Multichannel News articles from May 2000

Multichannel News archives from May 2000

Clarification.
May 22, 2000... In a story on MPEG-4 in the "Broadband Week" section of the May 15 issue, it was incorrectly reported that Cable Television Laboratories Inc. would hold a "formative meeting" in Vail, Colo., at the end of June. The meeting will take place at...

FCC Sweeps Away MSO's Legal Claim.
May 8, 2000... WASHINGTON -- If Time Warner Cable figured that it had the law on its side in dropping ABC Inc. stations at a time when the network would feel it most, the MSO apparently figured wrong. After Time Warner and The Walt Disney Co. agreed to...

ABC'S BLACK MONDAY.
May 8, 2000... Loses 3. 5M Time Warner Homes for 391/2 Hours NEW YORK -- Following the bloodiest battle in the history of retransmission consent, media giants Time Warner Cable and The Walt Disney Co. technically declared a two-and-a-half-month truce...

Cablevision Steps to Its Own Drummer.
May 8, 2000... Cablevision Systems Corp. has been on a roll lately. It has sold three systems outside of the New York metropolitan area for $3 billion, and its long-awaited Rainbow Media Holdings Inc. tracking stock should be issued soon. But Cablevision...

ESPN News: Another 20% License Hike.
May 8, 2000... Already the most expensive basic-cable network, The Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN will increase its monthly license fee for cable operators and satellite providers by 20 percent Aug. 1. The increase -- disclosed a few days before Disney and Time...

WWF Knocks Out Fight on PPV.
May 8, 2000... While Lennox Lewis looked impressive in retaining his heavy-weight championship last week, he was no match for the World Wrestling Federation's "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in the pay-per-view ring. Buy-rates for the WWF's April 30 Backlash...

Viacom Closes CBS Deal.
May 8, 2000... Viacom Inc. closed its $43 billion merger with CBS Corp. last Thursday, after receiving Federal Communications Commission approval the day before. The merger, announced in September, creates a media and entertainment powerhouse with a...

MTVN Absorbs CBS Cable Ops.
May 8, 2000... NEW YORK -- The operations of Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks and CBS Cable -- which includes The Nashville Network and country Music Telecvision -- will merge under the leadership of MTVN chairman Tom Freston, officials said last Thursday. ...

Crown Media IPO Goes Off at $14 Per.
May 8, 2000... ENGLEWDOD, COLO. - Crown Media Holdings Inc., the parent of Odyssey, priced its initial public offering last Wednesday, three weeks after postponing it due to unfavorable market conditions. Crown priced its IPO at $14 per share, raising...

Comedy Central Adds 'BattleBots' to Lineup.
May 8, 2000... NEW YORK -- Comedy Central will launch BattleBots a series featuring battling robots, with a one-hour special this summer, followed by 13 episodes later this year, officials said last week. BattleBots, a sports satire, first appeared on...

Cable Gets Big Win In Va. Access Case.
May 8, 2000... A U.S. District Court handed the cable industry a major victory last week when it ruled against an open-access ordinance in Henrico County, Va. In a verbal ruling, Judge Richard L. Williams said the Telecommunications Act of 1996...

Z Music Gives Way to Video Rola.
May 8, 2000... Those Christian rock videos featuring bands like Stryper weren't cutting it, but Gaylord Entertainment Co. is banking that VJs spinning mariachi videos and other Mexican music will be a big draw in the U.S. cable market. The company's...

Three MSO Heads on Going Public.
May 8, 2000... After nearly a decade-long drought, four companies, including Charter Communications Inc., tapped the public markets with initial public offerings within the past six months. Three of those companies -- Insight Communications Co. Inc.,...

Washington Pols Jump on Digital-Divide Bandwagon.
May 8, 2000... WASHINGTON -- Policymakers here are taken with the notion that the joys of broadband-Internet access are the preserve of wealthy Web surfers clicking up a storm in big cities and their suburban enclaves. Among those left out of the...

Way Down (Under) in New Orleans.
May 8, 2000... As The cable industry prepared for the National Show in New Orleans this week, TBS Superstation has slated On Hostile Ground -- a disaster movie about a giant sinkhole Threatening to swallow The Big Easy -- for June 2 primetime. In reality,...

Black Entertainment Television.
May 8, 2000... Black Entertainment Television hosted its 20th anniversary celebration during the cable industry's biggest weekend. The only problem is that the network's May 6 blowout affair wasn't in New Orleans, where executives were en route to attend...

