How to cut the cable cord and watch TV now

How to cut the cable cord and watch TV now

Fri, Aug 23 2013

By Mitch Lipka

(Reuters) – The monthly cable and Internet bill for the Adrienne Capollupo’s Roanoke, Virginia, family had reached $150 when they decided to cut the cord – the one that runs to the television set. Now Capollupo, 37, estimates that she saves $100 a month, and misses little of what she and her family of three care to watch. She and her husband, Chris Pohlad-Thomas, still get their “Downton Abbey” fix, though they wait a day after new episodes air before they can watch them. Daughter Sophia, 2, gets all the Sesame Street she can handle. Read more of this post

Wonder Material Ignites Scientific Gold Rush; Atom-Thin Graphene Beats Steel, Silicon; A Patent “Land Rush”

Updated August 23, 2013, 10:31 p.m. ET

Wonder Material Ignites Scientific Gold Rush

Atom-Thin Graphene Beats Steel, Silicon; A Patent “Land Rush”

GAUTAM NAIK

Graphene is an extremely thin, strong and flexible material derived from the graphite found in everyday pencils. Scientists are racing to exploit those attributes for an array of new applications. WSJ’s Gautam Naik reports. Photo: Daniella Zalcman. CAMBRIDGE, England—A substance 200 times stronger than steel yet as thin as an atom has ignited a global scientific gold rush, sending companies and universities racing to understand, patent and profit from the skinnier, more glamorous cousin of ordinary pencil lead. Read more of this post

Web-Based Apps Pose Tricky Problem for Saudi Monitors

Web-Based Apps Pose Tricky Problem for Saudi Monitors

By Matt Smith on 11:31 am August 23, 2013.
Dubai. Saudi Arabia is seeking to tighten control over web-based applications that offer a freedom to communicate that is impossible for most Saudis in the real world, and may even seek to ban such apps altogether. Saudi Arabia remains a relatively closed society; gender mixing is restricted to a tight circle of relatives and family friends, and direct criticism of the ruling family or powerful conservative clergy is frowned upon. Morality police patrol the kingdom’s few public spaces such as shopping malls to enforce rigid social rules. Cyberspace presents considerably more complicated challenges than a shopping center, however, and Saudi authorities are alarmed by the unfettered contact that the Internet allows, including for activists who spread news and information not covered by state media. Read more of this post

Pandora Should Watch the Throne; Company’s Spending Plans Betray Fears Over Apple

Updated August 23, 2013, 4:43 p.m. ET

Pandora Should Watch the Throne

Company’s Spending Plans Betray Fears Over Apple

MIRIAM GOTTFRIED

Pandora Media P -12.90% may be girding for a fight. Or at least investors seem to be reading it that way. The Internet-radio company reported quarterly earnings and revenue late Thursday that beat expectations. Mobile revenue almost doubled year over year. And content costs as a share of revenue fell. Even so, Pandora’s shares tumbled 13% Friday. A big reason: The company tightened the range of its third-quarter and full-year projections due to increasing investment. Pandora now expects full-year earnings to be between zero and five cents a share, compared with an earlier projection of a loss of two cents up to a profit of eight cents. Read more of this post

Google’s investment arm and TPG have led a $258m investment in Uber, the taxi-hailing app that has both delighted customers andenraged regulators around the world

August 23, 2013 11:58 pm

Google investment helps fuel Uber

By Tim Bradshaw and Richard Waters in San Francisco

Google’s investment arm and TPG, the private equity group, have led a $258m investment in Uber, the taxi-hailing app that has both delighted customers andenraged regulators around the world. The move values the three-year-old company at around $3.5bn, according to one person familiar with the deal, vaulting Uber into the ranks of the most valuable private tech companies alongside the likes of Airbnb, the travel company, Square, the mobile payments firm, and Spotify, the digital music service. Read more of this post

Newspapers and radio still on growth path in Malaysia

Updated: Saturday August 24, 2013 MYT 9:09:10 AM

Newspapers and radio still on growth path

BY M. HAFIDZ MAHPAR AND EUGENE MAHALINGAM
STARBIZ@THESTAR.COM.MY

TRADITIONAL media, namely newspapers and radio, are still the advertisers’ preferred choice. They are the only media monitored by Nielsen − other than pay TV − to register advertising expenditure (adex) growth last month. According to Nielsen, newspaper and radio adex in July grew 4.1% and 12.4% respectively compared with a year earlier, while ad spend for pay TV surged 74.2%. The increase in share of voice for pay TV in 2013 was partly due to additional channels being monitored, according to Nielsen. Read more of this post

