This Just In
By Staff -- Multichannel News, 8/12/2007 6:00:00 PM MT
DirecTV, TWC Settle False Advertising Suit
New York — DirecTV has settled a false-advertising lawsuit that Time Warner Cable had filed against it, but the nation’s largest satellite provider still has its own false-ad suit pending against Comcast.
Last week, just hours after an appellate court ruled regarding their dispute, DirecTV and TWC revealed that they had already settled the lawsuit that the cable operator had filed last December.
Both sides said terms were confidential, so it wasn’t even disclosed when the settlement was actually reached.
The cable operator had filed a false-advertising suit against DirecTV last December over two HDTV commercials, one featuring William Shatner and the other with Jessica Simpson, as well as Internet ads the satellite provider was running. The TV commercials proclaimed, “For an HD picture that can’t be beat, get DirecTV.”
In February, U.S. District Court Judge Laura Swain in the Southern District of New York had issued a preliminary injunction that stopped DirecTV from airing spots, and barring several Internet ads.
Last Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled that some of DirecTV’s TV HD commercials should remain barred from the air, but that the satellite provider’s Internet ads should remain in place.
In a 29-page opinion, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Swain’s temporary injunction banning DirecTV from airing the two TV spots that Time Warner deemed false and objectionable.
But DirecTV’s legal entanglements over HDTV ads aren’t over. In May, DirecTV filed a false-advertising suit over print ads Comcast ran, which cited a survey that said satellite customers thought Comcast had a better HDTV picture than satellite.
Comcast defends its survey and denies DirecTV’s charges, and that case is still pending in Chicago. Comcast filed a counterclaim to DirecTV’s amended complaint Thursday, denying that its Comcast Media Center participated in the creation of what the satellite claims was an “inadequate” survey.
HBO Won’t Change Main High-Def Feeds
New York — Cable operators breathed a sigh of relief last week, as HBO made it clear that the premium network’s four primary high-definition feeds will continue to be available in MPEG-2 format.
Some cable engineers were caught off guard when HBO in June said it would deliver all 26 of its channels in HD by mid-2008 — and that it would use MPEG-4 to deliver them.
The move to all-MPEG-4 would have required many operators to install new transcoding equipment in headends to deliver HBO’s HD channels to their subscribers. MPEG-4 is more efficient than the older MPEG-2 format, using about half the bandwidth. But virtually all existing digital-cable set-tops support MPEG-2.
Dressler, Hirschhorn 'Retire’ to Startup
New York — Former Time Warner Cable programming guru Fred Dressler and ex-G4 head Charles Hirschhorn are retiring … sort of.
The two veteran programming executives are now working for upstart, baby boomer-targeted network Retirement Living TV. Dressler, the longtime Time Warner Cable executive vice president of programming, is a “partner” in the 28 million-subscriber network — the brainchild of Erickson Retirement Communities CEO John Erickson — and will spearhead its distribution efforts, according to Hirschhorn.
Launched last September, the network is carried on DirecTV and has part-time carriage on several Comcast systems. Hirschhorn, founder of the video game-oriented G4 network and currently chief creative officer for Retirement Living TV, said the network differs from other networks like TV Land that target adults over 55 through its development of high-profile programming featuring familiar personalities such as TV actress Florence Henderson and veteran broadcaster John Palmer.
Shows currently on the network include Daily Café, a live two-hour afternoon news/information show; Retired and Wired, which deciphers what’s new in technology for seniors; and Living Live!, a live-entertainment talk show.
“As opposed to licensing sitcoms and dramas, we’re looking to produce original programming,” he said. “We’re focusing on finance, health and wellness, politics — very topical information programming.”
With population growth in the U.S. within the 55-plus demographic second only to Hispanics, and with $1.7 trillion in spending power, Hirschhorn said operators are very interested in reaching this audience through Retirement TV, although he would not provide specifics on future distribution deals.
But unlike most other new networks, Hirschhorn said new-media applications such as video-on-demand, mobile and broadband video services aren’t as vital to Retirement Living TV as they are to younger-skewing networks.
“While they’re the dominant television viewer, they lag technology by about five years,” he said. “We don’t have an aversion to new media, but we can have patience that other services probably can’t.” —R. Thomas Umstead
