Multichannel News articles from December 1998

Multichannel News archives from December 1998

C-SPAN Impeachmentcam.
December 21, 1998... During the highly partisan House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings, humanity made a surprise appearance. On Saturday, Dec. 12, chairman Henry Hyde took a time-out from steering the fourth article of impeachment through the committee to...

PEOPLE.
December 21, 1998... BBC Ronni M. Faust has joined BBC Worldwide Americas as vice president, press and public relations. She had been director of corporate communications at ESPN. BRAVO Pete D'Urso has joined Bravo Networks as territory manager,...

CABLE EYES NEW FIBER OPTIONS.
December 21, 1998... The cable industry is preparing to accommodate an explosion in bandwidth requirements by exploiting new options in fiber op tics that are tightly attuned to existing network designs. With expansion requirements affecting every type of...

Handy Dandy Tactics Vindicated.
December 21, 1998... I-Way Patrol columnist Gary Arlen understands Scrooge a little better every year at this time. Humbug comes into its own at this time of year. From this curmudgeonly corner, it's time to check out the latest gift-wrap litter along the...

Clarification.
December 21, 1998... In a Dec. 7 story on state legislative forecast, the situation in New York was mischaracterized. The statute there that governs the cable-television industry was first enacted in 1973. The Public Service Commission, after soliciting comments...

Outdoor Life Signs Deal for Five Shows.
December 21, 1998... STAMFORD, CONN. -- Out-door Life Network has signed a production deal with Steve Crisman's Crisman Films for five one-hour original programs on the environment. adventure and conservation. The first will be Canyon-lands: Utah's...

Showtime.
December 21, 1998... NEW YORK -- At press time, Showtime was set to provide a live cybercast of its Dec. 19 charity basketball game telecast through its Web site. Several National Basketball Association players were set to compete against each other in a...

CNBC.
December 21, 1998... FORT LEE, NJ. -- CNBC last week temporarily dropped one of its guest analysts, James Cramer, from the network while it probes whether he made improper remarks about a stock. During a Dec. 2 Squawk Box segment, Cramer commented on the stock of...

TBS Superstation.
December 21, 1998... ATLANTA -- As part of its expansion into original series, TBS Superstation has given the green light for production of original comedy Channel of the Apes, which is based on the network's "Monkeyed Movies" shorts, officials said last week....

Cable for Christmas.
December 21, 1998... G. Scott Flake, General manager, Cable Vision of Parker, Ariz./Blythe, Calif. `Twas the night before Christmas and all through the system, the subs were all happy 'cause the techs hadn't missed 'em. The customers were all tuned in...

Viewer's Choice Sets PPV Concert.
December 14, 1998... NEW YORK - Viewer's Choice will distribute a Feb. 19 rock 'n' roll pay-per-view concert featuring new and classic rock bands. The event, Rock and Rockets, will feature performances by The B52's, Kenny Loggins, 10,000 Maniacs, Jennifer...

PEOPLE.
December 14, 1998... BET Dwight W. Crawford has joined BET Holdings Inc. as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Crawford had been senior vice president and treasurer at Discovery Communications Inc. BRAVO Renee Richert has joined...

Movies, NFL Battle for Ratings.
December 14, 1998... Take two new made-for-cable films, a National Football League game involving one of the NFL's hottest teams and some jiggle programming, and you've got a recipe for a sharply contested Sunday night schedule. On the strength of its football,...

Silicon Valley to FCC: Don't Regulate Broadband.
December 14, 1998... More than a dozen high-tech companies sent a written plea to the Federal Communications Commission last week, urging it not to adopt broadband regulations. America Online and some regional Bell operating companies have asked the FCC to...

Op Publicly Blames Nets for Rate Rise.
December 14, 1998... While most big MSOs are quietly raising rates about 5 percent to 6 percent in 1999, hoping rate regulation expires in March, some smaller operators are pushing through bigger increases and blaming the situation on programmers. One...

Will Oregon-Cable Deal Unravel?
December 14, 1998... The two sides in the dispute over whether Oregon Internet-service providers will be allowed on the @ Home Network were at it again last week. Just days after unveiling an agreement that would have transferred two of Tele-Communications...

USSB Stock Soars on Buy-Out Rumors.
December 14, 1998... U.S. Satellite Broadcasting saw its stock prices rise more than 38 percent last Wednesday, reaching $10 at one point. Volume last week was much heavier than typical for the stock, at 1.22 million shares traded on Wednesday alone. The...

Museum Net Hopes for Influx Soon.
December 14, 1998... Museum World, a fledgling digital network that hopes to launch in late 1999, is close to landing its first large investment, officials said last week. The channel, which would provide news, education, entertainment and special-event...

Believe It: TBS Expands Original Focus.
December 14, 1998... ATLANTA - TBS Super-station, which has not been known for its commitment to airing original series, will air 22 one-hour episodes of The New Ripley's Believe It or Not starting in January 2000, the network said. TBS network is hoping to...

Interactive Channel, Diva Forge Deal.
December 14, 1998... DALLAS - Diva Systems Inc. will license technology from Source Media's Interactive Channel to accelerate the deployment of video-on-demand on digital set-tops, the companies announced last week. In the deal, so far a memorandum of...

"active-graphic".
December 14, 1998... Has Webster's heard about this yet? Stan Weil, executive vice president for national ad sales at Knowledge TV, has come up with a new demographic term to add to the ad world's lexicon. It's "active-graphic." In short, that describes viewers...

FCC: Sports Don't Fuel Rates.
December 14, 1998... Cable TV programming costs accounted for 28.2 percent of rate hikes among the top six MSOs last year, but sports programming costs weren't a factor in rising rates, according to details from the long-awaited programming cost study that leaked...

Ex-Marcus Exec Intrator Joins Belo.
December 14, 1998... DALLAS - Former Marcus Cable vice president David M. Intrator has joined A.H. Belo Corp.'s Broadcast division as vice president of cable development, Belo said. Intrator left Marcus after Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures bought the company....

Brown to Leave C&W for EDS.
December 14, 1998... LONDON - Well-regarded telecom executive Dick Brown, currently CEO of Cable & Wireless plc, on Dec. 10 was named chairman and CEO of computer-services company Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Piano, Texas. The American executive is...

For the Last Time, Call DirecTv!
December 14, 1998... While executives were in Anaheim, Calif., discussing customer service at the Western Show, a vignette was transpiring one city over, demonstrating how cable can continue to shoot itself in the foot by pushing consumers into the arms of...

Anaheim hotels.
December 14, 1998... This is the last slam on Anaheim, we promise... One thing sure to be in demand at a show for telecom professionals is good communication services. But executives all over the Western Show groused over the infrastructure in Anaheim's hotels....

Brenner reporting to Chao.
December 14, 1998... So, who's the president at USA Networks? Depending on who you ask there, it's either a) none of your business, or b) Steve Brenner reports to Steven Chao. It all started when a Wire reporter, looking for exact titles for a story, asked the...

Fox Wins TCI Deal, Sets Launch Dates.
December 7, 1998... ANAHEIM, CALIF. -- Tele-Communications Inc.'s TCI of Washington has signed a carriage commitment for Fox Family Channel for 400,000 homes, becoming the first new affiliate for the revamped family-targeted network, officials said last...