Netflix’s New ‘My Profile’ Feature Means Fewer Outrageously Bad Recommendations

Netflix’s New ‘My Profile’ Feature Means Fewer Outrageously Bad Recommendations

By Aaron Pressman | The Exchange – 14 hours ago

Netflix (NFLX) subscribers get annoyed when their kids flip on the TV and see a suggested list of raunchy comedies alongside rows of more-appropriate fare. Or when the suggestions mix PBS’s pre-school cartoon “Caillou” with AMC’s drug-dealer saga “Breaking Bad.” But don’t worry – it drives Todd Yellin, Netflix’s vice president of product innovation, crazy, too. The mix-ups happen when Netflix’s automated algorithms attempt to analyze the viewing patterns of a whole household of people watching different kinds of shows through one account. Mom and Dad’s late-night “Scandal” binge gets thrown in with a tween’s “Cheetah Girls” fixation. The online programming service’s new profiles feature should help end the confusion, Yellin says. Starting this month, U.S. subscribers can set up different profiles for each viewer. Remember to hit the icon for the proper person before selecting a show, and the suggestions algorithms will suddenly seem much smarter. Read more of this post

Intel Media opens offices in LA, New York in TV push

Intel Media opens offices in LA, New York in TV push

3:22pm EDT

By Noel Randewich

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Intel Corp’s media arm is opening offices in New York and Los Angeles as the company pushes ahead with an Internet television service that it plans to launch later this year, an Intel spokesman said on Friday. Setting up shop in Los Angeles’ Santa Monica and New York’s Nolita brings Intel closer to the major TV networks and production studios that the world’s biggest chipmaker must strike deals with to gather content for its live and on-demand service, Intel spokesman Jon Carvill said. Read more of this post

Why Is the Golden Age of Television So Dark?

Why Is the Golden Age of Television So Dark?

By Megan McArdle – Aug 23, 2013

The Official Blog Spouse and I are nothing if not loyal members of our television-watching demographic. “The Wire” is our favorite show of all time. We watch “Boardwalk Empire,” “Game of Thrones” and “Homeland” together; I also watch “Mad Men” by myself, as Peter finds it too dull. We are working our way through “Breaking Bad.” I really do like all these shows, and yet, when I watch this list I have to ask myself: Why does almost everything we watch involve criminals and violence? No, not just involve them, but elevate them to the center of the story? Read more of this post

Inside Comcast’s $30 Billion TV Bet; NBCU’s Steve Burke Has Weeded Out Executives and Scrubbed the Culture

Updated August 23, 2013, 7:59 p.m. ET

Inside Comcast’s $30 Billion TV Bet

NBCU’s Steve Burke Has Weeded Out Executives and Scrubbed the Culture

MERISSA MARR and CHRISTOPHER S. STEWART

NBCU Chief Steve Burke, shown in Sun Valley, Idaho, last month, has purged senior executives and sought to scrub competing fiefdoms.

Cameras popped as celebrities stepped out of tinted-window vehicles at a Manhattan ballroom where E! cable network was hosting an event for advertisers. Kim Kardashian preened on the red carpet while Ryan Seacrest chatted with fans. But Steve Burke, the CEO of E’s parent, NBCUniversal, was decidedly not in a partying mood. “I want to kill myself,” he said before ducking into an elevator. “They tried to get me to do the red carpet, but I said ‘no’,” he laughed. When the doors opened, a woman asked him to pose for a picture with the Olympian swimmer Ryan Lochte. “You’re a good sport to put up with all of these suits,” he told Mr. Lochte, leaning in for the photo. In the two years since Comcast Corp.CMCSA -0.38% bought NBCUniversal, Mr. Burke has shown a zeal for shaking things up with little sentimentality, weeding out some of the company’s most well-known personalities in the process.

Read more of this post

ESPN President: Wage Stagnation, Not Technology, Is the Biggest Threat to the TV Business

ESPN President: Wage Stagnation, Not Technology, Is the Biggest Threat to the TV Business

By Derek Thompson

BRISTOL, CONN. – When John Skipper, the president of ESPN, wants to worry about the future of the most valuable media company in the world — not just think anxiously, but actively worry — he doesn’t focus on Google trying to buy exclusive rights to the NFL. He doesn’t think about Apple going head-to-head with the cable companies. He doesn’t think about CBS, or NBC, or FS1. If there’s any acronym that truly scares him, it’s CBO. Read more of this post

Cablevision Clock Ticking as Paulson Sees Sale: Real M&A

Cablevision Clock Ticking as Paulson Sees Sale: Real M&A

Time may be running out for Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) to find a buyer.

With its highest valuation in two years, the $4.8 billion cable operator founded four decades ago by Charles Dolan should take advantage of a surge in cable matchmaking to sell, according to Macquarie Group Ltd. Bethpage, New York-based Cablevision jumped 42 percent in just eight weeks as speculation heated up about deals in the industry and shareholders Paulson & Co. and Gamco Investors Inc. said a sale is likely. Read more of this post