WiredPen

Lorne Michaels, the man behind the 1970s phenomena Saturday Night Live, plans to take NBC’s “Late Night” to the web this fall. According to the Los Angeles Times, Michaels wants new host Jimmy Fallon “to work out as many of the rough spots in his presentation as possible in performances on a website” before current host Conan O’Brien moves to “The Tonight Show.”

One reason for trying out the show online, Mr. Michaels said, is that the Internet will allow Mr. Fallon more freedom in terms of what he can say and do, “more opportunity for experimentation” … But the main reason for the idea, he said, was the experience of Mr. O’Brien, who endured a long period of uncertainty about whether he would survive after he assumed the desk on “Late Night” succeeding David Letterman. “Conan needed time to find his show,” Mr. Michaels said. “I think this will help Jimmy to do that.”

Act 3 debuts on Friday. The whole thing goes away, well the streaming version, anyway, on Saturday. Then it will be iTunes and DVD-only. Watch it now! Learn more at the official fan site.

Is this the new business model for online video?

Facebook; MySpace; Twitter.

The federal court for the Southern District of New York has ordered (pdf) Google to release to Viacom all data (4 TB) it has about YouTube viewers: viewer IP address, viewer “name” (assuming a YouTube profile with accurate info), and clips watched (on YouTube.com or as an embed). [Wired, EFF, tip]

Viacom is suing Google, arguing that “infringing material is more popular than user-created videos.” EFF argues that the judge’s ruling is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act: Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade showed doctored photos of two New York Times reporters while discussing an article in the June 28 edition of the New York Times that “pointed out what the newspaper called ‘ominous trends’ in Fox News’ ratings.” From Editor & Publisher.

Doocy characterized the article as a “hit piece” and reporter Jacques Steinberg as an “attack dog.” In their “banter,” Doocy and Kilmeade reference the Westminster dog show and describe one of the NYT reporters as being “dressed as a poodle.” They also reference RadarOnline, an industry gossip web site.

This is TV news? I miss it not.

MediaMatters has screenshots of the Fox News images, side-by-side with undoctored photos, as well as a transcript of the exchange.

My alma mater is buying a local CBS affiliate, WNEG-TV (Toccoa, GA), which will become part of The Center for Advanced Media operated by The Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The University of Georgia Research Foundation is buying the local station, channel 32, from its current owner, Media General, Inc., pending FCC approval, of course. Reported sales price: $1.44 million. Studio operations for the Northeast Georgia station will be moved from Toccoa to Athens; UGA-oriented programming is planned for fall 2009.

Reportedly, this makes UGA “one of a handful” of universities that hold commercial television licenses. My Google-foo isn’t good today, as I’ve not been able to identify any others yet.

WNEG has been an unappreciated asset for about 20 years. Media General (Hollywood, VA) became the station owner in 2000, when it acquired the assets of South Carolina-based Spartan Communications. In turn, after getting an exemption to the duopoly rule, Spartan acquired WNEG in 1997 and operated it as a satellite of WSPA. Then local owner Stephens County Broadcasting Company had been trying to sell the property since at least 1990, claiming competition from Turner TNT Cable Network had made the station unprofitable. The FCC designates the station as part of the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson-Asheville Designated Market Area (”DMA”); it was launched in 1984.

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Political Newsline has spotted a probable copyright violation on the Republican National Committee blog, in a post made by online communications manager James Richardson. (tip)

The photo in question has a watermark (which is how PN was able to track it down) and is clearly marked “All rights reserved” on its Flickr home.

Who’s going to extract royalties for TinyFishy?

Scientific American has a feature on digital forensics and “doctored” images as well as a slideshow of 10 political images (nine are pre-digital) that illustrate the craft. Although digital technologies may make it easier to falsify images, the SI article demonstrates that the 180-year history of photography is punctuated with manipulation. For example, photo that you probably think of when you think of Abraham Lincoln is a composite! (tip)

I think that this is what I’ll call all of these examples … it just makes life simple. The example this week comes from Ziff Davis Media publication PC Week:

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Mobile telephony, news monetization, and community development are recurring themes in the 16 projects funded by this year’s Knight News Challenge (John S. and James L. Knight Foundation). Total funding: $5.5 million.

The NY Times is developing an API, a la Google, which will empower “mash-ups” of NYT content, according to MediaBistro. (tip) It also sounds like the NYT is drinking semantic web kool-aid (not a bad thing, IMO): “Everything we produce should be organized data.” They’re starting with entertainment (no surprise there).

More from the ReadWriteWeb. Also, what’s an API and why should you care? (also from ReadWriteWeb)