That should have been the end of the story. It wasn’t. Covering the story for a national media outlet I thought that once the Larimer County Sheriff announced Falcon was found everyone would wrap things up and go home. Instead I was surprised to find a media monster consumed by the story and even more committed to covering each and every angle.

After we found out that the Heene family staged the entire event to get a reality show deal I’m even more embarrassed to admit I was part of the media circus. Maybe I shouldn’t beat myself up. Turns out that I’m part of a long, sad history of the media falling for the latest hoax. From the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938 to the drama surrounding Jon & Kate Plus Eight today, we live in a world where bread and circuses sells. We might not have all the facts (or even know if it’s a true news story at all) but if we have stunning visuals or eye popping drama we’re going to cover it.

Everyone wants to be in the news nowadays, figuring that those 15 minutes will give them riches and fame beyond their wildest dreams. That’s why you see these sorts of desperate attempts to get famous. Rather than deal with the anonymity most of us have in our normal, cash-strapped lives, we’d like to be the next Richard Hatch, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth or Jon Gosselin. These personalities have cashed in on whatever public prominence they have gained to become a media star, however briefly.

Should we expect to see the Heene’s dream of becoming stars become a reality even as they face criminal charges for orchestrating a hoax that got the fame in the first place? Although they’re pariahs this week, there will be a cable outlet that will take a gamble on them. That’s a tragedy for the Fourth Estate.

No doubt, this won’t be the last hoax perpetrated for publicity. But if the media keeps indulging such people we might start seeing these ‘events’ almost every day; or maybe every other hour. “Balloon Boy” you’ve floated into our lives and reminded us of a powerful message traveling across our land. America has a new moniker — land of the free and home of the reality television star.

The news shocked the nation and tabloids around the country jumped on a story like sharks with blood in the water. The New York Post and the New York Daily News, NYC’s most prominent tabloids, both splashed the story across page one in their Friday editions. Chances are the scandal will not die away quickly.

In a cold-blooded business sense, this is manna from heaven for CBS. The network will benefit mightily from the publicity blitz and this in turn can help kick-start CBS’ slate of fall programs. That Letterman confessed on his show contributed to the high drama and gave viewers an incentive to watch the program at a time when Letterman is locked in a hotly contested battle with his counterpart on NBC, Conan O’Brien.

From Fatty Arbuckle to present day, sex scandals produce a huge amount of publicity and tend to take on a life of their own. If a media outlet can get in the middle of the story, they can ride the ratings boost for quite some time. Conversely, Letterman was the big loser when actor Hugh Grant confessed his sexual peccadilloes on Jay Leno’s late-night show on NBC in the mid-1990s. That bombshell helped Leno surge past Letterman, and stay in first place.

It just goes to show, any publicity is good publicity. Just ask CBS.

Leading the box office charge was Harry Potter. No real surprise there as most Potter films are at or near the top of the standings each year. The big surprise was the success of Ice Age 3 which nabbed the second place spot ahead of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Sorry Michael Bay! The cute characters in Ice Age 3 earned more than $869 million in ticket sales and became the most popular animated film ever abroad.

Angels and Demons came in fourth and in another surprise, The Hangover was the number five movie of the summer as well as being the third-biggest R-rated movie ever made. Nobody saw that coming. There were still plenty of flops. Land of the Lost, Year One, Public Enemies, Funny People and Bruno were all disappointments. However, the numbers for the last two are solid enough for the comedy genre.

Here are the top ten movies of the summer, and by comparison, what we thought would top the charts back in May:

1. Harry Potter ($925 million)
2. Ice Age 3 ($869 million)
3. Transformers 2 ($831 million)
4. Angels and Demons ($484 million)
5. The Hangover ($453 million)
6. Up ($416 million)
7. Night at the Museum 2 ($404 million)
8. Star Trek ($384 million)
9. Terminator: Salvation ($371 million)
10. Wolverine ($363 million)

Our predictions:

1. Harry Potter ($900 million)
2. Transformers 2 ($750 million)
3. Ice Age 3 ($600 million)
4. Star Trek ($500 million)
5. Night at the Museum 2 ($500 million)
6. Angels and Demons ($450 million)
7. Wolverine ($400 million)
8. Terminator: Salvation ($300 million)
9. Up ($300 million)
10. Public Enemies ($250 million)

How did we do? We correctly guessed the top film of summer and went 9 out of 10 overall, missing only on The Hangover. Who knew? Not bad for the unpredictable world of entertainment.

