Media

Dagnabbit….  as seen on the newswires:

Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. studio says it’s bumping "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" from its planned November release into next summer.

The sixth installment in the blockbuster franchise about boy wizard Harry now will open July 17, 2009 rather than Nov. 21, 2008 the studio said Thursday.

My wife and I were planning on celebrating our anniversary this November with a quiet holiday at home…and a trip over to a nearby multiplex theater which has an IMAX screen.

The article continues on to mention that the aftermath of the writers’ strike has left next summer’s movie season a bit sparser than normal.  So, given an opportunity to boost revenues, the studio will have us wait an extra eight months.

Seen at Access Atlanta’s Radio & TV Talk blog:

The U.S. Justice Department has approved the long-awaited $5 billion merger of XM and Sirius satellite radio companies. Now they must await the Federal Communications Commission to give its thumbs up.[...]

It appears Sirius has the upper hand in this situation so that name may outlast XM. And how they merge channels is up in the air, too. There is talk that subscribers may be able to pick and choose stations in an a la carte situation. I’m not sure how easy that would be technically.

I’ve been a happy subscriber to XM for 5 years now. I subscribed after plug-and-play radios came onto the market (read: one subscription which works in car, at the office, and at home), and after my personal circumstances changed to justify it (read: I started driving longer distances to various sites for work, rather than commuting downtown daily on the bus). Given my eclectic tastes, the blandness of the local radio market up here near Hartford, and my wife’s personal boycott of Clear Channel, XM has been great.

Assuming the FCC approves the merger (which might still be a big assumption), I’ll be sorry to see the XM name fade away, and I’ll be very interested to see how the two sets of offerings are merged. I personally have preferred XM to Sirius, because XM’s stations tend to have deeper playlists (the flip side of that, of course, is how many people prefer Sirius to XM because they “hardly ever hear my favorite songs” on XM), and I’d hate to see that change.

Of course, if I could start receiving BBC Radio 1 without having to get a new receiver, I would be a very happy camper. Bonus points will be awarded if I that can be achieved without Howard Stern appearing on XM-legacy hardware.

A comment at Politico on Hillary’s prospects of winning the Democratic nomination caught my eye:

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.

That seems true (although she could still sway the superdelegates, which, although a horrible way to win, would still be a win).

However, if the talking heads did start pointing out Obama’s near-inevitability, wouldn’t that mean that they would have to go do some real reporting for a few months, until the general election campaign starts to heat up?

So, I suppose congratulations or something are in order. From Variety:

Voters for the 28th annual Golden Raspberry Awards certainly knew what killed them in theaters last year. Thanks to Lindsay Lohan’s twin nods for worst actress, “I Know Who Killed Me” proved to be the most fruitful stinker in Razzie history, with eight “wins.”

In addition to Lohan’s double trouble, pic’s dishonors included worst picture, director, screenplay, remake or rip-off, screen couple and excuse for a horror movie.

Remember all the fuss raised in mainstream and blogospheric media outlets when oil prices were bumping up against $100/barrel recently?

I note that apparently only bad news merits attention. I haven’t noticed too much being said in those same outlets about recent developments.

From the AP:

Oil prices fell Thursday in Asia, extending an overnight decline of more than US$1 a barrel after the U.S. government reported unexpectedly large jumps in stockpiles of crude and gasoline and a surprise increase in stocks of heating oil.

Coming amid anxiety about the U.S. economy’s health, and concerns that demand for oil and gasoline is falling, the inventory report reinforced a growing view that oil and petroleum product supplies are adequate.

Light, sweet crude for March delivery fell 16 cents to US$86.98 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Singapore. The contract fell US$1.27 to settle at US$87.14 a barrel in Wednesday’s floor session.

Please note, however, that this improvement in the backdrop of oil prices shouldn’t give license for folks to stop making (or at least considering making) some conservation-minded changes in their daily lives.

Even if you don’t believe in global warming or the peak oil crises, there are still plenty of good reasons to live a more conservation-minded lifestyle.

(I accept global warming and peak oil concerns, but not to the extent that some of the green crowd would like. Of course, that may be because I understand that normal variability can mask subtle changes, and because I appreciate the tendency for issues to be over-magnified when framed in the language of activist hysteria.)

About four and a half years ago, Memphis was knocked off the grid for a few days in the wake of Hurricane Elvis, and barely anyone in the mainstream media noticed.

However, having a tornado cause polling places to close early—that merits rapid media attention.

Authorities confirmed a tornado touchdown near Arlington, said Jeremy Heidt, spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

The Hickory Ridge Mall sustained “severe damage,” including a collapsed roof and walls, according to Staples, who said firefighters were still evacuating the building as of 6:40 p.m.

