News Platforms & Sources

It’s hard to know whether the universe of satellite radio companies is about to be cut in half. Is Sirius Radio boss Mel Karmazin’s talk about a merger between his company and XM Radio simply chatter or a prelude to a deal? Any union of the two intensely competitive satellite radio services would have to pass regulatory muster. Here’s a look at how the two satellite radio services stack up.

There’s a battle brewing over whether the government should regulate the use of video news releases—prepackaged segments often produced for commercial clients—that look like news reports and sometimes appear on local TV newscasts. This PEJ backgrounder examines the dispute between television industry representatives and their critics.

What are the best newspapers in America? The question used to be hotly debated. But when Poynter.org readers were asked to weigh in recently there was tepid response. Does that reflect a stagnating newspaper industry? We offer the results of that effort here. But maybe the more interesting, or at least refreshing question, is what are the best news web sites.

Three decades later, the Washington Post’s reporting on the Watergate scandal is still spoken about with a hushed reverence as a singular journalistic achievement. The legend and mythology surrounding Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein continue to grow, even as the industry itself has changed.

How did the news media fare on Nov. 7? A PEJ study of 32 different media outlets on Election Day offers “five lessons” about the coverage of major breaking- news events in the multi-media era, and a “sector-by-sector” breakdown. While some outlets struggled to find their role, those that combined both speed and interactivity seemed the most useful destinations.

Some 12% of internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time.

Fully 87% of online users have at one time used the internet to carry out research on a scientific topic or concept.

How did newspapers play the Nov 7 election on their front page? Did they see an ideological realignment in the country, or some deeper shift? A review of the day-after headlines in 230 newspapers across the country reveals that it was nothing quite so dramatic and many tread closer to Sergeant Joe Friday’s “Just the Facts, Ma’am.”

Nielsen Media Research, the gold standard in the TV ratings industry, has announced that it will release numbers in December that show how many people actually sit through commercials on TV. That new yardstick will affect how much advertisers will pay to air those ads and will very possibly alter the economics of the TV marketplace. And not everyone in the TV business is happy about this.

Baseball's Fall Classic has not been a hit with TV viewers in recent years. In the last 20 years World Series ratings have fallen by more than 50% so that it now only averages one quarter of the audience of the Super Bowl. And through two games, the 2006 Series is the lowest-rated ever.