Free Republic

I’ll be the first to admit that anti-trust law is not my strong suit.... A day, one single day, after the two media giants announced their deal, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts proudly weighed in to strongly support the Senate Democrats’ health care reform bill.

CABLE NEWS RACE NOV. 19, 2009 FOXNEWS O'REILLY/PALIN 4,120,000 FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,871,000 FOXNEWS BECK 2,730,000 FOXNEWS BAIER 2,359,000 FOXNEWS GRETA 2,113,000 FOXNEWS SHEP 2,078,000 MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,188,000 CNNHN GRACE 1,018,000 CNN KING 980,000 MSNBC MADDOW 877,000 MSNBC HARDBALL 597,000 CNN COOPER 585,000

The battle over your home entertainment equipment is heating up again and the time to make your voice heard is now. Hollywood wants the Federal Communications Commission to grant the studios permission to engage in so-called “Selectable Output Control,” or SOC for short. SOC is a technology mandate that would allow movie studios to shut off video outputs on the back of your cable box and DVR during the screening of certain movies over cable. Why is this bad? Because SOC could inhibit future innovation, obstruct interoperability, limit fair use and restrict consumer choice. Worst of all, it could force...

2:15 PM UPDATE: I've learned that 100 people are being laid off across "several divisions" of the A&E Television Networks yesterday and today "as a direct result of the merger". It will make those employees feel so much better that management tells me it's "no one in a decision making role." A&E Television Networks in August acquired Lifetime Entertainment, and everything is now owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group, Hearst and NBC Universal. Big Media = Big Mergers = Big Mistakes.

THE END OF 'OPRAH' AS WE KNOW HER: Daytime Diva Giving Up Syndicated Talk Show & Moving To Her Cable Network In 2011 EXCLUSIVE: One of the biggest questions in the TV biz has been when, and even if, Oprah Winfrey would give up her daytime syndicated talk show to focus on OWN, her long delayed Oprah Winfrey Network in 70 million homes that was supposed to launch in place of the Discovery Health Channel as a joint venture between Winfrey and Discovery Communications. The industry has been betting that the daytime diva would extend The Oprah Winfrey Show for...

Despite the fact that Fox News draws more viewers than CNN, MSNBC and Headlne News combined, the White House has announced its intent to boycott Fox for the next several months. In order to make up for the viewer shortfall, the White House will vary its appearance schedule to include "non-traditional" cable outlets.

Dye-sensitized cells get a double boost from nanowires and optical fiber. Dye-sensitized solar cells are flexible and cheap to make, but they tend to be inefficient at converting light into electricity. One way to boost the performance of any solar cell is to increase the surface area available to incoming light. So a group of researchers at Georgia Tech has made dye-sensitized solar cells with a much higher effective surface area by wrapping the cells around optical fibers. These fiber solar cells are six times more efficient than a zinc oxide solar cell with the same surface area, and if...

Authorities on Tuesday closed a major bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland after a cable on its upper deck snapped during the evening commute.

So Tom Cable walks. That's how you'd have figured it to play given the other characters and circumstances involved. But more than that, Napa County District Attorney Gary Lieberstein said that Raiders assistant coach Randy Hanson couldn't satisfactorily explain to Lieberstein's conviction rate how his jaw was broken. And that, ultimately, is the lesson here. Nobody told enough of a believable story for us ever to figure out what Cable, the Raiders head coach, actually did to Hanson's face, let alone what his intent was when he did whatever it was he did. With that kind of iron-clad certitude, is...

Raiders defensive assistant Randy Hanson continues to push his assault charges in public, this time challenging Raiders coach Tom Cable to a lie-detector showdown. "I will take a lie-detector test and a drug test, and I will pay for it - and I'll pay for Tom Cable to take those tests as well," Hanson told Yahoo Sports on Thursday. Cable was asked if he had any response. "None whatsoever," Cable said after practice Friday. Hanson has accused Cable of assaulting him and fracturing his jaw Aug. 5 during training camp. Napa police concluded their investigation last week and handed over...

Raiders defensive assistant Randy Hanson finally interviewed with the Napa police, telling them Friday that Raiders coach Tom Cable struck him and broke his jaw Aug. 5 at training camp, his attorney told NFL.com on Monday. Napa police confirmed (again) the potential felony case remains under investigation more than a month since the story broke. Hanson's attorney said Hanson handed over medical records showing he has a broken jaw. When the investigation ends, the district attorney will decide whether or not to press charges. Only then should anyone expect the NFL to take any disciplinary action in the matter --...

