MediaShift turns the tables on IWantMedia.com's Patrick Phillips and asks him for his thoughts about the state of mass media today. His popular site, a news aggregator about all things media, has lately appeared to tilt toward stories suggesting that Old Media are being surpassed by New Media. "The main section... has been dominated like never before by headlines such as 'Microsoft, NY Times Partner on Onscreen Reader Software' or 'AOL Launches Blog About Time Warner,' says MediaShift in its introduction to the Q&A. "The explosion of digital technology into the previously stodgy worlds of print newspapers and radio and …

On the occasion of its 1000th issue, a milestone the magazine marks this month with a million-dollar 3D cover, Rolling Stone is again the topic of considerable cultural buzz--just like the great old days, some might observe, when every new issue of the mag was greeted with enormous enthusiasm throughout the rock-and-roll nation.  That enthusiasm has dulled as the music and country have evolved, but the magazine is nevertheless consistently first-rate.  Jann Wenner, its founder, now 60, talked to USA Today about his beloved book, and why, in his opinion, it remains vital nearly three decades after its launch.  …

Verizon Communications, soon to engage in a major battle with rival AT&T over the telecoms' entry into the TV space, says its product, called FiOS, is capturing between 9 and 12 percent of the homes where it is available.  Right now, FiOS, launched last September, is an option to consumers in parts of just six states.  Among them: New York, Massachusetts, and Florida.  Verizon is spending "billions" on the rollout of FiOS, reports TV Week.  The objective is to give Verizon customers the triple-play bundle--phone, Internet, TV--so many Americans seem to find appealing.  The recently reconstituted AT&T (formerly SBS …

Aaron Cohen, executive vice president-director of national broadcast at Horizon Media, tells Ad Age that The CW represents an "attractive opportunity," even though it won't launch until later in the year. "We don't know the schedule yet and can only surmise the programs they select will clearly address the 18-34 audience and will skew female," Cohen says. Still, he believes it's an appealing buy "given that they've achieved approximately 90 percent distribution." Cohen says he expects pricing will be high because The CW is a new network and the assumption is the programming will be culled from the best …

The Federal Communications Commission has lately devoted a lot of attention and time to the issue of obscenity on TV.  It's not always clear what consumers think about the issue, except that it's a hot-button topic in some neighborhoods.  But insofar as cable TV is concerned, a new study from Arbitron suggests that paying subscribers would just as soon the government butt out.  Arbitron's study, which focused on the relationship between subs and cable, revealed that nearly two-thirds of all respondents said that cable programming should be unrestricted by the government, agreeing that "channels like MTV, E! and Comedy …

The Society of American Business Writers and Editors, meeting this week in Minneapolis, heard what most probably expected to hear--that, in order to survive in today's rapidly changing media mix, every piece of newspaper content must be leveraged across a multitude of delivery platforms. "It's not that your content is bad," said speaker Love Goel, chairman and chief executive of Minneapolis-based Growth Ventures Group and an Internet retailing expert. "It's, how do you share that content in a way that people want it?" Another speaker, Macy's North chief executive Guzzetta, said major department-store chains were beginning to lose their …

For those who looked to TV's leading newsmagazines as the one redeeming virtue of the messy, often lowbrow medium, the trend is not good.  Fewer newsmagazines are on the air, they are broadcast for fewer hours than they once were, and there's reason to believe that one or more will disappear in the near future. Their replacements?  Reality TV.  That's the conclusion drawn by reporter David Brader, who surveyed the landscape for the Associated Press. “60 Minutes” remains a TV stalwart, to be sure, but its audience is down significantly from its peak. Either “Primetime” or “20/20” will likely …

MSNBC has found a new way to mine the Web for content. Its hour-long afternoon program "The Most," launched yesterday afternoon, will feature content that, according to Web measurement tools, is the most searched by users around the world. The cable channel says "The Most" will "give viewers a look at the most sought-after stories of the day. Every day the program will report on the most searched stories on the Internet, the most viewed stories from a multitude of news sources, the most e-mailed stories or photo images, the most downloaded music or blogged-about subject matter, and the most …

Although it's only five months old, YouTube.com is attracting five million users daily, people who are either viewing or posting the two-minute amateur video clips that are seemingly so compelling. Especially among the young, who are its main audience at the moment, YouTube has developed into an alternative to over-the-air television. The site already features a library of 35,000 clips, with more pouring in daily. Visitors to the site can ad comments to the clips, resulting in a sort of nonscientific ratings system. The result is that some contributors to YouTube.com are quickly developing a celebrity-like following. No surprise, then, …

  NBC's ratings juggernaut “Today” this week has begun to post the first hour of the program on the Web.  Although certain elements of the show will be deleted--local weather inserts, for example--NBC says its Webcast will be more complete than those of morning rivals “Good Morning America” and “The Early Show,” both of which got to the Web sooner than did “Today.”  Jeff Zucker, CEO of the NBC Universal Television Group, has been aggressive in asking his executives to develop material for alternative delivery platforms, reports TV Week.  NBC says it may make the …