CBS Fight With Dish Spills Over to CNET

The Consumer Electronics Association cut its ties with CNET on Thursday, two weeks after CNET’s parent company, the CBS Corporation, prohibited the Web site’s editors from giving an award to an innovative product it deemed illegal.

The association retroactively gave the award to the product in question, the Hopper, a digital video recorder sold by Dish Network that allows users to automatically skip all the ads on prime-time network television shows. The newest version of the product uses technology from a company called Sling that lets customers wirelessly watch recorded shows away from home.

“The CNET editorial team identified the Hopper Sling as the most innovative product of the show, and we couldn’t agree more,” said Karen Chupka, a senior vice president at the association, in a statement. So the Hopper will share the Best of Show award with the product that CNET begrudgingly picked as a backup, the Razer Edge gaming tablet.

The association’s announcement was a stern rebke to CNET, a longtime partner of the association’s annual conference, the International Consumer Electronics Show. The official name is International CES. CNET will no longer host the Best of CES Awards, Ms. Chupka said; the association is seeking a new partner for it.

Mark Larkin, the general manager of CNET, did not comment directly on the association’s decision, but he said in a statement: “As the No. 1 tech news and reviews site in the world, CNET is committed to delivering in-depth coverage of consumer electronics. We look forward to covering CES and the latest developments from the show as we have for well over a decade.”

The spat over the Hopper was, among other things, a proxy fight between CBS and Dish, which are battling in court over the legality of the Hopper. Dish says the product is perfectly acceptable and addresses what consumers want; CBS says it violates copyright. The case is pending, as are several other network owners’ cases against Dish. Last week CBS revised its lawsuit to accuse Dish of covering up its plans for the Hopper during carriage negotiations between the two companies.

When CBS executives learned that the CNET staff had voted to give the Hopper the Best in Show award, they vetoed the editorial decision, fearing it would undermine the company’s lawsuit. CNET staff members tried and failed to resist, and later conducted a revote that resulted in the Razer Edge’s being named the winner. The outrage at CNET spilled into public view a few days later, and one senior writer resigned in protest.

CBS sought to portray its interference with the awards as a one-time-only incident. In a recent statement the company said: “CNET is not going to give an award or any other validation to aproduct which CBS is challenging as illegal, other networks believe to be illegal and one court has already found to violate the copyright act in its application. Beyond that, CNET will cover every other product and service on the planet.”

But the Consumer Electronics Association, which represents manufacturers of products like the Hopper, has backed Dish in the argument. It filed a brief in support of Dish with the court last week, and its president, Gary Shapiro, pounded CBS in a column in USA Today this week.

“CBS, once called the Tiffany network, will never be viewed again as pristine,” he wrote. “The ethical media rule is that corporate business interests should never interfere in journalism â€" or at least not so blatantly, publicly and harmfully. It made me wonder if ’60 Minutes’ had ever suffered the same treatment.” He asserted that the company’s interference also hur! t CNET be! cause “users and partners like us” have “lost confidence in its independence.”

CBS says that’s not true.

Dish, for its part, used the association’s announcement on Thursday to take another shot at CBS. The Dish chief executive Joseph Clayton said he appreciated the re-awarding of the Hopper but regretted that it “has come in the face of CBS’s undermining of CNET’s editorial independence.”

He added, “We look forward to continuing our longstanding relationship with CNET’s editorial staff and hope they are able return to their long tradition of unbiased evaluation and commentary of the industry’s products and services.”

Lena Dunham to Create New Comedy Show

With a series that she stars in, produces, writes and occasionally directs, and a book she is contracted to deliver, Lena Dunham clearly does not have enough to do.

Now she has a new deal with HBO, the network that for her series “Girls,” to create yet another comedy show. Ms. Dunham is teaming with Jenni Konner, an executive producer on “Girls,” to write the pilot for a show about the life and work of a personal shopper in New York.

HBO has not officially announced the show but the network confirmed Ms. Dunham’s participation Thursday. The show will be based on a memoir by Betty Halbreich, “All Dressed Up and Everywhere to Go,” that told of her career working as a shopper for the Bergdorf Goodman department store, buying merchandise for the rich and famous of Manhattan. HBO had previously purchased the rights to the book.

News of the new series was first reported on the Web site Deadline Hollywood.

Christie Gets His Chance for Revenge on Letterman

Chris Christie has been a favorite target for David Letterman over the past few years, and on Monday night he will get his chance to strike back.

The New Jersey governor, whose plus-size figure has been the subject of a seemingly endless string of jokes from Mr. Letterman on his CBS show, will make his first appearance on “Late Night” next Monday.

Mr. Letterman has frequently offered his favorite targets the opportunity to come back at him face to face, including Oprah Winfrey (who took him up on it) and Sarah Palin (who didn’t.)

Most recently during last year’s presidential campaign, Mr. Letterman went to great lengths to try to induce Mitt Romney, whom he had satirized with relish, to be a guest before the election. Mr. Romney declined.

Mr. Christie has already appeared with other late-night hosts, like Jon Stewart, and has said in the past that he accepts the fact that comedians will make fun of his weight - as long as they are genuinely funny doing it.

Christie Gets His Chance for Revenge on Letterman

Chris Christie has been a favorite target for David Letterman over the past few years, and on Monday night he will get his chance to strike back.

The New Jersey governor, whose plus-size figure has been the subject of a seemingly endless string of jokes from Mr. Letterman on his CBS show, will make his first appearance on “Late Night” next Monday.

Mr. Letterman has frequently offered his favorite targets the opportunity to come back at him face to face, including Oprah Winfrey (who took him up on it) and Sarah Palin (who didn’t.)

Most recently during last year’s presidential campaign, Mr. Letterman went to great lengths to try to induce Mitt Romney, whom he had satirized with relish, to be a guest before the election. Mr. Romney declined.

Mr. Christie has already appeared with other late-night hosts, like Jon Stewart, and has said in the past that he accepts the fact that comedians will make fun of his weight - as long as they are genuinely funny doing it.

Ratings Shortfall at Nickelodeon Hurts Viacom Revenue

Hampered by ratings shortfalls at Nickelodeon and an unfavorable film release schedule, Viacom on Thursday reported a 16 percent decrease in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012, a somewhat steeper drop than analysts anticipated.

But the company’s profits came in slightly ahead of expectations, and the chief executive, Philippe Dauman, pleased Wall Street with positive news about progress at Nickelodeon and Viacom’s other cable networks.

Mr. Dauman said the company was making an “unprecedented investment in content” that was paying off for Nickelodeon. The dramatic ratings declines that began to be visible in late 2011 are moderating, and new shows are premiering. Mr. Dauman said the ratings momentum “confirms our view that our significant and sustained investment in fresh, original content is working, and will continue to drive future ratings growth and revenue improvement.”

Viacom reported revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012, its fiscal first quarter, of $3.3 billion, don from $3.95 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Analysts had forecast $3.48 billion in revenue.

Profits rose to $470 million, or 92 cents a share, compared with $212 million, or 38 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago. But the year-ago quarter was hurt by a settlement with the original shareholders of Harmonix Music Systems, the makers of the “Rock Band” video game series. After adjustments, Viacom earned 91 cents a share in the quarter, a penny higher than analysts had predicted, from $1.06 in the same quarter a year ago.

The damage done by Nickelodeon’s ratings drop was evident in the total revenues for Viacom’s cable networks, by far the biggest part of its business. Revenue dipped 2 percent at the networks overall, largely because advertising revenue decreased 6 percent, even as affiliate fees paid by cable and satellite distributors grew.

Mr. Dauman said on a conference call with analysts that the “lingering effects of the r! atings softness” at Nickelodeon masked growth elsewhere at the cable networks. Excluding its children’s channels, Viacom’s networks group “returned to positive ad growth in the quarter,” he said.

David Bank, a media analyst for RBC Capital Markets, said Nickelodeon’s ratings for the past few months are showing recovery after a rocky 2012. “All they need to do is continue to deliver the audience they are already delivering â€" without growth â€" and the year-over-year comparisons virtually assure growth,” he said.

Nickelodeon will pitch a slate of new animated and live-action series to advertisers at a presentation in late February. One of the areas of focus is preschool programming â€" the idea being that very young viewers will stick with Nickelodeon throughout their childhood.

Mr. Dauman said Viacom has found that its viewers of all ages want more new shows, and they want more episodes of those shows on “faster cycles,” so it has sped up the development and productionprocesses at Nickelodeon and elsewhere.

Mr. Dauman spent some time on Thursday’s earnings call praising MTV, another one of its flagship networks, which he said had started to answer the question “What comes after ‘Jersey Shore’” That infamous reality show had its series finale earlier this winter.

“‘Jersey Shore’ was a game-changing hit,” he said, “but it also precipitated an overemphasis on one night,” which was Thursday. MTV is trying to spread its new shows â€" “Catfish,” “Washington Heights,” “Buckwild” â€" across the weekly schedule.

Viacom’s film studio, Paramount, saw revenues drop 37 percent in the quarter, to $975 million. The company attributed this to the fact that it had fewer releases this time around.

