Award-winning news publisher, covers the business of media and tech at @thedeskdotnet | Past: @reuters, @fox40, @abc7newsbayarea | [email protected]
Sacramento, California
Joined February 2007
- Tweets224K
- Following6.7K
- Followers48.5K
- Likes48.7K
Pinned Tweet
You can also follow me on:
Bluesky: matthewkeys.net/social/blues…
LinkedIn: matthewkeys.net/social/linke…
Other ways to connect (email, Signal, etc.) matthewkeys.net/contact/
Some news from C-SPAN Land:
The political affairs network will air a data-driven midterm election debate between Scott Galloway and Ben Shapiro.
The debate took place in August; C-SPAN will air it in full on Friday in prime-time. @profgalloway @benshapiro @cspan
Morale at Scripps-owned TV stations is remarkably low, and local journalists I've spoken with say there is little to celebrate. Many feel upset, not encouraged, by these comments.
Scripps CEO Adam Symson has gone on a media blitz with favorable outlets to push cherry-picked anecdotes about how his journalism job cuts and newsroom consolidation efforts are yielding positive results. thedesk.net/2026/10/scripps-… $SSP
Nielsen has never really defined the curious "other" category but I suspect it's a mixture of non-Nielsen rated TV networks, smaller streaming apps, gaming and porn.
I've long complained that YouTube shouldn't be included alongside premium streaming networks — it commissions and produces virtually none of its content, and it doesn't allow Nielsen to measure and report what people are watching compared to premium platforms like Netflix, Prime Video and The Roku Channel.
Now that we're producing our own charts at @TheDeskDotNet, we can finally SHOW readers what this breakdown looks like...
When you evaluate traditional TV as a whole and put it against YouTube on its own, traditional TV comes out on top. Every. Single. Month. Broadcast and cable networks outperform YouTube with premium news, sports and local programming.
If it really is YouTube vs. everyone else in the industry, let's show the data accordingly. And let's tell people the truth about how Americans are interacting with their TV sets, not just repeat the talking points that Google execs want to be in the headlines.
Elon Musk just wrote a $1 billion check to Skydance — and instantly became the biggest advocate for NextGen TV in the process.
Broadcasters really want the FCC to approve a shutdown of the current transmission standard (ATSC 1.0) in favor of NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0), because the latter allows them to datacast programming guide information over traditional TV signals while relegating enhanced video feeds — and just about everything else — to broadband.
If that happens, the amount of spectrum that broadcasters will need for datacasting becomes extremely small. Even if they maintain their main network signal over broadcast, the bandwidth needed for that one video feed is way smaller than what most broadcasters currently use.
By freeing up spectrum, broadcasters can lease out what they no longer need to other companies. A venture called ONE Media Technologies was launched with this exact plan in mind. Lease it to whomever you want — GPS companies, wireless providers, or maybe a satellite-based broadband company that aspires to build its own terrestrial wireless data network to compete with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.
But that hangs on broadcasters convincing the FCC to shut down the current standard in favor of NextGen TV. Will it happen? Maybe. There are now one billion reasons for it to occur.
Elon Musk's $1 billion investment in Skydance is almost certainly a spectrum play: Skydance has CBS broadcast licenses. Broadcasters want to change the TV transmission standards so they can license out their spectrum. SpaceX needs spectrum for Starlink. thedesk.net/2026/10/elon-mus…
It was less than 2-magnitude, which Californians shrug, but East Coast infrastructure is not built for earthquakes, so it is plausible that many people felt it.
Elon Musk's $1 billion investment in Skydance is almost certainly a spectrum play: Skydance has CBS broadcast licenses. Broadcasters want to change the TV transmission standards so they can license out their spectrum. SpaceX needs spectrum for Starlink. thedesk.net/2026/10/elon-mus…
In my opinion, this is a much better representation of the data Nielsen publishes on a monthly basis — it measures YouTube (a social video platform) against premium streaming, traditional TV and "other."
This is how we will start representing the data at @TheDeskDotNet.
#BREAKING: YouTube crossed 15 percent threshold in time spent with TV during Nielsen's most-recent measurement month (August 2026), according to the intelligence firm's latest "The Gauge" report.
At 15.8 percent, this is a record for YouTube.
No one has been able to verify this and Skydance has not made the appropriate financial disclosures to federal regulators yet. But, that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
SCOOP @semafor: Elon Musk has cut a $1 billion check to David Ellison’s Skydance, sources say. $SKYD
semafor.com/article/10/22/20…
The CBS-owned station in Sacramento is expanding its "Bear Politics" initiative to include year-round reporting on state political matters, led by a team of journalists in Sacramento with reports distributed on other CBS-owned stations throughout California. thedesk.net/2026/10/cbs-sacr…
Matthew Keys retweeted
Yaxel Lendeborg said he “lost all respect” for Luka Doncic after facing him tonight because he said Doncic was “complaining the entire game.”
On his interaction with Doncic: “I told him he sucks. He can’t score on me.”
Full soundbite
Matthew Keys retweeted
The Kings are still finding their identity. This was just the first game of the season. Not gonna overreact.
Darius Acuff Jr. and Keegan Murray struggled. We knew Acuff would have games like this as a rookie. I love the fact that he was still attacking despite his bad shooting night.
Outside of LaVine's big night and Sabonis' double-double, there's a lot of work to be done.
This is going to be a process. Still 81 more games left. Monk, Cardwell, and Raynaud will recover from their injuries.
I trust Scott Perry's vision for this team.
We are mere minutes away from the first “I’ve seen enough” from @CarmichaelDave of the season.
