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NBC seems to be having a change of heart this week. The network
recently wrapped up their streaming of the Olympics using Microsoft's Silverlight technology.
However if you tuned in for this week's NFL season opener, NBC was using Adobe's Flash technology
instead of Silverlight. Making some do a double take, here's a look at why NBC left Silverlight
in a flash (pun intended).
As we stated, NBC took a chance on Silverlight to stream
the Olympic ceremonies for online and mobile viewers. While this
was a great opportunity for Microsoft to promote its Silverlight platform, it wasn't enough for
NBC. According to SAI, "Microsoft, meanwhile, said that during the Olympics, 40 million US to visitors
NBCOlympics.com didn't yet have Silverlight installed."
NBC has already begun switching back to Adobe Flash for the start of the NFL season. Yet their
efforts don't seem to be paying off at the moment with reports of
video playback for the NFL season starter game being too horrible to watch.
Not a Good Look
We all know that at least 90% of computer users have Adobe Flash installed. It's easy to see why
NBC would want to switch back. The partnership between Microsoft and NBC was likely more
beneficial to Microsoft in the end. One of the downsides for NBC was that users tend to become
either wary or lazy about downloading new extensions for a website. This is especially true if
the website was working just fine with previous extensions only days before. However, with a
rocky start to switching back, NBC online sports fans are probably wondering if it's even worth
the effort anymore.
Nicholas Carlson /
Valleywag: NBC
dumps Microsoft Silverlight after Olympics — NBC streamed all its
NBCOlympics.com videos using Microsoft's Silverlight backend tech, but the network dumped
Microsoft before last night's NFL kickoff — streamed live over NBCSports.com and NFL.com
— opting to use Adobe Flash instead. Why?
Michael Green, le producteur exécutif de la nouvelle série de NBC appelée
Kings, a déclaré à Sci Fi Wire que son précédent poste de
scénariste sur Heroes a été une grande source d'inspiration pour ce drama
contemporain qui est assez librement adapté de l'histoire du Roi David de la Bible.
« Je l'écrivais alors que je travaillais encore sur Heroes et j'ai été
bien entendu inspiré par le travail de titans qu'on faisait là bas, » explique
Green. « J'ai piqué (...) - Infos Kings
NBC has released some sexy, sleek new promotional photos for the upcoming season of
”Heroes,” which will begin with the
”Villains” volume when it kicks off on Monday, September 22nd at
8/7c. The premiere will include an hour-long compilation show that will lead into an all new,
two-hour premiere at 9/8c.
ABC, CBS and NBC will simultaneously broadcast “Stand Up To Cancer,” a one-hour,
commercial-free telecast to raise funds for cancer research. Tags: freebies and giveaways Bookmark
to: Go here to see the original: ABC, CBS & NBC’s ...
CBS, ABC and NBC simulcast the historic live, hour-long, commercial-free appeal. Some 60
celebrities too part in the effort to raise awareness, and funds for research.
Hey kids, don't forget: the new, not-at-all-improved Knight Rider becomes a weekly series
on Wednesday, September 24th. As was the case during the pilot that aired back in February, I'll be
on my couch with my laptop, liveblogging the proceedings
and adding much-needed "perspective" each week, right until the show'scancellation. Maybe you
couldn't care less about the liveblog, though. Or maybe you're just a glutton for punishment. If
that's the case, you're in luck -- the Peacock is posting the season premiere online at NBC.com and
Hulu.com on September 17, a week before the network broadcast. I'm gonna pass on the sneak
peek, because I don't want want to taint my initial reaction to KITT's new Attack Mode (above).
That, I'm saving for you guys. Mark your calendars. In the meantime, I'll watch
this again instead.
NBC streamed all its NBCOlympics.com videos using Microsoft's Silverlight backend tech, but the
network dumped Microsoft before last night's NFL kickoff — streamed
live over NBCSports.com and NFL.com — opting to use Adobe Flash
instead.
On MSNBC on Thursday, Time's Jay Carney offered an assessment of the McCain campaign's
most recent assault on the media: "Clearly, the campaign has decided that one way to win is to
attack the media. Now, that could work. It does not have a great history of working. 'Annoy the
Media: Re-Elect George Bush,' 1992 -- Bush got, I think, 39 percent of the vote or 37 percent of
the vote."
Carney didn't explicitly say it, but he seems to be under the impression that the point of the
McCain campaign's attacks on the media is to win support from voters who dislike the media. And
he seems to think the Republicans only occasionally wage a war on his profession.