Nate Silver\'s Poker Tips

FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver traveled to Australia to play in the Aussie Millions Poker Championship. While he was there, he spoke to Fairfax Media about tics, tells and “playing the math.”

Nate Silver\'s Poker Tips

FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver traveled to Australia to play in the Aussie Millions Poker Championship. While he was there, he spoke to Fairfax Media about tics, tells and “playing the math.”

In Dispute Over Ray Charles Songs, Family Gains Victory in Court

A dispute between the children of Ray Charles and the foundation to which he left most of his money is the latest battleground in one of the entertainment industry’s most contentious issues: the “termination rights” that allow artists and their families to recover the copyrights to their work from third parties like record companies or publishers.

Last week a federal judge in California ruled that the Ray Charles Foundation cannot interfere with the efforts of seven of Charles’s 12 surviving children to recover the music publishing rights to about 60 of his classic songs, like “I Got a Woman,” “Hallelujah I Love Her So” and “Mary Ann.” The foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization founded by Charles in 1986, currently receives royalties on those songs.

In a further blow, the judg, Audrey B. Collins of United States District Court in Los Angeles, also ruled that the foundation must reimburse the children for their legal expenses.

The case combines the drama of a family fight over a celebrity’s legacy with a detail of copyright law that poses a threat to the entertainment industry. An amendment to United States copyright law that took effect in 1978 gave artists the right to recover the copyrights to their 35 years after they were granted to another party; for works copyrighted before 1978 the rule also applied, but after 56 years.

In the music industry, most of the concern about these cases has been about whether record companies and publishers would prevail over artists by claiming that their music was “work for hire” â€" in other words, as an employee â€" and is thus exempt from termination claims. But the Charles case also reveals how complicated these claims can be when they involve deceased authors and their wills.

The case was triggered in 2010 w! hen Charles’ children filed termination notices for the songs with their publisher, Warner/Chappell. Last year, the foundation â€" which includes former business associates of Ray Charles but no members of his family â€" sued the children, saying that they did not have the rights to reclaim the songs’ copyrights and had breached agreements with their father. Before Charles’s death in 2004, most of his children had signed agreements saying that in exchange for $500,000, they would make no further claims on his estate after he died.

Judge Collins ruled against the foundation, noting that the law gave rights to surviving family members of a deceased artist, which cannot be superseded by any other agreement, including a will.

Valerie Ervin, the foundation’s president, said in a statement that it would appeal the decision. “The very clear and unmistakable intention of both Ray Charles and all his children was that, in exchange for a substantial payment, the children were not to raise any clims against their father’s estate,” Ms. Ervin said. “The children who filed these termination notices violated the sacred promise they made. They took their father’s money and now come back for more. The law is very unsettled in these matters and we intend to seek resolution through the courts.”

The judge also approved a motion brought by the Charles family to dismiss the suit under laws against so-called Slapp suits, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, which obstruct free speech and petition. As part of that victory, the judge ruled that the foundation must pay the family’s legal fees, which will be determined later.

“The decision is important for authors/artists and their families everywhere,” Marc Toberoff, the lawyer for the Charles children, wrote in a statement. “A disturbing trend has emerged where adversely affected companies initiate frivolous legal action to chill the exercise of the Copyright Act’s inalienable termination right. By holding th! at termin! ation is protected under anti-Slapp statutes, which include a mandatory award of attorneys fees, those who pursue such strategies do so at their own peril.”

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

\'Katie\' to Return for a Second Season

Not many syndicated talk shows survive to a second year, but if one show was a likely candidate, it was the new entry starring Katie Couric. On Wednesday, Disney-ABC Domestic Television made it official: the show will return for a second season.

That decision was widely expected because “Katie” has been, by far, the best-rated new syndicated talk entry this season. It also moved easily into the top tier among all the shows in the talk category, finishing sixth in total viewers of the 18 syndicated shows competing in the talk genre. It averages about 2.5 million viewers each day.

The renewal is good news for Ms. Couric, who took something of a risk leaving the network news business, where she had most recently been the anchor of “The CBS Evening News.” It is also good news for Jeff Zucker, now the president at CNN, because he shares ownership of the show with Ms. Couric and the syndication company.

Mr. Zucker, who first teamed up with Ms. Couric on NBC’s “Today,” was the exeutive producer of “Katie” before he took the job at CNN.

Answer in Sight for \'How I Met Your Mother\'

It will take, in total, nine years, but yes, there will be an answer to “How I Met Your Mother” â€" and it will be revealed in spring 2014.

That’s because all the show’s key players, from its cast members, including Jason Segel, Neal Patrick Harris and Josh Radnor, to its creators, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, agreed to a new deal on Wednesday with CBS and the production studio 20th Century Fox Television. The agreement will bring the comedy to a close after one more season.

“HIMYM,” as the show is known, continues to be one of the top-rated comedies on television this season, averaging almost 10 million viewers â€" when delayed viewing is included.

The series has managed to survive despite a premise that teased viewers into wondering whether it would ever introduce the character who would be the mother of the two children in the show. They were first introduced in 2005, supposedly listening to their father in 2030 recounting his many romantic encounters until he met and maried their mother.

The producers even took the precaution of shooting, several years ago, the final scene with the two actors who have played the children, David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca, so they would not be near adulthood when the series ended.

Ratings Drop for Season Premiere of \'Dallas\'

The ratings for the two-hour premiere of season two of “Dallas,” the revival of the fabled soap on the TNT cable channel, are not going to do much to relieve the down mood left after the death of the show’s central star, Larry Hagman.

Monday night, the show attracted an audience smaller than any episode in its first season, and one significantly lower than the show’s premiere had in 2012.

For the first time, “Dallas” fell below three million viewers, with 2.97 million for the premiere. Last season, the show averaged about 4.2 million viewers, and its least-watched episode attracted 3.24 million.

The premiere episode last season pulled in more than twice as many viewers with 6.86 million. And the finale last season was also a success, with 4.28 million.

The news was equally grim among the viewers whom TNT is looking to reach to sell to advertisers. Monday’s show was lower than only one episode last year in its ratings for viewers in the two groups of most interest to avertisers, those between the ages of 18 and 49 and 25 and 54.

The Best Defense Is a Good Defense

The Super Bowl is just a few days away, and sports axioms are rampant. But which are we to believe Is the best defense a good offense Or does defense win championships In The New York Times Magazine this week, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver looks at how the 20 best defenses and 20 best offenses to play in past Super Bowls fared in the big game, and what their records say about this year’s matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. Read more.

Time Inc. to Reduce Global Staff by 6 Percent

Time Inc. joined the many news organizations that are trying to tighten their belts in a tough advertising climate by announcing layoffs and offering employees buyout packages on Wednesday.

In a memo, Laura Lang, chief executive of Time Inc., said that she planned to reduce the company’s worldwide staff of 8,000 employees by 6 percent, or about 480 employees. Ms. Lang stressed that the cuts would extend beyond New York and that it was hoped they would help Time Inc. better make the transition to the digital world.

“They come from all areas of Time Inc. across our locations â€" both domestic and international,” Ms. Lang said. “We must continue to transform our company into one that is leaner, more nimble and more innately multiplatform.”

Editors at People and Time magazines announced buyout packages Wednesday morning and other magazines are expected to follow with announcements throughout the day.

In a memo to his staff, Larry Hackett, editor in chief of People magazine, sid that he was seeking nine volunteers to accept severance packages. According to the memo, he specifically was looking for three writers and six reporters or researchers to volunteer to take packages.

Mr. Hackett said in his memo that volunteers must apply by Feb. 13. “If necessary, we will then follow the guild contract procedure for conducting involuntary layoffs in these guild categories,” he added, referring to the union representing Time employees.

At Time, Richard Stengel, the magazine’s managing editor, said he was seeking two researchers, one staff writer and three copy editors to volunteer for severance packages.

YouTube Expected to Experiment With Paid Subscriptions for Some Channels

MIAMI â€" YouTube continues to inch toward a paid subscription option for some of the professionally produced channels, employees of the online video Web site said this week.

“It’s a good time to start experimenting,” Jamie Byrne, the director of content strategy for YouTube, said at a television conference here on Monday. Mr. Byrne didn’t elaborate on the timing, but Advertising Age reported on Tuesday that paid channels could be introduced as early as April.

Mr. Byrne’s use of the word “experiment” is important. YouTube is primarily an advertising-driven service, and no one expects that to change. But some of the companies that produce popular videos for YouTube would like to try charging a modest monthly fee for access to their channels. Ad Age said the subscription option would be tried first with a small group of channels, “likely about 25 at the outset.”

There’ been talk about YouTube creating a paid subscription option for more than a year, and it has gained momentum as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon have drawn in subscribers for their video offerings. A YouTube spokesman declined to comment on the report about a possible April introduction, but said: “We have long maintained that different content requires different types of payment models. The important thing is that, regardless of the model, our creators succeed on the platform. There are a lot of our content creators that think they would benefit from subscriptions, so we’re looking at that.”

