Interactive TV Big Bang Theory; Local TV News Takes A Holiday; Plus Other Observations From the Passing Parade - Simon Applebaum - MediaBizBloggers

Any day now those 100000plus Apple iPhone store applications thousands of Motorola Droid applications powered up by Google39s Android operating system and so many more application creators may get the interactive TV break they39ve been waiting forAny day now Verizon39s FiOS TV will break loose with its modified open source settop box strategy where third party developers can deliver interactive content and services directly to FiOS39s more than 25 million customers nationwide The plan follows FiOS39s success with its Widget Bazaar where attractions from Twitter to fantasy football stats run on the TV screenVerizon may let the world know when next week during its presentation at UBS39s annual global media conference in New York No time better to go public than at the biggest investor gathering of its kind We also could get news in the same vein from ATampampT whose mobile phones link with Apple39s iPhone store and whose Uverse subsidiary is FiOS39 chief overbuild rival ATampampT and Uverse officials have hinted in recent weeks that they have a front burner ITV settop agenda and want lots of those iPhone apps involvedAnd whether or not a ComcastNBC Universal deal comes together by conference week it will be interesting to see if Comcast the nation39s largest MSO has anything to share at UBS about its own interactive TV handiwork In past UBS meets Comcast executives have been generous with info about how their videoondemand highspeed Internet access and telephony adventures make out We could get some clues as to how fast cable and satellite distributors will react to the allout ITV marketplace FiOS and Uverse want to generateWorth repeating if you39re an iPhone app producer or Web site provider have an interactive TV adaptation in your front pocket Your big break may be any day nowHere39s the latest milepost in local television station newsland KSEE NBC39s affiliate in Fresno California didn39t do a newscast this past Thanksgiving There will be no newscasts on that station Christmas Day or New Year39s Day either In one of the first calls by new KSEE presidentgeneral manager Matt Rosenfeld every member of the station39s news department has all three holidays off The action was described as quotstafffriendlyquot in The Fresno Bee39s report by TVmovie critic Rick BentleyWhat39s stafffriendly here is more publicunfriendly and the latest detestable news direction TV stations are going amid a collapsed local advertising sales scene All year long stations around the country have cancelled newscasts such as WWORTV New York39s weekend editions In one extreme case CBS affiliate WYOU in WilkesBarre Pennsylvania dropped its entire local news output Now we have KSEE telling its community that if God forbid a big story breaks on a major holiday it will leave the coverage to others because its staff won39t be aroundWhat KSEE could have done to make both staff and public happy is rotate its journalist team so some worked Thanksgiving others on Christmas and New Year39s and do at least one newscast each day Instead KSEE has blazed a new trail for other stations to consider for holidays to comeFor years local news and local programming was considered the edge TV stations had over cable operators That edge is falling apart Instead station management and broadcast network affiliate boards should find ways to insure that local news is the last not the first head on the moneysaving chop blockPawn Stars is the newest primetime series on The History Channel now promoting itself onair as History Maybe you can explain how Ice Road Truckers or Ax Men fits the network39s aspirations A series about pawnbrokershow unHistory can you goBy now you may know that Bill Bresnan whose Bresnan Communications multisystem operation reaches more than 300000 Rocky Mountain cable customers passed away the day after Thanksgiving at age 75 after a battle with cancer few media officials or observers knew ofBy now you may have read some or all the obits about Bresnan39s accomplishments guiding force behind CSPAN CableLabs and Cable in the ClassroomHere are two more things you should know Bresnan championed diversity in television before many executives concluded it39s the right or smart or important thing to do He did so in a variety of ways such as his support of the Emma Bowen Foundation which gives high school students extensive internships with leading TV organizationsThe second Bresnan was all class with people always knowing your name when meeting you at an event always interested in what you were up to always reaching out with a handshake You couldn39t see an ugly bone sticking out anywhere Not one not anytime or anywhereWhether he knew the end of his life was near or not Bresnan made sure his company was in good hands stepping down as CEO before Thanksgiving and turning the job over to one of his longstanding associates Another example of class in actionBill Bresnan lived a whole complete life and everyone who works in the medium or watches the medium is better that he didSimon Applebaum is producerhost of Tomorrow Will Be Televised the Internet radio program covering the TV scene The program runs live Mondays and two Fridays a month at 3 pm Eastern timenoon Pacific time over wwwblogtalkradiocom with replays available at wwwblogtalkradiocomsimonapplebaum Tomorrow is also available on podcast downloadable to any major mobile device via an assortment of Web download sites arranged by wwwsonibytecom Have a question or comment Send it to simonapple04yahoocom

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Interactive TV Big Bang Theory; Local TV News Takes A Holiday; Plus Other Observations From the Passing Parade - Simon Applebaum - MediaBizBloggers

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