NBC goes digital for Olympics
Associated Press – July 21
If you miss any of your favorite events during the upcoming Summer Olympics in London, don’t blame NBC. Every sport, every single competition will be streamed live online or telecast by NBC and its affiliated cable networks in the U.S. this summer…There will be times that NBC’s Olympics website is showing as many as 40 separate competitions at the same time, said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. The decision could neutralize what has always been a major criticism of NBC — that showing some events only on a tape-delay basis makes them feel stale, particularly in an era of instant communication. It might keep viewers from fleeing NBC, since some frustrated fans had sought out live telecasts from other television or Internet sources, said Andrew Billings, a sports media professor at the University of Alabama and author of “Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television.” “They realize it has to go in this direction,” Billings said. “Some people say they are four to eight years late in this game.”
NBC plans to achieve unprecedented time in Olympics coverage
Chicago Sun-Times – July 22
NBC promises to deliver all the Olympic coverage you could possibly want. And then some…For the first time, all Olympic sporting events and medal awards will be shown online, live, at NBCOlympics.com, for a total of more than 3,500 programming hours. Instead of viewing a single feed that switches from one track-and-field event to another, users can watch a stream dedicated solely to the javelin or long jump, for example…As for which events will get covered in prime-time by Bob Costas and Olympics rookie Ryan Seacrest, expect London to look a lot like Beijing.‘‘I think they’ll stick to the format where 93 percent of the prime-time telecast will be five sports: gymnastics, track and field, swimming, diving and beach volleyball,’’ said (UA) sports media expert Andrew Billings, author of the book Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television. ‘‘The Olympic audience is dramatically different from your typical sports audience,’’ Billings said. ‘‘It’s about 60 percent female, and those are sports the whole family will tune in for.’’… ‘‘It’s going to help put NBC Sports Network on the map,’’ Billings said.
Jobless rate rises locally, statewide
Tuscaloosa News – July 21
Unemployment in June rose by more than 1 percent in West Alabama and across the state. Alabama fared slightly better with its official unemployment rate of 7.8 percent, up 0.4 percent from May. But that rate is seasonally adjusted. The state’s non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate was 8.9 percent, 1.5 percent higher than May…Ahmad Ijaz, an economist and director of economic forecasting at the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research, said most of the job creation in Alabama in June was in temporary and part-time jobs.The unemployment rates rose in large part from more people entering the labor force and competing for the available work, he said.June typically sees more people entering the work force as recent college and high school graduates seek jobs, he said.Many high school and college students also tend to look for temporary summer jobs at that time, Ijaz said.In addition, more people whose unemployment benefits are running out have increased their efforts to find work, he said.
Jobless spike attributed to normal seasonal job search
Anniston Star – July 21
The Calhoun County unemployment rate jumped significantly in June, but the spike is apparently due to the traditional search for summer jobs. With most job sectors relatively unchanged, state officials and economic experts are attributing most of the June growth in unemployment and the civilian labor force to students and teachers searching for part-time jobs as they usually do each summer…Not seasonally adjusted, the state’s unemployment rate was 8.9 percent in June. Individual county rates are not seasonally adjusted. Still, James Cover, professor of economics at the University of Alabama, suspects the state’s seasonally adjusted numbers contained many seasonal summer job seekers. “It appears they are not seasonally adjusted fully,” Cover said. “The increase seems to be the pretty much normal variation between May and June.”
Air War: Despite big spending, Alabama voters prove resistant to TV ads
Anniston Star – July 22
…Alabama’s primary — in which then-presidential candidate Rick Santorum and chief justice nominee Roy Moore beat better-funded primary opponents — posed an unusual question: Do TV ads even matter in getting people to the polls? One thing is clear: While there’s more money in politics these days, a single minute of airtime doesn’t pack as much punch as it used to. Lance Kinney, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Alabama, said audiences are much more splintered than they were 20 or 30 years ago. “In prime time, you have people watching ‘American Idol’ and a hundred different alternatives,” Kinney said. “So you have to begin to broaden your advertising buy to reach the same market because the market is split across several advertising platforms.”