• In its recent dispute with Spectrum, Fox, on its website Keepfoxon.com, accused the cable operator of waging a campaign that 'masquerades as a grass-roots effort to enlist viewer participation.' News Corp. certainly should recognize the tactic, having all but invented it

  • In this era of celebrity journalism, when television news stars often out-glitter the politicians and other public figures they cover, Mike Wallace won his niche not on the strength of his opinions nor any aura of erudition

  • If you turn on your local evening news, you may not notice anything out of the ordinary. But if you change the channel, you'll think you've entered a parallel universe

  • Game of Thrones fans are counting down the days until April 12, when HBO's fantasy drama returns for its fifth season. To tune in, they'll flip to HBO on TV, watch HBO Go on their laptops or tablets, or fire up the just-launched standalone service HBO Now. Then, there are the not-so-legal options

  • USA Network understands that audience demographics are changing. To further appeal to the mainstream, the NBCUniversal property is working on a new strategy to reach millennials.

  • Time Inc. and Telemundo are joining forces for the launch of SOS: Salva Mi Casa (or SOS: Save My House).

  • Digital superstar Michelle Phan, who's dominated the online beauty space and made her presence known offline with her YouTube ad campaign, hopes her new worldwide network will have a robust presence on the Web, but also potentially on TV.

  • In 2005, Wieden + Kennedy provided a fresh start for Sarah Gertrude Shapiro after she literally fled her reality TV job on The Bachelor -- and Hollywood. A decade later, the agency has changed her life yet again: helping her co-create her own Lifetime series about, yes, a Bachelor-like show.

  • A few short years ago, Tatiana Maslany was an up-and-coming actress with improv comedy chops, some TV and small movie roles under her belt and a profile little known outside her native Canada. Those days are definitely behind her.

  • Sarah Barnett hasn't been genetically engineered, like all those clones in Orphan Black, for the job at hand. It just seems that way. Barnett's new gig -- she's a few months into her tenure as president and general manager of the buzzed-about cable channel BBC America -- brings her back to the place where she began her stateside career a decade ago

  • Between 1 million and 2 million people will watch the return of Mad Men, but based on digital buzz, it seems only die-hard fans and not newcomers will be tuning in.

  • HBO has taken the time to reply to tweets from 2012 this week from people who wanted a standalone HBO subscription service back then -- something that's finally about to happen with the forthcoming HBO Now.

  • Silicon Valley is hoping it can get tech and video game nerds to unite, with a little help from streaming video platform Twitch.

  • CMT packed its 2015 upfront with stars: singer Darius Rucker performing at the upfront presentation at New York's TimesCenter, and the stars of the network's slate of new shows, including Billy Ray Cyrus and Kellie Pickler, introducing clips of their shows.

  • News Corp. and 21st Century Fox, whose properties include Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal, have been in discussions for months to build a joint headquarters in an 88-story skyscraper at New York's World Trade Center, officials said.

  • ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy moved up an hour for one week only, from its usual 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., and the more favorable timeslot, when more people are watching television, appeared to help. Grey’s posted a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating, up 11% from last week. CBS’s The Odd Couple also posted an 11% gain and coincidentally drew the same rating as Grey’s, a 2.1. Of course, Couple got a big boost from lead-in The Big Bang Theory, the night’s highest-rated show with a 3.4 at 8 p.m.

  • NBCUniversal Chief Executive Steve Burke received a slightly more handsome compensation package in 2014 than his boss, Brian Roberts, who is the chairman and chief executive of Comcast Corp. Burke's take was $33.9 million vs. just under $33 million for Roberts.

  • In 2011, new NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke famously implemented Project Symphony, an effort to synergize better the various corners of the empire to help promote one another. Nowhere has the strategy been more evident than on the morning news show Today, which regularly plugs NBC and its sister properties. But is Today more shameless than its rivals?

  • Jim Berk is stepping down as CEO of Participant Media, the company announced. The move is effective immediately. Founder and chairman Jeff Skoll will serve as interim CEO while Participant searches for a permanent replacement.

  • The CW is continuing the wave of summer scripted programming for the broadcasters, ordering comedy Significant Mother. The half-hour series will begin production soon and is being eyed for this summer.

  • In a notable example of the push to improve the visual quality of streaming 4K video, Amazon has announced that it will begin offering content with high dynamic range (HDR) in 2015 to its Amazon Prime members in the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

  • Here's a sobering stat -- live-plus-same-day and live-plus-seven-day viewing are both down season-to-date for most returning broadcast primetime entertainment series. Despite widespread stories being written about how more shows are being watched in time-delayed mode, Nielsen data finds that's not the case, at least for the broadcast networks.

  • As expected, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is seeking more input on the FCC's proposal to update auction bidding rules.