In fact, it is a constant war, the point of which is not to merely win a few votes from
people who dislike the media. The point is to make voters distrust the media, to make them
believe the media are out to get conservatives and thus cause them to discount news reports that
are unfavorable to conservatives, and to cow the media themselves into running fewer such
reports. (It serves another purpose, too: It helps a nominee whose heiress wife shows up at the
convention in an outfit
estimated to cost $300,000 pretend to be a man of the people raging against the "elites." But
that's a story better told
elsewhere.)
And it does indeed have a great history of working. No, it has a spectacularly
successful history of working -- of helping conservatives win both short-term and long-term
victories. Don't take my word for it: Longtime Washington Post reporter Tom
Edsall, now of The Huffington Post, has explained:
The conservative movement has been very effective attacking the media (broadcast and print) for
its liberal biases. The refusal of the media to disclose and discuss the ideological leanings of
reporters and editors, and the broader claim of objectivity, has made the press overly anxious,
and inclined to lean over backwards not to offend critics from the right. In many respects, the
campaign against the media has been more than a victory: it has turned the press into an
unwilling, and often unknowing, ally of the right.
Take one example of right-wing media bashing contributing to short-term electoral success: Under
fire from the White House and conservative activists, CBS News spiked a report questioning the Bush
administration's case for the Iraq war that was supposed to air shortly before the 2004 election.
During that year's presidential debates, Bush told Americans, "I'm not so sure it's credible to
quote leading news organizations" -- a direct assault on the media from the president of the
United States in the biggest forum he had. But that was only a small drop in the steady stream of
media criticism that came from Bush and his allies during the 2004 election.
If Jay Carney is going to point to election results to assess the success of the GOP's assault on
the media, he can't simply cherry-pick the elections the Republicans lost; they've been doing
this every election cycle for 40 years.
But the conservatives' attacks on the media aren't simply about the next election. They recognize
that each such criticism makes voters and the media more likely to believe the next -- so even if
the 2004 attacks hadn't worked, they still would have been successful.
And there would be nothing wrong with any of that -- if the Republicans' complaints had
significant merit. But they frequently do not -- and they often don't even pretend that they do.
A few weeks ago, for example, there was a frenzy of conservative whining that Barack Obama had
gotten more media coverage than John McCain. Now, the amount of coverage each candidate has
gotten, by itself, tells us virtually nothing. What was the content of the coverage? Was it
positive? Negative? True? False? Fair? Balanced? The conservative complainers made no attempt to
assess this -- they just yelled that Obama was getting more coverage. Well, O.J. Simpson got
considerably more coverage than Mother Teresa in 1994 -- anyone want to argue he got more
favorable coverage? Anyone want to argue that, by covering Simpson too much, the media were
demonstrating that they were in the tank for him?
Still, despite glaring flaws with the Republicans' criticism, the media took them seriously, and
many journalists adopted the complaints as their own.
The past week provides a useful case study of how the Republicans' assault on the media works.
Last Friday, John McCain announced that he had chosen Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The
media had a few questions -- basically, who is she, and is she ready to be president? So the
McCain campaign threw a tantrum, insisting the media were being unfair. As usual, the complaints
were short on details and merit -- but the media still took the complaints seriously, treating
them as one of the most important topics of the past few week.
Perhaps the best example of how phony the GOP's complaints were: the McCain campaign's
cancellation of an appearance by McCain on Larry King Live because, they said, CNN
anchor Campbell Brown had behaved improperly in interviewing campaign spokesperson Tucker Bounds
the night before. They didn't really say what Brown had done wrong -- probably because all she had done was ask simple
questions that Bounds couldn't answer. After Bounds said that as governor of Alaska, Palin
leads the state's National Guard, Brown asked him for an example of a decision she had made in
that capacity. He didn't answer. So she asked him again. That isn't inappropriate; that's exactly
what she should have done -- that's journalism.
And that drove the McCain campaign crazy.
So, did all the complaints work?
Consider this: Wednesday night, Sarah Palin falsely claimed she had told Congress she did not
want funding for the "bridge to nowhere." She didn't; that was a lie. Congress had said a year
before Palin became governor that Alaska need not spend the federal funds on the bridge. And
Palin had initially supported the bridge, not opposed it. And once she became governor, Palin
kept the money. Palin's false claims Wednesday night were not new: She had said the same thing in
previous campaign appearances since McCain picked her -- and several media outlets, including
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times had
debunked the boast. But when Palin told the lie during her convention speech -- after days of
McCain complaints that the media had been too hard on Palin -- those newspapers ignored the lie.
