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Broadcast.com made its millions with the help of Internet hype and hopes, and this Wednesday a site called television.com, an equally attractive domain name, will look to do the same thing-minus the Internet hype of 1999.
Television.com, majority owned by Steeplechase Media, along with partners Mike O'Connor (the original owner of the domain name) and MarkeTVision Direct, the company that O'Connor tapped to help find someone interested in buying it. Larry Namer, television.com CEO, former president and co-founder of E! Entertainment Television, says no cash exchanged hands for the rights to the name, with O'Connor and MarkeTVision Direct instead opting for equity.
"You sell a domain name, you get a few million bucks, but by the time Uncle Sam gets done with you and you buy a house and a Ferrari you're done," says Namer.
What exactly will television.com offer visitors? Namer says the site has evolved to become all things television, building on the original idea of making it another content-distribution vehicle.
"The name says convergence, and people expect a lot from the name," he notes. "They want programming, but they also want guides, information on technology, and we'll be reshaping it as we go along. We hope to become to the world of television what CNet has become to the world of computing."
One key will be having a site deep in links to outside entities, but another key is the domain name. Television.com has a natural "knee-jerk" surfing quality to it, something that Namer says is an important advantage over other TV-related sites.
Namer says the company has $4.5 million in financing, but now that the site is up and running, the company can actually go out and complete its first round of financing. More important than the financial backing are some of the content deals that have been reached.
The site has signed on more than 35 broadcast and cable networks that will offer promos of their programs. Among the pioneers: NBC, USA Network, the Food Network and A & E.
"Our site is somewhere between search engine and guide," adds Namer. "There's a lot of editorial to it, and it has a very distinct attitude. We love television, and what people are looking for is something more than just TV listings."
It will also offer international programming. Namer says the site has signed a deal to carry four television stations from India that will offer sports, news, movies and music. And the site is in the process of negotiating for channels out of Israel, Russia and China. "It's an interesting use of streaming media, and you can point to a large potential audience," he says.
Television.com will be available in a broadband version, and, Namer says, a set-top version that is very "television-centric" is also in the works. Namer says the company has already signed on one major MSO for carriage and is negotiating with a couple of others.
Television-centric is an important phrase to Namer, because the site will look to leverage its relationship with other television-centric sites to offer advertising sponsorships that can run across its partner sites.
"The problem with many content sites is they're below the radar screen of any advertising agency, so we've signed deals with some of those sites and will sell advertising across the entire base," he adds. "So we can aggregate their audiences while also keeping our content costs controlled."
Sponsorships, rather than banner advertising, will also play a role. "Sponsorship gives you a value added, and it goes back to the early days of cable," says Namer. "You have loads of inventory, but there's no reason to buy. So you get people involved in contests, promotions and sponsorship of whole shows."
Pat Boone, the former 1950s crooner and an ultra-conservative fundamentalist, is asking President Obama to stop using the r-word.
"Mr. President! For God's sake, and America's sake, quit so often calling crimes that involve a black person 'racist'! Boone wrote Thursday on the conservative site WorldNetDaily.
Boone, 81, who had string of sugary hits in the 1950s and 60s, expressed disdain that Obama refers to racism as a present and prevalent problem in the United States.
"As the president who came to office, a black man promising to bring people together, a man ideally suited for that job since you were born both black and white, you had a God-given chance to actually proclaim and demonstrate that racial divides and prejudice had greatly diminished and that our society was truly becoming colorblind," he wrote.
Boone said Obama has instead portrayed America as a racist nation.
"We are not!" Boone exclaimed.
The former pop singer is a Tea Party member, vehemently anti-gay marriage and proclaimed he was "a birther" when Obama first sought office in the 2008 election. Birthers contended that Obama was not an American citizen and had been born in Kenya, not in Hawaii.
Boone also claimed that Obama's birth certificate may have been doctored to show he was born in the 50th state.
Race, Boone said in his online column, had little or nothing to do with recent killings of unarmed black men by police, including the cases of Trayvon Martin in Florida and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
After referring to Brown as "a very large black man" and referring to people of "the black persuasion," Boone also claimed that the June 17 slaughter of nine black worshippers at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., was less about racism and more about hating Christianity.
