CNBC's Maria Bartiromo Asks "Who's in Charge Here?" - It's Anyone's Guess. MediaBizBuzz April 7

This Sunday, "money honey" Maria Bartiromo posed just that question to George Soros. They were talking Bear Stearns and handicapping odds for recession slash inflation, but the query might have been asked of these Captains of Industry (and Chief Executive). It was that tumultuous a week. Some folks -- like Jerry Seinfeld -- cheated death. Others, like Clinton Chief Strategist Mark Penn, did not survive. The Market continued its fiscal arrhythmia; secrets of the Wireless Auction were revealed. MySpace Music was uncloaked, while it was learned that iTunes had surpassed Wal-Mart as the #1 music retailer. Microsoft gave Yahoo! three weeks to sell out - or else! Ligitation over Intellectual Property was all the rage. In some cases, these moves were innovative, others, like Comcast's announcement to offer "extreme highspeed" to Minnesotans or AT&T's admission that it paid more for its spectrum, dammit, just so that it could circumvent that "open access" -- not so much. Let's separate the retreads from the epiphanies. Not that there's anything wrong with stealing from the best --- as long as its credited.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the Media's death have been exaggerated. Earlier this week, Jack Myers sought to recast the economic picture for media ad buying. While not bombastic, his research showed a modest increase compared to TNS Media Intelligence's dour forecast. M&A's in media -- reported the Silicon Alley Insider - were downright full-throttle, especially, they added, if you had "open source" as part of your business plan. To that formula I'll add "analytics" ($50M to CoreMetrics) and, of course, "blog network" (Federated's rumored funding gives it a valuation of $200M).

In this uncertain climate, on the heels of the Upfronts, how goes Television? NBC consulted the archives and is trying sponsorships as opposed to commercial ad buys. That said, Convergence Consulting pegged online TV watching at 9% of the viewing total across platforms (yet only 2% of the ad budgets were going to online buys). How are the broadcast networks faring online? Depends on the data. comScore gave the nod to CBS, but Silicon Alley Insider was more inclined to side with Nielsen Online Video Census' beknighting of ABC - while noting that it is imperfect (it doesn't gauge Fox's Idol, does aggregate all of NBC.com properties, doesn't CBS's distribution partners). Curiously, Hitwise finds that reality dominates online - 7 of the Top 10 shows - owing perhaps to their savvy use of Web 2.0's voting, chatting, polling? TVWeek reports that Google hired Harris Interactive to study the efficacy of YouTube's ads. Voila! They found it equivalent to TV in intent to buy, engagement, and interest. Color me skeptical - until I see the hard data. Even though Hulu, NBC's JV with Fox, has less ad minutes than trad TV, the Times didn't like the experience (I like it just fine). Blinkx launched with AdHoc, its ad targeting platform, as Times Online incorrectly reported that Joost was in retrenchment -- Rafat Ali actually phoned Joost to find their story inaccurate. MipTV starts today in Cannes; paidContent's there. (Speaking of mobile - the power of Walt Mossberg was reinforced last week. A slip of the lip that a 3G iPhone is but a mere 60 days hence and it's the talk of the blogosphere.)

Musical Chairs

The state of the recording industry evolved a year's time in the last week. Really. Judges in New York and Boston contradicted one another as they ruled on whether simply uploading files to a peer to peer network constituted criminality. PaidContent interviewed MySpace CEO Chris De Wolfe, asking why MySpace Music would be a JV with SONY BMG, Universal, and Warner, rather than part of MySpace proper. (It also produced Peter Levinsohn's internal heralding a FIM reorg.) Valleywag put forth a strong argument that music is no longer a core product for the recording industry -- citing Jay-Z's signing with Live Nation - but for promotional value (it's not pretty, but it may be true). EMI's newest exec hire, Ex-Googler Glen Merrill -- get me my smelling salts - just might agree. Last.fm is finally streaming CBS Radio. Hold the presses: The XM Sirius might be A-OK for the DOJ, but not so fast says John Kerry. While iTunes was tops, Amazon's music store hasn't lit a fire -- despite the fact that it has to since Amazon can't give its physical media - DVDs, cds, book - away. (That said, Shelly Palmer's gung-ho over its TextBuyIt app for mobile.) All in all, Silicon Alley's Fred Wilson is convinced that we're on the threshold of something new.

We Own the Airwaves:

End of last week the FCC veil of silence ended. While no one was surprised at the players, they themselves had some curious statements. PC World reported that Verizon would build out its broadband and mobile offerings by 2010, (no shock here) but AT&T seemed to balk at participating in "open access" stating that they had specifically paid a premium (3x) for the right to circumvent this policy. Your move, Kevin Martin. Comcast, which had recently been in the crosshairs of the FCC due to its "network management practices" suddenly announced that it would be offering "wideband" services to Minnesotans. For $149.99/month (such a steal) you're downloading at 50Mps. When GigaOM's eponymous Om Malik contacted Comcast about its 180, he learned that "bandwidth hogs" would be managed, irrespective of the type of downloading. So it becomes clear: We don't care about your piracy, just the traffic.

Shotgun Weddings?

Ballmer to Yang: Three Weeks And I'll See You In the Boardroom. Absence is not making Microsoft's heart fonder for Yahoo! It will not raise its bid - despite the fact that Yahoo! made some inroads against Google's ad sales marketing share and AMP has potential. Why not buy Salesforce.com, instead? Since Google didn't sink billions into wireless spectrum, it's flush enough to buy Skype from eBay - and think of the fit!

Virtually Accountable

Last week being the Virtual Worlds conference in NYC, there was a flurry of announcements and concurrent stories. We profiled embedded Second Life journalist Wagner James Au; the Wall Street Journal focused on how startups like Qwaq and even the SecondLife Grid were offering businesses a more targeted and productive experience in-worlds. The New York Times looked at Vitavy which is building 3-D chatrooms within Facebook, a teaser for the 3-D Web to come.

Streisand Effects

We're still at a crossroads where fair use and Intellectual Property are lagging behind the times. TechCrunch ridiculed the DMCA takedown (complied to by Yahoo!) of a video clip of a sock puppet riffing off the Village People's YMCA. Apple threwdown against New York City for its GreenNYC apple logo. Woody Allen called treyf (unkosher) on American Apparel for appropriating his image in an ad. A couple -- literally called "the Borings" -- asked Google for damages for "Street View" pictures of their swimming poolon the Web. While it's a questionable affair that failed musician and sociopath Charles Manson used a Creative Commons license to put out his recordings, it is good news that the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation earmarked $4M for the copyleft non-profit. While the New York Press tries to debunk Malcolm Gladwell's coinage of "The Tipping Point" as a concept, REM quickly admitted to riffing off an improv group's routine and subsequently credited them. Far from freaking about breaking copyright, Radiohead allowed its second single - Nude - to be remixed by fans and is providing the tracks for them to work with; best mix to be announced on Radioheadremix.com on May 1st. The band gets it - copyright was designed to promulgate, not inhibit, creativity.

There's been a back and forth about whether or not the Writers Strike had an impact on TV viewing. Nielsen reported that its Live+7 network totals were down 6.17%, while cable up 1.4%; TV usage was flat -- meaning folks just changed channels. Target Cast begs to differ: it found that NBC's average unit cost for a prime-time ad spot was 24.7% down compared to Q1 2007. We think that South Park gets it just right. Speaking of change being the only constant, someone please squelch the MSNBC rumor of a McCain/Thompson meeting. If the two were running mates - against either a Clinton or Obama - it'd be the Grumpy Old Men ticket. Not exactly a bridge to tomorrow.