Slashdot Mirror
'NBC Nightly News' to Be Shown on Internet
Feltope writes "NBC News said Monday that it would begin making its "NBC Nightly News" broadcast available for free on the Internet starting next week.
Past broadcasts will also be archived at the http://www.nightlynews.msnbc.com/ Web site, the network said.
It's not necessarily news on demand, though. The newscast, aired at 6:30 p.m. on many NBC stations on the East Coast, won't be available on the Web until after 10 p.m. ET.
'Many of our viewers tell me they often miss the broadcast because they're not at home or tending to their busy lives and families," anchor Brian Williams said. "This new service reflects the fact that the pace of our lives has changed.'
"
Guess the addiction to the TV is slowly being replaced by addiction to the internet?
Why watch a whole news show when you can simply fire up the 'ol internets and check CNN?
This must be their lame attempt to encourage a younger audience to watch the evening news. Statistics show that the vast majority of people who watch the evening news are in their 50s or older.
They should change the format and get a much younger anchor if they really want to attract a different demographic. Old-fashioned news doesn't become new just because you can watch it on Internet.
Using the Internet to watch a network newscast is like going to a newsstand and getting USA Today.
"This is the next logical step for 'Nightly' and NBC News," said Capus. "As the leader on the broadcast side, and with our partnership in the leading online news and information site, MSNBC.com, it couldn't be a better fit. We know that just as fast as technology is changing, people's lives are changing too, and they expect our newscasts to keep up with those changes. With this announcement we are doing just that."
It was the next logical step four years ago. It should have been done two years before that. We're supposed to just nod our heads and say, "oh, right, technology has finally caught up!" Blah. ASF movies were floating around in the 200MB range (2+ hours) on IRC in the late 1990s. Why couldn't news broadcasts be put out (~45 mins) in the same format for less than 100MB?
I don't care at all personally as I like to get my news in a readable format from multiple sources on multiple continents but I just don't see why it couldn't have been done 2 to 5 years ago.
Little too late IMHO.
Not exactly cutting edge, ;)
in Ireland have been streaming and archiving their news broadcasts and political programs for years now, surely shouldn't the US be ahead of countries like Ireland?
The quality of RTE's streams are not great but their watchable.
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
Why the delay? Broadcast it, encode it, and make it available. I should be able to see the 6p broadcast news online at 7p. If I wanted to wait until 10p, I'd watch the 10p broadcast news...
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I have often wished that more companies would do this, it would be more entertaining to watch the news on my PSP during my commute than to read papers. What format are they offering? How big are the files?
Website
If you strip out the commercials you can watch it in under 20 minutes too.
Hardly anybody is watching it for free over their air or cable TV. Why should this get anyone else to watch it? Their ratings keep sliding into a black hole for good reasons...
Good reasons eh? And what's better? 24 hour non-stop politicized news coverage? The polarized blogsphere?
Network news is dying a slow death for a number of reasons that may or may not be correctable -- but I don't see any reason to root for it's demise. You can't seriously tell me that we are better off for having CNN/Fox News/et. all. I'm starting to agree with Jon Stewart where those guys are concerned.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The german Tagesschau, the most popular daily newsshow offers this service for quite a while now. You can see the shows live or from the archive.
A quick search shows NBC "Night News" to be rated ahead of their competitors and also having just over nine million viewers. That is a tad more than "hardly anybody."
http://www.busyweather.com/
I thought they cancelled "Nightly News". Seriously. Who has time to sit around for half an hour when you get the same information in thirty seconds on the Internet?
"get a much younger anchor"
You know, the sad truth is that you are exactly right. Fox news has gone that route, and a significant portion of the email they receive on the "Fox and Friends" morning show has to do with whether or not the young anchorwoman is wearing a skirt. Now half of the anchors on CNN Headline news look like teenagers.
Aargh.
All I want is content, and I know there are still places to find it, but sometimes I feel that soon all we'll be able to get from the $media is Ken and Barbie spoon-feeding us pablum.
Using plain ol' text since 1968
Before I leave, I should mention that I have my doubts as to whether browser applications like Firefox and Konqueror will work out of the box.
After all, even for Google, which is seen to support open standards and Linux, had to be asked to provide support to Firefox and Konqueror when it came to Google Maps. For companies like Yahoo, their Launchcast service is not available for folks using Linux and Firefox or Konqueror. This is after more than 5 years of [Launchcast's availability. These are sad times indeed. I hope I am wrong.
Why watch it on the Internet? Simple, no commercials. And if they do it right we will get to keep the feed while they are at commercial, just to see what they do....
[Ron Burgundy Voice]I'm gonna punch you in the ovary, that's what I'm gonna do. A straight shot. Right to the babymaker.[/Ron Burgundy Voice]
Free as in 'chock full of ads'? MSNBC.com is famous for all the annoying ways they've found to slow down their site with ads. I don't have high hopes for this.
I get all my news from the internet. If I'm looking for news, though, I'm not going to the networks' sites. If I wanted that, I'd just turn on the TV. I already have my sources for internet news, and I'm really not interested in this half-assed attempt to win me over. People still think they can slap their old way of doing things up on the internet, and it will be magically fresh and innovative. Not so much.
By "hardly anybody," do you mean NBC's 9,200,000 viewers ? Or the 24,000,000 combined that watch national evening news on the major networks?
Neither does this. This is the NBC National News. Generally, in most locales, you have 1/2 hour of local news starting before the national news. After the local news program, you have the National News for another 1/2 hour. That's what is being offered for download -- the national news.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=165283&cid=137 90589
Now just get it up on iTunes and I'll be even happier.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
BBC News has allowed you to watch the news and various events live or archived on their site for some time now. Unlike CNN (via shitty Real OnePass) it's free too.