"Though this had a racist element, to be sure, it was more than that and of far greater significance to America than that. This boy wasn't just a sadist, or even criminally insane - he was carefully prepared and led by the Devil himself to kill as many Christians as he could.
"The fact that they were black was an excuse more than a reason," Boone said.
Conservative Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly went on a similar rant Tuesday night when he screamed "Most Americans are not racist. They're not!"
RALEIGH — In North Carolina, political power is divided. Republicans control the state legislature, although without the supermajorities they once enjoyed. Democrats occupy such jobs as governor and attorney general, but Republicans control six of the 10 statewide elected offices that form North Carolina’s executive branch. Democrats form a strong 6-1 majority on the state supreme court, but the state court of appeals is roughly balanced. Republicans have majorities on 56 of North Carolina’s 100 county commissions, but six of the 10 most-populous counties have Democratic boards.
Do you find divided government frustrating or exhilarating? Either way, you might as well get used to it. North Carolina is likely to be a political battleground for many years to come.
It will be a top prize in the 2020 presidential race, for example. Right now, the share of North Carolina voters who approve of Donald Trump’s performance and the share who disapprove are within a few points of each other, according to several polls. We are also likely to witness highly competitive reelection bids by Gov. Roy Cooper and U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, among others.
That our state’s elections have been and will continue to be so hotly contested should come as no surprise. It reflects voter preferences. Few state electorates are closer to the national average in partisanship and ideology than North Carolina’s electorate is.
On this point, don’t be misled by party registration. Some North Carolinians, disproportionately older and residing in rural areas, may be registered Democrats but actually vote Republican most of the time. Moreover, most “unaffiliated” voters are not truly neutral. They vote fairly consistently for their favored party. They just aren’t joiners in the way their parents were (many attend but never become full members of religious congregations, for much the same reason).
According to polling by the Gallup organization, 42 percent of North Carolinians are Republicans or lean that way, while 41 percent are Democrats or lean that way. The remainder are either true swing voters or don’t vote much at all. Other states where the two party bases are either tied or differ by a single point include Georgia, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, and Nebraska.
Another Gallup question probes self-reported ideology. I think this procedure is less illustrative than clustering voters based on issues, but it does have the value of consistency across time and geography. About 39 percent of Gallup’s North Carolina respondents describe themselves as conservative, while 33 percent say they are moderates, 21 percent say they are liberals, and the remainder say something else or decline to answer. These results place North Carolina close to the median, at 23rd most-conservative in the nation.
Other polls produce somewhat-different results, thanks to differences in sampling and word choice. But they generally confirm the political competitiveness of the state.
The Civitas Institute’s last two monthly surveys of North Carolina voters, conducted in February and March by Harper Polling, asked “generic ballot” questions about 2020 races for the state legislature, Congress, and the state supreme court. That is, voters were asked which party’s not-yet-determined candidates they favored at the present time. For all three sets of races, the numbers of voters favoring Democrats and Republicans were statistically indistinguishable. That wasn’t the case just before the 2018 midterms, when Civitas surveys found sizable Democratic leads.
To say North Carolina’s electorate is closely divided is not to say there can’t be definitive electoral outcomes in a given year. Just don’t expect them to result in permanent realignments. In 2010, 2012, and 2014, the electorate swung Republican. In 2018, it swung Democratic. The 2016 cycle was more of a mixed bag, with Trump, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, and Lt. Gov. Dan Forest winning statewide even as Democrats took key races for governor (Roy Cooper) and attorney general (Josh Stein).
Voters willing to split their tickets are much rarer than they used to be, representing only a few percentage points of the total vote. But in a closely divided state, they still matter — a lot.
The College of Arts and Sciences will provide Cornell Cinema with funding for the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to cinema director Mary Fessenden.
Last semester, the Student Assembly’s decision to defund Cornell Cinema was met with student protest and resulted in an estimated funding gap of $150,000, which cast doubt on the institution’s ability to survive.
