Monday Morning Weekend Wrap-Up #2: 6th October 2008

Hi-Ho!

In this weekend wrap-up: all the stories that broke over the weekend that you may have missed.

#1: The Screen Actors Guild may be rattling the cage with the push for a strike. [THR] See Also Tee New York Times as well as the AP [at the NYT]

When SAG’s negotiating committee sent the strike-authorization decision back to the guild’s national board, some members suggested internal politics were the driving force behind the move. Not so, said MembershipFirst leader Anne-Marie Johnson, who sits on both the negotiating committee and the national board, which in the summer gave the bargaining panel the go-ahead to request a strike vote if it wished. “This is the contract of our life. This will alter our career. That type of responsibility should be vetted by a larger body,” she said, referring to the 71-member national board. Thirteen sit on the negotiating committee.

It would be scary if this actually happened, and this can be no coincidence with the way media companies have been hit and the world economy is jumpy as of late. Crafty? Probably. Self Interested? Also Probably.

#2 Segueing from the first: Deutsche Bank downgrades media companies [The Australian]

STOCK market pessimism surrounding Australia’s listed media companies intensified last week, with Deutsche Bank again downgrading its forecasts for revenue and earnings growth. “The rapid deterioration in advertising revenues in the last few months is becoming well established,” Deutsche’s media analyst Andrew Anagnostellis said.

Stocks in Televised Revolution remain the same.

#3 Channel 10 loses place to Auntie [The Australian]

CHANNEL 10 has suffered the ignominy of being beaten in an official ratings week by the ABC, so the only TV network it out-rated last week was SBS. The ABC outclassed Ten in week 40 of the ratings survey, scoring 19.4 per cent of the national prime-time audience to Ten’s 19.1 per cent.

My Advice? …. More Dexter.

#4 Not news, but I still read it: Talking TelevisionAU writes “Stop the digital TV discrimination!”

… But, while it is great to see our national broadcaster and commercial networks embracing their digital future, the community TV sector continues to be left wanting for a piece of the digital pie.

#5 More Viewers watching TV online [imdb studio briefing]

Almost two-thirds of households with broadband connections to the Internet watch videos online, up from one third a year ago, according to a survey by ABI Research. Moreover more than half of those viewers were young adults, the demographic group that advertisers usually target. The results mimic a survey conducted by ComScore last month. About half of those under 30 polled by ABI said they used the Internet said they watched long-form TV shows and movies online at least once a month.

Told you so!