BROADCASTING
TV Diversity Report Card (WP)
Election Furor Prompts Fox To Review Role Of Bush Campaign (NYT)
Election Night Flubs Prompt Network Procedure Reviews (USA)
INTERNET
Dot What?: New Internet Suffixes Coming Soon (WP)
AOL, Time Warner Plan ISP Deal (WP)
Degrees Granted Online May Lack Status (CyberTimes)
Deal Settles Suit Against MP3.com (NYT)
MERGERS
Dot-Com Mergers Often End Up as Dot-Bombs (WSJ)
LIFESTYLES
Young Dot-Commers Hit Really Early Midlife Crisis (WSJ)
BROADCASTING
TV DIVERSITY REPORT CARD
Issue: Broadcasting/Journalism
The number of African Americans appearing on network television shows
increased this fall, observes a coalition of minority activists, but other
minorities remain virtually absent. While the number of black characters has
risen in the four major networks, Latino, Asian and Native American
character tallies have shown little or no change. "We've seen rapid progress
for African Americans," said Raul Yzaguirre of the National Latino Media
Council. "We need to see the same thing for other minorities. We need to
move from the old days of black-and-white TV to the new days of Technicolor
TV." Coalition leader Esteban Torres said the activists would move on to
scrutinize the remaining broadcast networks, UPN and WB, as well as cable
networks and advertising and talent agencies.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (C05), AUTHOR: Sharon Waxman]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22549-2000Nov15.html)
ELECTION FUROR PROMPTS FOX TO REVIEW ROLE OF BUSH CAMPAIGN
Issue: Journalism
The status of John Ellis at Fox News is under review after reports that he
traded information with the Bush campaign during election night. John Moody,
the vice president of editorial news for Fox News, said Mr. Ellis had
misused his role with the channel, possibly damaging its reputation he said
that Mr. Ellis had denied violating any ethical standards but that he
"recognizes that his actions could cause embarrassment to Fox News." Mr.
Ellis is a cousin of Governors George and Jeb Bush. All the networks may be
facing a Congressional review of how the election was called. CBS is the
only network to seek outside help: it named a three-member panel yesterday
that includes Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the dean of the Annenberg School of
Communication, Kathleen Frankovic, head of the network's polling unit, and
Linda Mason, a CBS News executive.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A22), AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/15/politics/15FOX.html)
(requires registration)
See Also:
PUBLIC LIVES: THE BRASH YOUNG VOICE IN BROKAW'S EAR
[SOURCE: New York Times (A28), AUTHOR: Joyce Wadler]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/15/nyregion/15PROF.html)
(requires registration)
ELECTION NIGHT FLUBS PROMPT NETWORK PROCEDURE REVIEWS
Issue: Political Discourse
The major television networks are taking a hard look at what went wrong on
Election Night. The networks have been criticized for declaring Gore the
winner in Florida before all polls were closed in the state, and then
declaring Bush the winner in Florida -- and the next president - before that
call was also later retracted. Lead by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the
Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and two
network executives, CBS said that Tuesday that it will undertake a review of
its procedures for projecting winners. NBC, ABC, CNN and Fox News Channel
said they also are conducting similar investigations. "Election time is
usually a time when the public turns to television and counts on them," says
Linda Mason, CBS News vice president of public affairs and the head of the
network's panel. "So for us to be wrong twice threatens our credibility on
many levels. We want the public to be able to turn to us." Despite the
controversy surrounding the premature election night calls, both TV and
cable news programs are enjoying increased viewership as a result of the
still-undecided presidential race.
[SOURCE: USAToday (6A), AUTHOR: Martha T. Moore]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001115/2839187s.htm)
INTERNET
DOT WHAT?: NEW INTERNET SUFFIXES COMING SOON
Issue: Internet
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) could decide
this week which new top-level domain suffixes (TLDs) which will join .org,
.com and .net suffixes. ICANN received 45 applications, (costing $50,000
each) proposing more than 100 new names. But the difficulty of ICANN's
decision in choosing the new suffixes has been matched by a controversy
about its role in selecting who secures the new Internet real estate. Nearly
4,000 Net partisans have filed public comments on the issue. Among the
proposed suffixes, ICANN is favoring .info, .site, .cash, .global, .secure
and .web. ICANN is considering restricting some of the TLDs. The suffix .pro
might be restricted to professionals, for example. ICANN rejected, for
various reasons, names like .xxx, .movie and .kids. "Who is a kid? What
content is appropriate? And who decides?" ICANN wrote in its evaluation of
the .kids proposals. "It appears that there are no technical or other means
to ensure that unsuitable material is not available to children." ICANN's
challenge boils down to this: to create enough new address suffixes to stir
competition while avoiding mass confusion. The 19-member board must also
consider whether a company has the financial resources to maintain a new
domain-name system.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E01), AUTHOR: Dina ElBoghdady]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21373-2000Nov14.html)
AOL, TIME WARNER PLAN ISP DEAL
Issue: Open Access
America Online and Time Warner are moving to strike deals giving their
biggest Internet rivals access to cable television lines. The move comes as
an attempt to ensure government approval of their merger, according to
sources familiar with the negotiations. Time Warner and AOL have stepped up
talks with one-time nemesis EarthLink Inc. and Juno Online Services, the
second and third largest domestic ISPs, respectively. Both deals would give
the AOL competitors access to Time Warner's cable television network for
Internet service. The FTC, last week, gave AOL and Time Warner up to three
weeks to satisfy FTC concerns about competition in the marketplace. While
parties declined to talk about specifics of the contracts, the Juno contract
is said to be similar to Juno's contracts with telecommunications vendors
that provide Internet service over telephone lines. In those contracts Juno
pays the vendors fees for the use of their networks based on the amount of
time Juno subscribers spend online. In the AOL/Time Warner discussions fees
would be based not on user time, but on the number of users on the cable
line. The terms of the contracts are reported as generally more favorable
than offers by AOL to its competitors in the past.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E01), AUTHOR: Alec Klein]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18780-2000Nov14.html)
DEGREES GRANTED ONLINE MAY LACK STATUS
Issue: EdTech
Seventy-seven percent of human resources officers or hiring managers
surveyed by New York-based Vault.com -- which offers information on
companies for job seekers -- said they believe an online degree from an
accredited institution, such as Stanford University, is more credible than
one from a school that exists only on the Internet. "Among employers,
there's still an uneasiness about online degrees," said Mark Oldman,
co-founder of Vault.com. "There's some skepticism. Some employers feel like
students are getting a degree-lite, or a watered-down degree." 61 percent,
said they worried that students in online courses do not interact socially
with their peers, and 53 percent said Internet-based courses are still too
new to gauge their effectiveness. But corporate recruiters are divided -- 57
percent for and 43 percent against -- over whether potential employees
should reveal where their degree was conferred.
