MEDIABLAB DAILY DIGEST JAN 7: HUNTER S THOMPSON LSD CIA FAIRFAX FOX BUSINESS NEWS
January 7th 2008 11:37
A compilation of MediaBlab items posted since Friday noon
OBAMA THE FAVOURED ONE ACCORDING TO MYSPACE AND MANY OTHER ONLINE SITES
The Australian reports that US Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Ron Paul were selected by MySpace members as their parties' presidential candidates.
MySpace's count of more than 150,000 virtual votes on January 1-2 showed Obama on top with 46 percent of the vote, trailed by Hillary Clinton (31 percent) and John Edwards (eight percent).
MySpace, which dubbed its own exercise "the Nation's First Presidential Primary," said Republicans picked Ron Paul with 37 percent of ballots, followed by Rudy Giuliani (18 percent) and Mike Huckabee (16 percent).
TechCrunch reported that Obama maintains “an impressive lead” in most online statistics.
He has 212,000 MySpace friends, 50,000 more than any other candidate (and he’s added 5,000 more in the last day or so). He won the MySpace New Year’s Poll with 46 percent of the Democrat vote. Senator Clinton took second with just 31 percent.
TechCrunch said, “It’s no surprise to me that he’s so popular on the internet. He’s just 46, young enough to mostly get the internet generation. He embraced social networks early. He continues to lead polls in the younger demographic, perhaps due to that early adoption. And in our interview with Senator Obama it was clear that he’s put more time and thought into his digital/technology policies than any other candidate. He’s taken the time to embrace the internet, and the internet is embracing him right back.
Senator Obama is also leading the TechCrunch Tech President poll with 54 percent of all democrat votes.
AP PAKISTAN REPORTER GETS $500 FOR BHUTTO-IS-DEAD SCOOP
AP reporter Zarar Khan, the first reporter to confirm that Benazir Bhutto had been killed, was paid an extra $US500 for the scoop.
Poynter republished this internal memo from Associated Press: “With no car available, Khan ran until he flagged down a passing motorcyclist who took him the rest of the one-mile journey. Then he talked his way past police at the gate, past a Bhutto guard at the door and finally got inside the annex to the operating theater.
“There a party aide confirmed that Bhutto was in serious condition and undergoing surgery. Khan phoned in that news (on a borrowed cell phone, since his had been lost in the bombing chaos) and then, when a doctor emerged and spoke to weeping party leaders, Khan learned from Bhutto's personal secretary that she had died. He got confirmation and time of death from a second party aide, while correspondent Munir Ahmad in the Islamabad bureau got further confirmation from a military source.
That gave Pakistan bureau chief Mat Pennington enough to file the FLASH with which AP broke the tragic news to the world.”
Feedbitz said the memo concludes by saying that Khan won a weekly prize of $500.
NEW YORK TIMES PUBLISHES AN ALL-ISLAM BOOK REVIEW SUPPLEMENT
New York Time’s latest Book Review is an all Islam issue, with reviews, essays and more dealing with Islam.
The editor’s note said in part:
“Islam, one of mankind’s great religions, numbers 1.3 billion adherents around the world, with major communities not only in Cairo, Baghdad, Istanbul, Jakarta and Tehran, but also in London, Paris, Berlin, New York and Washington. Yet most Americans know very little about Muslims, which often means they know very little about their own neighbors. Even public officials with responsibility for our national security – powerful congressmen, top FBI agents – betray an ignorance of the most basic facts about Islam, like the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.
“Since 9/11, publishers have been rushing to fill this knowledge gap, and the time seems right to highlight their efforts. This special issue is by no means comprehensive (any more than a single issue of the Book Review could be comprehensive about Christianity or Judaism). It is, instead, a sampler of what is now available. It offers reviews and essays by scholars, critics and journalists of varying points of view discussing many of the most important facets of an impossibly huge subject, from history and literature to theology and politics.”
INTERNET THE NEW MEDIA FORCE IN US ELECTION COVERAGEAmerica’s ABC News has partnered with Facebook, the social networking site, in the US 2008 election coverage. The two organisations are sponsoring a pair of debates among the presidential candidates in New Hampshire, and ABC News and Facebook claim to have conducted a survey that shows the internet will have a greater impact on the forthcoming election than ever before.
