April 28, 2008

Wireless Mobilizes Verizon's Quarter

Texting and browsing are up, so are Verizon's profits; WB reanimated; more Miley mania.

By Steve Goldstein

News Briefing for Monday, April 28, 2008

Please sign Cable360's online petition to promote the addition of the first Matt Helm movie, The Silencers, to the National Film Registry. Good day.

Verizon said text messaging and wireless Web browsing helped drive a 9.8% increase in profits in the first quarter compared to the same period a year earlier, Bloomberg reports. The company’s wireless unit added 1.5 million subscribers in the quarter; average revenue per wireless subscriber was $51.40, beating at least one analyst’s projection. The strong wireless numbers should calm Wall Street investors’ jitters over Verizon’s $23 billion build-out of the FiOS TV network. [Bloomberg]

The WB vanished from airwaves in 2006 after its merger with UPN and transformation into the CW, but Warner Brothers, reacting to the revenue potential of ad-supported Web streaming of library content, is reanimating it as an online destination that will stream old, canceled series, the New York Times reports. Warner Brothers is following a trend of ad-supported streaming of old TV episodes begun by Hulu, Veoh and Joost, and continued by TVLand.com. The creative people behind the old shows being streamed are in for a piece of the action as stipulated by the recent pact writers signed with producers. [New York Times]

Briefly Noted
A photograph of Miley Cyrus, star of Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana, in which she appears topless but draped in a sheet in the current issue of Vanity Fair could slow down the HM moneymaking machine for Disney. It may also advance the post-Disney career of the 15-year-old Cyrus, who was photographed by Vanity Fair’s Annie Liebovitz. [New York Times]

WWE has somehow managed to shake off the taint of the murder-suicide rampage of one of its stars, Christopher Benoit, and been able to draw the close attention of the three presidential candidates. [New York Times]

Apple’s iTunes may capture one-quarter of worldwide music sales by 2012. [Wired]

Cox Communications’ competitor in Iowa, Qwest, is deploying a fiber-optic network in parts of the Omaha market. [SWIowaNews]

As of Friday, Cablevision reportedly was the most likely buyer of the Sundance Channel. [New York Times]

Late Stories
A slightly biased piece from The Wall St Journal chronicles what it calls cable's negative ads that attack DBS and the telcos. As if those carriers don't run negative ads? [WSJ]

In television, nothing succeeds like success. So the author of the book that HBO based its John Adams epic on will get even more credit when the Box runs Painting With Words (May 28, 7pm), a doc about one-time Yale art student David McCullough, who turned out to be a pretty good historian. The original from HBO also will be included as a bonus feature when HBO Video releases the miniseries on DVD, June 10.

ESPN and Grande Communications inked a deal to add ESPN Deportes to Grande's digital basic lineup in Austin, Corpus Christi, suburban northwest Dallas, Midland, Odessa, San Antonio and San Marcos, Texas, beginning tomorrow. The announcement is less impactful since Grande refuses to disclose its sub count.

Chris Eames joined ESPN as VP, multimedia sales. The 15-year Turner Broadcasting vet will open ESPN's Atlanta-based sales office, handling national advertising sales across the spectrum of ESPN media assets for Southeast-based clients and agencies. 

BlueHighways TV signed a carriage agreement with Verizon FiOS TV for linear carriage. FiOS subs will be able to get BlueHighways later this year. BHTV's VOD service has been offered in Verizon homes since December '07. Prior to its deal with Verizon, BlueHighways had 250K linear subs and some 5.5mln VOD households. 

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

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