Puppy Channel.
May 8, 2000... You've seen him wandering the halls of the National Show since 1997, wearing the red badge with the words, Puppy Channel," superimposed on a dog bone. But that puppy won't hunt this year. Daniel FitzSimons has decided to stay home this year....

Bunny Channel.
May 8, 2000... Meanwhile in Victoria, British Columbia, they've come up with what could be called the "Bunny Channel." No, not the Playboy variety. Those creative types at Shaw Cable's community cable channel, who ran the "Log Channel" last Christmas,...

Mentzner Media Services.
May 8, 2000... Although he buys lots of cable-news networks' local avails, Mentzner Media Services' Bruce Mentzner told the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau's "Cable Campaign Strategies 2000" conference in Washington, D.C., last month, 'There are...

Time Warner Cable.
May 8, 2000... We've all heard of the term, "guerilla marketing," but this might be taking it too far. Early last month, a Wire reporter and Once-content RON Corp. customer woke up one morning to find that out of the blue, he was receiving the programming...

EchoStar Communications Corp.
May 8, 2000... The Wire's satellite-TV reporter was among the lucky few in the New York office not affected by Time Warner Cable's removing ABC from its cable lineups last Monday. But instead of basking in the opportunity to watch Regis Philbin and his...

Diamond to Leave Food Network Post.
May 8, 2000... NEW YORK -- Heidi Diamond, Food Network's senior vice president of strategic network development and marketing, will be leaving that post, she said last week. Diamond said she will stay on at the network intermittently until the end of...

Dolgin to Head Fox Sports Net.
May 8, 2000... LOS ANGELES -- Fox Sports Net last week named former chief operating officer Tracy Dolgin as its new president. Dolgin, who has served as COO since July 1997, will replace Jeff Shell, who was recently named president and CEO of Fox Cable...

Charter to Call AT&T on Upgrade Costs.
May 8, 2000... Charter Communications Inc. is going back to the negotiating table concerning a 1.3 million-subscriber system swap with AT&T Broadband, after a due-diligence investigation found that the AT&T Broadband systems would require more upgrades than...

VNI Aids Charter 'Interconnect' Plans.
May 8, 2000... Visions of establishing its own version of a 5 million-subscriber national sales interconnect can become a reality for Charter Communications Inc., due to its newly signed multiyear agreement with Video Networks Inc., ad-sales chief Wes Hart...

Charter Picks Diva for VOD Rollout.
May 8, 2000... Charter Communications Inc. said last Thursday that it plans to commercially launch Diva Systems Corp.'s video-on-demand service in its Los Angeles-area systems this summer and in other systems in the near future. The deal marks the most...

'South Park' Creators Renew at Comedy Central.
May 8, 2000... After weighing offers to go to the more conservative broadcast networks, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are sticking with Comedy Central. At a press conference in Santa Monica, Calif., last week, Comedy said it had closed...

Cablevision, AT&T Offer Rewards.
May 8, 2000... Cablevision System Corp. and AT&T Corp. said last week that they plan to launch their "Something Extra" rewards program to consumers in the New York Metropolitan area who take both video services from Cablevision and phone service from AT&T....

Nick Extends Kids' Friday-Night Block.
May 8, 2000... NEW YORK -- Nickelodeon is expanding its kids' programming block on Friday nights until 10 p.m. this fall, officials said last week. The expansion, effective Sept. 15, comes amid speculation that ABC Inc. plans to discontinue its...

Competition Drives Digital-Sub Growth.
May 8, 2000... Consumer demand for digital-video service continued to grow in the first months of 2000, driving subscriber growth for both digital-cable and direct-broadcast satellite providers. The National Cable Television Association reported last...

Mediacom Plans Outlays for Upgrades, Subs.
May 8, 2000... Mediacom Communications Corp. plans to spend $193 million in cash this year to acquire 100,000 subscribers in systems adjacent to its existing properties, and it will invest an additional $35 million for plant upgrades in 2000. Mediacom,...

Cable Reaches Out to Hispanic Market.
May 8, 2000... Cable networks and operators are taking to the streets, trying to reach an underserved audience -- the more than 30 million U.S. consumers of Hispanic descent. International Channel Networks' Canales [tilde{n}] introduced its new mascot,...

Cox 'Express' Speeds Digital Rollout in Ariz.
May 8, 2000... Faced with heated competition from digital-subscriber line and direct-broadcast satellite services, Cox Communications Inc.'s Phoenix division will accelerate deployment of digital-video and high-speed data services even before it completes...

