1.
Al Gore
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Albert Arnold Al Gore Jr. is an American politician and environmentalist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was Clintons running mate in their campaign in 1992. At the end of Clintons second term, Gore was picked as the Democratic nominee for the 2000 presidential election, after leaving office, Gore remained prominent as an author and environmental activist, whose work in climate change activism earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Gore was an official for 24 years. He was a Congressman from Tennessee and from 1985 to 1993 served as one of the states Senators and he served as Vice President during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. In the 2000 presidential election, in what was one of the closest presidential races in history, Gore won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush. A controversial election dispute over a vote recount in Florida was settled by the U. S. Supreme Court, and a senior adviser to Google. Gore is also a partner in the capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He has served as a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University. He served on the Board of Directors of World Resources Institute, Gore was also the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. In 2007, he was named a runner-up for Times 2007 Person of the Year, Gore was born in Washington, D. C. the second of two children of Albert Gore Sr. a U. S. Representative who later served for 18 years as U. S, Senator from Tennessee, and Pauline Gore, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School. Gore is partly descended from Scots-Irish immigrants who first settled in Virginia in the mid-17th-century and his older sister Nancy LaFon Gore, who was born in 1938, died of lung cancer in 1984. During the school year he lived with his family in The Fairfax Hotel in the Embassy Row section in Washington D. C, during the summer months, he worked on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, where the Gores grew tobacco and hay and raised cattle. Gore attended St. Albans School, an independent college preparatory day and boarding school for boys in Washington, D. C. from 1956 to 1965, a prestigious feeder school for the Ivy League. He was the captain of the team, threw discus for the track and field team, and participated in basketball, art. He graduated 25th in his class of 51, applied to one college, Harvard. Gore met Mary Elizabeth Tipper Aitcheson from the nearby St. Agnes School at his St. Albans senior prom in 1965
2.
Al Jazeera Media Network
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Al Jazeera Media Network is a Middle Eastern multinational multimedia conglomerate, and is the parent company of Al Jazeera and its related networks. The chairman is Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, the acting director general is Dr. Mostefa Souag. The BBC channel had closed after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to thwart a documentary pertaining to executions under sharia law, Al Jazeeras first day on the air was 1 November 1996. It offered 6-hours of programming per day, this would increase to 12-hours by the end of 1997 and it was broadcast to the immediate neighborhood as a terrestrial signal, and on cable, as well as through satellites. 1 January 1999 was Al Jazeeras first day of 24-hour broadcasting, employment had more than tripled in one year to 500 employees, and the agency had bureaux at a dozen sites as far as EU and Russia. Its annual budget was estimated at about $25 million at the time, in 2003, Al Jazeera hired its first English-language journalists, among whom was Afshin Rattansi, from the BBCs Today Programme. In March 2003, it launched an English-language website, on 4 July 2005 Al Jazeera officially announced plans to launch a new English-language satellite service to be called Al Jazeera International. The new channel started at 12h GMT on 15 November 2006 under the name Al Jazeera English and has broadcast centers in Doha, London, Kuala Lumpur and Washington D. C. The channel is a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week news channel, with 12 hours broadcast from Doha, and four each from London, Kuala Lumpur. Among its staff were hired from ABCs Nightline and other top news outfits. Josh Rushing, a former media handler for CENTCOM during the Iraq war, agreed to provide commentary, David Frost was also on board. In an interesting technical feat, the broadcast of the new operation was handed off between bases in Doha, London, Washington, D. C. and Kuala Lumpur on a daily cycle. The new English language venture faced considerable regulatory and commercial hurdles in the North America market for its sympathy with extremist causes. At the same time, others felt Al Jazeeras competitive advantage lay in programming in the Arabic language, if the venture panned out, it would extend the influence of Al Jazeera, and tiny Qatar, beyond even what had been achieved in the stations first decade. In an interesting twist of fate, the BBC World Service was preparing to launch its own Arabic language station in 2007. In 2013 they announced the creation of Al Jazeera Türk, a version of Al Jazeera that will be in the Turkish language stationed in Istanbul catering to, on January 22,2014 Al Jazeera Turks website launched with news content. The move made Al Jazeera Turk the first 24-hour news operation to go digital before broadcast, Al Jazeera America was an American version of Al Jazeera English. The channel launched on 20 August 2013 exclusively on cable and satellite systems in the United States, on 2 January 2013, Al Jazeera Media Network announced that it purchased Current TV in the United States and would be launching an American news channel
3.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
4.
Culver City, California
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Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California. The city was named after its founder, Harry Culver, as of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, over the years, it has annexed more than 40 pieces of adjoining land and now comprises about five square miles. Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a center for motion picture and later television production, from 1932 to 1985, it was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment have headquarters in the city, the NFL Network studio is also based in Culver City. Archaeological evidence suggests a human presence in the area of present-day Culver City since at least 8,000 BC, the region was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans, who held a presence in the region for over 8,000 years. The city was founded primarily on the lands of the former Rancho La Ballona, Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes, and Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera. In 1861, during the American Civil War, Camp Latham was established by the 1st California Infantry under Col. James H. Carleton and the 1st California Cavalry under Lt. Col. Benjamin F. Davis. Named for California Senator Milton S. Latham, the camp was the first staging area for the training of Union troops and their operations in Southern California. It was located on land of the Rancho La Ballona, on the South side of Ballona Creek, near what is now the intersection of Jefferson, the post was later moved to Camp Drum, which became the Drum Barracks. Harry Culver first attempted to establish Culver City in 1913, the city was incorporated on September 20,1917, the city was one of many all-white planned communities started in the Los Angeles area around this time. The first film studio in Culver City was built by Thomas Ince in 1918, in 1919, silent film comedy producer Hal Roach built his studios there, and Metro Goldwyn Mayer in the 20s. During Prohibition, speakeasies and nightclubs such as the Cotton Club lined Washington Boulevard, Culver Center, one of Southern Californias first shopping malls, was completed in 1950 on Venice Boulevard near the Overland Avenue intersection. Today, it has retail stores, a supermarket, a Rite Aid department store, Best Buy. Hughes Aircraft opened its Culver City plant in July 1941, there the company built the H-4 Hercules transport. Hughes was also a subcontractor in World War II. It developed and patented a flexible feed chute for faster loading of machine guns on B-17 bombers, Hughes produced more ammunition belts than any other American manufacturer, and built 5,576 wings and 6,370 rear fuselage sections for Vultee BT-13 trainers. Hughes grew after the war, and in 1953 Howard Hughes donated all of his stock in the company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, after he died in 1976, the institute sold the company, which made it the second-best-endowed medical research foundation in the world
5.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
6.
Newsworld International
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Newsworld International was an American news-oriented cable and satellite television network that operated from June 1994 to July 2005. The network carried a mix of newscasts from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, after several ownership changes, the channel was purchased by former U. S. Vice President Al Gore and other parties in 2005 and became Current TV, the network was launched on June 1,1994, as a joint venture between the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Power Corporation of Canada along with sister channel Trio. It aired much of the programming as the CBC-owned Canadian cable news channel CBC Newsworld. During the late 1990s, Newsworld Internationals Sunday evening newscast at 7,00 p. m, the channel reached about 20 million homes and provided news coverage from a variety of global perspectives. It also acted as a source for Canadians who reside or were visiting the United States. The channel was available nationwide mainly on satellite provider DirecTV, in 2000, Newsworld International was sold to USA Networks for $155 million, which was subsequently acquired by Vivendi. The CBC maintained day-to-day operation of the channel afterward, the networks main in-house news program was NWI International NewsFirst. In 2004, Newsworld International was purchased by former U. S, vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, who acquired it mainly for the channels digital cable and satellite coverage reach, and were not interested in maintaining the networks existing format. Gore and Hyatt relaunched the channel at midnight on August 1 as Current TV, Gore and Hyatt chose the format after deciding that a liberal-focused news network would be rejected by national advertisers. The new channel, despite being profitable, underwent a reorganization in 2010 after a troubled history, eventually evolving it into a progressive-leaning news. Al Jazeera America in turn failed in April,2016 after which the space created by NWI in 1994 ceased to exist. After the closure of the channel, the CBC began uploading some of its news programs, Newsworld International produced Special Assignment, a half-hour documentary series hosted by veteran CBC correspondent Bill Cunningham, featuring a different country in each episode. The format included a segment of historical context on the country with archive footage narrated by Cunningham, followed by a recap of recent political developments. The program often featured interviews with high-ranking government officials and political insiders, during its run, Special Assignment visited many countries in Europe, East Asia and Latin America as well as countries in Africa and the Caribbean. Reruns of earlier editions often included updated narrations to reflect recent developments
7.
Al Jazeera America
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Al Jazeera America was an American basic cable and satellite news television channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, Doha. The channel was launched on August 20,2013 to compete with CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, the channel was Al Jazeeras second entry into the U. S. television market, after the launch of beIN Sport in 2012. The channel, which had low ratings, announced in January 2016 that it would close on April 12,2016. The channel was headquartered and run from studios on the first floor of the Manhattan Center in New York City, the channel was the sister channel of Al Jazeeras international English language news channel Al Jazeera English. Current TV, by coincidence, was formerly Newsworld International, a news channel similar to Al Jazeera America run by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. On July 22,2013, Al Jazeera America named former ABC News Vice President Kate OBrian as president of the network, and Ehab Al Shihabi as interim CEO in charge of business affairs. In addition, former CNN veteran David Doss was named Vice President of News Programming, former MSNBC executive Shannon High-Bassalik was named Senior Vice President of Documentaries and Programs. Al Jazeera said it received more than 21,000 job applications for 400 positions at its U. S. network, approximately 200 Current TV employees, including some 50 in editorial, were absorbed by the new operation. It planned to have a total of 800 employees at the channels launch, Al Jazeera America also announced that the channel would employ well-known veteran journalists, anchors, and producers. On July 3,2013, Ali Velshi confirmed that Al Jazeera Americas launch would take place on August 20,2013, the launch took place at 3,00 p. m. Eastern Time on that date, with an hour-long preview special entitled This is Al Jazeera. News coverage began immediately afterward at 4,00 p. m, Al Jazeera Americas website launched on August 8,2013. It was also reported that this closure would lead to the loss of about 700 jobs, however, the network experienced low viewership ratings, averaging between 20,000 and 40,000 viewers on a typical day. Following the networks shutdown, Al Jazeera Media Network is planning on expanding its presence in the United States though ventures such as United States-based AJ+. On February 26,2016, the Al Jazeera America website ceased operations, on March 27,2016, CNN correspondents Brian Stelter and Tom Kludt wrote an in-depth analysis of Al Jazeera Americas closure. Among the many reasons for the closure cited in the article were low viewership, but the article also pointed to more deeper-rooted problems. These problems included poor decision making and management on behalf of Al Jazeera higher-ups – specifically CEO Ehab Al Shihabi, the article stated that they lacked a business plan, and made faulty branding choices such as refusing to change the name Al Jazeera. Stelter and Kludt also suggested that political issues could have played into the channels demise, during the Bush administration, the President and other officials openly criticized Al Jazeera for airing messages from Al-Qaeda figures. This could have part of the reason why Al Jazeera America struggled to get major cable providers like Comcast
8.
