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Where TV Finds the Future

Generation of local TV anchors signing offToday

We’ve written many times here on Lost Remote about the trend in local news to cut back on anchors who make up a disproportionate chunk of the budget. The NYTimes’ Brian Stelter has a story on it today, which brings together the financial reality as well as the perspective from a few anchors who are getting the boot. Personally, as I’ve written before, anchors serve a tremendous value as viewer guides in a linear world, but the news media is quickly moving to a non-linear environment where anchor value doesn’t translate. I think single news anchors (doubling up with the weather anchor) will be the norm in the next two to three years, largely out of necessity. That is, unless current anchors and their agents understand the new reality and dramatically flex their salaries accordingly. Because when you’re faced with a decision between cutting an anchor or several reporters and photographers, that’s a no-brainer — it’s coverage, not packaging, that matters most in local news.

HuffPo lands more funding, to expand localToday

HuffingtonPost.com has $25 million more in funding, and it plans to expand its local strategy to an unspecified number of cities like its pilot in Chicago.

Details of CNN Wire emergingToday

The NYTimes has a write-up of the CNN Wire, which is designed to provide a lower-cost alternative to the Associated Press. This week CNN is holding a pitch session for editors from 30 or so newspapers including the Plain Dealer, which has been testing the CNN Wire in recent days (see one of those stories here.) So what does the AP think of this? “Breaking news is very, very expensive and if they have the resources to spend on it, we welcome them to the game,” said AP chief Tom Curley. “The current CNN wire, if you look at it truly is still, and remarkably, abysmally written,” he said. “However, they’re interviewing A.P. people, we know, and that can be transformed.” CNN.com (not CNN TV) plans to drop AP in January, reports the NYTimes. (Full disclosure: I work for msnbc.com, a client of AP.)

The iPhone redefines the road tripToday

My family and I just returned from a six-day road trip from Seattle to Northern California. I’m usually the flying type, but a new baby and my own bout with a nasty cold forced us to cancel the flight and jump in the car. But unlike previous road trips from years past, this time I was armed with an iPhone. We used it non-stop, and it dramatically changed how we would normally approach a road trip. Instead of planning everything in advance, we played it by ear.

The most frequently-used feature was the modern equivalent of, “Are we there yet?” With Google Maps, we could estimate our driving time from our current position (determined by GPS) to any location ahead of us using the directions feature. My wife, who did most of the driving, was asking me every 30 minutes for a new time estimate to the next town/landmark/anything. Below, on the left, is our estimated drive time from Astoria, Oregon back to Seattle. And on the right, is our drive time to the next Starbucks on our route (she’s addicted.) Google’s times were surprisingly accurate.

With that ability to predict our timeline on a map, we stopped planning our d

YouTube switches to widescreen playersNovember 25

YouTube has officially switched to the 16 x 9 aspect ratio. Finally.