7.+Other+Issues

__ ** Can't figure out where it fits? Discuss it here (but give lots of thought to whether it fits in one of the other 6 categories!): ** __ Today in class we talked about informational radio. There are many different kinds but I think that some are a lot more popular than others. I think heritage and sports radio will never go away. So many people listen to them and that is where they get their information. I'm from Minnesota and one of the most popular heritage radio stations there is Minnesota Public Radio. They talk about all different things and my parents listen to it all the time. Personally I think it can get a little boring after a while. Another very popular radio station is 1500 am which is ESPN radio. It is the main sports radio in the Minneapolis area and I listen to it sometimes. I researched and found out that around 215 radio stations play ESPN content. I always thought that ESPN was only on TV but they make a lot of money from radio as well. I found this very interesting. (Emily Terfehr 11/30/11)

On Monday in class we talked about music testing and the different types of music testing. One of those music tests is the auditorium music test, which features many benefits and drawbacks. One of the drawbacks to the auditorium music tests is that they are weather dependent. I might have missed it in class, but I don't understand how an indoor auditorium music test can have a drawback due to the fact that they are weather dependent. What does the weather have to do with this particular music test? Does it relate to the low response rates that may occur? (Will Rettig 11/18/11)

I believe that shows like the voice, american idol, glee and the x factor have influenced the recording industry greatly. Not only have there been multiple success stories about hte winners of the shows going on to be very influential artists, but they also include many popular artists in the shows. A show like Glee incorporates hit songs and artists into each show which promotes new albums and increases consumers interest in purchasing albums by that artist. Also, by having celebrity judges such as Christina Aguilera, Steven Tyler and many others viewers begin to see these artists in a new setting and are influenced to by their albums for different reasons. These shows have given viewers more insight into what it takes for a performer to be successful and truly appreciate the value of a great artist. (Ian Lefkowitz, 11/11/11)

I was watching Game 6 of the World Series on FOX right after David Freese hit a walk-off homerun to force a game 7 and noticed a very controversial announcement provided by FOX.
 * || [|nsterr] Today 12:59 am

[] is a website that explains the failed cooperation between FOX networks and the DirectTV cable provider in a retransmission agreement. I found it very interesting as it directly relates to the affiliate/retrans agreements. ||

[] this is another example of a picture that illustrates how TV is everywhere. anyone is able to watch television on a phone, computer or television. personally, i am able to watch television while using any of my media devices. this is something i think that people take for granted because it is just so normal nowadays to be able to view television almost anywhere, anytim e, anyway. (sarah davis 10/26/11)
 * If you have been a network affiliate, however, you would certainly not like the fact that you are no longer the only place in a city that people can go for formerly exclusive programming. So, what are networks supposed to do? They must stay up with the times in terms of different types of distribution (computer, smart phone, etc.). But, you can't throw the affiliates under the bus either...because you still need them....and probably will for decades to come! (Dr. P 10/30/11)

Today in class we discussed Tiering and Ala Carte. After having Comcast for a year, my roommates and I finally upgraded to a higher service. Now we can watch more channels such as The Big Ten Network, MTV Hits and Shotime. However, we still have many networks that none of us watch and that we don't really need. It would be great if the Ala Carte pricing strategy would come back. If it were to come back I would only select a small number of networks. These are the networks that I would pay for: MTV, Bravo, E!, NBC, CW, Fox, ABC, Travel Channel, and the Food Network. Sometimes I will watch a show on another network but these are the only networks that would be worth paying for. (Emily Terfehr 10/26/11)

The Eastman chapter 7 reading applies to various aspects of public television: audiences, scheduling, licensing, and future plans. The demographic makeup public televisions (24 hour a day) cumulative audience “demographically mirrors the general population on such characteristics as education, income, occupation, and racial composition” (Eastman, 242). This is due, in part, to the large size of the audience “with more than half of all US TV households tuning to public television each week and about four-fifths tuning in monthly…another reason.... for broad profile….the overall audience includes viewers of daytime children’s and hot-to (hobbies and crafts) programs, many of whom are not frequent users of the prime-time schedule” (Eastman, 242). (Alyssa Rossman-Rorman 10/20/11)

