les pensées insouciantes

“In 1959 5,749,000 television sets were sold in the US, bringing the cumulative total of sets sold since 1950 to 63,542,128 units. This number supported, through advertising, three national television networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS (a fourth, Dumont, folded in 1956) and numerous local independent stations. Television was big business by the start of the 1960’s,” Menta writes. “Now here are another set of numbers. As of April this year Apple sold 75 million iPhone and iPod touch units, devices capable of delivering video via Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Add to that figure 2 million iPads and counting. By the end of the year Apple should have about 90 million smart mobile devices in the wild.”

Menta continues, “That makes a proprietary amalgam greater than what the TV networks had in 1959 and one that easily serves as a foundation for a pending broadcast network that will be delivered not through tall radio towers, but through small wireless hubs and the Internet. Call it the Apple Broadcast Network. iAd is how Apple plans to pay for it.”

Read the rest here. [via MacDailyNews]

via The New York Post

This comes shortly after layoffs at CBS News.

Katie Couric took some heat.

“She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!” demands a veteran producer.

Diane Sawyer makes “Katie-bank,” as well, per The Observer, with an estimated salary of $12-15 million.

“Excessive pay is excessive pay,” right, populists?

Not cute anymore.