The Hulu-will-charge-you-money rumor mill is churning once again, and the blogosphere has lit up with preemptively angered Hulu viewers vowing that they will never darken Hulu’s digital door again. Some call it greed, others point to nefarious pressure from ailing broadcast and cable operations - while some decry the end…

Digital revenues declined slightly for Gannett (NYSE: GCI) in Q1, suggesting that while a recovery is not exactly in full swing, things are looking up, even for newspapers. It should be pointed out that digital revenues were largely pulled down by Careerbuilder, which continues to struggle amid a still-miserable job…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q109	Net Inc. vs Q109
Gannett	Release		4.1%	109%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

Things were supposed to be getting better for TV broadcasters this quarter…. NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), essentially a footnote in parent General Electric’s quarterly earnings until its merger with cable giant Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) gets approved, performed worse this past quarter than it did last year. The network’s profits were…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q109	Net Inc. vs Q109
NBCU (within GE)	Release	N/A	18%	49%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

A dozen broadcasters escalated their mobile TV efforts yesterday after forming a joint venture that included financial and content commitments. The more aggressive measures appeared to be in response to the FCC’s National Broadband initiative, which called for reclaiming unused spectrum from broadcasters for more wireless broadband networks. Without the…

A federal court has determined that the FCC does not have the authority to enforce so-called net neutrality rules, which requires broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic, reports the New York Times. The decision was made today by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District…

In addition to the ABC (NYSE: DIS) Player hitting the iPad App Store, its parent Disney has a number of special items for the iPad’s release on Saturday. Aimed at affluent, first-adopters with kids, Disney Publishing Worldwide has built two original Toy Story read-along apps for the iPad. These iPad…

Most forecasters have expected broadcast ad revenues to experience a nice recovery as the recession eases, but BernsteinResearch analyst Michael Nathanson expects a TV advertising to see a rebound that could bring stations back to their healthier 2007 levels. While the major station owners took a big hit on revenue…

*ABC* News Digital execs are currently putting together a formal paywall strategy with expectations of having some concrete ideas for ways to charge consumers by the summer, said Paul Slavin, the unit’s SVP, in an interview with paidContent. This isn’t the first time *ABC* News has traveled the paid content…

Disney (NYSE: DIS) says it has reached an “agreement in principle” with Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) “that recognizes the fair value of ABC7 with deal points that we expect to finalize with Cablevision.” Translation: Cablevision subs are watching the Oscars after all. The agreement—which Cablevision didn’t even mention in its terse…

Last-minute dramatics this afternoon as the next “deadline” approaches for Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Cablevision: tonight’s Academy Awards. Disney says it’s sent a new proposal and the ball is in the cable operator’s court. But Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) is playing a different game: calling on “CEO Bob Iger to immediately…

Midnight update: Get ready for some impromptu Oscar parties at New York-area households with Verizon FiOS or satellite: Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) couldn’t find a way over a two-year impasse by 12:01 a.m. this morning—WABC is blacked out for the operator’s 3.1 million households. Time Warner Cable…

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) held its advertising upfront yesterday and unlike the traditional TV upfront events that are getting under way, the focus here was the company’s range of cross-platform offerings, all of which are tied together with social media elements. The centerpiece of the presentation was a…

The data is starting to roll in for the full Vancouver Olympics. NBC hasn’t been to provide some of the stats we’ve asked for—the number of video streams served the night the first USA-CAN hockey match aired on MSNBC against ice dancing, among them. But the numbers we do have…

During last month’s earnings call, *Disney* CEO Bob Iger couldn’t have been clearer about his willingness to shut off access to distributors unwilling to pay retrans fees. “We’re pretty resolute,” Iger told analysts—and by extension, cable and satellite operators. Just three weeks later, Disney (NYSE: DIS) is trying to show…

Unlike some of the major newsroom cuts of recent years, David Westin isn’t reenacting the layoff scene from Broadcast News at ABC (NYSE: DIS) News. The president of ABC News is trying to avoid that—and worse—by planning a different kind of future for the Disney news network and an environment…

It’s half-way through the Vancouver Olympics and NBC Universal’s research head Alan Wurtzel already has some findings to share about the viewing results so far. Anticipating the ire of bloggers who have complained that NBCU has been holding back too much live coverage of the games from online, Wurtzel made…

After some effusive praise for CBS’ cost containment and ability to withstand the economic downturn, Sumner Redstone, executive chairman, CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), handed the call over to Les Moonves, CEO and president. Before hanging up, Redstone repeated a line he gave when introducing the Viacom (NYSE: VIA) earnings call…

Through some quirks of scheduling, I got my first taste of Olympics action on a laptop through in-flight wireless—not the big screen in our living room—and watched the winning ski jump late at night on demand using the NBC Olympics iPhone app. The 2010 Winter Olympics may not be the…

CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) Chief Research Officer Dave Poltrack took dead aim at a Forrester Research survey that said marketers consider TV ads less and less effective. AdAge was there to capture Poltrack’s fit of pique. He was particularly set off by advertisers’ claim that only 41 percent of their…