I found an interesting article about product placement. I (unfortunately) have been watching the Jersey Shore with my roommates every week. I noticed a lot of awkward product placement. For example, a few weeks ago, an episode showed Mike "The Situation" say "I'm tired!" and then pull a 6 Hour Energy out and drink it. The show even did a close up on the bottle. I thought it was insane. Anyway, purse companies like Gucci and Coach are sending each others products to the cast in an attempt to destroy the other brand. How is that for evil? Here is a link: []

Original Source

(Austin H. Morse, Oct. 21, 2011)


 * Sabotage via product placement. Thanks Austin! Dr. P (10/23/11)

After reading about the must must-carry I was initially confused, but then I related it to illegally downloading songs, movies and that kind of thing. It is defined by two terms, that cable operators and MSO's must obtain consent before retransmitting the content of commercial television or low power tv and radio. It also declares that if a station has a "must-carry" policy it must not demand compensation from the cable operator. I think it is especially crucial to make sure things are regulated because ratings now are lower than they have been in the past, so if there is not something regulating where the viewers are getting their entertainment it could seriously sabotage the industry by skewing the ratings negatively. (Elizabeth Tippet 10/14/11)

One factor that I found most surprising about the FCC’s retransmission consent and must-carry policies is that the FCC rarely intervenes when disputes arise between MSOs and broadcast stations over contractual retransmission agreements. I would consider that if a broadcast station’s fee demands are too high for the MSO, and therefore the MSO doesn’t propagate their signal to viewers, then the broadcast station is not fulfilling its “serving the public” requirement. Rather, its main intention is merely striving to make an economical gain and not to serve the viewing public. (Carly Leonard, 10/11/2011)

On the FCC Guide that elaborates on the "Cable Carriage of Broadcast Stations," I learned about two things that I had absolutely no knowledge of, prior to reading the guide. So when the question prompt asked what specifically I learned about Must-Carry/Retrans that I didn't know previously, I can confidently say just about everything. The first important thing I read, was that while must-carry and retransmission are distinct and function separately, they are related in that comm. broadcasters are required every three years, beginning with the first election on July 7, 1993, to elect (on a system-by-system basis) whether to obtain carriage or continue carriage by choosing between must carry and retransmission consent. A second interesting thing I noted in regard to must carry practices, is the difference in policy for local commercial and local noncommercial stations. The guide states, " Local commercial television stations must have the option of electing must-carry status or retransmission consent status, while local noncommercial television stations may only seek carriage on a must-carry basis." (Alyssa Rossman-Rorman 10/11/11)

Alias and The Sopranos are similar because the genre that I would place them under is a family drama. Although I have not seen Alias and have only seen a handful of episodes of The Sopranos I can tell by what I have seen or heard about each show that the plot and story lines deal with family, drama, crime, and mystery. I would compare these two shows to one of my favorite family/crime dramas, Blue Bloods. Blue Bloods is in its second season and revolves around a family of cops in New York. There is drama, mystery, crime, family issues all wrapped up in one show. All of these shows have or are doing fairly well and this is due to the popularity of full-hour family dramas dealing with crime. (sarah davis 10/3/11)

//Lost// was like the reality show //Survivor// in that its plot often mimicked many of the shows attributes such as strangers having to work together to solve problems or putting the characters in tough reactionary situations to see if they would behave according to societal norms or go against them. Another example of a scripted drama taking aspects from a reality program was the program //Huge// that aired on ABC Family. This show mimicked many weight loss shows like //The Biggest Loser// in that it touched on her negative self-perception, and her over-eating as being an attempt to subdued other emotions. (Carly Leonard, 10/03/2011)

