My Turn
Multichannel News editor Kent Gibbons covers issues impacting pay TV providers, programmers and technology suppliers in his regular column.
Setanta On the Ropes
The Setanta Sports flameout in the U.K. can’t be good for the U.S. premium channel. I’m also not sure it helps U.S. soccer fans, even though the rights it holds are used on a channel that’ll cost you $15 or more on satellite TV or, less likely, on Comcast, Cox, RCN, FiOS TV or U-verse. The update, which you’ll know if you’re a U.S.-based footie fan, is that Irel ...... Read More
Comments (2)Programming Costs
Dogs bite men — and cable programming costs rise. Not news, in other words. But it’s a reality programmers grapple with daily as they try to gain, or improve, carriage of their services on cable and satellite distributors. Comcast and Time Warner Cable reported healthy first-quarter earnings last week, with Comcast nearly doubling its free cash flow and Time Warner Cable adding 36,00 ...... Read More
Comments (3)Caprica Launches -- on iTunes
Sci Fi Channel’s Caprica premiere is for sale on iTunes so some early reviews are in. The Battlestar Galactica followup is also a prequel — it deals with events that come decades before the Cylons attack Caprica and other human-occupied planets, scattering the survivors in spaceships. It got greenlit last year but the series isn’t scheduled to air on the channel soon to be cal ...... Read More
Comments (0)Robert Carlyle's New 'Universe'
The great Scottish actor Robert Carlyle was standing more or less by himself at the party after Sci Fi Channel’s upfront song and dance last week (March 16). I’m a fan of many of his projects - Hamish Macbeth; Begbie in Trainspotting; The Full Monty and his early, epic U.K. TV appearance as a football fan turned deranged killer in Robbie Coltrane’s Cracker. I’m also a S ...... Read More
Comments (1)Commercials Make it Better
Commercial breaks make TV viewing more enjoyable, says a story in today’s Science Times in the New York Times. It cites research from a University of California at San Diego professor, who calls the conclusion “simultaneously implausible and empirically coherent.” It has something to do with stopping and restarting a pleasurable experience. The opposite being if you interrupt ...... Read More
Comments (1)Praising ‘Crappy' Promotions
When the going gets tough, the tough get going — even if it’s to the bathroom. I learned that from the funniest story I heard at the NCTC winter education conference this past week. It was told by Dave Swan, the director of hardware/national accounts at the National Cable Television Cooperative, about his days at Time Warner Cable in Tampa, Fla., selling cable services to businesses. ...... Read More
Comments (0)Sunny in Charlotte
The economy’s tanking, it’s a chilly 21 degrees in Charlotte, N.C., early this morning and attendance at the two-day NCTC winter education conference is likely down about 20%. But yesterday, anyway, I heard more optimism from small cable operators than gloom. For one thing, according to National Cable Television Cooperative communications VP Dan Mulvenon, it was pre-planned to cap op ...... Read More
Comments (0)Eve Myles: N.Y.ers Are ‘Cheeky, Cheeky Monkeys'
Torchwood star Eve Myles charmed the pants off a Comic Con crowd Saturday. Not literally, of course, though her character (Gwen Cooper) has had many flirtatious moments with humans and aliens of both genders on the BBC America hit drama, which returns later this year with a five-night, five-episode third season. It hasn’t been scheduled yet, partly because it will coincide with a five-night ...... Read More
Comments (3)'Black Panther's' Hudlin Keeps it (Comic) Real
New York — Reggie Hudlin reassures fans of Marvel Comics’ “Black Panther” that the animated TV show on BET will be “exactly the comic book.” Hudlin, the former entertainment president at BET, is writing and executive producing The Black Panther, headed to BET this summer (eight episodes). He and other show principals, including BET’s SVP of animatio ...... Read More
Comments (1)Baghdad Business
David Isaac has a challenging business to help establish — but nowhere near as daunting as a previous stint helping restore Iraqi Media Network TV and radio broadcasts in post-invasion Iraq in 2003. Back then, the one-mile journey out of the fortified “Green Zone” in Baghdad to the tower location necessitated a convoy including two tanks, he says. He told me he was sick in his ...... Read More
Comments (0)‘Atlantis’ Hits the Mark
Stargate Atlantis’s next episode, Friday night at 9, is its 100th and the last in the series. Based on the fourth and this fifth and final season, it’s a shame it didn’t get the additional season the cast and crew wanted. I know, it’s not my money to spend, and Sci Fi Channel made a business decision (from my interpretation) to wrap Atlantis at five and start a new ...... Read More
Comments (2)SpongeBob Is Still Here -- Stop Saying He Isn't (Updated)
Why is Viacom paying for attack ads against cable operators that haven’t dropped MTV Networks? It’s a little disconcerting to see a full-page ad in my home-delivered New York Times lambasting Time Warner Cable for taking SpongeBob off the air. My remote tells me he’s presumably still on because the many MTV Networks outlets that were there on New Year’s Eve are still on ...... Read More
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