  • Is your Internet bill too high? You can thank the phone and cable companies for that. Phone and cable providers are reaping obscene profit margins from their dominance of the Internet market

  • Twitter is an interesting medium, if only because it allows TV execs -- often behind the thinnest veneer of anonymity -- to express publicly what they traditionally say in private. So it's been amusing in recent weeks to see sniping from broadcast honchos about critically acclaimed cable shows

  • Oprah Winfrey represents a billion-dollar industry unto herself, which invites the question: What exactly is her product? The daytime titan -- about to embark on a new adventure with the long-awaited launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network -- has dabbled in many fields. Yet her signature power is derived from a singular source, stemming from her ability to create a lucrative commodity

  • Determined to find hits, cable TV networks keep breaking out of narrowly defined brands. In stark contrast to this, there's the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN for short), a channel so committed to its brand -- the daytime host's "Live your best life" mantra -- that the specific nature of its programs remains

  • Fox News has been the No. 1 cable news channel for 13 years, beating its cable competitors combined on many nights. But increasingly, the 21st Century Fox network is taking on its broadcast competition in both the morning and evening.

  • More local stations are buying into CBS All Access, the subscription-based, livestreaming and on-demand service of the CBS broadcast network.

  • The Pop upfront wasn't a huge spectacle. Roughly 25 people were sprawled out on couches atop the Gansevoort Park Avenue in New York Thursday morning. There were no media buyers -- just media and Pop employees. And that's exactly how the newly rebranded, CBS-owned network wanted it.

  • Xbox, Kindle Fire, Roku, Smart TV -- no matter what device you have, you can find Crackle on it. Each month, 18 million users in the U.S. access the Sony-owned, advertiser-supported streaming network to watch a selection of movies and TV shows, as well as a growing number of original series, including Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

  • MTV wants viewers to tune into its 2015 MTV Movie Awards on April 12, but it's not expecting them to just watch on TVs and connected devices.

  • The CW has picked up half-hour comedy series Significant Mother to series, the network announced today. The project, from Alloy Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios, stars Josh Zuckerman (90210), Krista Allen (What About Brian), Jonathan Silverman (Weekend at Bernie’s), Emma Fitzpatrick (The Social Network) and Jay Ali (The Fosters). Production begins soon.

  • Gawker Media has opened a new Gawker Video division, with the goal of being "a creative studio to develop ideas into visual form."

  • There are several veteran series whose renewal is entangled with talent negotiations as their stars’ contracts expire at the end of this season. That includes ABC drama Castle; Fox drama Bones; and CBS crime procedural Criminal Minds. Additionally, CSI leading man Ted Danson’s contract is up this season as were the deals of The Middle cast.

  • While some people talk wistfully about the Golden Age of television, I’d like to suggest that TV has the opportunity to create and enjoy its next golden age. But the secret is that maps from the past cannot guide us in the uncharted territory that lies ahead — there be dragons. Succeeding in the digital era will require blazing new trails. The speakers and panels and experts that will be featured at Media Finance Focus 2015 — MFM and BCCA’s 55th annual conference — can help you find your way.

  • The Media Research Center and Family Research Council said their members have sent more than 21,000 postcards and made more than 4,000 telephone calls asking ABC to abandon an upcoming series, tentatively titled The Real O'Neals about a family upended when a teenage son comes out as gay.

  • Growing over-the-top TV services could hit 100 million global subscribers this year. New research from Ovum says that OTT services will get into 6% of all those homes capable of getting subscription video-on-demand services — including the already launched efforts from HBO Now, CBS All Access and Dish Network’s Sling TV.

  • It's not a mystery why YouTube is considering offering an ad-free version of its site to paying subscribers. There already are millions of potential viewers who pay nothing for an ad-free experience, and a subscription-based model will test whether digital freeloaders are willing to pay when given the chance.

  • This week, Ooyala Analytics announced a new product that lets media companies better track and monetize audience behavior. Currently, Sky Sports, Media Prima, Fairfax Media, Telegraph Media Group, Vox Media, and Dell are all beta testers of Ooyala IQ, which provides “laser focused” insights and monetization opportunities.

  • The April 9 second-season premiere of Mike Rowe's Somebody's Gotta Do It delivered 316,000 adults 25-54, putting CNN in second place among cable news networks in the 9 p.m. hour, the network said.

  • Armando Iannucci will leave his HBO series Veep after the show's upcoming fourth season. Curb Your Enthusiasm alum David Mandel will replace Iannucci as showrunner, a good sign the political comedy will get a fifth season.

  • Presidents come and go. And so do most reporters assigned to them. But one constant in the White House press room for exactly 25 years has been the voice of CBS reporter Peter Maer.

  • Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed and Sky News lead the list of new satellite TV news contenders in the Middle East

  • Maybe I'm confused, but if someone tricked me into a lunch by pretending to be someone else, secretly hid a camera, goaded me into comments during a private conversation -- then released only the juiciest parts on the Internet, I'd at least have the right to be ticked off, right?

  • Oprah Winfrey represents a billion-dollar industry unto herself, which invites the question: What exactly is her product? The daytime titan -- about to embark on a new adventure with the long-awaited launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network -- has dabbled in many fields. Yet her signature power is derived from a singular source, stemming from her ability to create a lucrative commodity

  • In his latest book, 'Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law', Schoenfeld traces the tense history between the news media and the government over disclosures of classified information

  • In its recent dispute with Spectrum, Fox, on its website Keepfoxon.com, accused the cable operator of waging a campaign that 'masquerades as a grass-roots effort to enlist viewer participation.' News Corp. certainly should recognize the tactic, having all but invented it