Editor’s note: This is too bad. I signed off on hiring Greg at CNET (one of my favorite reporters), though he will land on his feet. (Greg also is a former reporter of the L.A. Times and Washington Post). We used to get similar pressure from tech companies but stood up to it, including a first-amendment lawsuit from Microsoft. We prevailed in that case. Still, the CNET Reviews editors who chose Dish should have been aware of the CBS ongoing litigation, knowing they were walking into a “bear trap.”
“CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves signed off on a decision for its technology subsidiary CNET to re-vote its Best in CES Awards after Dish Network’s set-top box Hopper With Sling took the top prize, a source confirms to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Moonves, who didn’t make the decision to revoke the award, nonetheless strongly supported the decision to pull the honor after CBS Corp. executives briefed him on the pending announcement, the source said. Moonves believes the technology puts CBS’ business at risk, the source added.
“News of the top office’s involvement in the award snafu was reported Monday by the technology news site The Verge. As a result of the incident, CNET reporter Greg Sandoval tweeted Monday that he had resigned.
‘”I no longer have confidence that CBS is committed to editorial independence,” he wrote.
CNET, whose staff votes on the award winners, posted a notice on its “Best of CES” web page last week that the device “was removed from consideration due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product.”
The rest of the article is here.
This also was reported in the New York Times and other publications.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The CNET Reviews editors also should have known that anything having to do with a satellite is “yesterday’s lettuce.” It was a poor choice regardless of the impending litigation.
They were reviewing the Dish Hopper device, which lets you skip commercials. http://www.dish.com/technology/hopper/ It’s cool.
Jeff, skipping commercials is yesterday’s lettuce. Between our Roku box and the DVR attached to our DirecTV, we haven’t watched commercials for years in our household.
I think the award should go to revolutionary technology, not evolutionary technology. The Dish Hopper is basically the same thing we’ve been using since 2008, only on steroids. It’s cool, but certainly not eye-popping.
I should have known you knew Mr. Sandoval when I read this story earlier in the week….pretty principled guy. Wish him nothing but the best.
You would enjoy Greg. I never held his USC degree against him (the football rivalry) because he loved swimming with our family in Lake Tahoe!
Michael,
What kind of DVR to you have that compares to Hopper? The Hopper sends entertainment content to every TV in the house; it skips commercials on prime-time shows; it has built-in wifi; AND has Sling built in, allowing you to send your content anywhere (even an ipad or iphone). I don’t think your system can do all that.
Jeff, I totally agree, that is a killer machine. Like I said, a DVR on steroids. It’s the Lance Armstrong of DVRs.
Sorry to be such a skunk to the party, but I guess what I am trying to get at is that CBS really had no other choice than to do what they did. The only news sources these days who are truly independent are the non-profits.
Unfortunately for companies like CBS, their business models are being collapsed like a sand castle at high tide. There’s no way out. The advertising market is in chaos.
Getting back to the CES awards, I like revolutionary vs. evolutionary, as I wrote before. There are some amazing things happening with tablets, phones, and even laptops/notebooks and desktops, having to do with touch. The unreported story is how the hardware vendors are trying like crazy to respond to Microsoft’s cramming Windows 8 down the throats of retailers like Staples and Best Buy.
Bottom line: Windows 8 is only worthwhile if the hardware includes a touch screen, IMHO.
[Disclaimer: I run an IT services co. in Nevada City.]