AJ+
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AJ+ is an online news and current events channel run by Al Jazeera Media Network. The service is available on its app, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. English-language and Spanish-language versions are currently live, an Arabic-language version is under construction. Work on the channel started in December 2012, shortly after Al Jazeera established an office in San Francisco, the first YouTube channel was created on December 17,2013, after a year of preparation in response to increasing popularity of online news content among young people. The channel then had a launch on June 13,2014. A full launch followed on September 15,2014, AJ+ produces video and media directly to social platforms, through native apps on mobile devices and Smart TV platforms. AJ+ is separate from Al Jazeeras other cable and satellite news channels, the channel is headquartered in San Francisco, California, in the expanded former headquarters and studio of Current TV. The channel has offices in Doha, Qatar, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Kuala Lumpur. It also collects and creates content through freelancers in other areas of interest, despite being based in the United States, the content of the channel is formatted for a global audience similar to Al Jazeera English. The channel has no hosts or anchors, and live reporting plays a lesser role, most content is available on demand. AJ+ offers news coverage from around the world, and also covers topics like lifestyle, culture and its videos range from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. The channel is currently experimenting with various storytelling formats and it supports a high level of user interactions in the app and its Facebook and Twitter platforms as well. An Arabic version of AJ+ was launched in 2015, there is also a test Spanish version of the channel based out of San Francisco. A Turkish-language version of the channel has also been discussed, Al Jazeera Media Network originally planned to launch an internet-only TV channel in 2010 as part of its social media strategy but later became pre-occupied with the Arab Spring. The move was met with dissatisfaction from both viewers and Al Jazeera English producers and hosts, in January 2012 members of the networks social media team relocated some of its staff to San Francisco to focus on building AJ+. After months of research and numerous pilots, the AJMN executive management were convinced of the project and providing funding, AJ+ is the first incubated project out Al Jazeeras Innovation & Incubation Department. In October 2013, it was announced that Al Jazeera Media Network would establish an internet-only TV channel based entirely on line called AJ+ based in San Francisco to launch sometime in 2014. The channel placed several test videos on YouTube in late 2013 followed by a launch in June 2014 with a full launch complete with a mobile app later in 2014
9.
Ronald Burkle
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Ronald Wayne Burkle is an American investor and philanthropist. Burkle’s net worth is estimated at $2.9 billion and he was ranked #633 on Forbes list of “The Richest People On The Planet 2014. ”Burkle is a prominent Democratic activist and fundraiser. Ron Burkle was born on November 12,1952, the elder of two sons, to Betty and Joseph Burkle in Pomona, California, Joseph worked seven days a week, managing a Stater Bros. grocery store in Pomona and investing his savings in apartment buildings. To see his father, Burkle stocked shelves in his fathers store with bread, by age 13, Burkle had joined Box Boy Local 770. At age 16, he graduated high school and entered California State Polytechnic University. Less than two years later, Burkle dropped out, at age 21, he married Janet Steeper, a Stater Bros. clerk and great-grandniece of the aviation pioneers, the Wright brothers. They would have three children together, Burkle parlayed a $3,000 investment in American Silver and another metals company into $30,000 and began investing in and flipping undervalued grocery stores. He made at least one deal with the assistance of junk bond financier Michael Milken, Burkle was promoted to store manager at Stater Bros. and later became a vice president at Petrolane, Inc. When he was 29, Petrolane decided to sell Stater Bros, Burkle secretly organized a leveraged buyout with Charles Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who agreed to put up half of the equity. Burkle made his bid to Petrolanes board that was 20% lower than Petrolanes internal valuation, the board rejected Burkles offer and fired him. Burkles portfolio was by then worth some $5 million and during the five years he continued to invest in stocks. In 1986, Burkle founded Yucaipa Companies, an equity firm which invests in retail, manufacturing. He has served as chairman of the board and controlling shareholder of companies, including Alliance Entertainment, Golden State Foods, Dominicks, Fred Meyer, Ralphs. He is currently a member of the board of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, KB Home, Burkle is part owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins National Hockey League team, although his current share is unknown. He co-owns the franchise with Penguins legend Mario Lemieux and he has invested in technology startup companies through A-Grade Investments, a venture capital fund founded by Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary and Ron Burkle. A-Grades investments include SeatGeek, SoundCloud and Airbnb and he has also invested in technology startup companies through Inevitable Venture, a venture capital fund founded by D. A Wallach, and Chris Hollod. Inevitable Venturess investment include Picnic Health, 8i, Thrive Market, Burkle has recently invested in a branded entertainment company, Three Lions Entertainment, which focuses on branded entertainment events and cross platform marketing. Wild Oats Markets was an operator of natural foods stores and farmers markets in North America, Burkle started buying Wild Oats stock in February 2005
10.
Comcast
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Comcast Corporation is an American global telecommunications conglomerate that is the largest broadcasting and cable television company in the world by revenue. Comcast services U. S. residential and commercial customers in 40 states, the companys headquarters are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first Universal theme park outside of the U. S, Universal Studios Japan, opened in 2001, followed by Universal Studios Singapore in 2011. Few new locations are being planned or developed for future operation, Comcast also has significant holdings in digital distribution. In February 2014 the company agreed to merge with Time Warner Cable in an equity swap deal worth $45.2 billion, under the terms of the agreement Comcast was to acquire 100% of Time Warner Cable. However, on April 24,2015, Comcast terminated the agreement, Comcast has been criticized for multiple reasons, the companys customer satisfaction often ranks among the lowest in the cable industry. Critics also point out a lack of competition in the vast majority of Comcasts service area, furthermore, given Comcasts negotiating power as a large ISP, some suspect that Comcast could leverage paid peering agreements to unfairly influence end-user connection speeds. And its ownership of content production and content distribution has raised antitrust concerns. These issues, in addition to others, led to Comcast being dubbed The Worst Company in America by The Consumerist in 2010 and 2014. Despite being publicly-traded, Comcast is a business, with the Ralph J Roberts family owning 33% controlling stake. Comcast is sometimes described as a family business, Brian L. Roberts, Chairman, President, and CEO of Comcast, is the son of co-founder Ralph Roberts. Roberts owns or controls just over 1% of all Comcast shares but all of the Class B supervoting shares, legal expert Susan P. Crawford has said this gives him effective control over every step. In 2010, he was one of the highest paid executives in the United States, Comcast is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also has corporate offices in Atlanta, Detroit, Denver, and Manchester, New Hampshire. On January 3,2005, Comcast announced that it would become the tenant in the new Comcast Center in downtown Philadelphia. The 975 ft skyscraper is the tallest building in Pennsylvania, Comcast has begun construction on a second 1,121 ft skyscraper directly adjacent to the original Comcast headquarters in the summer of 2014. The company is criticized by both the media and its own staff for its less upstanding policies regarding employee relations. A2012 Reddit post written by an anonymous Comcast call center employee eager to share their experiences with the public received attention from publications including The Huffington Post. A2014 investigative series published by The Verge involved interviews with 150 of Comcasts employees and it sought to examine why the company has become so widely criticized by its customers, the media and even members of its own staff
11.
DirecTV
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DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider based in El Segundo, California and is a subsidiary of AT&T. Its satellite service, launched on June 17,1994, transmits digital television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America. Its primary competitors are Dish Network and cable television providers, DirecTV provides television and audio services to subscribers through satellite transmissions. Services include the equivalent of local television stations, broadcast television networks, subscription television services, satellite radio services. Subscribers have access to hundreds of channels, so its competitors are cable television service, most subscribers use reception antennas which are much smaller than the first generation antennas, which were typically a few yards across. Advances in antenna technology, including fractal antennas, have allowed a reduction in antenna size across all industries. Receiving equipment includes a dish, an integrated receiver/decoder and a DirecTV access card. Consumers who purchase DirecTV subscribe to various packages of DirecTV programming for which the subscriber pays a monthly fee, additional monthly fees may include a protection plan, DVR, additional receivers, HD channels, and other premium channel packages. A subscriber also can order pay-per-view and video on demand events, all programming distributed by DirecTV is delivered to its broadcast centers in Castle Rock, Colorado, and Los Angeles, where it is then digitized and compressed. The resulting signal is encrypted by DirecTV to prevent its unauthorized reception, DirecTV then transmits these signals to several satellites located in geostationary orbit. As of the quarter ended September 30,2012, DirecTV U. S. had 19.981 million subscribers, for the same period, DirecTV Latin America ended with 9.666 million subscribers and revenues of US$1.577 billion. In addition to serving residences, DirecTV offers service to bars, restaurants, hotels, dorms, the company also offered mobile service for cars, boats, and RVs as well as aircraft in cooperation with Connexion by Boeing. On November 30,2016, DirecTV Now, an internet streaming TV service was launched, in 1953, Howard Hughes created the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, to which he transferred full ownership of Hughes Aircraft. Ostensibly created as a medical research foundation, HHMI was accused of being used by Hughes as a tax shelter. Following Hughes death in 1976, HHMI was incorporated in 1977, in 1984, the court appointed a new board for HHMI, which proceeded to sell off Hughes Aircraft to General Motors on December 20,1985, for an estimated $5.1 billion. General Motors then merged Hughes Aircraft with its subsidiary Delco Electronics to create Hughes Electronics Corporation, the new subsidiary was initially composed of four units, Delco Electronics Company, Hughes Aircraft Company, Hughes Space and Communications Company, and Hughes Network Systems. Stanley E. Hubbard founded United States Satellite Broadcasting in 1981 and was a proponent for the development of direct-broadcast satellite service in the United States. USSB was awarded five frequencies by the FCC, at the coveted 101 degree west satellite location, Hughes Communications, Inc. was also awarded 27 frequencies at the same 101-degree location
12.
Qatar
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Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a sovereign country located in Western Asia, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its surrounded by the Persian Gulf. A strait in the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the island country of Bahrain, as well as sharing maritime borders with the United Arab Emirates. Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in the early 20th century until gaining independence in 1971, Qatar has been ruled by the House of Thani since the early 19th century. Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani was the founder of the State of Qatar, Qatar is a hereditary monarchy and its head of state is Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Whether it should be regarded as a constitutional or a monarchy is a matter of opinion. In 2003, the constitution was approved in a referendum. In early 2017, Qatars total population was 2.3 million,313,000 Qatari citizens and 2.6 million expatriates, Qatar is a high income economy and is a developed country, backed by the worlds third largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. The country has the highest per capita income in the world, Qatar is classified by the UN as a country of very high human development and is the most advanced Arab state for human development. Qatar is a significant power in the Arab world, supporting several rebel groups during the Arab Spring both financially and through its globally expanding media group, Al Jazeera Media Network. For its size, Qatar wields disproportionate influence in the world, Qatar will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, becoming the first Arab country to do so. A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, the map also referenced a town named Cadara to the east of the peninsula. The term Catara was exclusively used until the 18th century, after which Katara emerged as the most commonly recognised spelling, eventually, the modern derivative Qatar was adopted as the countrys name. In Standard Arabic, the name is pronounced, while in the local dialect it is, Human habitation of Qatar dates back to 50,000 years ago. Settlements and tools dating back to the Stone Age have been unearthed in the peninsula, Mesopotamian artefacts originating from the Ubaid period have been discovered in abandoned coastal settlements. Al Daasa, a settlement located on the western coast of Qatar, is the most important Ubaid site in the country and is believed to have accommodated a small seasonal encampment. Kassite Babylonian material dating back to the second millennium BC found in Al Khor Islands attests to trade relations between the inhabitants of Qatar and the Kassites in modern-day Bahrain, among the findings were 3,000,000 crushed snail shells and Kassite potsherds. It has been suggested that Qatar is the earliest known site of shellfish dye production, in 224 AD, the Sasanian Empire gained control over the territories surrounding the Persian Gulf
13.
