• Cable Dominates Golden Globe Awards
• Wal-Mart Looking at Net Video Do-Over
• WWE Pins Down HD Capabilities
• Voom Launches Madden Show
• ‘Brady Bunch’ Mom Launches RLTV Show
• thePlatform Flexes for ExerciseTV
• Symmetricom Tracks Video on the Fritz

• Startup Conjures Up Channel-Boosting Gear
• NESN Tries Stand-Up Series
• Writers Strike Deal with Weinstein
• MSNBC To Air Democratic Debate
• ESPN Teams with Tennis Channel
• Bravo Ratings Rise
• Directors Guild Starts Talks

• Comedy Posts Ratings Increase
• Robertson May Bid on Newspaper
• Worth Watching
• Former Cox Employee Gets Jail Time for Computer Hacking

Cable Dominates Golden Globe Awards
Tina Fey of NBC’s 30 Rock was the only actor keeping cable from sweeping the television categories in the strike-impacted Golden Globe Awards announced in Beverly Hills Sunday night. HBO dominated the count, but the big buzz may be about the pay-off for AMC’s investment in original programming. Its critically acclaimed Mad Men was named by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as the best drama series of the year, and its star, Jon Hamm, got the award as the best actor in a drama. The season’s best comedy was on HBO. The Ricky Gervais-starrer Extras took home that award. The premium network also provided the most honored TV program of the Globes’ season. Longford was named best made-for-TV movie. Its stars, Jim Broadbent as Longford and Samantha Morton a convicted killer, each won awards for their performances. Entourage’s Jeremy Piven added a Golden Globe to his Emmys, honored again for his high-octane role as agent Ari Gold. Queen Latifah was honored for her role in the HBO film Life Support. Showtime’s David Duchovny is also a Globes fave. His performance as a self-destructive creatively-blocked writer was honored as the best by an actor in a comedy series this year. click to read more...
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Wal-Mart Looking at Net Video Do-Over
Wal-Mart Stores, after shuttering its initial paid video-download service in December after less than a year in business, appears to be actively looking to restart a similar service on its own. The activity comes less than a month after the world’s largest retailer decided to close its Wal-Mart Video Downloads service after technology services it had contracted for with the large computing firm Hewlett-Packard Co. were discontinued, Walmart.com director of corporate communications Amy Colella said. In a statement, HP said it discontinued its video-download services because “the market for paid video downloads has not performed as expected, and the broader internet video space continues to remain highly dynamic and uncertain.” Now, however, Wal-Mart has been investigating how to get back into the space, according to executives at a content-security firm familiar with its plans. At the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas, Wal-Mart executives met with digital rights management firms to gather information about what technologies are required to offer a paid download service, according to executives at one of those firms. Specifically, the retailer’s reps were interested in how to allow downloaded movie files to be burned onto discs, for playback on a separate DVD player. That is a feature Wal-Mart’s first service didn’t offer. click to read more...
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WWE Pins Down HD Capabilities
World Wrestling Entertainment will finally showcase all of its elbow smashes, body slams and pins in high definition beginning with the Jan. 21 episode of USA Network’s Monday Night Raw series. Along with its original cable and broadcast series – USA’s Monday Night Raw and A.M. Raw; Sci Fi Channel’s ECW: Extreme Championship Wrestling and The CW’s Friday Night SmackDown – the WWE will also deliver in HD all of its pay-per-view shows beginning with the Jan. 27 Royal Rumble event. click to read more...
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Voom Launches Madden Show
Gameplay HD is in the game with “EA Sports 2007 Madden Challenge.” Voom’s HDTV channel devoted to the world of video gaming has created a new TV series capturing the action from competitive tournaments built around Electronic Arts’ popular Madden NFL Football game. Gameplay HD will kick off a seven-part series at 1 p.m. on Feb. 2, the day before Super Bowl XLII. click to read more...
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‘Brady Bunch’ Mom Launches RLTV Show
Florence Henderson, best known for playing Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, is launching a new talk show on Retirement Living TV. Henderson, 73, will kick off talk program The Florence Henderson Show on Retirement Living TV Jan. 17, at 3 p.m. ET. RLTV targets viewers ages 55-plus. Upcoming guests include Carol Burnett, Bob Newhart, Garry Marshall, Dom DeLuise, Shelley Berman, Betty Garrett, Jason Alexander, Judith “Judge Judy” Sheindlin and Monty Hall, RLTV said. click to read more...
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thePlatform Flexes for ExerciseTV
Fitness on-demand network ExerciseTV will team up with Comcast’s thePlatform broadband video publishing division to expand video on its Exercisetv.tv Web site. ThePlatform will handle the publishing and management of ExerciseTV’s original library of over 200 download-to-own fitness titles. In addition, the deal with thePlatform allows ExerciseTV to syndicate original content to other destination sites. click to read more...
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Symmetricom Tracks Video on the Fritz