That wasn't the only false claim in Palin's speech that went un-debunked by the media. She
falsely attacked Barack
Obama's legislative record -- and media uncritically quoted the false claims. She lied about
Obama's tax plans -- she said he "wants to raise" them, even though John McCain's own economic
adviser has admitted that is false -- and, again, the media repeated her claim without debunking
it.
Instead, much of the media gushed over her speech. If you watched MSNBC yesterday, you would have
seen reporter after reporter talk about the McCain complaints that the media were too hard on
Palin. And you would have seen reporter after reporter lavish praise on Palin's speech. But you
wouldn't have seen them say much about the actual content of Palin's speech -- certainly not
about whether she told the truth in it. At one point, Andrea Mitchell declared that "what came through" in
Palin's address was "the authenticity."
Nonsense. "Authenticity" doesn't consist of doing a good job of delivering a speech -- not if the
speech is riddled with falsehoods. But most of the media didn't tell you about the falsehoods,
they just fell all over themselves praising the speech -- even praising the "authenticity" of
someone who stood before the nation and repeated lies she had already been caught telling.
So, did the McCain attacks on the media work? They certainly didn't hurt.
And this isn't the first time a McCain assault on the media has appeared to pay off. He and his
campaign have spent much of the year attacking the press.
And it seems to have worked: McCain
still hasn't faced the media scrutiny reporters kept insisting would come eventually.
The media have told us a lot about Barack Obama and Tony Rezko, for example -- but kept key
details about John McCain's relationship with Charles Keating a secret. Did you know that Cindy
McCain was business partners with Keating around the time John McCain was meeting with regulators
on Keating's behalf? Probably not: The Washington Post hasn't told readers that fact
during this campaign; The New York Times has made only brief mention of it. ABC, CBS,
NBC -- nothing.
Or how about the fact that John and Cindy McCain would save nearly $400,000 a year under John
McCain's tax plan -- a tax plan that includes the extension of Bush tax cuts McCain once bashed
as unfairly skewed towards the wealthy? Have you seen any media mention to that lately? It wasn't
long ago that news organizations thought John Edwards' wealth was important to keep in mind in
assessing his policy proposals -- but that apparently doesn't apply to John McCain.
The McCain campaign's war against the media shouldn't be surprising; this is what conservatives
do. The only real question is what reporters are going to do about it. Are they going to fall for
the absurd argument that John McCain -- arguably the national politician who has received the
most favorable media coverage over the past decade, if not longer -- is being unfairly treated by
reporters who still haven't given him any serious scrutiny? Are they going to cower in the face
of right-wing bullying as they have so many times in the past?
It's hard to imagine that they won't. But there have been some encouraging signs this week.
Time's Carney seems legitimately
irritated that the Republican vice-presidential nominee refuses to face reporters. And
colleague Joe Klein -- who has, in the past, been awfully kind to McCain --
urged fellow reporters not to back down in the face of the barrage of criticism from the
right:
There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized.
But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that
Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued
pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq
is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such
things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.
The next two months will constitute a test for reporters: If they fall for the idea that they're
treating unfairly a candidate who has long referred to them as his "base," what won't they fall
for? If they won't stand up to these attacks, what will they stand up to?
The National Football League, NBC Sports, and Adobe have announced their collaboration on
Sunday Night Football Extra -- full-length live streams of NFL Sunday night football
games.
ABC, CBS and NBC will simultaneously broadcast “Stand Up To Cancer,” a one-hour,
commercial-free telecast to raise funds for cancer research. Tags: wallpaper samples Bookmark to:
See the original post here: ABC, CBS & NBC’s Tri-Pa...
During an interview with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis on the September 5 edition of MSNBC's
Morning Joe in which Davis touted Sen. John McCain as differing from his party in his
support for immigration reform, at no point did NBC News political director Chuck Todd note that
McCain reversed himself on a key component of immigration reform, aligning himself more closely
with the base of his party.
Todd asked Davis if he is "worried the numbers are showing that Senator McCain is performing
worse among Hispanics than President Bush," and added moments later: "He is not getting votes
that his record deserves." Davis replied, in part: "Look what we did as a party. For the last two
years, we've told Hispanic voters that we don't want immigration from the southern border. ...