While Disney has traditionally been known for its wholesome family creations, the purchase of Marvel adds an edgier, more violent element. By marrying Spiderman, X-Men and the Incredible Hulk with Mickey Mouse, Wall-E and High School Musical, the combined company will be able to exploit a universe of characters across everything from t-shirts and product tie-ins to movies and theme parks.

While merging the Marvel superheroes into Disney’s fairy-tale cast of characters may seem like a storytelling leap, the entertainment giant has pulled off the feat before. Through the years, Disney has acquired properties (the Muppets, Winnie the Pooh), created shows, rides and attractions with third parties (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) and incorporated

The big winners in this merger are movie theaters and boys. At a time when original plot ideas are difficult to come by, this acquisition could mean a surplus of scripts based solely on the team-ups, battles and other crossovers between the Disney and Marvel worlds. The box office numbers speak for themselves… of the 25 highest-grossing films of all time, four are recent Marvel adaptations.

This move will also help Disney broaden its appeal to boys. Mickey Mouse and other classic Disney characters appeal strongly to young children while shows such as Hannah Montana are hit with girls.

The one fly in the ointment is that Marvel’s sale won’t affect any existing licensing details. For the moment, Disney are still blocked from capitalizing on many of Marvel’s most prominent names such as the X-Men and Fantastic Four (movie rights owned by Fox), Spiderman (movie rights owned by Sony) and Iron Man (distribution rights owned by Paramount). Once these deals expire, Disney will be sure to jump in and may well want to take over distribution as well.

The measurement firm recorded a 14.2% year-over-year increase in unique viewers to nearly 136 million. Total streams climbed 31.4% to more than 11.2 billion and average streams per viewer were up to 82.4, a 15.1% gain. Viewers spent an average of about 3.5 hours watching online video in July, a jump of 42.2% over the prior year.

The top site for watching video, according to Nielsen, was YouTube—way out in front with more than 7 billion streams and 104 million unique viewers. Hulu ranked second in number of streams, but was surpassed by Yahoo!, MSN, CNN and Fox Interactive Media properties in unique viewers.

In June 2009, comScore reported record online video viewership, at 157 million unique viewers. Again, Google sites were on top, followed by Microsoft and Fox Interactive Media.

Let’s put those numbers in perspective. This means there are Super Bowl-sized audiences for online video each and every month. Companies would kill to reach an audience of that size… and it’s out there for a lot less money than a commercial during the Super Bowl. By the way, more than 157 million viewers watched an average of 135 videos during the month of July. Talk about growth!

There are some qualifiers to these numbers. ComScore attributed massive June viewership to unusual media events that became online video phenomena, including the memorial service for Michael Jackson and the civil unrest in Iran. Such major events have been important for online video viewing in the past, with many users checking out news videos during the workday, notably the January presidential inauguration.

Even with those qualifiers it’s obvious that the computer is becoming the new TV. Sure it has a smaller screen but as computer monitors get larger and more mobile, its only a matter of time before the computer is just as important for media distribution as the TV. If you don’t start developing online video for your product, service or pleasure now, you might find yourself falling behind in the marketing race.

* Info courtesy of eMarketer and Nielsen

“It is difficult to imagine the public tolerating a return to paid content for video genres that are currently ad-funded,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the report.

There are some areas where consumers will pay online. They’ll pay for feature films, which is not surprising considering it’s a transaction-based business. You want to see a film, you enter your credit card number into iTunes or Netflix and voila… instant movie. Consumers will also pay for live sports programming with baseball on MLB.com and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) matches being two notable examples.

The most likely evolution would be that Hulu and YouTube charge a fee for premium content (movies and sports) and leave the rest of their videos (TV shows, news, humor, user-generated clips) in ad-supported formats. But given that most consumers believe the old adage, “Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?” don’t expect the change to happen that quickly.

Whether paid or free, the business of online video is booming. Audience levels and stream counts are climbing dramatically, while age range demographic of viewers is expanding. Slowly but surely, the content mix is evolving from short, home video clips to long-form content such as TV shows and feature films, according to eMarketer. That’s good news for everyone.