Coincidence in the timing with the release of the video iPod? I guess NBC knows a bandwagon when they see one.
Of course such speculation is only relevant if NBC will be releasing their shows in a compatible format.
I went to the city because I wished to live without deliberation.
...fail, balanced, and unafraid.
an ill wind that blows no good
I think it is more about information when you want it. Being chained to a timeslot hurts distribution of content. This is the same reason DVDs of television shows are so popular. I want to watch it when I want.
Not that I'm interested in watching a news broadcast on the Internet, but it does hint that the current media conglomerants are finally starting to, however dimly, "get it"
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
While I realize I am in the minority here, this is nice to hear for those of us without televisions at home. Watching the news is one thing I miss, even if I may disagree w/some of the politics... Sure, I can always read the news on the web, but the radio/TV form of media does let accomplish more at once (since you aren't chained to a desk).
...the networks still have distribution agreements with local affiliates.
The networks would LOVE to be able to distribute their content on their own; MSNBC is an example of doing just that, and eventually the day will come when the local stations have to pay for the network feed (some CBS stations already pay for network).
Television is changing, but I don't think it's been changing for the better. The internet doesn't add much to the change, just quickens the pace. The programming is still crap.
Should be something like: "NBC News wakes up and realizes that this thing called the 'Internet' is more than just a fad."
This could also be used for other good things such as in the classroom. A teacher might load up a broadcast for students to watch or could download it the night before (unless only available as streaming) and burn it to play the next day. Maybe I would like to save a peticular days news because something of importance was on and I want to keep it for future viewing or memories. To watch it just to watch it on the internet, it will probably fail. I think I would get tired of it after the second or third "buffering" pause. Its just yet another reason I bought a DVR.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
That's nice, but will it be in a format I can actually watch? Or is it gonna be some crappy microsoft drm format?
you are correct, sir. every time i somehow watch part of a news program i feel like killing myself. the only times i ever DO see it, are: 1) when i'm back home and my 'rents put it on, or 2) when there is something crazy going on (i.e. katrina) the reasons are simple. why would anyone want to watch idiots talk for a few seconds about things they have no knowledge about (except what's on their cue card) when they can read what specialists all over the internet have to say? news on tv makes money by scaring the "oprah crowd" -- that's what i call people who do or don't watch oprah, but seem to fall into that completely-sucked-into-their-tv group of people that plagues the states. news on the internet makes money by making real content available to the smaller audiences that care about it. don't get me wrong, there is loads of crap news online, but i can check /. or digg to get tech news here and i know i'm going to get tech news. i don't want some botox-laden cokehead speaking in perfect florida diction (even rolling her R's for the occasional spanish phrase) about ipods and using the wrong terminology.
-- lol pwned
Second, a web-page has the same built-in layout as a newspaper (ooooh! that looks interesting - click), not the serial presentation of TV; plus the ability to switch from text to film-clips, active graphics, sound, etc.
So why do I want to watch network news over the Internet?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
"Many of our viewers tell me they often miss the broadcast because they're not at home or tending to their busy lives and families"
This is what TiVo or a VCR are for.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You know, they used to sell this really neat thing - you can't find it in stores any more, but it allowed you-all to watch what you want, when you want to - for FREE. I think it was called a VCR ... but its been so long since I've seen one ...
Seriously, try buying a VCR nowadays - they're more expensive than dvd players.
You mean they let her take it off while she's on air? Wow, talk about doing anything to boost the ratings .... Gee, I've gotta start getting my news off the TV again instead of the ne[tt].
Am I the only one who read that as, "...actor Brian Williams said." ?
Pretty much, since that leaves about 300,000,000 not watching any of them.
There are 3 major arguments:
A billion people watched the World Series this year and the entire world (2 billion plus) routinely watches the Olympics. How these numbers are calculated is deceptive.
If the TV networks ever had to provide hard stats the way reputable websites have to, the advertising agencies would be out of work.
Much advertising is basically a scam game, but once it is entrenched there are a lot of people that play along with the game because many jobs depend on it.
No kidding. I'd love to just bang the bajeezus out of most of those Fox anchorwomen. They may be bat-shit crazy in their political views, but that just adds to their weird hotness.
The Internet already allows people to communicate using an classic, information-rich medium known as "ASCII". Try this experiment, sometime. Count the number of words in a a typical TEEVEE presentation of the news. Now pick up a dead tree, and count the number of words allocated to the same subject. Long live text!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Al-Qaeda Headquarters?
People want to know.
Regards,
Kilgore Trout, C.I.O.
The Candian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has been showing their National nightly newscasts for years. NBC does it and they're adjusting to the new audience? How about 3 or 4 years late and reactive instead of proactive? That's how long I've been watching my CBC newscasts on the web. BTW - 'The National' is available shortly after the easter broadcast, or around 8pm EST daily.
We should give NBC kudo's however - it's a step in the right direction.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
TV news isn't the same without the ad for Uncle Bob's Used Trucks - "On the corner of Main and Central - Right on the Auto Mile!"
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Actually, your a bit behind the times.
http://www.nakednews.com/
liqbase
The main reasons I can think of are:
a.) It's easier to skip over commercials on a download (they already hate TiVo because of this)
and (probably more importantly):
b.) It's harder to track viewership, and ad revenue is based on viewership. Sure, you can track who downloaded it, but it may be more difficult to track who actually watched it, especially if they download it and then share it with their friends.
And I suppose the cynical could at a third reason:
c.) Because content providers automatically see any new technology as a threat (see: VCRs, Napster, etc.)