ABC News, to reinforce the point of how important its new Facebook partnership could be, published the ABC News/Facebook Poll: The Election and the internet, last Thursday.
The poll said, “It could be the new maxim of 21st century politics: To find voters, look online. They’re there in increasing numbers, in a politically diverse population that’s growing, expanding its internet activities and highly distinctive, with remarkable levels of political and social engagement. It’s a group with the size and clout to change the way election politics happen in America.
“For the first time in polls since 1996, this ABC News/Facebook survey finds the internet rivaling newspapers as one of Americans’ top two sources of news about the presidential election. It’s also the only election news source to show growth, doubling since 2000.
“One reason is the internet’s advance overall: Seventy-three percent of adults now go online, the most in polls since the dawn of the Internet age. Forty percent use the internet specifically for news and information about politics and the election, surpassing the previous high, 35 percent in a 2004 survey.
“Television remains predominant; 70 percent say it’s one of their top two election news sources. But while still far ahead, that’s down by 8 points since 2004 and by 15 points since 1996 in Pew polls. Newspapers follow, named by 26 percent as a top election news source – vastly down from 60 percent in 1996. Catching up with newspapers, 23 percent now cite the internet as a main source of election news – twice the level seven years ago.
“This national survey marks the partnership between ABC News and Facebook, the social networking site, in 2008 election coverage. The two organizations, with WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire, are sponsoring a pair of debates among the presidential candidates in New Hampshire.”
In February 2007 Deborah Fallows, senior research fellow, published a report on behalf of the Pew Internet & American Life Project published in February 2007.
The study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that the percentage of Americans who reported they went to the internet for most of their political news in 2006 more than doubled, from 7 percent to 15 percent.
During the same time period, the percentage of those getting their political input from TV and newspapers remained essentially static, increasing from 66 percent to 69 percent for TV, and from 33 percent to 34 percent for newspapers.
In the introduction to the February 2007 Pew-American Life report, research fellow Deborah Fallows wrote, “If you ask political news consumers what they like most about their favourite source of news, a vivid image of a typical TV, newspaper, and internet political news consumer will emerge from their own comments.
“That’s what the Pew Internet & American Life Project asked in its 2006 post electionsurvey, and from the responses you could almost see the newspaper reader – straight from Norman Rockwell -- settling down in a favorite chair near a warm fire, shaking the paper open, and smoothing it flat to read the political news analysis. Next would be the TV watcher, perhaps a harried parent, bustling around the kitchen throwing dinner together, dodging the dog, checking kids’ homework, and keeping an ear and occasional eye on the evening campaign news; or a quieter version of that home where the TV is on in the background, out of habit or to provide company. Then the internet user, a multi-tasker in the home or business office, a fast mover, clicking windows open and shut, skimming a blog while downloading a long attachment, searching for a candidate’s video clip while pondering an email reply.
Just after the midterm elections in the fall of 2006, the Pew Internet & American Life Project polled Americans about their political news sources. We asked people if they were getting most of their election news from the television, newspapers, radio, magazines, or the internet. As ever, television was the walk-away favourite. Over two-thirds of respondents (69%) said they got most of their political news from television; about a third (34%) said newspapers, and 15% said the internet.
“But the underdog internet is gaining quickly. Compared with data gathered after the most recent mid-term election in 2002, the percentage of Americans who reported they went to the internet for most of their political news in 2006 more than doubled, from 7% to 15%. During the same time period, the percentage of those getting their political input from TV and newspapers remained essentially static, increasing from 66% to 69% for TV, and from 33% to 34% for newspapers.”
Australian blog Planet Wall Street reported, “In a wonderfully timely if exhaustive study, and I mean exhaustive, ABC/Facebook, in association with Pew Research have published what must be the definitive poll on Americas view of the media – i.e. the growth of the internet - just at the right moment, as we move to New Hampshire. This extraordinary document seems to have been lost in the befuddlement of the Main Stream Media’s efforts to come to terms with the conclusive victory of Obama, and perhaps John Edwards, over Hilary and the Republican all round defeat.”
“This is a massive and timely study I will try and first to put it in some context…
the study explains the results, gives us a clear vision of what is likely to happen as the season of politics rolls out and affirms the role of the internet as the principal driving force of US opinion.
