Free Republic

Well, my Internet "Service" must be back on or I wouldn't be able to post this. I pay nearly $200 a month for Internet/Phone/Cable to Optimum/Cablevison a month. Ans sometimes it works. It reminds me of the stories I used to here from folks at a worksite in Yugoslavia. The electricity there was on from about 1 PM to 4 PM almost daily. I tried to call Optimum Friday night to complain when my Internet (and phone) went out. Fifteen minutes of annoying PRESS ONE FOR ENGLISH, ENTER YOUR PHONE NUMBER FOLLOWED BY THE POUND SIGN, WOULD YOU LIKE TO...

Cable TV is about to get more expensive for millions of consumers because of a bidding war between networks and the country’s most powerful sports leagues. Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and scores of rural cable providers are tacking on sports surcharges each month, the direct result of higher fees they are paying to ESPN and other sports networks to carry their channels. Beginning Feb. 5, DirecTV will raise fees by 5.7 percent. The rise in cable prices is likely to test the patience of customers, who may already be tempted to cut their cords in exchange for streaming options that...

Cable company stocks fell sharply Monday after President Obama called for the Federal Communications Commission to reclassify Internet access as a utility. If the FCC were to approve the White House’s recommendations, the Internet would be regulated like other utilities such as electricity, water and telephone services. The White House is calling for an “explicit ban” on deals between broadband Internet providers and online services like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube to move their content faster, a potential new source of revenue for cable companies. While the FCC is an independent agency, Obama’s statement could put political pressure on FCC commissioners...

Internet users from Brooklyn to Philadelphia suffered slow to nonexistent service Saturday after equipment at a New York-area network hub broke down, disrupting service for several hours. A spokesman for the Internet service provider Level 3 Communications Inc. LVLT +0.25% said technicians were working quickly to fix the outage, which cascaded down to customers using Cablevision Systems Corp.'s CVC -0.45% Optimum service and Time Warner Cable Inc., TWC -0.36% among others.

Television has been a mainstay of American life since the late 1950s, but nothing lasts forever and one CEO of a major cable company is hinting that the end of TV could come sooner than we think.

<p>Cablevision Systems Corporation Go to your Portfolio » The announcement on Wednesday night came two months after TheBlaze began a campaign to get onto cable and satellite systems across the country. Cablevision, which has about three million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is the largest system to sign the channel up since then. It is unclear if Cablevision was influenced by the campaign.</p>

While downloading and installing (for my daughter) the free security suite offered by Cablevision to their subscribers, I noticed something which really annoyed me. In setting up the configuration I chose to have the warning for objectionable sites activated. After I completed the configuration on all the aspects of the security suite I decided to go to the FR and see what was going on to begin the day. After typing the name in the search and punching go, I immediately was blocked by a pop up informing me that Free Rep was not available as it was a "hate...

3.1M without cable for Oscar nightUpdated: Sunday, 07 Mar 2010, 1:01 PM EST NEW YORK (AP) - Millions of cable subscribers faced the prospect of Oscar night without the Academy Awards broadcast Sunday after ABC's parent company switched off its signal to Cablevision customers and the two companies blasted each other for failing to reach a deal in a dispute over fees. In dueling statements dispatched early Sunday, the two companies traded blame for the stalemate ahead of one of the most-watched nights of television. "Cablevision has once again betrayed its subscribers," said Charissa Gilmore, a spokeswoman for the Walt...

ABC went dark Saturday night on New York-area Cablevision systems. The static came as ABC and Cablevision were not able to come to an retransmission agreement by the midnight Saturday deadline imposed by Disney. The Alphabet's WABC-TV was in the middle of a season two off-net repeat of "Lost" -- "Three Minutes," which centers on Michael's decision to betray his fellow castaways -- when the cord was yanked. WABC replaced the feed it sends to Cablevision with a sternly-worded on-screen message: "Cablevision betrayed you again. First HGTV and Food Network, now they lost ABC 7. Enough is Enough. Go to...

This is what happened when a Raritan, New Jersey woman programmed Glenn Beck's 5:oop.m. show on her Cable DVR Program,...she documents the results with a handheld camera...

Cablevision Systems Corp. awarded options to a vice chairman after his 1999 death but backdated them, making it appear the grant was awarded when he still was alive, according to a company filing and people familiar with the matter. The country's fifth-largest cable operator in terms of subscribers also improperly awarded a compensation consultant options but accounted for them as if he were an employee, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, citing the results of a six-week investigation by an outside law firm. The findings of the probe were released yesterday as the Bethpage, N.Y., company restated its...