And this is related to offering the news on the internet how?
There's no place like ~/
To use MSN Video, you need to install free software
MSN Video works with Microsoft© Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft© Media Player 10, and Macromedia Flash 7. To download these free software applications, click the links below and follow the on-screen instructions.
-- Boycott Shell
Canada's CTV News has made their complete daily broadcast available on the web for well over a year.
In soviet America, only old people watch the "news".
If it has advertising on it then it is not free, it is just the tv stations finally airing a broadcast in a different format.
I wish they did this with every tv show. They could even charge their advertisers more money for ads. Instead of saying "Hey we think the people who watch Smallville will like commercials about Axe Deoderant, we can make a potential viewer register, ask him what kind of advertising he would like and then direct advertise for him. Pay up more money"...this I wouldn't mind so then I could get commercials I want (like I really want to see tampon commercials).
I wish they would make it more direct, i mean four hours is a lot. I could understand half hour, at most.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
It's harder to track viewership
How do you figure? If anything, I'd have thought it'd be easier to get more acurate figures than the current Nielson system, which is essentially "Ask a tiny percentage of the potential audience what they were watching and try to extrapolate".
All I want is content, and I know there are still places to find it
Fox News...Fair and Balanced
The same reason radio stations stopped streaming commercials:
They have to pay actors in commercials a lot extra in order to show the commercials on an additional medium.
All this time I thought only backhoes were killing the internet.
"I now inform you that you are too far from reality."
The reported number-of-viewers might be a scam game, but every company's individual analysis of "if I pay $X for advertising, I expect to get $X + $Y in sales profit" can't possibly be a scam.
Sweet! Now it's only a matter of time before they release the entire series on DVD. Me I can't wait to get Season One -- David Brinkley, John Chancellor, the best the absolute best.
Not to mention the epic storylines that year: Vietnam, Apollo 13, the Beatles breaking up (holy crap! who saw that coming?), the Kent State tie-in. Must-see classics, every ep. Frankly the shows gone down the past couple of years, but can you blame them? The set the bar too high, nobody can write like that anymore.
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
I'm 29, and I think Brian Williams is a fantastic anchor. I also saw him as a guest on The Daily Show twice. The impression I got is that he's incredibly sharp and has a very quick wit. The first time, he went toe to toe with Jon Stewart and they were both hilarious. The second time was much more serious, and I was quite impressed with what Brian had been through covering Hurricane Katrina from inside the Super Dome and around New Orleans. Brian is no talking head. He could be replaced by a Gideon Yago type anchor, but the quality of the coverage would surely suffer. Making their newscasts available online is a good step to increasing their viewer base without pandering to meaningless Hollywood gossip, or other gimmicks.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
All I want is content...
Unfortunately, I know of no news program on television that really displays such a thing. Sure, there may be some real news here or there, but overall, content is not the important thing here. I personally consider loading CNN's webpage as amusement. I look at it just to know what other people see and think is "news". The current big headline is about a flu pandemic. Ohhhh, scary. If yesterday wasn't halloween, a headline like this might be more effective.
Regarding the age of the anchor people, that is a tough one. Younger people do not consider the words of older people as really authoritative. This is a trend that has been going on for about 30 years plus or minus. My guess is that technology (gadgets) has everything to do with it.
Why should a younger person trust another when they can't even record a program on their VCR?
Thats an older example, but still relevant. I heard of a study from 12+ years ago, that said that the lower your education the more likely you are to be able to program your VCR. The highschool dropout was the most likely, and the PhD was the least likely.
Back to news. I believe that there is a difference between news and events. Events are simply things that happen, like me typing this on a keyboard. News is current information about events that is relevant to someone. By having that new information, someone can think about and/or do something different vs not having that information.
At least where I live, the local news almost always has the "random death and crime" segment. Where they go locally and across the nation and world talking about how somebody might have killed somebody, robbed them, died in a car pileup, or something similar.
Those my friends are purely events, not news. There is nothing anybody can do with that information. Especially when one considers that crime is at an all time low at this time in the US. In the grand picture, those events are even less significant than they could have been, but its still a favorite segment of the televised news.
I'm not sure how to end this rant, so I'll keep rambling. I also read during the 2004 election, that the people that were most informed about the election were people that got their news from places like the "Daily Show". Its a comedy/parody of news with a very sarcastic slant, but if people are getting more relevant news from a source that is not even news when compared to the real news -- to me that says volumes.
Article is a troll for an M$ only 'news' feed.
I know they are talking about giving it for free, but what about also doing a podcast? Personally, I would rather have a podcast so that it comes down automatically than manually downloading it from their website everyday... Besides, podcasts have the coolness factor to them... ;-)
As long as the tiny percentage is chosen at random and adjusted slightly for those would have been chosen at random but are unable to participate, I don't see any thing wrong with this. Now, if you made the argument that there is a known bias with Nielson and that this tiny percentage of the potential audience is not random, then I would think you would have a valid point.
As far as I know the main barriers are rights holders and bandwidth. Rights holders (i.e. the makers of Lost) don't want people to be able to get their grubby mitts on easy to distribute videos of their stuff that they'll be able to flog for obscene amounts on DVD. They don't seem to see that people can just rip them and put them on Bittorrent anyway... Bandwidth costs are still to high to allow people to download large episodes (~400-500MB?). Advertisers are coming round to the idea that ads in the downloaded episodes are possible - targeting and tracking on these episodes would be extremely interesting to any advertiser. This does take time though!
