June 6, 2008

Time Warner, NBCU Duel for Weather

CNN-Weather Channel partnership entices, Graff promoted, change in management of DCAS project and more news.

By Steve Goldstein

News Briefing for Friday, June 6, 2008

Estranged Cable360 tipster Brain Clark told media outlets that “the decision to reunite with him was Cable360’s alone to make.” Happy Friday.

Time Warner is taking care to bid cautiously for The Weather Channel, the Wall Street Journal reports. Time Warner CFO John Martin suggested during a Merrill Lynch-sponsored media conference yesterday that Weather would make a good companion piece for CNN, but that Time Warner was committed to not overpaying. NBC Universal is the leading rival bidder for Weather. [Wall Street Journal]

Architectural development of cable’s downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) project is now in Motorola, Cisco and NDS Group’s hands, Cable Digital News reports. Previously the MSO joint venture PolyCipher was heading up the project. [Cable Digital News]

Despite the shift of TV advertisers’ money to the upfront marketplace and away from scatter, overall upfront sales for the broadcast networks “may be flat or shrink this year as ratings continue to tumble and advertisers move some of their budgets to cable, where viewership has grown,” the Wall Street Journal says. [Wall Street Journal]

FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein tells Ars Technica in a Q&A that the commission  is “seeing a lack of competition in the broadband space and that's why we need to encourage wireless.” [Ars Technica]

The broadband technology to watch is DOCSIS 3.0, not fiber optic to the home, according to the Dittberner report “Fixed Broadband Subscriber Survey: 1Q08.”

Live TV commercials continue on the comeback trail. [New York Times]

The next generation of the iPhone that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil this Monday may be targeted, in part, at BlackBerry users, Bloomberg reports. [Bloomberg]

If Google can’t figure out a way to make money from YouTube, why are you expected to profit off your online video investments? [E-consultancy]

LATE STORIES
A hearty congratulations to our friend Toby Graff, whose excellent public affairs work has garnered her a promotion to SVP, Public Affairs and Corp Comm, at Lifetime. The promotion means Graff now will also add oversight of the corporate communications department, including trade and business press. Although we know Toby doesn't work against “drive-through” mastectomies and other causes for the accolades, it's nice to see her rewarded for her hard work.  

Thursday's Top Stories

Visit Cable360 to respond to the poll question: Which political party are cable operators, satellite distributors and telcos more likely to contribute to in the general election for the presidency?

Got a tip? Contact sgoldstein@accessintel.com and sarenstein@accessintel.com.