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Court Stops FCC’s F-Word Crackdown
A federal appeals court Monday tossed out a new FCC policy designed to punish the fleeting use of the “F-word” and “S-word” on broadcast TV during times when children are expected to be watching. The ruling infuriated FCC chairman Kevin Martin (http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6439937.html), who issued an expletive-laced statement that slammed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York for interfering with his crackdown on broadcast indecency. “I find it hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience,” Martin said. “If we can’t [restrict] the use of the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ during primetime, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want.”
Martin also used his court defeat to stump for his favorite media-indecency panacea -- government-enforced sale of cable channels on an individual basis, or a la carte (http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6434611.html). “By allowing them to choose the channels that come into their homes, Congress could deliver real power to American families,” Martin said. “Providing consumers more choice would avoid the First Amendment concerns of content regulation while providing real options for Americans.”
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Time Warner’s ‘Virtually Unlimited’ HDTV Capacity
Boasting that it will be able to boost channel capacity to carry more high definition networks, Time Warner Cable plans to deploy switched digital video systems on half of its systems nationwide by the end of 2007, COO Landel Hobbs said Tuesday. Hobbs acknowledged that Time Warner’s satellite rivals such as DirecTV have done an effective job of marketing HDTV offerings. “Shame on us because we haven’t really done a good job of marketing it [HDTV],” Hobbs said at a Deutche Bank Securities conference in New York. But Hobbs said switched digital video technology – which allows Time Warner and other cable providers to deliver channels to subscribers based on demand, rather than broadcasting hundreds of channels simultaneously – will give Time Warner “virtually unlimited” HD capacity.
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Cable Networks Take Home Peabody Awards
New York -- Cable networks ranging from mun2 to HBO helped to share the glory Monday when George Foster Peabody Awards were handed out for mass-media public service. HBO collected four of the statuettes, including one for hard-edged documentary Baghdad ER.
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FiOS TV Launches in Baltimore
Verizon Communications launched its FiOS TV service in parts of Baltimore County, Md., where it will compete against Comcast. The telco said FiOS TV is now available to more than 425,000 households in Maryland.
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YouTube Cuts Hearst-Argyle Deal
Hearst-Argyle Television will offer some of its news and entertainment content on Google’s YouTube, becoming the first independent TV-station group to strike such a revenue-sharing agreement with the site. Starting Monday, Hearst-Argyle television stations in five markets -- Boston; Manchester, N.H.; Sacramento, Calif.; Pittsburgh; and Baltimore -- will begin posting local video content to dedicated channels on YouTube.
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TV Land Gets Extreme Makeover
In a departure from classic TV series like Good Times and Gunsmoke, TV Land acquired off-network rights to Disney-ABC Domestic Television’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition reality series. TV Land will air past episodes of the five-year-old series beginning in August.
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EchoStar Rolls Out New HDTV Receiver
EchoStar Communications is launching new HDTV receiver. The ViP222 is an advanced MPEG-4 dual-tuner receiver that powers two rooms, one in HD and the second in all-digital standard-definition. The ViP222 also features on-screen caller ID, a host of interactive services through DishHOME interactive TV, picture-in-picture and parental locks.
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HBO Puts Hard Knocks on Playing Field
After a four-season hiatus, HBO Sports is returning to the gridiron with its Hard Knocks National Football League-based reality series, which will take a behind-the-scenes look at the Kansas City Chiefs’ preseason training camp.
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Verizon to Launch Sí TV-HD
Sí TV plans to launch an HD channel in 2008, and the English-language Latino programmer said Verizon Communications already signed on to carry it. Sí TV-HD will be the first 24/7 HD channel catering to Latino audiences, the company said.
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Moseley Rides Lift for The Ski Channel
Olympic and World Cup skiing champion Jonny Moseley entered into a wide-ranging partnership with fledgling video-on-demand service The Ski Channel. Moseley, who has also logged time as the host of MTV’s Real World/Road Rules Challeng, will take an equity stake in the service, which is slated to bow on Time Warner Cable systems in the first quarter of 2008.
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NFL Net Shoots High-School Games
NFL Network is heading back to high school. The National Football League’s cable service said it will air two high-school all-star games in June: The Bayou Bowl June 9 at 9 p.m. (EST) and the Big 33 Football Classic June 16 at 7 p.m.
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Smit Exercises Options for Charter Shares
Charter Communications CEO Neal Smit exercised options for 200,000 shares of common stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Smit reported that he exercised the options Thursday for $1 and $1.18 apiece, then sold all 200,000 shares on the same day for $4.05 -$4.10 apiece, according to AP.
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Girdwood Promoted at Discovery
Discovery Communications promoted Amy Girdwood to executive vice president, human resources.
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Cable Positive Picks POP Finalists
MTV, CNN, Showtime and Univision are the finalists for the Network of the Year award at Cable Positive’s POP Awards. The POP Awards -- POP stands for Positively Outstanding Programming -- will be held June 12 at the IFC Center in Manhattan.
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San Diego Gets U-verse TV
AT&T said it launched U-verse TV service in San Diego and surrounding areas, where it will try to wrest customers away from two incumbent cable companies in the market, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications.
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Hilton’s Prison Sentence Is a Game on GSN.com
To commemorate the beginning of Paris Hilton’s 23-day prison sentence, GSN.com unveiled The Prison Life: Paris (http://www.gsn.com/minigames/minigame.php?id=20), an online game that gives players a sneak peek at the heiress’ potential new job behind bars.
In making orange the new pink, GSN’s latest online game features an animated Hilton clad in stiletto heels, designer glasses and an orange jumpsuit. Game players position Hilton between levers that stamp blank California vanity license plates such as PRTYGRL, ABUVLAW, DUI4ME, DRV2FST and PRVTCEL as they pass on a conveyor belt.
A matronly guard stands watch as the Hilton heiress stamps her way through each level with more and more plates, increased conveyor-belt speed and additional levers for added difficulty..
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Amp’d Mobile Files for Bankruptcy
Amp’d Mobile, the mobile virtual-network operator focused on selling TV and other entertainment content on wireless phones, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware Friday. The company, in a statement posted on its Web site, claimed that it filed for bankruptcy because, “as a result of our rapid growth, our back-end infrastructure was unable to keep up with customer demand. We are taking this step as a necessary and responsible action to sustain and strengthen our momentum in the marketplace.”
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Analyst: AT&T to Pick EchoStar Over DirecTV
With the economic stakes enormous, AT&T is “likely” to pick EchoStar Communications, not DirecTV, when it migrates to just one satellite-TV service for its bundle by the end of the year, a key Wall Street media analyst predicted Monday.
In his report, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett wrote that AT&T’s planned move “presents a classic zero-sum game: It is clearly bad news for one DBS provider, but good news for the other … We believe the loser will begin posting negative subscriber growth within a year.”
AT&T has deals now to use both direct-broadcast satellite providers to provide video for bundles that also include phone service. But chief financial officer Rick Lindner announced May 16 that the telco would “migrate to one provider” for its video service by year’s end.
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