Through the Wire

Web Slingers Run Afoul of DirecTV

Here’s the pitch from a2bTV.com: For $99 per month, the company will let you watch any DirecTV channel over the Internet, delivered through a Slingbox device hosted at its premises in Southern California. Customers, according to the company’s site, are supposed to subscribe separately to DirecTV, and a2bTV.com sets up and maintains the equipment for them. Voila, 185-plus channels of Internet TV!

Innovative? You bet. Authorized? Nope.

Neither DirecTV nor Sling Media had given the go-ahead to sell such a service, and both companies said a2bTV’s idea appeared to be violating the terms of their subscriber agreements.

“We do not have a relationship with a2bTV.com,” DirecTV director of public relations Robert Mercer said, adding that the direct-broadcast satellite provider doesn’t permit users to connect Slingbox devices to DirecTV set-tops. But he said DirecTV has not “contemplated taking legal action” yet.

Sling spokesman Brian Jaquet said the service a2bTV.com claims to offer violates the Sling end-user license agreement, which says users may not “lease, lend, rent or otherwise distribute the software to any third party.”

“We were not aware of this company,” Jaquet said. “I expect that we will be in contact with them soon.”

As for programmers, Starz Entertainment senior vice president of corporate communications Tom Southwick said Starz doesn’t know about this specific company and couldn’t comment on it. “But in general, we’re very aware of the copyright issues and the rights we’ve negotiated with the movie studios — and in the territories we can show them.” For example, Starz’s Vongo Internet movie-rental service cannot be accessed outside the United States.

Nobody at a2bTV.com responded to e-mails requesting information sent to support@a2btv.com or sales@a2btv.com, the only ones posted on its site. Messages left for “Greg” at the toll-free and 626-area-code phone numbers listed were also unreturned.

A2bTV.com’s site said its headquarters is in Cheyenne, Wyo., with data-center operations in Southern California, plus offices in Moscow and Tokyo.

In its “mission statement,” a2bTV said it “was founded by two like-minded individuals half a world apart. Our goal at a2bTV is to bring American television programming to expatriates and their families living abroad; anyplace, anytime, worldwide.”

But it may be time for the a2bTV dudes to go to Plan B.

U.S. Cable Viewers Aren’t Only Ones Losing Signals

Channel drops like the retransmission-consent standoffs that threatened Super Bowl XLI viewing and irked 24 fans in this country in recent weeks have spread overseas.

More than 3 million customers of Virgin Media — as NTL is now called in the United Kingdom, after a merger with Richard Branson’s Virgin Entertainment — last week lost the ability to watch 24, Lost and Battlestar Galactica after a channels deal expired with News Corp.-owned satellite-TV provider BSkyB.

Sky One, Sky News and Sky Sports News came off Virgin Media on March 1 after the cable provider and programmer couldn’t agree to carriage terms.

As has happened here, the program provider refused to hand the dispute over to an arbitrator. Branson and Virgin Media CEO Steve Burch, a former Comcast executive, have blamed the impasse on BSkyB intransigence, while direct-to-home satellite provider BSkyB says Virgin Media should pay up.

Branson showed he has limits, though. According to The Guardian newspaper, he ordered the takedown of Virgin Media guide descriptions that had taken the place of the Sky News channel (“Sky Snooze try BBC”) and Sky Sports News (“Old Sky Sports Snooze”) on March 1. “We do not mean any disrespect to Sky News,” Branson told MediaGuardian.co.uk. “I think it is a very good news channel.”

New Hollywood Tune: You Oughta See These Pictures

There was no shortage of hot tickets to be secured during the Academy/Independent Spirit Awards weekend. Party planners must hold their breaths until the promised celebrities actually do show up, given the breadth of cocktail, dinner and other parties across Los Angeles the weekend of Feb. 23 to 25..

Despite the competition, high-definition cable programmer Voom enjoyed a heavy and eclectic turnout for the gallery showing of its HDTV video portraits by multimedia artist Robert Wilson. About 3,000 people cycled through the Ace Gallery in Los Angeles on Feb. 23 to see the portraits (also offered by Voom on demand), including pictures of Brad Pitt and Steve Buscemi.

The HD art lovers included actor and artist Dennis Hopper, director John Waters, Salma Hayek, Winona Ryder, Willem Dafoe, Alan Cumming, Jacqueline Bisset, Daryl Hannah, Benjamin McKenzie, Peter Stormare, Julian Sands, David Hockney, Dita Von Teese, Vincent Gallo, Julie Taymor, Shirley Manson and Mia Maestro.

Apparently it didn’t hurt that the subjects were other Hollywood stars.

Wire News Follow-Up: Schorr’s School Dedicated

In March 2004, The Wire reported on Steven Schorr, the longtime Cox Communications public-affairs vice president in Las Vegas, whose good deeds had qualified him for a distinct honor: the Clark County, Nevada, school system had decided to name a new elementary school after him. Groundbreaking was scheduled for that September.

Last week, Cox sent along photos from the completed Steven G. Schorr Elementary School’s dedication ceremony, which followed by several months the actual opening of the school, located at 11420 Placid St. in southeast Las Vegas. “We are so proud of Steve and this tremendous honor,” region VP and general manager Leo Brennan said. Among other things, Schorr helped found Nevada Child Seekers, an organization that helps find missing kids.