• Murdoch Seals $5.6 Deal to Acquire Dow Jones
• Verizon Wants Three-Year Box Waiver:
• Digital TV Worries Adelstein
• Double Whammy on Digital TV Date
• Days Numbered for DSL:
• Time Warner to Offer ‘Mojo Mix’
• ACA Backs TV Freedom Act

• ACA Cuts Stations Deal
• Charter Runs Black Music Promo
• DIY Sets Martha Stewart Crafts
• Comcast Teams With ‘Philadelphia’
• WICT Names Betsy Magness Classes
• Hallmark Promotes Saberito

• E! Opts Out of The Simple Life
• DirecTV to Upgrade Old TiVo Boxes
• Google Iffy About FCC Auction:

Murdoch Seals $5.6 Deal to Acquire Dow Jones
News Corp. signed a $5.6 billion deal to acquire The Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, the companies announced early Wednesday morning. The agreement gives News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News Channel a key asset that will help boost the programming for its Fox Business Network, which is set to launch to 30 million cable and satellite subscribers in October. “I think [the acquisition] will help it [Fox Business Network],” Murdoch said during an interview with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto Monday night. “We just want to have a business channel that lives up to the quality and tradition of The Wall Street Journal. If we can do that, it [the channel] will do very well.” Under the terms of the deal, Dow Jones stockholders will get $60 in cash for each share of common stock that they own. The companies said certain members of the Bancroft family and the trustees of trusts for their benefit who collectively own approximately 37% of Dow Jones' voting stock agreed to vote to approve the transaction. News Corp. and Dow Jones also said they agreed on the terms of an editorial agreement that provides for the establishment of a five-member, special committee with the objective of assuring the continued journalistic and editorial integrity and independence of Dow Jones' publications and services. click to read more...
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Verizon Wants Three-Year Box Waiver:
The FCC last month granted Verizon a one-year waiver to the agency’s integrated-set-top ban for high-end devices, but the telco asked to have until 2010 before it’s required to comply with the rule. click to read more...
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Digital TV Worries Adelstein
FCC member Jonathan Adelstein Tuesday called for the creation of a digital-TV conversion task force to head off a potential “tsunami of consumer complaints” when analog TV sets are rendered useless in February 2009. click to read more...
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Double Whammy on Digital TV Date
There’s another digital technology deployment date that independent cable operators will be paying attention to in the first quarter of 2009. As if it weren’t enough that operators had to worry about handling a complete conversion of all local broadcast TV signals to digits, from analog waves, on Feb. 17, 2009. Now, they also have to be preparing to deploy “downloadable” security to set-top boxes and digital TV sets at the same time. Set-top boxes and TV sets that can take instructions on how to access cable TV services in the form of software downloads will be hitting retail outlets in the first quarter of 2009, Keith Bechard, the acting vice president of engineering for technology services firm PolyCipher, told attendees of The Independent Show on Tuesday. click to read more...
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Days Numbered for DSL:
The days of digital subscriber line appear to be numbered, and that number is not big. “The bottom is kind of coming out of that marketplace,” said Matt Stump, vice president of One Touch Intelligence, a market-research firm based in Denver. On Monday Verizon announced a huge drop in the growth of its DSL business, which provides high-speed-Internet access over copper telephone wires. In its second quarter, Verizon added 85,000 subscribers, according to Investor’s Business Daily. That compares to 329,000 DSL subscribers that it added in the same quarter a year ago. And, for the first time, Stump noted at The Independent Show, Verizon added more high-speed customers through its FiOS Internet product. click to read more...
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Time Warner to Offer ‘Mojo Mix’
Time Warner Cable picked up Mojo Mix, a five-hour, HD video-on-demand programming block from In Demand Networks. click to read more...
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ACA Backs TV Freedom Act
The American Cable Association is backing legislation that would have the effect of ending the exclusivity of local broadcast television signals in 98 markets across the country. The Television Freedom Act of 2007, by Reps. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.), “would allow us to take out-of-market stations and bring them into local markets to give us true local-market service,” ACA vice president of government affairs Ross Lieberman said. The bill, introduced in June, would change the “distant-signal” rules that currently apply to local television broadcasting. click to read more...
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ACA Cuts Stations Deal
The American Cable Association and public TV stations reached a tentative agreement for the carriage of the broadcasters’ digital-TV signals. click to read more...
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Charter Runs Black Music Promo
Three Southern California Charter Communications digital subscribers will win VIP tickets to a local jazz festival as part of a promotion of the Black Music America Digital Channel. click to read more...
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DIY Sets Martha Stewart Crafts
DIY Network in November will air Martha Stewart Crafts, a “best-of” Martha Stewart compilation series featuring how-to segments on scrapbooking, hand-made gifts, paper cards, decoupage, glittering, framing and rubber-stamping, among other things. click to read more...
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Comcast Teams With ‘Philadelphia’
Comcast teamed up with Philadelphia magazine to launch Best of Philly On Demand. click to read more...
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WICT Names Betsy Magness Classes
Women in Cable Telecommunications announced the new members for classes XVI and XVII of the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute. The BMLI, which has more than 400 graduates, provides year-long leadership training for women. The members of Class XVI of the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute are: click to read more...
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Hallmark Promotes Saberito
Jaime Saberito was promoted to senior director of corporate communications for Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel. click to read more...
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