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(AP Photos/Tribune Illustration)
After years of anticipation, speculation and legal tussling, Steve Jobs’ Apple Inc., the Beatles’ Apple Corps and EMI/Capitol Records agreed to make the Beatles’ catalog, spanning 1962-1970, available for legal digital download.
NBC will make Thursday an all-comedy night and move its two “Law & Order” dramas as part of a midseason shake-up.
The network announced Monday that it is shifting “30 Rock” and the freshman series “Outsourced” to the final hour of prime time starting Jan. 20. The rest of the night’s lineup, starting at 8 p.m. ET, will include “Community,” newcomer “Perfect Couples,” “The Office” and returning series “Parks and Recreation.” Get the full story »
A TV display at a Best Buy. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
The Pay TV industry has heatedly debated this fall whether consumers are dropping their cable or other TV subscriptions to watch more TV content online. A new study by Nielsen, commissioned by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, argues that most people who watch at least some content from the Web on their TV sets are “cord keepers” rather than “cord cutters.”
The study, called “Life is a Stream,” surveyed 769 people 18-49, and used eight focus groups to explore the viewing habits of consumers who watch at least some TV shows and movies from the Internet on their TV sets. That group makes up about 11 percent of the U.S. population, according to the study’s authors.
One key finding of the survey, which will be unveiled this week: 84 percent of such viewers reported that they are watching the same amount, or more, regularly scheduled TV since they started streaming or downloading content to watch on their TV set. Importantly for TV distributors, 92 percent of these entertainment enthusiasts subscribe to a pay TV service, with only 3 percent reporting plans to give up their subscription. Get the full story »
ELITE STREET | By Bob Goldsborough | WMAQ-Ch. 5 news anchor and reporter Jeff Goldblatt and his wife have listed their four-bedroom house in Deerfield for $749,000.
Goldblatt, 41, joined NBC-5 in September after concluding a two-year run at WFLD-Ch. 32 as a news anchor. He was a Fox News correspondent for nearly a decade before that. Get the full story »
A new side-imbroglio has broken out in the Tribune Co. bankruptcy, highlighting the often incestuous world occupied by big-time bankruptcy attorneys.
Let’s see if we can sort it all out … Get the full story »
Tribune Co. creditors asked a Delaware judge to let them try to recover millions of dollars awarded to insiders in the year prior to the media company’s bankruptcy, saying they can do a better job than Tribune can.
In a Thursday court filing, Tribune’s official committee of unsecured creditors said it wants current and former Tribune officers and directors to return more than $250 million of awards, including bonuses and restricted stock. Get the full story »
Newsweek, a 77-year-old magazine that once helped set the national news agenda, is linking its future with The Daily Beast, a startup just two years in the making. Beast editor Tina Brown, who led both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker before deciding to give Web publishing a try, will be the editor of both publications.
Kevin Metheny, the WGN-AM 720 program director whose abrupt moves to grow the audience grew a well of resentment among some long-time listeners, is is leaving the station along with his most controversial hire, former convicted Chicago City Clerk Jim Laski.
Sun-Times Media plans to discontinue its 11 free weekly suburban Sun newspapers by the end of the year, employees and advertisers have been told.
E-books have reached another milestone: their own best-seller lists in The New York Times.
The Times, whose best-seller lists have long been a benchmark for success among authors, announced Wednesday that in early 2011 it will begin publishing rankings for fiction and nonfiction e-books.
The digital market has grown rapidly in the last three years, starting with Amazon.com’s Kindle reader and continuing with Apple’s iPad and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.
Activision Blizzard Inc. said Thursday that it sold about 5.6 million copies of “Call of Duty: Black Ops” for $360 million on its first day, setting a new record for the videogame industry.
Analysts said the strong Day 1 performance was largely expected given the sizable number of orders, and Activision shares were up slightly in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq. Get the full story »
Crain’s Chicago Business | Sun-Times Media is shutting down 11 weekly Sun newspapers — in Geneva, Bolingbrook, Homer Glen, Lisle, Glen Ellyn, Plainfield, Wheaton, Downers Grove, Batavia, Fox Valley and the Lincoln-Way area — though it plans to absorb as many of the employees as possible.
Level 3 Communications Inc. said it will become a primary content delivery network provider for Netflix Inc, starting from the new year. The communications service, which is based in Colorado, will store the entire Netflix streaming library of more than 20,000 titles, it said in a statement, in addition to supporting Netflix for streaming movies and TV shows. Get the full story »
Viacom plans to rid itself of Harmonix, the video game developer behind the Rock Band franchise, ending a failed foray into the gaming business.
Shares of Viacom rose more than 4 percent in morning trading on Thursday as the company reported quarterly results that topped Wall Street expectations.
Analysts had long questioned the value of Rock Band for a company known more for its cable networks MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and film studio Paramount Pictures. Get the full story »
Amazon.com Inc. is selling a self-published guide that offers advice to pedophiles and that has generated outrage on the Internet and boycott threats.
The availability of “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct” calls into question whether Amazon has procedures — or even an obligation — to vet books before they are sold in its online stores. Amazon did not respond to multiple e-mail and phone messages. Get the full story »