United States presidential election, 2000
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The United States presidential election of 2000 was the 54th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7,2000, Bush was seen as the early favorite for the Republican nomination and, despite a contentious primary battle with Senator John McCain and other candidates, secured the nomination by Super Tuesday. Bush chose former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his running mate, both major party candidates focused primarily on domestic issues, such as the budget, tax relief, and reforms for federal social insurance programs, although foreign policy was not ignored. Clinton and Gore often did not campaign together, a deliberate decision resulting from the Lewinsky sex scandal two years prior. This was the closest presidential election in the history, with a. 009% margin,537 votes. The narrow margin there triggered a mandatory machine recount the next day, after which Gore requested recounts in four counties, including populous South Florida, litigation ensued in numerous counties in both state and federal courts, ultimately reaching the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. Nationwide, this was the presidential election in which the winner received fewer votes than his opponent. After the election, recounts conducted by news media organizations continued a primary focus on ballots that machines read as not showing a vote. Based on the review of these ballots, their results indicated that Bush would have won if certain recounting methods had been used, but that Gore might have won under other standards and scenarios. The Green Party gained widespread attention during the 2000 presidential election when the ticket composed of Ralph Nader. Nader was vilified by some Democrats, who accused him of spoiling the election for Al Gore, Naders impact on the 2000 election has remained controversial. Until 2016, this was the last time a Republican candidate won a vote in the region of New England. As of 2017, this was the last election where a Republican candidate won New Hampshire, traditionally, the primary elections are indirect elections where voters cast ballots for a slate of party delegates pledged to a particular candidate. The partys delegates then officially nominate a candidate to run on the partys behalf, President Bill Clinton, a Democrat and former Governor of Arkansas, was ineligible to seek reelection to a third term due to restrictions of the Twenty-second Amendment. In accordance with Section I of the Twentieth Amendment, his term expired at 12,00 noon EST on January 20,2001, Democratic candidates Al Gore, Vice President of the United States Bill Bradley, former U. S. Senator from New Jersey Al Gore from Tennessee was a consistent front-runner for the nomination, of these, only Wellstone formed an exploratory committee. Running an insurgency campaign, Bradley positioned himself as the alternative to Gore, the closest Bradley came to a victory was his 50–46 loss to Gore in the New Hampshire primary. On March 14, Al Gore clinched the Democratic nomination, none of Bradleys delegates were allowed to vote for him, so Gore won the nomination unanimously at the Democratic National Convention
14.
NBCUniversal
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NBCUniversal is an American multinational media conglomerate. It has a significant presence in broadcasting through a portfolio of domestic and international properties, including terrestrial, via the Universal Parks & Resorts division, the company is also the third-largest operator of amusement parks in the world. NBC Universal was formed on May 12,2004 by the merger of General Electrics National Broadcasting Company with Vivendis Vivendi Universal Entertainment, as of March 19,2013, it is wholly owned by Comcast who bought GEs ownership stake. NBC and Universal Television had a long-standing partnership dating back to 1950 and this partnership continued throughout a number of name changes and changes of ownership. NBC Universal Television has its roots in a series of expansions undertaken by NBC. In the late 1980s, NBC began pursuing a strategy of diversification, NBC also had partial ownership of several regional sports channels and other cable channels such as American Movie Classics and Court TV. In 1995, NBC began operating NBC Desktop Video, a news service that delivered live video to personal computers. The following year, NBC announced an agreement with Microsoft to create an all-news cable television channel, a separate joint venture with Microsoft included establishing a news website, MSNBC. com. In 1998, NBC partnered with Dow Jones & Co, the two companies combined their financial news channels outside the US. The new networks included NBC Europe, CNBC Europe, NBC Asia, CNBC Asia, NBC Africa, in 1999, NBC took a 32% stake in the Paxson group, operator of PAX TV. Five years later, NBC decided to sell its interest in PAX TV and end its relationship with PAX owner, in 2001, NBC acquired the US Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo, which included the bilingual Mun2 Television. That same year NBC acquired the cable channel Bravo, the sale and resulting merger formed NBC Universal. The new company was 80% owned by GE, and 20% owned by Vivendi, Universal Music Group was not included in the deal and is not part of NBC Universal. On August 2,2004, the divisions of NBC. NBC Studios series bought into the company include the NBC dramas Las Vegas, Crossing Jordan, Universal Network Television bought the Law & Order franchise and The District—in fact, Universal Network Television had co-produced American Dreams with NBC before the merger. Entertainment shows produced by the new group include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Last Call with Carson Daly, and Saturday Night Live. The formation of NBC Universal saw the establishment of NBC Universal Cable, which oversees the distribution, marketing, NBC Universal Cable also manages the companys investments in The Weather Channel and TiVo. The cable division also used to operate NBC Weather Plus until 2008 and it also owned a 50% stake in Canal+ and also owned a 15% stake in A+E Networks until 2012
15.
CNN
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The Cable News Network is an American basic cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner. It was founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner as a 24-hour cable news channel, upon its launch, CNN was the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage, and was the first all-news television channel in the United States. While the news channel has numerous affiliates, CNN primarily broadcasts from the Time Warner Center in New York City and its headquarters at the CNN Center in Atlanta is only used for weekend programming. CNN is sometimes referred to as CNN/U. S. to distinguish the American channel from its sister network. As of August 2010, CNN is available in over 100 million U. S. households, broadcast coverage of the U. S. channel extends to over 890,000 American hotel rooms, as well as carriage on cable and satellite providers throughout Canada. Globally, CNN programming airs through CNN International, which can be seen by viewers in over 212 countries and territories, as of February 2015, CNN is available to about 96,289,000 cable, satellite, and telco television households in the United States. The Cable News Network was launched at 5,00 p. m. Eastern Time on June 1,1980, after an introduction by Ted Turner, the husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the channels first newscast. Burt Reinhardt, the vice president of CNN at its launch, hired most of the channels first 200 employees, including the networks first news anchor. Since its debut, CNN has expanded its reach to a number of cable and satellite providers, several websites. The company has 36 bureaus, more than 900 affiliated local stations, the channels success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for conglomerate Time Warners eventual acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1996. A companion channel, CNN2, was launched on January 1,1982, on January 28,1986, CNN carried the only live television coverage of the launch and subsequent break-up of Space Shuttle Challenger, which killed all seven crew members on board. On October 14,1987, Jessica McClure, an 18-month-old toddler, fell down a well in Midland, CNN quickly reported on the story, and the event helped make its name. This was before correspondents reported live from the capital while American bombs were falling. Before Saddam Hussein held a press conference with a few of the hundreds of Americans he was holding hostage. Before the nation watched, riveted but powerless, as Los Angeles was looted and burned, before O. J. Simpson took a slow ride in a white Bronco, and before everyone close to his case had an agent and a book contract. This was uncharted territory just a time ago. The moment when bombing began was announced on CNN by Bernard Shaw on January 16,1991, as follows, lets describe to our viewers what were seeing. The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated, were seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky
16.
MTV
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MTV is an American cable and satellite television channel owned by Viacom Media Networks and headquartered in New York City. Launched on August 1,1981, the originally aired music videos as guided by television personalities known as video jockeys. In its early years, MTVs main target demographic was young adults and it has received criticism towards this change of focus, both by certain segments of its audience and musicians. MTVs influence on its audience, including issues involving censorship and social activism, has also been a subject of debate for several years, in recent years, MTV had struggled with the secular decline of music-related cable media. In April 2016, MTV announced it would start to return to its original music roots with the reintroduction of the classic MTV series MTV Unplugged. It was also reported that the series MTV Cribs would be making a return on Snapchat, MTV has spawned numerous sister channels in the US and affiliated channels internationally, some of which have gone independent. As of July 2015, approximately 92,188,000 US households have received MTV, several earlier concepts for music video-based television programming had been around since the early 1960s. The Beatles had used music videos to promote their records starting in the mid-1960s, CBS rejected the idea, but Williams premiered his own musical composition Classical Gas on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, where he was head writer. The series featured clips from various popular artists, but was canceled by its distributor in 1971. The channel, which featured video disc jockeys, signed a deal with US Cable in 1978 to expand its audience from retail to cable television, the service was no longer active by the time MTV launched in 1981. The QUBE system offered many specialized channels, One of these specialized channels was Sight on Sound, a music channel that featured concert footage and music-oriented television programs. With the interactive QUBE service, viewers could vote for their favorite songs, the original programming format of MTV was created by media executive Robert W. Pittman, who later became president and chief executive officer of MTV Networks. Pittman had test-driven the music format by producing and hosting a 15-minute show, Album Tracks, the inspiration for PopClips came from a similar program on New Zealands TVNZ network named Radio with Pictures, which premiered in 1976. The concept itself had been in the works since 1966, when record companies began supplying the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation with promotional music clips to play on the air at no charge. Few artists made the trip to New Zealand to appear live. A shortened version of the shuttle launch ID ran at the top of hour in various forms. The first music video shown on MTV was The Buggles Video Killed the Radio Star and this was followed by the video for Pat Benatars You Better Run. Sporadically, the screen would go black when an employee at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR, MTVs lower third graphics that appeared near the beginning and end of music videos would eventually use the recognizable Kabel typeface for about 25 years
17.