During the past week or so, we have discussed ratings and shares. Many things go into the ratings system such as demographics (age, gender) and psychographics, which includes one's values and beliefs. This week marked the season premiere of the new Two and a Half Men, without Charlie Sheen. After hearing this, I watched "The Roast of Charlie Sheen" this week and it is clear how many people are still huge fans of Sheen and his humor. Without a doubt, he is still the same Charlie Sheen that we've known him to be over the past couple of years. Anyway, I wondered how Two and a Half Men was going to market, if at all, the new episodes featuring Ashton Kutcher and how the ratings would turn out for the first episode of the new season. This answered my question... http://tv.yahoo.com/news/-two-and-a-half-men--premiere-draws-nearly-28-million-viewers.html (Will Rettig 9/23/11)

Many people thought that TV viewing would significantly decrease due to a large boom in the Internet. This is definitely a result of multitasking. Since the American mentality is to get as much stuff done as fast as possible, watching tv while on the computer is the ultimate form of multitasking. Many TV shows strongly encourage being on twitter and facebook during their programs. For example, American Idol, the Voice, and other programs ask you to tweet live questions at a certain address and then they answer the tweets on the air. (Allyson Testa 9/15/11)

In chapter 5 of MT the author discusses the practice of 'Targeting', "the process by which a mass media organization sets its sights on having as its audience one or more of the social segments it has identified in the population" (160). Today in the IDS I saw an ad for the new Jonah Hill movie, The Sitter. The marketers for this movie have clearly targeted their initial advertising at college age students. The small ad showed a close up, mug-shot style photo of Hill and on the bottom were phone numbers in the style of "tear-off" ads that can be seen across just about any campus advertising for one club or another. The ad draws us in with a familiar face and is simple but peaks our curiosity just enough to potentially pursue further information about the upcoming film. (Alyssa Rossman-Rorman 9/13/11)

Celebrities are everywhere these days and it's hard to tell if they actually agreed to be in advertisements or not. If companies are using a celebrity to promote their product I definitely think that the celebrity should know about it. The same goes for voice overs. Celebrities might not want to be associated with certain products and if they don't want to be that is there choice. Now, if advertisements are clearly making fun of a celebrity and you can tell it isn't them I don't think the celebrity should get mad. It is obviously a joke and the public knows that it is not them. This happened with Kim Kardashian recently. Old Navy ran an ad that had a Kim look-a-like in it and Kim decided to sue Old Navy. I think this is ridiculous because everyone knows that it not really Kim Kardashian. I think a lot of the time celebrities just over react and think too highly of themselves (Emily Terfehr 9/7/11) media type="youtube" key="98KPM-qR7Vs" height="345" width="560" After reading the 3rd chapter I realized how unique the United States is to allow the media so much freedom. I had heard about China’s restrictions but the chapter highlighted how important and ingrained it is that we have the first amendment of the constitution dedicated to protecting the rights of the media. We’ve all heard the amendments more times than we can count but I was really pleased with how Turow broke it down in a way that made sense to those of us interested in the media world. I found the pyramid of regulation interesting and it makes sense because the most protected aspect is political speech which the people of the U.S. hang on the words of politicians and in some semblance are forced to help keep the peace. I find it very disheartening that despite all the fair use regulation laws, and copyright laws people will continue to steal music and movies because technology in some ways is more powerful than the law.

Elizabeth Tippet 9/9/11


 * Here's a related article about the Chinese government's crackdown on that country's version of //American Idol// [Dr. P, 9/25/11] //. Washington Post Article > //