There's been a nativist discussion in this country that has hurt our party's ability to attract
Hispanic voters." Todd then asked, "Anything to change it?" Davis replied: "The only one in our
party who can do that and set it right is John McCain." However, at no point during the
discussion did Todd mention that, under pressure from the Republican base, McCain reversed
himself on a key component of immigration reform, and nowsays that "we've got to secure the
borders first" -- a position at odds with his prior assertion that border security could not
be disaggregated from other aspects of comprehensive immigration reform without being rendered
ineffective. A November 4, 2007, Associated Press article reporting on McCain's reversal noted
that McCain now "emphasizes securing the borders first," and also quoted McCain stating: "I
understand why you would call it a, quote, shift. ... I say it is a lesson learned about what the
American people's priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders." McCain also
stated during a January 30 Republican
presidential primary debate that
he would not support the immigration reform bill he co-sponsored with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
if it came to a vote on the Senate floor.
In a March 3 New York Timesarticle, Elisabeth Bumiller wrote, "Senator John McCain likes to present
himself as the candidate of the 'Straight Talk Express' who does not pander to voters or change
his positions with the political breeze. But the fine print of his record in the Senate indicates
that he has been a lot less consistent on some of his signature issues than he has presented
himself to be so far in his presidential campaign." On immigration, Bumiller wrote:
Mr. McCain has also moved from his original position on immigration. In 2005, he joined forces
with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to co-sponsor an overhaul of the
nation's immigration laws. Although the legislation included toughening border security, its
center was a provision that would have provided a pathway to citizenship for many of the 12
million illegal immigrants in the United States.
Conservatives immediately branded the bill as amnesty and fired steadily at Mr. McCain. After
seeing his campaign and his fund-raising efforts derail last summer -- which his advisers
attributed in large part to his position on immigration -- Mr. McCain now says that he got the
message from voters. These days he speaks almost exclusively about border security, although he
does say that it is not possible to deport 12 million illegal immigrants and that he would never
deport the mother of a soldier serving in Iraq.
Additionally, in a June 20 Politicopiece,
journalist Gebe Martinez reported on McCain's reversal on immigration:
McCain, the Arizona senator, dismayed Latinos last year when he stepped back from his immigration
bill that would have tightened the borders and legalized undocumented immigrants. As boos and
hisses from angry Republican conservatives grew louder at campaign events, he switched course and
vowed to "first" secure the borders. Were his failed bill to come up again, he would not vote for
it, he said.
[...]
Trying to regain Latino support, McCain has chastised Republicans who stoke the fires of the
immigration at election time. And at a private meeting with Chicago-area Latinos last week, he
promised to push for a comprehensive immigration bill.
"It sounds like he's trying to have it both ways, and it's not convincing anyone," said Frank
Sharry, who also was involved in immigration bill negotiations when he headed the National
Immigration Forum.
This is not the McCain Hispanics thought they knew. Even after the 2001 terrorist attacks placed
an emphasis on national security, McCain's speeches to Latino audiences and on the Senate floor
prioritized the compassionate side of the immigration argument.
He understood that border security "first" means "deportation only" in the eyes of immigrant
activists, and he championed a broader approach.
As the Senate mulled immigration in 2006, McCain often stood in the Capitol's corridors, pounding
his fist in the air, arguing that border enforcement would not work without simultaneously
penalizing employers who hire workers illegally, creating a temporary worker program and finding
a way to bring 12 million illegal immigrants "out of the shadows" of society.
"It won't work! It won't work!" he protested of suggestions to do enforcement first. The stool
cannot stand on one leg.
As Media Mattersnoted, on the
February 14 edition of Morning Joe, Todd asserted that McCain is a "moderate,"
even though McCain has reversed his position on immigration and other issues to align himself with the base of
the Republican Party.
From the September 5 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:
TODD: Rick, last night -- last night in Senator McCain's speech, I saw him use the word "Latina."
He was talking about a Latina woman, trying to -- it was the first time all week that I had seen
your party even remotely talk about the Hispanics or even reach out to the Hispanic vote. Are you
worried the numbers are showing that Senator McCain is performing worse among Hispanics than
President Bush? And maybe this is a party problem.
DAVIS: Well, sure --
TODD: But how do you carry Colorado and New Mexico and Nevada with underperforming President Bush
on Hispanics?
DAVIS: Oh, look, we don't want to underperform anybody on Hispanics. John McCain is -- for his
entire career --
TODD: Well, that's right. There's no question his record --
DAVIS: -- has gotten more Hispanic votes than any other candidate in the country.
TODD: He's not getting votes that his record deserves.
DAVIS: But look what we did. Look what we --
TODD: In this case --
DAVIS: -- did as a party. For the last two years, we've told Hispanic voters that we don't want
immigration from the southern border, that we don't -- and, you know what? The message, you can't
bifurcate it. It's not just legal immigration and illegal immigration.