Tenderloin, San Francisco
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The northern boundary with Lower Nob Hill historically has been set at Geary Street. The terms Tenderloin Heights and The Tendernob refer to the area around the boundary between the Upper Tenderloin and Lower Nob Hill. The eastern extent, near Union Square, overlaps with the Theater District, part of the western extent of the Tenderloin, Larkin and Hyde Streets between Turk and OFarrell, was officially named Little Saigon by the City of San Francisco. The Tenderloin took its name from a neighborhood in New York with similar characteristics. There are several explanations of how that neighborhood was named, some said it was a reference to the neighborhood as the soft underbelly of the city, with allusions to vice and corruption, especially graft. Another popular explanation, probably folklore, attributes the name to a New York City police captain, Alexander S. Another version of story says that the officers who worked in the Tenderloin received a hazard pay bonus for working in such a violent area. Yet another story, also likely apocryphal, is that the name is a reference to the loins of prostitutes, the Tenderloin borders the Mission/Market Street corridor, which follows the Spaniards El Camino Real, which in turn traced an ancient north/south Indian trail. The Tenderloin is sheltered by Nob Hill, and far enough from the bay to be on solid ground, there is evidence that a community resided here several thousand years ago. In the 1960s, the area was excavated to develop the BART/MUNI subway station at Civic Center, during the excavation, the remains of a woman dated to be 5,000 years old were found. The Tenderloin has been a residential community since shortly after the California Gold Rush in 1849. The area had an active nightlife in the late 19th century with many theaters, restaurants, notorious madam Tessie Wall opened her first brothel on OFarrell Street in 1898. Almost all of the buildings in the neighborhood were destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, the area was immediately rebuilt with some hotels opening by 1907 and apartment buildings shortly thereafter, including the historic Cadillac Hotel. Also around this time, due to Red Light Abatement Act, Prostitution and other began to be pushed out from the Barbary Coast district to the more southern. With housing consisting almost entirely of single-room-occupancy hotel rooms, studio and one bedroom apartments, after World War II, with the decline in central cities throughout the United States, the Tenderloin lost population, creating a large amount of vacant housing units by the mid-1970s. The low-cost vacant housing, and the proximity to Chinatown through the Stockton Street Tunnel, made the area appealing to refugees, studio apartments became home for families of four and five people and became what a local police officer called vertical villages. The Tenderloin quickly increased from having just a few children to having over 3,500, a number of neighborhood Southeast Asian restaurants, bánh mì coffee shops, ethnic grocery stores, video shops, and other stores opened at this time, which still exist. The Tenderloin has a history as a center of alternate sexualities
18.
Eastern Time Zone
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Places that use Eastern Standard Time when observing standard time are 5 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time. Eastern Daylight Time, when observing daylight saving time DST is 4 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time, in the northern parts of the time zone, on the second Sunday in March, at 2,00 a. m. EST, clocks are advanced to 3,00 a. m. EDT leaving a one-hour gap, on the first Sunday in November, at 2,00 a. m. EDT, clocks are moved back to 1,00 a. m, southern parts of the zone do not observe daylight saving time. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 ruled that daylight saving time would run from the last Sunday of April until the last Sunday in October in the United States, the act was amended to make the first Sunday in April the beginning of daylight saving time as of 1987. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended daylight saving time in the United States beginning in 2007. So local times change at 2,00 a. m. EST to 3,00 a. m. EDT on the second Sunday in March, in Canada, the time changes as it does in the United States. However, a handful of communities unofficially observe Eastern Time because they are part of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area – Phenix City, Smiths Station, Lanett, and Valley. Florida, All of Florida is in the Eastern Time zone except for the portion of the Florida Panhandle west of the Apalachicola River, as the Eastern–Central zone boundary approaches the Gulf of Mexico, it follows the Bay/Gulf county line. Indiana, All of Indiana observes Eastern Time except for six counties in the Chicago metropolitan area. Kentucky, Roughly, the half of the state, including all of metropolitan Louisville, is in the Eastern Time Zone. Historically the entire state observed Central Time, when daylight saving time was first introduced, the Lower Peninsula remained on DST after it formally ended, effectively re-aligning itself into the Eastern Time Zone. The Upper Peninsula continued to observe Central Time until 1972, when all, Tennessee, Most of the eastern third of Tennessee is legally on Eastern Time. Eastern Time is also used somewhat as a de facto official time for all of the United States, since it includes the capital and the largest city. Major professional sports leagues also post all game times in Eastern time, for example, a game time between two teams from Pacific Time Zone will still be posted in Eastern time. Most cable television and national broadcast networks advertise airing times in Eastern time, national broadcast networks generally have two primary feeds, an eastern feed for Eastern and Central time zones, and a tape-delayed western feed for the Pacific Time Zone. The prime time is set on Eastern and Pacific at 8,00 p. m. with the Central time zone stations receiving the eastern feed at 7,00 p. m. local time. Mountain Time Zone stations receive a separate feed at 7,00 p. m. local time, as Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, during the summer months, it has its own feed at 7,00 p. m. local time
19.
Conor Knighton
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Conor Knighton is an American actor, host, and television producer. He is currently a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, in 2016, Knighton launched On The Trail, a year-long, cross-country look at Americas National Parks. The reports air every week on CBS Sunday Morning. Knighton has won two Daytime Emmys as part of the Sunday Morning team, Knighton was the first person to appear on Current TV when it launched on August 1,2005, and hosted several programs and live events for the network. He was the host and executive producer of InfoMania, Currents first half-hour show and he left the show at the end of 2010. He has appeared, as an actor, in such as the Gilmore Girls. AMC tapped him to host The Movie List, a countdown of popular movie trivia. In 2011, he hosted the Biography Channel show, My Viral Video and his work has been featured on E. CNN, CNN Headline News, MTV, TV Guide Channel, Oxygen, and KNBC Los Angeles. He was a regular panelist on E. s Chelsea Lately, in 2012, the EW Scripps Company hired Conor to create and host a daily look at travel, finance, and consumer issues. As a correspondent for KCETs SoCal Connected, Knighton was nominated for two Los Angeles Area Emmys and won a 2015 Los Angeles Press Club Award, Knighton grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, and attended George Washington High School. He is a graduate of Yale University, official website Conor Knighton at the Internet Movie Database Conor Knighton on Twitter
20.
Yahoo!
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Yahoo Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Yahoo was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 2,1995, Yahoo was one of the pioneers of the early internet era in the 1990s. Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, Google Employee number 20 and it is globally known for its Web portal, search engine Yahoo. Search, and related services, including Yahoo, answers, advertising, online mapping, video sharing, fantasy sports, and its social media website. It is one of the most popular sites in the United States, according to news sources, roughly 700 million people visit Yahoo websites every month. Yahoo itself claims it attracts more than half a billion consumers every month in more than 30 languages, in January 1994 Yang and Filo were electrical engineering graduate students at Stanford University, when they created a website named Jerry and Davids guide to the World Wide Web. The site was a directory of websites, organized in a hierarchy. In March 1994, Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web was renamed Yahoo, the yahoo. com domain was created on January 18,1995. The word yahoo is a backronym for Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle or Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, the term hierarchical described how the Yahoo database was arranged in layers of subcategories. However, Filo and Yang insist they mainly selected the name because they liked the definition of a yahoo, rude, unsophisticated. This meaning derives from the Yahoo race of beings from Gullivers Travels. Yahoo grew rapidly throughout the 1990s, like many search engines and web directories, Yahoo added a web portal. By 1998, Yahoo was the most popular starting point for web users and it also made many high-profile acquisitions. Its stock price skyrocketed during the bubble, Yahoo stocks closing at an all-time high of $118.75 a share on January 3,2000. However, after the bubble burst, it reached a post-bubble low of $8.11 on September 26,2001. Yahoo began using Google for search in 2000, over the next four years, it developed its own search technologies, which it began using in 2004. In response to Googles Gmail, Yahoo began to offer unlimited email storage in 2007, the company struggled through 2008, with several large layoffs. In February 2008, Microsoft Corporation made a bid to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion
21.
The Daily Show
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The Daily Show is an American news satire and late-night talk show television program. It airs each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central, describing itself as a fake news program, The Daily Show draws its comedy and satire from recent news stories, political figures, media organizations, and often uses self-referential humor as well. The half-hour-long show premiered on July 21,1996, and was first hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 17,1998, Stewart was succeeded by Trevor Noah, whose tenure premiered on September 28,2015. Under different hosts, the show has been known as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 1999 until 2015. The Daily Show is the program on Comedy Central, and has won 23 Primetime Emmy Awards. Critics chastised Stewart for not conducting sufficiently hard-hitting interviews with his political guests, Stewart and other Daily Show writers responded to such criticism by saying that they do not have any journalistic responsibility and that as comedians their only duty is to provide entertainment. Stewarts appearance on the CNN show Crossfire picked up this debate, each episode begins with announcer Drew Birns announcing the date and the introduction, From Comedy Centrals World News Headquarters in New York, this is The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Previously, the introduction was This is The Daily Show, the most important television program, the host then opens the show with a monologue drawing from current news stories and issues. Some episodes will begin with a 1-3 minute intro on a story before fully transitioning into the main story of the night. Their stated areas of expertise vary depending on the story that is being discussed. They typically present absurd or humorously exaggerated takes on current events against the straight man. While correspondents stated to be reporting abroad are usually performing in-studio in front of a background, on rare occasions. For instance, during the week of August 20,2007, in August 2008, Riggle traveled to China for a series of segments titled Rob Riggle, Chasing the Dragon, which focused on the 2008 Beijing Olympics. On July 19,2016, Roy Wood Jr. reported live from the Republican National Convention, topics have varied widely, during the early years of the show they tended toward character-driven human interest stories such as Bigfoot enthusiasts. Since Stewart began hosting in 1999, the focus of the show has more political. Under Kilborn and the years of Stewart, most interviewees were either unaware or not entirely aware of the comedic nature of The Daily Show. However, as the show began to gain popularity—particularly following its coverage of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections—most of the subjects now interviewed are aware of the comedic element, some segments have recurred periodically throughout different tenures, such as Back in Black & Your Moment of Zen. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a segment of the show has been dubbed Mess O Potamia, focusing on the United States policies in the Middle East
22.
Sky UK
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Sky UK Limited is a telecommunications company which serves the United Kingdom. Sky provides television and broadband services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers. It is the UKs largest pay-TV broadcaster with 11 million customers as of 2015 and it was the UKs most popular digital TV service until it was overtaken by Freeview in April 2007. Its corporate headquarters are based in Isleworth, formed in November 1990 by the equal merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting, Sky became the UKs largest digital subscription television company. Following Skys 2014 acquisition of Sky Italia and a majority 90. 04% interest in Sky Deutschland in November 2014, the United Kingdom operations also changed the company name from British Sky Broadcasting Limited to Sky UK Limited, still trading as Sky. Sky UK Limited is an owned subsidiary of Sky plc, with its current company directors being Andrew Griffith. Griffith acts as the Chief Financial Officer and the Managing Director for the commercial businesses division, after the two companies merged, subscribers could get access to both channels, and later the sports channel Sky Sports also became encrypted. In the autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for a five-year period, ITV were the current rights holders, and fought hard to retain the new rights. ITV had increased its offer from £18m to £34m per year to control of the rights. BSkyB joined forces with the BBC to make a counter bid, Murdoch described sport as a battering ram for pay-television, providing a strong customer base. A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to the High Court to get an injunction as it believed their bid details had been leaked before the decision was taken. ITV also asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate since it believed Rupert Murdochs media empire via its newspapers had influenced the deal. A few days later neither action took effect, ITV believed BSkyB was telephoned and informed of its £262m bid, and Premier League advised BSkyB to increase its counter bid. BSkyB retained the rights paying £670m 1997–2001 deal, but was challenged by On Digital for the rights from 2001–2004, in May 2006, the Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports was awarded two of the six Premier League packages that the English FA offered to broadcasters. Sky picked up the four for £1. 3bn. In February 2015, Sky bid £4. 2bn for a package of 120 premier league games across the three seasons from 2016 and this represented an increase of 70% on the previous contract and was said to be £1bn more than the company had expected to pay. The move has been followed by staff cuts, increased subscription prices, in September 1993, BSkyB launched Sky Multichannels which was the present digital platforms analogue predecessor. Sky Multichannels was a package that gave access not only to Skys own channels
23.
