This Just In
By Staff -- Multichannel News, 8/26/2007 8:00:00 PM
Items:
NCTA Opens Window To Switched Channels
League’s NBA TV Likely To Land in Turner Camp
Nielsen Hispanic TV Index Ends On an Upbeat Note
Disney’s 'Tigger & Pooh’ Goes Daily In September
BBCA Streams 'Hollyoaks,’ Targeting Teens Online
Travel Channel Plans HD Outlet in Early ’08
NCTA Opens Window To Switched Channels
New York — The National Cable & Telecommunications Association, while maintaining that the industry’s OpenCable Platform technology is the “optimal path” for accessing two-way cable services, has offered to develop a small “tuning resolver” to allow consumer-electronics devices to receive switched linear channels, the group said in a filing Friday with the Federal Communications Commission.
The NCTA said cable has worked with individual consumer-electronics makers — it cited TiVo — to develop a solution that can provide two-way switched digital video channels to unidirectional digital cable products. This tuning resolver option requires a firmware update and a Universal Serial Bus 2.0 device.
The tuning resolver, the NCTA said, is “for CE manufacturers who believe that all [unidirectional digital cable products] need for success as a 'good’ product is the ability to receive 'switched’ linear cable channels.”
As a third option, the NCTA suggested a standard be developed for interactive services that would work across all multichannel video providers — not just cable, but also on satellite and phone companies’ networks.
The Consumer Electronics Association has already rejected the OpenCable option as unduly expensive and cumbersome to develop into products. Instead, the CEA wants cable to provide a way for devices to support “basic” interactive services, including video on demand, switched digital, electronic programming guides and pay per view, in the way that low-end digital cable set-top boxes do today.
In its comments to the FCC Friday, the NCTA opposed the CEA’s proposal, saying it would “strip away the most exciting interactive services and features that distinguish cable from its competitors.”
League’s NBA TV Likely To Land in Turner Camp
New York — The National Basketball Association is looking to pass its NBA TV basic cable network to one of its cable affiliates — with Turner Sports the most likely recipient to run the 12-million-subscriber service.
People close to the negotiations say the NBA will turn over the operations of the 24-hour league service to Turner in an effort to drive subscriptions for the network, which offers live NBA games, as well as vintage league content.
Neither Turner nor the NBA officials would comment on the matter. ESPN is also said to be in the running for the service, but ESPN executives would not comment on any potential interest in the network.
Speculation about a network turnover began Aug. 20, when Bloomberg News reported the league offered buyouts to NBA TV staff in preparation for an “unidentified media company” to assume operations.
The eight-year-old channel is mostly distributed on digital-cable sports tiers. An affiliation with Time Warner-owned Turner or Walt Disney-owned ESPN — both with new five-year NBA deals worth a combined $7.4 billion including rights to show games on air and via broadband — could provide some carriage leverage for the network.
“I think it’s a concession that with only 12 million subscribers, [the NBA] can’t support that big of a production,” sports TV analyst John Mansell said.
Nielsen Hispanic TV Index Ends On an Upbeat Note
New York — Nielsen’s Hispanic Television Index is no more. The standalone ratings index, from Nielsen Media Research, began in 1992 with only two clients: Telemundo and Univision. NHTI officially ended on Aug. 26, measuring six Spanish-language broadcasters and six Hispanic cable networks.
The total size of the Hispanic television universe has grown to 11.6 million households from 6.25 million households in 1992, according to Nielsen, which said more than two years ago it was doing away with the separate subset.
Hispanic television viewing will now be measured as part of the National People Meter sample of approximately 10,000 households.
In November 1992, according to Nielsen, there were 3,157,000 primetime viewers of Spanish-language television. By November 2006 the number of live plus same day viewers of Spanish-language primetime programming on broadcast and cable was up to 6,152,000, a 95% increase in 14 years.
Disney’s 'Tigger & Pooh’ Goes Daily In September
Burbank, Calif. — Disney Channel will expand preschool series My Friends Tigger & Pooh to a daily telecast across the Playhouse Disney pre-school daytime programming block beginning Sept. 4.