What is an Ombudsman? According to the Miami University's website on an Ombudsman, "The Ombudsperson facilitates a voluntary process to open communication between you and members of the University community in order to resolve concerns and issues. The Ombudsperson listens to your concerns, investigates the facts surrounding the matter, and makes objective recommendations to achieve an effective resolution. The Ombudsperson provides a safe, fair, comfortable, and confidential environment for you to discuss your concerns or complaints outside formal channels." ( http://www.miami.edu/sa/index.php/student_life/student_services/ombudsperson/what_is_an_ombudsperson /) Therefore, while going through the ESPN article on the partnering with Poynter. Their goal is to create a new step in media transparency, and will be able to perform these goals with the help of an ombudsman while also growing the role of the ombudsman role too. "Our goal is to improve our content through increased accountability, transparency and timeliness. We believe The Review will take the traditional ombudsman role and advance it for the 21st-century media world."John A. Walsh, ESPN executive vice president and executive editor. This will allow a safe and comfortable opinions to help create a better connection of "values, quality news, and education." ( http://espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=ohlmeyer_don&id=6248682 ) I honestly have never heard of the term ombudsman before reading this article and doing research. It may have been created a long time ago, but it is a position that works and will only grow as society grows. (Casey Walter, Sept. 9)

After reading about the Nielsen ratings and their various ways of collecting data, the people meter really interested me and made me wonder why even more people aren’t participating. In an article from msnbc.com in 2007, a reporter explains that Nielsen wanted 37,000 homes, with 100,000 people reporting viewing habits by 2011. I would be interested to see if Nielsen succeeded in almost tripling their current sample size at the time which was 12,000 households with only 35,000 people. The article also quotes Sara Erichson, the executive vice president for client services at Nielsen North America, as she explains why a growing number of participants is so important. She says that “the larger you make it, the more stable the data, the more precise the data, and that’s a very important thing for the industry, which uses this information for currency.” This quote goes along with exactly what Joseph Turow is saying in our readings as he too discusses how ratings help determine where the network’s money for programming and advertising should go. Lastly, I visited www.Nielsen.com and found their website to be extremely informational about what we are learning. They do an excellent job of explaining what they do and how measuring viewing habits is made possible. Sources: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20999951/ns/today-entertainment/t/want-be-nielsen-family/#.Tm07WnO172E (Shawn Stierwalt, Sept 12, 2011)

//Contrary to early forecasts, the internet is not leading to massive erosion in TV viewing. One reason for this may be the ease with which we can use the Web while we are watching to enhance the viewing experience. Can you find examples of how TV programs are trying to encourage that?// These days TV programs are creating their own websites and place the TV shows on there. Therefore, what better way to counteract Hulu then to fight fire with fire. Plus it creates easier access for views to watch their favorite shows whenever they want. Bravo is the first example that came to mind. If you go to their website almost all of the shows are available, and it's a site I use quite often too. Plus I believe it's less cluttered than Hulu because it singles out certain shows that I want to watch on a specific Network. TV programs are encouraging it through advertisements either on air or in magazines, newspapers, billboards, etc.. I know personally if I decide to sit down and watch a show on TV, they will remind me a million times to watch behind the scenes or deleted clips but I have to go online. MTV is another example. After every Teen Mom episode they will tell you about one on one interviews with the stars, but you have to go online to see them. The internet is not going anywhere, so it was time for TV programers to suck it up and figure out how to deal with it and that's exactly what they did. They took their own shows and began placing them online for viewers to watch, and then offer "more" about viewers favorite shows by going to their websites. After watching the show Flipping Out on Bravo, they offered deleted scenes online and here it is http://www.bravotv.com/flipping-out/season-5/videos/deb-is-jenni-jenni-is-deb This also gives TV programers a chance to advertise numerous things such as other TV shows that viewers might find appealing. TV programers encourage online viewing because it can open many doors. (Casey Walter, Sept 16, 2011)

I found an interesting article about product placement. I (unfortunately) have been watching the Jersey Shore with my roommates every week. I noticed a lot of awkward product placement. For example, a few weeks ago, an episode showed Mike "The Situation" say "I'm tired!" and then pull a 6 Hour Energy out and drink it. The show even did a close up on the bottle. I thought it was insane. Anyway, purse companies like Gucci and Coach are sending each others products to the cast in an attempt to destroy the other brand. How is that for evil? Here is a link: []

(Austin H. Morse, Oct. 21, 2011)

