Battered broadcast executives know the worldwide pay-TV market has become increasingly crowded. A new report shows how much worse it is going to get, forecasting that "hypercompetitive" media markets around the world will grow by nearly 40% in five years. The SNL Kagan report defines a "hypercompetitive" market as offering at least four digital media platforms, including digital cable, terrestrial TV and satellite. The pay-TV field has become especially crowded since big phone companies began offering TV over their networks. In Asia, for instance, the number of countries with hypercompetitive TV markets will go from eight …

Veteran TV journalist Ted Koppel will be a contributing analyst for BBC America and BBC World News. Koppel, who has been making documentaries for Discovery Channel since he left ABC News in 2005, will provide his expertise on major news stories, including the 2008 U.S. presidential election. "Ted Koppel is the quintessential American journalist with a global perspective," says BBC executive Rome Hartman. "The BBC has worldwide capabilities that I don't think any American network matches," Koppel says. "Our future in this country is dependent on what's happening in the rest of the world, which you won't …

It was only a matter of time after Fox boss Rupert Murdoch bought The Wall Street Journal until he tapped the paper's business news reporters to boost his fledgling Fox Business Network. Sure enough, the company announced that Walt Mossberg, the Journal's gadget guru, would launch a weekly tech segment on FBN this week. The problem is that Fox Business rival CNBC has an exclusive content partnership with WSJ through 2012. So how did FBN get around the CNBC agreement? Apparently the restrictions do not apply to non-business news or breaking news, so Mossberg can …

The Wall Street Journal Office Network, a collection of video screens in 630 offices showing ad-supported WSJ content, is expanding beyond the electronic screen. The company plans to support its branded video content with live product demonstration in office lobbies. Based on the success of a recent effort for Samsung, the network is planning a campaign for BlackBerry, in which video ads will be used to spur informational meetings and product demos co-hosted by Starcom Mediavest. So far the network, with screens in 14 major cities, has mostly business-oriented advertisers, such as Microsoft, Oracle, Cadillac and …

Financial and investment decision-makers are undermining the foundation of the media business, according to industry consultant Jack Myers. He worries that decisions affecting the long-term vitality of media and advertising business are being made to satisfy short-term financial goals. The industry can grow only "if we develop new business models that sustain the value of the content and the pipeline, and we don't use our content and distribution" simply to milk short-term cash flow, he writes. As competition mounts, ad and media companies have only two solutions: commoditize and be the low-cost provider, or "shift to a …