Added MFD division chief Daryl Payton: “We had to evacuate a large number of civilians, but fortunately there were some injuries but no medical transports. It was just a major time trying to evacuate people because people were afraid to leave the building.”

Thankfully, I haven’t seen wingnuts speculating on the Clinton campaign conjuring the tornadic weather to drive down Obama’s expected stronger support in the inner city portions of Memphis.

I realize that it’s no news to many of you that the mainstream media leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to, say, accuracy. However, after having noticed a particularly egregious example of conflicting/misleading headlines last week, I’ve been more painfully aware of the wire services’ lack of education as year-end results roll out from the insurance industry.

For example, consider this headline and story from this morning’s releases:

OneBeacon Profit Falls on Lower Premiums

OneBeacon 4th-Quarter Earnings Fall 13 Percent on Lower Premiums and a Special Dividend

OneBeacon Insurance Group Ltd. said Monday its fourth-quarter earnings fell 13 percent due to a decline in earned premiums and a charge tied to a special dividend.

So…we have a company that is passing along a surprise windfall to shareholders…and gets penalized for it in the press.

If you’re attempting to headline results, shouldn’t the quick assessments be made before any distribution of profits to the shareholders?

There are times like this that it’s tempting to wish that requiring business reporters to have a minimum education in basic finance would be permitted under the First Amendment.

So, Travelers reported year-end results this morning — an event that many folks in the insurance industry have an interest in.  Travelers is, after all, an 800-pound gorilla in insurance circles (outside, perhaps, of personal lines), and under almost any rock in the industry, you can find an ex-Travelers, ex-St. Paul, ex-USF&G or ex-”old Aetna” professional.  (Sometimes it’s a professional satisfying several or all of those ex-es, since we are a small, incestuous industry.)

If you were just skimming the headlines, you might get a misleading or conflicting impression of what the results looked like.

For instance, one AP reporter lead with:

Travelers 4th-Quarter Earnings Fall 11 Percent on Lower Premiums

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones wire announced (WSJ.com subscriber link):

Travelers Posts 11% Drop in Net Amid Higher Claim Costs

So, which is it?

Well, the answer is a bit more complicated than that.   To avoid my own rule about not posting on matters “too close to home” (part of the day job involves analyzing competitors) I’ll just direct you to the Travelers’ investor page for you to judge for yourself.

Seen at Libertarian Underground –

An AP article appearing on the International Herald Tribune:

It’s been overlooked in the hoopla surrounding Thursday’s Iowa caucuses and next week’s New Hampshire primary, but Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention in September.

Candidates have paid little attention to the state, though.

Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul have passed through since September. Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have not.

“Yes, there have been some appearances by the candidates in this state that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred this early in the process,” said Jim King, who teaches political science at the University of Wyoming. “But candidates are where the media are — in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

The same article at Fox News:

It’s been overlooked in the hoopla surrounding Thursday’s Iowa caucuses and next week’s New Hampshire primary, but Wyoming Republicans will caucus Saturday and choose delegates to the national convention in September.

Candidates have paid little attention to the state, though.

Only Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter have passed through since September.

“Yes, there have been some appearances by the candidates in this state that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred this early in the process,” said Jim King, who teaches political science at the University of Wyoming. “But candidates are where the media are — in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

While it’s not uncommon for umpteen revisions of a story to be released on a newswire, and it’s probably not unexpected to occasionally see news sites carrying one version of a story while others carry a different edition… when you consider the inconsistency of excluding Ron Paul from Fox News’ forum Sunday (but still inviting low-polling Thompson), the omission in the story above makes it tempting to speculate on excisions of Ron Paul from wire stories as being a reflection on Fox’s fairness and balance.

As a teenager, The Weather Channel was one of my favorite stations on cable (once we finally got cable). Back in the day it was a great way for a geek with a meteorological interest to get lost in all the pretty maps and semi-scientific discussion.

This was, of course, before the network transitioned to its current focus of repackaging just one weather model’s output, somewhat more inane presenters, and way too many fluff programs.

So it was with some wistfulness that I ran across this AJC article:

Atlanta’s Weather Channel has always been the smart, geeky guy in the corner, never making a scene unless a hurricane or deadly snowstorm hit.

But now that owner Landmark Communications has put the network — and the entire company — up for sale, big media conglomerates are likely to treat it like a stud in an episode of “The Bachelor.”

“It’s one of the largest independent, privately owned cable networks out there,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research for media planning and buying agency Horizon Media. “That makes it a very desirable asset for a big media company.”

Two news reports floated a hefty $5 billion price tag for the Weather Channel and its popular Web site, weather.com.

I’ll wish that a new buyer will return TWC some of its former glory. However, I think a deterioration into further fluff is more likely….if they even retain the broadcast operations.

At least all sorts of good WX stuff is now easily accessible online (much to AccuWeather’s chagrin).