Multichannel News Blogs
How Do You Say Competition?
When Cox Communications president Pat Esser referred to the “Regional Bell Operating Companies” during Cable Show 2012’s final general cession, several of us winced and wondered about his use of the hoary term. The RBOCs or Baby Bells, created three decades ago during the old AT&T divestiture, are long gone; some were reconstituted during the revistiture of the legacy te ... More
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Technology, content and policy in the evolving multi-platform ecosystem. Veteran media/telecom analyst Gary Arlen delivers competitive outlooks and insights.
Cable Show 2012: Cisco Flash Mob Features Big Green Men
Boston — It looked like Cisco Systems fellow John Chapman was opening up the 2012 Cable Show’s Imagine Park exhibit on Monday to talk about the vendor’s Videoscape platform (see Cisco Pushes Videoscape Into ‘Cloud’ Formation). But (thankfully?) he was quickly interrupted by a blaring techno mix and a dude dancing on stage behind him — who was joined eventu ... More
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Covering cable TV, broadband and Internet video technologies
Video Competition Report Circulated
The FCC circulated its long-awaited video competition report to the commissioners for their vote on Wednesday, according to several FCC sources. The report concludes, among other things, that online video has become a “thriving industry.” The “annual” report (see below) covers developments in the video program market between 2007 and 2010. The term “annual” ... More
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Multichannel News Bureau Chief John Eggerton weighs in on Washington
Butler: Aspire To Reflect Positive Images Of African-American Community
Earvin “Magic” Johnson’s new cable network Aspire will offer African-American-themed programming that emphasizes faith, family and community, according to new Aspire general manager Paul Butler. I recently spoke to Butler about the Aspire brand and well as the network’s launch plans in a wide-ranging interview that appears below. TU: How would you describe the Aspire b ... More
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Tom Umstead focuses on TV programming in his column.
Your 2012 Cable Show Jargon Descrambler
It’s Cable Show week in Boston, and technology is once again driving what’s been a pretty massive slate of improvements and launches, just since we all got together last year in Chicago. Expect jargon; use this handy descrambler for bearings. In no particular order: “BYOD” means “Bring Your Own Device.” It’s long been a lament of IT people, what wit ... More
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Stumped by tech gibberish? Veteran technology analyst Leslie Ellis translates the latest in broadband gadgetry, services, bandwidth, and gear.
Analyzing the TBS-MLB Network Postseason Telecast Trade
In sports and other endeavors, it takes time to evaluate trades. At first blush, though, Major League Baseball’s move to put the two new Wild Card games on TBS in 2012 and 2013, with its in-house service picking up a pair of Division Series contests during both of those postseasons, is a win-win for all the players, if not all hardball fans. Under MLB’s first playoff change since 199 ... More
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OVD Stakeholders in OTT-Land: Internet, Mobile and Online Video Magic
Four decades ago, when broadcasters began to really have to deal seriously with cable operators as rival forms of video distributors, most observers felt the promise (or threat) of cable change was pretty obvious. Jump forward about a decade, and the threat or change that was represented by Direct Broadcast Satellites (DBS), was in a similar category: most who knew the industry suspected it made a ... More
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Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman and CSO of The Carmel Group, writes about the convergence of pay television and other industry developments.
HBO's Game of Thrones: Swordfights! Sex! Fratricide! It's GREAT!
The ten-episode second season of HBO’s epic medieval fantasy, Game of Thrones, set in the fictional kingdoms of Westeros, returns this Sunday at 9p. While the first season was stunning, the series was somewhat hobbled by exposition. The tale is exceedingly complex. #GoT follows four or five subplots and any number of royal family bloodlines. Now mostly unencumbered by expo ... More
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Mary McNamara focuses on TV programming and new media. Follow her on Twitter as @marymcnamara
TV Everywhere: An Independent View
By Chad E. Gutstein, Ovation TV I have a few friends who have “cut the cord.” And no, I haven’t told them to lose my number. I have asked them to keep their receipts, though. And at the end of the year, we’re going to add up all the money they’ve spent on video product and high-speed data, as well as all the iTunes purchases, Netflix and Hulu Plus subscriptions, ... More
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Guest Opinions from Multichannel News Readers
Gone Fishin' (for Subs)
Norwalk Islands, Conn. - In a driving rain, my kidneys are getting pounded with each slam of the 24-foot Skeeter boat on the waves as we make our way across the Long Island Sound, one of the richest saltwater fishing grounds in the United States. Bouncing alongside me is Gavin Harvey, the CEO of Sportsman Channel, who decided the salt water and fresh air would be more conducive to discussing the c ... More
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Views on Industry developments from the editor in chief of Multichannel News
Keeping the Customer Happy
Could personalized video billing help cable operators make their customers happy? That’s one of the things vendor Amdocs is looking into in relation to its sponsorship of the Cable Center Customer Care Committee (C5 for short). Lisa Modisette, a vice president in the Amdocs Consulting Division, and Jana Henthorn, senior vice president of academic and industry outreach at the nonprofit educa ... More
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Multichannel News editor Kent Gibbons covers issues impacting pay TV providers, programmers and technology suppliers in his regular column.
