• The Power Of Clarity
    If there has ever been a more appropriate name for an event, I can't think of one. Last week the 4As gave us Transformation 2011, the group's second annual transformation event.
  • Eric Clapton & the Montgomery Tech Conference
    I was in Santa Monica last week for the Montgomery Technology Conference -- and on Tuesday, just as I was about to call it a day, my college buddy rang. Eric Clapton was in town, and he'd just managed to score two tenth-row seats. I've been a devoted Clapton fan since college, I jumped on it. The show was incredible. But what does this have to do with the television business? Read on.
  • Set-Top Box Lexicon: The Signal: Digital and Analog
    In a prior column we delineated the difference between Analog and Digital Set-Top Boxes. In this column we talk about Analog and Digital transmission signals. The Analog signal has been around for years. It has been our standard transmission of television since its inception. But the landscape has changed dramatically with new transmission capabilities that have opened up new possibilities in not only signal delivery but also signal return path.
  • 12 Steps Of A Tiger
    It's time to admit that we're powerless over our addiction and give ourselves over to a higher power. That's right; it's time to break our national dependence upon Charlie Sheen.
  • Beck Backers Beckoned Back
    Mainstream media has been all atwitter over the recently reported ratings decline of Glenn Beck's popular TV news program. Year on year results appear to indicate that approximately 75 Nielsen households who watched his program in January of 2010, have now either stopped watching, or are now recording his program on a DVR, outside of Nielsen's measured window.
  • In Peter We Trust
    One of the most valuable lessons of my career came early. I was a young account manager and I had been assigned to our agency's largest and most profitable account (a combination not always the case). One of the reasons it maintained its unique status was due to a little-known agency legend named Peter Rabar.
  • Do Like Dolan: Focus On ROI To Take Team To Next Level
    Melo made his Knicks debut a couple of weeks ago, and Jimmy Dolan's critics were silenced, at least for the moment. What's this have to do with TV, you ask? Check out the ratings, for one.
  • Saving Face At Nielsen
    For those of us who are in the business of television, Nielsen is, for better or for worse, a large part of our daily lives. We recite their ratings as if it were some sort of gospel -- although you'd be hard-pressed to find many devout believers in the Holy Methodology these days. We're more an industry full of agnostics : we'll attend your church because it's where we were raised, but we're really not sure that we totally believe the scripture.
  • Set-Top Box Lexicon:The MVPDs
    We know them as "MSO," "Satco" and "Telco." These are the companies who are considered the "data originators" -- those that are at the source of the Set-Top Box Data. But a new acronym has emerged to describe these types of companies as a group. These companies are now termed Multi-channel Video Programming Distributors, or MVPDs for short.
  • Censure The Censors
    Last Wednesday's intentionally provocative John Hancock post, concerning Al-Jazeera's efforts to penetrate MSO's with their English-speaking spin-off, generated a record number of responses. The column's unofficial "sentiment tally" would have one believe that media insiders are solidly -- in fact, unanimously -- pro-Al-Jazeera English.
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