Bret Baier is trying a few new maneuvers at Special Report, one of the longest-running programs at Fox News Channel. About six months ago, he says, he talked to his staff about getting more ambitious. “We had a talk about what the show should look like,” he recalls. “Most days, you take singles and doubles and you cover the news and you do it as best you can, but the occasional triple and home run sometimes lend themselves to other big plays.”
A Year’s Worth Of Innovation And Invention
This year’s major technology’s stories included growing acceptance of channel-in-a-box systems, slow progress in mobile DTV, work on the next-generation digital television broadcast standard, finally getting rules from the FCC on loudness, a potential cure for stations’ lip sync problems, growing use of Skype by station newsgathering operations and cautious use of the cloud. In addition, the move to high def continued, but hundreds of stations still haven’t made that upgrade.
Saying Goodbye: TV’s 2011 Honor Roll
Throughout 2011, TVNewsCheck reported the deaths of outstanding men and women who shaped television as actors, lawmakers, producers, business people, journalists and on-air personalities. Here they are in chronological order of their passing as Part III of our Year in Review Special Report.
2011 Big Deals: Oprah, Couric, Social Media
Part II of TVNewsCheck‘s annual roundup of the major news of the year (complete with links to earlier stories) covers programming — both network and syndication (adjusting to life in a post-Oprah world), journalism (Katie Couric’s exit at the network level and a news resurgence in local markets) and new media (the exploding use of social networks). In Part I, which appeared yesterday, you can review the year’s happenings in business, retrans, management, multicasting as well as regulatory and legal developments in Washington and elsewhere. Part III, which appears later today, remembers the electronic media luminaries who died during 2011. And Part IV, tomorrow at noon, will recap the year’s technology highlights.
2011’s Strong Start Couldn’t Last The Year
As TVNewsCheck looks back over this year, we find that it didn’t quite fulfill the hopes that many had for it as 2011 began. What follows is the first part of a four-part yearend summary (complete with links to earlier stories) that covers business, retrans, management, multicasting as well as regulatory and legal developments in Washington and elsewhere. Tomorrow in Part II we’ll reprise the major developments in programming, journalism and new media and in Part III highlight those the industry lost in 2011. The year’s big stories in technology will be featured in Part IV at Thursday noon.
White Labels Help Generate Daily Deal Green
While local legacy media companies are eager to jump on the daily deals bandwagon, many don’t have the resources (or the expertise) to set up and manage such programs. So they turn to “white label” companies that can provide the necessary software and back-office support. Most white labels also help sell or “source” the deal — that is, find local businesses willing to discount their products or services for a quick jolt to the top line. Here’s a sourcebook of some white labels that have made inroads with prominent legacy media companies.