At the conference here, Mr. Byrne suggested two ways YouTube could go about charging for content. Video creators, he said, could have standalone paid channels “and be accountable for all the content there,” much like Glenn Beck’s subscription service The Blaze. Or, he said, YouTube could create bundles of subscription channels, charge one price for all of them and share the revenue with the channel ! creators, much like traditional cable and satellite services.

He was careful to add, though, “I wouldn’t count the ad model out.”

The interest in paid subscriptions comes as YouTube continues to invests heavily in original programming. Last fall its parent, Google, announced a plan to invest $200 million to market the new channels on the service.

“These channels, we think of them as the next wave of potential networks,” Mr. Byrne said. “We think it’s going great.”

BlackBerry Wants to \'Keep Moving\' With Massive New Campaign

The much-discussed arrival on Wednesday of the all-new BlackBerry smartphones and operating system,  which have been deemed crucial to the future of the parent, Research In Motion,  will be accompanied by a massive marketing campaign that is being described as the largest in the company’s history.

The campaign, with a budget estimated at more than $200 million, will include work from six agencies and the first-ever Super Bowl commercial for the BlackBerry brand, which is to appear during Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday.

In addition to the Super Bowl spot, there will be other television commercials, print and online ads, promotions, public relations efforts, events, a partnership with arts and cultural figures likeAlicia Keys, a presence in social media and elaborate digital demonstrations in real time of the new offerings.

The spending will be the most ever for the company “by a long shot,” Frank Boulben, chief executive at Research In Motion - which will now be called BlackBerry, as part of a corporate-wide rebranding - said during an interview in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday.

Although “marketing success is not measured by how much you put into it,” Mr. Boulben said, referring to the size of a budget, the goal in this instance is for “a hugely impactful campaign.”

The campaign for the new BlackBerry Z10, formerly known as the BlackBerry 10, will carry the theme “Keep moving,” in a hat-tip to the psychographics of the target audience. Some ads will use the phrase “Built to keep you moving.”

People who use BlackBerry devices are “doers, achievers, people of action,” Mr. Boulben said. “They are about getting things done, succe! ss-oriented, multitasking and hyper-connected.”

(Three decades ago, such consumers were described as “the coffee achievers” in a campaign for the National Coffee Association.)

Mr. Boulben shared a quotation from Conrad Hilton, the lodging mogul who, coincidentally, figured in the plot line of episodes of “Mad Men,” the television series about the ad business.  In the quotation, Hilton linked success and action and described how those who are successful “keep moving” and “don’t quit” despite any mistakes they may make.

Throughout the campaign, “the hero will be the product,” Mr. Boulben said, and “each piece of marketing will showcase a feature of the user experience.”

For instance, one commercial depicts how a user can “jump backward and forward in time to capture theperfect shot” of a child who is hard to photograph. The user takes advantage of a feature called Time Shift to replace an unsmiling face of the boy with a smiling one.

Ads for the Time Shift feature describe it with headlines like “Turn missed moments into magic ones.”

Another commercial tells how a user can “peek in and out of messages in the BlackBerry Hub from any app.” In a vignette, a young man prone on a float in a pool notices on his BlackBerry Z10 that “free gig tickets” are being offered online by his favorite band. He is seen next prone again, this time as he gleefully body-surfs amid a crowd of concertgoers.

In a banner ad online, a computer user can take a typing challenge that is meant to show off the new BlackBerry keyboard. “Go thumb-to-thumb against the BlackBerry Z10 in a real-time text-off,” the ad declares.

A message at the end of a demonstration that was successful for BlackBerry would read something like this: “The Z10 was 2.5 seconds f! aster and! needed 12 fewer keystrokes.”

The decision to advertise BlackBerry on the Super Bowl for the first time was inspired by the fact the introductory campaign would start four days before the game, Mr. Boulben said.

“The Super Bowl for us is an opportunity to mark our comeback,” he said, “and intrigue them to find out for themselves what BlackBerry Z10 is all about.”

“There is no better platform,” he added.

Another smartphone brand, Samsung Mobile, will also advertise during Super Bowl XVLII. Samsung Mobile, which also advertised during the Super Bowl last year, plans to run a commercial during the fourth quarter with the comedians Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen.

The Samsung Mobile spot is to last two minutes; the BlackBerry Z10 spot is to run 30 seconds.

The agencies working on the BlackBerry campaign are: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, part of the BBDO Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group, for creative and brand efforts; a digital team within the Publicis Groupe, for he digital efforts; Proximity, also part of BBDO, for customer relationship marketing; Phonevalley, part of Publicis, for mobile initiatives; Brodeur Partners, for public relations; and Edelman, part of Daniel J. Edelman Inc., for social media.

According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, Research In Motion spent $148.2 million to advertise BlackBerry in major media in 2011, $169.5 million in 2010 and $109.7 million in 2009.

Ad spending in the first nine months of last year totaled $58.7 million, Kantar Media reported, a slowdown that reflected the plans to promote the new products in 2013.

Backstage to Acquire Sonicbids

Looking for a part on Broadway Or maybe a showcase at South by Southwest Both searches could end up fielded by the same company, now that two of the leading sites that help actors and up-and-coming musicians find work are joining together.

Backstage, a publication that since the “Mad Men” age has been a highly trafficked job board for actors, will announce on Wednesday that it is buying Sonicbids, a Web site that lets bands book performances at festivals, clubs and elsewhere.

The deal is estimated at $15 million, and will be financed by Guggenheim Partners, whose media properties include Dick Clark Productions and Prometheus Global Media, the company behind trade publications like Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter.

Backstage and Sonicbids serve separate parts of the entertainment world, but they have similar business models, offering users some acess free and charging subscriptions for more extensive features. John Amato, the chief executive of Backstage, and Panos Panay, the founder of Sonicbids, said in a joint interview on Tuesday that the combined company would have 600,000 registered users, with 60,000 of them paying subscribers.

Listings by and for performers seeking work are the bread and butter of both sites. Backstage is still published in print, but Mr. Amato said that more than 70 percent of its business is online. Since 1960, Backstage has been the bible of casting calls and audition notices for Broadway, film and television.

“If you have a desk job, there are a lot of places you can go to find a job online,” said Mr. Amato, who will lead the combined company. “If you are a creative, there aren’t a lot of those places.”

Sonicbids, founded in 2001, lets its users build online press kits and apply for shows with promoters. It competes with other artist-services companie! s like ReverbNation, and also Myspace, where musicians of every level can create public profiles. Sonicbids is also the platform used by the South by Southwest festival for band applications.

The site has also tried to make itself a talent forum to attract corporate brands, like Bud Light and Gap, that are looking for music for ads or promotional campaigns.

“We find that bands are not just looking for gigs,” Mr. Panay said. “They are also looking to connect with brands, to have their music in TV commercials, to have their music on Broadway and in film.”

Sonicbids, based in Boston, will retain its name and staff, as will Backstage, which has offices in New York and Los Angeles.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Streaming and Micropennies: The Footnotes

In Tuesday’s paper, I wrote about the royalties that musicians and record companies earn from online streaming companies like Spotify, Pandora and YouTube.

As an overview of a complicated issue, the article made only brief mention of some important points, and it omitted others altogether. So to flesh out this issue a little more, and, I hope, to answer some of the questions that readers have asked, here are a few additional points â€" call them footnotes â€" about royalties, streaming and the music business.

1. The role of record labels. When it comes to royalties, the relationship between artist and label has long been fraught, but it has become especially strained in the streaming age, for two reasons.

First, digital services generally don’t do business with musicians directly, but instead go through labels or distributors, which arethen responsible for paying royalties. But exactly how those royalties are calculated is often in dispute. Older artists may have no provisions in their contracts for such streaming services, or digital music at all. And despite some major lawsuits on similar issues, the issue is far from settled.

Second, there is wide suspicion in the industry about the deals between labels and digital services. Labels own equity in some of these services, as a condition of licensing their content. (The major labels, for example, own a minority stake in Spotify.) Critics say this creates a conflict of interest, in which labels could accept a lower royalty rate in exchange the benefits of ownership, like profits from a sale. Artists â€" and, especially, their managers and lawyers â€" worry that this money would never trickle down to them.

2. Apples and oranges. It! ’s tricky to compare Spotify to YouTube, Sirius XM to Pandora, Rdio to your favorite radio station’s Web stream. Subtle differences in technology and in law can result in very different payouts.

For example, the royalty rate Pandora pays to record companies and performing artists is set by federal statute; last year it was 0.11 cent a stream, which in the company’s most recent fiscal quarter amounted to about $60 million, or half its revenue. But because of different legal standards, Sirius XM’s statutory rate for the same royalty is only 9 percent of its revenue. Radio companies pay yet another rate for their Web streams.

When it comes to terrestrial radio, however, the biggest issue is that in the United States broadcasters do not pay any of these royalties, which cover the use of a sound recording. Instead, radio stations pay only music publishers and songwriters. (Changes to some of these rules may be considered in Congress this year; they have been proposed before but usually failed to pass.)

