Media Bits and Bytes – Turn on, tune in, sign off edition

Adios (muy buenas), Sábado; Shut up, Credo; Solidarity, Gawker; Not so fast, Comcast; Ahoy, maties; Leak on, Julian

portside
Printer friendly  
Sabado Gigante’s host, Don Francisco,Tampa Bay Times


‘Sabado Gigante’ is Going Off the Air, and We’re All Devastated

By Jorge Rivas
April 17, 2015
Fusion

Sábado Gigante, Univision’s beloved long-running Saturday night variety show, is going off the air in September, the network announced Friday morning. Host Mario Kreutzberger, or Don Francisco as he’s known to millions of fans, will continue to host a number of annual specials for Univision.
The show, whose title translates to “Giant Saturday,” is Univision’s longest-running program. Kreutzberger, 74, has been hosting Sábado Gigante for 53 years. The host first launched the variety program in 1962 on Chile’s Channel 13. He then immigrated to the U.S. and has hosted his show on Univision for the last 30 years.

Latinos Outgrew Sábado Gigante's Racism and Misogyny Long Before It Ended

By Aura Bogado
April 20, 2015
The Guardian

Sábado Gigante brought Latinos together across continents and generations, it’s true, but its misogyny and racism became its hallmarks even as the Latinos watching outgrew them. It’s probably too much to hope that the hatred for women, people of color and other marginalized people it perpetuated and institutionalized will die when Univision pulls the show’s plug on 19 September 2015 – but I can dream.
 

Anti-Municipal Broadband Group Tries to Silence a Critic

By Jon Brodkin
April 15, 2015
Ars Technica

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

An organization that tries to convince state legislatures to impose limits on municipal broadband sent a cease-and-desist letter to one of its critics that is refusing to stay quiet.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) opposes municipal broadband projects and writes model legislation that limits the authority of cities and towns to build their own telecommunications networks. About 20 states have passed such laws.
Credo Action is the advocacy arm of cellular phone company Credo Mobile, whose revenue funds its advocacy. Credo lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to preempt state laws that limit municipal broadband, criticizing ALEC along the way.
ALEC sent a cease-and-desist letter to Credo on March 5, saying their petition to the FCC "contains statements that are either purposely false or exhibit reckless disregard for the truth." Credo must "cease making inaccurate statements regarding ALEC, and immediately remove all false or misleading material," or "we will consider any and all necessary legal action to protect ALEC," the group wrote.

Why We've Decided to Organize

By Hamilton Nolan
April 16, 2015
Gawker

Some of us on the Gawker Media editorial staff have decided to try to unionize.
There was a time when much of the media was unionized. As journalism has moved online and flourished over the past 20 years or so, union workplaces have become much more rare in our industry. Gawker Media would be the first major online media company to organize. That is something that everyone at this company—employees, management, and owners alike—could be proud of. There are plenty of companies in this industry whose workers could desperately use the help of a union.


This Could Cripple The Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger

By Jenny Che
April 17, 2015
Huffington Post

Attorneys at the Justice Department’s antitrust division are making moves that may halt a merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The attorneys could submit their recommendation as early as next week.
The $45 billion merger, first announced last February, would unite the two largest cable operators in the country. The move triggered concern among regulators about how customers would be affected, and whether the combined force would have a heavier hand in cable network negotiations.


The Future of Online Piracy is Easy, Free and Already in Your Pocket

By Caitlin Dewey
April 15, 2015
Washington Post

On Sunday, 8 million people watched the fifth season premiere of “Game of Thrones” on their TVs. But on Periscope, the buzzy new Twitter-owned live-streaming app, hundreds of users also watched the show through their phones, squinting at other people’s shaky, over-bright screens.
This, however, is piracy of a totally different breed. There are no torrents, there are no files, there are no thumbdrives or DVDs. That makes Periscope a bit of a challenge — not terribly dissimilar from the era when VCRs threatened TV.


Wikileaks Has Published the Complete Sony Leaks in a Searchable Database
By Russell Brandom
April 16, 2015
The Verge

Today, Wikileaks published a database of all of the data leaked from Sony Pictures in last year's hack, comprising 173,132 emails and 30,287 separate documents. The documents contain private legal opinions as well as sensitive conversations between executives, many of which were the subject of reports in the wake of the hack. "This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement. "It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there."