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Illegal Aliens Can Get DTV Coupons
Washington – A Bush Administration official said Tuesday he would make no effort to exclude illegal aliens from receiving benefits under a $1.5 billion subsidy program designed to keep analog TV sets running after the transition to all-digital television in February 2009. “We don’t have any restrictions on the program with regard to any classification, whether it’s immigration status or economic status ...” said John Kneuer, the Commerce Department official who is running the DTV converter box program.
According to some estimates, 70 million analog TV sets that can’t display a digital signal will go dark when analog TV is cutoff on Feb. 17, 2009. Keeping those sets working will generally require a digital-to-analog converter or a connection to cable or satellite TV.
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Disney Wins Q3 Primetime
Still enjoying the lift provided High School Musical 2, Disney Channel zoomed to the No. 1 spot in the primetime ratings in the third quarter, amassing the biggest audience in cable history on record for that three-month period. Disney Channel averaged a record-breaking 3.2 million total viewers, 19% ahead of second-ranked USA Network, which averaged 2.7 million viewers.
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More Bad News for MSG
Tuesday’s bombshell verdict in the sexual harassment suit brought by Anucha Browne Sanders against her former bosses at Madison Square Garden may help a similar suit brought against the arena and its parent Cablevision Systems involving a former cheerleader for the New York Rangers. A jury found in favor of Browne Sanders in her high-profile case against the Garden, New York Knick coach Isiah Thomas and Cablevision CEO and Garden chairman James Dolan, awarding the former Knicks marketing executive $11.6 million in punitive damages. Thomas -- who was found guilty of harassing Browne Sanders but did not have to pay damages – and Madison Square Garden have said they will appeal. But a nugget of information brought up at the Browne Sanders trial could potentially help out a similar sexual harassment case brought against the Garden and its parent Cablevision Systems in 2004. During the three-week trial in Manhattan, Browne Sanders also claimed that MSG management kept a Kama Sutra wish-list for the on-ice cheerleaders for the New York Rangers hockey team, which is also owned by Cablevision. Former New York Rangers City Skaters captain Courtney Prince filed suit in October 2004 against Cablevision and the Garden, claiming she was fired from her job after complaining of unwanted sexual advances from executives.
Prince’s attorney Kathleen Peratis said the verdict does offer encouragement for women’s rights in the workplace. “It certainly has a very important effect on these claims in general and I think on the way defendants present their defense.” Peratis said.
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Sprout Gets First Bright House Launch
PBS Kids Sprout said its first launch under a new affiliation agreement with Time Warner Cable is on Bright House Networks in Bakersfield, Calif. Advance/Newhouse Communications owned Bright House has about 110,000 subscribers in that portion of Southern California, which includes much of Kern County.
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Fox Dominates News Ratings
Fox News Channel was the top-rated all-news channel during the third quarter, marking the 23rd consecutive quarter that Fox topped rivals CNN and MSNBC. The third quarter also marked six years that The O’Reilly Factor was the No. 1 news program in primetime, averaging 2.03 million viewers.
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Dexter Kills Showtime Ratings Record
Showtime’s Sept. 30 debut of its sophomore drama series Dexter set a network viewership record for a series premiere, drawing 1 million viewers. Dexter, which stars Michael C. Hall as a Miami police officer who doubles as a serial killer, marks the first time a Showtime original series debut has reached the seven-figure viewer mark.
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AT&T to Invest $1.25B in Texas
AT&T announced a total planned investment in Texas of “nearly $1.25 billion” in 2007 to support the expansion of U-verse TV, wireless and other network infrastructure.
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TBS Scores with Baseball
Monday’s play-in game to determine the National League Wild Card representative attracted almost 4 million viewers on average for TBS. The Colorado Rockies 9-8 triumph over the San Diego Padres in 13 innings scored a 2.9 household rating, translating into some 3.95 million viewers.
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Bartiromo, MSNBC Team on Debate
CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews will moderate the first Republican Presidential debate focusing on economic issues. The two-hour debate is scheduled to be held on Oct. 9 in Dearborn, Mich. and will be broadcast live on CNBC at 4 p.m. and rerun later that evening on MSNBC at 9 p.m.
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Russert Moves to MSNBC
The weekend interview show Tim Russert is moving to MSNBC from CNBC starting this Saturday, all part of an effort to boost the all-news network’s political coverage, officials said Tuesday. Tim Russert will premiere at noon Saturdays, repeating 6 p.m., and on Sundays at 2 a.m. and noon.
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Spike Shoots Eating Competition
Joey Chestnut, having already usurped the coveted mustard yellow belt for hot dog supremacy, will square off again against the erstwhile champion Kobayashi and other top competitive eaters as part of Spike TV’s coverage of the upcoming chicken wing and potato wedge competition from Las Vegas.
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NCTC Renews Outdoor Channel
Outdoor Channel signed a new five-year carriage deal with the National Cable Television Cooperative that reduces subscriber fees up front to gain more carriage from NCTC’s 1,100 independent cable operators and 12 million subscribers. The move is in keeping with a strategy aimed at jump-starting its distribution that the network announced in a Securities and Exchange filing last March.
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‘Alice in Cableland’ Cast Named
Executives from Time Warner, Charter Communications, Starz and The Sportsman Channel are among the volunteers who’ll sing and dance on behalf of HIV/AIDS initiatives in the annual Positively Cable event, on Nov. 1.
The musical revue – titled “Alice in Cableland: Down the Money Hole” – will include such cable notables as Tom Feige, president of Time Warner Cable’s National Division; Mike Hayashi, senior VP of advanced engineering at Time Warner Cable; and Charter cable marketing executives Maria Rothschild, Laura Brayton and Emily Somerset. Paul Braun, also of TWC’s National Division, and Jane Shanley, VP of business development for Batmann Consulting, are writing the song parodies for them to perform, following the lead of professional troupe Rave Reviews.
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Lifetime’s New Campaign Slogan
Lifetime Television’s 13th annual “Stop Breast Cancer for Life” campaign will be the network’s largest ever, with the awareness and advocacy initiative encompassing on-air, online and print messaging throughout National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October. The new “Be My Strength, Be My Support, Be My Bra” campaign -- the latter term is slang for “friend”-- was developed by advertising executive Linda Kaplan Thaler, award-winning photographer Mary Ellen Mark and Cancer Vixen author Marisa Acocella Marchetto, all of whom are breast cancer survivors.
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Hulu to Lulu: Get Lost
Hulu, the online-video joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp., filed a request to dismiss a federal lawsuit filed by Web publisher Lulu Enterprises, which had accused the media giants of trademark infringement and “cyberpiracy.” Hulu’s answer to the Lulu suit asserted that “there is no likelihood of confusion between the parties’ marks as they are actually used.”
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