All of this makes it difficult to generalize about royalties but not impossible. In my view, all the numbers and standards and rates become equalized when it comes to the artist’s bottom line.

3. What ownership means. Will customers care about owning CDs and downloads anymore, or will they be satisfied by the access to huge song libraries offered by streaming There is no conclusive data on this, but it gets to the heart of why streaming is both loved and feared.

If services like Spotify become as prevalent as, say, cable television, one argument goes, then it is possible that they could replace or even surpass lost earnings from CD sales. But how will they do that if so much music is available free

Spotify says it has 20 mi! llion use! rs around the world, a quarter of whom pay the monthly subscription rate. Others that started out as paying subscription services have felt pressure to add free tiers, and research increasingly shows that the youngest listeners simply go to YouTube. Some analysts believe that all of this could force subscription prices down, which in turn would very likely reduce royalties.

A different aspect of ownership is also relevant: the question of who owns recordings. Zoe Keating, the cellist quoted in the article, owns her own copyrights, so she may earn a higher royalty than another artist whose music is controlled by a record label. Other hands are in the pot as well, like distributors’, which may take as much as 20 percent of the paycheck from Spotifyor iTunes before an artist sees his or her cut.

4. What about touring and T-shirts Since the start of the digital music era, one consolation for artists is that even if their CD sales plunge, they could still make money on the road and through direct sales to their fans. But can these â€" and other forms of revenue, like sponsorship â€" completely make up for lost music royalties

Some might say this is already the reality facing many artists, and it may only continue to spread if royalties fall. But as a general business model, it is problematic.

For one thing, the devaluation of a recording means not only that a musician will not earn money from it now, but also in the future â€" long after a musician may have given up touring. Also, any musician who has lugged a drum set and a vanful of amps across the country will know that touring is expensive. Even for those who can tour regularly â€" which isn’t everybody â€" there is no guarantee of profit.

5. New busi! ness models. One positive byproduct of the music industry’s digital crisis is that it has spawned lots of brainstorming and experimentation about new ways to do business. These include things like direct-to-fan businesses that let artists of every level sell premium products to their most ardent followers; crowdfunding sites that let artists raise money for projects on their own; and Web strategies of all kinds that let some musicians prosper independently.

All of these are great developments. But I don’t believe that any of them can completely insulate artists from the prevailing business practices of the industry, and royalt rates are one of the fundamentals that, one way or another, wind up affecting everybody.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Carville and Matalin Part Ways With CNN

The husband-and-wife, Democrat-and-Republican pair are two of CNN's best-known contributors. For years they co-hosted "Crossfire"; after it was canceled, they were regulars on "The Situation Room" and election night specials.

Streaming and Micropennies: The Footnotes

In Tuesday’s paper, I wrote about the royalties that musicians and record companies earn from online streaming companies like Spotify, Pandora and YouTube.

As an overview of a complicated issue, the article made only brief mention of some important points, and it omitted others altogether. So to flesh out this issue a little more, and, I hope, to answer some of the questions that readers have asked, here are a few additional points â€" call them footnotes â€" about royalties, streaming and the music business.

1. The role of record labels. When it comes to royalties, the relationship between artist and label has long been fraught, but it has become especially strained in the streaming age, for two reasons.

First, digital services generally don’t do business with musicians directly, but instead go through labels or distributors, which arethen responsible for paying royalties. But exactly how those royalties are calculated is often in dispute. Older artists may have no provisions in their contracts for such streaming services, or digital music at all. And despite some major lawsuits on similar issues, the issue is far from settled.

Second, there is wide suspicion in the industry about the deals between labels and digital services. Labels own equity in some of these services, as a condition of licensing their content. (The major labels, for example, own a minority stake in Spotify.) Critics say this creates a conflict of interest, in which labels could accept a lower royalty rate in exchange the benefits of ownership, like profits from a sale. Artists â€" and, especially, their managers and lawyers â€" worry that this money would never trickle down to them.

2. Apples and oranges. It! ’s tricky to compare Spotify to YouTube, Sirius XM to Pandora, Rdio to your favorite radio station’s Web stream. Subtle differences in technology and in law can result in very different payouts.

For example, the royalty rate Pandora pays to record companies and performing artists is set by federal statute; last year it was 0.11 cent a stream, which in the company’s most recent fiscal quarter amounted to about $60 million, or half its revenue. But because of different legal standards, Sirius XM’s statutory rate for the same royalty is only 9 percent of its revenue. Radio companies pay yet another rate for their Web streams.

When it comes to terrestrial radio, however, the biggest issue is that in the United States broadcasters do not pay any of these royalties, which cover the use of a sound recording. Instead, radio stations pay only music publishers and songwriters. (Changes to some of these rules may be considered in Congress this year; they have been proposed before but usually failed to pass.)

All of this makes it difficult to generalize about royalties but not impossible. In my view, all the numbers and standards and rates become equalized when it comes to the artist’s bottom line.

3. What ownership means. Will customers care about owning CDs and downloads anymore, or will they be satisfied by the access to huge song libraries offered by streaming There is no conclusive data on this, but it gets to the heart of why streaming is both loved and feared.

If services like Spotify become as prevalent as, say, cable television, one argument goes, then it is possible that they could replace or even surpass lost earnings from CD sales. But how will they do that if so much music is available free

Spotify says it has 20 mi! llion use! rs around the world, a quarter of whom pay the monthly subscription rate. Others that started out as paying subscription services have felt pressure to add free tiers, and research increasingly shows that the youngest listeners simply go to YouTube. Some analysts believe that all of this could force subscription prices down, which in turn would very likely reduce royalties.

A different aspect of ownership is also relevant: the question of who owns recordings. Zoe Keating, the cellist quoted in the article, owns her own copyrights, so she may earn a higher royalty than another artist whose music is controlled by a record label. Other hands are in the pot as well, like distributors’, which may take as much as 20 percent of the paycheck from Spotifyor iTunes before an artist sees his or her cut.

4. What about touring and T-shirts Since the start of the digital music era, one consolation for artists is that even if their CD sales plunge, they could still make money on the road and through direct sales to their fans. But can these â€" and other forms of revenue, like sponsorship â€" completely make up for lost music royalties

Some might say this is already the reality facing many artists, and it may only continue to spread if royalties fall. But as a general business model, it is problematic.

For one thing, the devaluation of a recording means not only that a musician will not earn money from it now, but also in the future â€" long after a musician may have given up touring. Also, any musician who has lugged a drum set and a vanful of amps across the country will know that touring is expensive. Even for those who can tour regularly â€" which isn’t everybody â€" there is no guarantee of profit.

5. New busi! ness models. One positive byproduct of the music industry’s digital crisis is that it has spawned lots of brainstorming and experimentation about new ways to do business. These include things like direct-to-fan businesses that let artists of every level sell premium products to their most ardent followers; crowdfunding sites that let artists raise money for projects on their own; and Web strategies of all kinds that let some musicians prosper independently.

All of these are great developments. But I don’t believe that any of them can completely insulate artists from the prevailing business practices of the industry, and royalt rates are one of the fundamentals that, one way or another, wind up affecting everybody.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Carville and Matalin Part Ways With CNN

The husband-and-wife, Democrat-and-Republican pair are two of CNN's best-known contributors. For years they co-hosted "Crossfire"; after it was canceled, they were regulars on "The Situation Room" and election night specials.

\'The Test\' Will Join Television Talk Shows

MIAMI â€" Imagine a tabloid talk show like “Maury” distilled to its essence: the enduring question, “are you the father”

That’s sort of what CBS Television Distribution is imagining its next daytime talk show, “The Test,” to be.

The series, the distributor said in a news release Tuesday, “is a one-hour conflict resolution talk show that will use lie detector and DNA tests to settle relationship and paternity disputes among the guests.” It will start in the fall and will be hosted by Kirk Fox, an actor and stand-up comedian.

CBS announced “The Test” earlier this month, but at the time it had only done syndication deals with stations representing about 55 percent of the country. On Tuesday, in an annual syndication conference here, it announced more deals, enough to reach more than 80 percent of the country.

The series will be produced by the company operated by the psychologist and talk show host Phil McGraw’s son, Jay. The same company is behind the successfl daytime show “The Doctors.”

Jay McGraw said earlier this month that “The Test” is “a fresh take on a proven genre that has been working in daytime for years.” A competitor, MGM Television, is selling a series called “Paternity Court” to local stations ahead of a planned fall premiere.

\'The Test\' Will Join Television Talk Shows

MIAMI â€" Imagine a tabloid talk show like “Maury” distilled to its essence: the enduring question, “are you the father”

That’s sort of what CBS Television Distribution is imagining its next daytime talk show, “The Test,” to be.

The series, the distributor said in a news release Tuesday, “is a one-hour conflict resolution talk show that will use lie detector and DNA tests to settle relationship and paternity disputes among the guests.” It will start in the fall and will be hosted by Kirk Fox, an actor and stand-up comedian.

