TV NEWS & VIEWS

CNN Is Worried About Facebook

CNN is more concerned about competition from social networks than other cable news networks, CNN U.S. president Jonathan Klein said here Wednesday. "The competition I'm really afraid of are social networking sites," he said in a keynote interview at Bloomberg BusinessWeek's Media Summit New York. They provide "an alternative that threatens to pull people away from us."

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CBS Boss Threatens Affiliates

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves put two groups on notice Tuesday that they will be paying the network more in the future than they have in the past.  Advertisers will pay more in the form of higher prices for commercials. And the network’s local TV affiliates will pay more too, in the form of substantial portions of the retransmission consent fees they receive from cable operators--or they will risk losing their network affiliations.

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TV Revenue Tea Leaves

Expect local television and radio revenues to continue their contraction until next year and then inch up for the next three years. All this will occur as local digital revenues will steadily and sharply rise.

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Guilty Plea in Letterman Extortion

Robert Halderman, the man accused of trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan and will serve six months in jail.

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WTHR-TV's Jim Tellus Dies

Indianapolis - This is a sad day for all of us at Channel 13. We are mourning the death of our president and general manager Jim Tellus. Jim died of an apparent heart attack Monday night while attending a business meeting in Ohio.

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Cincy TV Weather Wars Get Nasty

Have you seen Channel 9’s  promo directly attacking Channel 12? During the big Oscars telecast last night, Ch 9 aired a spot criticizing “the so-called Weather Authority” (their words, not mine) for not having its own live radar. It’s a direct assault on another TV station that I’ve seldom seen in my 25 years on the beat.

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Local Talent Staying Local

Anchors, station executives and agents speak of a landmark shift in local television. An increasing sentiment among on-air talent, burned by layoffs and corporate instability the last few years, sees them opting for the bird-in-hand nature of their current station-even if greater exposure and pay may await in a larger market.

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Jack Of All Trades

At the same time, (WUSA-TV's) Scott Broom says, "one guy with a handheld camera is a lot less intimidating to a reluctant interview subject than a full crew. I find people are a lot more willing to talk and share information when they're confronted with a one-man band."

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Erin Andrews Tweets

ESPN's Erin Andrews began tweeting Sunday and already has more than 2,000 follwers. "For my first tweet, I thought I would show a shot of my first real bruise from practice with Maks! Having fun!!"

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Veteran WCCO Reporter Dies

WCCO-TV reporter Darcy Pohland was found dead in her Minneapolis home today, the station is reporting. She was 48. A 20-year veteran of the station, Pohland was the intrepid quadriplegic who never let being in a wheelchair keep her away from a good story or her beloved Gopher sports.

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ABC Talks With Amanpour

Still searching for a permanent host for “This Week,” ABC News is in talks with Christiane Amanpour, the CNN foreign correspondent known more for globe-trotting reporting than talking politics within the Beltway.

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WPIX-TV Reporter Hit by Car

WPIX/Ch. 11 reporter Allison Kaden was hit by a car Thursday morning outside a Toyota dealership in Englewood, N.J., while reporting on the carmaker's troubles. The incident occurred off-camera while she was reporting for the "PIX Morning News." "She was taken to Englewood Hospital with minor injuries and was treated and released," the station said Thursday in a statement.

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CNN Has Rating Problems

The cable network's prime-time lineup of Campbell Brown, Larry King and Anderson Cooper continued to struggle big time. CNN's prime-time audience fell 54% to 534,000 viewers, and the number of adults 25-54 was off 57% to 147,000 people compared with February 2009, according to Nielsen. All three of the hosts hit new lows in viewers. CNN finished well behind Fox News and also trailed MSNBC in the ratings race

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The Campbell Brown Problem

CNN is facing a sticky situation if anchor Campbell Brown's husband -- former Bush White House adviser Dan Senor -- decides to run as a Republican against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The network will have to decide if Brown can keep hosting her 8 p.m. nightly news show -- or if she would be compromised by the conflict.

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Amy Jacobson Re-invents Herself

Amy Jacobson, the controversial reporter who landed a radio news job after her Chicago television career blew up in 2007, is about to reinvent herself as a radio talk show host. No one is supposed to know it yet, but Jacobson is close to accepting an offer to join conservative news/talk WIND-AM (560) as co-host of Big John Howell’s morning show from 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays.

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