//I get a weekly e-mail from Benton headlines, but today I came across two topics that I found interesting. The first topic is that the FCC is starting to crack down on religious broadcasters. In 2006 religious shows were giving exemptions on closed captioning, but that is no long the case anymore.// "If a church broadcasts the word of God on TV without closed captions, it risks incurring the wrath of the Federal Communications Commission. Some 300 small- to medium-sized churches can expect letters from the commission within the next few days explaining why their closed captioning exemptions were lifted for TV shows like “Power in the Word” and “Producing Kingdom Citizens.” The FCC has been mailing the letters for the past few days to churches from Maine to California, explaining that the hundreds of exemptions are now rescinded and giving the programmers 90 days to reapply. The churches were granted FCC exemptions from the closed captioning requirement under a 2006 commission decision known as the “Anglers Order” for the Anglers for Christ Ministries program that had argued for exemption from the rules. While the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau used the Anglers Order as the model to grant at least 298 other exemptions, the full commission overturned that decision Oct. 20 after objections were raised from a coalition of organizations for the deaf and hard of hearing. The churches may still be eligible to win an exemption from the rules if they can prove they can’t afford closed captioning, but they now have to make their case individually." SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Brooks Boliek //The second topic is soda advertisers are under fire because children's exposure to soda ads has nearly doubled over the past 2 years.// "From 2008 to 2010, children's and teens' exposure to television ads for soda doubled, according to a new report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University. And beverage companies targeted black and Hispanic kids more than others in recent ads, the report found. Commercials for Coke and Dr. Pepper products led the increase. Pepsi actually showed young audiences 22 percent fewer commercials for its products in that same time period. Under a voluntary agreement, beverage companies have pledged to improve advertising directed to kids. But "our results clearly show that the beverage industry's self-regulatory pledges are not working," says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center." SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Allison Aubrey It just shows that no broadcaster or advertiser should ever let there guard down because things are constantly changing. (Casey Walter, Nov. 1, 2011)

Cato Institution and other companies have decided that the FCC is trying to take control of too much. "Cato Institute and a collection of technology policy groups have called on the Supreme Court to overturn the 1978 FCC vs. Pacifica decision and give broadcasters the same First Amendment freedom to program to their audiences as other media including print, cable and the Internet. That urging came in a friend of the court brief supporting Fox and ABC." Currently the Supreme Court is overlooking the policy, but the groups are going as far as asking the FCC to get out of the content-regulation business. Here is the article from Benton Headlines. (Casey Walter, Nov. 15, 2011
 * //FCC SHOULDN’T JUDGE INDECENCY//**
 * //[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]//**
 * //Public Knowledge, the Cato Institute and a collection of technology policy groups have called on the Supreme Court to overturn the 1978 FCC vs. Pacifica decision and give broadcasters the same First Amendment freedom to program to their audiences as other media including print, cable and the Internet. That urging came in a friend of the court brief supporting Fox and ABC. The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold Federal Communications Commission indecency decisions against those two broadcasters after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those decisions -- and the FCC's underlying indecency-enforcement policy -- were unconstitutionally vague and chilling. The FCC and DOJ appealed those rulings. "Pacifica is based on an archaic and unrealistic conception of broadcast television," they argued. In the 1978 Pacifica decision, the high court voted 5-4 to uphold an FCC decision to reprimand Pacifica-owned New York radio station WBAI for airing comedian George Carlin's "Filthy Words" routine, establishing the current standard of "indecent but not obscene" material. The groups go further than the National Association of Broadcasters in asking for the FCC to get out of the content-regulation business. Given the way the tech companies frame their support of broadcasting, it is not a surprise they are not exactly on the same page. The groups, which include TechFreedom, the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, essentially argue that broadcasting should be free of content regulations because technology has rendered it "rare," rather than pervasive, with only a small and dwindling percentage of people receiving content over the air.//**

Apparently favorite shows aren't always the highest rated. Benton headlines has comes my new addiction. http://m.benton.org/node/106267 (Casey Walter Dec. 2, 2011)