Bear Sterns has been busy in the last few weeks trying to bail themselves out of the subprime mortgage / hedge fund mess they got themselves into (who would’ve thought that taking 10:1 leverage to invest in loans made to people at artifically low short-term interest rates, who couldn’t pay them back if rates merely went back up to what the long-term rate would predict, might be a bad idea?), but over on the research side a very interesting new report came out that’s built on a bit stronger of a foundation - taking a longer look at the long tail.

It’s worth reading – they’ve got some pretty interesting opinions and insights into the long tail, and a lot of fascinating numbers around TV usage, AA ratings of top TV shows relative to number of channels available, the long-term fall of the Big 3 networks, and many others.

Their survey also has some juicy tidbits – for example, an online video survey found that for “all respondents” user generated content (UGC) lagged movie trailers in terms of popularity, but came out just ahead of music videos and news… but if you look at only males 18-34 (any advertisers interested in them?), UGC blows everything else out of the water.