”The worst news is for newspapers. This study, embargo lifted Thursday, will be studied by publishers across America, and if they have any sense publishers around the world, with a terrible sense of dread. The one overwhelming fact found is that newspapers have lost out to the internet in the one arena they should still hold, that of political recourse. And they have lost in a manner few would have ever dreamed possible.
” There are many startling facts presented but the daddy of them all is that while 40% of Americans are getting their political news from the internet only a miserable 26% continue to do so from newspapers. That’s down from 60% 10 years ago when Oklahoma City was ablaze. A more profound condemnation of the future of the press could scarcely be countenanced….
”Should not the great organs like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal employing skilled and experienced people brush aside the challenge by lightweight bloggers with no training and at least win in the “trust” battle? Apparently the answer is, again, a thunderous NO!”
That this study has had virtually no coverage in US newspapers is not surprising. The news is terrible.”
WAS US WILDMAN AUTHOR HUNTER S THOMPSON A CIA AGENT?
Was US gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson a CIA operative sent to Australia to spread the gospel about LSD and undermine radical groups?
Highly unlikely said MediaBlab editor Peter Olszewski who was Thompson’s pr manager during the author’s reportedly LSD-addled 1976 tour of Australia.
An interview that Olszewski conducted with Thompson for Loose Licks magazine in September 1976 has been selected to appear this year in a book edited by Thompson’s widow, Anita.
Olszewski said that rather than being a part of a CIA movement, Thompson was probably under observation by the spy agency.
He said, “Thompson appears to have been under surveillance himself during that tour. During his appearance at the National Press Club in Canberra on October 1, 1976, the Nation Review’s CM Evans reported, ‘The bar was crowded with journalists, government personnel and intelligence – perhaps Thompson is the advance guard for a radical takeover of our press.’”
Revelations about Thompson’s tour 1976 Australian tour and intelligence surveillance have come to light following reports in The Australian newspaper that Keith Windshuttle, the conservative author and ABC board member, who was a 1960s student radical who published an article extolling the virtues of dropping acid, has now revealed that he may have been part of a CIA plot to destroy the counterculture.
In October 1967, Windschuttle – then a 25-year-old arts student at Sydney University – caused a furore when he published an article in the campus magazine, Honi Soit, explaining how to manufacture and ingest LSD.
The Daily Telegraph denounced the article, NSW deputy premier Charles Cutler called it deplorable and other government figures demanded that Windschuttle be prosecuted for obscenity, sacked as Honi Soit's editor and expelled. Sydney University took no action.
The Australian reported on the weekend that, “Windschuttle, now editor of the conservative magazine Quadrant and a critic of drug culture, has rarely spoken of the incident and says he's spent much of the past 20 years trying to atone for his leftist antics in the 1960s.
“But although he was named as the only author of the article, the historian admits much of it was written by an American who turned up in the magazine's offices, claiming to work for the computer company IBM.
Windshuttle told The Australian, "He looked like a US marine in a business suit, with a big jaw and a crew-cut. He had the formula for LSD and he had an article explaining how wonderful LSD was. He told me that although they all looked pretty straight at IBM, they were really anti-establishment characters."
Windschuttle said the American provided the chemical formula and wrote lengthy passages that praised LSD and provided advice for "inner-space astronauts" contemplating a trip.
Windshuttle said that only recently has he become aware of allegations that US spy agencies encouraged the spread of hallucinogens in the 1960s.
He told The Australian, “The conspiracy theory is that the CIA saw the anti-war movement as a threat to foreign policy and decided to neutralise it by promoting drugs. I've never been much of a believer in conspiracy theories. But what made me laugh was that I had an experience that in some ways confirmed the theory."
Windschuttle told The Australian that he has never taken LSD, although he did inhale.
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN PRINTER GOES UNDER AND LEAVES GLOSSY MAGAZINES IN THE LURCH
An Adelaide Australia printer of glossy magazines has gone into voluntary receivership, leaving most of its staff and local publishers in the lurch, according to a report in The Australian newspaper.
StateWeb Printing called in administrators Ferrier Hodgson on Wednesday amid mounting losses blamed partly on under-capitalisation.
Among its clients are News Limited title The Advertiser newspaper's Adelaide Magazine and a spin-off of Fairfax's Domain real estate lift out, produced by the local Independent Weekly, which must scramble to find alternative contractors.