Video on demand
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IPTV technology is often used to bring video on demand to televisions and personal computers. Internet television, using the Internet, is a popular form of video on demand. VOD can also be accessed via desktop client applications such as the Apple iTunes online content store, some airlines offer VOD as in-flight entertainment to passengers through individually controlled video screens embedded in seatbacks or armrests or offered via portable media players. Some video on demand services such as Netflix use a model that requires users to pay a monthly fee to access a bundled set of content. Other services use a model, where access is free for Internet users. Downloading and streaming video on demand systems provide the user all of the features of Portable media players. Some VOD systems that store and stream programs from hard drives use a memory buffer to allow the user to fast forward. It is possible to put video servers on local area networks, streaming video servers can also serve a wider community via a WAN, in which case the responsiveness may be reduced. Download VOD services are practical to homes equipped with cable modems or DSL connections, servers for traditional cable and telco VOD services are usually placed at the cable head-end serving a particular market as well as cable hubs in larger markets. In the telco world, they are placed in either the central office, the first Video on Demand systems used tapes as the realtime source of video streams. GTE started as a trial in 1990 with AT&T providing all components, by 1992 VOD servers were supplying previously encoded digital video from disks and DRAM. In the US the 1982 anti-trust break-up of AT&T resulted in a number of telephone companies called Baby Bells. Following this the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 prohibited telephone companies from providing services within their operating regions. All of these companies and others began holding trials to setup systems for supplying Video on Demand over telephone, in November 1992 Bell Atlantic announced a VOD trial. The IBM was developing video server code-named Tiger Shark, concurrently Digital Equipment was developing a scalable video server. Bell Atlantic selected IBM and April 1993 the system became the first VOD over ADSL to be deployed outside the lab, in 1994-5 US West went on to file for VOD at several cities. 330,000 subscribers in Denver,290,000 in Minneapolis, many VOD trials were held with various combinations of server, network and set-top. Of these the primary players in the US were the companies, using DEC, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, USA Video, nCube, SGI
24.
59th Primetime Emmy Awards
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The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, September 16,2007, honoring the best in U. S. prime time television programming at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was televised live on Fox at 8,00 p. m. EDT for the first time in high definition (on tape delay three hours later on the West Coast of the United States at 8,00 p. m. It was also the final Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony to be held at the Shrine Auditorium, the ceremony was hosted by Ryan Seacrest. The nominations were announced on July 19 at 5,40 a. m. PDT by Jon Cryer, meanwhile, the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony, hosted by comedian-actor Carlos Mencia, were presented eight days earlier on September 9. Freshman series 30 Rock defeated defending champion The Office to claim Outstanding Comedy Series, going into its final ceremony, The Sopranos needed just three major awards to tie the drama series record of 18 major wins set by Hill Street Blues. It was nominated in ten major categories coming in and ended the night with three wins, including its second win for Outstanding Drama Series and this tied the record and gave both shows identical résumés—18 major wins and 74 major nominations. This was the first year the Emmy was presented during the Primetime awards ceremony, the stage design for the ceremony was created with seating surrounding platform creating a theater in the round with a catwalk style walkway for winners and presenters to exit the stage to. A trap door was placed in the center of the main stage, some TV critics viewed this as a reference to Foxs American Idol. Another segment occurred during the presentation of the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program award, there was a competition between singer Kanye West and The Office actor Rainn Wilson similar to Dont Forget the Lyrics. with host Wayne Brady presiding. West sang the last line of the chorus in the song Stronger as That how long Ive been on you which was supposed to be That how long Ive been on ya, losing to Wilson. West jokingly retorted I never win, poking fun at his losses at award ceremonies, tony Bennett and Christina Aguilera sang Steppin Out With My Baby from Bennetts award-winning special. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert presented the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, the award went to Ricky Gervais for Extras, but after reading his name, Jon Stewart was informed that Gervais was not at the ceremony. Stewart immediately announced, Ricky Gervais couldnt be here tonight, so instead were going to give this to our friend Steve Carell, Carell ran onto the stage and hugged Stewart and Colbert as they all screamed in mock celebration, then ran off together with the award. As a joke, in 2008, at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards, Ricky Gervais showed a video of the moment, commenting, Look at stupid face, accusing Carell of stealing his award, and demanding it back. During the Fox telecast, some presenters and award winners were censored while making statements. When Ray Romano delivered a monologue about the change of television in the years since he left his own show, he mentioned that for one, from what I hear. On Fox, all that was heard was for one, from what I hear, Frasier is before Fox cut the audio, when viewers saw the ball through a high camera angle, it is revealed that the ball covered the entire stage. This lasted approximately 10 seconds before Fox returned to Romano, the reason for the censorship of this comment has been debated between vulgar language or revealing an important plot line to the show
25.
Masi Oka
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Masayori Masi Oka is a Japanese American actor, producer and digital effects artist. He became widely known for his role on NBCs Heroes as Hiro Nakamura, Oka was born in Tokyo, Japan, to Setsuko Oka. His parents divorced when he was one old, he was raised in a single parent family and has never met his father. He was six years old when his mother and he moved to Los Angeles from Japan, at age eight, he appeared on the CBS-TV game show Childs Play. In 1987, a twelve-year-old Oka was featured on the cover of Time titled Those Asian-American Whiz Kids, though he was not featured in the article itself, he was acquainted with the photographer who conducted the shoot. His IQ has been reported at over 180 and he attended elementary school at The Mirman School and graduated high school from Harvard-Westlake School in 1992. After he graduated, he worked on the 1992 Summer Olympics as an English, Spanish and he graduated from Brown University in 1997 with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and mathematics. While at Brown, he served as the musical director of The Bear Necessities. Oka described the group as a brothership, Oka was also featured in the San Francisco Chronicle with ILM co-worker Anthony Shafer in a pre-dot-com article where he echoed his desire to meld acting and technology. He worked on the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Oka first tried acting in 2000. He earned a Screen Actors Guild card by appearing in industry films, ILM stipulated in his contract that he could work at its Los Angeles branch, but would have to return to their Marin County location if he did not get cast for a recurring role that season. Oka did get cast for a pilot, although the show was not picked up, it did satisfy the contracts requirements and he was allowed to stay in Los Angeles. He decided to continue pursuing acting and he landed several guest spots and then a recurring role as Franklyn on the NBC/ABC comedy Scrubs. He was also featured in a North American commercial for Segas 2002 PlayStation 2 video game, Shinobi, in front of Segas 1987 Shinobi arcade cabinet. Oka guest starred in the Yes, Dear episode Dances with Couch and he appeared briefly in 2002s Austin Powers in Goldmember, where he delivered the line It looks like Godzilla, but due to international copyright laws, its not. In 2006, Oka was cast for the role of Hiro Nakamura in Heroes, Oka himself translated his dialogue from the shows scripts from English to Japanese, English subtitles accompanied his Japanese dialogue on the show. Additionally, Okas real voice is closer to that of Future Hiro than the voice he uses as Present Hiro as heard during his appearances on Heroes. In addition to his work on the show, he continued to work at ILM up to three days a week as a Research and Development Technical Director, writing programs that create special effects and he played the role of Bruce in the big screen version of Get Smart
26.
Heroes (TV series)
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Heroes is an American psychological thriller science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25,2006 through February 8,2010. The series emulates the style and storytelling of American comic books, using multi-episode story arcs that build upon a larger. The series was produced by Tailwind Productions in association with Universal Media Studios and it was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, California. Four complete seasons aired, ending on February 8,2010, the second season of Heroes attracted an average of 13.1 million viewers in the U. S. and marked NBCs sole series among the top 20 ranked programs in total viewership for the 2007–2008 season. Heroes has earned a number of awards and nominations, including Primetime Emmy Awards, Golden Globes, Peoples Choice Awards, and British Academy Television Awards. An online extension of the series, Heroes 360 Experience, later rebranded as Heroes Evolutions, was created to explore the Heroes universe, other official Heroes media include magazines, action figures, tie-in and interactive websites, a mobile game, a novel, clothing and other merchandise. A 13-episode miniseries entitled Heroes Reborn premiered on NBC on September 24,2015, additionally, comic book writer Cullen Bunn will be writing an ongoing comic book continuing Heroes, called Heroes, Season Five, a release date and artist has yet to be determined. Originally, Kring designed the series to have an ever-shifting cast, in its first season, the show features an ensemble cast of twelve main characters making it the third largest cast in American primetime television behind Desperate Housewives and Lost. In episode eleven of the first season, Jack Coleman, who portrays Noah Bennet, was upgraded from a role to become the twelfth full-time cast member. Simone Deveaux was the first major character to be written out, DL became a guest star after the events of the first seasons finale, making two appearances throughout season two. Isaac Mendez was also written out, dying at the hands of Sylar, Two recurring characters from season one, Sylar, portrayed by Zachary Quinto, and Ando Masahashi, portrayed by James Kyson Lee, were upgraded to main characters in season two. Starting in season two, recurring character Angela Petrelli, portrayed by Cristine Rose, was promoted to a main character, Elle, Adam, and Micah were removed from the main cast. Monica Dawson did not appear after scenes including her were cut, Niki was also written out but actress Ali Larter remained on the show portraying a new character Tracy Strauss, Nikis triplet sister with the power to freeze objects with a touch. For season four, a new character Samuel Sullivan, portrayed by Robert Knepper, was added, originally cast as a recurring part, the part was changed to a starring role. Deanne Bray was also added as Emma Coolidge, the woman who had enhanced synesthesia including the ability to create a siren song. The plot of Heroes is designed to be told in a way similar to the way books are told. Each season of Heroes contains one or two volumes, there are several main story lines in each volume. As the main plots develop, smaller, more stories are told within them
27.
Myspace
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Myspace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. It is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California, Myspace was acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580 million. From 2005 to 2009, Myspace was the largest social networking site in the world, since then, the number of Myspace users has declined steadily in spite of several redesigns. As of March 2017, Myspace was ranked 3,178 by total Web traffic, Myspace had a significant influence on pop culture and music and created a gaming platform that launched the successes of Zynga and RockYou, among others. Despite an overall decline, in 2015 Myspace still had 50.6 million unique visitors and has a pool of nearly 1 billion active and inactive registered users. In June 2009, Myspace employed approximately 1,600 employees, in June 2011, Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake jointly purchased the company for approximately $35 million. In August 2003, several employees with Friendster accounts saw potential in its social networking features. The group decided to mimic the popular features of the website. Within 10 days, the first version of Myspace was ready for launch, a complete infrastructure of finance, human resources, technical expertise, bandwidth, and server capacity was available for the site. The project was overseen by Brad Greenspan, who managed Chris DeWolfe, Josh Berman, Tom Anderson, the first Myspace users were eUniverse employees. The company held contests to see who could sign up the most users, eUniverse used its 20 million users and e-mail subscribers to breathe life into Myspace, and move it to the head of the pack of social networking websites. A key architect was tech expert Toan Nguyen who helped stabilize the Myspace platform when Brad Greenspan asked him to join the team. Despite over ten times the number of developers, Friendster, which was developed in JavaServer Pages, could not keep up with the speed of development of Myspace and cfm. The MySpace. com domain was owned by YourZ. com, Inc. intended until 2002 for use as an online data storage. By 2004, it was transitioned from a storage service to a social networking site. A friend, who worked in the data storage business. DeWolfe suggested they charge a fee for the basic Myspace service, Brad Greenspan nixed the idea, believing that keeping Myspace free was necessary to make it a successful community. Myspace quickly gained popularity among teenage and young adult social groups, in February 2005, DeWolfe held talks with Mark Zuckerberg over acquiring Facebook but DeWolfe rejected Zuckerbergs $75 million asking price
28.
