January 22, 2008

360AM: Comcast Delivers TiVo in Boston

A famous interface becomes a surcharge on a cable bill, wireless spectrum bidding begins Thursday, BigBand launches SVS 5.0.

By Steve Goldstein

Cable360AM — News briefing for Tuesday, Jan. 22 »

Beginning today, Comcast customers in greater Boston can get TiVo service for $2.95 per month, on top of the usual $12.95 the cable operator charges for its regular digital video recorder service. The TiVo software can be sent automatically to a set-top, but Comcast is ready to deploy technicians to homes as necessary, the Boston Globe reports. Comcast’s TiVo customers will be able to browse and select content using TiVo’s popular interface. The partnership is considered to be a big step toward integrating linear TV, on-demand and Internet content in one easy-to-use guide. [Boston Globe]

The government’s auctioning of the 700 MHz wireless spectrum begins this Thursday. Verizon, AT&T and Google are expected to show little restraint during the bidding process. In real estate terms, the value of the precious spectrum is akin to the value of the Manhattan city blocks between Fifth and Park Avenues running alongside Central Park. Winning bidders will be staking claims to portions of the exploding mobile Internet market.
    The FCC will be posting leading bids, but not the identity of the corresponding bidders, on its website, at auctions.fcc.gov. [New York Times]

BigBand Networks launched BigBand Switched Video Services 5.0, designed to enable cable operators to expand their HDTV lineups by actively switching and oversubscribing HD programming in commercial deployments.

CNN journalist Frances Lewine passed away on Saturday. Lewine, who was 86, had been a White House correspondent for the Associated Press through the administrations of six presidents; in 1965 she became AP’s first full-time female White House correspondent. She joined CNN as an assignment producer and field producer shortly after President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. [CNNPolitics | Washington Post]

A Wichita Eagle columnist samples Bravo’s reality shows and discovers that she doesn’t hate herself in the morning after watching them the night before. [Wichita Eagle]

Returning host Paige Davis will make her second debut on TLC's Trading Spaces this Saturday night, according to a Washington Post story picked up by the Evansville Courier & Press. [Evansville Courier & Press]

Writer/director John Sayles is guest programmer tonight on Turner Classic Movies. His picks to be shown tonight on the channel are Sam Fuller’s Park Row, John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Vittorio De Sica’s Two Women and Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan.

Yesterday's 360AM.

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