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TiVo Debuts $299 HD DVR for Cable
As part of a marketing pitch to cable operators, TiVo plan to begin selling a lower-priced HD digital-video recorder, the TiVo HD box, which, at $299, is nearly one-third the price of the $799 TiVo Series 3 HD DVR. Scheduled to be available in retail channels in August, TiVo HD is designed “exclusively for cable,” according to the company, with support for multistream CableCARDs. TiVo plans to announce the product at the CTAM Summit in D.C. Tuesday. “All of TiVo’s product development right now is oriented toward cable,” said SVP Jeff Klugman. “None of our product development is going to satellite.” TiVo was able to cut the price of the new HD DVR partly through ongoing cost reductions, Klugman said. The “little brother” also has less storage than the Series 3, holding 180 hours of standard-definition content versus 250 for the Series 3.
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ROI Doesn’t Meet Expectations
Washington -- When it comes to product innovation, the return on investment usually doesn’t measure up to management’s expectations. That was one of the messages that came across at “Learning from Failures,” a panel at the CTAM Summit here Monday afternoon, held by Asheesh Saksena, director of North American cable strategy at Accenture.
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FiOS Takes Empire State Orders
Verizon is now taking orders for FiOS TV in parts of the Westchester County communities of Mount Vernon and Mount Pleasant, the Rockland County village of Spring Valley and the Long Island village of Old Field, all in New York.
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CNN Recruits NBC’s Brown
CNN said Monday that NBC anchor Campbell Brown will join the all-news network in September, but CNN executives refused to say which time slot Brown will fill. Brown is expected to take over the 8 p.m. weeknight slot occupied by CNN anchor Paula Zahn, but CNN president Jon Klein wouldn’t say Monday whether Zahn will be leaving the network.
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A&E, History Go Mobile
A&E Television Networks launched mobile versions of A&E Network and The History Channel, available through MobiTV’s network to customers of AT&T Wireless, Sprint Nextel and other mobile carriers.
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Anime Grows in Kansas
Anime Network secured full-time carriage with a pair of distributors in Kansas. Anime landed on Eagle Communications for the first time and expanded what had been video-on-demand positioning on Sunflower Broadband into 24/7 coverage.
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AT&T Expands Video-Sharing
AT&T expanded its AT&T Video Share product -- which lets users send live or recorded video from their mobile phones to other AT&T wireless customers – to customers in 149 markets..
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EchoStar Sues Satellite Pirate
EchoStar went to court against a California set-top distributor that it claimed is stealing its signals, using “pirate software” in a scheme that allegedly brings unauthorized Dish Network programming to an estimated 2 million homes. The lawsuit was filed July 13 by EchoStar and its NagraStar unit against FTA set-top distributor Viewtech, and its founder and president, Jung Kwak.
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DirecTV-Comcast Trial Set
A federal judge in Chicago set an Oct. 22 trial date for DirecTV’s false-advertising suit against Comcast. DirecTV’s suit relates to an aggressive ad campaign Comcast launched proclaiming that in a survey, satellite customers thought that the cable operator had the best HDTV picture quality.
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Operator Pitches Home Security
Mexico’s Megacable Communicaciones is offering customers in Guadalajara a fourth option in the triple-play bundle -- alarm-monitoring services provided with technology from startup NextAlarm.com.
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72andSunny at Discovery Channel
72andSunny survived a two-month review to become the creative agency of record for Discovery Channel.
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EchoStar to FCC: Big Ten Network Is an RSN
EchoStar asked the FCC to declare Big Ten Network a regional sports network, which would allow the DBS provider to seek arbitration so that it can secure carriage of the service “on reasonable terms.”
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Free WWE 24/7 in September
New subscribers to World Wrestling Entertainment’s WWE 24/7 On Demand will receive the subscription-video-on-demand service free-of-charge in September.
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IFC Tour Finds Sponsorship
The Independent Film Channel won sponsorship from Tourism Australia, Scion, Entertainment Weekly, eMusic and Focus Features for its first-ever traveling independent film festival. The festival offers uncut indie films free to the public via portable outdoor 40-by-20-foot inflatable air screens, including The Princess Bride and Napoleon Dynamite.
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New Sales Promo at Oxygen
Oxygen is filtering through the digital air via a leap into the interactive-gaming space and a local-ad-sales promotion offering technology prizing. The women’s-targeted network, in conjunction with Artificial Life, is launching its first third-generation mobile game, based on its series The Bad Girls Club.
Meanwhile, Oxygen is triggering an LAS initiative, tied to its “Girls Gone Wired” research study, which will outfit 20 affiliate winners with a technology makeover supplied by Westinghouse Digital.
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Caserta Returns to IFC
Jennifer Caserta rejoined The Independent Film Channel as executive vice president of marketing, communications, scheduling and alternative platforms.
Caserta, who most recently served as executive VP and general manager of Fuse, had been senior VP of marketing at IFC prior to joining Fuse.
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NBC Studies Brains of Viewers
Washington -- In a discussion about innovative strides in cable research at the CTAM Summit here Monday, one of the more cutting-edge practices was presented by NBC Universal vice president of news research Jo Holz. “NBC has been using neurological and biometric methods of research,” she said, explaining how its testing seeks to address the impacts that people aren’t aware of, don’t want to admit to or can’t articulate.
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Redstone Feud Heats Up
The claws are out in the growing dispute between Viacom and CBS chairman and CEO Sumner Redstone and his daughter, vice chairman Shari Redstone, with both trading barbs in written statements.
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RCN Signs Disney Deal
RCN reached a wide-ranging multiyear carriage agreement with ESPN and Disney-ABC Television Group for access to a wide range of programming, broadband and on-demand offerings. Under the agreement, RCN will carry major Disney-ABC Television Group and ESPN services, including on-demand programming from Disney Channel, ABC Family, ESPN, ABC News broadcasts and an ABC News Now broadband portal.
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BET Gets Out of Hot Ghetto Mess
BET changed the name of upcoming controversial series Hot Ghetto Mess to We Got to Do Better, AP reported.
Several Internet blogger sites such as What About Our Daughters criticized BET for basing the half-hour, user-generated video clip show on a Web site of the same name that portrays negative and demeaning images of African Americans, and AP reported July 11 that State Farm Insurance and Home Depot asked the network to remove their ads from the series.
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