April 2014

US newspaper industry revenue fell in 2013, as increases in circulation revenue weren't high enough to make up for shrinking demand for print advertising, an industry trade group said.

The Newspaper Association of America said revenue fell 2.6 percent to $37.6 billion in 2013. Circulation revenue rose 3.7 percent to $10.9 billion, the second straight year of growth. Advertising revenue fell 6.5 percent to $23.6 billion.

If “Meet the Press” moderator David Gregory were a guest on his own show, he knows the kinds of questions he’d be asked.

Why have your ratings been falling? Is the show in trouble? Is your job in trouble?

During the first three months of 2014, the NBC program finished behind perennial rivals “Face the Nation” on CBS and “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on ABC, despite being helped by two weeks of Winter Olympics hoopla. In the final quarter of 2013, viewing among people ages 25 to 54, the preferred group for TV news advertisers, fell to its lowest level ever.

The good news for all these news shows is that they remain among the most durable on TV, if perhaps less influential than they once were. Even as everything else on TV has lost viewers over time, the Big Three have held steady and even gained viewers. Collectively, about 9.6 million people watched them each week during the first three months of 2014, about the same number that watched Russert in 2005. This doesn’t count the audience for innumerable Sunday-morning competitors, from Fox News Sunday (hosted by former “Meet the Press” moderator Chris Wallace) to “Al Punto” on Univision. The shows can occasionally make news, too, if the interview subject is big enough.

Microsoft said that it expects its deal to acquire Nokia’s phone unit to close soon -- with a couple minor changes. Under the revised deal, Microsoft will no longer acquire Nokia’s Korean manufacturing plant.

Instead, it will take on 21 people working in China that had been part of Nokia’s chief technology office, the rest of which is sticking with Nokia. Microsoft will also manage Nokia.com and Nokia’s social media presence for up to a year following the deal’s close.

[Commentary] Should Aereo win the right to retransmit the over-the-air signals of television broadcasters, other operators could use similar technologies to also avoid paying the retransmission fees, and that, say some legal experts, could undermine the entire broadcast business model.

The rumors of the death of broadcast TV could be greatly exaggerated however. Pamela Samuelson, professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law said: "My prediction is that the court will split on the case, but Aereo will win on statutory interpretation and the court will say if you don't like this result, tell it to Congress.

Aereo has on its side that Microsoft and other tech companies think that many cloud services companies would be at risk if ABC's interpretation of the statute prevails." However, the broadcasters may instead opt for what some have called the "nuclear option."

In the summer of 2013, executives at Fox threatened to pull its prime time content and move it to a cable offering, while more recently CBS hinted it might also consider such a strategy. The question becomes whether broadcasters could really make the jump to cable.