What, you mean like this weird one? :)
the layman's guide to computer science
Now, of these groups, which has the right to put it on the web? SheilaVision? KangaMoo would say not, after all, KangaRoo gave it the production money in exchange for exclusive distribution rights throughout the United States. Well, what about Rolf Harris? Maybe not. KangaRoo? ABC will be furious, here they are trying to serve the show to an entire country they were supposed to handle exclusively and KangaRoo's now competing with them. ABC? KangaRoo would be pissed at it, as would WASP. How dare ABC allow people in WASP's coverage area to receive an ABC show without receiving it via WASP!
In practice, all these groups have contracts with each other, and, at the very least, there's going to be some renegotiating in various locations before a show can be put on the web. Even if SheilaVision reads the fine print on the contract and finds it can distribute the show without permission, KangaRoo, ABC, and various other companies will have no further dealing with them.
I'd like to apologize to all the Australians reading the above who are going "Strewth! What the fuck was that?" as they read it. The problem is that "Australians Behaving Carefully" was the first thing that came to mind when I tried to come up with a backronym for ABC. I have no idea why I even tried to do that, and it's probably undermined the point I was trying to make.
2. Bandwidth. Yeah, BitTorrent "solves" that, but it doesn't really, because you proposed location specific ads. You'd probably have to build a media player to get this working that can use shared bandwidth BT style, you couldn't use off-the-shelf technologies.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That's just wrong. How the hell can you uptight Republican bastards say that about people who simply run companies? The people at the top of the MPAA are just doing their job, like any other Joe Blow out there.
It's people like you that give Americans a bad name.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
Just an observation--maybe I'm being master of the obvious here...
I remember back in the 1970s when there were just 3-5 channels that we could get on TV. We were pretty much stuck with whatever came in best with our copper hangers and aluminum foil. NBC, CBS, and ABC all vied for the coveted ratings and they each had captive audiences that had to watch their advertising to see what happened next on their favorite show or movie of the week.
That was the OLD way. Today, we have a consumer base that is wanting to use pick and choose their programming a la carte. Not only that, but we want it more and more through our computers. Some are willing to pay for it instead of dealing with advertising.
We're going through a major shift in media and ABC, CBS, NBC, et. al. are starting to feel it as much as NYTimes and the other on-line newspapers. I really don't think they know exactly what to do so they just repackage instead of re-inventing the way they program and deal with revenue.
The aging advertising revenue model has been completely circumvented by the advent of TiVO and downloadable content. Advertisers pay big bucks for the exposure but now they don't feel they should pay as much if the consumers skip through the commercials or block them altogether.
So now we have an internet version of the same broadcast as NBC jumps on the bandwagon. The thing is, it's just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The big broadcasters and newspapers are going to have to rethink the way they do business or they're going to have to learn to endure a shrinking marketshare.
AP and Reuters news blurbs read by an overpaid talking head is very 20th century. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Yeah, but all it gives to non-member is a preview (though I noticed that all the women are either born in Ontario or currently living there. Sort of like how Playboy used to get more models from BC than any other single state or province).
Must be something in the water ...
Once a company gets big enough they dedicate a percentage of expenses for advertising. This tends to become an ongoing expense whether the ads result in actual additional sales or not.
At that point (when a company is big enough to have an ad executive) the budget is already there and grows. These days, the $X + $Y equation probably doesn't work so well anymore since many consumers don't get scammed the way they were before.
Sleazy car salesmen and pretentious stereo salespeople are widely regarded as manipulators these days.
This is progress! The major networks have been phobic about the "Internets" since the early 90s. Before that it was just a research.mil toy, with the dot-coms the TV networks saw their futures threatened. Partly, they were correct - we Slashdotans are a demographic that has statistically given up on television. That NBC would take the steps to broadcast online demonstrates that they comprehend this shift ("in people's lives" bit) and are trying to capitalize on it. Good for them, some cluefulness.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Here's betting this will be released in Windows Media DRM-laden formats that are next to worthless. I'll be impressed when they start releasing xvids over bittorrent.
Seriously, try buying a VCR nowadays - they're more expensive than dvd players.
No shit. A VCR has hundreds of precise mechanical parts. A DVD player has a $5 DVD loader (with about 10 pieces of injection-molded plastic and a cheap read head) and about $8 worth of electronics. A DVD player is a hell of a lot simpler than a VCR.
funny signature... that was from sneakers, right? it was River Phoenix's character, i think. just curious... good flick as i remember
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
because its entertaining, and afterwards they think they suddenly know all about some important issue or topic that was described in a 2-minute clip. start to give them the details and well....theres just not that many people that tune into cspan regularly for a reason: its dull and requires actual *thought* to understand whats going on. people are busy, they dont care *that much* about issues that they dont encounter on a daily basis in their personal lives, they just find it entertaining *enough* to watch while they much on a hot pocket or do the kids' laundry.
its *because* people dont want to keep up with the minute details of issues and topics that we have these news briefs. its also why we have elected officials who get to keep up with the boring details so we dont have to because we have other things to do.
im just guessing, though.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
And what's better? 24 hour non-stop politicized news coverage? The polarized blogsphere?
You sound like you think MSM network news isn't politicized. I'll get my information from people who are at least up front about their biases, thanks, rather than putting on transparently false airs of "objectivity."
d'oh, sorry about the lack of line breaks.
i meant to hit "plain text"
-- lol pwned
I dare say most of us are not interested in network news' demise. I'd be just as happy if they improved. Apart from the content, what irritates me is their style. 5 minutes of news, then 2 minutes of "ask your doctor about...", as if the only people who watch are old and sick. They try to hook you with a one liner about their next story just before the commercial break. When the commercials are finally over, they often insert another news bite or three first and perhaps another few commercial breaks. When the promised story is finally aired, it turns out to be much less interesting than the one liner suggested, and I feel just a little duped. They, like pretty much every news outfit, want to make the news as dramatic as possible. I notice they report on the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ, but never mention the less dramatic and more accurate S&P. And it doesn't matter if the Dow dropped only 0.1 points, they'll say "the Dow fell today." I say it's not a fall or rise until the movement exceeds the standard deviation of the percent change in daily stock market values. Some people say we've become numb to violence because there's so much on TV. I feel the same about the news' fake drama. So I don't watch it much.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
For all y'all that are saying, "I get my news from the Internet, thank you..."
