Archery Draws a Big TV Audience: Could \'Hunger Games\' Be the Reason?

By BILL CARTER

The London Olympics have generated plenty of news so far, but how about this headline: Archery is the No. 1 sport so far on NBC's cable coverage of the games.

That's right, archery has become a hot Olympic sport.

In a telephone news conference from London Thursday, Alan Wurtzel, NBC's top research executive, said, “The numbers for archery have been nothing less than huge.”

And by huge he means it has averaged 1.5 million viewers - in the daytime hours - higher than any other sport NBC has covered on its cable channels, including basketball. (To be fair, if only the games of the United States teams are measured, basketball would beat the bow-and-arrow experts.)

This result has surprised NBC's executives, though Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBC Sports, did predict archery would do well in the games.

Maybe not this well, however. Mr. Wurtzel called archery “the new curling,” citing the oddball win ter sport that developed a following in the Vancouver games two years ago.

But that was precisely because the sport is a bit bizarre to watch. Archery, on the other hand, is rather simple: contestant fires arrows at a bull's-eye, scores points for accuracy.

So what could account for the sudden surge in interest in archery? Mr. Wurtzel offered a theory: “Maybe it's the ‘Hunger Games' phenomenon.”

It's as good a guess as any, one seemingly supported by how well NBC's archery coverage has been doing with younger female viewers, presumably the fans of the young-adult novels (and movie), whose main character, Katniss Everdeen, is an expert archer.

Mr. Lazarus did note that it's only the Olympics, which all the added attention, that could account for a flurry of interest in a sport not necessarily made for television. He said it was unlikely that other archery competitions would attract much in the way of viewers. So archery fans should enjoy the cove rage while they can get it.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

Elizabeth Spiers, Editor of The New York Observer, Is Leaving

By THE EDITORS

Elizabeth Spiers, the editor in chief of The New York Observer, will leave the position at the end of this month, the Observer Media Group announced on Wednesday.

A post to the newspaper's Web site said Ms. Spiers was leaving to start a new company.

She will be replaced by the executive editor, Aaron Gell, who will oversee the weekly newspaper, the Web site and other related Web sites like Politicker and VelvetRoper, according to the announcement.

Ms. Spiers took over her post in February 2011, succeeding Kyle Pope and becoming the fourth top editor under Jared Kushner, who bought the paper in 2006. Mr. Gell will become the fifth.

“I'm incredibly proud of what we've built to date and will miss the fun of putting out the Observer every week and doing the kind of smart, witty stories we do,” Ms. Spiers said in the announcement. “But I'm also leaving it in excellent hands and look forward to enjoying it a s a reader with no red pen in my hand.”

She will “take on a part-time consultant role on the business side, focusing her efforts on the development of a creative services team for Observer Media Group,” the post on The Observer's Web site said.

DirecTV Reports Its First Drop in U.S. Subscribers

By BRIAN STELTER

DirecTV on Thursday reported its first drop in net subscribers to its service in the United States, highlighting the challenges for pay television providers in a saturated marketplace.

The company reported that it more than made up for the decline by adding a record number of subscribers in Latin America. Over all, DirecTV reported a 1.4 percent increase in net income, to $711 million, or $1.09 a share, in the second quarter of the year, from $701 million, or 91 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

Michael White, the chief executive of DirecTV, said in a statement that the growth in operating profit was “an early indication of successfully executing on our long-term strategy of striking a more optimal balance between growth and profitability.”

In recent months Mr. White has said that the company wants to focus on making more money from current subscribers in the United States, rather than on recruiti ng new ones. DirecTV is already the country's largest provider of satellite-television service, with nearly 20 million subscribers. It lost 52,000 net subscribers in the United States in the second quarter, after having gained 81,000 a quarter earlier.

Analysts had expected a subscriber loss, though they thought it would be somewhat smaller. They also expected DirecTV to increase the average amount of revenue per subscriber - and there, the company outperformed, with a year-over-year gain of 4 percent, to a total of $94.40 per subscriber per month.

