In a dispatch headlined "Old Media Fights the New for Audience Share," Reuters reports on several of the speeches delivered by industry leaders at the We Media conference, currently under way in London. Most seemed to agree that while the current digital revolution had been hard on Old Media, particularly print newspapers, the overall effect has been positive. In the end, audiences and advertisers will be better served, and especially sluggish media (by which is meant the newspaper industry) will have made the necessary adjustments. Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, told the crowd, "We are seeing a second digital …

Business Week's media columnist, Jon Fine, focuses this week on a phenomenon that should warm the profit-adoring hearts of local TV executives everywhere.  While their stations are scrambling to keep audiences--and in many cases battling with the networks for a proper share of revenues generated by downloaded programs--they are finding that advertisers are flocking to the stations' Web sites. And the nice thing is that advertisers can instantly appreciate the upside of booking space.  Fine: "Sometimes the Web can give back some of what it takes away, and there's untapped upside for local TV guys online. Ad agency folks …

Is it possible that Fox News got President Bush elected in 2000? According to a new study, the answer is yes.  Factoring out other influences, Fox News alone may have influenced enough voters--including more than 10,000 in the pivotal state of Florida--to have put Bush into the White House.  "Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its audience to shift its voting behavior towards the Republican Party, a sizable media persuasion effect," says Stefano DellaVigna of the University of California at Berkeley and Ethan Kaplan of StockholmUniversity, who conducted the study.  To check out the …

Despite a spate of quite disappointing circulation news for the young-men's magazines so far in 2006--one, Cargo, even folded--executives at Maxim and FHM, two leading titles in the category, tell Media Life that they are neither on life-support nor even in trouble. Rob Gregory, group publisher of Maxim:  "Maxim is based on the universal truths that define guys as guys. We deliver a mix of entertainment and service journalism, with humor and attitude, that in the end will make you a better man. These ideas are timeless; they will exist as long as our species walks the planet. They …

While news junkies have been observing with varying degrees of jealousy (or contempt) Rupert Murdoch's plan to link his company's popular MySpace.com Web site with one of his British papers, a small paper in Spokane, Wash. has already done just that.  The Spokane-Review has created a  MySpace profile for its weekly entertainment supplement, called '7.'  There was no cost involved, and already the paper is enjoying the benefits of being linked to the hugely popular social-networking site that appeals mainly to teenagers. "Some of us who've been on MySpace for a couple of years had been kicking the idea …

Frank Moss, director of the MIT Media Lab, told a Magazine Publishers of America conference last week that magazines, as a medium, won't go away as a result of the World Wide Web.  They are durable and worthy as a concept and cannot be vanquished, chiefly because of the way they create unique bonds with their readers.  But they will need to adapt to new technologies.  Mainly, they will need to become increasingly interactive.  Reports Kristina Joukhadar of Circulation Management: "It is the concept of digital living that Moss implores publishers to think about next: a way to take …

Broadcasting & Cable's Anne Becker reports that CBS is about to debut its ad-supported broadband channel, possibly as early as today, and that it will eventually feature original programming as well as streaming, for-purchase copies of CBS series. "CBS has been testing different pricing strategies for online offerings of its shows," writes Becker. "It recently lowered the price for online episodes of 'Survivor' from $1.99 to $.99, adding ads to the stream as well." It's expected that CBS executives will reveal details about the original broadband offerings--about which not much is known at this point--during the upfront, which begins May …

Great opening line by Chicago Tribune television columnist Phil Rosenthal:  "If the Walt Disney Co. tries to take ABC to Tomorrowland without asking its partners for directions, it's headed for Fantasyland."  According to Rosenthal, ABC affiliate stations and groups are watching with chagrin and, in some cases, anger, as the network proceeds to make one announcement after another concerning its strategy for Web-based distribution.  Reason:  The network's partners feel they've been entirely left out of the decision-making process-- and it is the stations, after all, most likely to be hurt when viewers turn toward smaller screens to get their …

John Hughes, former editor of the Christian Science Monitor and past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, would, naturally, be an unapologetic flag-waver for the newspaper industry.  He explains why in a Monitor column titled "In the Age of the Internet, Newspapers Are Still Big Business."  Hughes' main point, well-taken, is thatnewspapers still retain the large reporting staffs that do most of the heavy lifting in the news business.  Without these teams, the Internet (not to mention television and magazines) would be hard-pressed to deliver valuable news content.  Hughes:  "While technology may change methods of delivery... there …

Most of the major media conglomerates have continued their sluggish performance on Wall Street, but two--the Walt Disney Company and News Corporation--have perked up lately because of the perception that they've got their broadband game going. According to writer Paul R. La Monica, some firms, particularly Time Warner and Viacom, have "continued to struggle" because they are seen to have been less aggressive in the Net space. "Investors are rewarding media companies with a growth strategy. News Corp. and Disney management have continued to position the companies for growth," Aryeh Bourkoff, an analyst with UBS, tells La Monica. Indeed, even …