CBS announced “The Test” earlier this month, but at the time it had only done syndication deals with stations representing about 55 percent of the country. On Tuesday, in an annual syndication conference here, it announced more deals, enough to reach more than 80 percent of the country.

The series will be produced by the company operated by the psychologist and talk show host Phil McGraw’s son, Jay. The same company is behind the successfl daytime show “The Doctors.”

Jay McGraw said earlier this month that “The Test” is “a fresh take on a proven genre that has been working in daytime for years.” A competitor, MGM Television, is selling a series called “Paternity Court” to local stations ahead of a planned fall premiere.

CBS Renews Four Daytime Shows

CBS, which emphasizes the overall stability of its network, reinforced that point Tuesday, when it ordered renewals for four programs at once, ensuring that its entire daytime lineup will return intact for another season.

The shows included two games, “The Price Is Right” and “Let’s Make a Deal,” one daytime talk show, “The Talk,” and one soap opera, “The Bold and the Beautiful.” They will continue on CBS for the 2013-2014 season, along with CBS’s already renewed and most-watched soap, “The Young and the Restless.”

Overall, CBS has the most-watched lineup in daytime (as it does in prime time) with several shows going back more than a generation. Both “The Price Is Right” and “Young and Restless” have been on CBS for 40 years. “The Bold and the Beautiful” will celebrate in 26th anniversary on March 23.

“Let’s Make a Deal,” a venerable television game show, began its latest incarnation on CBS four years ago. “The Talk” is the newcomer, now in is third season.

Despite the general decline of daytime audiences for network television, several of the CBS shows have increased either their total audiences or their number of viewers in the important daytime category of women between the ages of 25 and 54. “The Talk ” is up 11 percent in viewers from last year and “Bold and Beautiful” is up 6 percent.

Report Gauges Companies\' Approach to Advertising on Social Media

Since the arrival of social media platforms, companies have tried to figure out how to best use them to get their messages to consumers, often with mixed results. Some brands have embraced the notion that social platforms like Twitter allow constant interaction, for better or worse, with their customers.

Others have turned away from some strains of social media, as General Motors did last spring when it stopped advertising on Facebook while raising questions about the return on its investment. The move had a ripple effect in the advertising world, with many brands questioning whether the costs of being on social media were worth it.

A new report issued Tuesday by Nielsen and Vizu, a research company owned by Nielsen, shows that brands think they might be turning a corner, specifically when it comes to paying for their use of social media.The report examined the opinions about social media marketing among more than 500 digital media professionals â€" including brand marketers, media agencies an advertisers â€" from September to October 2012.

The study found that that 89 percent of advertisers continued to use free social media products. Nielsen did not release the names of specific social media platforms mentioned by the respondents, but they are likely to include Facebook and Pinterest, as well as Twitter.

Three quarters of the companies surveyed said they were also spending more for social media content, which could include paying bloggers to write posts about a product or using third-party technology to push videos on to the Web in the hope that they become viral.

Seventy percent of the advertisers surveyed said they dedicated up to 10 percent of their budget to paid social media advertising, while 13 percent dedicated more than 21 percent of their budget. Those numbers are expected to increase in 2013.

The results come as companies like Twitter and Facebook are making more diverse advertising options available to brands. Last year,! Twitter announced a number of advertising and media initiatives, including a survey product that enables marketers to ask Twitter users a handful of multiple-choice questions. Facebook began testing a new advertising mechanism using a technology called real-time bidding, which allows advertisers to place bids on ad space at specific times.

“Advertisers are starting to look at social media as an integrated part of their advertising strategy,” said Jeff Smith, the senior vice president of product leadership for advertising effectiveness at Nielsen.

Still, companies retained some skepticism about social media strategy, the survey showed. While companies may expect to spend more to market their brands, they also want to be able to quantify the results of their campaigns. A third of the advertisers surveyed said they were unsure about the effectiveness of social media. The same percentage said they were unsure how to measure the return on their investment.

The majority of advertisers surveed, 42 percent, said they wanted to measure their online campaigns using the same tools they use for offline campaigns, like sales generated and gross ratings points, while adding more measurement tools specific to digital campaigns, including “likes” and click-throughs.

Advertisers are able to tailor ads to specific groups of online users using cookies and other technologies, but they have often relied on whether consumers click on those ads as the main form of measuring how effective those ads have been.

At the Advertising Week gathering last year, Facebook announced that it was moving away from counting clicks as a metric and moving toward a measurement similar to the gross rating point used in television. The company said it was able to tell whether an ad was effective by combining data on when the ad was shown to a user with data about whether products had been sold. The move is meant to help what is known as “brand advertisers,” whose goals may be less tangible than those o! f direct ! response advertisers.

A Facebook representative declined to discuss the company’s paid advertising business. Facebook will announce its fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

ABC\'s Chris Cuomo Is Said to Jump to CNN

Chris Cuomo, a former news anchor on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” is on his way back to the morning shift, this time for CNN.

CNN is preparing to announce that it has hired Mr. Cuomo from ABC, according to people at both networks, who requested anonymity because the announcement has not been made publicly. Mr. Cuomo is expected to become a co-host of the channel’s morning show, called “Starting Point.”

TMZ first reported Mr. Cuomo’s impending move on Monday night. Representatives for CNN and ABC did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday morning.

Mr. Cuomo is the co-anchor of the ABC newsmagazine “20/20″ and a law correspondent for the network. He previously spent three years as the news anchor on “Good Morning America.” Mr. Cuomo was in the running for the co-host chair on “G.M.A.” when Diane Sawyer left the morning show for the evening newscast “World News” in 2009. But the co-host job went instead to George Stephanopoulos.

At CNN, Mr. Cuomo will have a new opportunity to lead a morning newscast. The new president of CNN Worldwide, Jeffrey Zucker, has said that the mornings are a priority for him, and the television industry has been paying close attention to his plans because he led NBC’s “Today” show to ratings highs two decades ago.

CNN could use the help. “Starting Point! ” had just 234,000 viewers on a typical morning in 2012, its lowest total viewer number in more than 10 years. Of those, just 96,000 were between the ages of 25 to 54, the crucial demographic for cable news advertisers.

“Starting Point” is currently anchored by Soledad O’Brien. The program is only 12 months old, so CNN risks irritating its audience by making a round of changes so soon. But the top executives at CNN and its parent company, Time Warner, have been dissatisfied with the “Starting Point” ratings ever since it premiered, and they most likely believe a shakeup is in order. A representative for Ms. O’Brien did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Cuomo is the third boldface name from ABC to be hired by CNN in the past year. The first was John Berman, a longtime ABC correspondent, who now co-hosts “Early Start,” the predawn newscast that precedes “Starting Point.” The second was Jake Tapper, the chief White House correspondent for ABC. Mr. Zucker was instrumental in signing Mr. Tapper, who will begin anchoring a daily program for CNN later this year. The executive in charge of talent at CNN, Amy Entelis, is also a transplant from ABC. She arrived at CNN about three months before Mr. Berman.

For Many Digital Music Services, Free Is Not a Choice

The competition among streaming music services is going global. It is also increasingly going free.

As CD and download sales cool, the music industry is looking to subscription services like Spotify, Rhapsody and Deezer to provide an attractive alternative to pirated content. But the growth of these companies has been relatively slow, and to compete against one another, more of them are opening free tiers â€" a move that gets attention, but has always caused worries that it could undermine the value of music.

Rdio, a subscription service created by the founders of Skype, is the latest to offer music gratis. On Monday, the service, whose regular prices are $5 and $10 a month, said that it would offer a free level in most of the countries in which it operates, after doing so in the United States in late 2011. The plan includes a limited amount of free music for six months â€" the company is secretive about exactly how much free music you get â€" and, unlike mos other services that have a free tier, it has no advertising.

“I don’t want to devalue the content,” said Drew Larner, the chief executive of Rdio. “But we certainly have come around to the fact that in order to get the largest amount of people into the top of the funnel, the state of play is now that a free offering is critical.”

For almost every service, the goal of free is to get listeners hooked so that they will eventually pay for access. Pandora is one notable exception: although it has a premium plan, the company’s effort to compete with radio has made free access â€" and ads â€" a central part of its plan.

Mr. Larner said that in the United States, the introduction of new music over a year ago, and a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign â€" with radio spots and banners in Times Square â€" had helped raise Rdio’s profile and draw new users, although he declin! ed to offer specific numbers. Rdio has never disclosed its user numbers, but they are believed to be far lower than those of Spotify, with five million paying users around the world, or Rhapsody, with one million.

Rdio is available in 17 countries, including Britain, Australia and France. The free version will be available in all countries except Germany and Brazil, because of licensing issues in those countries, Mr. Larner said. For Rdio, the decision not to include advertising means not only that it will forgo ads a source or revenue, but also that the company will be paying royalties for the free music out of its own pocket.

The move to free has largely been sparked by Spotify, but it has proved hard for others to resist. Shortly before Rdio added its free tier in the United States, Mog, another small competitor, came up with its own version. (It was no coincidence that Faebook was introducing its social graph around that time, which integrated entertainment apps.)

