Graeme Newell's Marketing Ideanet 7/1/2010

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Graeme Newell
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In This Issue
Promo of the Day
Larry King Signs Off
Tense Times at CNN, TheWrap Reports
Tribune Reinvents Its Creative Services
HD Ads Retain Viewers, Study Suggests
Hulu App Smacked Down in Comments
Social Media an Unstoppable Force, Nielsen Admits
Mobile Ad Landscape Changing, AdMob Reports
Mobile Social Nets Leak Private Info: Study
Travel Sites Fretting Over Google-ITA Talks
Digital Mags Lack Socializing Apps
Radio is Shopper's Last Ad Stop, Study Finds
Message From Michael: Special Report-The FTC and Journalism
Top Ten Reasons Larry King Is Retiring

Quotes

"The whole visible universe is but a storehouse of images and signs to which the imagination will give a relative place and value; it is a sort of pasture which the imagination must digest and transform."
- Charles Baudelaire, French poet (1821-1867)

"In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched."
- Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher, author (1795-1881)

“You know, when you're in your twenties you use a great deal of symbolism. You somehow think that a character standing beneath a cross is more interesting than a character standing underneath a billboard, but when you get a little older you realize that there's not much difference.”
- Paul Schrader

Promo of the Day
Using an icon for your creative vehicle:
A reoccurring symbol used to represent a problem, feature or solution. This symbol reinforces a single concept that advertiser would like the customer to remember. Example: Office max featured the “easy” button in their ads that stressed productivity. Arby’s animated their signature cowboy hat above customers who were “thinking Arby’s.” This symbol will often be featured in multiple ads over a long period of time.

Here are 5 great examples from Traveler's Insurance:

602communications.com/VideoExamples

Share your creative work with your promo peers on the 602communications.com site. Just email it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Flash (.flv) or QuickTime (.mov) files, size 320 x 240, are preferred, but WindowsMedia (.wmv) files will also be accepted. Large files may be sent via http://www.yousendit.com. You can also mail your clip a DVD to Graeme Newell at 1011 Lyndhurst Falls Lane, Knightdale, NC 27545.

Larry King Signs Off
In the face of falling ratings, the CNN host Larry King announced Tuesday evening that he would end his long-running talk show, “Larry King Live,” this fall. Jonathan Klein, president of CNN’s domestic channel, said that Mr. King, 76, was ending the show “on his own terms,” just after his 25th anniversary. Mr. Klein said he would announce a new 9 p.m. program over the summer. Mr. King will stay at CNN part time; in an announcement on his show, he said that he would host an undetermined number of specials “on major national and international subjects.” “Larry King Live,” the centerpiece of the CNN prime-time schedule, has seen its ratings drop sharply in recent years, particularly in the last six months, leading to widespread talk that Mr. King’s current contract, which will expire in June 2011, could be his last. In the last few weeks, executives at CNN, a unit of Time Warner, have repeatedly had to deny that they were close to signing a deal for Mr. King’s replacement. Piers Morgan, a judge on “America’s Got Talent,” has been rumored to be talking to CNN about a job. Others likely to be seen as candidates are Katie Couric and Ryan Seacrest. It will give “more time for my wife and I to get to the kids’ little league games,” he said on his show. Mr. King and his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, reunited in May after having filed for divorce a month earlier.
NY Times

Tense Times at CNN, TheWrap Reports
Larry King's leaving is not the only problem at CNN. The cable news network is plagued by high-profile departures, low ratings and - TheWrap has learned - widespread resentment among producers and anchors. The succession war set off by King leaving is only likely to heighten the tension even further. Speaking on background, one CNN on-air personality told TheWrap that most of the anchors were jealous that Anderson Cooper sucked up resources by going to Haiti and the Gulf of Mexico, leaving them unable to build their profiles at the network. Meanwhile, multiple insiders at CNN have told TheWrap that the silver-haired star anchor may also be close to leaving the network, frustrated by his own low ratings and tempted by other offers. Cooper has been frustrated that despite dangerous forays into disaster zones like Haiti, his ratings remain in the doldrums. And a high-level CNN staffer told TheWrap that Cooper is frequently in conflict with his executive producer David Doss. He is also said to be entertaining offers from other potential suitors. Cooper's contract with CNN expires next year. When asked about internal discord, a CNN spokesperson said, "CNN will continue to do great journalism and will leave meaningless conjecture to The Wrap."
TheWrap

