Though the TV experience has been spiced up by voting for "American Idol" contestants, it is still generally passive. To change that, Yahoo plans to offer software that can run small applications, or widgets, to network-enabled TVs. Yahoo's Widget Channel will resemble what's available on PCs, but will allow widgets to be controlled with a TV remote control, says Patrick Barry, Yahoo executive. Yahoo's hope is to bring its Internet clout to the TV domain and "address the audience in a unified consistent way, ultimately creating a liquid advertising market," Barry says. Television equipment with the …

In a Q&A, 10-time Emmy-winner Steven Bochco expresses his distaste for today's TV broadcast networks, which have become "overrun with reality programming and very fantastical concepts. There's just not a lot of room in that world for what I do." He says the broadcast networks today also "micromanage every single aspect of production, so that it's an impossible chore. If you don't give them what they want creatively, they'll get rid of you." As a result, Bochco has moved to cable -- his new legal drama "Raising the Bar" will start airing on TNT Sept. 1. As …

Rupert Murdoch, chief of News Corp., received compensation valued at $30.1 million this year, an increase of 24% from last year. The bulk came from a nonstock incentive bonus of $17.5 million, up 11% from the $15.8 million he got in fiscal 2007. News Corp's 2008 net income rose 57% this year on the strength in its cable networks and film business. However, the company's shares fell 54% in the same period, as investors soured on media companies affected by the shift in ad spending to online from traditional media sources. Murdoch also received $403,169 in …

Profits at Philadelphia's two metro newspapers got fatter in the 1990s, while the papers ignored impending problems from the Internet, according to an analysis of financial data by the J-School blog. Chris Anderson writes that under the ownership of Knight-Ridder, profit margins were between 9% in 1995 and the low 20%'s in the early 2000s, even while circulation and staff were dropping and the Web loomed on the horizon. The papers failed to invest in an Internet future that many knew was coming, he writes. "They were so focused on the quarterly bottom line, they failed to realize …

CBS Sports will significantly ramp up its online video output for the upcoming NFL season. A seven-day-a-week lineup of original Web shows will include a new Sunday morning fantasy football preview show. The show, to be hosted by CBS Sports' ubiquitous Web correspondent Jason Horowitz, will feature interviews, news and tips for the millions of fantasy football junkies across the U.S., who will be encouraged to email questions for use during the Webcast. The cast of CBS' core NFL show "The NFL Today" will also appear in the weekly segments.

In time for the election rush, all-news network MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, replacing longtime host Dan Abrams with Rachel Maddow. MSNBC has put heavy emphasis this year on presidential election coverage and turned to Maddow frequently as a guest commentator and a substitute for its signature personality, Keith Olbermann. Liberal Olbermann is so popular that MSNBC has unofficial rebranded itself as the liberal alternative to Fox News, which is dominated by conservative hosts. Since Abrams is not particularly partisan in his approach to the news, a program with Maddow as host will almost certainly …

To say the ratings success of the Summer Games in Beijing has piqued the interest of NBC's rivals would be a huge understatement. ESPN president George Bodenheimer said Tuesday that his network would definitely be in the running to air the Games in the 2014 and 2016. Fox, which participated in the last round of bidding, says it also is interested. "If I was holding the auction, I would definitely want to hold it after this Olympics," says ESPN executive John Skipper. It's likely that only the 2014 and 2016 Games will be up for grabs …

As news organizations chase the emerging market for mobile advertising, The Wall Street Journal has launched a wireless content application for BlackBerry smart phones. The free WSJ.com Mobile Reader provides headlines, summaries and full articles from the WSJ, MarketWatch, Barron's and All Things D websites. Users can organize content by category and keywords and can track specific companies and stocks. They also have the option to pull material from rival sites and blogs. There are no plans to charge for the ad-supported application, but the company will eventually make some content available only to paying subscribers.