However, prior to S.A.’s official decision to cut funding, Provost Michael Kotlikoff promised between $36,000 to $40,000 to the cinema for the next fiscal year.
Fessenden, who expressed uncertainty in January that the money Kotlikoff mentioned would materialize, confirmed to The Sun on Saturday that the funding would come as part of a larger bridge funding package.
“Cornell Cinema recently learned that the College of Arts & Sciences will find bridge funding for the next academic year so as to provide the needed time for Cornell Cinema to fundraise, identify other potential co-sponsors for the program, and restructure for the future,” Fessenden said.
According to Fessenden, the bridge funding will be in place for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2018 and ending on June 30, 2019. Cornell Cinema would need to have a new plan in place before budgeting for the 2019-20 fiscal year begins, Fessenden said.
That announcement relieves some of the pressure from the budget shortfall following the decision to reduce student activity fees contributing to the cinema from $10.90 to $0.
In response to the Student Assembly’s decision, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly voted to increase its funding of the cinema from $10.54 to $11 per graduate student, but that bump would not be enough to cover the loss from undergraduate contributions, which was nearly 30 percent of total revenue.
Though bridge funding will take some of the pressure off of the cinema in the short term, the underlying issues that lead to the funding dispute, including staff wages, are as yet unsolved.
Staff wages account for about 70 percent of the cinema’s expenditures, according to the office of the provost.
Cornell Cinema will host its own campaign during Giving Day this Tuesday, which will accept contributions online for a 24-hour period and factor into the cinema’s future budgetary plans.
“We hope all our supporters, including current students and alums, will consider making a donation to Cornell Cinema on Giving Day as part of these efforts to maintain one of the University’s most valuable and beloved cultural resources,” Fessenden said.
The Cinema is currently seeking out new co-sponsors for after June 30 next year, when the last committed University funding ends.
I disagreed with Doolittle’s column.
‘Comms’ and ‘advocacy’ can sometimes feel like they’re moving in different directions, but there’s a simple solution to align communications and government affairs.
Most communications and government affairs leaders devote limited attention to defining how their teams coordinate with each other and de-conflict their activities.
If the teams conducting outreach, asking for money, prompting advocacy ‘activation,’ and trying to recruit new brand ambassadors don’t coordinate their efforts, they could very well create a sense of ‘contact burnout’ among their audience members.
There are natural points where the efforts of these teams may overlap. Both the communications team and the government affairs (or advocacy) team employ similar strategies, in that they use some of the same tactics, some of the same resources, and even target some of the same audiences. But a lack of clearly defined boundaries poses a significant liability to each team, and to the organization as a whole.
One of the most important boundaries to define is which department ‘owns’ communication with each audience or individual.
Who ‘owns’ each communication channel (email, Twitter, Facebook, direct mail, etc.)?
Who ‘owns’ each particular audience?
Who can grant permission to contact an audience not within one’s ownership?
Are any audiences completely off-limits?
In a traditional view (something like what’s shown in the graphic below), each stakeholder audience is considered fair game for each team, with little regard to how the other teams may seek to interact with them.
A better perspective is similar to a ‘systems thinking’ approach. Rather than each team viewing their activities as taking place within a vacuum, consider that there are multiple systems at work.
The first system in this example is the government affairs team and its interactions with its target audiences. Another system is the communications team, and how their efforts impact and are influenced by some of the very same audiences. A third system could be the fundraising team; extending outreach to raise capital in support of political action goals.
Each system may interact with the same audience members, and this could cause that audience’s members to feel overwhelmed by all the demands placed on them by a single organization.
Or worse: they could create the perception in the minds of potential advocates, donors, and brand evangelists that the organization’s efforts and messaging aren’t strategically integrated.
How can each team obtain the value they seek from each individual stakeholder, individual audience member, or entire group without exhausting the brand capital of the organization as a whole?
In other words, the design of an ownership matrix and the multi-system activities it enables must serve the interests of the organization. If an effort by the government affairs team yields positive benefit for that team, but diminishes the activities of the communications team, then that should be considered a failure of collaborative planning.