Tribune Reinvents Its Creative Services
Tribune Broadcasting on Tuesday announced a restructuring of the creative service functions at its television stations by appointing two regional vice presidents for innovation and imagination. John Zeigler, formerly director/creative services of WPIX- New York, will lead the eastern region; Carrie King, previously director/creative services of WGN America, will lead the central region. "Incremental change at our television stations won't get it done," said Lee Abrams, Tribune's chief innovation officer. "We have to be radically and noticeably different — we have to imagine TV and TV news in a totally new way, one that breaks through and reinvents the decades old, tired TV playbook." Tribune said Zeigler and King will "establish and implement dramatically new creative standards and promotional emphasis" for the television stations within their regions. They're charged with "driving a look, feel and sound reflecting the highest levels of creative reinvention both on the air and on the street, inspiring and motivating stations to take risks and execute in 21st century terms." The eastern division includes Hartford, Conn.; Harrisburg, Pa.; New York; Philadelphia; South Florida; and Washington. The central division is made up of Chicago; Dallas; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Indianapolis; Houston; and New Orleans, and also includes WGN America cable network. The regional vice president position for the western division remains open, Tribune said, and a search is ongoing.
TV NewsCheck

HD Ads Retain Viewers, Study Suggests
High-definition TV has been good to TV manufacturers, program producers and consumers. HD helps sell more high-end TVs to consumers who like the big picture and richer viewing experience. Now new research suggests there might be good HD news for media buyers and sellers, too. A comprehensive study of commercial viewing to a dozen of the largest network TV advertisers suggests that commercial tuneaway is lower in HD households. Higher audience retention means bigger commercial ratings -- which might translate into future cha-ching for broadcast and cable ad sales executives. A new Kantar Media study reports that viewers tune away from commercials about half as often on HD channels compared to the standard definition (SD) feed for the same network. Ad-supported HD channels have an average tuneaway of 3.73% of commercial seconds compared to 6.8% for SD viewing. The analysis is based on nearly 124,000 30-second spots for advertisers in the automotive, communications, retail, QSR, insurance and prepared foods categories. October 2009 data from 100,000 set-top boxes in Kantar's DIRECTView sample were used for the analysis. The complete results were presented at the Advertising Research Foundation's AMS 5.0 conference in New York earlier this week. Broadcast also benefits from HD. High-def broadcast channels have 31% less tuneaway compared to the same commercials on SD channels (2.2% vs. 3.2%). "This may be another measure of engagement," says Leslie Wood, president of Media Trust and a study co-author. "If a person is watching on the HD channel, they care more about their TV experience." Wood notes that it isn't clear if HD makes people spend more time with commercials, or if the household characteristics of HD homes -- such as income, family size, etc. -- differentiate SD and HD commercial viewing. Either way, it's good news. "Greater audience retention and its implied higher commercial rating are a powerful rationale for networks considering adding a HD feed," she says.
MediaPost

Hulu App Smacked Down in Comments
Hulu's long-rumored iPhone app has come to fruition with the launch of its premium Hulu Plus service, which also extends to the iPad and iPod touch. Could this be the step that finally propels mobile TV into the mainstream (while getting users to pay $9.99 a month for the privilege)? A big part of the Hulu Plus strategy is to make content available not just on Apple devices but a wide range of screens and machines. That includes mobile phones, PCs, Samsung and Sony Internet-connected TVs and Blue-Ray players, gaming consoles including the Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation as well as tablet computers. But the iPhone and other Apple devices would seem to be the proving ground for Hulu Plus on mobile gadgets because of their large installed base, media-centric features and convenient payment system via iTunes. But early reaction to the Hulu Plus app reflected in user comments and ratings on its App Store page underscore how difficult it can be for content providers to switch from a free to a paid model. The free Hulu Plus app debuting in the App Store provides only a limited preview of the full service, offering episodes from hundreds of current and older shows from "30 Rock" and "Family Guy" to "The X-Files." Subscriptions are being offered initially by invitation-only online so the service can be scaled gradually without degrading quality. But based on 1,438 ratings in the App Store as of Wednesday, Hulu Plus has an average rating of 1.5 out of five stars. The customer reviews posted suggest that people are especially irked by having to sit through ads on top of paying $9.99 a month. Hulu Plus will run as many ads as the free version of Hulu does.