Deezer, a French service that has announced plans to open in more than 100 countries, recently announced that it was adding an ad-supported free tier. Rhapsody, online since 2011, has no free level.

Mog, which was bought last year by Beats Electronics, the headphone company, and is expected to return later this year in revamped form under the name Daisy, has not announced its future pricing plans.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Talk Show Called \'Kris\' Planned for Kris Jenner

MIAMI- The next person in line for a daytime talk show from Fox’s syndication division is Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the TV-friendly Kardashian family.

Twentieth Television, a production and syndication arm of the News Corporation, said Monday that it will produce a six-week test of a talk show called “Kris.” The one-hour show will be televised this summer by another unit of the News Corporation, the Fox-owned television stations in cities like New York and Los Angeles.

Summer tests have become Fox’s preferred way of trying out new talk shows. They ran “The Wendy Williams Show” for a few weeks in the summer of 2008; now it’s a staple of stations’ daytime lineups across the country.

The Fox-owned stations also tested a talk show by Bethenny Frankel last summer; that show, named “Bethenny,” will premiere on a more permanent basis this fall.

“Wouldn’t be summer without at least one test, would it,” Frank Cicha, the senio vice president of programming for the stations, said in a statement. “In all seriousness, we go into this believing that if it works, the Kris Jenner program could really compliment what we’ve got going with Wendy, Bethenny, etc.”

The test was announced during NATPE, a conference where syndication buyers and sellers meet each year.

Ms. Jenner brings instant name recognition to the talk show and the promise of cross-pollination with her other television franchises. She is best known for her role on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” the hit reality show on the E! channel. She is an executive producer as well as a star of that show. She’s also an executive producer of all the “Kardashian” spin-offs on E!. She’ll be a producer of “Kris,” as well.

Twentieth Television’s development of “Kris” may be a bad omen for “The Ricki Lake Show,” which it began to produce last fall. Ms. Lake’s show was overshadowed by a number of other talk show premieres, and Deadline.com reported Monday that it is “unlikely to continue next season.”

Times Announces Masthead Restructuring and Top Newsroom Appointments

The New York Times announced on Monday a restructured masthead and some key newsroom appointments, while also saying that the staff reductions the company was seeking had been accomplished primarily through voluntary buyouts.

In a memo to the staff, Jill Abramson, the executive editor, outlined many of the coming changes at the paper, saying she hopes they will help The Times continue “to meet the challenges of remaking ourselves for the digital age.”

Ms. Abramson acknowledged in her memo that this round of staff reductions seemed different from previous ones, because it resulted in the loss of some of the most prominent editors at the paper. Among those choosing to take buyout packages were John M. Geddes, a managing editor, Jim Roberts, assistant managing editor, and Jonathan Landman, the head of the culture department.

Ms. Abramson also presented plans for a newly transformed masthead. Larry Ingrassia, the former business editor, will become an assistant managing editor for new intiatives, which includes the expansion of The Times’s international coverage. Janet Elder will become an assistant managing editor with responsibility for overseeing newsroom resources, including the budget, as well as dealing with compensation and staff development. Ian Fisher will become an assistant managing editor for content operations, with responsibility for overseeing the continued integration of the digital and print sides of The Times.

Jason Stallman, a deputy sports editor, will be the new sports editor, replacing Joe Sexton, who announced last week he was moving to Pro Publica. Ms. Abramson said she would announce the new culture editor in the next two weeks.

Rick Berke, currently an assistant managing editor, will now focus on video, an area the company has been trying to expand. Glenn Kramon, another assistant managing editor, will join the business department to oversee technology coverage.

In early December, Ms. Abramson said The Times was seeking 30 managers who a! re not union members to accept buyout packages. The company also allowed employees represented by the Newspaper Guild the chance to volunteer for buyout packages as well. Employees had until last Thursday to decide whether to choose the buyout.

Ms. Abramson said at the time that if the paper did not get the required number of volunteers that the company would have to resort to layoffs. But her note to the staff Monday indicated that layoffs were kept to a minimum.

Doctors Say Barbara Walters Has Chicken Pox

Barbara Walters, who has remained hospitalized since a recent fall for treatment of a persistent fever, is suffering from chicken pox, her doctors told her this weekend.

The news was revealed on the ABC network show that Ms. Walters owns, “The View,” by the program’s host, Whoopi Goldberg, on Monday morning.

The diagnosis explains the fainting spell that Ms. Walters, who is 83, suffered in Washington last week, which led to her fall, and the lingering fever that has kept her hospitalized, first in Washington and now in Manhattan.

Ms. Goldberg said on the show that Ms. Walters had never previously contracted the condition, which is usually associated with children.

Tsujihara to Succeed Meyer as Head of Warner Brothers

LOS ANGELES â€" Kevin Tsujihara will succeed Barry Meyer as chief executive of Warner Brothers, Hollywood’s biggest movie and television studio, starting March 1, ending a high-profile and lingering competition for the job.

Mr. Meyer, who has led the studio since 1999, was expected to retire two years ago, but stayed on while a trio of executives were considered for his job. With the selection of Mr. Tsujihara, who has most recently lead Warner’s home entertainment unit, the question now becomes whether the other two candidates - Bruce Rosenblum, Warner’s television chief, and Jeff Robinov, who heads the movie division - will remain at the company.

Mr. Rosenblum, who was widely considered by Hollywood insiders to be the leading candidate to replace Mr. Meyer, immediately released a statement on Monday morning. “Obviously, I’m disappointed; who wouldn’t be” it read in part. He added that Warner “will be in good hands with Kevin.”

Mr. Tsujihara brings “the perfect cobination of strategic thinking, financial discipline, digital vision and management style” Jeff Bewkes, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, which owns the studio, said in his own statement.

Just a Minute: South Park\'s Matt Stone on Making the Most Analogue Thing Ever

Matt Stone says disruption is overrated and adds that Broadway â€" you might have heard something about “Book of Mormon” â€" has been very, very good for the South Park team.

Related: Fortifying the Empire ‘South Park’ Built

Dodgers, Signing Lucrative TV Deal, Plan to Start Regional Sports Network

The owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers said Monday that they intend to start a regional sports network in southern California, confirming
weeks of reports about the team’s plans.

The network, to be named SportsNet LA, will be backed by Time Warner Cable, one of the main television distributors in the region, with a commitment of $7 to $8 billion over the next 25 years. The price tag, though not made public by the parties, was confirmed by a person with direct
knowledge of the deal. Analysts said it was the most lucrative television deal for a single team in sports history.

Time Warner Cable will carry the Dodgers network and will be in charge of convincing others to carry it, as well. In exchange Time Warner
Cable will keep all the advertising revenue that it sells for the network. The Dodgers owners said in a news release on Monday that SportsNet LA would carry all the team’s games and “comprehensive behind-the-scenes Dodger programming.”

The multi-billion-dolla deal with the Dodgers seemingly flies in the face of Time Warner Cable’s public statements about tamping down on
the rising costs of programming. SportsNet LA is likely to amount to somewhere between $4 and $5 a month per subscriber in southern California, and
some of that cost will be passed on subscribers through their monthly cable bills, with Time Warner Cable also absorbing some of the cost.

But Time Warner Cable says that doing business directly with the Dodgers cuts out the middleman, in this case Fox Sports, which was also bidding for rights to the Dodgers games. The company said the same thing when it outbid Fox to carry Los Angeles Lakers games in 2011, a 20-year deal valued at $3 billion.

David Rone, the president of Time Warner Cable Sports, said of the Dodgers agreement in a statement, “This deal, like our Lakers’ deal, furthers our efforts to attain greater certainty and control over local and regional sports programming costs! .”

Fox Sports, owned by the News Corporation, disputes this notion, in part since its bid for the Dodgers was significantly less than Time Warner Cable’s bid. Dodgers games will continue to be televised on Fox Sports’ Prime Ticket network until the new network starts in 2014.

A group led by Magic Johnson and financed by Guggenheim Partners bought the Dodgers in a deal valued at $2.3 billion last year. “We concluded last year that the best way to give our fans what they want â€" more content and more Dodger baseball â€" was to launch our own network,” Mark Walter, the founder of Guggenheim Partners and the chairman of the Dodgers franchise, said in a statement.

The network will be operated by American Media Productions, or AMP for short, a subsidiary of the Dodgers ownership group. “The creation of
AMP will provide substantial financial resources over the coming years for the Dodgers to build on their storied legacy and bring a World
Championship home to Los Angeles,€ Mr. Walter said.

The financial terms of the arrangement were not released. The arrangement will require the approval of Major League Baseball.

Assessing the impending deal last week, the Nomura analyst Michael Nathanson said Time Warner Cable should “be careful what they wish
for.” In a note to investors, he pointed out that the News Corporation will likely use the high rates for the Lakers and Dodgers channels as
negotiating leverage for other regional sports networks. News Corporation recently acquired 49 percent of YES, the Yankees channel in New York City, and full ownership of a channel that carries the Cleveland Indians in Ohio. Time Warner Cable is a major distributor in New York and Ohio.

