• The Sopranos Ends in an Ice Cream Parlor
• Sopranos Review: Story Unfinished
• Moseley Joins History Channel
• Moffet Mocks DirecTV HDTV Claims
• Connecticut Pushes Franchise Reform Bill
• RGB Turns Up VOD Volume
• Canadian TV Merger OK,

• C-COR to Pack In 1-GHz Edge QAMs
• WICT Sets Gala Plans

• Stargate Subltly Skewers Sci Fi
• Bravo Shoots Top Chef Vignettes
• Virgin Media Losses Have Stemmed

The Sopranos Ends in an Ice Cream Parlor
By Linda Moss Bloomfield, N.J. -- Holsten’s Brookdale Confectionary is an old-fashioned 1950s-style soda fountain and a local landmark. The place makes the best homemade mint-chip ice cream in the world in my book. That should earn it a place in culinary history. But Holsten’s made its mark in TV history instead. Back in March, actor James Gandolfini and other cast members from The Sopranos were sitting in a red leather booth in Holsten’s dining room, shooting a scene for the show’s final episode -- in fact, the final scene of the final episode. Although Tony Soprano’s fate wasn’t quite revealed there, Holsten’s wound up, quite literally, with its place firmly ensconced in the annals of television. The Sopranos’ connection to Holsten’s -- which I’ve frequented for years and drive past every day on my way to work -- is just the latest example of the show’s intersection with my life in “Sopranoland,” namely northern New Jersey. In the final episode, Tony’s main nemesis met his demise at a Raceway gas station in Morris Plains, N.J., not far from where I grew up. click to read more...
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Sopranos Review: Story Unfinished
Oh that David Chase. The creator of The Sopranos really set up his audience in the mob series finale. Let’s put in this way, the final installment, “Made in America,” certainly wasn’t made in Hollywood. Or at least not yet. The man who thumbed his nose at TV conventions, making a hit series centered on a brutal thug who required psychotherapy to come to grips with his tinges of humanity, as well as maintaining two upper middle-class families, did it big time with the finale. click to read more...
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Moseley Joins History Channel
The History Channel has hired industry veteran Chris Moseley to lead its marketing charge. As senior vice president of marketing, Moseley, who reports directly to History executive vice president and general manager Nancy Dubuc, has oversight for all marketing, promotional and branding campaigns for The History Channel and its offshoots History International, The History Channel en Espanol and Military History Channel across all platforms, including history.com. click to read more...
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Moffet Mocks DirecTV HDTV Claims
Noting that “litigation and hyperbole are running hot,” media analyst Craig Moffett Friday offered his analysis of what DirecTV’s promised 150-channel HDTV lineup may look like. In a somewhat cheeky report, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s Moffett agreed that DirecTV, the nation’s largest satellite provider, is “winning the HD PR war,” citing the company’s latest TV ad with Pamela Andersen. But he suggested that there may be less there than meets the eye when DirecTV talks about 150 HD channels. Moffett calculated that sports will make up more than 50% of DirecTV’s HD lineup. He believes that DirecTV will count each of its 22 regional sports networks as an HDTV service, even if a subscriber has to be living in the market “of the RSN in order to receive most of these channels…no matter. They all count.” click to read more...
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Connecticut Pushes Franchise Reform Bill
Connecticut legislators, on the last night of their session June 6, approved a franchise reform bill that will subject AT&T U-verse TV product to some regulation. This is notable because, in a controversial decision in 2006, the state’s Department of Public Utility Control concluded that the telco’s Internet-delivered product is not the same as a cable service and therefore not subject to regulation. click to read more...
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RGB Turns Up VOD Volume
RGB Networks is set to announce a video-processing box that the company claimed will let a cable operator jack up the number of video-on-demand streams by 50% using the same amount of spectrum -- all with only minor changes to an existing VOD infrastructure. The company’s Dynamic Bandwidth Manager, to be announced Monday, works by piecing together video of variable bit rates like a jigsaw puzzle. The common practice today is to layer fixed-bit-rate VOD streams on top of each other like books of the same thickness. click to read more...
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Canadian TV Merger OK,
Canada’s broadcast regulator Friday approved the sale of CHUM Ltd. to CTVglobemedia but with a condition that apparently wipes out a planned sale of some Chum TV stations and other assets to leading Canadian cable operator Rogers Media. click to read more...
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C-COR to Pack In 1-GHz Edge QAMs
C-COR is expected to announce the CHP eQAM, which the vendor claimed is the industry’s first 1-Gigahertz edge quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) device. click to read more...
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WICT Sets Gala Plans
The Women in Cable Telecommunications Foundation scheduled its 23rd Annual Gala for Nov. 16, at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. The main event at the WICT Foundation Benefit Gala will is WICT’s Accolade awards. Nominations for the awards are due by June 15, WICT said Friday. click to read more...
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