Why does anyone really want to buy NBC?

WASHINGTON – Any day now, if published reports are accurate, cable giant Comcast will celebrate Thanksgiving not by dining on turkey but by feasting on peacock: Comcast is set to acquire NBC from General Electric. However, reports in the past few weeks touching on the financial performance and prospects of NBC Television raise an interesting question: Why does anyone really want to buy NBC? And why does Comcast, in particular, really want to buy NBC?……

Essay and a Woman’s Nation

I have just returned from the Los Angeles launch of A Woman's Nation –an ambitious project and a unique report on the status of American women which includes an essay I co authored with Stacy Smith, Ph.D. and Amy Granados entitled Sexy Socialization: Today's Media and the Next Generation of Women" . The Womens' Nation initiative is produced by California First Lady Maria Shriver with partners including the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the CCLP and the multifaceted report –including a comprehensive national poll–is known as, The Shriver Report…….

Women in Communication Leadership

Step by Step. That's how we are launching a Center within a Center. Our focus is squarely on Women and Communication Leadership and creating a Center within CCLP for training and research. It is surely something needed as more and more women (and men) in the Communications Industry find themselves out of a job or forced to reinvent their skill set in this challenging and complicated economic time. Our goal is a robust training institute for women in Communication Leadership. But, first we needed a baseline look at the industry…….

The week the media crashed

So this is how it ends: Detroit newspapers have lost so much revenue they plan to publish and distribute a traditional paper only two days a week, according to the Wall Street Journal (and reported here). NPR has lost so much revenue that it will cancel programs once considered the network's future to conserve resources for its decades-old hits, according to an NPR announcement. NBC has lost so much revenue it announces it will only program four hours a week of traditional prime time entertainment next fall. Yes, that's correct: four hours a week. (The press release is available here.)……