May 7, 2008

Sprint, Clearwire, Cable Ops Embark on High-Speed Wireless Venture

Stage set for wireless battle with telcos, Cablevision closes deal for Sundance Channel and more news.

By Steve Goldstein

News Briefing for Wednesday, May 7, 2008

A consortium including Sprint Nextel, Google, Intel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Clearwire announced a plan to build a national wireless network that will deliver video and advertising—as well as provide voice and mobile Web access—with the speed of digital cable signals. The consortium’s competitors: Verizon and AT&T. [New York Times | Bloomberg | Reuters | WSJ]

Cablevision completed a deal for ownership of Sundance Channel, the Wall Street Journal reports. [WSJ]

DirecTV added 275,000 net subscribers in the first quarter, giving it a 5.2% overall boost in subscribers compared to the same period a year earlier, the Wall Street Journal reports. [WSJ]

The P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities being developed by Comcast and Pando Networks is merely the starting point for a P2P initiative led by the Distributed Computing Industry Association, Cable Digital News Reports. [Cable Digital News]

Comcast is considering the adoption of monthly bandwidth caps for its Internet-access customers, according to Ars Technica. Customers who exceed the caps would have to pay steep fees. [Ars Technica]

The Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have broken off contract negotiations, the main bone of contention being actors’ compensation for work distributed via non-television electronic media, the New York Times reports. [New York Times]

Late Stories
Gospel Music Channel says it has been launched on a pair of Time Warner Cable systems in Texas: Time Warner Cable Corpus Christi and Time Warner Cable Flower Mound. GMC is in 40 million+ homes on cable and DirecTV.
 
Rainbow Media named our friend Georgia Juvelis VP of Corporate Comm, where in addition to corporate comm she'll oversee business and trade media for Rainbow and its nets. One of cable's nicest, Georgia has been with Discovery and Gemstar-TV Guide, among other companies. 

There is room at the Inn. NBCU is staging a national campaign for season 3 of Oxygen's Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. (premieres June 17, 10pm). Among the prizes from the month-long campaign that begins May 19 is an island getaway and a  barbecue hosted by b&b owners and actors Tori Spelling and hubbie Dean McDermott. 

Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch caught a 2.45 HH rating Tues, netting 3.45 million viewers and a 2.25 rating in P25-54. Deadliest was the #1 prime time non-sports cable show for the evening in ratings of P25-54, M25-54 and M18-49. CNN's Election Center was tied with Deadliest for #1 non-sports show that night.

BabyFirstTV signed a carriage agreement with Time Warner Cable, adding to pacts with Comcast and Charter. It also has signed with Dish, DirecTV and AT&T.

Congratulations to the winners—and to all the finalists—of the 2008 CableFAXIES Awards. And a special thank you to featured speaker and presenter Dan Rather of HDNet, who added inspired grace notes to yesterday’s CableFAXIES luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

What are the best companies to work for in the cable industry? Help CableFAX: The Magazine decide by nominating the companies you think should be on our list of the Top 10 Places to Work in Cable by completing our online nomination form.  We will run the Top 10 Places to Work as a Web exclusive on Cable360.net and on CableFAX: The Magazine's home page.

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