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March 12, 2008
Time Warner Cable's Spinning
Bewkes Spins, Big Idea at Big Ten, Cable's Men and Broadcast's Ladies, Innovation for Tribune and other news
By Cable AM Staff
NEWS BRIEFING FOR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2008
Jack LaLanne says he “hates” working out, but at 93 he does so every day, for 90 minutes. Good day.
The more things change…Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes reiterated that Time Warner Cable will be spun off to make Time Warner the most profitable media company, if not the largest, The Hollywood Reporter said. The NY Times didn’t mention cable in its coverage, noting that Bewkes appeared anxious at Tuesday's Bear Stearns' confab to merge or sell AOL after he acknowledged that its latest strategy of selling advertising on the Internet is not going as well as planned. [NYT] [THR]
Whose idea was the Big Ten Network? Businessman Robert Welsh claims he prepared a confidential plan 10 years ago to create a television network around The Big Ten conference. Yesterday he filed suit in U.S. District Court seeking monetary damages, including legal fees, Crains reports. [CB]
TV One acquired rights to The Hughleys and a 120-ep “best of” package of Divorce Court. These are the first cable deals for the two series, The Hollywood Reporter says. [THR]
Alessandra Stanley in The NY Times dissects TV’s reaction to the Spitzer revelations, and finds that cable’s talking heads Monday night were largely male and mostly understanding; while broadcast shows yesterday morning were female dominated and most of the ladies were outraged. [NYT]
Briefly Noted
An interesting move at Tribune Company; it’s hired Lee Abrams, 55, from XM Satellite Radio to be its first Chief Innovation Officer. He was XM’s Chief Creative Officer in charge of content and programming. From April 1, he will work with Tribune’s publishing, broadcasting and interactive units, which include the Chicago Tribune, WGN and Metromix.com. [CB]
Big Ten Network and Comcast will forge a deal shortly, allowing Comcast’s IN subs to watch Purdue and Indiana U play in the Big Ten basketball tourney Friday, indystar.com said, citing unnamed sources. [IS]
CBS Sports made a bet in 1999 that March Madness eventually would become an Internet growth engine. It was a good bet. [THR]
TiVo boss Tom Rogers told the Bearn Stearns conference that EchoStar will likely face a tough time shortly when it’s held accountable for infringing on TiVo’s DVR patents. [THR]
Got a tip? Contact sarenstein@accessintel.com and sgoldstein@accessintel.com
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