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The annual EPpy Awards, put on by Editor & Publisher and MediaWeek, were just announced in Las Vegas. NYTimes.com and LJWorld.com won in the best news site categories. KING5.com took the best overall TV-affiliated site award (woo hoo!), edging out our friends at WRAL and Fox Chicago. MSNBC.com and DenverPost.com won in the best community site categories. And CNN.com (with iReport) won the Knight News innovation award. Full list of winners here. Congrats, everyone!

Congratulations to the sixteen winners who split $5.5. million on various projects that advance communicating news and information in the public interest using open-source digital technology focused on geographic community. The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, received a grant to address issues surrounding sourcing and accuracy online. The 2008 awards were smaller than the inaugural round last year, and many projects were internationally focused.

Now that the news is official, I can break the silence. Yes, I had a proposal that made the top 25 finalists. Of course it is disappointing to show and not place, but the winners and other finalists who didn’t get funded have amazing ideas and it is an honor to be in this company. There were 3,000 applicants this year.

CBS Interactive is making its largest digital acquisition ever, buying CNET Networks for $1.8 billion, according to the NY Times. This price tops the $1.6 billion that YouTube sold for to Google.

“There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks,” he said in a press release Thursday. “Together, CBS and CNET Networks will have significant additional exposure to the fastest-growing advertising sector and can accelerate our growth through a number of new content, promotion and advertising initiatives.”

CNET Networks includes cnet.com, bnet.com, news.com, tv.com, gamespot.com, mp3.com and search.com, among others.

Update: The acquisition will make CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the U.S. Says Les Moonves in an interview with PaidContent, “You see what we can do with integration, we can do with TV.com, News.com, the local things we can do with UrbanBaby and Chow, where we have a great deal of local presence on the CBS side, and the integration of CBS Sports with CNET and GameSport, the male-oriented sites.” So it looks like the local CBS O&Os will benefit from some content as well as some exposure.

Plus: Why the deal makes sense for CBS, and conversely, why it’s the “worst M&A deal of the year.” Let us know what you think in comments…

Comcast is adding Plaxo to its internet stable in a deal worth $170 million.

Just take a look at this post on WestSeattleBlog.com and the subsequent comments after a shooting broke out in the neighborhood. While police searched for suspects — a chopper swirling overhead — readers in the area posted comments with observations and questions, which the West Seattle Blog (WSB) worked to answer. “Thanks for the late night work WSB. My wife and I aren’t able to sleep,” says one commenter. “I live so close, info like this is invaluable,” says another. A new level of interactive journalism, folks. (We wrote about the West Seattle Blog earlier, right here.)

If you work in local TV news, what percentage of your interns in the last couple years have said they want to become anchors? In my experience, the number is 50 percent or greater. But let’s look at the trends. News consumption is shifting fast to the “anchorless” internet. Stations are negotiating anchor salaries down and even moving some shows to a single news anchor format. Layoffs are growing increasingly common, and some TV stations are dropping news altogether. While I don’t like to shatter an intern’s anchor dreams, it’s time for a dose of reality. Journalism schools, as a public service, should strongly discourage students from pursuing an anchoring career. The emphasis should be on the “do-it-all” multimedia journalist who can produce, report, write, shoot and edit both on TV and the web. Flexibility is key. As we saw from NBC Local’s announcement a few days ago, even the definition of “producer” is changing, and who knows what we’ll see five years down the road. Don’t get me wrong — anchors are important — but I can venture this prediction: we’ll see fewer anchors in the years to come.

Diana Marszalek in TVNewsday does a great job wrapping up many of the niche sites that local TV stations across the country have recently launched. One that we haven’t mentioned here on Lost Remote is GoLo.com, a local social forum produced by WRAL.com.

The site (actually a subsection of WRAL.com) is less than a year old but has nearly 7,000 registered users. “GoLo.com grew out of WRAL.com [the station site],” says WRAL.com General Manager John Clark. “So many of the site’s viewers naturally went to GoLo to carry on community dialogue, post blogs and pictures. It was and still is a good fit.”

Also in the TVNewsday story, Fisher says it plans to launch a hyperlocal site in Bakersfield next month and Belo released a few stats on HSGametime.com (Full disclosure: I work for KING5.com, which is a Belo Corp. property.)

So by now, you’ve probably heard about veteran WNBC anchor Sue Simmons and her unfortunate F-bomb drop on live TV. Of course, in the market the size of New York, this sort of thing spreads like wildfire… on YouTube, especially. As of this count there are 17 clips. Wait, make that 13, as two have been removed “by the user” and two more “due to a copyright claim by a third party.” By any definition, this isn’t good publicity, but trying to stop it in today’s viral society is a near impossibility.

Meanwhile, there are 600 comments and counting on WNBC.com.

Update: Even the New York Times did the story today.

I’ve always wanted to do something like this for years (proof right here), and now MyFoxChicago.com is the first to make it happen. On AirFoxLive.com, not only do they stream their chopper live whenever it’s flying, but they also track it in real-time on an interactive Google Map.

As you can see, a bubble gives the current speed, altitude and heading. The player in the upper right displays one of the chopper’s three live cameras. “This also plugs right into Google Earth for on-air use,” says MyFoxChicago.com’s Steve Baron (who also runs LiveNewsCameras.com). How cool is that? I think this is a natural extension for a TV site, and the primary reason why nobody’s done this to date is the age-old concern that you’re tipping off your competition. But as Lost Remote readers know, that old-model, TV-driven thinking should not restrict innovation online.