South Australian Premier Mike Rann lauded the opening last year of StateWeb's printing plant at Torrensville as a vote of confidence in the state's business environment.
But it was unable to overcome its terminal under-capitalisation problem in the highly competitive glossy magazine and leaflet sector.
AUSTRALIAN REGULATOR FORCES FAIRFAX MEDIA TO RESTORE THE VIABILITY OF TWO COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will protect the viability of two community newspapers that Fairfax Media sold following its merger with Rural Press last year, after expressing concerns that Fairfax had breached an undertaking to sell them as viable concerns.
The ACCC's acting chair, Louise Sylvan, formerly of Choice magazine, told The Australian last night that actions Fairfax had taken before the sale of the two newspapers in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley "appeared to go against the undertaking that the papers would be sold as viable, competitive entities".
When Fairfax and Rural Press merged, Fairfax signed an agreement with the ACCC to sell The Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Post and The Hunter Post, because these free newspapers overlapped with Rural Press's The Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Star and The Lower Hunter Star.
Fairfax ultimately sold the two Post newspapers to Newcastle’s Camillaro Pty Ltd in November last year.
But Louise Sylvan said that just before the sale was completed, the two Post newspapers were published without their real estate and entertainment supplement, and the supplements instead reappeared in one edition of the two Star newspapers retained by the enlarged Fairfax.
The real estate and entertainment supplements were "key advertising areas" of the two Post newspapers.
Business Spectator reported that, “The ACCC raised its concerns with Fairfax, which has now agreed to take steps to restore the Post(s) to its pre-sale position."
PREGNANT JAMIE LYNE SPEARS WON’T BE DUMPED FROM US TWEEN TV PROGRAM
Nickelodeon said it won’t pull the February debut of kids TV program Zoey 101’s fourth season in the US despite the controversial real-life pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears, the show’s 16-year-old star, according to network executives.
Multichannel News said Nickelodeon executive vice president of corporate communications Dan Martinsen said on Thursday that the network has not changed its plans to premiere the fourth and final season of Zoey 101 next month, which the kids-targeted service has already taped.
The airing of the show’s last season, in which Spears plays a level-headed teen attending boarding school, came into question after Spears revealed on December 19 in the tabloid OK! magazine that she was expecting a child.
Since the revelation, several publications, have called for Nickelodeon to shelve the show due to the negative influence Spears’ pregnancy could have on the show’s impressionable tween-targeted audience.
Nickelodeon said episodes of the show have continued to average 2 million viewers since news of Spears’s pregnancy
WESTERN OUTRAGE OVER CHINA’S MOVE TO RESTRICT INTERNET VIDEO SITES
Western media has been in quite a lather about China’s surprise new ruling that internet videos will be limited to those hosted by companies owned or controlled by the state.
Chinese web site AHN reported that the decision throws into question the future of YouTube and other video services that are operated by private companies and hosted outside the country.
YouTube also operates a Chinese site.
China also said internet video sites must obtain government permission and delete and report any material deemed pornographic or "disrupts social responsibility".
The new rules go into effect on January 31.
MediaBlab can’t help but speculate whether this move is in reaction to events that unfolded in Myanmar during the September so-called Saffron Revolution when online video clips fuelled reaction and fanned the flames of fervour both inside and outside Myanmar.
Reporters Without Borders certainly had a lot to say about the issue and condemned the new regulations jointly issued by the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
The press freedom organisation said, "This is an unprecedented act of censorship. Under the pretext of developing China's media industry, the authorities are stepping up their control of online content, especially in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. Preventing people from sharing video and audio files denies them the ability to show and describe their lives. Any censorship could now be portrayed as a legal measure.
“According to the new regulations, videos and audio files ‘attacking national sovereignty’ will not tolerated. Content that refers to ethnicity, pornography, gambling or terrorism, incites violence, violates privacy or attacks Chinese traditions and culture is also deemed unacceptable.”
The Chinese government said, “"Those who provide internet audio and video services must serve socialist ideals and the Chinese people.”
The state information bureau ordered the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post to withdraw an editorial describing the measures as a way of introducing the requirement for an administrative licence.
