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Liberty/EchoStar, Loral Submit Intelsat Bids
Liberty Media and EchoStar submitted a joint bid for Intelsat, and Loral Space & Communications is also in the auction, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
That means, in essence, that three satellite companies are among those vying for Intelsat, the world’s largest operator of commercial satellites. Liberty is acquiring a large stake in DirecTV, the biggest direct-broadcast satellite operator and a rival to EchoStar’s Dish Network. Liberty’s and EchoStar’s joint offer for Intelsat signals the two competing companies’ increasing efforts to band together in some arenas. The Journal also reported that European private-equity group BC Partners bid for Intelsat, and that Providence Equity Partners, Carlyle Group and Macquarie Bank cold enter the fray later.
Intelsat is expected to draw bids of $4.5 billion-$5.5 billion.
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MSNBC Nears Announcement on Imus’ Slot
Joe Scarborough is set to kick off his fifth consecutive week as the replacement anchor for MSNBC’s Imus in the Morning program Monday, but the all-news network has still not officially declared Scarborough its permanent anchor for the morning slot. Scarborough, a former Florida congressman, hasn’t missed a single day in the 6 a.m.-9 a.m. slot since May 28. MSNBC calls Scarborough’s morning program Morning Joe in promotions for the show on the network and its Web site, but the 6 a.m.-9 a.m. slot is still listed as MSNBC Morning News in TV listings. Scarborough got his first crack at the weekday-morning slot the week of May 14, about one month after Don Imus was dropped from MSNBC and CBS Radio for directing a racial insult at the Rutgers University women’s-basketball team. MSNBC vice president of communications Jeremy Gaines wouldn’t say Friday if Scarborough is the permanent replacement for Imus in the Morning. But Gaines said an announcement regarding the morning slot was forthcoming.
“Soon we’ll have something to talk about,” he added.
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Comcast Leads BroadLogic Funding
Chip startup BroadLogic Network Technologies raised $17 million in third-round funding led by Comcast Interactive Capital, with Advance/Newhouse Communications also joining as a new investor.
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Ohio House OKs Franchise Bill
The Ohio House overwhelming approved a franchise-reform bill Thursday that will transfer video oversight to the state Director of Commerce. Under the terms of the bill, the state official will have 45 days to approve competitive video-service agreements.
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Big Brother Heads to Showtime
Big Brother will be lurking in Showtime’s late-night hours. CBS is teaming up with its sister service to offer late-night, uncut and uninterrupted coverage of CBS’ Big Brother reality series on Showtime’s ShoToo multiplex channel.
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Nick, Sony to Develop Music, TV Projects
Nickelodeon and Sony hope to make sweet music together under a major four-year partnership that is expected to yield numerous television and music projects. The new deal calls for the development and production of projects ranging from TV series and original movies that will air on Nick to upward of 14 CD releases over the four years based on Nick on-air talent and content.
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Bravo Tops Chef Ratings
The premiere episode of Bravo’s Top Chef 3 Miami at 10 p.m. Wednesday garnered top ratings for the culinary show, attracting 1.407 million adults 18-49 and more than 2 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Bravo reported that this first-ever summer-season premiere brought a 5% increase in adults 18-49 over Chef’s second-season premiere Oct. 18, 2006, which brought 1.337 million viewers.
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Hallmark Offers Trips to Paris
As part of its local-ad-sales campaign supporting the basic-cable premiere of The Phantom of the Opera June 23 at 8 p.m., Hallmark Channel is offering 22 prize packages to Paris, including a trip to the Opera Garnier, the setting of the theatrical. Marking the network’s first international trip giveaway, Hallmark, according to senior vice president of network distribution and service Janice Arouh, is working with Cablevision Systems throughout its New York DMA footprint and select Time Warner Cable and Comcast markets..
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NBC U Calls Piracy Crackdown
NBC Universal said Friday that the U.S. government must crack down on Internet copyright infringement by ordering broadband-access providers to help stem the tide of pirated content. “The [FCC] should make unmistakably clear, as part of its regulations governing broadband-industry practices, that broadband-service providers have an obligation to use readily available means to prevent the use of their broadband capacity to transfer pirated content, especially when such use represents huge percentages of their capacity and reduces the quality of service to other subscribers,” NBC U said, protesting what it described as rampant content piracy by no more than 5% of users.