You’ve seen them if you’ve watched Major League Baseball, NASCAR or the National Hockey League. They’re the high-tech ads digitally inserted inside game coverage and only visible to viewers at home, not fans at the arena, raceway or ballpark. At first they were a curiosity; now they’re becoming an annoyance as more teams find ways to cram more ads into their games.

This week, the NHL discussed how to use virtual ads during the season with its national TV partners in the USA and Canada. At least four NHL clubs are working with their regional sports networks to sell virtual ads next season: the Colorado Avalanche, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and New York Rangers. Expect more to climb on board in the coming months.

Teams already have their pitch down for these intrusions. With viewers flipping channels, marketers want to stick their messages “inside the games,” rather than around them during commercials, said Tom Philand, senior vice president at Altitude Sports & Entertainment, which airs Avalanche games. Virtual ads are not only “zapper proof,” studies have shown that such a sign is more than twice as likely to be recalled as a 30-second spot.

What do fans think of this? The Rangers and MSG Networks said they got only a “handful of complaints” after placing virtual ads for Subway, New York Life and iO TV on the glass behind the goalies in several game telecasts last season. Sponsors, however, don’t completely agree. Tony Pace, Subway’s chief marketing officer, said “Some viewers thought it was so visible it detracted from their view of the game.” Really? You think so?

Personally, I found them to be yet one more distraction detracting from my enjoyment of viewing this sport, although my friends would say watching hockey on television is hardly enjoyable. As virtual signs continue to grow in importance I wonder where it will stop.

The NHL will likely lead us further into this commercialized hell. Having placed advertising on everything it can, from the arena, ice and boards to the curtain in front of which coaches and players give interviews, they’re not one leave any revenue stone unturned. It’s just a matter of time before they go the route of European teams and have ads on uniforms as well.

I don’t know about you but I’m sure this multi-sensory overload will eventually drive me away from spectator sports and into a nice, quiet, happy place free of advertising noise. Curling anyone?

“The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN,” Ric Bucher, one of the network’s NBA analysts, wrote to followers of his Twitter feed yesterday. ESPN’s Kenny Mayne followed with a great analogy: “was informed 2nd hand of Taliban-like decree against further Twitter.”

According to a memo issued by ESPN, the “first and only priority is to serve ESPN sanctioned efforts, including sports news, information and content.”

The guidelines prohibit “personal websites and blogs that contain sports content,” and talk about internal policies, a relatively standard practice for any media company. But they also aim to define when and what employees are allowed to Tweet about, including sports. ESPN’s guidelines go on to say, “If you wouldn’t say it on the air or write it in your column, don’t tweet it.”

What brought this about? Two reasons. One, it seems that the network that routinely broadcasts athletes’ Twitter updates on SportsCenter is getting concerned that its talent is getting off-message.

The other reason is one of protecting an investment. Turns out that ESPN is working on a platform that will allow it to publish its employees’ Twitter and Facebook entries simultaneously across “ESPN.com, SportsCenter.com, Page 2, ESPN Profile pages and other similar pages across our web site and mobile platforms” in the Fall. The last thing ESPN wants is indirect competition from their talent which might dilute the new content.

To show how serious they are about this the network warned, “if ESPN.com opts not to post sports related social media content created by ESPN talent, you are not permitted to report, speculate, discuss or give any opinions on sports related topics or personalities on your personal platforms.” Failure to follow the guidelines could result “in a range of consequences, including but not limited to suspension or dismissal.”

Wow! Seems heavy handed to the Media Mogul. And we wonder if it hurts their ability to be the first to ‘break’ a story. Twitter’s biggest strength is the instantaneous communication to an audience. It will be interesting to see if the media giant can wrest control of spontaneous tweets away from its employees. Stay tuned.

Then in the late 1990’s the format hit a wall. Interest waned, numbers plummeted and the quality left a lot to be desired. The first Transformers soundtrack didn’t even sell 500,000 copies. Spider-Man 2, the eleventh highest-grossing film of all time, couldn’t sell a million soundtracks. Although the audiences for those films were huge it didn’t lead to soundtrack sales.