DirecTV “appears to be benefiting from wise, economic consumer retention efforts - a long-term positive,” wrote Vijay Jayant of the ISI Group in a note to investors Thursday morning.

In Latin America, a much newer market, the company sacrificed gains in the average amount of revenue per subscriber to expand its base. In the second quarter, the company gained 645,000 net subscribers there, its best single-quar ter result ever, a reflection in part of cheaper rates for packages of TV channels. In his statement, Mr. White pointed to “20 percent revenue growth in the quarter” in the market.

DirecTV's headline-making spat with Viacom over a new contract for its cable channels was not a factor in the earnings because the contract did not expire until the end of the quarter. Viacom's channels were blacked out for more than a week in July, and it is unclear whether DirecTV's subscriber totals were affected by the absence. DirecTV, like other TV providers, has been trying to contain programming costs in recent years.

Just Before Olympics, \'Good Morning America\' Takes Crown Away From \'Today\"\"

By BILL CARTER

The last shred of morning television dominance owned by NBC's “Today” show came crashing down last week as ABC's “Good Morning America” won the ratings across the board, even among the group of viewers most prized by news advertisers.

For the first time in 17 years, “GMA” was the undisputed champion of the morning last week, soundly defeating “Today” in the category of total viewers, by 542,000, and also edging the NBC program by 12,000 in the category of viewers between the ages of 25 and 54.

A week earlier, the two shows had finished in a statistical tie in the 25-54 ratings, but the trend has been shifting powerfully toward “GMA,” especially since NBC replaced Ann Curry with Savannah Guthrie as co-host.

The win for “GMA” will almost certainly be short lived because NBC's Olympics coverage is pushing “Today” back in front in preliminary ratings. “Today” has been about 1.3 million v iewers ahead of “GMA” for the first two days this week, and 732,000 viewers ahead in the 25-54 group.

Those numbers may increase when Wednesday morning is factored in because NBC had its biggest night yet Tuesday and there is usually a carryover in the morning.

ABC has been noting, however, that the margins for “Today” are considerably less than they were four years ago when the Olympics were in Beijing. To be fair, “Today” was much farther ahead in those days, so it was building on its lead.

Now it must overcome a deficit. “Today” will get another week of Olympic-fueled ratings before it has to return to regular programming. At that point the test will be how much momentum “GMA” truly has.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

Options for Providing Women With a More Secure Retirement

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

It's easy to see why elderly women are at a higher risk of living in poverty during retirement than their male counterparts: women tend to earn less, live longer, and they often spend more time out of the work force to care for family members, both young and old.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, recently studied the challenges women face, and highlighted several dramatic statistics. Take, for instance, the effects divorce and widowhood had on women versus men: Women's household income fell by 41 percent, on average, when they divorced, which was almost twice the size of the drop that men experienced. And once women were widowed, household income fell by 37 percent, while men's fell by only 22 percent.

This was also illuminating: Median income for women over the age of 65 was about 25 percent lower than men's over the last decade, and the poverty rate for women in this age g roup was nearly two times higher than men's in 2010, according to the study.  Women - particularly widows and those over 80 years old - were also more likely to depend on Social Security benefits for a larger percentage of their income than men.

The G.A.O. compiled several potential options that, while they would be available to everyone, may especially benefit women planning for retirement. Many of these ideas, however, will cost the government money, while others would require the blessing of Congress, which could make any changes difficult in this political environment. So what did they come up with?

Automatic I.R.A. Employers who do not offer a retirement plan would be required to automatically enroll employees in an Individual Retirement Account, unless the worker opted out.

Expand the Saver's Credit This credit - a tax credit for retirement savings for low- and middle-income workers - could be made “refundable,” which means the credit would reduce the amount of tax owed, dollar for dollar. And if the amount of the credit exceeds your tax bill, you get to collect that extra cash.

