‘Party Down’ Fans Prompt Starz To Put Episodes Online Pronto

By R.Thomas Umstead and Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 8/23/2010 12:01:00 AM

Starz believes it has figured out a way to turn a public-relations near-nightmare into a revenue opportunity.

Starz caught some flak from TV-oriented blogs last month for removing critically acclaimed but low-rated comedy series Party Down off the Starz On Demand menu — as well as from Internet video streaming service Netflix — just days after the series’ June 30 cancellation.

TV site Clicker speculated the move was made to “increase sales of the DVD sets,” to which Starz responded that the VOD disappearance was unrelated to the cancellation. The network regularly cycles shows on and off the VOD lineup.

Recognizing an opportunity to reach Party Down’s loyal digital fan base, the network is offering the series’ first two seasons on an electronic sell-through basis beginning this week (Aug. 25) — just two months after the last episode aired on Starz and one month before the series’ second-season DVD release, according to Starz Media senior vice president of digital media, business development and strategy Marc DeBevoise.

Starz will offer both seasons of the series through such online video distributors as Amazon, Xbox Live, Playstation 3, iTunes and Sonic/CinemaNow.

“It’s the first time we’re doing something this quick right after a series finale on a broader platform,” DeBevoise said, adding that drama series Spartacus will have a nearly fivemonth lag time between its last Starz episode and its online and DVD sales period.

“We think those platforms are the right audiences for this program. It had limited audience on our network but high buzz in the critical community as well as with younger viewers,” DeBevoise said.

Ham (Radio) Still On SCTE’s Menu

How do you separate run-of-the-mill cable techies from the über-geeks?

Two words: ham radio.

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers is keeping the flame alive for the 1960s-era hobby. Earlier this year, the association formed an informal amateur-radio club — the brainchild of president and CEO Mark Dzuban, a longtime ham radio fan — and SCTE is hosting the Ham Radio Operators Reception as one of the last events to close out Cable-Tec Expo 2010 in New Orleans on Friday, Oct. 22.

The retro reveling isn’t just reminiscing, according to SCTE.

“There’s a little bit of celebrating history, as any organization would do,” Steve Oksala, SCTE’s vice president of standards, said. “But one of the things we’re doing with the club and other things is saying, ‘Hey, RF [radio frequency] is important.’ Because if you understand how it works, you’re more likely to be able to get a handle on it.”

Club secretary Oksala (call sign: NI3P) had been the only licensed ham radio operator on SCTE’s staff until Dzuban (call sign: K4MHZ) came on board in January 2009.

“If you really look at the history of the cable industry, most of those guys started in broadcast,” Oksala explained. “They naturally tended to be electronics techs or engineers, and so they tended to be involved in ham radio.”

Oksala was licensed as a ham radio operator in 1959. “There weren’t many things for a techsavvy person to do in those days,” he said.

C-SPAN BOSSES CUT CAKE

Celebrating C-SPAN now being in 100 million TV homes, employees in Washington, D.C., and Indiana (home to C-SPAN’s archives) gathered to celebrate the milestone on Aug. 17.

The cable industry launched C-SPAN in 1979 in 3.5 million cable homes.

The party, attended by C-SPAN chairman and CEO Brian Lamb, president Rob Kennedy and co-president Susan Swain, featured four cakes (chocolate, carrot and two white icing) as well as two chocolate Capitol domes, one made from milk chocolate and the other from dark chocolate.

Decorations included a Monopoly board with houses representing the network’s 100 million homes.