As with TV ratings, the new service requires the participation of media outlets, in this case Web portals and other sites.
So far, the media-measurement firm has lined up Facebook Inc. as a participant, according to people familiar with the matter. Other websites are expected to join as it moves out of the testing phase.

Nielsen is expected to unveil the new product next week at Advertising Week, and will conduct a test of the service shortly, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Especially with numbers like these: GE says NBCU’s Q4 revenue dropped four percent, to $4.3 billion, and operating profit declined 30 percent, to $602 million.

Were Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien’s ratings really that bad? Of course not.

NBC’s broadcast revenue was down 1.5 percent, but that was balanced by growth in the company’s cable properties, which were up eight percent. And not that I’m a Jeff Zucker apologist, but when pundits are castigating him for his late-night debacle, they really ought to point out that some parts of the company–the parts that Comcast wants, not coincidentally–have grown considerably during Zucker’s tenure.

In any case, GE blames this quarter’s decline on Hollywood: Its movie division has been low on box office hits, and its DVD group, like most other studios, has been sucking wind.

Here’s GE’s brief description of its business in charticle form (click to enlarge). Note the line about slow recovery in Web ads:

And here’s the best “screw you, NBC” clip I’ve seen from Conan this week. Which, as many Web commenters have noted, is not available on NBC’s Web site or via Hulu. But given that NBC has been fairly vigilant about pulling down unauthorized clips it doesn’t want on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, the network can’t be that upset about this one, which you can find all over the site:

So here you go. Here’s last night’s monologue, replete with many excellent digs at GE’s (GE)–and eventually, Comcast’s (CMCSA)–troubled broadcaster: “Welcome to NBC, where our new slogan is ‘No longer just screwing up primetime.’”

Last night’s show also stars, sort of inexplicably, fellow NBC employee Howie Mandel.

Bonus clip! Here’s Jimmy Kimmel, who seems to be very happily employed by Disney’s (DIS) ABC–doing some meta-commentary on the Leno/O’Brien imbroglio:

Yahoo has inked a premium content deal with former NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman, in which he will create content for the Internet portal.

Yahoo (YHOO) will sell the branded advertising for the online programming made by the controversial Hollywood exec.

Yahoo confirmed the deal, but did not elaborate on the financial details of the partnership.

Silverman left the broadcast television network under a cloud last year, but immediately announced he had struck a deal with Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) to form a studio–called Electus–to make multiplatform content that is backed by big brand advertisers.

If you think about it, Silverman is essentially copying a new kind of production company started several years ago by former ABC and Yahoo exec Lloyd Braun and his partner, Gail Berman.

Braun has created online programming for Microsoft (MSFT), including an innovative celebrity site called Wonderwall, as well as producing television shows for networks.

Silverman has talked more about doing online programming in episodic style, but much of what has been done online so far in this genre by many others has been only moderately successful.

Nonetheless, Joanne Bradford, SVP of North American revenue for Yahoo, told me in an interview that advertisers have been looking for opportunities to put their brands near quality content online.

“It is an area of great interest,” said Bradford. “And Yahoo, with its huge traffic, is a leader in selling premium ads on the Web.”

Yahoo is putting its hopes here in Silverman, who had been a successful producer of television programming in his early career.

But his tenure at NBC was marked by a lot of negative publicity about him personally and, more importantly, by a sharp downturn in ratings.

It will be interesting to see if the golden-child side of his talent is ascendant in the content he makes for Yahoo, which should begin to appear in several months.

But TV executives and advertisers haven’t caught up with you. Advertisers still pay less for a cable TV eyeball than for one watching something from a broadcaster. And programmers still cling to the belief that a broadcast TV viewer has different habits from someone watching cable.

Makes no sense, but there’s a lot about old media that doesn’t make sense and that takes a long time to change. Worth remembering as you watch ad dollars trickle ever so slowly to the Web.

Still, maybe this will help the industry figure it out. Look what happened when GE’s (GE) NBC replaced its 10 pm dramas with Jay Leno. For some reason, executives at CBS (CBS) and Disney’s (DIS) ABC figured viewers who liked to watch stuff like “ER” or even “Southland” would automatically move over to their offerings.

But as Pali Capital’s Rich Greenfield (registration required) points out, citing data from MediaLife, NBC’s viewers didn’t move to other broadcasters when they didn’t like what they saw at 10 pm. They went to the cable guys:

The cable network original programming push continues to gain momentum, with the notable increase in overall cable network ratings at 10 pm so far this TV season likely leading to even more significant programming investment in the year ahead–cannot be viewed positively for broadcast networks as higher quality original cable programming will drive continued viewer fragmentation.

While originally we expected networks such as TNT (TWX) and F/X (NWSA) to be the prime beneficiaries of the Leno move on NBC as they focus on 10pm dramas similar stylistically to what NBC used to air at 10pm, we believe the impact has been quite fragmented, helping a wide array of cable networks that air original programming at 10pm (including networks owned by DIS, DISCA, SNI, VIA/B).