Honoring Bill Bresnan
Finding a way to honor a person like Bill Bresnan is not an easy thing to do. But I think The Cable Center got this one right. To anyone who knew him - and that list is a long, long, long one - Bresnan was a wildly successful businessman, mentor, sage, friend and a man with an encyclopedic knowledge of Irish humor. So coming up with another run-of-the-mill [Insert Name Here] Outstanding Achievemen ... More
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Meeting Expectations
Free Press and Public Knowledge have been hopping mad over what they view as secret meetings between FCC Chairman Julius Genachwoski’s chief of staff and industry players over network neutrality legislation that could clarifying the FCC’s regulatory authority over broadband.Free Press even took out a full-page ad in the Washington post to rip into cable and telcos, comparing them to ... More
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Just another NWP - Blogs weblog
ESPN's Fantasy Film is More Silly Than Reality
ESPN is in the middle of a series of documentaries looking at events and issues in sports that have arisen over the networks 30-year history. Most have been fascinating. A new documentary, Silly Little Game, makes its debut Tuesday and it illustrates the difficulty in illustrating fantasy sports—games played on paper by people studying statistics, arguing about trades at tables in restauran ... More
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Jon Lafayette, the longtime, perceptive TV scribe for such publications as Television Week, Cable World and Advertising Age, is back in the game, blogging for Multichannel.com on anything and everything TV related. Reach him at jon.lafayette@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter: @jlafayette.
Is DISH Network Buying TiVo?
Things are getting interesting in the rumor department, as Barrons is reporting a rumor which has DISH Network looking to buy TIVO. (http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/03/24/tivo-rallies-on-dish-bid-rumor/) Shares of TIVO shot up almost fifty cents when news of the rumor broke this morning. If the rumor is true (and I hope it is) then I applaud the move. This is something that they sho ... More
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The Consumer Satellite Industry through the eyes of WWW.SatelliteGuys.US Founder Scott Greczkowski
Goings and Goings -- Manny, A-Rod and T.O.
This has been a week of goings and goings and goings. I’m talking A-Rod, Manny and T.O. As a Mets fan, I wanted Manny Ramirez on the team. I even thought a simple contract of $25 million a year for two years and a $10 million buyout would work. If Manny wasn’t happy in New York, he gets 10 mill to go away. If the Mets weren’t happy with Manny, they cut him a 10 mill check and ... More
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Kiss the Beijing Olympics Goodbye When the 2008 Summer Olympic Games start this August in that wonderfully polluted Chinese capitol of Beijing, you can bet NBC will cover it in all its glory from the opening ceremonies to the close. I’m sure it will be breathtaking and memorable, especially if the US dominates the medal count and no one flunks the drug tests. With NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen and the Weather Channel carrying the Games (only kidding about Weather Channel, I think – the bids for the Landmark Communications property have not been revealed yet), there will be enough TV platforms covering the Games to give even the sorry sport of boxing a shot – even if it may be at 3 a.m. With all the hoopla and money to be made pimping, I mean exploiting, I mean shilling, I mean broadcasting the Games, I for one hope to avoid as much of the Olympics as possible. I don’t know, maybe, it has a tad to do with how the Chinese government dictates to its people how to live – or not. Remember, China is a one baby per family utopia. The little issue of Tibetan independence and the Chinese government’s crackdown on its people leaves me feeling uncomfortable to say the least. I know the American Revolution does not compare with Tibet’s attempt at self-governing, but will it take a monk or three igniting themselves to bring attention to what the Chinese government is doing? I know, in the eyes of the Chinese government, the Dali Lama is akin to Osama Bin Laden, and yet, even President Bush has met the Dali Lama, but he needs to go much further. He needs to avoid attending the Beijing Games just like he did the Hurricane Katrina games. Just give it time and the whole ugly mess will be forgotten – or at least he’ll be out of office. I know my job is to watch at least some of the Summer Games and maybe interview a writer or two, but it’s hard to watch an event like the Beijing Olympics when you need the roar of the crowd to drown out a cry for help from its people. U-S-A! ... U-S-A! ... U-S-A! ... just might do the trick especially if the Chinese government can fool, I mean hire, I mean use Stevie Wonder to lead the cheers.
A Rise From 'Ashes'
I’ve seen the future, and it’s set in 1981. That’s the year that modern-day policewoman Alex Drake is transported back to in the new BBC America series Ashes to Ashes. Ironically, the show’s Stateside debut on March 7 comes just days after ABC announced that it was canceling its Americanized version of another U.K. import, Life On Mars - the original time-travel-meets-p ... More
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George Vernadakis writes about pay TV programming and other issues impacting the industry.
Cabler Demands Note from Man in Coma
Is your name on YOUR cable account? You better make sure it is, because if your spouse it injured and in a coma, your cable company may lock you out of your account. My family found this out the hard way, and it could happen to you. Service providers only want to deal with an “authorized user” when it comes to changes ... More
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Memo To Mr. Charles Dolan
Memo to: Cablevision chairman Charles F. Dolan Re: FCC chairman Martin’s War On ESPN Date: Dec. 8, 2008 From: MCN Washington News Editor Mr. Dolan, The rumors are that FCC chairman Kevin Martin will take up residence in Silicon Valley when the clock runs out on the Bush administration in January. That’s a not a bad location for him, actually, in that Martin has clearly been fu ... More
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Ted Hearn writes about moves by the pay TV industry inside the Beltway.
Maybe Sterling Cooper Should Do An Ad Campaign For 'Mad Men'
This past weekend Mad Men lead Jon Hamm did a stint hosting Saturday Night Live, and his intro poked funat the conundrum of the AMC show: It’s critically revered, the first basic-cable series to win an Emmy as best drama, yet relatively few people have seen it. In his SNL intro, Hamm alluded to Mad Men’s relative obscurity. The dark, handsome actor also said that when he tells people ... More