If the government affairs and communications teams (and other teams, as sensible) spend time together thinking through how each team can support the organization’s strategic goals in ways that are not detrimental or ‘cannibalistic’ of the other systems in play, then a more mature and more sustainable structure can be created.
• Signup is under way for Preschool Story Hour sessions at the Otsego County Library starting Sept. 19. Story hour features songs, crafts and children’s stories and is open to children between 3 and 5 years old who are not attending kindergarten. Story hour is free and is held Wednesdays or Thursdays, 9:30-10:30 a.m. Each session lasts 30-45 minutes and is limited to 16 children. For information call 732-5841.
• The Otsego County Sportsplex has free style (figure) skating today (Saturday), 9:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m.; drop-in hockey ages 12-17, 12:30-2:20 p.m.; speedskating, 2:30-3:50 p.m.; and open skating, 4-5:50 p.m. Drop-in hockey continues Sunday for ages 14 and under, noon-1:50 p.m.; and open skate, 4-5:50 p.m. Open swim is today and Sunday, 1:30-4:30 p.m., with the small pool open at noon each day. Cost for swimming and skating is $2 for children and $2.50 for adults. Drop-in hockey is $3; speedskating is $5. Skate rental is $2.25. Call 731-3546 or visit www.ocsportsplex.com.
- OCZ PC-3200 ECC Registered Memory at 262MHZ!
OCZ Technology have a press release out stating that overclocking and 3DMark King "Oppainter" recently achieved obliterating benchmark results using standard OCZ PC-3200 ECC registered memory on an Athlon 64 FX-51 platform. Settings used were a staggering 262MHZ with timings of 2-2-2-6 for all benchmarking tests. You can read the full PR over at OCZ's website. If you go to the official hall of fame you can also view CPU-Z and SiSoft Sandra screenshots.
An article just up over at PC World gives us an outlook on how things are shaping in the TV market, particularly in reference to LCD / Flat Panel displays which are inevitably a way of our future. Prices are already starting to plummet so things are looking good. As the article also points out, the entry of Dell, Gateway, and soon Hewlett-Packard to step on consumer electronics vendor's toes only helps introduce more sophisticated products at lower prices within such a large and demanding market.
In previous years, business-only uses dominated the discussions of flat-panel technologies, in monitors, notebooks, handhelds, and digital signs. But now, televisions have all but taken over the conference. In fact, Scott Edwards, Gateway's executive vice president for consumer electronics, called his Tuesday conference keynote address "I want my thin TV." He showed a video of a man pulverizing a CRT with a sledgehammer.
I found Cieply's article interesting and informative. However, CAA co-founder Mike Ovitz's impassioned and often smarmy plea (in the accompanying article, "Straight Talk") for "everyone (in the business) to root for each other" almost made me lose my lunch.
If I ever had any doubts about Hollywood agents getting an unjust reputation for being sharks, Ovtiz's statement helped me make up my mind.
What a pitch--I'm surprised he wasn't holding a puppy in his photo.
The flu is now officially an epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
More than half of all US states reported high flu activity within the first week of the year.
A total of 7.0 percent of the deaths occurring during the week ending December 23 2017 were due to pneumonia and influenza, based on National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) mortality surveillance data available on January 11 2018.
This percentage is at the epidemic threshold of 7.0 percent for week 51, said CDC.
A total of 20 influenza-associated deaths have been recorded for the 2017/2018 flu season so far.
A CDC spokesperson said: ‘Seven influenza-associated pediatric deaths were reported to CDC during week one. One death was associated with an influenza A(H3) virus and occurred during week one (the week ending January 6 2018).
‘One death was associated with an influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus and occurred during week one. Two deaths were associated with an influenza A virus for which no subtyping was performed and occurred during week one.
Anyone can get the flu (even healthy people), and serious problems related to the flu can happen at any age, but some people are at high risk of developing serious flu-related complications if they get sick, according to the CDC.