And here, to underscore the point quite nicely, is broadcast’s Jay Leno interviewing the cast of cable’s “Jersey Shore,” the MTV show that, for better or worse, is one of this year’s big hits:

(Quasi-apology for making this the second “Jersey Shore” clip on All Things D today. But then again, The Situation is The Situation.)

Comcast (CMCSA) will be holding a press conference shortly to walk reporters through this. But if you’re a Comcast customer who is paying for both digital cable and broadband–that’s something less than 14 15.7 million people nationwide–you should be able to check this out now, by heading to either Comcast.net or Fancast.

If things are working right, you’ll notice that Comcast has added an “xfinity TV” logo, which is the new service’s unwieldy new name. If you try to watch a show that’s included in the test, you’ll be guided through a download process that will install both a Move player and an Adobe (ADBE) AIR app, which the cable company says you’ll need to deal with only once to watch this stuff.

Once that’s done, you’ll actually watch the show via your Web browser. The login process I went through told me that I could authorize up three computers for the service.

I’ve played around briefly with the service, via a side door, and can confirm that it does indeed work. Hard to get a good grip on what the new service is offering subscribers, though, since the Fancast menu doesn’t really delineate what’s only available to subs instead of freeloaders.

But I was able to watch some of the last episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which is only available to subs who have Comcast digital cable and broadband and are paying for Time Warner’s (TWX) HBO–and it looked pretty good (as long you don’t fast-forward).

Comcast is starting its press conference now. I’ll update here if there’s anything of note:

• The cable operator says that once you’ve logged in, you’ll be getting a “personalized” homepage that knows what shows/movies different subscribers have access to.
• One important point: Sometime in the next year, Comcast says that simply being a Comcast subscriber will be enough to qualify you for the service, i.e., you won’t have to get your broadband from Comcast in order to watch this stuff. It’s a “dual-play” offering right now, the company, says, because that was the easiest way for it figure out the “authentication”/security element.
• Mobile device access? Nope. Maybe next year. International? Nope. But do note that you don’t actually have to be on a Comcast connection to watch the programming–as long as your computer is authorized, you can see it anywhere you can connect (in the U.S.).
• Key unanswered question: When will Nielsen (or someone else) figure out how to treat online views in the same way that it counts “regular” ratings–and convince advertisers to do the same? Because until that happens, you’re unlikely to see a whole lot of authorized TV on the Web, period.

And here’s the release (warning: Not much info here):

COMCAST MAKES ON DEMAND ONLINE VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE AVAILABLE NATIONALLY

Comcast Brings Top Cable Television, Movie and Independent Programming to Customers At Home and On-the-Go for No Additional Cost

Philadelphia, PA, December 15, 2009 — Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA, CMCSK), one of the nation’s leading providers of entertainment, information and communication products and services, announced today that it has made its On Demand Online experience available nationally in beta at no additional cost to customers. The innovative new service now called Fancast XFINITY TV, gives customers an “anytime anywhere” entertainment experience–at home and on-the-go–and expands the video content customers can watch online by giving them quick and easy access to thousands of hours of cable TV shows, movies and independently produced content.

“Fancast XFINITY TV is a win for consumers and content producers. We’re giving customers access to content they love in new ways and opening up new opportunities for established and independent producers to make their content available on-demand” said Matt Bond, Executive Vice President of Content Acquisition. “This new service brings consumers many movies and TV shows that have never been available online before.”

Both Comcast customers and non-Comcast customers across the nation currently have access to over 12,000 hours of great online content through Fancast.com–the company’s online TV site and a top TV destination on the web–for free. Now, as a benefit of their cable subscription, Comcast customers will enjoy even more access to thousands of titles from the cable channels in their subscription packages at no additional cost through Fancast XFINITY TV.

“This is a beta product only, but the consumer feedback has been great so far. We look forward to more feedback as we make it available to even more customers” said Amy Banse, President of Comcast Interactive Media. “We think Fancast XFINITY TV gets us one step closer to our multiplatform goal and is just the beginning of delivering an entirely new TV viewing experience.”

Beginning today, any Comcast customer with a digital cable and Internet subscription can visit www.comcast.net or www.fancast.com, sign-in with their Comcast email user name and password and watch their favorite subscription content at no charge.

To hear that AT&T (T) ranked dead last in customer satisfaction in high-profile markets like New York and San Francisco isn’t all that surprising. New Yorkers often carp about dropped AT&T calls, and complaints about lousy service in the Bay Area are legion.

But to find that the carrier placed last in 17 other cities as well suggests that AT&T’s shortcomings are more widespread than the carrier would have us believe and not simply the product of a high concentration of iPhones in the country’s larger cities.

As Pali analyst Walter Piecyk wrote in an investor note this morning, “We believe it has been an elitist investor view that only a few high profile AT&T markets are having problems on the theory that only ‘tech savvy’ residents of coastal cities would find enough use in the iPhone to impact the quality of AT&T’s network.”