Ex-Owner' s Forgery Costs AT&T $4.5M.
May 8, 2000... A questionable signature on an easement agreement for a Houston apartment complex has cost AT&T Broadband a $4.5 million civil judgment. The apartment owner, David O'Brien III, asserted that his name was forged on a 1995 contract binding...

EchoStar Offers Dish-Lease Model.
May 8, 2000... In an effort to eliminate one more consumer objection to switching from cable to direct-broadcast satellite, EchoStar Communications Corp. last week announced a new "Digital Home Plan," offering new subscribers the option of leasing a...

D.C. ROW Policy Stirs the Pot.
May 8, 2000... The District of Columbia City Council has adopted a new I rights-of-way policy to coordinate construct on by telecommunications competitors -- an action That the local cable incumbent hopes will end the delay in its rebuild. The nations...

WOW Gets Texas-Wide Thumbs-Up.
May 8, 2000... Texas state regulators last week approved WideOpenWest LLC's plans to construct broadband networks capable of offering telecommunications services statewide. In issuing its order, the Public Utility Commission of Texas confirmed that in...

Comcast May Have New Rival in Indy.
May 8, 2000... INDIANAPOLIS -- Comcast Corp., which just consolidated its power in the market here through the conclusion of some system swaps, may soon find that it doesn't have the market to itself, after all. Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Co. and...

For Want of Care, Access Wars Arose.
May 8, 2000... Three votes: If the cable provider in Portland, Ore., had a better relationship with three regulators there in 1998, attorneys and government-relations troubleshooters for cable companies might not be scrambling all over the nation to stamp...

L.A. Board Backs AOL Transfer.
May 8, 2000... LOS ANGELES -- The city's Board of Information Technology Commissioners last week recommended transferring Time Warner Cable systems here to America Online Inc. The board added the caveat that the post-merger AOL Time Warner Inc. must...

Mass. DTE Sides with Cable on Access.
May 8, 2000... The cable industry is converging on New Orleans for the National Show this week fresh off a major victory in Massachusetts over proponents of open access. The state Department of Telecommunications and Energy said last week that the...

Boom Times in Cable Town Again.
May 8, 2000... DENVER -- For Mark Haverkate, these days are reminiscent of an era when a group of unknown entrepreneurs made this city the home of the fledgling cable industry. That's because Denver is again attracting a lot of attention from wireline...

WIN Gets San Antonio Franchise.
May 8, 2000... DENVER -- Western Integrated Networks LLC -- an overbuilder based here and headed by industry veteran James Vaughn -- picked up its third cable franchise last week. Officials in San Antonio authorized a 15-year franchise that will allow...

HSN Readies Spanish-Language Version.
May 8, 2000... Hoping to reach Hispanic female subscribers, Home Shopping Network is planning to launch a 24-hour, Spanish-language version of itself July 4. The service, Home Shopping en Espa[tilde{n}]ol (HSeE), is targeted toward Hispanic women, and...

Idaho Phone Co-Op Dents AT&T.
May 8, 2000... In south-central Idaho, a rural telephone cooperative decided to go up against the big guy to see if it could make a business of cable TV. The little telephone guys built a system devoid of digital video or deep discounts. The...

Report: Rural Areas Lose Out.
May 8, 2000... WASHINGTON -- President Clinton released a report late last month saying that cable and phone companies are targeting urban markets with broadband facilities more so than they are rural areas. The report said cable has deployed broadband...

Liguori May Have Right Rx for FX.
May 8, 2000... NEW YORK -- In late February Howard Stem, the self-proclaimed "king of all media," held court at the Plaza Hotel here, fielding questions about his new FX series, Son of the Beach, from a room jam-packed with reporters. At the press...

ESPN Expos[acute{e}] Reveals Highlights, Lowlights.
May 8, 2000... For more than two decades, ESPN has brought highlights and low moments from the world of sports to millions of viewers, providing coverage from every angle -- from gushing superlatives to the hushed tones of scandal, from plays of the day to...

Cable Positive Taps Villano as Chief.
May 8, 2000... Cable Positive named Steve Villano executive director of cable's AIDS-action organization late last month. Set to begin work last Wednesday, Villano replaces Molly McAuliffe, who is leaving this summer to pursue other interests. ...

HBO's Billock: Dealing from Strength.
May 8, 2000... Home Box Office continues to counter all of the stereotypes for cable networks, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on original programming and marketing The money seems to be wellspent. HBO holds its own against the incumbent...

Tales from the PEG-Channel Front.
May 8, 2000... In Columbus, Ohio; Boston; Chicago; and St. Paul, Minn., local television speaks to viewers on topics and in languages uniquely their own. Across the nation, PEG-access (public, education and government) channels -- those locally owned...