This includes people 65 years and older, people of any age with certain chronic medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), pregnant women, and young children.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. It is truly great to be back here in Michigan — great. (Applause.) And it’s also wonderful to be here with the leaders, workers, engineers and suppliers of Ford, and Fiat-Chrysler, and General Motors, and many others. We have so many leaders that we just met, all of the leaders of the major car companies and really the automobile business. It’s a great business, it’s a wonderful business, but it’s been pretty much hurt here. But it’s not going to be hurt for long, that I can tell you. (Applause.) That I can tell you.
I’m sure you’ve all heard the big news that we’re going to work on the CAFE standards, so you can make cars in America again. (Applause.) We’re going to help the companies, and they’re going to help you.
There is no more beautiful sight than an American-made car. No more beautiful sight. (Applause.) I love this state, I love the people of this state. And you did me a big favor, because you gave me a victory, and that victory hasn’t been won by a Republican in a long time — long time. (Applause.) And you’re going to be very happy, believe me. You’re going to be very, very happy.
During the campaign, I came to Michigan again and again, and I made this promise, that I am going to fight for your jobs and fight very, very hard. (Applause.) I’m going to fight for Michigan workers. I’m going to fight to keep the automobile production in the United States of America, not outside — in the United States. (Applause.) And, by the way, for those that have any doubts, many other industries do. That’s okay, right?
You’ve heard me say the words, and I’ll repeat them, right now: Buy American and Hire American. (Applause.) It’s not just a motto, it’s a pledge. It’s a pledge to the working people of this country. The era of economic surrender for the United States is over — it’s over. And you see what’s already been happening: plants are coming back; other plants that were expected to be built in other countries are not being built. I just want to tell the leaders they made some very wise decisions. Very wise. Very wise. (Applause.) Some plants that were announced, they’re not going to be built. They’re smart.
We’re going to stand up to foreign cheating. We’re going to crack down on currency manipulation. And, yes, we’re going to use the full economic powers of our country to protect our workers and to protect our jobs.
Already, we’re seeing jobs coming back. Since my election, Ford has announced 700 new jobs coming back to their plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. (Applause.) Fiat-Chrysler has announced that they will create 2,000 new jobs in Michigan and Ohio. (Applause.) And just today — breaking news — General Motors announced that they’re adding or keeping 900 jobs right here in Michigan, and that’s going to be over the next 12 months. And that’s just the beginning, folks. In fact, I told them, that’s peanuts — that’s peanuts. (Applause.) We’re going to have a lot more. They’re going to be building new plants, expanding their plants.
My administration will work tirelessly to eliminate the industry-killing regulations, to lower the job-crushing taxes, and to ensure a level playing field for all American companies and workers.
Before NAFTA went into effect — by the way, NAFTA, a total disaster — there were 280,000 autoworkers in Michigan. Today, that number is roughly 165,000 — and would have been heading down big league if I didn’t get elected, I will tell you that right now. That I can tell you. (Applause.) Plenty of things were stopped in their tracks. They were stopped in their tracks. A lot of bad things were going to happen. A lot of places were going to get built that aren’t going to get built right now in other locations.
The number of auto plants in the state has been cut by a third. Motor City once set the standard of living for the nation. Now it has suffered under decades of failed economic decisions that have stripped our country of its jobs and of its wealth.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership — another disaster — threatened states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and so many others with the loss of countless more jobs. That is why I’m proud to say I followed through on my promise — and, by the way, many other promises. You’ve seen what’s happened. Many. (Applause.) And immediately withdrew the United States from the TPP. I kept my word. The assault on the American auto industry, believe me, is over. It’s over. (Applause.) Not going to happen anymore.
We are setting up a task force in every federal agency to identify and remove any regulation that undermines American auto production and any other kind of production, including the production of high-end, low-end, big, small, every form of automobile and truck.
But they all told me the same thing. They explained that the previous administration promised you a so-called “mid-term review” of the federal fuel efficiency standards. It was necessary because the standards were set far into the future — way, way into the future. If the standards threatened auto jobs, then commonsense changes could have and should have been made.