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Dunn Named Publisher of B&C, Multichannel News
Larry Dunn, 49, was named publisher of Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News.
“As we solidify our leadership in print and accelerate our high-growth online and events businesses, Larry brings the energy, market knowledge and customer focus to drive our continued success,'” said Jeff DeBalko, president of Reed Business Interactive.
DeBalko Wednesday assumed responsibility for the Television Group of Reed Business Information in New York. Group publisher Larry Oliver will be leaving the Television Group of Reed Business Information U.S. effective July 1.
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Cable Wins Dozen Daytime Emmys
Cable networks captured 12 of the statues presented Thursday in creative-arts and entertainment categories in the Daytime Emmy Awards.
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Charter Gives VOD Berth to HealthiNation
Video-on-demand provider HealthiNation launched on Charter Communications systems reaching about 2 million customers with digital set-tops.
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Cisco Takes Wireless Mesh to Cable
Cisco Systems wants to help cable operators break into the great outdoors. The networking company’s Cable ServiceMesh solution is a suite of products -- designed with its Scientific Atlanta subsidiary -- to let cable operators extend indoor wireless Wi-Fi networks to outdoor “mesh” networks.
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Microsoft Opens Mediaroom IPTV Code
Microsoft renamed its Internet-protocol-TV software platform -- now called Mediaroom -- and with the new version, the software will allow service providers to create their own interactive-TV applications. Mediaroom, formerly called Microsoft TV IPTV Edition, also adds the ability to let users listen or view to music and photos stored on their PCs on their televisions.
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Bravo Forms Bravo Media Group
Bravo formed a new global, multimedia content company. The network said it “will expand its current television and digital-content offerings under the newly formed title Bravo Media, creating an all-encompassing group of divisions -- talent-management alliance, publishing, merchandising, Bravo to Go (wireless), Bravo Experience, digital, television, radio and international.”
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Cable Positive’s POP Winners
Cable Positive handed out its Sixth Annual POP Awards Wednesday night. The POP Awards recognize and honor exceptional original HIV/AIDS-related cable programming. Rainbow Media was the event’s presenting sponsor, and it was hosted by longtime AIDS activist and actress Gloria Reuben.
The winners were:
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AMC, Jack Daniel’s Toast Product-Integration Deal
Jack Daniel’s may be the first sponsor to sign a product-integration deal with AMC's upcoming original series, Mad Men, but if Arlene Manos has her way, it won't be the last.
Manos, president of Rainbow National Network Advertising Sales unit of Rainbow Advertising Sales, said AMC is working on deals for two other such pacts.
Matt Weiner, the show’s creator, writer and executive producer, said shooting on the eighth episode of the 13-installment season of Mad Men -- a look at the professional and personal lives of men and women at Sterling Cooper, a fictitious ad agency in New York circa 1960 -- is scheduled to commence in Los Angeles this week. The pilot was filmed in New York.
As part of the deal AMC struck with media agency Universal McCann for Brown-Foreman's Jack Daniel’s, the Tennessee whiskey will be incorporated by name mention and product placements in the scripts of three Mad Men episodes this season, according to Manos.
Weiner -- whose resume includes credits as an executive producer and writer on The Sopranos and as a writer on Becker and The Naked Truth -- said he had “no problem” with Jack Daniel’s being part of Mad Men because drinking and smoking were very much a part of that world almost 50 years ago.
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Dish Rolls Israeli Packages
EchoStar is now exclusively offering two new Hebrew-language Israeli-programming tiers. The new packages are: Israeli Gold, which offers Israeli Global One and Israeli Movie Channel for $24.99 per month; and Israeli Platinum, which includes the Israeli Gold package plus The Israeli Network and EuroNews -- a channel that offers up-to-the-minute news from around the globe in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Russian -- for $34.99.
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DirecTV Pirate Sentenced
A South Carolina man was sentenced to five months in prison, followed by five months' home detention, and ordered to pay $346,104 in restitution to DirecTV for distributing illegal satellite-access devices, officials said. Michael Hill, 53, of Iva, S.C., was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Paducah, Ky.
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