile device maker Motorola Mobility this year to stockpile patents for the war that was heating up with rival Apple. But those patents may not be much help in defending challenges to its Android mobile operating system in the wake of Apple's sweeping courtroom victory last week over Samsung.

Experts said that Google probably would unsheathe the 17,000 patents it picked up in the $12.5-billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility but that Google still would be outmatched. "In theory, the Motorola patents do matter because they give Google some leverage against Apple," UCLA law professor Douglas Lichtman said. But even so, he said, it's "not an even fight." "Motorola was not Apple's complete peer before its acquisition, and so owning Motorola does not make Google a complete peer today," Lichtman said.

The Apple-Samsung decision and award raises questions about the patent system and innovation — but also about why a jury was allowed to decide it in the first place. Judge Richard Posner and others argue that it’s time to end jury trials in patent cases. Here are three reasons Apple v Samsung should not have gone before a jury:

• Jurors can be influenced by brand loyalty
• Juries are too easily swayed by “he’s a copycat”
• Jury trials over patents are a waste of money

ESPN is doubling down on baseball. The Walt Disney-owned sports cable empire is poised to announce a new eight-year, $5.6-billion deal with Major League Baseball that is expected to more than double what it currently pays for games, people with knowledge of the detail said.

On an annual basis, ESPN will pay $700 million for baseball, compared with $350 million under its current deal, which expires at the end of next season. That agreement includes games on ESPN, radio telecasts, international rights and some digital rights. ESPN is also getting back into postseason baseball for the first time in several years as the pact gives it the rights to a wild-card game. ESPN, which carries baseball on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, did not want to lose baseball to a rival such as the Comcast-owned NBC Sports Network, which is looking to add more big-ticket programming to boost ratings.