Personally, I would rather someone *else* give me the news, rather than looking for it myself. In this way, I'm assured a more diverse range of subjects, rather than whatever fits my fancy du jour (Slashdot, science & architecture, usually). No, I'm not worried that I'm going to turn into a mindless minion of NBC's political agenda. Call me naive, but I don't think it's any more/less/better/worse than any other "reputable" source out there.
I guess it's kinda like eating your vegetables... Sure, I may not be immediately interested in the lastest who-killed-whom story in the Middle East, but I'm a better person for knowing what's going on in my world.
(Incidentally, this is also why I think commercials are good and extremely personalized & targeted ads are bad. How else would I find something I didn't know I'd be interested in?)
The world of 2006 has 6.4 billion people. You can ask Google.
Making news appeal to a younger demographic doesn't have to take the form of talking about nothing but fashion and movies! It means focusing on things that younger people feel are more important than the older demographic do.
Younger people know that their Social Security is screwed. So give some focus to some of the new ideas that will make a difference in 30 years. Not just about the old people who are complaining about how SS isn't meeting their needs right now.
A younger anchor would help too. If a young person sees a young anchor shining the spotlight on different national/world events/topics then they may feel like they too should be engaged. Being engaged in society is for young people just as much as the old retired people.
Old people think that it's great when the government takes money from others to pay for all of their elderly needs that they didn't prepare enough for or anticipate (perscription drugs, medicare, disability, etc.).
Young people think it stinks that the government takes every dime of the first 20% of their hard earned money to pay for non-constitutional social government programs.
The old people relate real well to the old "Iraq is like Viet Nam quagmire" crap. Young folks weren't even around then and don't relate well to that illustration. Not that it is or isn't true, but the majority of 20-somethings don't relate to that message.
When will the Weather Channel start doing this?
They're from Ontario because that's where the studio is, downtown Toronto. I ;)
doubt anyone would commute in from BC on a daily basis!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
sure. so why watch tv? i read stuff online about as much as some other people watch tv... i switched because all i want is real content
Why should a younger person trust another when they can't even record a program on their VCR?
Thats an older example, but still relevant. I heard of a study from 12+ years ago, that said that the lower your education the more likely you are to be able to program your VCR. The highschool dropout was the most likely, and the PhD was the least likely.
So why don't we combine your two "insights":
Why should a younger person trust another person, when they've probably got a highschool diploma? Or maybe a PhD?
Younger people do not consider the words of older people as really authoritative. This is a trend that has been going on for about 30 years plus or minus.
Yes it's called the "You got us into this fucking mess, why should I listen to you?" theory.
Regarding education and VCR programming, who is likely to watch more tv and thus have more experience with programming VCRs? Obviously the dropout probably watches TV/uses a VCR all day compared to the PHD who actually works for a living.
Hopefully in MP4 and not proprietary M$ or Real formats.
Offtopic rant:
Naked News are the asshats that send cease and desist letters if you happen to get a higher google rating than them. My site Naked: People in Car Chases got such a letter because we had a section titled 'Naked News', I'd never even heard of them before.
The Anti-Blog
If you also strip them out of skirts, you can watch it in 30 seconds.
I suggest you read Slashdot
The current big headline is about a flu pandemic. Ohhhh, scary. If yesterday wasn't halloween, a headline like this might be more effective.
You don't consider the possibility of a flu outbreak, combined with the rather limited supplies of Tamiflu, a potential problem?
Now, I know SARS was overhyped to death when it wasn't much of a problem, but given what I've read about avian flu, it seems like it really could be a problem.
What information do you have about it not being a big deal? I'm curious.
So, since this is free it should be possible to add this as a listing to iTunes, right?
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Obviously the dropout probably watches TV/uses a VCR all day compared to the PHD who actually works for a living.
Reminds me of Breakfast Club:
Brian: I'm an idiot because I can't make a lamp?
Bender: No, you're a fucking genius because you can't.
Maybe this is a bad example, but I gauge my understanding of current events, in one way, by my ability to get Daily Show jokes. I skim Google News at least a few times a day, clicking through to any stories of interest or import, and am an avid reader of The Economist. I also have been known to read CNN news on my cell phone. Am I missing something from not watching traditional TV news?
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
I've always watched NBC Nightly news at 6:30. When I moved from Maine to Minnesota, I started missing it because it's on at 5:30 Central time and I usually wouldn't get home in time. My solution was to go out and get a TiVo. I haven't missed the news since. Waiting three hours to download it off the Internet doesn't sound like a good alternative to me when I already have it on my TiVo when I get home.
I wish I could mod parent up beyond +5 insightful.
At least where I live, the local news almost always has the "random death and crime" segment. Where they go locally and across the nation and world talking about how somebody might have killed somebody, robbed them, died in a car pileup, or something similar.
Those my friends are purely events, not news. There is nothing anybody can do with that information.
This annoys me the most. My wife and I play a game with the news every morning....what is the top story going to be? A fire?, a car chase?, a murder? After we high-5 the person that guessed right we fast forward....because we watch the news on TIVO.
