cable

Comcast Ads During NFL Game Draw Flags

Lindsy Embree — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:35:57 -0500

Full article: Politico
Brooks Boliek
Are you ready for some … cable commercials? Comcast customers watching the New York Giants eventually defeat the San Francisco 49ers had their viewing pleasure rudely interrupted with a couple of accidental commercials for the cable operator's Xfinity service. The sudden random appearance of the commercials or fragments of the commercials as plays were being run angered viewers who lit up social networks after the glitch.

Media Minutes: December 23, 2011

Candace Clement — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:19:46 -0500

Wireless users got an early holiday present this week when the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile collapsed. But Verizon’s proposed spectrum deal with several cable companies is a big lump of coal for consumers. And the 12th annual radio program, Calls from Home, is airing the voices of family members sending holiday greetings to incarcerated loved ones.

How Uncle Sam Invented Television

Stevie Converse — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:30:20 -0500

Full article: Ars Technica
Matthew Lasar
TV broadcasters can sit on their licenses and discuss "current marketplace realities" with the FCC because, seventy years ago, Capitol Hill created that marketplace for them. The government literally created the business model and framework in which broadcast TV flourished. And now, regulators face the challenge of uninventing that framework.

Forget Getting Netflix or Hulu Plus on TiVo-Made Cable DVRs

Stevie Converse — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:26:50 -0500

Full article: Ars Technica
Chris Foresman
TiVo's Premiere-series DVRs offer access to Netflix's Watch Instantly streaming service, and the company has announced that Hulu Plus support is coming soon. But if you get your TiVo Premiere from your cable company, you won't be able to access either service. Rightsholders are using licensing terms to prevent these services from directly competing with paid video-on-demand from your cable provider.

NCTA Says FCC Terrestrial Exemption Decision Was Arbitrary, Capricious

Stevie Converse — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:42:58 -0500

Full article: Multichannel News
John Eggerton
The cable industry -- notably the Cablevision and National Cable & Telecommunications Association -- continues to fight the FCC's order closing the terrestrial exemption for competitor's access to an operator's co-owned programming.

Cable Penetration Hits 21-Year Low

Stevie Converse — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:03:59 -0500

Full article: TV Newscheck
According to Nielsen NTI data, cable penetration represented 60.7 percent of households in November, down from 61.7 percent in November 2009, while national alternate delivery system penetration reached 30.5 percent of television households last month, an all-time high that represents 33.7 percent of subscription television customers (those paying for video delivery), another all-time high.

Time Warner Cable's Gift to Itself: More of Your Money

Stevie Converse — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:23:08 -0500

Full article: Los Angeles Times
David Lazarus
There are things you can count on every year — the changing of the seasons, the happy faces of kids during the holidays -- and higher cable rates. Time Warner Cable is notifying Southern California customers that their cable bills are about to go up yet again, with higher charges for pretty much everything the company offers, from TV to Internet access.

Sister Spat

Stevie Converse — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:08:06 -0400

Full article: Susan Crawford Blog
Susan Crawford
Comcast wants to make sure that it has crushing leverage in dealing with the media conglomerates, so it’s buying NBCU. It will have the upper hand in almost every battle, and will be able to beat back ESPN’s high prices. But the larger, systemic problem in the retransmission game is that the entire system serves everyone except competition and lower prices.

Morgan Stanley Report on Broadband Pricing Wildly Overblown

Stevie Converse — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 08:05:01 -0400

Full article: Minyanville
Justin Rohrlich
A new report from Morgan Stanley that warns of skyrocketing cable prices as viewers migrate to the Internet may be overblown. Internet service is very profitable for cable providers, and they can cut programming costs so they will only have to raise the fees slightly. Plus, cable Internet services use just a few 'channels.' So while about a quarter of a cable operators' revenue comes from selling Internet access, they are now only allocate around 3 percent of their networks' total capacity to provide that access.

Is Netflix at the Mercy of Big Cable?

Stevie Converse — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:57:41 -0400

Full article: GigaOM
Ryan Lawler
Netflix relies on others' broadband networks for delivery of its online streaming service. Its competition with the pay TV operators that run those networks could put Netflix at the mercy of the very ISPs it needs to deliver its streams.