The Breakfast Meeting: The Nook as \'iPad Lite,\' and Lessons From the Olympics

September 26, 2012, 8:35 am

By THE EDITORS

Roughly 217 million people watched Olympic coverage on NBC networks during the London games and eight million people downloaded NBC's mobile apps for the Olympics, according to new figures released by the network, part of a vast trove of consumer research based on viewing during the games. Watching video on tablet computers â€" no surprise â€" also surged and the most popular events on any device were women's gymnastics and the women's soccer final. The good news for the network: the popularity of the live feed during the day didn't seem to cannibalize viewers from NBC's primetime package.

Barnes & Noble tried on Tuesday to position its Nook tablet as a kind of iPad Lite with the introduction of the Nook HD, a seven-inch device that sells for $199 and the nine-inch Nook HD Plus for $269. The company also announced a video service for the Nook color devices similar to the iTunes store and includes movies and TV series from Disney, Viacom and Warner Brothers.

Jonah Lehrer, the book author and former writer for the New Yorker, told Amy Wallace that he planned to write about the considerable fallout from his plagiarism scandal. Perhaps the biggest surprise in her piece for the Los Angeles Magazine is that she was only the third reporter to reach out directly to Mr. Lehrer for comment. “Apparently Lehrer wasn't the only person guilty of laziness,” she writes.

Target, the discount retailer whose ubiquitous television commercials have helped create a hip image, is using some well-known Hollywood talent to push further into branded entertainment. A new short film called “Falling for You” features Kristen Bell and Nia Long and is directed by Phil Abraham, who was nominated for an Emmy for his work on “Mad Men.” Ms. Bell, who cut her teeth on the popular TV show “Veronica Mars,” said, “I do think that as actors we have to understand the fact that no one watches commercials any more.”

Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, the two former News Corporation employees who are at the center of the cellphone-hacking scandal, appeared to court on Wednesday in London and had their trial dates set for next September. Prosecutors said the case encompasses 600 victims.

On another front, the BBC is furiously apologizing after a correspondent let slip in a radio interview that Queen Elizabeth II was “pretty upset” over the presence of a Muslim cleric in London who preaches violent anti-British jihad. It's considered a huge breach of etiquette for reporters to reveal the queen's private opinions. “Yes, I thought I'd drop that in,” the correspondent, Frank Gardner, said during the original broadcast. “She told me.”

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