I change the channel to news in the morning and don't come back until I am ready to leave....I skip 90% of the show to watch the weather and traffic.
that the people that were most informed about the election were people that got their news from places like the "Daily Show". Its a comedy/parody of news with a very sarcastic slant,
The "Daily Show" isn't commenting on the news everyone finds annoying...the crime reports....they are poking fun at authority....something that the regular news cann't do in such a polarized country...they'd offend too many...
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
CBC has put The National online since at least as far back as June 2003.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Stage 2) Use Bittorrent to distribute content
Stage 3) Profit!!
This way they can sell ads, and be flexible for all of us people with odd schedules.
Sheesh... the guy delivers with the "doom and gloom" monotone voice and every story he leads with some kind of life-threatening slant.
And he will always be remembered for his infamous interview of Annie Leibovitz on the evening of Sept 11, 2001 when he intentionaly goaded her to bash George Bush. His lengthy apologies to the staff and to the viewers the next day saved his ass.
The guy is a self-serving jerk. And his ratings reflect it.
Brilliant coincidence. Yes, video streaming of news is not new. But major networks promoting alternative distribution for major shows? I could swear I just read something about that fruit company doing something like this. Now, if only ABC/Disney (who've teamed with Apple/iTMS) had an evening news program, they could... wait a sec...
It's delayed several hours so it's not live. Also, who knows, it may even have national commercials too. Since it's in the wonderful Microsoft streaming format you can't fast forward through the commercials either. It should be fantastic.
Advertising corrupts everything it touches.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You don't consider the possibility of a flu outbreak, combined with the rather limited supplies of Tamiflu, a potential problem?
Sure, its a potential problem. So are illegally (or against an agreement) obtained weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a non-benevolent dictator. A large asteroid hitting the Earth is a potential problem. The airline mechanic who ran out of crack and is a little on edge is a potential problem. There are many potential problems.
Again, with my "event" vs "news" thesis. This is not even an event, but a potential event that is always a potential, and like a regular event that is not news, there is nothing that can be done by your average, above average, or below average person. This is fear based propaganda. This is not news.
Now, I know SARS was overhyped to death when it wasn't much of a problem, but given what I've read about avian flu, it seems like it really could be a problem.
What information do you have about it not being a big deal? I'm curious.
None. I don't care. I'm a computer geek, not a health expert. I have no experience with mass disease outbreak aside from what I have read about previous plagues or the AIDS issue in Africa and other places.
Now, lets take this a bit further. Information on the news about lets say AIDS could be news. Lets erase the past for the minute, and pretend that AIDS is a brand new illness and it is now known that it a) is sexually transmitted or transmitted via other bodily fluids like blood b) it has a long gestation period and people can potentially be carriers without being sick, which means that people can give you the virus without any indications that the person has the virus c) it can kill you d) basic precautions like wearing gloves for health care people and using condoms during sex can greatly decrease the likelihood of contracting the virus.
That is news. Problem, description, and solution.
Broadcasting about a potential pandemic, is gossip.
Wikipedia has some info about pandemics here.
Although, the bottom entries don't seem very "pandemicly" to me. SARS killed 800 people. That should not be on the list. Neither should the "Hong Kong" flu. 34,000 Americans dead. The good old regular flu kills what, 20,000 a year.
... then they'd go to an "NBC Naked News" format!
Wait, until they upgrade the anchors thay'd better skip that.
Ewwwww.
Try Jim Lehrer's News Hour. It's usually a few lengthly segments with really good focus. These are also available online: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/ Jeff
No young person is going to download NBC Nightly News at 10 pm at night. Heck, if you're up and looking for a current events program, you might as well just watch The Daily Show. That's where most of the under-30 crowd gets its news anyway, right?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Newshour is the only real news program on American TV.
9,200,000 viewers
You mean the part of the US population that will die of old age in 5-10 years?
Just kidding... But strangly enough the figured for 2005 for 65 and older were 65 years and over: 12.4% (male 15,298,676/female 21,397,228) (2005 est.) From ye old CIA Factbook
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Apparently like a lot of other people, I haven't watched the network news in 10 years (due to schedule, then lately I haven't even bothered to own a tv, etc.) but I'm going to watch again now.
I miss that time-based, linear, experience that is shared with millions of other people-- people who I haven't even necessarily met, but whose existence is suggested by the linear nature of the news broadcast itself. I know everyone is being broadcast to in the same way; it becomes a shared experience we've had. Webpages are great in some ways, but not in every way.
I think this is a great, conceptually simple move of NBC's, and wish more mainstream, ad-sponsored American programming was made available in this way. The internet is a fine medium for TV news-- I don't think there's anything inherently so high bandwidth about a 4:3 TV news broadcast that necessitates a dedicated over-the-air channel or cable pipeline.. which I guess is why I haven't paid for cable.
Check out PBS's offerings. There are a number of programs that tend to be quite informative, and less infotainment. Granted, some aren't strictly news in the "Film at eleven" sense of the term, but then again, if you want any kind of depth you are pretty much going to have to wait a little while.
I also read during the 2004 election, that the people that were most informed about the election were people that got their news from places like the "Daily Show"
Better than that, The Daily Show won a Peabody award. Twice. I agree, that is pretty sad statement on contemporary journalism when a self-described "fake news show" wins over real news shows.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Actually, not at all. Real news stations like Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org) have been streaming (and archiving) their news for years. This is nothing new.
The reporting is a lot better too...
All I see are the same ads for the same cars over and over again. I wonder sometimes--if they stopped spending so much money marketing to us as if we were complete idiots--would they have more money for R&D?
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
"All I want is content"
Dude, I can go to dozens of web sites for good content... CNN, MSNBC, google news, BBC, hundreds of local papers the world over.