Here's a sampling of comments accompanying the ratings:
"What idiot would pay $10 bucks a month to watch ads."
"Ads + subscription fee=cable=fail."
"I can stream live TV via Slingbox for a one-time fee of $30 a month. I will never get an iPhone app that requires a monthly subscription."
"You either charge a subscription, or you make money with ads. Not both. Would make sense to offer an ad version and charge $10/month to remove them."

There's a lot more feedback in a similar vein, which doesn't bode well for converting Hulu users to paid customers on any type of device. Hulu's owners -- NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney Co. -- aren't taking the same approach as publishers launching new subscription-based iPad editions that also include advertising. News Corp. itself is extending its dual subscription and ad-based model for The Wall Street Journal to the iPhone and iPad. The dual-revenue model, as expressed in an equation above, is also a bedrock business principle of the cable industry. But having operated Hulu for the last few years as a free, ad-supported service, it's that much harder to convince consumers that paying in addition to watching commercials is worthwhile. Mobile users are used to paying extra for video, or getting ads -- but not both.
MediaPost

Social Media an Unstoppable Force, Nielsen Admits
Social media such as Facecbook and Twitter or blogging sites have become powerful tools that influence what people buy, online researcher Nielsen said Wednesday, urging business to embrace the trend. Nearly three in four people worldwide who use the Internet have visited a social networking or blog, spending an average of almost six hours a month on them, The Nielsen Company said in a report. Of the seven biggest brands online globally, three are social media networking sites -- Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube -- it said in its latest report on social media trends in the Asia Pacific region. "Social media is having a larger and larger influence on purchasing decisions," said Charles Buchwalter, chairman and chief executive of Nielsen Online Japan. "Everyone understands that social media is hot, it's growing quickly and in very unpredictable ways everywhere in the world," he told reporters in an online media briefing. According to Nielsen's findings, online product reviews are the third most trusted source of information when consumers decide whether to purchase a product, coming after recommendations from friends and family. From China and India to Australia, online reviews are a major influence in buying electronics items, cosmetics, cars and food, among other things, it said. An average 32 percent access social media sites from their workplaces and 31 percent access them from the confines of their bedrooms. "The findings we've uncovered in this social media report highlight, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that social media is here to stay and needs to be taken seriously by the broader business community," said Megan Clarken, managing director of Nielsen's online business in the Asia Pacific. Clarken added that "businesses can no longer afford to simply observe the social media phenomenon, they need to embrace it." Buchwalter said Facebook "is much more than a poster child for social media" as businesses increasingly use it. "Social media is for real. There's no turning back."
Yahoo News

Mobile Ad Landscape Changing, AdMob Reports
What a difference two years makes. In its latest monthly metrics report, AdMob looks at changes in the mobile ad landscape between May 2010 and the same period two years earlier. The study highlights some dramatic shifts. In May 2008, for instance, the Nokia N70 accounted for the largest share of ad requests, with 10.8%, compared to 3.5% for the iPhone. Fast forward to last month, and the iPhone generates nearly 40% of ad requests, while the N70 has only 2.5%. That's a snapshot of the diverging fortunes of Apple and Nokia in the last couple of years, with the Finnish mobile phone giant losing ground to Apple and other competitors in the smartphone race. Smartphones overall have proliferated, driving 46% of ad requests last month compared to 22% in 2008. High-end phones running Google's Android operating system in particular have a fast-growing presence on the AdMob network. While the iPhone is still by far the leading device by ad requests, 7 of the top 10 phones are Android phones, including the Motorola Droid, HTC Magic and HTC Hero. Android's gains have come at the iPhone's expense--the 40% of ad requests the Apple device drives is down from 48% a year ago. Devices running Apple's iOS platform and Android phones both show higher proportions of mobile Web and app usage than other smartphone platforms. While iPhone and Android users have similar habits, twice as many iPhone (and iPod touch) users regularly download paid apps as their Android counterparts. Half of iPhone owners said they bought one or more apps a month compared to 21% of Android users and 24% of Palm (webOS) users. Again, Apple's dominance isn't surprising since it offers a much bigger app catalog than either of the other two smartphone systems. When it comes to the iPad, AdMob said the bulk of users of the Apple tablet so far have been in the U.S. (58%), followed by Japan (5 %), United Kingdom and China (each 4%), and Canada (3%).
MediaPost