Hundt Takes Message to the Masses.
May 8, 2000... In the next excerpt from former Federal Communications Commission chairman Reed Hundt's memoir, You Say You Want a Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics (Yale University Press), it is mid-1996, the Telecommunications Act has passed...

TV Guide Channel Adds a 'View'-er.
May 8, 2000... Debbie Matenopoulos, former co-host of ABC's The View, will join TV Guide Channel as host of its new slate of technology and pay-per-view programming in late June, according to officials. TV Guide Channel's new programming initiative is...

VH1's 'Divas,' 'Men' Get a Sales Boost.
May 8, 2000... NEW YORK -- Record sales for the male and female artists who headlined the VH1 specials Men Strike Back and VH1 Divas 2000:A Tribute to Diana Ross have soared since the shows aired recently on the network. For example, sales for the...

AMC Honors Women Film Pioneers.
May 8, 2000... BETHPAGE, N.Y. -- American Movie Classics and Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films will salute four pioneering women filmmakers with a one-hour special, Reel Models: The First Women of Film, which will be hosted by Streisand and air May 30. ...

HBO's 'Americanos' Seen In Homestead.
May 8, 2000... HOMESTEAD, FLA. - Migrant farmworkers and their families in the area were treated to a special screening here of the Home Box Office/Edward James Olmos documentary, Americanos: Latino Life In The US., last Monday (May 1), a few days before...

Odyssey's Goal: to Establish an Identity.
May 8, 2000... Odyssey's journey from a faith-and-values religious purveyor to a more broad-based family-programming service is now slightly more than one year into its repositioning and makeover by former Fox Children's Network maestro Margaret Loesch. ...

Odyssey Parent Crown Shelves IPO.
May 8, 2000... Crown Media Holdings Inc., the parent of Odyssey, has put its $262 million initial public offering on hold, citing unfavorable market conditions. Crown wanted the cash to expand the distribution of Odyssey and other assets, such as The...

Beaming Into the Digital-TV Darkness.
May 8, 2000... If a TV show is televised in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? The forest these days is the digital universe, and there are numerous fledgling networks struggling with that existential business question. With...

Would Regional Sports Fly on PPV?
May 8, 2000... Imagine sitting down to watch your favorite professional-baseball team's game. With potato chips and soda at your side and a remote control in hand, you flick to your digital barker service to view the evening's schedule of programs. You...

ESPN PPV Efforts Get Digital Toehold.
May 8, 2000... As digital boxes continue to roll out at a fast pace, ESPN is very optimistic that its digital pay-per-view sports services will help to drive digital subscriptions for operators. After more than six months of offering its ESPN Now...

Ultimate Fighting Gets Web-Carriage Deal.
May 8, 2000... The beleaguered Ultimate Fighting Championship franchise received a shot in the arm from Internet distribution company PayForView.com, which will distribute the company's next three mixed-martial-arts events. Semaphore Entertainment...

In Demand to Revive Instant-Target Promo.
May 8, 2000... Responding to strong demand from network affiliates, In Demand will resurrect its monthly instant-targeting pay-per-view movie promotion beginning this month, complete with enhanced graphics and additional affiliate support. The...

Tyson Could Be on PPV This Fall.
May 8, 2000... With the rescheduling of the May 20 Mike Tyson-Lou Savarese fight to June 24, operators hoping for a Tyson pay-per-view fight will have to wait until at least the fall. Sources close to the situation said the fight was rescheduled after...

In Demand Carries Psychic PPV Event.
May 8, 2000... NEWYORK -- In Demand will distribute Spring Communications' June 4 pay-per-view event featuring psychic Sylvia Browne. Browne, who was featured in a similar PPV event last year, will help viewers to connect with their future through her...

AT&T BROADBAND.
May 8, 2000... William B. Saunders has joined AT&T Broadband's AT&T Cable Services as news director, Channel 5 Berks County (Pa.) News. He had held the same title at WNPV in Lansdale, Pa. CEA Bob Weiss has joined Communications Equity Associates...

MSOs Want More Custom-Fit Promotions.
May 8, 2000... Some men prefer tailor-made suits. Others buy off the rack. And when it comes to network-affiliate sales promotion tie-ins, some cable operators take what the networks offer, while others, more frequently, ask for promotions customized to...

Cable Campaigns for Election-Ad Dollars.
May 8, 2000... Political-ad spending on cable, long expected to be a hefty contributor to MSO and interconnect sales, wasn't all that strong in the 2000 campaign's primary season. And although MSO and interconnect executives have tempered their...