MALAYSIAN CATHOLIC NEWSPAPER ORDERED NOT TO USE THE WORD ALLAH FOR GOD
Malaysia has ruled that a Catholic newspaper cannot use the word 'Allah' to refer to God.
The Straits Times says that this “clarifies reports that it had reversed an earlier ban on the use of the word by non-Muslims.”
The Times reported that on Thursday Abdullah Mohd Zin, the minister in charge of Islamic affairs, said that ‘Allah’ can only be used by Muslims. His statement came a week after the government renewed the publishing permit of The Herald, a weekly publication of the Catholic Church that comes in four languages, including Malay.
The church was earlier told that its permit would not be renewed. It was also told to stop using ‘Allah’ in its publications because use of the word by non-Muslims may arouse sensitivity and create confusion among Muslims in the country.
Abdullah said it had long been the practice in Malaysia that the word ‘Allah’ refers to God in the Muslim faith only.
The Herald’s editor, Father Lawrence Andrew, told The Straits Times that when the permit was renewed on December 28, no restrictions were stipulated, and it was assumed that the word would be allowed.
However, Abdullah has now said the restrictions will remain, following a decision by the Cabinet in November last year.
The other banned words are ‘solat (prayer), Kaabah (Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca,) and Baitullah (House of God). The Christian literature does not use these words.
In 2002, the Herald was also asked to stop using the word ‘Allah’ but after an appeal to the then Cabinet of former premier Mahathir Mohamad, it was allowed to continue doing so.
The Catholic Church now has taken its fight to court. It is seeking an order that it be allowed to use "Allah" in its publications. The case is pending.
And yesterday, a Sikh leader, Harcharan Singh, said his people also use the word Allah in their prayers.
It strikes MediaBlab that the Catholic priest cum editor is simply being obdurate and purposefully inflammatory in wanting to use the word Allah because, while he may be technically correct, the world at large generally perceives the word Allah to be the Muslim word for the deity.
Perhaps the editor should simply tend to his flock and stop playing political games with Muslim sensitivity.
MORE BAD NEWS ABOUT FOX BUSINESS START-UP LOW FIGURES
Last month MediaBlab dubbed News Corp’s fledging Fox Business News as the Christmas turkey of the year, and last week major metros across American reported the surprise poor start up results of the network.
The Chicago Tribune’s media writer Phil Rosenthal argues that while News Corp’s Fox Business News hasn’t exactly enjoyed a healthy booming birth, “it's too soon to know what this one will grow up to be…it is naive to expect (it) to do more than learn to crawl at this point.”
Perhaps it could be burped a bit more?
Neil Cavuto, a Fox Business senior vice president as well as anchor and managing editor echoed this sentiment and continued the baby analogy, saying, “I don't know that I've seen a baby written about so much while still in the carriage. I just don't have a sense of how you can grab any meaning in something so young."
Rosenthal added, “Born in mid-October with availability in about 30 million homes, Fox Business News remains more of a theoretical threat to CNBC, which turns 19 in April and is available in 86 million US and Canadian homes, than a real one.”
The Chicago Tribune reported that Nielsen Media Research hasn’t released official audience estimates for the fledgling cable network.
But the New York Times reported, “"Nielsen is not permitted to release or even confirm those figures publicly. That is because they are so low as to fall below Nielsen's minimum standards for reporting."
TVNewser reported that the day after the network launched, a Fox Business Network spokesman told TVNewser that it would start getting internal ratings data in December, and that it would take until April at the earliest for data to be released publicly.
Figures obtained by the Chicago Tribune show Fox Business News is averaging 8,000 viewers over its first eight weeks, with 6,000 viewers in the business day and 15,000 viewers in prime-time.
That's dwarfed by CNBC, which, in that same span, averaged 265,000 viewers.
Derek Baine, senior media analyst with SNL Kagan said, “That's not very good. I'm sure it will take time, but that doesn't sound very exciting to me."
But audience estimates for the week ending December 16 show growth, with Fox Business averaging 10,000 viewers, including 15,000 in prime-time, peaking with 27,000 for the 7pm hour.
WESTERN MEDIA KEEPS GETTING INDIAN COVERAGE WRONG SAYS NEW REPUBLIC ARTICLE
New York-based freelancer Samanth Subramanian hits out at cliche’d media reporting about India and asks “Isn't there anyone who can write about India with some complexity?” in an article entitled ‘The Land of a Thousand Newspaper Articles’ in The New Republic.
