The merger of UPN and The WB into The CW, which debuts later this year, will likely result in fewer black- and urban-themed sitcoms, says Suzanne C. Ryan of The Boston Globe, and that's bad new. Based on industry interviews, Ryan predicts at least seven such programs from UPN alone will disappear because of the merger. Jannette Dates, dean of the School of Communications at Howard University, calls the potential cancellations a "travesty" because the black middle class already isn't represented much on television. "Sure, some of those shows were silly sitcom fare, but at least they tried to dive …

Steve Rosenbush has written a piece that explores the various ways that Microsoft can more successfully play in the world of content.  First, he chronicles Microsoft's recent moves, which mostly involve the acquisition of other companies.  (Sound familiar?)  He also recalls that the giant Redmond, Wash.-based corporation has gone down this path before, with decidedly unsatisfactory results.  (Remember Sidewalk.com?  Didn't think so.)  At heart, Microsoft remains a software developer, which is where its strengths lie. But in order to thrive in the current Internet/media environment--and to survive the onslaught of Google--Microsoft may need to produce entertainment and educational programming …

Phil Rosenthal, the Chicago Tribune's TV columnist, makes a point that sometimes seems to elude the mainstream press: Three current TV personalities that are the darlings of the nation's buzz-makers enjoy what are, in context, rather puny Nielsen ratings. Rosenthal points to Conan O'Brien (NBC), Stephen Colbert (Comedy Central), and Anderson Cooper (CNN/CBS), saying these are fine, entertaining guys and, right now, h-o-t. But in the overall scheme of things, c'mon, hardly anyone's watching them. And those who are skew to the young side of the demo charts. "The Colbert Report averaged fewer than 1.5 million total viewers in …

Improved theme-park attendance, and the recent turn-around of ratings at the ABC Television network, propelled in part by the success of "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy," helped the Walt Disney Company to an impressive first quarter. The Burbank, Calif.-based media conglomerate reported yesterday that profits rose 12 percent in the first quarter, slightly better than expected by several top Wall Street analysts. The investment community is closely watching ABC's multiplatform initiatives. The network is already making certain of its hit shows available, for a charge, as iPod downloads (thanks, in part, to Steven Jobs' new connection to Disney). If the …

Welcome to the world of the shrinking newspaper. In the last year or so, several major papers have announced they intend to either shrink their physical size or drop certain familiar features, such as stock tables. All of this, needless to say, is in reaction to the migration of the papers' readers and advertisers to the World Wide Web. This quite good BtoB piece details, paper by paper, who has shrunk, who plans to, and how. Many familiar brands, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal among them, are included. "With declining circulation, a relatively flat ad market …

Beginning with the popular Video Music Awards on Aug. 31, MTV will stream alternative versions of live programming in an effort to offer its Web-savvy audience a more panoramic view of events. For example, while the VMA show is live on the air, MTV's broadband channel, called Overdrive, will carry live backstage video, interviews with arriving guests, and so forth. MTV has also announced it will stream alternative video from the set of its popular "Total Request Live" show beginning in the fall. "Our audience has embraced the online video revolution and we felt it was time to create companion …

With the announcement yesterday that Warner Bros. will soon distribute movies and television programs via BitTorrent, the online file-sharing system for video, how long before the giant studio decides to circumvent cable and Blockbuster and go directly to its customer base? How long before it begins splitting ad revenues with BitTorrent? Good questions, both asked by Jeff Jarvis, the superblogger who posts at his influential BuzzMachine site. Once BitTorrent can be adapted to accept advertising, Jarvis thinks, the whole movie/TV distribution model may begin to shift. And when that happens, "The networks themselves are middlemen. How long will it be …

Mark Glaser, who writes the MediaShift blog--a more refined blog you'll never find, perhaps because this one is associated with PBS--writes that the sprawling Reuters empire has failed to adapt to the wonders of the World Wide Web. Reuters remains, to a large extent, an old-line newswires company, slow to utilize the Web, writes Glaser. Which is a shame, because Reuters' resources are vast and not easily duplicable. Glaser: "Reuters oozes with potential for a makeover. Here's a service with 2,300 editorial staff in 130 countries that produces 600 photos per day, and in 2005 filed more than 2.7 million …

You'd think that when A&E, the ad-supported cable channel, begins airing reruns of HBO's “The Sopranos” next January, the episodes would be heavily edited for the gentler sensibilities of the network's audience and advertisers, not to mention the FCC.  Well, you'd be right --and wrong.  A&E will edit “The Sopranos”--its team is working on snipping bits from season two right now--but the task is far less daunting than one might have imagined. Knowing the popular series would one day be sold to a basic-cable service, David Chase and the other producers of "The Sopranos" were smart enough to film …

A.J. Frutkin of Mediaweek nicely summarizes the competition between the major television networks to get their programming onto so-called third screens—cell phones, iPods, and other mobile devices.  A year ago, this was a subject of secondary interest to the networks, but suddenly everyone is in on the action and the race is on.  ABC is in the lead, Frutkin says, but the situation is fluid and the outcome, in terms of revenue, still unknown.  Mediaweek: "ABC is widely recognized as the industry leader in presenting digital content, having been the first network last fall to offer fee-based video downloads …