TV? Hot chicks, hot, *smokin* chicks with cleavage and nippleage, and stuff that makes you sit UP and watch.
I'm being serious here...web sites for information, TV for motion pictures of hot chicks reading the news. The logic is unassailable.
I don't know if that's high in America, but taking population differences into account, that works out to be 1.8 million in Britain, which isn't an awful lot.
The Good Reason for its death is Brian Williams. Never have I seen such a gloom and doom sensationalist. He needs to pull the stick out of his ass and not talk like How Profound, Important, Odd, and Tribulating That A Cat Got Stuck In A Tree today voice.
It will probably require Internet Explorer, even.
Have you ever seen Brian Williams on talk shows? He's got a hilarious deadpan sense of humor. Too bad that side of him can't show through much when he's doing the evening news. :P
Sure, its a potential problem. So are illegally (or against an agreement) obtained weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a non-benevolent dictator. A large asteroid hitting the Earth is a potential problem. The airline mechanic who ran out of crack and is a little on edge is a potential problem. There are many potential problems.
Again, with my "event" vs "news" thesis. This is not even an event, but a potential event that is always a potential, and like a regular event that is not news, there is nothing that can be done by your average, above average, or below average person. This is fear based propaganda. This is not news.
I apologize for not making it clear, but what I meant by "potential" is more than likely. From what I've read, I consider the outbreak of avian flu to be probable enough to consider. Liken it to your asteroid scenario. Say it's now determined that an asteroid hitting the earth is somewhat likely. Wouldn't you be interested in hearing about it and what science is doing to cure/prevent it?
From what I've read on Bird Flu--this is a good hub of information--an outbreak is not exactly some far-fetched scenario. From the Times of London:
Like you noted, the strain would have to mutate and pass on to humans. I would like more info about which "scientists" they're referring to here, but from what I've read in other places, it's not like some random group that bills themselves as medical authorities is passing this off as scare-mongering.
I'm not particularly scared of a pandemic, and I'm annoyed by the "WILL IT HAPPEN TO US???" type reports, but I am definitely interested in the migration patterns of animals carrying avian flu and any outbreaks in the human population. I would classify that as news, and definitely think it's something that deserves attention.
You said it yourself, it's propaganda, and there IS something you can do. The thing that can be done by you, the average person, is to EXPRESS FEAR. If you can be convinced that something terrible is about to happen, before it happens, then you can be manipulated to do something (buy Tamiflu) and/or your elected representatives can take action, and be seen by you to be doing so. To the government and the corporations, this has two huge benefits: (1) someone gets a lot of your money, and (2) you feel good about giving it. The action, in this case, is that your elected representatives are going to allocate public funds for research and stockpiling vaccines, and the major question the general population will ask is whether enough is being done. Not "are you sure this is really necessary", or "why is this more important than people dying in our district right now from X" or "what else could be done with that $500 million".
Our "news" is like a big stock market, with politicians acting as mutual fund managers. Hmmm, there is a war? Who can benefit from that? Can we sell arms to one side? Next week, an ecological disaster. What laws can we make that will get our construction enterprises fully employed?
It is pure influence-peddling, with a side of entertainment. If it wasn't, then any 1-hour daily news program would be breathtaking. It would be FULL of amazing events from around the world, there would be no time at all for any fluff like "tomorrow it's probably going to rain" or "scientists predict that something bad MIGHT happen" or "look at that smile on Tom Cruise".
Eh, another sign of the MS-NBC partnership, I suppose.
The National Review Online once mentioned in their blog a "hemline index" of how serious the global situation was. When a serious situation develops, female anchors need to be seen as serious journalists, so their skirts would get longer and more professional. During a slow news cycle, they'd wear shorter skirts to boost ratings. Prior to 9/11, they were practically wearing micro-minis. Male anchors, of course, wear the same stuff no matter what. Unless they're military consultants, in which case every day is biz cas fri.
Look, network news hasn't, and probably can't, produce valuable content. They're simply not specialized enough to compete with the news channels. Back in The Day, they were on top because they were the ONLY option.
But as Hackstraw points out, TV as a medium is designed to deliver EVENTS, not news. Events are things you can write a topical article or blog entry on. News includes a much broader array of content, including trends and highlights of continuing situations. News magazines like the Economist can handle that much better, and are more properly covering news in its entirety. But any single medium is going to be lacking: the immediacy and emotional content of video and audio, the context and depth of text.
The web can deliver.. somewhat. Blogs handle the immediacy, and sites that deliver print news, combined with resources like wikipedia, can handle the context and depth. But there's still no good source for video and audio. Also, the web is still mostly in the business of repackaging other media and delivering them in a multi-modal sort of way.
Fox was a leader on the video front, and now it looks like NBC will be, too. But until there's an easy, pervasive way to get video onto the web from ordinary people, we'll still just be watching inferior TV.
The solution? More hard drive capacity, cheaper, lighter DV cameras, better DV formats, and faster bandwidth. In other words, let moore's law work for a few more years. In the meantime, celebrate. The Web as it stands is delivering the ultimate TV news killer: fast, in-depth, continuously updated TEXT. And we always knew that print journalism was better anyway, didn't we?
I often listen to the podcast while working out. Now I can go back and watch something that has interesting video that wasn't well communicated on the podcast.
The "Daily Show" isn't commenting on the news everyone finds annoying...the crime reports....they are poking fun at authority....something that the regular news cann't do in such a polarized country...they'd offend too many...
Well, if that's true, then how did The Daily Show come to be so successful, and recognized as one of the few informative news shows (no matter how often they deny being a news show)?