The NAA has released this big ol’ report today: Zooming In on Online Video - Newspaper Association of America: Advancing Newspaper Media for the 21st Century Video viewing numbers are on the major upswing, with comscore reporting 11.5 billion viewed in March. So everyone needs to jump on, right? With the pack mentality, does this mean everyone is going to be a broadcaster now? Does every story have to have the writer re-reading the copy in front of a camera, wearing of funny hat optional? And why DO men have nipples?

An ad optimization company called PubMatic analyzed data from over 3,000 online publishers and came away with some interesting results. Display ad prices for large sites (more than 100M page views a month) dropped 52 percent. Medium sites were flat, and smaller sites actually increased. “Among the verticals, social networking led the plunge with monetization dropping 47 percent,” explains PubMatic. In many respects, this shouldn’t be that big of a surprise, as the social network sites have had the most difficult time monetizing their inventory. But it illustrates the growing commoditization effect of vast amounts of ad inventory. (Via PaidContent)

KIFI, Local News 8 in Idaho Falls, ID has found a way to break the traditional bonds of an ENG truck with a technology it calls WiNG - or Wireless Internet News Gathering. While doing a live shot via the Internet isn’t technically a new thing - KIFI is doing it on a shoestring in a very small market.

KIFI’s WiNG project uses WiMax from Digital Bridge Communications - with upload speeds of 2 MBps - paired with an encoder/decoder system from Streambox. Field crews plug their cameras into a laptop and the video is sent back to the station via WiMax where it is decoded and put on the air. KIFI General Manager Mark Danielson (disclosure: my old boss) has been working on the WiNG dream since he was news director at KTVB - but the upload speed just wasn’t there. Now in Eastern Idaho, Digital Bridge is testing the waters with WiMax, making transmitting video either LIVE or on tape a possibility.

“The technology from both partners worked well and effortlessly,” Danielson told Lost Remote. “It is critical that WiNG is simple and dependable for our staff to use.”

The video image is near broadcast quality, and while there’s currently a delay - it’s something that should improve as technology gets better. In a market that can’t justify the cost of an SNG truck, and where terrain and other limitations make ENG coverage spotty, the WiNG solution gives the station more options for news coverage.

You can see it in action here (click the video link in the story)

Wow. NBC left iTunes in part because Apple refused to offer flexible pricing, but now HBO will offer its shows on the download service under a flexible pricing scheme. “Episodes of some HBO shows are likely to be sold at the standard price of $1.99 per episode or higher, these sources said, marking the first time Apple has agreed to selling television shows at different prices in the United States,” reports Reuters. It’s also the first time HBO has sold downloads of its shows. The deal is expected to be announced on Tuesday.

It’s upfront week, and that means a steady stream of announcements…
    - NBC names Jimmy Fallon to succeed Conan O’Brien
    - CBS picks up 4 new dramas, 2 comedies
    - “Flat is the new up,” says Broadcasting & Cable about the upfronts
    - Latest upfront stories from TV Decoder blog, B&C and Variety

Calling it the “Digital Health Network,” NBCU is syndicating health video produced by NBC News, NBC Local Media and Healthology.com. Distribution partners include Healthline Networks, RightHealth and YourTotalHealth.com. “Today’s announcement is another example of how we are focused on building rich, niche digital networks,” said George Kliavkoff, Chief Digital Officer, NBC Universal. “We will continue to look at niche categories that have a passionate user base and also happen to fit the criteria of a top advertising category that we think is underserved by professional quality video on digital platforms.” (Full disclosure: NBCU is a joint venture partner of MSNBC.com, which is my new employer in two weeks.)

Facing an advertising downturn, soft ratings on The CW, and an inability to land new financing, 13 Pappas stations have filed for Chapter 11. The company said station employees will continue to be paid. Meanwhile, Pappas is looking for a buyer for all 30 of its stations.

Aggressively expanding overseas and in smaller U.S. cities, for one. But Craigslist is also fighting a lawsuit from eBay, which has a competing free classifieds service, Kijiji.com.

When putting together a data retention policy (specifically, public archives) for your website, where do you start? Where do you stop? Does the policy vary for video and database projects? What’s the presentation like? What’s the business model? There are so many questions.

Now, comes word that UK publication The Times newspaper is putting up 200 years of content. Free. Talk about an archive.

On the opposite end of things, I know of news sites that purge content after a month (I hate this idea - it is contrary to my modern definition of journalism) or put older content behind a paywall.

Mark my words, with folks turning over stones for money, news sites will learn how to archive smarter, with business models attached.

[Despite the coincidence in terminology, this post has nothing to do with with the EU’s search engine data retention investigation.]

In a test run of sorts, Wilmington, N.C. will be the first market to transition to all-digital TV at noon, Monday, September 8. Well, kinda. The PBS station and a low-power station will remain the only analog sticks in town. To confuse matters, some national ads running in the market reference the rest of the nation’s February transition date, according to a quote in USA Today.

Do you think the broadcast stations will ask the PBS station for 24×7 promos, describing what the heck is going on? Or, they could always go at it Anchorman rumble style!

Cincinnati.Com’s CincyNavigator launched last September - and is already increasing engagement for the site. Forbes.com notes that the data/map mashup site (along the lines of EveryBlock, etc.) spawned 570,000 pageviews in its first six months, and increased the average user session from three minutes to five minutes. It took nearly a year to put the site together - but it was well worth the work, with a simple interface and great data navigation.