TV Ratings: ‘Duck Dynasty’ Tops ‘American Idol’ With Record-Breaking Finale

Duck Dynasty shows no signs of slowing. The A&E series’ season finale drew a record 9.6 million viewers during its one-hour episode — and an equally impressive 5.5 million adults 18-49. That haul in the key demo puts it ahead of all of cable and broadcast offerings for the night — including American Idol.

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Partnership

Oxygen Media Partners With Tumblr to Take Social TV Further

Oxygen Media has teamed up with Tumblr to bring web GIFs to the silver screen. Tumblr and Oxygen will start to work together to bring user-made GIFs to its programming in real time. The move is aimed to further enhance the connection between television and social media.

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Hardware

Leap Motion delays launch of 3-D gesture controller to July 22

The release of the Leap Motion sensor, which enables users to interact with their computers using intuitive gestures, has been delayed until July. (Leap Motion) Leap Motion is delaying the release of its 3-D gesture-recognition controller to July 22 to give the company more time for testing.

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Can We Please Stop Talking About TV?

Living in the Golden Age of television has a downside: Everywhere you go, it seems as if all anyone wants to talk about is TV. Burning out on the discussion of Girls.

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Twitter

Twitter Is Getting Serious with Advertising, Privacy, and App Developments

Image via Flickr Twitter may already be in the big leagues of mega social media platforms, but its value is about to surge due to an advertising deal that probably made Jack Dorsey weep with joy.

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Mining the TV-Twitter connection

Even if you’ve never “liked” a brand on Facebook, pinned a product on Pinterest, or kept up with a company on Twitter, the growth of social media has tangible value for advertisers. In a fecund digital world where messages are created with unprecedented speed and frequency, conversation is capital.

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Mumsnet is best platform to assess “social view” of TV, not Twitter or Facebook, says YouView CEO

Broadcasters, content creators and advertisers should look to platforms like Mumsnet rather than Facebook or Twitter to gain a “social…

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Applications

There’s An App Audience for That, But It’s Fragmented

There’s An App Audience for That, But It’s Fragmented Flurry now measures apps used on more than 1 billion smartphones and tablets each month. As connected devices reach critical mass, marketers are more seriously incorporating mobile into the marketing mix. But there are pros and cons.

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Introducing Social Soundtracker

What we watch is more meaningful when we feel connected through it. This is why we huddled around the water cooler after TV shows aired, why we enjoy watching films in theaters, and why we share our reactions to everything from TV to livestream events on social media.

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Technology

Smartphones Outpace Feature Phones, Samsung Leads

With worldwide shipments of 216.2 million units during the first quarter, smartphones grabbed 51.6% of the total mobile phone market. According to IDC’s data, this is the first time that hardware makers have shipped more smartphones than feature phones on a global basis. It’s a significant milestone.

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AT&T flips the switch on home automation with Digital Life platform

Almost a year since it first teased its home automation and security solution, AT&T began taking orders for the Digital Life platform in 15 metro areas across the U.S., including Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and New York.

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Content

‘Star Trek’ creator’s son: The Enterprise’s best destiny is TV and online, not movie screen

It was almost 50 years ago that Gene Roddenberry began developing Star Trek and its tales of the ever-rational United Federation of Planets (which values connection and communication above conquest) and noble, shining Starfleet (which devotes its powerful engines to exploration and insight).

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