CABLE NEWS RACE THURSDAY NITE, SEPT 10 FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,609,000 FOXNEWS BECK 3,340,000 FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,986,000 FOXNEWS GRETA 2,522,000 FOXNEWS BAIER 2,362,000 FOXNEWS SHEP 2,040,000 MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,573,000 MSNBC MADDOW 1,164,000 CNN KING 965,000 MSNBC HARDBALL 882,000 MSNBC SCHULTZ 734,000 CNN COOPER 691,000

Napa police have reopened their investigation into a Raiders training camp melee this month that left assistant coach Randy Hanson with a broken jaw, reportedly when he was attacked by head coach Tom Cable. Without using names, Lt. Brian McGovern said the incident at the Napa training camp at 10 a.m. on Aug. 5 was originally considered a misdemeanor but is now being investigated as a felony assault. McGovern said the department learned about the incident Aug. 6, when officers were summoned to the hospital on the report of an alleged assault by "staff members" of the Raiders. "The victim...

Oakland Raiders head coach Tom Cable punched one of his assistants on Aug. 6 at the team's training camp headquarters in Napa, Calif., several media outlets reported on Monday. "It's an internal issue, I'm not going to comment on that," Cable said on Monday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The Web site National Football Post first reported that defensive assistant Randy Hanson was punched in the jaw by another member of the Raiders staff. Unidentified sources later told Fanhouse.com that Cable hit the third-year assistant.

Here is video of Bill O'Reilly tonight talking about the absolute dominance of Fox News over its three cable competitors - CNN, MSNBC, CNN Headline News. The numbers from last week were amazing for Fox News, and for The O'Reilly Factor in particular. In the 8 pm edt time slot, O'Reilly beat CNN by 380%, MSNBC by 247%, and Headline News by 299%. The O'Reilly Factor now has a larger audience than the CBS Evening News, 5.4 million to 5.368 million viewers. . . . . . (Watch Video)

The Supreme Court Monday declined to review the challenge by CNN and some major studios to Cablevision's use of a remote DVR service. The decision paves the way for Cablevision to deploy the service later this summer, according to the company. The Solicitor General had recommended the court not take the case. ‘We are very pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear a challenge to Cablevision's Remote Digital Recording Service," said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. "From a common-sense point of view, the lower court, and the U.S. Solicitor General, were correct in their interpretation of the...

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to consider a legal challenge by television networks and Hollywood studios to Cablevision Systems Corp.'s next-generation digital video recorder, clearing the way for the cable company to offer the new service this year. The networks and studios argued that Cablevision's new remote-storage DVR violated federal copyright laws. Cablevision's service would allow customers to record and store television shows on central computer servers maintained by Cablevision instead of having to record them on expensive DVR cable boxes installed in their homes. Cablevision says the system would allow it to provide DVR services at lower costs,...

For the 77th consecutive month, FNC finished first in total day and prime time ratings during May. FNC was the sixth highest rated cable network on all of basic cable during prime time for the month (CNN and MSNBC finished 19th and 26th) and the seventh rated network in total day (CNN and MSNBC were 19th and 27th). FNC also had 11 out of the top 13 programs in cable during the month in Total Viewers. The O'Reilly Factor was the #1 program in cable news for the 90th consecutive month, and saw gains in Total Viewers year-to-year (26%).

Time-Warner Cable will no longer carry Mark Cuban's HD Net, which broadcast Ring of Honor, beginning on or around May 31 in the New York City area. There had been talk of the cable provider pulling the channel its lineup a few months ago, but those plans were temporarily but on the back burner as talks between Time Warner and HD Net progressed.

The city of Wilson, NC was tired of high internet, cable, and telephone prices, so they decided to do something about it. They started their own, city-owned, ISP. Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq have teamed up to convince North Carolina's legislature to propose bills outlawing community owned ISPs because the big guys cannot possibly compete.

1. “Deregulation is a joke— but it’s probably not as funny for you.” For years the cable business had acted like a typical monopoly, providing lessthan- ideal customer service, skyrocketing prices, and little choice of service. Then along came the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which opened the door for competition and promised weary cable customers relief at last. Too bad that relief never came. Nearly four years after the bill was passed, a mere 286 of the 30,000 U.S. cable markets were being served by more than one provider, according to the Federal Communications Commission. And in the FCC’s most...