Tom Anderson
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Thomas Anderson is the American co-founder of the social networking website Myspace, which he founded in 2003 with Chris DeWolfe. He was later president of Myspace and an adviser for the company until he left in 2009. Anderson is popularly known as Myspace Tom because until 2010 he would automatically be assigned as the first friend of new Myspace users upon the creation of their profiles and he was not arrested because of his young age. Anderson studied English and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, Anderson then lived in Taiwan for some time, before returning to the United States to study for a degree in Critical Film Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Anderson was a tester and copywriter at XDrive, a digital storage company in 2000. He initially joined XDrive as a product tester after answering an advertisement, while still at film school. After XDrive went bankrupt in 2001, he and DeWolfe founded direct marketing company ResponseBase and they sold ResponseBase to Brad Greenspans eUniverse in late 2002. With other eUniverse employees, Anderson set up the first pages of Myspace in August 2003 and he founded the site partly as a reaction to Friendster, and its policy of blocking accounts that did not use real names. Intermix Media was then founded as the successor of eUniverse, when Intermix Media and Myspace were sold to News Corp, Anderson became president of the company. Myspace was sold to News Corp in 2005 for $580 million, following the News Corp acquisition, Anderson said, Before, I could do whatever I wanted. Now it takes time to get people to agree on things. All the budget reviews and processes, reuters quoted an unnamed News Corp executive, Tom was responsible for the product but ended up being a complete bottleneck on getting things done. Anderson was replaced as president in April 2009 by News Corp, by 2010, he was no longer the friend on Myspace. In late May 2012, Anderson announced that he would be joining RocketFrog Interactive as an adviser to the 16-person, Los Angeles, U. S. -based company, which created a Facebook app. However, in a September 2014 interview, Anderson did not mention any advisory roles in his life at the time, while his Twitter blurb in October 2014 reads, Enjoying being retired. He explained in the interview that he is not interested in returning to his previous vocation, I dont know exactly where my life will lead. Adventure and the unknown has always been appealing to me, Anderson had a cameo appearance in the 2009 American drama-comedy film Funny People starring Adam Sandler. Anderson is active on social media platforms, including Facebook, Reddit, Twitter
29.
Sky Italia
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Sky Italia is an Italian digital satellite television platform owned by Sky plc. It is similar in ways to Sky in the United Kingdom and Sky Ireland in Ireland, which is partly owned by 21st Century Fox. Pay TV services on Sky Italia are encrypted in NDS VideoGuard, the VideoGuard set-top boxes that have been provided since July 2010 are identical to the Sky+ HD boxes used in the UK. Sky Italia was founded in July 2003 by the merger of TELE+, since July 2010 Sky Italia has been giving the Sky Digital Key and the My Sky HD box for free to every new customer. The My Sky boxes launched on 22 November 2005 - based on a new digital receiver with HDD recording capabilities, subsequently, the My Sky HD boxes were added. The My Sky HD service had provided with an extra charge until July 2010. The service is identical to the BSkyB Sky+ HD. On 28 June 2010, Sky Italia changed its brands and logos, Sky Italia offers eight packages of channels, five base-level Channel Packs and three optional Sky Packs enhancements. Sky Primafila has got some similarities to BSkyBs Sky Movies Box Office, the HD service has been offered without any extra charge since 2009. There are 37 HDTV channels so far broadcasting on Sky, due to become 50 by the end of 2011, on 1 October 2010, Sky activated its first 3D channel, Sky Sport 3D, available without any extra cost to the Sport pack subscribers. The very first event Sky Sport 3D aired was the 2010 Ryder Cup, on 25 December 2010, Sky launched another 3D channel, Sky Cinema 3D, airing 3D movies, available for free for Cinema pack subscribers. These channel have been replaced by Sky 3D on 6 September 2011, on many channels, foreign-sourced content is broadcast either with an option to choose between Italian and English language soundtracks, or with Italian subtitles. Sky Italia uses the Hot Bird 6/8/9 satellites at 13. 0°E, Tom Mockridge, the then head of Sky Italia replaced Rebekah Brooks as chief executive of News International after she had resigned on 15 July 2011. Andrea Zappia replaced Tom Mockridge as CEO on 1 August 2011, on 7 October 2011 Sky Italia announced it reached the 5 million subscribers benchmark. The enlarged company would be likely to be called Sky Europe, the sale was announced on 25 July 2014 which was subject to regulatory and shareholder approval. The acquisition was completed on 13 November, March, the European Commission approves the merger between TELE+ and Stream TV. 31 July, Sky Italia is founded, April, Sky Italia abandons SECA encryption system to switch to the NDS, managed by the News Corporation. November, Skys subscribers reach 3 million, may, Sky Italia are awarded the broadcast rights to the 2006 FIFA World Cup
30.
Hutchison 3G
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The company was founded in 2002. CK Hutchison Holdings owns direct majority interests in the companies operate the networks that are branded 3. These networks are majority-owned by Hutchison Asia Telecommunications, an owned subsidiary of CK Hutchison. Its operations in Europe are run by a division,3 Group Europe. All 3-branded networks provide 4G and 3G technology, Hutchison Whampoa no longer holds a 3G licence in Israel which was operated under the brand Orange, and in Norway which is not operational yet. As of 30 June 2015, registered 3 customers worldwide numbered over 30.1 million, besides that,3 UK and also 3 Ireland initially made the decision to block direct Internet access from handsets, while 3 Austria allowed access to the Internet since the beginning. In 2004,3 released a PC Card 3G Data Card for Windows-based laptops which allows Internet access through 3s network directly from the computer, accompanied by a range of data, later, more cards and USB modems for HSDPA were introduced. The phones were sold exclusively by 3 on contract and on a prepaid basis,3 also produced an application called Skype on 3 which brought the same functionality to S60 and J2ME-capable phones. 3 does not charge users for calls to this number and this service is available in Australia, Ireland and the UK, it has been discontinued in Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy and Sweden. A company called iSkoot was behind at least some of the clients and back-end servers and it appears this shutdown initially affected the J2ME version and some Skypephones, but some S60 versions were not affected. Skype have started sending emails indicating the Skype on 3 service will be terminated on 30 September 2014, in spite of Threes original free for life advertising. The recommended clients for smartphones will use the data connection which may be liable to charges, instead of the dedicated access number used by the client. This also allows users to use their free or inclusive bundles and allowances while abroad, however, pre-pay customers do not benefit fully, as they can not yet use each 3 branded network for 3 Like Home. 3 Australia confirm that calls made using 3 Like Home are not included in any cap plan or inclusive bundles and this arrangement is possible because of the roaming agreements between the networks. Each of the networks provides service to other partners networks free of roaming charges. This means that the marginal cost of a call is much the same as a call on the home network. At the end of April 2009,3 UK announced that 3 Like Home would no longer be available to customers of the 3 UK network from 30 June 2009, on 7 April 2010,3 Sweden announced that 3 Like Home would be discontinued on 23 May 2010. No cancellation announcements have yet made for customers of other 3 networks
31.
DVB-H
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DVB-H is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN302304 in November 2004, the DVB-H specification can be downloaded from the official DVB-H website. From March 2008, DVB-H is officially endorsed by the European Union as the technology for terrestrial mobile broadcasting. DVB-H has been a failure, and the service is no longer on-air. Finland was the last country to switch-off its signals in March 2012, DVB-H technology is a superset of the successful DVB-T system for digital terrestrial television, with additional features to meet the specific requirements of handheld, battery-powered receivers. Time slicing technology is employed to power consumption for small handheld terminals. IP datagrams are transmitted as data bursts in time slots. Each burst may contain up to two megabits of data, there are 64 parity bits for each 191 data bits, protected by Reed-Solomon codes. The front end of the switches on only for the time interval when the data burst of a selected service is on air. Within this short period of time a data rate is received which can be stored in a buffer. This buffer can either store the downloaded applications or playout live streams, the achievable power saving depends on the relation of the on/off-time. If there are ten or more bursted services in a DVB-H stream. DVB-H is a system which was carefully tested by the DVB-H Validation Task Force in the course of 2004. DVB-SH improved radio performances and can be seen as an evolution of DVB-H, DVB-H is designed to work in the following bands, VHF-III UHF-IV/V L DVB-SH now and DVB-NGH in the near future are expected to expand the supported bands. DVB-H can coexist with DVB-T in the same multiplex, DVB-IPDC is the specification for broadcasting mobile TV services based on Internet Protocol. In short, with regard to mobile TV, these specifications define what is delivered, how it is delivered, how it is described and they cover system architecture, use cases, DVB PSI/SI signalling, electronic service guide, content delivery protocols, and service purchase and protection. Almost all of these have now published as formal ETSI standards
32.
Twitter
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Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages, tweets, restricted to 140 characters. Registered users can post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them, users access Twitter through its website interface, SMS or a mobile device app. Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco, California, United States, Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams and launched in July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, in 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day, and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day. In 2013, it was one of the ten most-visited websites and has described as the SMS of the Internet. As of 2016, Twitter had more than 319 million monthly active users. On the day of the 2016 U. S. presidential election, Twitter proved to be the largest source of breaking news, Twitters origins lie in a daylong brainstorming session held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, then a student at New York University. The original project name for the service was twttr, an idea that Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by Flickr. The developers initially considered 10958 as a code, but later changed it to 40404 for ease of use. Work on the project started on March 21,2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9,50 PM Pacific Standard Time, Dorsey has explained the origin of the Twitter title. we came across the word twitter, and it was just perfect. The definition was a short burst of inconsequential information, and chirps from birds, and thats exactly what the product was. The first Twitter prototype, developed by Dorsey and contractor Florian Weber, was used as a service for Odeo employees. Williams fired Glass, who was silent about his part in Twitters startup until 2011, Twitter spun off into its own company in April 2007. Williams provided insight into the ambiguity that defined this early period in a 2013 interview, With Twitter and they called it a social network, they called it microblogging, but it was hard to define, because it didnt replace anything. There was this path of discovery with something like that, where over time you figure out what it is, Twitter actually changed from what we thought it was in the beginning, which we described as status updates and a social utility. It is that, in part, but the insight we eventually came to was Twitter was really more of an information network than it is a social network, the tipping point for Twitters popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive conference. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000, the Twitter people cleverly placed two 60-inch plasma screens in the conference hallways, exclusively streaming Twitter messages, remarked Newsweeks Steven Levy
33.