Symmetricom has a new way to let cable operators know if the video signals going into a subscriber’s TV set are acting screwy. The San Jose, Calif.-based company, whose primary products provide timing-synchronization capabilities for telecommunications gear and other devices, has developed a system called V-Factor to monitor video and audio on cable networks, looking for various impairments. Symmetricom plans to launch the system here at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ Conference on Emerging Technologies. According to Symmetricom board member Jim Chiddix, a longtime cable engineer whose career has included 15 years as Time Warner Cable’s chief technology officer, often the first indication there’s a problem with a video signal is when an irritated customer calls up to complain. click to read more...
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Startup Conjures Up Channel-Boosting Gear
Startup Imagine Communications this week is set to take the wraps off its first product: a system it claims will let operators stuff 50% more HD or standard-definition channels into the same amount of bandwidth, without hurting the quality of the video. The ICE Broadcast System, to be shown at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ Conference on Emerging Technologies here, optimizes MPEG-2 video streams, using Imagine’s proprietary processing algorithms to reencode the video at a lower bit rate while supposedly preserving image quality. click to read more...
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NESN Tries Stand-Up Series
NESN is pushing for laughs as it begins production on a sports-related stand-up series that will premiere this summer. The regional sports network plans to bow 10 episodes of NESN’s Comedy All-Stars, with each installment featuring a trio of top stand-ups from Boston and other areas around the nation. click to read more...
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Writers Strike Deal with Weinstein
The striking Writers Guild of America has reached an interim deal with a second independent movie studio, Weinstein Co., officials confirmed Friday. The terms of the deal have been agreed upon, and the actual contract is expected to be finalized and signed by Friday afternoon, Weinstein spokesman Matt Frankel said. The pact will permit Harvey Weinstein’s studio to resume production on new films, including Nine from director Rob Marshall. click to read more...
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MSNBC To Air Democratic Debate
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams will moderate a debate among the Democratic presidential candidates Tuesday night live on MSNBC from the Cashman Center in Las Vegas, officials said Friday. Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards will participate in the debate, which will focus on issues important to minority voters. click to read more...
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ESPN Teams with Tennis Channel
Dig the tennis action from Down Under, but don’t have the means or time to trek to Melbourne? Don’t worry, ESPN2 and Tennis Channel have your backhands -- and passing shots for that matter -- covered with their extensive presentations. The networks are teaming on unprecedented TV and multimedia coverage of the Australian Open from Jan. 13-27. click to read more...
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Bravo Ratings Rise
The combination of a series high, a season best and a solid debut performance boosted Bravo to the top of the cable rung among adults 18 to 49 in the 10 p.m. hour from Tuesday through Thursday, said network officials. Bravo was powered by installments of The Real Housewives of Orange County and Project Runway, plus the premiere of its latest competition show, Make Me A Supermodel, averaging 1.39 million 18-to-49 watchers, according to Nielsen Media Research data. click to read more...
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Directors Guild Starts Talks
The Directors Guild of America will leapfrog the Writers Guild of America, launching contract negotiations next week with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers before a deal is struck with the WGA. The move evokes echoes of the 1998 strike. While the writers were on the picket lines, the directors forged a pact which writers have characterized as a bad deal. click to read more...
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Comedy Posts Ratings Increase
Since coming back to the air following the start of the writers’ strike, ratings for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart have been flat or registered some gains, while The Colbert Report has seen rather steady and substantial growth. Both late-night shows began televising once again Monday, after being off the air since the Writers Guild of America went on strike Nov. 5. This Monday through Wednesday, The Daily Show posted a 0.9 rating in persons18 to 49, down 2% versus the first three nights last year, Jan. 8 to 10, 2007, when the shows were coming back from Christmas hiatus, according to Nielsen Media Research data from Comedy Central. click to read more...
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Robertson May Bid on Newspaper
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson probably won’t try to buy the pricey Weather Channel but might make a bid on The Virginian-Pilot, a newspaper also owned by Landmark Communications, the newspaper reported Friday. Landmark, of Norfolk, Va., has said it is exploring a sale of assets, notably The Weather Channel and its weather.com Web site. click to read more...
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