• NBC is pulling out all the stops to promote Jay Leno's new show. Don't believe it? Try this out for size: "In early September, NBC will even adopt a portion of Interstate 10 in California to reiterate Mr. Leno's time slot." [NYT]
• Notwithstanding the Leno blitz, NBC is still looking to cut its budget. [NYT]
• No…
Laura Ling and Euna Lee are safely back on American soil in Burbank, California. After the jump, Lee reunites with her daughter, and Ling talks about the emotional end of the Current TV journalists captivity in North Korea.
• Bad news for NBC Universal: second-quarter profits dropped by 41%. [MW]
• Good news for NBC News: Susan Boyle's first in-depth TV interview will take place with Meredith Vieira on the Today show next Wednesday. [NYT]
• Alpha Media, the company that owns Maxim (and used to own Blender and Stuff)—and which was sold to …
As mentioned earlier: New York Times reporter David Rohde managed to escape his Taliban captors to freedom last night by hopping over a wall. He was imprisoned for seven months. How wasn't this widely reported? Even by us? Simple:
Current TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee are two days into a 12-year North Korean prison sentence. There's not much to do except wait for Al Gore to save them. In the meantime, have you watched their actual journalism?
Laura Ling, the sister of former The View co-host Lisa Ling, and fellow Current TV journalist Euna Lee have been sentenced to twelve years in a labor camp by a North Korean court for crossing that country's border.
Al Gore was at the 92nd St. Y earlier this week, making jokes about drug addicts. Meanwhile, as of this morning, imprisoned Current.TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee - Gore's employees - are facing further hearings in North Korea.
Former co-host of The View, Lisa Ling, is hitting the press this week for the first time since her sister, Laura (pictured, right) and fellow Current TV journalist Euna Lee were detained by the North Korean government. Their trial's on June 4th, and things aren't looking good.
• Hachette is cutting salaries and asking staff to work overtime. Fun! [Gawker]
• Amazon is blaming an "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" for the dropping the sales rankings of thousands of gay and lesbian books. [AFP]
• Bravo has picked up four new shows, including one produced by Sarah Jessica Parker…
Current, the bizarre TV channel co-founded by Al Gore, laid off 60 staff last night. Supposedly the hippies in the San Francisco headquarters office are being shoved aside in favor of the bloodsuckers in Los Angeles. But even the survivors better watch their backs, because a company statement makes it sound like they…
This just in: Current TV's director of public relations sent us an email designed to be printed in its entirety. (Thanks for that. Since Valleywag fired everyone else, I spend way too much time editing.) Current didn't just cut staff, they reshuffled a couple dozen employees. Instead of the economy, Current blames "a…
Current, the cable channel and user-generated-video website backed by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore, is laying people off. "My wife works in the LA office (at least for now!)," emails a tipster. "At least 10 gone from there...." No word from Current's San Francisco headquarters yet, but you know where to send it. Update: A…
It was another down day on Wall Street. The Dow fell 176 points, or 2 percent, and both the S&P and Nasdaq shed 2.2 percent. Naturally, a handful of companies announced a round of fresh layoffs: As many as 60 employees of Condé Nast's Internet division were reportedly let go; an estimated 20 percent of CurrentTV's…
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Current TV's Twitter-enhanced live feed of the Obama/McCain debate on Friday "broke new ground," according to Wired blogger Sarah Lai Stirland. But it's been nearly a month since the September 8 premiere of CNN's Rick Sanchez Direct, in which Sanchez turns the camera on Twitter for the modern version of…
So Al Gore, who cofounded Current TV, promised to have a Twitter account by Saturday. It's Monday, and the algore and albertgore account don't look anything like they're being maintained by the former American vice president and current free marketeer. If you find him under shouldawon00 or some other catchy handle, do…
You know what's really needed at a presidential debate on delicate foreign policy matters and capital markets paralyzed by their own complexity? Random internet heckling via Twitter! Or at least that's what Al Gore's cable network Current believes. Why not turn on Current, if you get it, and fire up Twitter, if you're…
YouTube was a breeze. Though they insist you should "not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself," they also explain the "fair use" exception to this rule, in detail. They do, however, leave budding filmmakers…
I've long been fascinated with the ubiquitous gladhandery of Pete Cashmore, the 22-year-old founder of Mashable. And I've been meaning to ask Cashmore what, exactly, he does. Al Gore's cable channel, Current, has saved me the awkward moment. As a video clip shows, Cashmore talks on his cell phone, takes cabs, and…
Ha ha, your medium is dying! Financial-news print outlets seeking relevance have added video to their web sites. But their work is pretty much the opposite of YouTube gold. Brett Erlich, apparently just this guy who loves web videos, makes fun of the work of the Journal, Forbes, and Fortune on this criminally…
One of Al Gore's boys from Current TV got waterboarded. I'd issue a disclaimer about the video but really any of you who've ever set foot in a leather bar (which is most of you!) have seen much worse. [HuffPo]
