Shelly’s Blog

We are living in interesting times and nowhere is the effect of change more evident than here in Las Vegas at the 2005 NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) convention.   The highly conglomerated syndication business is represented.  But as one high-ranking executive of Columbia Tri-Star told me, “… we’ve had to learn how Continue Reading →

You just never know what Ted Turner is going to say. Today, he was into world politics and mentioned that “… several thousand unguarded nuclear warheads posed the biggest threat to our safety. Voting for the AOL/Time Warner merger was the biggest mistake he ever made. The $1,000 Social Security check he receives from the Continue Reading →

Two particle physicists are sitting at a bar discussing string theory.  Two guitarists are sitting close enough to overhear the conversation and one says to the other, “So … What kind of strings do you use?”   Dumb guitarist jokes are going to have to be rewritten now that Gibson is finally going to add Continue Reading →

Since Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, I have been rhetorically asking my clients, “… can you tell me why the number one consumer music product is now manufactured by a computer company and the number one consumer electronics company isn’t even in the game?”  My answer was validated in the following article.  Let’s hope that Continue Reading →

The NY Post Reports: In a rare blow for Cablevision patriarch Chuck Dolan, the company announced last night that it had entered a deal to sell its Voom satellite business to Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar for $200 million. Voom — part of Cablevision’s Rainbow Media unit — had been Dolan’s pet project, but twice in recent Continue Reading →

From: Charles and Tom Dolan Yesterday, Cablevision’s Board of Directors in a split vote passed a resolution to sell or dispose of Rainbow DBS, i.e., VOOM and VOOM 21. While this news is startling, we wish to assure you that the board’s action is not in the slightest way a negative reflection upon you or Continue Reading →

The sight of Kiefer Sutherland’s anti-terrorism agent Jack Bauer with a flip-top mobile phone clamped to his ear, barking orders as he once again goes about saving Los Angeles from annihilation, has become one of the enduring images of hit real-time drama 24. Now, with the launch of the fourth series of 24 on Sky Continue Reading →

John Markoff of the NY Times reports that: Onstage at the Macworld Exposition in San Francisco last week, Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, proclaimed 2005 as “the year of high-definition video,” a strange declaration from someone who was not trying to sell television sets. He kept his laser-like focus on the iPod and the Continue Reading →

Just in case you missed this while traveling on Friday, here’s the CNN.com version of what’s going on at TWC:  NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Three senior executives are leaving Time Warner Cable, the company said Friday, as it seeks to bring day-to-day operations and its marketing functions under a single leader. The departing executives are Continue Reading →

This item has appeared all over the news in the last few days.  It is a pretty interesting play: IBM says it is providing free access to the information in 500 company patents to individuals and groups working on open source software. The company said it believes this is the largest pledge of patents of Continue Reading →