[SOURCE: CyberTimes, AUTHOR: Rebecca S. Weiner (rweiner( at )nytimes.com)]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/15/technology/15EDUCATION.html)
(requires registration)
DEAL SETTLES SUIT AGAINST MP3.COM
Issue: Intellectual Property
Online music company MP3.com agreed to pay $53.4 million to the Universal
Music Group of Seagram yesterday in a deal approved by a federal judge
minutes before the final phase of their yearlong copyright dispute was
scheduled to begin. All five of the major record companies have now granted
MP3.com licenses to include their music catalog in the online music service.
The total amount for the settlements fell within the $170 million MP3.com
set aside for legal costs. But the royalties that MP3.com agreed to pay
publishers each time a song is stored are steep. The company will now need
to proove it can make money on a combination of subscription fees,
advertising and marketing the data it collects on users.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C1), AUTHOR: Amy Harmon]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/15/technology/15MUSI.html)
(requires registration)
See Also:
MP3.COM TO PAY UNIVERSAL $53 MILLION
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E03), AUTHOR: Christopher Stern]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21652-2000Nov14.html)
MP3.COM TO PAY $53.4 MILLION TO SETTLE WITH UNIVERSAL LABEL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A3), AUTHOR: Anna Wilde Mathews And Colleen
Debaise]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB974231328726803419.htm)
(requires subscription)
MERGERS
DOT-COM MERGERS OFTEN END UP AS DOT-BOMBS
Issue: Merger
Given how desperate many dot-coms are to survive, it would seem obvious that
merging similar companies would be a natural and much-needed solution. That
is easier said than done. Kozmo and Urbanfetch, two rival delivery services
sat down to negotiate a merger this summer, due to growing cash shortages
both companies were facing. After all, their business models looked like
mirror images of each other: Each company promised delivery of everything
from Ben & Jerry's ice cream to Palm personal digital assistants in certain
urban areas in 60 minutes or less. Instead, the deal collapsed. People
familiar with the two firms say Kozmo finally put an end to the talks
because of concerns about Urbanfetch's finances, including liabilities and
cash position. The story of Kozmo and Urbanfetch's abortive courtship is an
increasingly familiar one in the world of Internet stocks. But mergers bring
no guarantees that the new company will survive, much less prosper. "There
has to be consolidation: There are just too many companies that were funded
for all of them to survive," says Todd Carter, head of equity capital
markets at Robertson Stephens. "But a lot of players [are] willing to bet
they can outlast their rivals." But playing a game of chicken on this scale
can carry big penalties, as Pets.com showed. And the list of moribund
dot-coms is climbing almost daily, as more cash-strapped firms file for
bankruptcy protection or close shop.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Online), AUTHOR: Jennifer Rewick and Suzanne
Mcgee]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB974239320107358375.htm)
(requires subscription)
LIFESTYLES
YOUNG DOT-COMMERS HIT REALLY EARLY MIDLIFE CRISIS
Issue: Lifestyles
Can you suffer a midlife crisis only a few years out of college? Jeremy Wolf
thinks so. After graduating from Columbia Business School last year, Mr.
Wolf was charged with opening new offices for an Internet developer in New
York office. He was 29 years old. The job left no time for leisure,
vacation with his girlfriend, or time to visit with his family in
California. At the end of last month, he says, his company, Fluid Inc.
decided to not give out annual bonuses. Within a week, he resigned and now
plans to move back to California, where he'll be closer to his parents. His
next career step? He has no idea. "The reality is that I've been chasing my
career," Mr. Wolf says. "I've been doing this to speed up, speed up and I
finally need to step back and say, 'What's important to me?' "Mr. Wolf is
part of a cluster of 20- and 30-somethings who cut their professional teeth
at a time when the possibilities seemed endless; stock options at 27, and
retirement at 32. But as the so-called New Economy undergoes a reality
check, many of these young pioneers are reassessing their priorities in a
manner that belies their age. Counselors and religious groups say a growing
number of the disenchanted are coming to them and asking: Is this all there
is to life? They feel they "bought into a dream, but the dream didn't give
them what they thought," says Rev. Greg Cootsona, whose Fifth Avenue
Presbyterian Church in New York launched a lecture series this fall called
"Faith, Hope and Love in the New Economy." Such feelings have traditionally
plagued 40- and 50-year-olds who had worked for decades to achieve their
dreams, only to find them unsatisfying or illusive. But the New Economy has
triggered all that on Internet time -- success, riches, disillusion -- and
for a much younger group.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Wendy Bounds And Rachel Emma
Silverman]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB974238540878576850.htm)
(requires subscription)
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