A Philadelphia cable network's early morning broadcast of a Good Friday service at the Vatican abruptly changed to something wildly different , a 30-second "A Philadelphia cable network's early morning broadcast of a Good Friday service at the Vatican abruptly changed to something wildly different , a 30-second "Girls Gone Wild" ad. Comcast spokesman Jeff Alexander says the 2 a.m. Friday programming glitch was due to a required test of the Emergency Alert System. He says such tests are usually done in the overnight hours.

Authorities hope a quarter-million-dollar reward will shake loose a tipster to lead them to the vandals who severed underground fiber-optic cables, cutting off phone service for tens of thousands of people and disrupting life throughout southern Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. Investigators said Friday they are tracking down at least 10 leads and reviewing traffic-camera footage taken near one of four sites where the cables were cut Thursday in hopes of a breakthrough.[snip] Contract talks The sabotage in the South Bay came as AT&T was negotiating with the Communications Workers of America for a contract covering more...

Live + Same Day Cable News Daily Ratings for March 18, 2009P2+ Total DayFNC – 1,370,000 viewersCNN – 784,000 viewersMSNBC –537,000 viewersCNBC – 297,000 viewersHLN – 391,000 viewers P2+ Prime TimeFNC – 2,553,000 viewersCNN—1,300,000 viewersMSNBC –1,032,000 viewersCNBC – 209,000 viewersHLN – 964,000 viewers25-54 Total DayFNC –394,000 viewersCNN –247,000 viewersMSNBC –183,000 viewersCNBC –83,000 viewersHLN- 189,000 viewers25-54 Prime TimeFNC – 681,000 viewersCNN –419,000 viewersMSNBC –362,000 viewersCNBC – 91,000 viewersHLN – 440,000 viewers35-64 Total DayFNC –656,000 viewersCNN –366,000 viewersMSNBC –258,000 viewersCNBC –143,000 viewersHLN- 228,000 viewers35-64 Prime TimeFNC –1,072,000 viewersCNN – 600,000 viewersMSNBC –530,000 viewersCNBC – 129,000 viewersHLN –560,000 viewersMorning programs (6:00AM-9:00AM) P2+ (25-54)...

[chart] The biggest news in cable news this week is the remarkable rise of Glenn Beck at Fox. Top 10 cable TV shows for 03/13/09His Friday night special drew huge numbers and leapfrogged his show above long-time #2 Sean Hannity. What was CNN thinking when the let this guy get away? As for the rest of the cable news pack, some were up a little, some were down a little. And Larry King continues to be CNN’s last man standing. The accompanying chart looks at the top 10 cable TV shows for March 13, 2009.

I’ve been receiving complaints from readers who are Time Warner customers and, apparently, this is serious stuff.Jeff Simmermon, Time Warner’s director of digital communications, said its DNS servers (the system that matches easy-to-remember web addresses to the corresponding numbers — such as ocregister.com instead of numbers) have targeted by ”denial of service” attacks for seven days. Without these translations functioning, web browsers are unable to locate their destinations.In a message, Simmermon said “hackers have launched a series of DOS attacks on Time Warner Cable’s DNS servers, affecting customer experience in our Southern California and National regions.” It ain’t pretty, he said. Customers are being affected...

Yesterday's show drew 662,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo, making it the second most-popular cable news show with younger viewers, even topping, for the first time, Sean Hannity's show at 9pmET. However, Hannity beat Beck in Total Viewers (2.376 million vs. 2.331 million). But on Monday night, Beck squeezed out a few more thousand viewers than Hannity in that measurement (2.388m vs. 2.385m).

NPR is supposed to stand for National Public Radio. But based on their latest flap with liberal commentator Juan Williams, the initials seem to stand for No Public Relations. “Last year,” said Alicia Shepard, an NPR ombudsman, “378 listeners emailed me complaints and frustrations about things Williams said on Fox. The listener themes are similar: Williams ‘dishonors NPR.’ He’s an ‘embarrassment to NPR.’ NPR should severe their relationship with him.’” Ellen Weiss, Vice President of News at NPR, is so concerned about it that she “has asked Williams to ask that Fox remove his NPR identification whenever he is on...

Porter McConnell gave up on pay TV last summer after noticing that monthly rates kept creeping up. Now with no satellite or cable TV, she watches her trusty old TV set with an antenna or she goes online to catch her favorite programs. Once in a while, she buys shows from Apple Inc.'s iTunes service. McConnell also upped her subscription to Netflix Inc.'s movies-by-mail service so she gets two DVDs at a time instead of one, for $15 a month. "Part of it is, I've got to economize," said the 30-year-old Washington, D.C., resident who works at a nonprofit....

