Politico
From the campaign trail to Barack Obama's appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," Republican Senate candidate from Indiana Richard Mourdock's comment about rape-induced pregnancies being something that "God intended" unleashed a firestorm of media coverage about Mourdock's campaign, and potential implications for the Romney/Ryan campaign too.
Washington Post
Madison Avenue is aghast at the incessant, hit-them-over-the-head, negative ad barrage that all the political candidates have unleashed on American voters this campaign season, and wonder why there isn't a bit more finesse behind the political ad messages.
USA Today
More than 915,000 commercials aired on broadcast and cable stations since President Obama and Mitt Romney began competing against each other in the race for the White House, setting a new record, according to a new report from The Wesleyan Media Project. The report estimates that the 2012 campaign to date has aired more ads than ran in the 2008 and 2004 campaigns combined.
Forbes
"Think Keith Olbermann has burned his last bridge in the television business? He doesn’t think so," writes Jeff Bercovici. Instead, he's recently been casting "a wide net" in his search for a new on-air job in TV, approaching cable and broadcast networks, including several "that don’t have any news programming per se on their schedules." He's also said "he’d like to be involved in sports coverage" again, as he was on a previous stint during NBC’s “Sunday Night Football."
Agency Spy
Joe Alexander was officially promoted to chief creative officer of Richmond, Va.-based The Martin Agency, after a four month trial period when he "essentially" replaced former CCO John Morgan in that spot, reports Kiran Aditham. Alexander has been at the agency for almost two decades.
New York Observer
Harper's magazine offically relauched its website with a version that "will be more searchable and have more blog-like content," writes Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke. Some articles remain free, but "there is still a subscription model."
TV Newser
As the November sweeps began today, the three network morning shows pulled out some relatively big newsmaking "gets" to compete for ratings. At NBC, "Today" featured an interview with DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo on the 10th anniversary of his attacks. On “CBS This Morning,” General Colin Powell "made some political news by once again endorsing President Obama," writes Alex Weprin. And "on a softer front, ABC’s 'Good Morning America' had arguably its biggest guest yet filling in for Robin Roberts: Oprah Winfrey."
Poynter
At the McClatchy Co. circulation and ad revenues were both down -- 2% and 5.4% respectively -- this quarter over the corresponding quarter in 2011, according to a just-released earnings report. Still, next quarter the company expects to see more of a circulation revenue boost from the digital subscription paywall it will start rolling out then, after introducing the paywall for five of its newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, this September.
Broadcasting & Cable
Comcast and The CW Network have just made a deal that, starting today, the broadcast network's prime-time shows will be available on Comcast's video-on-demand network -- the first time the network will do so on an multi-system cable operator. The most recent episode of each show will be available for free viewing the day after its first broadcast airing.
Adweek
Yep, there's been a lot more political ads on TV this year than in 2008 -- almost 45% more so far -- and that figure will again reach record levels in the time remaining till election day, "when about one-third of all the political advertising for the entire election cycle will air," writes Katy Bachman. However, with the battleground "signifcantly smaller," those ads have been appearing mostly in just nine states, "far fewer than in 2008." To handle the volume of ads, some TV stations in those states "are
shaving an extra minute or two out of news, …