The twice-weekly series, with classic Disney characters adapted from A.A. Milne’s originals, is Playhouse Disney’s most watched show with an average of 1.9 million total viewers.
The network also will premiere a new animated, short-form series dubbed Happy Monster Band Oct. 1. During the month, the characters will perform songs and preschoolers and their caregivers are encouraged to vote for their favorites at PlayhouseDisney.com beginning Oct. 12. The top five songs will be featured in a special on-air countdown on Halloween day, channel executives said.
BBCA Streams 'Hollyoaks,’ Targeting Teens Online
New York — Targeting young viewers where they live — online — BBC America will offer new U.S. premieres of U.K. teen drama Hollyoaks daily on BBCamerica.com starting with two episodes on Tuesday, Sept. 4.
BBC America started showing recent episodes of the decade-old soap on June 4, and those 65 episodes are going into late-night repeats on the channel. New (to the U.S.) episodes beyond that will premiere online daily and will be available free of charge for a week. The channel didn’t disclose how many additional episodes it has beyond the 65, or whether those shows might be shown on the cable channel.
The channel already has Hollyoaks podcasts, recaps, videos and other features at www.bbcamerica.com/content/232/index.jsp.
Travel Channel Plans HD Outlet in Early ’08
New York — Travel Channel, in one of its first moves since coming under Cox Communications’ ownership, plans to launch an HDTV simulcast network early next year, according to officials.
The network, which has 90.1 million subscribers for its standard-definition service, has just started to approach distributors about its HDTV simulcast, which will be available in the first quarter, according to Pat Younge, Travel Channel’s president and general manager. It’s expected to be called Travel Channel HD.
“It’s a very competitive time,” he said. “There are lots of other networks in the market seeking carriage, but we believe that travel is a genre that lends itself to HD. It’s a genre which can help promote HD as a product.”
In May, Cox completed a deal to take over full ownership of Travel Channel. The cable company exchanged its 25% stake in Discovery Communications for Travel Media, which owns Travel Channel and TravelChannel.com. Travel Media holds $1.3 billion in cash.
Discovery will continue to do affiliate sales for Travel Channel’s standard-definition network, Younge said. But Travel Channel will handle distribution for its HDTV service.
“We’ll be negotiating our HD carriage ourselves, because there’s clearly a conflict of interest between us and Discovery on HD carriage when there’s competition for slots,” Younge said. “They [Discovery] have other [HD] networks that they want carriage for.”
In the past, HD content from Travel Channel has been carried on Discovery Theater HD, which Younge once ran. Discovery Theater HD offers HD programming from a variety of Discovery Communications’ networks.
Cox’s deal to fully own Travel Channel closed roughly 13 weeks ago, and the network is in the process of “disaggregating itself” from Discovery and going its own way, according to Younge.
It’s critical for Travel Channel to have an HDTV offering, because there’s a consumer appetite for it, according to Younge.
“I know from HD Theater that if you’re not in the HD space, increasingly you’re not relevant to consumers,” he said. “Equally, we know that there is an appetite from manufacturers and affiliates to have Travel [Channel] as an HD service, because all of our internal research from Discovery shows us that travel was one of those Top 10 genres that people wanted in HD.”
Nearly all of the programming Travel Channel has commissioned for next year is being shot in HDTV, with many current programs already in high-definition.
For the simulcast the HDTV-shot roster will include Into Alaska With Jeff Corwin, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern and Samantha Brown’s Passport series.
Younge declined to comment on whether Travel Channel will seek a separate license fee for the HDTV simulcast, or whether the standard-definition network’s carriage deals are expiring.—Linda Moss
No related content found.
Featured Company
-
Digital Rapids
Digital Rapids is the leading provider of professional hardware and software tools, technology and expertise for bringing video to wider audiences and new viewing platforms. Continuing to set new standards in quality, productivity and versatility, our solutions span the critical ..more
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
