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Television broadcasters are continuing to push for greater local deregulation, hoping a federal court in Philadelphia will force the Federal Communications Commission to permit more stations to combine around the country, especially in small markets.

The National Association of Broadcasters wants to knock out a rule that bars one top-four station from merging with another top-four station in the same local market.

WideOpenWest LLC chairman and CEO Mark Haverkate has resigned from that company to form a new venture — Champion Broadband — which intends to buy WOW's Denver operation.

Haverkate said last Thursday that he would continue to participate in WOW as its third-largest shareholder. However, he left his active management position last week.

St. Louis - Charter Communications Inc. and High Speed Access Corp. said last Thursday that they agreed in principle to a new five-year agreement to offer "Charter Pipeline" broadband Internet service on Charter systems to 5 million more homes.

There are incentives for Charter to raise the total to at least 10 million and to extend the agreement beyond 2005. Charter had committed at least 750,000 homes to HSA.

In what appeared to be an effort to justify its rejection of Comcast Corp.'s
unsolicited offer for its AT&T Broadband unit earlier this month -- or to
force a higher price -- AT&T Corp. said it would double the unit's cash-flow
margins to 38 percent to 40 percent in three years.

Starz! Family's Kermit's Swamp Years
should prove entertaining for youngsters, but their older siblings and parents might find the special slow going.

This coming-of-age comedy-adventure is a flashback to Kermit the Frog, Jim Henson's star Muppet, at age 12. Unfortunately, it's overly long at one hour and 15 minutes, and lacks the humor and imagination of the syndicated Muppet Show
and even some of the Muppets' theatrical films.