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Cablevision Systems Corp. awarded options to Vice Chairman Marc Lustgarten after his death in 1999, but backdated them to a date when he was still alive, according to a Thursday evening media report. ~ snip ~

As Sen. John McCain gears up for a prospective presidential run in 2008, he's trying to put an ugly little incident behind him — one that makes him look like a flat-out hypocrite on his signature issue, campaign-finance reform. If members of the national media are anything more than lapdogs for the war-hero, "maverick" senator, they'll start asking some tough questions about a bogus little think tank in Alexandria, Va., called the Reform Institute. According to the inside-the-beltway paper Roll Call, McCain has stepped down as chairman of the Reform Institute, citing "negative publicity" from earlier this year when it...

Cablevision Systems Corp., a New York area cable TV provider, said it would proceed with a shutdown of its money-losing satellite TV venture called Voom. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission released early Friday, Cablevision said the service would no longer be available to customers as of April 30. The move represented a defeat for Cablevision's chairman and founder Charles Dolan, who had championed the service. His son James, Cablevision's CEO, had sided with board members who opposed it, leading to a bitter family feud. Investors, who had long been skeptical about Voom's prospects, applauded the...

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) pressed a cable company's case for pricing changes with regulators at the same time a tax-exempt group that he co-founded solicited $200,000 in contributions from the company. Help from McCain, who argues for ridding politics of big money, included giving the CEO of Cablevision Systems Corp. the opportunity to testify before his Senate committee, writing a letter of support to the Federal Communication Commission and asking other cable companies to support so-called a la carte pricing. Cablevision is the nation's eighth largest cable provider, serving about 3 million customers in the...

Does Cablevision’s waging such an expensive, messy Fight against the Jets’ West Side stadium make good business sense? The battle between mayor bloomberg and Cablevision CEO James Dolan over the West Side stadium for the Jets has grown nasty, personal, and expensive. According to the latest figures, which run only through October 25, more than $11 million has been spent on ads by both sides, with Cablevision’s accounting for $8.5 million. And the ad war has just escalated since then. But beyond a couple of endlessly repeated cost estimates, numbers on the business impact of the proposal have been scarce....

Representatives from the Jets were conspicuously absent when two state assemblymen appeared outside City Hall on Tuesday to announce legislation that seemed tailor-made for the football team: the repeal of a tax break for Cablevision, the most aggressive opponent of a new stadium for the team. The Jets, as well as Cablevision, have tried to avoid much notice in the dispute over building the stadium, but there is little doubt about who the dominant players are. In fact, a closer look at Tuesday's event shows that the Jets were deeply involved in trying to get the anti-Cablevision bill introduced in...

The largest and most powerful Atlas rocket in history rushed off its Cape Canaveral pad on a river of golden flame Thursday evening to expand Lockheed Martin's launcher family. The Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Complex 41 carrying Rainbow 1. Credit: ILS Sporting new solid-fueled strap-on boosters for added liftoff power and a bulbous nose cone to house bigger satellite cargos, this latest version in the evolving line of Atlas rockets signaled the final qualification for pieces comprising the next-generation Atlas 5. "It is exciting that it puts the final exclamation point on the Atlas 5 family," said Adrian...

muchmusic USA Becomes Fuse Total Convergence Music Programming "Fuses" Online, TV & Interactive Game Play Trades Rules of Branding for Radical Playbook of Skate-Culture: Progressive Logo, Evolving Taglines & Viral Marketing New $12 Million Street-Front Studio Unveiled in Mid-Town Manhattan New York, NY, April 8, 2003 - muchmusic usa, a network of Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc., will become Fuse on May 19, 2003. Fuse is an all-music destination driven by viewers, reflecting the rapidly changing interests and irreverent attitudes of its 12-34 year-old audience, and uniting the media platforms that are the center of their communication and entertainment. Central to...

Cablevision focus of antitrust probe Tuesday, December 10, 2002 Associated Press NEWARK - The state Attorney General's Office is reportedly investigating whether Cablevision Systems Corp. violated antitrust laws by refusing to broadcast the YES Network. The staff of Attorney General David Samson demanded internal records, e-mails and other documents from Cablevision in the past month, according to a published report. . The company must respond to the subpoena by the middle of this month, sources reportedly said. . Cablevision spokesman Charlie Schueler confirmed the investigation and said the company is cooperating. "We believe the inquiry is unwarranted and we will...