Initial public offering
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Through this process, a privately held company transforms into a public company. Initial public offerings are used by companies to raise the expansion of capital, possibly to monetize the investments of early private investors. A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors, after the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, money passes between public investors. The IPO process is known as going public. Details of the offering are disclosed to potential purchasers in the form of a lengthy document known as a prospectus. Most companies undertake an IPO with the assistance of an investment banking firm acting in the capacity of an underwriter, underwriters provide several services, including help with correctly assessing the value of shares and establishing a public market for shares. Alternative methods such as the dutch auction have also been explored, in terms of size and public participation, the two most notable examples of this method is the Google IPO and Snapchats parent company Snap Inc. China has recently emerged as a major IPO market, with several of the largest IPOs taking place in that country, the earliest form of a company which issued public shares was the case of the publicani during the Roman Republic. Like modern joint-stock companies, the publicani were legal bodies independent of their members whose ownership was divided into shares, there is evidence that these shares were sold to public investors and traded in a type of over-the-counter market in the Forum, near the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The shares fluctuated in value, encouraging the activity of speculators, mere evidence remains of the prices for which partes were sold, the nature of initial public offerings, or a description of stock market behavior. Publicanis lost favor with the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, the first modern IPO occurred in March 1602 when the Dutch East India Company offered shares of the company to the public in order to raise capital. All the shares were tradable, and the shareholders received receipts for the purchase, a share certificate documenting payment and ownership such as we know today was not issued but ownership was instead entered in the companys share register. In the United States, the first IPO was the offering of Bank of North America around 1783. An IPO, therefore, allows a company to tap into a pool of potential investors to provide itself with capital for future growth, repayment of debt. A company selling shares is never required to repay the capital to its public investors. Those investors must endure the unpredictable nature of the market to price. After the IPO, when shares trade freely in the open market, for early private investors who choose to sell shares as part of the IPO process, the IPO represents an opportunity to monetize their investment. This type of offering is not dilutive, since no new shares are being created, once a company is listed, it is able to issue additional common shares in a number of different ways, one of which is the follow-on offering
34.
NASDAQ
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The Nasdaq Stock Market is an American stock exchange. It is the second-largest exchange in the world by market capitalization, the exchange platform is owned by Nasdaq, Inc. which also owns the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic stock market network and several other US stock and options exchanges. When it was founded, NASDAQ stood for the acronym of National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations, NASDAQ was founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers, which divested itself of NASDAQ in a series of sales in 2000 and 2001. The Nasdaq Stock Market is owned and operated by Nasdaq, Inc. the stocks of which were listed on its own stock exchange marketing July 2,2002, when the Nasdaq Stock Market began trading on February 8,1971, it was the worlds first electronic stock market. At first, it was merely a system and did not provide a way to perform electronic trades. The Nasdaq Stock Market helped lower the spread but was unpopular among brokerages which made much of their money on the spread. As late as 1987, the NASDAQ exchange was still referred to as OTC in media. Over the years, the Nasdaq Stock Market became more of a market by adding trade and volume reporting. The Nasdaq Stock Market attracted new companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Oracle and Dell. Its main index is the NASDAQ Composite, which has published since its inception. In 1992, the Nasdaq Stock Market joined with the London Stock Exchange to form the first intercontinental linkage of securities markets, the National Association of Securities Dealers spun off the Nasdaq Stock Market in 2000 to form a publicly traded company. In 2006, the status of the Nasdaq Stock Market was changed from a market to a licensed national securities exchange. In 2007, Nasdaq merged with OMX, an exchange operator in the Nordic countries, expanded its global footprint. NASDAQ OMX could be looking to acquire the American exchanges cash equities business, at the time, NYSE Euronext’s market value was $9.75 billion. Nasdaq was valued at $5.78 billion, while ICE was valued at $9.45 billion. Late in the month, Nasdaq was reported to be considering asking either ICE or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to join in what would probably have to be, if it proceeded, an $11–12 billion counterbid. The European Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System was founded as a European equivalent to the Nasdaq Stock Market and it was purchased by NASDAQ in 2001 and became NASDAQ Europe. Operations were shut down, however, as a result of the burst of the dot-com bubble, in 2007, NASDAQ Europe was revived as Equiduct, and is currently operating under Börse Berlin
35.
Viacom Media Networks
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Its sister international division is Viacom International Media Networks. The company was founded in 1984 after Warner Communications and American Express decided to divest the basic cable assets of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, renaming it as MTV Networks, Warner-Amex had originally created and owned Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 and The Movie Channel. Viacom acquired 66% of the company in 1985 and then acquired the remaining interest in 1986 and it was then folded into Viacom International Inc. a subsidiary of Viacom Inc. and is no longer a distinct legal entity. Viacom Media Networks family of brands is divided into three sections, based on the type of programming and audiences they serve. All networks are simulcasted in high definition aside from the music networks. The company also owns internet properties, such as MTV News, MTV International, the company ran a virtual world system, Virtual MTV in the late 2000s. It formerly owned Neopets, Atom Entertainment, and other web properties before shutting them down or selling them to companies in the 2000s and 2010s. Viacom had a division called MTV Games, which used to publish the Rock Band and Dance Central series by Harmonix Music Systems. MTV Networks opened another game division called 345 Games in New York City, the Rock Band series and the Dance Central series will be published by other publishers. The first game published by 345 Games was Ugly Americans, Apocalypsegaddeon based on the Comedy Central TV series, recently,345 Games has announced a video game based on the popular MMA franchise, Bellator Fighting Championships. Viacom International Media Networks is a division of Viacom International and its headquarters are based in New York, London, Warsaw and Buenos Aires. It consists of 64 localized MTV channels, MTV Live HD, VH1, Nickelodeon, TMF, VIVA, Comedy Central, Game One, Nitrome Limited, Shockwave, Addicting Games, Atom Films and Xfire. S. Including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon are experiencing falls in viewership unlike other US broadcasters, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon are of most concern to investors
36.
HuffPost
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On February 7,2011, AOL acquired the mass market Huffington Post for US$315 million, making Arianna Huffington editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group. In July 2012, The Huffington Post was ranked #1 on the 15 Most Popular Political Sites list by eBizMBA Rank, Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast. In 2012, The Huffington Post became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize, the Huffington Post was founded by Arianna Huffington on May 9,2005. It has a community, with over one million comments made on the site each month. Prior to The Huffington Post, Huffington hosted a website called Ariannaonline. com and her first foray into the Internet was a website called Resignation. com, which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton. In August 2013, the website banned anonymous comments, in approximately June 2007, the site launched its first local version, HuffPost Chicago. In June 2009, HuffPost New York was launched, followed shortly by HuffPost Denver which launched on September 15,2009, and HuffPost Los Angeles which launched on December 2,2009. In 2011, three new editions were launched, HuffPost San Francisco on July 12, HuffPost Detroit, on November 17. HuffPost Hawaii was launched in collaboration with the investigative reporting. The Huffington Post launched its first international edition, HuffPost Canada, on July 6 of the same year, the Huffington Post UK launched its UK edition. On February 8, another French language edition was launched in the Canadian province of Quebec, on May Day, a U. S. -based Spanish-language edition was launched under the name HuffPost Voces, replacing AOLs Hispanic news platform, AOL Latino. The following month an edition for Spain was announced, as was one for Germany, on September 24, an Italian edition, LHuffington Post, was launched, directed by journalist Lucia Annunziata in collaboration with the media company Gruppo Editoriale LEspresso. On May 6,2013, an edition for Japan was launched with the collaboration of The Asahi Shimbun, with the launch of Al Huffington Post, there is a third francophone edition, this time for the Maghreb area. On October 10, Munich-based Huffington Post Deutschland has been put online in cooperation with the liberal-conservative magazine Focus, in January 2014, Arianna Huffington and Nicolas Berggruen announced the launch of the WorldPost, created in partnership with the Berggruen Institute. Its contributors have included former British prime minister Tony Blair, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, novelist Jonathan Franzen, on January 29,2014, the Brazilian version was launched as Brasil Post, in partnership with Abril Group, the first in Latin America. In September 2014, Huffington Post announced they will launch in Greece, India, and introduce HuffPost Arabi, on August 18,2015, HuffPost Australia was launched. The Huffington Post planned to launch a Chinese version in 2015, due to strict media controls, the content of Chinese version would not include serious news report, only entertainment and lifestyle. In 2011, after its purchase by AOL, The Huffington Post subsumed many of AOLs Voices properties, the Voices brand was expanded in September 2011 with the launch of Gay Voices, a vertical dedicated to LGBT-relevant articles
37.
Reality television
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It differs from documentary television in that the focus tends to be on drama, personal conflict, and entertainment rather than educating viewers. The genre has various standard tropes, including confessionals used by cast members to express their thoughts, an early example of the genre was the 1991 Dutch series Nummer 28, which was the first show to bring together strangers and record their interactions. It then exploded as a phenomenon in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the success of the series Survivor, Idols. These shows and a number of others became global franchises, spawning local versions in dozens of countries, Reality television as a whole has become a fixture of television programming. There are grey areas around what is classified as reality television, Reality television has faced significant criticism since its rise in popularity. Much of the criticism has centered on the use of the word reality, Television formats portraying ordinary people in unscripted situations are almost as old as the television medium itself. Precedents for television that portrayed people in unscripted situations began in the late 1940s, queen for a Day was an early example of reality-based television. The 1946 television game show Cash and Carry sometimes featured contestants performing stunts, debuting in 1948, Allen Funts hidden camera show Candid Camera broadcast unsuspecting ordinary people reacting to pranks. In 1948, talent search shows Ted Macks Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfreys Talent Scouts featured amateur competitors, in the 1950s, game shows Beat the Clock and Truth or Consequences involved contestants in wacky competitions, stunts, and practical jokes. Confession was a show which aired from June 1958 to January 1959. The radio series Nightwatch tape-recorded the daily activities of Culver City, the series You Asked for It incorporated audience involvement by basing episodes around requests sent in by postcard from viewers. First broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1964, the Granada Television documentary Seven Up, broadcast interviews with a dozen ordinary 7-year-olds from a broad cross-section of society and inquired about their reactions to everyday life. Every seven years, a film documented the life of the same individuals during the period, titled the Up Series, episodes include 7 Plus Seven,21 Up. The program was structured as a series of interviews with no element of plot, however, it did have the then-new effect of turning ordinary people into celebrities. The first reality show in the modern sense may have been the series The American Sportsman, Another precursor may be considered Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom which aired from 1963 through 1988. This show featured zoologist Marlin Perkins traveling across the globe and illustrating the variety of animal life on the planet. Though mostly a travelogue, it was popular in syndication and new episodes were produced through the eighties. The 12-part 1973 PBS series An American Family showed a nuclear family going through a divorce, unlike many later reality shows, it was more or less documentary in purpose and style
38.