He said the elephant and the tiger are the most stereotyped symbols of India, flogged by writers for centuries, and gave a serve to Alex Kuczynski's September 2007 piece in the New York Times titled “Mumbai Moment.’
He wrote, “She emerges from Mumbai with stale news of ‘ferocious poverty,’ of the smell of the great unwashed, of the press of people on the streets, of the rich living cheek-by-jowl with the poor. But Mumbai is more layered and interesting than that.”
Subramanian says that the journalists' refusal to look beyond the immediate and the superficial comes at the cost of accuracy, nuance, and depth.
To illustrate his point about accuracy, he points out that Bollywood isn't the world's biggest film industry; the Indian film industry is, as a whole, is. As for nuance, he says Indian cinema is not just the razzle-dazzle of Bollywood, but also the socially conscious films of Kerala, the grand lineage of Bengali films, the experimental films of New Delhi and Tamil Nadu, and even the rustic art of Bhojpuri films.
He said there is far, far more too Indian cultural life – art, dance, music, literature, and theatre in both rural and urban India – than the pretty movies and festivals that monopolise the attention of journalists.
He even takes cricket coverage to task criticising the Times of India for producing an “atrocious piece” on cricket, and points out that cricket-crazy India is also a cliché, with domestic games now often played in stadiums so empty “that the sound of bat on ball echoes loudly from the stands.”
Subramanian considers that most newspapers have not been able to meet the challenges of reporting in India.
NBC UNIVERSAL LAUNCHES NEW WEB SITE TODAY FOR ITS ACCESS HOLLYWOOD ONLINE NEWS MAGAZINE
TVWeek in the US reports that NBC Universal will today unveil a new web site for syndicated entertainment newsmagazine, titles Access Hollywood at the Consumer Electronics Show.
The new web destination for the show will include more video on the home page, better navigation and a design that marries both blog and magazine features. The home page will feature two videos and improved video search tools. Videos will play directly on the home page.
“Access Hollywood hopes to attract more ad dollars with the facelift and also remain competitive in the entertainment news arena online. The show relaunched its web site in May 2006, giving it a top-to-bottom makeover. But that redo became antiquated quickly with the profusion of web video in the last two years. Online video will grow from US$1.4 billion in ad spending in 2008 to $4.3 billion in 2011, according to eMarketer.
In November, Accesshollywood.com attracted 2 million unique users, up 120 percent from a year ago, according to measurement firm Omniture.
INDIAN REGULATOR PERMITS 74 PERCENT FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN MOBILE PHONE TV
India’s broadcast regulator has proposed to allow 74 percent foreign direct investment in mobile television services, and said telecommunications firms need not seek a fresh licence for such operations on their own network.
The Economic Times in India reports that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India said existing telecommunications licensees would not require any further licence for offering mobile television services on their own network using spectrum already allotted to them.
A mobile TV licence may be made mandatory for existing telecommunications firms if they want to use broadcasting technologies for offering mobile television services. For this purpose, they would be permitted to participate in the bidding process.
Companies can participate in bidding for both types of licences, but successful bidders should be granted either terrestrial licence or the satellite-based licence. Both licences should be valid for 10 years.
Allocation of spectrum to mobile TV licensees should be automatic for successful bidders and should not require any further selection process.
Mobile TV licensees should not allow any broadcasting company or group of broadcasting companies to collectively own more than 20 percent of the total paid up equity in its company at any time during the licence period.
Simultaneously, the mobile TV licensee should not hold more than 20 percent equity share in a broadcasting company.
AD-FREE DISNEY CHANNEL BECOMES AMERICA’S MOST VIEWED CABLE TV CHANNEL
Commercial-free Disney Channel in the US is celebrating a milestone - for the first time, it has beaten all the ad-supported cable networks in primetime, averaging 2.694 million total viewers.
Media Online reports that the “Mouse cabler” beat second-place USA in 2007 by only 15,000 total viewers.
Disney Channel was also delivered more average viewers than any other first-place network in the history of cable TV.
The premiere of Disney's High School Musical 2 on August 17 ended up with 18.64 million viewers (including TiVo watchers), the number one cablecast of all time.
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