Could New Discovery Network Become A GOP Sound Bite? by David Goetzl

What a great day for Republicans searching for talking points before the Sunday morning talk shows. Thank you, Discovery Communications, the GOP must be saying. You can envision it now ... David Gregory on "Meet the Press" holding a one-on-one with Rick Santorum or some right-wing ideological kin. Topic: President Obama's refusal to green light the full Keystone Pipeline that would deliver oil from Canada to the southern U.S. and maybe help lower gas prices. Pretty soon, however, Discovery's decision to jettison Planet Green and turn it into the Destination America network becomes the jumping-off point for political maneuvering. ...Read the whole story

Online Summer Olympics Will Look a Lot Like Olympics on TV by Daisy Whitney

This summer's Olympic games won't be the first Olympics to boast thousands of hours of broadband video; but it will likely be the first to deliver the events across so many platforms, from the TV to the desktop to the tablet to the smartphone. That's because video viewing on mobile devices has skyrocketed in the last year. The games then will be an interesting proving ground for digital video technology. To get it right, NBC is going to need to manage a lot of moving parts, from video files to live programming to ads that belong on different devices for ...More

  • The Sometimes-Fleeting Value Of TV Personality Brands by Wayne Friedman

    Keith Olbermann is gone again. But where has his brand gone? Nine months into his Current TV thing, the controversial news anchor has been fired for... well, the usual reasons. He previously lasted some seven years at MSNBC. What does this say about the Olbermann brand now? Perhaps something different than you think. ...More

  • Episode 502: 'Tea Leaves,' -- Or, Requiem For A Heavyweight by Barbara Lippert

    To paraphrase Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, and/or fat suits so grotesque that their characters turn into the Macy's-Parade-balloon version of themselves. That's certainly true for Betty, the former Mrs. Draper, who was never a great mind, to be sure, but managed always to hold on to her huge beauty and Grace Kelly-like style. And since John Hamm (who plays her ex, Don Draper) directed this episode, I'd say that while they are divorced in their fictional roles, there's also perhaps some previously undiagnosed tension in their offscreen ...More