Mobile Social Nets Leak Private Info: Study
Last summer, two researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and AT&T Labs reported on how social networks "leak" data to advertisers through referrer URLs. Now the same pair has published a new study concluding that mobile social networks leak information about users -- including, in some cases, their locations. For the new report, researchers examined 20 "mobile social networks," including services like Facebook and MySpace that now allow access from mobile phones, sites like Flickr and Yelp, and mobile-specific services like Foursquare and Loopt. All 20 were found to leak some private information. In some cases the data that was leaked was a unique identifier or user id, while in other instances the shared information was specific pieces of personal data. Several of the companies shared data about users' locations. That mobile companies might be compromising people's privacy probably shouldn't be surprising, if for no other reason than that there appears to be demand for as much data about users as possible. Additionally, transmitting information about users doesn't appear to violate any laws -- at least not yet. Should the Boucher bill be enacted, companies would need people's consent to gather precise geolocation data. But even without specific legislation, the report could spell trouble for mobile networks. Consider, the researchers' paper from last summer was the subject of renewed attention last month, when The Wall Street Journal followed up on the study and reported that Facebook still transmitted the names of some users who clicked on ads to marketers. Since the Journal article appeared, at least three separate users have filed federal lawsuits alleging that Facebook violated its privacy policy.
MediaPost

Travel Sites Fretting Over Google-ITA Talks
Google Inc's talks to buy ITA Software, an airline IT and services provider, has travel executives worried that the search engine giant could wield too much power in their industry. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based ITA is a major source of information about airfares to the industry, used by a slew of airlines, travel agents and other sites, including AMR Corp's American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Hotwire, Kayak, Orbitz and Microsoft Corp's Bing. The concerns are so real that Kayak offered to buy ITA to keep the company out of Google's hands, a travel industry source close to the situation said. Kayak was being backed by Expedia Inc, which would have injected under $200 million into Kayak to make a deal happen, the source said. But the talks went nowhere as Google was in exclusive talks with ITA, the source said, requesting anonymity because the person did not want to be named talking publicly about the search giant. "We are going to watch the potential to abuse dominance," said Robert Birge, Kayak's chief marketing officer, declining to confirm or comment on his company's bid for ITA. "They have dominance on the general search side. When you couple that with ITA's airline relationships there is reason to be concerned." "We have definitely heard from other folks, including on the agency side and on the supplier side. They are concerned," Birge said. Google declined to comment. ITA was not immediately available for comment.
Rueters

Digital Mags Lack Socializing Apps
You’ve got to hand it to the magazine publishers. They continue to throw spaghetti against the iPad and other e-readers trying to see what will stick and what falls to the floor. Most publishers are aggressively experimenting with new electronic devices that could replace their paper-based magazines, newspapers and books and the not-inconsiderable revenue they get from those products. Some products for digital devices have clearly been more successful than others. The challenge has been to find the right mix of content, design and community that can stand apart from the publishers’ content given away on the Web. Yet some magazine apps are still shy about socializing. Take the Wired iPad application. It includes Wired’s storytelling and offers some fun and informative graphics. But it’s missing one small thing: the Internet. Readers can’t copy and paste links or text, they can’t comment on interesting articles with other readers, and they can’t instantly post a comment to Twitter or write, share it or “like” it on Facebook. Rick Levine, vice president of editorial operations for Condé Nast, which publishes Wired, said in an e-mail message that the company was exploring those features, and that readers could expect them soon. “Condé Nast is actively considering the integration of social networking features as well as favoriting beginning as early as this summer,” he said. “It is certainly part of the Wired playlist.” The Time magazine application, although beautifully designed, doesn’t offer the ability to easily share content from within the app either. Time is expected to add those functions on all its digital brands. “Time does have plans to build-in sharing and commentary in the coming months,” a Time spokeswoman told me. She said “the wheel” in the Sports Illustrated app that allows readers to pop up any piece of text and share will be in other Time Inc. applications soon. Even The Huffington Post, a child of the social media revolution, lets readers post to Twitter and share links. But when the iPad app is offline, it spews out a series of ugly programming errors while trying to share news articles. The Wired application has also been extremely successful by digital standards. Condé Nast said it had sold 90,000 downloads so far, illustrating that readers are ready to experiment with these new interactive reading experiences, even if they can’t share them yet.
NY Times

