Up Next on ABC, Desperate Advertisers

Today's medianote comes from a Reuters article entitled Disney to test New Interactive Ads on abc.com. The article discusses the test of a new model for interactive online television advertising.

It's fascinating to see television reinvented right before our very eyes. What will the television-watching experience of 2016 be like? How interactive will television become? And the subject of this medianote, how will this future television be paid for? Will TV move toward something like an iTunes paid download model, or will advertisers continue to pick up the tab? And if television will remain advertiser-driven, how will those future ads demand attention and engage viewers in ways that today's 30-second spots increasingly don't?

Should We Export the First Amendment?

The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

A recent Reuters story highlighted a State Department task force created to help U.S. technology companies that are asked to restrict freedom of expression in China and other places that place strict limits on online content. This task force is welcomed by companies like Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft which find themselves caught between their own inclinations toward freedom of expression and the very different attitudes of the governments in some of the places where they do business.

Among the questions asked to the MC101s was, "Is this something the U.S. should get involved with, or should our government leave well enough alone?" One student commented that if a country practices censorship within its borders, it's largely their business. However, if a country begins to export censorship then it's everybody's business.

***RIGHT AFTER I POSTED this MediaNote, I ran across an entry in the MediaShift blog that discusses a similarly worrysome trend toward online censorship in Singapore.

No False Idols Here...

For today's medianote, we listened to a National Public Radio story that discusses the so-called "Idol Effect." Pretty much everyone accepts that a good showing on American Idol can jumpstart the career of an unknown, wannabe recording artist. But what about veteran recording stars like Rod Stewart or Stevie Wonder? Can an appearance on the hit Fox show help their record sales? According to the NPR story linked above, it can indeed.

***RECORDING INDUSTRY NOW, AD AND THE EGO LATER: I've decided to begin this week by covering the Recording Industry chapter first, and then get into the video The Ad and the Ego later in the week. So if you missed class today (April 24) you will be able to easily catch up by going to Supplemental Instruction this week.

An Entertaining Bon Bon for a Medianoteless Day

MC101 SI Leader Kate Haltrom works the room during pre-Midterm Supplemental Instruction.

The last of my MC101 classes just finished its midterm and I'm facing a mountain of bluebooks for my Spring Break reading. Such is life.

But an opportunity just came in to me by email that might be fun for you, dear student. The Museum of Television & Radio (which has been oh so good to us this semester) is having an event celebrating 25 Years of Entertainment Tonight next Wednesday at 7 p.m.. A limited number of tickets are being made available for free. Send an email to news@mtr.org, identify yourself as a Glendale College Mass Comm student, and put in the email that you are responding to the free ticket offer for the Entertainment Tonight museum event on April 19.

If you are able to get into this event (move fast; it doesn't sound like they have a lot of tickets), write up a 250-word summary, attach your ticket to it, and I'll give you extra credit similar to the Chris Rock event.

Here are some more details from the email...

25 Years of Entertainment Tonight
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

In Person:
Linda Bell Blue
Jann Carl
Mary Hart
Leonard Maltin
Mark Steines

Guest Moderator: Henry Winkler, Actor/Producer

For more information, call 310.786.1091 from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. daily.

***Club MediaNote goes on Spring Break next week. The next post will be on April 24.

This (check) Just In...

We had a very good turnout for the Mass Comm 101 field trip to the Autry National Center on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 11.

An April 5 article in the San Francisco Chronicle has revealed that Bay Area station KRON has sold news coverage to the Australian tourism bureau, spa makers and others. According to the article, anchors and reporters on the station's morning newscast have created stories that are, for all intents and purposes, infomercials. The station's general manager, noting the tough economic conditions KRON faces, defends the practice as necessary to keep the station afloat and to keep layoffs of station personnel at a minimum. He also notes that advertising-driven stories contain a disclaimer in the script or in the credits.

Asks the article, "Is it better to produce advertising-driven 'news' than no news at all?"

Good question.

Said media ethics Professor Amy Colon, "This is fine for any advertiser who wants to get exposure; I don't blame them. But it's a death knell for any news organization that wants to maintain its credibility."

***Once again, my audio post is floating around in cyberspace. When it shows up, I'll include it under this note.

Dear Councilman, My Wi-Fi Is Down...

Wireless Internet access (Wi-Fi) is a growing means by which people communicate and transact business. But should it be a municipal utility? And is there a way to provide it for free to all of the city's residents?

In San Francisco, the answer could soon be "yes" and "yes." According to recent Reuters and Information Week articles, the city has selected a joint bid by Google and Earthlink to provide free, advertising-driven, wireless internet access across the city. Consumers and business who want faster service, or who would rather not be subjected to the ads, can pay for premium service.

Turning San Francisco into a giant wireless hotspot will entail some technical challenges, such as how to deal with all the hills, valleys and tall buildings. There are bound to be some dead spots among the hotspots.

***Mike Arvizu, long-time Mass Comm 101 Supplemental Instruction leader and El Vaquero staffer, has created a a student newspaper blog. I applaud the effort.

***Audioblogger is acting weird again. My audio post (which I recorded twice) isn't posting. I will add it when it shows up.

***Wednesday, 1:30 p.m.: The audio post finally showed up. Yea!

Multi Opinions About the Multiplex

These are tough times to be in the business of drawing people into theaters to watch movies. Therefore, it's an appropriate moment to ask if the neighborhood multiplex--which has defined the movie theater experience for most of us for the last 30 years--is broken. If it is, what can be done to fix it?

Mark Glaser thinks about these things and writes about them with great insight in his Mediashift blog. In the audio portion of this post I will refer to his April 3 post, "Explode the Multiplex, and Let the Community In." And, as always, I will recount some of my MC101 students' opinions.

By the way, I agree with Glaser that classic single-screen movie houses provide a much more compelling movie-going experience than the multiplexes. If a movie I want to see is at the Vista in East Hollywood, for example, I'll go there and not the multiplex 100 times out of 100.

The Vista (and many other single-screen houses) has more personality and panache than just about any multiplex I can think of. If Hogwarts had an on-campus movie theater, it would look like the inside of the Vista. Besides, if you're stuck in a movie line in front of the Vista on a Friday night, the anti-war protesters provide free street theater.

Got a favorite movie house? Leave a comment about it.

Where Movies and Games Collide (or not)

On Wednesday afternoon at least 84 of us turned out for a taping of “Last Comic Standing” at the Alex Theater in Glendale.

We discussed a recent article in the Los Angeles Times Business Section entitled "Still the Missing Link," which was about the difficulty in translating a hit movie into a top-selling game. According to the article, game makers are becoming increasingly convinced that games should be developed independently of movies, or maybe should be an extension of a classic movie's story line.

***We had quite a turnout (I had our group at 84, and I'm sure I missed some parents/dates/friends of MC101s) yesterday afternoon for our taping of Last Comic Standing. Some of us got drenched in a little cloudburst that happened by around 1:45, but the skies gradually cleared, we got into the theater, and the taping was quite good.

Next Up: "Location Free" TV on Your PSP or PC

Today's medianote was about Sony's "Location Free" television system and whether large numbers of consumers will flock to this technology. This technology allows people to hook up a base station at home and then watch their local TV offerings over the Internet from a computer, Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), or compatible mobile phone from anywhere in the world.