TODD: They're not hearing it, and that's been the problem. They're not hearing that.
DAVIS: There's been a nativist discussion in this country that has hurt our party's ability to
attract Hispanic voters.
TODD: Anything to change it?
DAVIS: The only one in our party who can do that and set it right is John McCain.
TODD: Why didn't he talk about it more last night or through this convention?
DAVIS: Well, look, I mean, we had some great people at the convention talking about it -- Tommy
Espinoza, who is Jimmy McCain's godfather, someone who John McCain has done all kinds of good
works with. You know, a former CEO of La Raza was a speaker at our convention. He's not what you
call a rock-ribbed Republican.
You look at our speakers at our convention and we had a lot of people who are not Republicans
come and talk to our convention. And I think the message that our convention gave is the kind of
message that the McCain administration is going to give, and that is party labels don't give you
access. What you -- gives you access is whether you're going to put your country first, set aside
your own partisan interests, and do good for the country.
MINNEAPOLIS (AdAge.com) -- This week's ratings race was all about who would be best
carrying the football. Both the pigskin and what's known as "the football," the leather briefcase
containing classified nuclear war plans, which is always near the U.S. president. Both versions of
football-carrying were carried by NBC last night, as the network kicked off the NFL season with the
Super Bowl-champion New York Giants beating Washington. Winning Washington's White House was the
focus of what followed: Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention
in St. Paul.
Marisa Guthrie / Broadcasting &
Cable: Exclusive: News Execs Fire Back
at GOP Media Attacks — CNN's Jon Klein, NBC News' Steve Capus
dismiss criticism of Palin coverage as stale political strategy. — After
several primetime speakers at this week's Republican National Convention unleashed a barrage of
attacks on the news media …
NZL GRIMWOOD Nicholas Group A: 4.60 Group B: 2.25 Group C: 0.90 Total: 7.75 ok, im just gonna
upload the competitors, hoping that the freaking NBC don't erase them anymore
On the Web, it's
Obama
in a landslide. But on TV, McCain and Obama are close, very close. Obama's acceptance speech
at the Democratic National Convention drew 38.4 million viewers last week, according to Nielsen.
But according to preliminary numbers,
it looks like McCain is getting 10% more viewers in the 55 biggest TV markets.
This comes after Sarah Palin pulled ahead of Obama in the
Nielsens once PBS's audience was added in to the network and cable numbers.
Of course, it didn't hurt McCain that his speech came on the NFL's opening
night and audiences on NBC were fed directly into his RNC address. We'll get a more exact
number when Nielsen issues the final TV numbers later today.
So far, the TV numbers out of the conventions look incredibly good, for Republicans:
Obama: 38.4 million Palin: 40 million
On YouTube, Obama's acceptance speech is becoming a hit, racking up 678,876 views so far.
Chris Elliott went from NBC gofer to semi-fame as a juvenile oddball on "Letterman," but
never tasted true Hollywood glory. Why the former "Get a Life" star may be his generation's most
underappreciated comic genius.
Late in 1980, Chris Elliott was working the admission booth at Rockefeller Center's observation
deck when David Letterman walked up with his mother, Dorothy, and asked to buy two tickets. Earlier
that summer, Letterman had been the host of his own daring and funny NBC morning show that had
proven popular with television critics but not with viewers. And though the network, based in
Rockefeller Center, had canceled the show after only a few months on the air, it had kept Letterman
under...
Maybe it was the bad economy. Maybe it's the back-to-school season or an
attempt to generate more interest ahead of Christmas shopping period. In any case, Microsoft
(NSDQ: MSFT) hopes to see a sales boost now that its XBox console is now cheaper
than rivals Nintendo Wii and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Playstation3, FT
reports. Microsoft, which consistently ranks third in console sales behind its two rivals, is
cutting prices in the U.S. and Japan. In the U.S., Microsoft's 360 Arcade console, which doesn't
have a hard drive, is getting a 29 percent price cut—from $279.99 to $199.99.
By comparison, the Wii sells for $249.99. Microsoft's 60Gb hard drive model will now go for
$299.99, which is being lowered by $50. That makes it $100 cheaper than a similar PlayStation3.
However, price isn't everything, as the 60Gb model doesn't have its Blu-ray drive and Wi-Fi
capabilities. The high-end, high-def Xbox 360 Elite, which has a 120Gb hard drive and wireless
controller, will retail for $399. The lighter price tag is also designed to complement XBox's
moves on the content side. Earlier this summer, XBox, which has roughly 12 million users,
struck deals with Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and NBC Universal.