Maybe the news media should learn from their success. Instead of what they're doing now, maybe they should learn to poke fun at the authorities when those authorities deserve a bit of poking.
For example, if they would juxtapose a statement of some official with a contrary statement by the same official some time earlier, it would qualify as news, informative, and funny all at the same time.
But I suppose their "sponsors" wouldn't much like it.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I wish I had a mod point for you, sir. Best laugh I've had all day.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.
"I personally consider loading CNN's webpage as amusement. I look at it just to know what other people see and think is "news"."
Well, where do you get your news? Aside from Slashdot, I mean.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.
You just can't beat it. Compared to the NewsHour, the rest (NBC, Fox, etc) are jokes that look like the "Mattel and Mars Bar Choco-bot Hour."
Frontline rules too.
NOW used to be ok, but it keeps getting less and less interesting. (David, we already know the president is corrupt. Now let it rest and get back to news, please.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In holland we have virtually all public television programs (of our 3 public channels) put online for 1.5 year now with 3 million something streams around September 2005. If you just missed it there's the"missed program"-site. If you missed it a couple of weeks, most are still watchable from the database. There's another site "tvonyourpc" if you like it on theme. The national news ia put on of all hours and 24 hour news online. Also the commercial channels are now beginning to use this format slowly, competition I guess.. I use mediahopper to track some US channels, but looking forward watching NBC too!
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is outstanding. It's even formatted perfectly: he gives you the "news summary" for about 10 minutes. ... You just can't beat it.
/., google's Sci/Tech is usually out of date. Right now, the top story there is "Two new moons discovered around Pluto". Yup, yesterday's /. news. This is probably true for most technical topics, though, since google uses some news-ranking algorithm, and it takes time for a story's significance to bubble it up to the top of their list.
Sure I can. A common rule of thumb is that most people can read 5-6 times faster than they speak. So in 2 minutes with news.google.com, you can scan just as many summaries. Or in 10 minutes you can scan 5-6 times as many summaries.
Then you can click on the "all N related >>" links that goes with the interesting-looking stories, and look through the list for a number of sites that are likely to report the story from different points of view. This way, you get much more varied information on a story than what's presented by your TV news sources, no matter where in the world you live.
And you run across lots of stories that never appear on any of your local TV channels. Or when a story finally breaks because it can't be ignored any more, you think "Huh? I read about that months ago. Why is it news now?"
Of course, if you read
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It's not real news. NBC Nightly News is a newslike substitute in much the same way that textured vegetable protein is a meatlike substitute. Fox News on the other hand is like dog vomit and it's viewers are like the dog who eats it. CBS News went downhill after Walter Cronkite left. ABC News was only worth watching late at night with Ted Koppel. You could stare at him for hours wondering whether or not that was his real hair.
And CNN has the hottest infobabes. Who cares if whether its real news or not? I wish CNN would bring Rudi Bakhtiar back. At least they still have Robin Meade, Soledad O'Brien, Erica Hill, Sophie Choi, Susan Hendricks, and Arthel Neville, to name a few. CNN definitely got the better end of the deal when they traded Greta van Susteran for Paula Zahn.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Will these news archives be searchable by Google's video search, or will it be searchable only by MSN Search? I'm guessing this is a significant victory for MS in the search engine war.
Most programs are already delayed many hours anyway...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
12345
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!
Yo gran-momma so old she knew Burger King while he was still a prince.
Was he as creepy back then as he is now?
What?! You don't follow the Gospel of Andy?
If you are one of the wise souls who have a chipped xbox with Xboxmediacenter, feel free to drop over to http://www.xbmcscripts.com/ where they got python scripts to grab all kinds of internet streams from pbs, cnn and more to come.
So tell them to fuck off.
A "Cease and desist letter" means nothing in such a case.
I notice you used the past tense "we had" - so I'm assuming you took it down. If that's the case, I have some web space available ... if its any good, maybe we should put it up and me our you can send them a F.U. letter.
I dunno, maybe Kanada has a higher ratio of uninhibited hotties per capita or something.
BTW I did notice the last time I was up in Hongcouver there were fewer 'supersized' individuals than down here in Washington and we've got one of the lower rates of obesity in the US. Of course in the case of the lower BC mainland it might be something to do with all the heroin and not that Kanadians don't let themselves become big fatties like USians.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
It happened two years ago. The site is still up (linked in my sig), we did remove the offending phrase, being poor I didn't want to risk being sued over a particular order of two words even though they had no case. Just a friendly rant to get other Slashdotters to boycott the site, maybe it will make a small dent in their wallets. A small dent in theirs is better than a big dent in mine.
:).
Thanks for the offer though
The Anti-Blog
Unfortunately, we're slowly (or not so slowly) catching up in terms of "supersized" people.
"Hongcouver" - I LUV it! Fits right in there with Canuckistan/Kanuckistan.
"Hongcouver" - I LUV it! Fits right in there with Canuckistan/Kanuckistan.
Well it isn't original and I've been hearing it since the mid-90's. Supposedly it is a reference to the large numbers of Hong Kong Chinese who immigrated to Vancouver, BC around the time of the handover from the Brits to the mainland.
Warning: it is considered somewhat racist by many people.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
- :
- Once you've had black, you never go back
- Once you've had asian, you never want caucasian
Doesn't matter - in another 100 generations we're all going to be either dead or brown.Well I just thought I'd mention it as I pissed off a Chinese-Canadian co-worker of mine by jokingly refering to Vancouver as 'Hongcouver' in front of him. He normally wasn't one to be terribly PC so I was a little shocked.
Not to mention the number of times I'd heard 'Hongcouver' from Canadians (and others) of all colors.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.