Cable cancellations Scripps Networks Interactive, which operates the Food Network and other cable outlets, said Feb. 5 that the percentage of upfront cancellations is running in the low double digits, as opposed to cancellation rates of 2% to 5% in the first quarter. Speaking to investors on a conference call held by investment-bank Credit Suisse First Boston on Feb. 6, Mel Berning, A&E Networks exec VP-national ad sales, said second-quarter option cancellations could come in at about 10% across cable. Top-tier outlets have been able to maintain scatter pricing, he said, but scatter at other places is down by percentages...

On Obama's agenda, according to his White House website, is the goal to "encourage diversity in media ownership." Obama elaborates on the site that his aim is to "encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum." The plan apparently aligns with longstanding Democratic suggestions to resurrect the "Fairness Doctrine." The policy was abandoned in 1987 under President Reagan when there were 75 radio talk shows in the U.S. Reagan opposed the policy because it required...

Battered by a one-two punch of declining readership and ad pages, Newsweek magazine is getting an extreme makeover this year that will include a large circulation reduction, deep cuts in operating costs, and a new effort to attract advertisers by concentrating on an elite audience. According to The New York Times, executives at Newsweek say the retooled magazine will focus on being a "thought leader" that focuses on telling readers how to think about news, rather than telling people what happened in the last week. The plan, similar to the editorial outlook espoused by The Economist magazine, is aimed at...

NEW YORK - The Al Jazeera Network plans to announce on Thursday that it has signed a deal to run its news on Worldfocus, a syndicated nightly news program produced in New York and distributed throughout the United States. The deal would help the international news network, one of the top services in the Arabic-speaking world, broaden its reach in the United States, where it so far has been available to only a limited audience. Worldfocus, hosted by former NBC News correspondent Martin Savidge, is produced by New York City public broadcaster WLIW and syndicated to a number of Public...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- There's nothing new about fee disputes between TV networks and cable and satellite operators, but now they've got an added wrinkle: Cable operators contending that TV networks should forfeit big fee increases when they put shows online free on their own sites and third-party distributors such as Hulu, Joost and Veoh. That's one of the central arguments being made by Time Warner Cable executives in their dispute with Viacom, which threatens to remove a group of 18 networks that includes MTV, Comedy Central, Noggin and Nickelodeon from Time Warner's 13.5 million subscribers in big markets such...

LOS ANGELES – "SpongeBob SquarePants" might get squeezed off Time Warner Cable. Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark for 13 million subscribers at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal with Time Warner Cable Inc. is not agreed upon by then. The impasse would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" will be cut off on the nation's second-largest cable operator.

Viacom may pull MTV off Time Warner Cable Shows go if new carriage deal not signed by midnight.LOS ANGELES — Media giant Viacom Inc. is threatening to pull MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon and 16 other channels from Time Warner Cable Inc. if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by midnight today, Dec. 31. If realized, the move could shut off popular shows like "The Colbert Report" and "SpongeBob SquarePants" to 13 million subscribers, said spokesman Alex Dudley, a vice president at Time Warner Cable, the nation's second-largest cable operator. "The issue is that they have asked...

Viacom threatens to pull MTV off Time Warner CableAssociated Press - December 30, 2008 10:33 PM ET LOS ANGELES (AP) - Viacom is threatening to pull MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon and 16 other channels from Time Warner Cable if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by midnight Wednesday. A Time Warner spokesman says Viacom is seeking "an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees." Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22 and 36% per channel, adding up to tens of millions of dollars per year, an amount that Time Warner says would cause an increase...

Editor's note: This is part of a series of stories about the recession's effect on the tech industry. A year before the U.S. economic crisis came to a head, Debra James of Oakland said she saw the writing on the wall and decided to trim the household budget. Topping the list were things like satellite television. I could tell the economy was getting sluggish in the summer of 2007," she said. "So I decided we needed to make some cuts, so that if things got worse, it wouldn't be so painful." Indeed, things did get worse. The U.S. economy has...

Instapundit points out an article about a family that ditched their satellite TV: You don’t need satellite TV when times get tough After a few Google searches, James said she found a wealth of legitimate sources for TV programming online. Sites such as Hulu, Fancast, Joost, YouTube, and most major TV networks’ Web sites offer TV shows and other video content for free. Using an existing rooftop antenna, James plugged her TV into the hook-up to get more than 50 high-definition TV channels over-the-air. The cost for these HD channels: zero. And instead of spending an extra $20 a month...