Mr. Nathanson also said, “Clearly, the L.A. sports market is experiencing significant price inflation and it is still early days whether these levels of investments will prove to be justified many years down the road or if we have reached the top of the sports rights bu! bble.”

The Breakfast Meeting: Courting Future Cable Subscribers, a Newspaper Reality Show, and a Saucy Ad Campaign

Tivli, a start-up founded by two Harvard graduates, is trying to reconcile students’ viewing habits, which increasingly involve mobile devices, with the desire of cable companies like Comcast and programmers like HBO to be paid for wireless content. As Brian Stelter reports, resident students at Harvard and, of as of last week, Yale, can use a service created by Tivli to stream local TV stations, a couple of dozen cable channels and the universities’ own in-house channels to computers, tablets or video game consoles. This ability, available anywhere on campus, may be part of the answer to a conundrum for the television industry. Young people watch less TV than they used to, and some say they do not see the pint of an expensive cable or satellite subscription. If they become accustomed to viewing programming through services like HBO GO while in college, however, some believe it could lead them to become cable subscribers after they graduate.

NBC, looking for newsmen and newswomen to star in a planned reality show, has received more than 150 responses from newspapers across the nation. As Christine Haughney reports, NBC executives say they’ve been inundated with all types of pitches, from newspaper editors talking about how they are struggling to survive to newspaper staffs eager to show off their talents, sometimes well beyond their coverage of school meetings. NBC executives said they were intrigued by how quirky and diverse some newspapers were â€" from the Kodiak Daily Mirror in Kodiak, Alaska, to the Hungry Horse News, wh! ich is run out of a log building near an entrance to Glacier National Park in Montana. As NBC’s producers start the process of reading and deciding which newspapers may make the final cut, newspaper editors like Richard Hanners, editor of The Hungry Horse News in Columbia Falls, Mont., are waiting for answers. Mr. Hanners said that while he hadn’t heard that his colleagues had pitched his newspaper for a reality show, he was receptive to it because his newspaper was rich with stories.

WBEZ, the Chicago public radio station, is hoping that Chicagoans will help create a new generation of listeners. In a new ad campaign that begins on Friday, the station encourages residents of the city to, well, “hook up” with other Chicagoans and procreate. As Tanzina Vega reports, a tag line on one ad sums up the new campaign, called “2032 Membership Drive,” succinctly: â€We Want Listeners Tomorrow. Go Make Babies Today.” Other ads read: “Do It. For Chicago.” and “Interesting People Make Interesting People.” Daniel Ash, the vice president for corporate sponsorship, marketing, membership and partnerships at Chicago Public Media, which owns the station, said the campaign was meant to playfully encourage listeners in their 20s and 30s to “make babies” so that by 2032, the station will have a slew of teenage listeners. “We wanted to break the mold and take some risks,” Mr. Ash said.

The Breakfast Meeting: Courting Future Cable Subscribers, a Newspaper Reality Show, and a Saucy Ad Campaign

Tivli, a start-up founded by two Harvard graduates, is trying to reconcile students’ viewing habits, which increasingly involve mobile devices, with the desire of cable companies like Comcast and programmers like HBO to be paid for wireless content. As Brian Stelter reports, resident students at Harvard and, of as of last week, Yale, can use a service created by Tivli to stream local TV stations, a couple of dozen cable channels and the universities’ own in-house channels to computers, tablets or video game consoles. This ability, available anywhere on campus, may be part of the answer to a conundrum for the television industry. Young people watch less TV than they used to, and some say they do not see the pint of an expensive cable or satellite subscription. If they become accustomed to viewing programming through services like HBO GO while in college, however, some believe it could lead them to become cable subscribers after they graduate.

NBC, looking for newsmen and newswomen to star in a planned reality show, has received more than 150 responses from newspapers across the nation. As Christine Haughney reports, NBC executives say they’ve been inundated with all types of pitches, from newspaper editors talking about how they are struggling to survive to newspaper staffs eager to show off their talents, sometimes well beyond their coverage of school meetings. NBC executives said they were intrigued by how quirky and diverse some newspapers were â€" from the Kodiak Daily Mirror in Kodiak, Alaska, to the Hungry Horse News, wh! ich is run out of a log building near an entrance to Glacier National Park in Montana. As NBC’s producers start the process of reading and deciding which newspapers may make the final cut, newspaper editors like Richard Hanners, editor of The Hungry Horse News in Columbia Falls, Mont., are waiting for answers. Mr. Hanners said that while he hadn’t heard that his colleagues had pitched his newspaper for a reality show, he was receptive to it because his newspaper was rich with stories.

WBEZ, the Chicago public radio station, is hoping that Chicagoans will help create a new generation of listeners. In a new ad campaign that begins on Friday, the station encourages residents of the city to, well, “hook up” with other Chicagoans and procreate. As Tanzina Vega reports, a tag line on one ad sums up the new campaign, called “2032 Membership Drive,” succinctly: â€We Want Listeners Tomorrow. Go Make Babies Today.” Other ads read: “Do It. For Chicago.” and “Interesting People Make Interesting People.” Daniel Ash, the vice president for corporate sponsorship, marketing, membership and partnerships at Chicago Public Media, which owns the station, said the campaign was meant to playfully encourage listeners in their 20s and 30s to “make babies” so that by 2032, the station will have a slew of teenage listeners. “We wanted to break the mold and take some risks,” Mr. Ash said.

SiriusXM to Introduce Alternative Morning Program

In a quest to lure subscribers from free terrestrial radio, the pay satellite service SiriusXM is betting that some morning drive listeners want something other than straight news, partisan talk or local fluff, and it is backing a homegrown talent to develop the format.

Starting Feb. 11, the stand-up comedian Pete Dominick will end his afternoon call-in and interview program on SiriusXM’s Potus politics channel and move to a renamed male-oriented Indie channel (formerly Stars Too) in a prime three-hour block, 6 to 9 a.m. Eastern Time, with a repeat for the West Coast.

His show will keep its name, “Stand Up! With Pete Dominick,” but will not be “stuck in the paradigm of politics,” said Mr. Dominick, 37, in an interview at SiriusXM’s Manhattan offices. He said he planned to explore religion, race, energy, education policy, veterans’ issues and even parenting.

(Mr. Dominick, the father of young daughters, is also a contributor to the cable network HLN’s “Raising America Wih Kyra Phillips.”)

He called the new radio show “similar to NPR content, but â€" without taking a shot at them â€" with more of a heartbeat, with more of a personality.”

Any celebrity guests will be asked about causes, but not their personal lives. “Death to voyeurism and gossip,” said Mr. Dominick, who made headlines in 2010 when a CNN host, Rick Sanchez, was fired after making what some viewed as anti-Semitic comments on Mr. Dominick’s show. Mr. Dominick declined interviews at the time, not wanting to exploit the incident, he said.

To accommodate his new early morning hours as well as time with his family, Mr. Dominick is giving up his other job, warming up the studio audience for Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

Mr. Dominick started in satellite radio in 2006, as a host on Raw Dog Comedy, and has steadily branched out. His personal politics lean liberal, but he would rather ask questions than offer opinions. “The problem with political talk radio i! s that it’s mainly a farce, it’s mainly just theater,” he said. “I longed for a discussion that I thought was real.”

SiriusXM, which has 24 million subscribers, declined to disclose the size of Mr. Dominick’s current audience, but Jeremy Coleman, senior vice president for talk and entertainment programming, said, “We track very carefully the enthusiasm, loyalty and passion of our audience and do everything we can to maximize it.”

Newspapers Vie for Reality Show

Who knew that ink-stained newsmen and newswomen would be so eager to break into show business

In the 10 days after NBC put out a casting call for small-town newspapers to participate in a reality television show, the network received more than 150 responses from newspapers across the nation. NBC executives say they’ve been inundated with all types of pitches, from newspaper editors talking about how they are struggling to survive to newspaper staffs eager to show off their talents, sometimes well beyond their coverage of school meetings.

The Pilot, based in Southern Pines, N.C., sent a video of its staff performing a “Call Me Maybe” parody, later updated to feature “Gangnam Style” moves. David Woronoff, The Pilot’s owner and publisher, said that while he had let his younger employees produce the videos last year as “a good morale builder for the staff,” he sent the link to NBC executives because “we thought they would want to see what we look like and what our office looks lie.”

NBC executives said they were intrigued by how quirky and diverse some newspapers were â€" from the Kodiak Daily Mirror in Kodiak, Alaska, to the Hungry Horse News, which is run out of a log building near an entrance to Glacier National Park in Montana.

“It’s fun now because we have gotten such a tremendous response,” said Sharon Scott, general manager and senior vice president of NBC News Peacock Productions. “We’re looking for a great environment, colorful place, great characters.”

While NBC executives said they typically don’t pay newspapers for access, Ben Ringe, the senior vice president for development for NBC News Peacock Productions, said that he expected a paper’s appearance on a national television show to help in other ways.

“The advertising rate for that newspaper would go through the roof,” Mr. Ringe said.