DBS' D.C. Point Man Stays 'Lean'.
May 8, 2000... The direct-broadcast satellite industry is adding at least 200,000 subscribers per month, led by its two main players, DirecTV Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp. While the fractious DBS industry sometimes has trouble speaking with one...

Koreans Lambaste Murdoch Over DTH Plan.
May 8, 2000... SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- Critics are coming out of the woodwork against Star TV's impending arrival in South Korea. A consortium led by Star TV, a News Corp. subsidiary, plans to transmit a direct-to-home platform of 80-plus channels...

Canadian Cablers: 'Live and Let Live'.
May 8, 2000... OTTAWA -- The country's MSOs aren't fretting over telco giant BCE Inc.'s pending acquisition of CTV Inc., owner of Canada's largest private TV network and a host of cable-TV channels. Instead, all they're demanding is the right to make such...

Europe's Zone Vision Eyes More Countries.
May 8, 2000... LONDON -- Programmer Zone Vision Enterprises Ltd., with its primary focus on Central Europe, is looking to expand into some major new markets, executives said. The company, based here, distributes several of its own channels, as well as...

India Opens Door to Satellite Platforms.
May 8, 2000... NEW DELHI, INDIA -- The telecommunications and broadcasting industries in India have reason for optimism now that the government is pushing to lift the ban on direct-to-home Ku-band platforms. That word surfaced in the recently released...

UPC Primed for New Projects.
May 8, 2000... New channels, facilities and set-top boxes are on the way from United Pan-Europe Communications N.V. (UPC), Europe's largest MSO. The company announced a slew of new channels. Among them was Innergy, a mind, body and spirit channel based...

Brazil's Globo Cabo Unleashes SWAT Team.
May 8, 2000... RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL -- Globo Cabo S.A., Brazil's leading cable and broadband Internet-service provider, has put together an internal task force to improve the company's financial performance. The so-called SWAT team will be overseen by...

Dan Somers Aims for an 'Imprint'.
May 8, 2000... Dan Somers, welcome to the ever-changing world of the broadband-cable industry. Somers -- who took the top spot at AT&T Broadband in October, after Leo J. Hindery Jr. resigned -- has had an action-packed first six months on the job. The...

Digital Drives S-A's 3rd-Quarter Growth.
May 8, 2000... ATLANTA - Digital-subscriber growth drove fiscal third quarter revenue increases at set-top-box manufacturer Scientific-Atlanta Inc. S-A reported a revenue increase of 38 percent to $440.7 million and net earnings of $38.1 million, or 24...

Comcast Keeps Making Digital Gains.
May 8, 2000... Digital subscribers continued to grow at a rapid rate for Comcast Corp. during the first quarter, and digital cable is helping to ward off direct-broadcast satellite penetration. Revenue for the quarter was up 33.5 percent, to $1.86...

AT&T Earnings Don't Help Stock Price.
May 8, 2000... Investors expressed some alarm after AT&T Corp.'s May 2 earnings report contained bigger-than-expected declines in its long-distance business and advised that year-end earnings per share could be about 9 cents below earlier estimates. ...

Closing Prices.
May 8, 2000... Closing Prices MAY 1, 2000 PRICE PRICE 52-WEEK 52-WEEK COMPANY 5/1/00 4/24/00 % CHANGE HIGH LOW MSOs...

S-A Rates Upgrade.
May 8, 2000... SG Cowen Securities Corp. raised its rating on Scientific-Atlanta Inc. from "buy" to "strong buy" after the set-top maker reported better-than-expected earning. Cowen -- which set a price target of between $70 and $75 per share-- said S-A...

COM21 INC (NASDAQ--CMTO.
May 8, 2000... Cable-modem-maker Com2l has been on a roll. Its stock price rose nearly $8 over a six-day period, fueled by increased international business. Com21 closed at $24.56 April 24 and rose to $32 May 1. The company said earlier this month that...

CTOs Get Priorities Straight: Upgrades, Digital, Data, More.
May 8, 2000... When it comes to finding out how MSOs are doing on new-service rollouts, there's no substitute for going directly to their chief technical officers. Recently, AT&T Broadband's Tony Werner, Cable One Inc.'s Tommy Hill, Adelphia Communications...

Home-Net Vendors Eye MSOs That Remain Wary About Apps.
May 8, 2000... Riding the wave of popularity for PC-based home-networking applications, vendors are beginning to target the cable industry with new products and services to make home networks more palatable for uneasy cable operators. While early fears...