How did such a successful genre fall so far, so fast? It’s a mystery even a gumshoe like Sam Spade would have difficulty unraveling. There is a trail of evidence however. Let’s examine the clues…

Studios
Although they had much to gain by the success of soundtracks, entertainment conglomerates always saw them as just another ancillary revenue source. When cost cutting hit the studios hard in the 1990s, it was easy to scale back on original music. The new strategy was to throw in a bunch of filler music with a single original song by a name artist. Trouble was that song was usually under the end credits and often missed by audiences. Although a cheaper way to make soundtracks, consumers didn’t respond.

Record Companies
Licensing music has become an expensive proposition over the last twenty years. Songs from popular artists like The Beatles are impossible to find due to price. Add a shrinking catalog of artists that studios could get affordable access to and suddenly there was this repetition of music on soundtracks. Do a search sometime and see how many times “All Along the Watchtower” appears on a soundtrack. Great song, but it’s worn out it’s welcome.

Consumers
One explanation might be that people don’t buy soundtracks anymore. Around the world, music sales have declined precipitously this decade. That’s partially do to iTunes and other file sharing networks. Much like in the 1950s, we’re in a time where the single is more important than the album. If the album itself is a weaker concept, it stands to reason that the soundtrack is too. Why buy the whole soundtrack when you can download the one or two songs you really want and create your own movie playlist?

Directors and Producers
The creative side of film also shares some blame. Music has become an overlooked part of a film and left to the music supervisor to figure out. Just contrast the music for Transformers with the decades biggest soundtrack hit, O’ Brother Where Art Thou? With a clear strategy and hitless bluegrass music we rarely heard, O’ Brother went on to sell 7 million copies. When directors and producers get lazy on music, the movie soundtrack is bound to suffer.

Who killed the soundtrack? It can be argued that it was a collaboration of all. Have faith music fans because all is not lost. Movies like O’ Brother, Magnolia and About a Boy provide a glimmer of hope. All were not only fantastic soundtracks but integral parts of the film. More than providing color or revealing shifts in mood, the music was part of the action onscreen, speaking through characters.

Soundtracks will survive, although it is on life support. Certain films lend themselves to excellent music like the band-focused Once or others with a strong musical vision like The Life Aquatic and Slumdog Millionaire. The key to continued cultural relevance of the soundtrack is in good original compositions. The good news is that there are a host of talented musicians out there just itching to get a chance to compose music for a soundtrack. Let’s hope the studios and record companies give them a chance.

Take his view on war. Late in President Lyndon Johnson’s term, Cronkite turned pessimistic about America’s prospects for winning the Vietnam War. And he voiced his view on a broadcast. When Johnson learned that Cronkite had taken this stance, he said that if he had lost Cronkite, he had also lost America’s support. Johnson ultimately declined to seek a second term in 1968, and the nation’s anti-war movement gained momentum.

Cronkite shaped our lives, too, like no other media figure. When President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, much of the nation heard the news from Cronkite. When he removed his glasses and showed his grief on the air, it was a sign, somehow, that the nation was headed for trouble.

And he wasn’t beyond living in the moment. When we look at the Apollo 11 landing it’s hard not to think about Cronkite’s minute by minute coverage. We shared in his joy as we saw Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon.

Can you imagine any news anchor today wielding such influence? Can anyone hope to have this kind of impact on American lives?

Cronkite loathed the kinds of TV journalists of this era who made their reputations by shouting and bickering on the air. He never raised his voice, probably because he never had to. He had the respect of his colleagues, counterparts and audience members because he focused on breaking news and speaking in plain English.

Cronkite was an enormous cultural icon as well. Archie Bunker, the fictional symbol of America’s Silent Majority, detested Cronkite on All in the Family. While right-wingers didn’t appreciate Cronkite, they, like everyone understood the nation trusted him. No wonder Cronkite earned a reputation as the most trusted person in the country.

TV news figures today seem to believe that the louder they talk and the more they argue on the air, the more respected they will be. It’s as if they learned nothing from Cronkite’s example. They lack his integrity and dignity — and don’t appear to care at all.

That’s too bad. The nation now needs the kind of calm, measured style that Cronkite took such pride in presenting to viewers.

And that’s the way it is.