Radio is Shopper's Last Ad Stop, Study Finds
Radio reaches the majority of shoppers before they begin their shopping expeditions, exceeding most other media, including TV and the Internet, according to a study performed by Ball State University with Nielsen and the Council for Research Excellence in 2008. One caveat: though the study was just released, the increasing rates of smartphone adoption may have altered these behaviors somewhat, the study results suggest that radio still dominates advertising messaging around certain important activities. Overall, Ball State found that 62% of consumers who are going shopping listened to the radio just 14 minutes prior to commencing shopping, versus 42% of shoppers who saw TV in the 42-minutes preceding shopping. This big margin is due mostly to radio's prime position in drive-time media consumption. Interestingly, shoppers displayed relatively light media consumption during their actual shopping expeditions, with a mere 17% talking on their mobile phones, while 16% viewed out-of-home TV, and 7% viewed other kinds of out-of-home video. Less than 3% accessed mobile Internet. The data suggests that radio was effectively the last medium to reach the majority of shoppers before entering the shopping environment, at which point they become harder to reach. Of course, these findings should be treated with some caution, as the rapid growth of smartphones over the last two years may be changing media consumption habits. From 2008-2010, the number of U.S. smartphone users tripled from 15 million to 45 million, according to separate figures from Nielsen and ComScore.
MediaPost

Message From Michael: Special Report-The FTC and Journalism
FEDERAL FACTOIDS FOMENT FURY: If the federal government devoted the same percentage of the Gross Domestic Product to press subsidies as it did in the 1840’s, it would have spent $30 Billion last year “to spawn journalism.” And if the federal government provided the same level of support to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as the Canadian government provides to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, it would have spent $7.5 Billion, roughly 15 times the amount it actually did spend, which was $409 Million in 2009. Those are two of the factoids cited by the Federal Trade Commission staff in its draft discussion report on the future of journalism. Those factoids, along with the idea of a possible governmental role in journalism, have generated a fire storm from both the so-called ‘far right’ and the ‘far left.’ The commission staff goes to great pains to explain that the report is only a summary of the various ideas and recommendations it garnered from witnesses and experts, but with a subtitle of “potential policy recommendations to support a reinvention of journalism,” there is a somewhat understandable question mark lingering in many observers’ minds about how far the report goes. The report notes that “the federal government has supported journalism since its founding” either directly or indirectly. The federal Post Office Act of 1792, for example, charged newspapers less for mailings. That subsidy though has dropped over the years, from covering 75% of mailings ($4 Billion) to 25% of mailings ($600 Million). It should be noted here that the report makes no bones about the fact that it focuses on newspapers in this report because, the authors say, “newspapers provided the largest quantity of original news to consumers over any given period of time.”

Proof of the power of the new media/ new journalism world is that the FTC spent almost as much time defending the report as merely a starting point for discussion, as they did actually discussing it in their latest and last workshop. Proof of the paucity of the new media/ new journalism world is that a search of the various media websites and blogs generated a lot of attacks on the draft report but very little actual reporting on the draft report.

Although it isn’t laid out this way, you could divide the report into four major sections: taxes or fees that could be imposed to support journalistic efforts; taxes or fees that could be reduced to support journalist efforts; governmental initiatives that could be started to support journalistic efforts; governmental initiatives that could be stopped in order to support journalistic efforts. Then add to those four areas, technological steps that could be taken to make sure the “creative destruction” wrought by new media efforts are more ‘creative’ and less ‘destructive.’

THE TAXMAN COMETH: One of the proposals floated is a national fund for local news, using money the Federal Communication Commission already collects from telecom users, television and radio broadcast licenses and which is already being used to underwrite telecom services in rural areas and for wiring schools and libraries. The money would be administered through a competitive application process to state “local news fund councils.” Going a step further, the report talks about a “Citizenship Media Fund”, supported by taxes on broadcast spectrum, consumer electronics, a spectrum auction tax, advertising sales taxes and an ISP-cell phone tax. It was the uproar over taxes that prompted FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz to declare that any idea of taxes is “a non-starter.” Alternatively the report talks about “Citizenship News Vouchers”… sort of like the Presidential campaign contribution idea… which “would allow every American tax payer to allocate some amount of government funds to the non-profit media organization of their choice.” Foundations could ‘seed’ such news ventures and then the ‘citizenship news vouchers’ system would take over.

Or, going a step further in a different direction, the report raises the idea of providing a tax credit to media businesses “for every journalist they employ.” In the vein of providing incentives, the report cites suggestions that the Small Business Administration could provide loan support for non-profit news start-ups. Right now, the SBA focuses on for profit businesses. And, as noted earlier, there is the issue of increasing postal subsidies. One of those little loop-holes you never think about, the report calls for the repeal of the 60-year-old law which prohibits the domestic re-broadcast of the government funded ($700 Million) international news services such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. In the final workshop, J-Lab Executive Director Jan Schaffer notes that her group had 2,700 proposals for the $1 Million in funding it had since 2005. Meanwhile, the federal government is accepting applications for $50 Million just this year for media programs in the Palestinian territories, Afghanistan and the Congo.

PARASITIC AGGREGATORS: That is one of the descriptions used in the report for the news aggregators who rely on material provided by various news organizations. The report raises the question of how to protect the Intellectual Property rights of the originating news organizations. The report goes into great length to discuss variations of the “hot news” concept. Copyright laws protect how facts are articulated but not the facts themselves. Because of that, some groups take material created by others and re-write or re-work it for their own use, thus avoiding copyright infringements. But the originating news organization made a substantial investment to get that news to begin with. The ‘hot news’ concept provides copyright protections for such reports so as to protect the original investment. The problem, according to the FTC report, are the so-called “second round of content creators” who may take an original story and add to it through additional reporting. Regardless, the FTC report raises the idea of a federal ‘hot news’ law. The report also raises the idea of a content licensing fee. They say either there could be an industry-wide licensing arrangement or the aggregating group or ISP’s would pay a fee for every account they have. The report does note that newspapers can code their content to stop search engines from copying it. And, of course, the report talks about erecting pay walls.

WE WANT YOU AS A NEW RECRUIT: One of the more unusual ‘recommendations’ of the many unusual recommendations is the idea of creating a ‘journalism division’ of the U.S.’s AmeriCorps which is a federally-funded program recruiting volunteers to help with public service projects around the country. In a similar vein, the report cited the idea of providing grants to universities to do investigative journalism with the note that “if the nation’s 200,000 journalism and mass communication students spent 10% of their time doing actual journalism, that would more than make up for all the traditional media jobs that have been lost over the past 10 years.”

THE THREE-LEGGED RACE: One of the dominant themes of the report (or so it seems to me) is some variation of the idea of a public-private partnership involving media businesses, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and non-profits or NGO-type organizations. The report notes several calls for additional funding for CPB for local news projects. J-Lab’s Schaffer even goes so far as to suggest re-casting and re-naming the CPB the Corporation for Public Media, and having it collaborate with local news sites through content sharing and other arrangements but with more accountability to insure ‘civic participation.’ The report looks at the idea of ‘blending’ for-profit businesses with some defined form of social purposes. It looks at the idea of the Internal Revenue Service granting 501 (c) (3), tax exempt, status for some form of news reporting. Alternatively it looks at three different forms of incorporation. In Maryland they have created a “for benefit corporation” in which the corporation has a public or social purposes. In California, it is called a “flexible purpose corporation” but the parameters are similar. In Vermont, they have created L3C corporations, which are defined as low-profit limited liability corporations.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: The report looks at the technology of the Internet that would make information gathering from public sources easier and more manageable. For example, it cites the “semantic web” technologies that make info readable by machines, the use of XBRL which is extensible business reporting language, metadata tags that would improve accessibility, and the need for a commonly agreed upon taxonomy for the world wide web and Internet use by governments as well as businesses.

DISCLAIMER: As usual, I have to put in a disclaimer that this is a 15-hundred word summary of a 50-plus page report. And I have to add a compliment to the FTC staffers who put this together. It is an interesting and comprehensive overview of the various alternatives. You can find the full report by going to the FTC site and searching for journalism, or go to this link -- http://www.ftc.gov/opp/workshops/news/jun15/docs/new-staff-discussion.pdf .

Michael Castengera is an instructor at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia AND President of Media Strategies and Tactics Inc., a consulting firm that works with all media but primarily broadcasting. You can visit his website at MediaConsultant.tv.

Top Ten Reasons Larry King Is Retiring

10. He's 126 years old

9. High definition format scared children and the elderly

8. Didn't mean to retire, he forgot he still had a show

7. Wants to focus on his second career as a barn owl (split screen of Larry King and a barn owl)

6. It's not easy juggling a television show, marriage and an affair with your wife's sister

5. Suspender rash

4. Lately, introduces every guest as "The lovely Ms. Carol Channing"

3. Couldn't handle pressure of coming up wth questions like "What's your favorite lunch meat?"

2. Well, there's this (videotape of Larry King stuttering trying to say "e.coli")

1. He needs time to plan his divorce

The Late Show with David Letterman

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