Wall Street Journal

[Commentary] TV is increasingly the new cinema, featuring more nuanced and better writing, casting, design and storytelling. It is the technology that emancipated the great work. In the next five or 10 years, great TV will be discovered and appreciated more, good TV will be found to be good, mediocre TV will increasingly drown in the slushy middle, and imitative and bad TV -- as it always has been, but maybe more rapidly -- will be canceled. Overall, TV will be better and smarter.

[Sapan is chief executive officer of AMC Networks]

[Commentary] Even as on-demand TV viewing grows, there will always be a way to tune into a network or channel. But in 10 or 20 years I'm not convinced that the flow of content when I tune in is going to be the same as your flow.

It could be customized for you, Pandora-style. you'll see interfaces that mix watching shows with chatting with friends and social media. That would provide a clear utility to consumers, integrating all those things into one communications experience.

As for the content, it is easy to imagine that you would see a broader range of more specific channels. Some might have professional content while others could have user-generated content.

[Price is director, Amazon Studios]

A splashy ad in a magazine may catch a reader’s eye as he or she is flipping through the pages, but would that ad grab someone’s attention when it’s displayed on a tablet?

With an ever-growing array of screens and formats to serve ads, it can be a headache for marketers to figure out where ads resonate with consumers and where they don’t.

However, new research suggests that tablet magazine advertising is just as effective as (and can even add impact to) print campaigns. A recent study from GfK MRI Starch Advertising Research found that ads in tablet versions of magazines have the same average level of reader recall as print magazine ads.

The research firm conducted an online survey to analyze reader recall of 28,624 magazine ads in 805 tablet magazine issues published in 2013 and compared that data to consumer print recall data. The online survey asked respondents if they recalled having read a particular ad and if they had interacted with ads that had interactive features.

GfK found that the average level of reader recall for both print and digital ads in 2013 was 52%. The most effective digital magazine ads were recalled by more than 80% of readers, in line with the most effective print ads, GfK said.

General Motors will soon begin an effort to sell high-speed Internet service to buyers of everything from $17,000 Chevrolet Spark subcompacts to top-of-the-line Cadillacs, a test of how much consumers are willing to pay to be online at the wheel.

The campaign is the first time the nation's largest auto maker has promoted one electronics technology across its Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC brands. The Wi-Fi option would allow 2015 model year vehicles to link up to seven cellphones, laptops and other gadgets to the Internet.

GM is making its 4G LTE and Wi-Fi hot spot option the centerpiece to an effort to challenge rival Ford Motor's Sync, which offers voice-activated calling, music and navigation controls.

The Sync system, however, doesn't offer Wi-Fi. The auto maker won't say how much it is spending on the campaign. Citing the "independence" that the technology provides, GM will use the July 4 holiday to make its pitch via Facebook, movie theaters and the takeover of Gogo in-flight service.

Youth-obsessed marketers are anxious to figure out the best way to reach the so-called “Millennial Generation.” A new report validates the popular notion that the smartphone is the best vehicle.

Millennials, people ages 18 to 34, are the most connected generation, according to a new study from Experian Marketing Services. The study, based on a survey of almost 24,000 US adults, found that 77% of adult millennials own a smartphone and the average owner spends 14.5 hours a week using his or her smartphone texting, talking and on social media.

Marketers are already beginning to respond to the shift by increasing their spending on mobile advertising. Research firm eMarketer estimates that advertisers are expected to shell out about $17. 7 billion on mobile ads in the US in 2014; almost double from what they spent the previous year.

Amazon.com is bucking a request from the Federal Trade Commission that it tighten its policies for purchases made by children while using mobile applications.

In a letter to the FTC, Amazon said it was prepared to "defend our approach in court," rather than agree to fines and additional record keeping and disclosure requirements over the next 20 years, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

According to the documents, Amazon is facing a potential lawsuit by the FTC, which wants the Seattle retailer to accept terms similar to those that Apple previously agreed to regarding so-called in-app purchases. )

"When customers told us their kids had made purchases they didn't want, we refunded those purchases," said Andrew DeVore, an Amazon associate general counsel. He said Amazon's app store included "prominent notice of in-app purchasing, effective parental controls and real-time notice of every in-app purchase."

The FTC said Amazon would need to make the notices more prominent, require passwords for all in-app purchases and make refunds simpler and easier.

Facebook 's psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 unwitting users was communicated “poorly,” Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s No. 2 executive, said.

It was the first public comment on the study by a Facebook executive since the furor erupted in social-media circles.

“This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was; it was poorly communicated,” Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said. “And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you.”

World Cup rights-holders are trying to stop digital competitors who are helping themselves to highlights from the tournament without permission.

Viewers have a range of ways to view officially-licensed ESPN and Univision coverage of the World Cup, from watching it on cable to streaming it on their mobile devices. But fans also track the games elsewhere, like on Twitter and fast-acting sites that quickly create animated GIFs and videos on Vine -- a Twitter-owned app that makes six-second looping videos.

Following inquiries from CMO Today, however, the video was promptly removed from the Slate site. A person familiar with the matter said the publisher removed the video after being contacted by ESPN.

Dish Network is in discussions with NBC over Dish's ad-skipping digital video recorder, say people familiar with the situation, the latest sign that a two-year-old standoff between Dish and major broadcasters is easing.

While the talks are under way, NBC has put its lawsuit against Dish on hold, the people say. NBC is one of three major networks still in litigation with Dish over several features on its "Hopper" digital video recorder, including one that makes it easier to automatically skip commercials.

In early March Dish settled a lawsuit over the same issue with Walt Disney's ABC as part of a broader deal in which Dish renewed its right to carry Disney-owned TV networks on its satellite TV service.

It's unclear whether NBC and Dish are anywhere near close to resolving their differences, but the mere fact that the talks are under way at all highlights how the ground may be shifting in the long-running battle between the broadcasters and Dish. The Supreme Court ruling on Aereo may become a factor, as some lawyers say the ruling could complicate Dish's legal case.

Foursquare Labs said it would begin charging some businesses for access to its database of restaurants, shops and other local venues, as it tries to make money from information it has gathered from user "check-ins" in the five years since its founding.

The New York startup is negotiating with the heaviest users of its data to pay fees or offer services in return, Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Glueck said. Deals will be reached on an ad-hoc basis with each developer and will affect under 1% of the 63,000 companies that use Foursquare's database, said Glueck, a longtime Internet executive who recently joined Foursquare.

The change in policy could jeopardize Foursquare's relationship with outside developers that rely on the service to pull the names and coordinates of local places of interest into their own apps. Popular applications including Pinterest, Twitter's Vine, and Yahoo's Flickr use this service to help users match content they post online to their geographic location. But the data fees could also help Foursquare create a new revenue stream to support its free mobile apps.