Note: Discovery completed the acquisition of the WarnerMedia subsidiary of AT&T April 9, 2022. This page has been updated to reflect this change.

Those Dancing Days Are Fading - October 15, 2022
The funereal drumbeats have echoed through media houses for some time. Now the somber trumpets have joined in. Economics are sour, profit margins worst. After housing and food, consumers are cutting back on everything. Advertisers have moved to TikTok. Investors’ mood is Wagnerian.

News, Just Another Cog In The Wheel - September 12, 2022
Mergers and acquisition do not, typically, bring on big changes or, especially, disruption. Shareholders want no part of that. They may not need more money but losing some is just not allowed. This is post-modern big business. Lifestyle preservation trumps everything. But mergers and acquisitions are necessary for financial refreshment, changing old money for new. Irresistible.

TV News Remains A Center Of Attention, Influence And Taste - July 18, 2022
Television news is just as popular as ever, despite grieving publishers and underage streamers, just a bit different. The state of the news business has been equated with state of TV news since Ted Turner announced the death of newspapers in the 1970s. The printed word has not faded away. But across the globe TV news, in its maturity, holds sway.

Another Bubble Breaks, Customers Flee, Stock Traders Panic - April 25, 2022
Business is rarely a linear function. There are bumps along the way. Customer-facing enterprises, unlike cruise missile makers, must manage an endless stream of unfolding circumstances. Pleasing consumers is, normally, first. After all, they pay for those products and services. Their decisions, usually, are quite rational. Employees also figure into the decision making as they, too, have direct impact on the business. Over the course of the last several decades, certain others have demanded consideration; board members, investors, analysts, stock traders, hedge fund managers and the reporters they feed. Their interests are, as we say, a separate reality.

Streaming Isn't Everything, It's The Only Thing - April 11, 2022
Size matters. Scale matters. Bigness means everything to media and finance watchers. Appearance matters, too; particularly the appearance of bigness. Top rated and top earning are always headline grabbers, now meaning TikTok. This facilitates quick movement to the next top headline. Nuance is not allowed.

Control The Vertical, Horizontal And Other Plains - January 26, 2022
The media world, television in the modern age, has had its way shaping everything it touches. Sports events are the prominent example. All the necessary ingredients are available; action, celebrity and tons of money. Add a smack of youth-culture adoration to competitive zeal and the media world can’t get enough sports and sporting events.

Irritating Partners Is One Lesson From Bad Policies - September 29, 2021
Culture wars take many forms, often wrapping themselves in the media sphere. These are not mere adolescent games meant to stroke uninspiring egos. These are power plays at high perches designed to upend civil institutions, intellectual honesty, press and speech freedoms and rule of law for want of status. Purveyors of this dishonesty are chasing shadows.

See also in ftm Knowledge

Television News - Bright Lights, Big Coverage

The global reach of television news has never been greater. The digital age has expanded that reach to satellite channels and the Web but it has also forced television news to mature. This ftm Knowledge file shows the gains and the pains. 99 pages PDF (October 2013)

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