General Electric Co expects profit at its NBC Universal media business to be flat to down slightly, Chief Executive Jeff Immelt told investors on Tuesday.

The celebrated openness of the Internet -- network providers are not supposed to give preferential treatment to any traffic -- is quietly losing powerful defenders. Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers. At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic...

EW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable Inc will likely sell fewer than expected video, Internet and phone subscriptions this year, and expects a further decline next year due to the worsening U.S. economy, Chief Financial Officer Rob Marcus said on Monday. "In 2008, we're on track to deliver less than 2.5 million additional revenue-generating units," Marcus told the Reuters Media Summit in New York, adding that that was less than what the No. 2 U.S. cable company had originally anticipated. Revenue-generating unit, or RGU, is a cable industry term used for each video, Internet and phone subscription sold. Time...

Since CNN devoted so much time to covering the Hajj, a number of prominent Muslims -- including known terrorists and jihadists -- have opined that "We are defeating these people [American "evangelicals"] through their homes in their lands." "Terrorists gush over CNN coverage," by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily, December 12 (thanks to Doc Washburn): JERUSALEM – CNN's extensive coverage this week of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca is a defeat for evangelical Christians and proves it is only a question of time before Islam will be "shining all over the world," according to Muslim terrorists in Gaza speaking to...

Utility’s cable television and Internet service has been sold to Comcast by the city council of Alameda, California. The reason for the sale was due to a listless growth of the company due to decline in cable subscription. The sale will help to clear off the Alameda Power & Telecom’s debt of $33 million.

Choosing & Installing an Antenna for HDTV TV antennas may seem like relics from the last century, but a growing number of viewers are finding them to be indispensable in getting the best picture from their HDTVs. In this article, we'll discuss the advantages of over-the-air (OTA) reception and explain how to find digital TV signals in your local TV market and in nearby cities. We'll introduce the different types of TV antennas and tell you which ones perform best under various reception conditions. And we'll offer tips on how to install larger attic- and roof-mount antennas. To learn about...

Viacom, Inc. will weather the economic downturn by focusing on “organic growth” instead of any “significant acquisitions,” according to president and CEO Philippe Dauman. Speaking at the annual UBS Media and Communications Conference in New York, Dauman downplayed the company’s announcement least week that it would cut 850 jobs, or 7% of its workforce, and instead focused on the company’s positioning as a content provider with multiple revenue sources across each of its television, movie and digital divisions. Dauman was bullish on Nickelodeon, VH1, MTV and BET, which recently underwent a shift in programming leadership. He conceded that MTV has...

NBC's sweeping shake-up of its entertainment division last week highlights the deep problems it and other networks face in continuing to produce high-quality shows as advertisers slash spending and viewers find alternate ways to watch TV. The General Electric Co.-owned network, which has seen its ratings plunge 14% this season, plans to announce this week that it will merge its two programming groups -- one at the NBC network and the other at its television production studio -- into one unit. The restructuring, which could save the company millions of dollars a year in overhead, comes as the TV industry...

SAG Strike Could Spell Disaster for TV (Cable Networks DeathWatch™) Nov 25, 2008 -By Nellie Andreeva, THR.com LOS ANGELES Already engaged in deep soul searching following a dismal fall TV season and flatlining ad market, broadcast networks are facing another blow: a potential Screen Actors Guild strike early next year. SAG's decision during the weekend to seek a strike authorization from its membership following the breakdown of its negotiations with the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers has shifted the once-remote possibility of a SAG walkout much closer to reality. While its effect would not be as far-reaching as...

Someone really has it in for Sumner Redstone, the 85-year-old media tycoon who is restructuring his debt-plagued empire. An extraordinary piece appears on TheFirstPost.co.uk and is picked up elsewhere. “His demons have come home to roost. He lives alone in his mansion, famously miserly, shaving naked in the hot tub and obsessively feeding his tropical fish, his only constant companions since the collapse this year of his five-year marriage . . .” All very Citizen Kane. And yet . Redstone is not universally loved, and is, indeed, known for his interest in tropical fish and credited with starting a fashion...

I have a problem and I can't find any good answers online. I have a nice new LCD TV that I just got for our kitchen. Unfortunately, there is no cable jack in our kitchen and we have been told by our cable company that they can't put one in. I have an appointment with Best Buy's Geek Squad, who told me they can usually get one in even when the cable company can't. But I'm not certain they can do it. In the meantime I have this awesome HDTV but I get terrible reception as I am using old...