Caregiver I.R.A. contributions This would allow all caregivers to contribute to I.R.A.'s up to the qualified contribution limit, based on the individual's adjusted gross income in the year prior to becoming a qualified caregiver. That would allow people to continue to save while providing care, if they could afford to.

Expand catch-up contributions Right now, workers age 50 and over can make additional “catch-up” contributions of up to $5,500 to their defined contribution retirement plans like 401(k)'s. This proposal would allow workers age 40 to 49 to make the extra contributions to those plans, too, which means women could make larger contributions for an extra decade. Of course, the women must have the wherewithal to save more.

Several other options would allow workers more opportunities to accumulate earnings credits for Social Security, like letting the jobless count their unemployment insurance payments as earnings under the system or allowing caregivers to accumulate credits, too. (It's hard to see this passing muster since it would increase costs to the Social Security system.)

Other ideas would make it easier for people who move in and out of the work force or who work part time to - namely, women - to become eligible for defined contribution retirement plans, which often require workers to log about 1,000 hours during a 12-month period.

Women also tend to benefit from options like annuities that provide lifetime income, the report said, since they are more likely to live longer and outlive their spouses. So some experts recommended encouraging employers to include annuities within their defined contribution retirement plans like 401(k)'s.

There were several other potential ideas listed in the report, none of which would resolve the r etirement problem on its own. The report also underscored that the difficulties in achieving a secure retirement is a national problem, regardless of gender. In fact, much of the relative improvement in women's situations has come only because men's situations have gotten worse.

What do you think of the potential options outlined above? What sort of solutions do you think would help women and retirees as a whole?

Thursday Reading: Dieting vs. Exercise for Weight Loss

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.

The Breakfast Meeting: Hunting for Leakers, and Olympic Spotlight on Headphones

By NOAM COHEN

The F.B.I.'s hunt for leakers among the government's national security agencies has cast a chill over media coverage of those issues, Scott Shane reports, with the agencies declining interview requests or background briefings. At the same time, the Senate is considering legislation meant to limit intelligence officials' exchanges with reporters; that bill has been criticized by intelligence veterans and civil libertarians fear as counterproductive and raising constitutional questions. The criminal investigation was prompted by, among others, recent media disclosures on American cyberattacks on Iran and the so-called “kill list” of terrorist suspects approved for drone strikes. The reports were published by The New York Times, The Associated Press, Newsweek and other outlets, as well as in recent books by reporters for Newsweek and The Times.

A new YouTube channel run by the Center of Investigative Reporting - I Files - will host investigative journalism videos from a wide range of sources, including The New York Times, ABC, BBC, Al Jazeera and Investigative News Network. The channel is being supported by an $800,000 grant from the Knight Foundation is seeding the channel, which will share revenue with its content partners, TechCrunch reports.

Sexual harassment has long been accepted in the male-dominated world of virtual gaming communities, Amy O'Leary writes, but a number of highly publicized examples have caused executives in the $25 billion-a-year industry to take note. The harassment of the only woman among a team competing in Cross Assault tournament - by her coach, no less - has become a rallying cause. Said Tom Cannon, a prominent figure in the “fighting game” community: “The nasty undercurrent in the scene isn't a joke or a meme. It's something we need to fix.”

Sony on Thursday reported a 77 percent decline in operating profit for the quarter that ended in June, far below expectations, Reuters reported. The reasons cited included the weak global economy and exchange rate shifts, but more generally, it showed the challenges facing the new chief executive of Sony, Kazuo Hirai, who has vowed to revive the fortunes of the company.

The prominent use of branded headphones thus far has evaded Olympics officials, who are relentless in blocking unofficial sponsors from coasting on the publicity of the Games, Andrew Das and Andrew Martin report. At the swimming center, it is common to see competitors like Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps of the United States, Sun Yang of China and Park Tae-hwan of South Korea come to the starting blocks with headphones. Perhaps the most popular brand is Beats by Dr. Dre, they write, which provided free sets to many athletes; Phelps, however, wears a futuristic pair made by an Oregon company, Sol Republic, which was news to the company.