The Hollywood Reporter
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Headquartered in Los Angeles, THR is part of the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a group of properties that includes Billboard and SpinMedia. It is owned by Eldridge Industries, a company owned by an executive of its previous owner. Under Janice Min, a faltering THR was relaunched in 2010 as a weekly print magazine with a revamped, continuously updated website, as well as mobile. THR was founded in 1930 by William R, billy Wilkerson as Hollywoods first daily entertainment trade newspaper. The first edition appeared on September 3,1930, and featured Wilkersons front-page Tradeviews column, the newspaper appeared Monday to Saturday for the first 10 years, except for a brief period, then Monday to Friday from 1940. Wilkerson ran the THR until his death in September 1962, although his final column appeared 18 months prior, from the late 1930s, Wilkerson used THR to push the view that the industry was a communist stronghold. In particular, he opposed the screenplay writers trade union, the Screen Writers Guild, in 1946 the Guild considered creating an American Authors Authority to hold copyright for writers, instead of ownership passing to the studios. Wilkerson devoted his Tradeviews column to the issue on July 29,1946 and he went to confession before publishing it, knowing the damage it would cause, but was apparently encouraged by the priest to go ahead with it. The column contained the first industry names, including Dalton Trumbo and Howard Koch, on became the Hollywood blacklist. Eight of the 11 people Wilkerson named were among the Hollywood Ten who were blacklisted after hearings in 1947 by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1997 THR reporter David Robb wrote a story about the newspapers involvement, for the blacklists 65th anniversary in 2012, the THR published a lengthy investigative piece about Wilkersons role, by reporters Gary Baum and Daniel Miller. The same edition carried an apology from Wilkersons son, W. R. Wilkerson III and he wrote that his father had been motivated by revenge for his thwarted ambition to own a studio. Wilkersons wife, Tichi Wilkerson Kassel, took over as publisher and she sold the paper on April 11,1988, to Affiliated Publications, parent company of Billboard Publications, for $26.7 million. Robert J. Dowling became THR president in 1988 and editor-in-chief, Dowling brought in Alex Ben Block as editor in 1990, and editorial quality of both news and specials steadily improved. Block and Teri Ritzer dampened much of the coverage and cronyism that had infected the paper under Wilkerson. After Block left, former editor at Variety, Anita Busch, was brought in as editor between 1999 and 2001. Busch was credited with making the paper competitive with Variety, tony Uphoff assumed the publisher position in November 2005. Uphoff was replaced in October 2006 by John Kilcullen, the publisher of Billboard, Kilcullen was a defendant in Billboards infamous dildo lawsuit, in which he was accused of race discrimination and sexual harassment
39.
Comcast Corporation
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Comcast Corporation is an American global telecommunications conglomerate that is the largest broadcasting and cable television company in the world by revenue. Comcast services U. S. residential and commercial customers in 40 states, the companys headquarters are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first Universal theme park outside of the U. S, Universal Studios Japan, opened in 2001, followed by Universal Studios Singapore in 2011. Few new locations are being planned or developed for future operation, Comcast also has significant holdings in digital distribution. In February 2014 the company agreed to merge with Time Warner Cable in an equity swap deal worth $45.2 billion, under the terms of the agreement Comcast was to acquire 100% of Time Warner Cable. However, on April 24,2015, Comcast terminated the agreement, Comcast has been criticized for multiple reasons, the companys customer satisfaction often ranks among the lowest in the cable industry. Critics also point out a lack of competition in the vast majority of Comcasts service area, furthermore, given Comcasts negotiating power as a large ISP, some suspect that Comcast could leverage paid peering agreements to unfairly influence end-user connection speeds. And its ownership of content production and content distribution has raised antitrust concerns. These issues, in addition to others, led to Comcast being dubbed The Worst Company in America by The Consumerist in 2010 and 2014. Despite being publicly-traded, Comcast is a business, with the Ralph J Roberts family owning 33% controlling stake. Comcast is sometimes described as a family business, Brian L. Roberts, Chairman, President, and CEO of Comcast, is the son of co-founder Ralph Roberts. Roberts owns or controls just over 1% of all Comcast shares but all of the Class B supervoting shares, legal expert Susan P. Crawford has said this gives him effective control over every step. In 2010, he was one of the highest paid executives in the United States, Comcast is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and also has corporate offices in Atlanta, Detroit, Denver, and Manchester, New Hampshire. On January 3,2005, Comcast announced that it would become the tenant in the new Comcast Center in downtown Philadelphia. The 975 ft skyscraper is the tallest building in Pennsylvania, Comcast has begun construction on a second 1,121 ft skyscraper directly adjacent to the original Comcast headquarters in the summer of 2014. The company is criticized by both the media and its own staff for its less upstanding policies regarding employee relations. A2012 Reddit post written by an anonymous Comcast call center employee eager to share their experiences with the public received attention from publications including The Huffington Post. A2014 investigative series published by The Verge involved interviews with 150 of Comcasts employees and it sought to examine why the company has become so widely criticized by its customers, the media and even members of its own staff
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
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The U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission is an independent agency of the United States federal government. The SEC was created by Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the SEC has a three-part mission, to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation. To achieve its mandate, the SEC enforces the requirement that public companies submit quarterly and annual reports. MD&A will usually touch on the upcoming year, outlining future goals. In an attempt to level the field for all investors. Quarterly and semiannual reports from companies are crucial for investors to make sound decisions when investing in the capital markets. Unlike banking, investment in the markets is not guaranteed by the federal government. The potential for big gains needs to be weighed against that of sizable losses, the SEC makes reports available to the public through the EDGAR system. The SEC also offers publications on investment-related topics for public education, the same online system also takes tips and complaints from investors to help the SEC track down violators of the securities laws. The SEC adheres to a policy of never commenting on the existence or status of an ongoing investigation. Prior to the enactment of the securities laws and the creation of the SEC. They were enacted and enforced at the level, and regulated the offering. Though the specific provisions of these laws varied among states, they all required the registration of all offerings and sales, as well as of every U. S. stockbroker. However, these blue sky laws were found to be ineffective. For example, the Investment Bankers Association told its members as early as 1915 that they could ignore blue sky laws by making securities offerings across state lines through the mail. After holding hearings on abuses on interstate frauds, Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933, the subsequent Securities Exchange Act of 1934 regulates sales of securities in the secondary market. The Securities Act of 1933 is also known as the Truth in Securities Act and its goal was to increase public trust in the capital markets by requiring uniform disclosure of information about public securities offerings. For the first year of the enactment, the enforcement of the statute rested with the Federal Trade Commission
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Mariana van Zeller
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Mariana van Zeller is a Portuguese journalist and correspondent for National Geographic Channel and chief correspondent for Fusion. She is a correspondent for the Vanguard documentary series on the former Current TV. Van Zeller studied International Relations at the Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa, when she graduated she spent two years working at SIC, which was at that time the first and largest Portuguese private television network. First, she began working in the travel and international departments of the networks channel, and later she joined SIC Notícias. She applied for a Masters degree to Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism three times, her first application was rejected, and her second was wait-listed. After her third application in 2001, van Zeller flew to New York City and knocked on the deans door, the dean was impressed and allowed her to enroll. One month after van Zeller moved to New York City, the September 11 attacks took place and she was contacted that morning by a producer from SIC Notícias, where she had previously interned. She was directed to meet a news crew atop the CBS Building in Midtown Manhattan, before going on air, she was told, Prepare yourself. The whole of Portugal is watching you, after receiving her degree from Columbia, van Zeller moved to London to work for a documentary producer, with hopes of covering the Iraq War. With London as her new base, she studied Arabic at Damascus University in Syria in order to seek out stories in the Middle East. Over the next two years, her freelance documentaries from Syria appeared on PBSs Frontline/World, the CBC, in 2005, she joined Current TV as a correspondent and producer for the Vanguard documentary series. Van Zeller is fluent in Portuguese, English, Spanish, Italian, Van Zeller is married to her former Columbia classmate Darren Foster, who is a series producer and director with National Geographic Channel. In July 2010, she gave birth to her first child and she became an American citizen on March 17,2015. City of God, Guns & Gangs - Documentary about Brazil’s bold new initiative to transform Rio de Janeiro’s slums before the hosts the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Gateway to Heroin - Documentary about how and why OxyContin has fueled a new heroin epidemic in Massachusetts and this American Life - Documentary about people living unlawfully in the United States, exploring the life of a senior UCLA student and a strawberry picker. Narco Bling Documentary about the spoils of the drug cartels of Sinaloa, missionaries of Hate - A Documentary about the influence of American religious in making homosexuality a crime punishable by death in Uganda. The OxyContin Express - A documentary about drug abuse in the United States. Rape on the Reservation - A documentary about the Native American women raped in Indian reserves, soccer’s Lost Boys - A documentary about the hidden side of football in South Africa during the world cup
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Reuters
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Reuters /ˈrɔɪtərz/ is an international news agency headquartered in London, England. It is a division of Thomson Reuters, until 2008, the Reuters news agency formed part of an independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data. Since the acquisition of Reuters Group by the Thomson Corporation in 2008, Reuters transmits news in English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Urdu, and Chinese. The Reuter agency was established in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter in Britain at the London Royal Exchange, Paul Reuter worked at a book-publishing firm in Berlin and was involved in distributing radical pamphlets at the beginning of the Revolutions in 1848. Upon moving to England, he founded Reuters Telegram Company in 1851, headquartered in London, the company initially covered commercial news, serving banks, brokerage houses, and business firms. The first newspaper client to subscribe was the London Morning Advertiser in 1858, Reuters agency built a reputation in Europe and the rest of the world as the first to report news scoops from abroad. Reuters was the first to report Abraham Lincolns assassination in Europe, for instance, in 1872, Reuters expanded into the far east, followed by South America in 1874. Both expansions were made possible by advances in overland telegraphs and undersea cables, in 1883, Reuters began transmitting messages electrically to London newspapers. In 1923, Reuters began using radio to transmit news internationally, in 1925, The Press Association of Great Britain acquired a majority interest in Reuters, and full owners some years later. During the world wars, The Guardian reported that Reuters came under pressure from the British government to national interests. In 1941 Reuters deflected the pressure by restructuring itself as a private company, the new owners formed the Reuters Trust. In 1941, the PA sold half of Reuters to the Newspaper Proprieters Association, the Reuters Trust Principles were put in place to maintain the companys independence. At that point, Reuters had become one of the major news agencies. In 1961, Reuters scooped news of the erection of the Berlin Wall, in 1981, Reuters began making electronic transactions on its computer network, and afterwards developed a number of electronic brokerage and trading services. Reuters was floated as a company in 1984, when Reuters Trust was listed on the stock exchanges such as the London Stock Exchange. Reuters published the first story of the Berlin Wall being breached in 1989, share price grew during the dotcom boom, then fell after the banking troubles in 2001. In 2002, Brittanica wrote that most news throughout the world came from three major agencies, the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse, Reuters merged with Thomson Corporation in Canada in 2008, forming Thomson Reuters. In 2009, Thomson Reuters withdrew from the LSE and the NASDAQ, instead listing its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the last surviving member of the Reuters family founders, Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, died at age 96 on 25 January 2009