As NBC’s producers start the time-consuming process of reading and deciding which newspapers may make the final cut, newspaper! editors are waiting for answers.

Richard Hanners, editor of the Hungry Horse News, based in Columbia Falls, Mont., said that while he hadn’t heard that his colleagues had pitched his newspaper for a reality show, he was receptive to it because his newspaper was rich with stories.

“I’ve got the Cub Scouts coming in a week or so. That’s the only reality I know about,” Mr. Hanners said. “I guess I have time to do it.”

Make Babies, Urges Saucy Public Radio Campaign

Mention public radio to a teenager today and you might get an eye roll. Why listen to the radio when you can plug in to all things digital But if those teenagers were born into a public radio-loving family, they might be persuaded to keep listening, even through their teenage years.

At least that’s the punch line for a new ad campaign from WBEZ, the Chicago public radio station, that begins on Friday. The campaign, called “2032 Membership Drive,” encourages Chicagoans to, well, “hook up” with other Chicagoans and procreate.

A tag line on one ad sums it up succinctly: “We Want Listeners Tomorrow. Go Make Babies Today.” Other ads read: “Do It. For Chicago.” and “Interesting People Make Interesting People.”

“Most public radio marketing and advertising is very nice and polite,” said Daniel Ash, the vice president for corporate sponsorship, marketing, membership and partnerships at Chicago Public Media, which owns the station.

This campaign, he said, is meant t playfully encourage listeners in their 20s and 30s to “make babies” so that by 2032, the station will have a slew of teenage listeners.

“We wanted to break the mold and take some risks,” Mr. Ash said.

Torey Malatia, the chief executive of Chicago Public Media, said the station has a strong audience among 25- to 49-year-olds, but “as you get lower than that, 18 plus, you see the weakening of any kind of interest or loyalty.”

The campaign, which cost $400,000, was created by the digital agency Xi Chicago, part of BBDO and Proximity Worldwide. Its debut in the city will include billboards and ads on taxi tops, bridges, subways and buses.

Some ads will ask famous Chicagoans, like the chef Rick Bayless and the musician Jon Langford, to make babies.

The campaign will also include a Facebook application that will help users determine how interesting they are and what type of WBEZ content might appeal to them.

Rick Hamann, the group creative director at Xi Chi! cago, said the campaign tested well with the intended audience. “All of them got the joke,” he said. “They really appreciated that WBEZ was making an irreverent request.”

Palin Says Conservatives Must Broaden Influence

In her first comments as an ex-employee of Fox News, Sarah Palin said conservatives “can’t just preach to the choir” and must instead “broaden our reach.”

Ms. Palin released her comments through Breitbart.com, a staunchly conservative Web site that, like Ms. Palin, spares no opportunity to criticize the news media. Her short question-and-answer session with the Web site was published one day after Fox News confirmed that it had parted ways with Ms. Palin, a former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee, whom it hired in 2010 to be a political commentator.

Ms. Palin didn’t mention Fox by name, nor did the person who asked her questions, Stephen K. Bannon, the maker of a hagiographical documentary about her. When she praised “voies on the right” for standing up to Washington politicians, she mentioned the radio talk show hosts Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh by name, but no Fox hosts like Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity. The slights are sure to be noticed by both supporters and detractors of Ms. Palin who wondered on Friday whether she’d chosen to leave the high-rated cable channel.

When asked “what’s next” for her, she said, “I encourage others to step out in faith, jump out of the comfort zone, and broaden our reach as believers in American exceptionalism. That means broadening our audience.” She said she was “taking my own advice,” an apparent reference to her separation from Fox.

“As far as long-term plans, the door is wide open,” Ms. Palin added. “I know the country needs more truth-telling in the media, and I’m willing to do that. So, we shall see.”

Her comment suggested an interest in getting signed up by one of Fox’s competitors. But no specif! ic channel or media company has been mentioned in the news reports about her departure.

Electoral College Changes Would Pose Danger for Democrats

Republican state senators in Virginia, as well as the state’s Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, announced Friday that they would oppose a bill to change how the state awards its electoral votes in presidential elections. The proposed legislation would have moved the state from awarding its electors on a winner-take-all basis to a proportional system based on Congressional districts.

There have been rumblings of similar changes in other Republican-controlled states carried by President Obama in 2008 and 2012: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. And the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, has voiced his approval of such measures.

Although the Virginia bill now looks unlikely to become law, Democrats had expressed concern. Were they right to worry

They were.

As Virginia demonstrates, the odds of all those states adopting a proportional system are probably small; some Republican lawmakers have expressed reservations about the idea. In Florida â€" the other state that Mr. Obama has carried where Republicans control the legislature and the governor’s mansion â€" the speaker of the House, a Republican, has come out against changing the state’s system.

But if some of ! those states did make the switch, it would substantially alter the nation’s electoral math. With Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin awarding their electors proportionally, Mr. Obama would have won re-election by just 30 electoral college votes instead of 126, according to a Times analysis of data from The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman.

If those five states and Florida had switched to a proportional system, Mr. Romney would currently be getting accustomed to the West Wing computers.

An Electoral College based on Congressional districts would be decidedly more friendly to Republican presidential andidates than the current system. Democratic-leaning voters tend to live in more densely populated areas, making for a less efficient distribution of votes. And Republicans were in charge in many states when districts were redrawn after the 2010 census.

Moreover, the states where these proposals are being floated, perhaps not coincidentally, are many of the states where a proportional system would have the biggest impact. If Arkansas or Connecticut moved to proportional allocation, the two states’ 2012 Electoral College votes would have been awarded in exactly ! the same ! way. In fact, that is true in 21 states. And in 42 states a proportional system would have moved fewer than five votes in the 2012 election.

But the states where these proposals are percolating are among the few where Mr. Romney would have gained a substantial number of electors.

Could Democratic lawmakers play the same game

Not really. The states where Democrats could gain a significant number of votes from proportional allocation €" Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona â€" are all controlled by Republicans. In addition, even if the system were somehow put in place in every state, the payoff would be substantially smaller than the G.O.P.’s electoral windfall.

If the Virginia proposal had been adopted in 2012 and the other 47 states had adopted a system like Maine’s and Nebraska’s (where one electoral vote goes to the winner of each Congressional district and two votes go to the statewide winner), then 103 of Mr. Obama’s blue state electoral votes would have gone to Mr. Romney. Mr. Obama, by contrast, would have gained only 32 electoral votes in red states.

And Mr. Romney would be president.

Electoral College Changes Would Pose Danger for Democrats

Republican state senators in Virginia, as well as the state’s Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, announced Friday that they would oppose a bill to change how the state awards its electoral votes in presidential elections. The proposed legislation would have moved the state from awarding its electors on a winner-take-all basis to a proportional system based on Congressional districts.

There have been rumblings of similar changes in other Republican-controlled states carried by President Obama in 2008 and 2012: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. And the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, has voiced his approval of such measures.

Although the Virginia bill now looks unlikely to become law, Democrats had expressed concern. Were they right to worry

They were.

As Virginia demonstrates, the odds of all those states adopting a proportional system are probably small; some Republican lawmakers have expressed reservations about the idea. In Florida â€" the other state that Mr. Obama has carried where Republicans control the legislature and the governor’s mansion â€" the speaker of the House, a Republican, has come out against changing the state’s system.

But if some of ! those states did make the switch, it would substantially alter the nation’s electoral math. With Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin awarding their electors proportionally, Mr. Obama would have won re-election by just 30 electoral college votes instead of 126, according to a Times analysis of data from The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman.

If those five states and Florida had switched to a proportional system, Mr. Romney would currently be getting accustomed to the West Wing computers.

An Electoral College based on Congressional districts would be decidedly more friendly to Republican presidential andidates than the current system. Democratic-leaning voters tend to live in more densely populated areas, making for a less efficient distribution of votes. And Republicans were in charge in many states when districts were redrawn after the 2010 census.

Moreover, the states where these proposals are being floated, perhaps not coincidentally, are many of the states where a proportional system would have the biggest impact. If Arkansas or Connecticut moved to proportional allocation, the two states’ 2012 Electoral College votes would have been awarded in exactly ! the same ! way. In fact, that is true in 21 states. And in 42 states a proportional system would have moved fewer than five votes in the 2012 election.

But the states where these proposals are percolating are among the few where Mr. Romney would have gained a substantial number of electors.

Could Democratic lawmakers play the same game

Not really. The states where Democrats could gain a significant number of votes from proportional allocation €" Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona â€" are all controlled by Republicans. In addition, even if the system were somehow put in place in every state, the payoff would be substantially smaller than the G.O.P.’s electoral windfall.

If the Virginia proposal had been adopted in 2012 and the other 47 states had adopted a system like Maine’s and Nebraska’s (where one electoral vote goes to the winner of each Congressional district and two votes go to the statewide winner), then 103 of Mr. Obama’s blue state electoral votes would have gone to Mr. Romney. Mr. Obama, by contrast, would have gained only 32 electoral votes in red states.

And Mr. Romney would be president.