It certainly would appear that way. With low marks for several key indicators of customer satisfaction–including service availability, circuit capacity, dropped-call frequency and voice service–across 73 percent of the markets Consumer Reports surveyed, it’s pretty clear that AT&T has become overextended by the popularity of the iPhone. Which is bad news for the carrier and, of course, for iPhone owners as well.

As Consumer reports notes, “Apple’s iPhones are the top smart phones in our Ratings–actually, among the best of all phones we tested, period–but their exclusive carrier, AT&T, was middling at best in satisfaction….If you’re readying to buy Apple’s phone, prepare for possible disappointment with its service and expect to love the phone anyway. Despite the network problems, a staggering 98 percent of iPhone users in our cell-phone-buying survey were satisfied enough to say they would definitely or probably buy the phone again. Only 79 percent of respondents who bought other cell phones said the same.”

Verizon (VZ), which has been mercilessly slamming AT&T’s service in a recent ad campaign, is going to have a field day with this. And somehow, I don’t think a hurriedly cobbled together Luke Wilson ad will undo the damage.

UPDATE: Reached for comment, AT&T had this to say about Consumer Reports’ findings, which, the company stressed, were based on anecdotal feedback from a self-selected group of subscribers: “We appreciate and value all customer feedback. We learn from it and it helps us serve our customers better. Without question the surest indication of customer satisfaction is churn, or turnover. For the last quarter, our postpaid churn was just 1.17 percent.”

But what do Oprah’s plans mean for the TV business? Not that much, argues JP Morgan (JPM) analyst Michael Meltz. Short version of his note published this morning: It’s not bad for OWN, the cable network Oprah co-owns with Discovery (DISCA). But it’s also not terrible for CBS (CBS) and Disney’s (DIS) ABC, the two broadcasters currently in the “Oprah” business.

That’s because while the move makes for unpleasant “optics”–bizspeak for “looks bad”–for broadcast, it turns out that Oprah didn’t make that much money for the business. (But plenty for herself, obviously.)

Medium-sized version of Meltz’s argument:

• The show made $50 million a year for CBS, which syndicated the program. CBS would rather have that money than not, but losing it will amount to a “rounding error” in 2012.
• The show was a big ratings hit for local TV stations, but they paid a lot for it–upward of $200,000 a week in big markets. That made it a loss-leader for most broadcasters, Meltz says.
• And yes, the show provided a big lead-in audience to local TV news broadcasts, particularly in top ABC markets. But given that it’s not going to end up on a rival broadcast channel, “it is conceivable that station audience/ad share won’t change much for the day-part.”

Okay. Back to the crying and teeth-gnashing.

Which is saying something. Because as you might recall, in 1999, Nasdaq was soaring on the back of the dot-com bubble to levels never before seen.

And here we are amid the worst recession since the 1930s. Haven’t even entered that “all important holiday shopping season” yet, either.

Things are looking pretty good for Amazon (AMZN) right now. Sure, there’s renewed competition from retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT). There are potential sales tax issues and income tax liabilities and a raft of Kindle-killers headed to market. But Amazon’s stock is up 131 percent this year, brokerage firms are upgrading their ratings on the company, and analysts are saying it’s only going to go higher.

Said Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney: “Near-term outlook very positive as AMZN heads into holiday season fully armed against shrinking/de-stocking offline retailers, with one of the must-have gadgets of the season (Kindle), a significantly strengthening International presence, and soon-to-be closed Zappos acquisition.”

Yeah. Things are looking pretty good right now. But we said that back in ’99 too–when Amazon had a similar P/E.

One of the Web’s little secrets is that when consumers write online reviews, they tend to leave positive ratings: The average grade for things online is about 4.3 stars out of five.

People like Jonas Luster aim to introduce a little negativity. A private chef, Mr. Luster recently beckoned fellow San Francisco area diners to “quit with the nicey-nicey” in a blog post titled “In Defense of Negative Reviews.” His own average rating on restaurant-review sites is 3.6. He even awarded celebrity chef Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse restaurant a 1-star rating after he felt he had been served an overdone duck.

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Seeing an untapped opportunity in the growing number of legal California dispensaries and limited advertising outlets, app developer NexStudios launched iPot, an application for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone that lists nearby stores.

“This industry is the wild, wild West of establishments,” said Chris Seta, a NexStudios co-founder and one of iPot’s lead developers. “Dispensaries are opening daily, and there’s very little way to find them.”

The free version of the app provides basic location information for nearby stores, while the $2 upgrade adds reviews and ratings and does away with advertising. The two apps have been downloaded nearly 100,000 times since their July launch, with about 80 percent opting for the free one.

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Suddenly, it seems the AMC original series, “Mad Men,” is having its “Sopranos” moment–with its stars all over the media, its fans more obsessive than ever and its ratings doubled in the third season.

And, just today, the potboiler television show about a 1960s advertising agency in New York was renewed for a fourth season by AMC, which is owned by Cablevision Systems (CVC).

So, of course, there are also spoofs galore online too, some pretty elaborate, such as this one with a gender switcheroo.

Fascinatingly, it still works.

Here’s the video: