Intelligence Briefs

Answer my quick quiz… Who are the two US Senators from your state?

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering an end to the regulatory support of

The A&E Network just announced that they were lifting their suspension of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson and bringing him back less than a week after suspending him for remarks he made in GQ in regards to homosexuals and African-Americans (as I had predicted they would last week). One could hear echoes of Claude Rains’ famous quote in Casablanca of ‘I am shocked, shocked, shocked that gambling is going on (after pocketing his winnings) with the announcement. Nobody is shocked. The decision was inevitable. Duck Dynasty is the network’s number one rated show and in many ways there is no network without Duck Dynasty. This crisis showed totally the power of social media.

Five years ago I attended a media think tank hosted by the management of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The guest speaker was Bill Keller who was then the executive editor of the New York Times, a position from which he stepped down in 2011 to return to becoming a full time writer for the Times. The eruption of the financial crisis facing many papers across the nation was gaining full force at the time of Keller’s talk. The Boston Globe, which was then owned by the Times (Now owned by a group of Red Sox principals) was in particular financial stress as was the case at the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times and many smaller newspapers throughout the country. Draconian cutbacks were taking place in newspaper newsrooms, and those cutbacks and closings continue today. During the Q&A following Keller’s talk I asked if he felt a possible solution to maintaining strong print editorial departments was collaboration with television stations and local cable news channels in the local marketplace. Would the sharing of personnel allow for a bolstering of local news coverage and investigative reporting in both mediums?

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Newtown tragedy, and nearly eleven months have passed since Joe Biden’s much-touted

Recently, I attended my first Techonomy Conference. Beyond the awesome venue, Dove Mountain outside of Tucson, Arizona

Two things are clear when looking at the 2014 US Senate election map: Democrats have their work cut out for them; but at the same time, there aren’t all that many hot contests a year out from Election Day.

Triggering an industry paradigm shift is not a task for the faint of heart, at least, that's been my experience. Over the last decade, I have engineered an infrastructure for the brave new world of voice procurement online, with all roads and search queries leading to Voices.com. From my vantage point, I see infinite possibilities on the horizon to serve using spoken word recordings to share important messages via radio and television and to communicate stories that change lives.

The sale of a normal business, say a convenience store, is straight-forward. The buyer pays up, signs all the necessary documents and moves in. But a broadcast transaction must await FCC approval, which usually takes about 90 days or more during which the station must be kept in good operating order. Communications contract expert John Pelkey explains the four key considerations for the seller during this time of limbo.

It’s can be great when a broadcast group is “all in the family,” but it can be devastating in surprising ways when the group is sold out of the family. Edward J. Kopf and Erwin Krasnow combine their expertise to dissect this seldom-considered but very important topic.