This Just In
By Staff -- Multichannel News, 12/17/2006 5:00:00 PM MT
Items:
Vivendi to Hang On To Its NBC Stake
Verizon’s FiOS TV Hits N.J. After Franchise Order
Cisco Purchases an IP Video-Signage Startup
Showtime Takes to Web to Push Combat-Sports Event
Playboy to Unrobe 'Naked Happy Girls’
Liberty Won’t Get FSN’s Stake in Baseball Rockies
Texas Bowl Two-Step Plays on for NFL Net
Vivendi to Hang On To Its NBC Stake
Paris — French conglomerate Vivendi S.A. has decided to hang on to its 20% stake in NBC Universal, informing NBC parent General Electric that it will not exercise its option to sell the interest.
Vivendi sold Vivendi Universal S.A., consisting of cable networks Sci Fi Channel, USA Networks and the Universal Pictures movie studio, to GE in 2004 for $14 billion, including a 20% interest in the newly formed NBC Universal. As part of that deal, Vivendi had the right to sell its 20% stake back to GE, beginning in January 2007.
In a Dec. 14 press release, Vivendi said it has modified its agreement with GE and NBC, extending its right to call for an initial public offering of NBC Universal and of GE’s right to acquire Vivendi’s interest in the programming giant. According to the release, Vivendi can demand an IPO each November from 2007 through 2016. GE has the right to call Vivendi’s interest in the unit each May from 2011 to 2017, for a minimum price of $8.3 billion. That floor price will increase each year, beginning in May 2009, based on the U.S. Consumer Price Index.
Verizon’s FiOS TV Hits N.J. After Franchise Order
Newark, N.J. — Verizon Communications said it plans to begin marketing its FiOS TV service to about 100 New Jersey municipalities.
The move follows approval last Friday by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities of the first state-issued video franchise deal for Verizon.
During the next few weeks, Verizon said it plans to begin marketing FiOS TV to towns in Bergen, Camden, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Passaic and Somerset counties. And in the next few months, it will add communities in Essex, Mercer and Union counties.
FiOS TV’s arrival in the Garden State spells more competition for incumbent cable operators, including Comcast, Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable.
Late Friday afternoon, Cablevision offered this statement: “Cablevision customers already receive New Jersey’s best digital television, fastest Internet and most valuable phone service, all delivered over a fiber-rich network that is here today and was built to ensure enormous capacity for tomorrow. Verizon plans to sell a me-too television product that offers nothing new to consumers, and all of its services are subject to the substantial hidden fees and taxes that people have come to expect from the phone company.”
Cisco Purchases an IP Video-Signage Startup
San Jose, Calif. — Cisco Systems announced an agreement to acquire privately held startup Tivella, a developer of devices designed to distribute video over Internet Protocol networks to “digital-signage displays.”
Tivella, founded in 2001, makes small IP video servers for retail in-store broadcasting, educational and corporate markets. The Half Moon Bay, Calif.-based startup has 10 employees. Cisco expects the deal to close before the end of January. Tivella’s employees and products will be merged into Cisco’s Emerging Markets Technology Group.
Showtime Takes to Web to Push Combat-Sports Event
New York — Showtime Networks will use the Internet to attract mixed martial arts competitors for its new original martial arts franchise Elite Xtreme Combat, according to Ken Hershman, general manager of sports and event programming for the pay service.
As part of its outreach to the martial-arts community, the network will allow local gyms to upload footage of its fighters on a yet-to-be-created Web site that fans can view. The best of those fighters or gyms would then participate in regional tournaments, with the winners advancing towards an appearance on one Showtime’s mixed martial arts fight cards.
“It’s basically wrapping around the MySpace strategy around the sport,” Hershman said.
EliteXC’s first event on Showtime will debut Feb. 10 from Mississippi. Hershman said that the organization — formed by Showtime and EliteXC — will target smaller markets around the country for its live events.
EliteXC and the network’s boxing franchise will fall under the newly created Showtime Sports brand.
“We’re trying to communicate that we’re not just boxing,” Hershman said, although he would not disclose whether the network will expand into other sports properties.
Playboy to Unrobe 'Naked Happy Girls’
Los Angeles — Playboy TV next month will take the wraps off Naked Happy Girls, a new 13-part series.
Bowing Jan. 13 at 9 p.m. (ET)/10 p.m (PT), the half-hour documentary show follows erotic photojournalist Andrew Einhorn as he makes his way through New York City in pursuit of real-life women and his attempts to convince them to pose nude.
The series, stemming from the coffee table book of the same name, presents an authentic view of the life of Einhorn as he navigates the demands of the art world and his personal life, and also features interviews with his subjects, according to the adult-entertainment network.
Liberty Won’t Get FSN’s Stake in Baseball Rockies
Denver — FSN Rocky Mountain has a long-term TV-rights agreement with baseball’s Colorado Rockies through which News Corp. is a part owner of the team. But Fox Sports Baseball Holdings, as News’s stake is called legally, will not transfer to Liberty Media as part of the sale of several regional sports networks, which is tied to the company’s impending acquisition of News’s 39% stake in DirecTV, said executives close to deal.
That will allow Liberty to continue its pursuit of the Atlanta Braves from Time Warner Inc, according to executives familiar with the talks. One company can’t own stakes in more than a single Major League Baseball team.
Texas Bowl Two-Step Plays on for NFL Net
New York — The beat rolled on last week for the embattled NFL Network, which has yet to come terms with Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems Corp and Charter Communications Corp. over pricing and positioning for the service.
NFL Network CEO Steve Bornstein in a letter to Time Warner Cable head Glenn Britt rejected two of the operator’s proposals for making the December 28 Texas Bowl, featuring Rutgers and Kansas State, available to its New York City-area viewers. Time Warner had offered to carry either just the Rutgers game on its basic tier or offer the network for a week on a digital tier. Bornstein said that neither offer succeeds in making the game “available to local fans at no additional cost while also exposing customers to other NFL-related programming.”
Cablevision was only interested in airing the Rutgers/Kansas State contest. At press time, Cablevision executives said they had not yet heard from the NFL Network about its stand.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jose Menendez of San Antonio last Thursday pre-filed legislation for the 80th session of the Texas legislature, a measure that would urge the state’s cable television providers and the network to “work out their differences” regarding the carriage of collegiate and professional football games. The measure, filed as HCR21, is a “miscellaneous resolution,” not a bill.
Elsewhere, DirecTV last week agreed to stop running ads claiming cable subscribers won’t be able to see games carried by NFL Network that are also broadcast locally, as well as ads asserting the direct-broadcast satellite operator’s high-definition picture quality is superior to cable’s.
The Dec. 14 agreement to stop the ads came one week after Time Warner Cable filed a false-advertising lawsuit against the DBS leader in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The stipulated injunction concerning the ads was agreed to by DirecTV and Time Warner Cable and was accepted by Judge Laura Taylor Swain. Time Warner Cable is still seeking unspecified monetary damages, including attorney and court fees.—Staff reports
Big Apple, Big Bandwidth
09/25/2009Reelz Gets NYC Berth on Time Warner Cable
02/25/2008
