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April 12, 2007
360AM: Cox Takes On Time Warner Cable in CA
Cox uses California's new statewide law to apply for franchise in Time Warner Cable SoCal market; and other Thursday news.
By Shirley Brady
360AM — Morning news briefing for Thursday, Apr. 12 (Updated: 8pm ET)
Cox Communications is the first cable operator to take advantage of California's new law (enacted by the state's Public Utilities Commission on Mar. 1) easing cable TV providers' franchising approvals. While the PUC ruling was intended to make life easier for telcos to get approval in local markets, Cox yesterday filed for a statewide video franchise application with the goal of immediately expanding its footprint in four areas of San Diego County—including one market, Scripps Ranch, already serviced by Time Warner Cable. Telecom analyst Jeff Kagan expects more cable operators to compete headend-to-headend as telcos' national footprint increases. Cox expects the PUC's decision by May 25. [San Diego Union Tribune]
Comcast's new acquisition of Fandango and upcoming Fancast entertainment portal with ticketing will face competition from Google's latest service: Google 411, a free national voice-recognition based telephone search engine. Users can dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and say their city/state plus "movies" and a zipcode to connect with local movie theaters. (We'll forgive it for mispronouncing NYC's Houston Street...) Today's Wall Street Journal has more.
Charter Communications signed a retransmission consent agreement with Sinclair Broadcasting. The three-year deal—which includes HD programming and expires Mar. 31, 2010—covers 28 TV stations in 19 markets and approx. 1.9 million Charter customers. [Release] The orderly deal follows the stand-off between Sinclair and Mediacom earlier this year, and even Sinclair's testy renewal with Comcast.
The 2007 Cable Hall of Fame was announced by the Cable Center: Glenn Britt, chairman and CEO, Time Warner Cable; Jim Chiddix, chairman of Vyyo who was formerly CEO of OpenTV and CTO of Time Warner Cable; Doug Dittrick, president and CEO of Douglas Communications; Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney-ABC Television Group; Bob Wright, chairman of NBC Universal; and Barbara York, SVP, industry affairs, National Cable & Telecommunications Association. They will be inducted at a ceremony at the Cable Center on Oct. 11.
Nielsen will release national ratings for out of home viewing at bars, restaurants, gyms, offices and beyond starting in Sept. [NYT]
• PROGRAMMING
In the wake of Don Imus race furor, MSNBC announced last night its axing its 11-year simulcast of Imus in the Morning; CBS followed suit this afternoon. More details here.
BET continues its flood of new programming announcements with College Hill: Interns, a spin-off of its hit reality series. [Release]
Big Ten Network preps for August launch. [AP]
Bravo's Project Runway "headmaster" Tim Gunn profiled in the NYT.
Cablevision is offering 25 regular season Mets games in Spanish to its iO en español customers. Games will be broadcast live with Juan Alicea and Maximo Jimenez calling the action.
Cartoon Network will run UK animated sketch series Mr. Men in the U.S. starting Jan. 2008. [Release] Its Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie hits theaters tomorrow. [Atlanta Journal Constitution]
CBS will share its TV shows with Web portals including Joost, making it the first broadcaster to participate in the online video service from Skype's founders. It's also in talks to distribute its programming to the NBCU-News Corp. Web video site launching this summer. [Wall Street Journal] Update: CBS confirmed the slew of video sites it's sharing content with—AOL, Bebo, Brightcove, CNET, Comcast, Joost, MSN, Netvibes, Sling Media, Veoh plus current partners Amazon, Apple and Yahoo—meaning pretty much every portal except for YouTube and Google Video.
Comedy Central ordered Root of all Evil, a pilot from The Daily Show's Lewis Black. Similar(ish) to the cancelled Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Greg Giraldo and other comedians square off on opposite sides of topics, which are presented as "cases" in which Black, as judge, renders a verdict. [The Hollywood Reporter]
HBO and Universal Pictures renewed their output deal through 2015. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Lifetime signed Kirstie Alley to exec produce and star in Write & Wrong, an original movie about "Hollywood's youth obsession gone awry." [Release]
MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann profiled in New York magazine.
MTV's Pimp My Ride gets shout-out in CA Gov. Schwarzenegger's speech at Georgetown University conference on the environment yesterday; he's appearing in the series' upcoming Earth Day episode. [Detroit News]
MYX, a music lifestyle channel for Asian Americans, launched on DirecTV WorldDirect channel 2067. [Release]
Nick signed a mobile content deal with kajeet, a pay-as-you-go cellphone/wireless service for tweens. [Release]
Showtime's upcoming series starring David Duchovny baffles the actor, in a good way: "I really don't know what the show is about," he tells ifMagazine. "I love the character. I love the pilot ... but I don't know where it's going."
Sundance Channel's THE GREEN block, a weekly Tuesday prime-time destination that premieres Apr. 17, is offering a free download of the first episode (on alternative fuel) of original docu-series Big Ideas for a Small Planet through Apr. 17.
The America Channel signed a deal with RCN for linear carriage, VOD and localized content. [Release]
TLC's Little People, Big World is a big ratings hit: its new Monday timeslot on Apr. 9 delivered more than 4 million viewers for the season premiere. [Release]
• IN OTHER NEWS
Iowa legislators kick around a 5% satellite "equalization tax" [AP]. Georgia's Senate yesterday passed a statewide franchise bill in a 52-2 vote; it now goes back to the House for approval. [Gwinnett Daily Post, GA].
AT&T eyes Livonia as its Michigan launchpad for U-verse. [Detroit Free Press]
Chicago, Washington and Baltimore will launch WiMax by year-end. "We're not building another cellular voice network, Sprint CTO Barry West tells the Chicago Tribune. "Our killer application for this new network is mobile access to the Internet." [AP]
The NAB Show kicks off in Las Vegas this weekend; Cisco and Scientific-Atlanta got a jump with some show news today.
Vonage CEO Michael Snyder resigned in wake of court ruling favoring Verizon; chairman/founder Jeffrey Citron takes over as the VoIP service's interim CEO. [Release]
New York Times tech columnist David Pogue says "A Faster Wi-Fi World Is Coming" — but cautions that claims of "up to 300 Mbps ... [are] among the most preposterous exaggerations in all of techdom. In the real world, you can expect 50 to 100 Mbps."
Richard Branson's Virgin Media sued Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB. [Reuters]
Kaufman Bros. analyst Todd Mitchell says Comcast's switch to all-digital in Chicago and beyond is good news for set-top box manufacturers. [Seeking Alpha]
- Shirley Brady
• Click here for 360AM news briefing for Wednesday, Apr. 11 >>
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