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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 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...

License Plates for the Internet - The Blueprints for Obama's Assault on the Internet The report's recommendations emphasize taking away cybersecurity from DHS in order to create a special department to oversee cybersecurity. It recommends ending the division between civilian and national security systems. And calls for establishing "international norms" when it comes to the internet. And it focuses a good deal on identity verification, not just for Federal employees, but for ordinary Americans as well. The report urges a move away from passwords, and toward physical identity verification, via a device that would verify an individual's identity. And calls...

NEW YORK (AP) — You're used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance? Time Warner Cable Inc. customers — and, later, others — may have to, if the company's test of metered Internet access is successful. On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press....

Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:30pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will cut 450 jobs from New Line Cinema in a highly anticipated move following an earlier decision to fold the movie studio under the wing of Warner Bros Entertainment. About 40 of New Line's employees will be offered new jobs at Warner Bros in positions that will not displace existing Warner Bros jobs, a Time Warner spokesman said. Employees are being informed on Monday and Tuesday. About 40 to 50 existing New Line employees will remain at the division renowned for its blockbuster...

Time Warner Inc. has consolidated its Warner Bros. Entertainment and New Line Cinema, the studio behind the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, in an effort to cut costs and boost revenue. New Line Co-Chairmen Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne, two Hollywood veterans who have long been the core of the studio, will leave but are in talks for possible future business relationships with the company. The contracts of Mr. Shaye, 68 years old, and his one-time attorney Mr. Lynne, 66, are up at the end of the year. They said they would explore new entrepreneurial opportunities. They added, "New Line...

The last couple of days I've been seeing nearly constant interruptions of service, and quite a few slowdowns. I haven't changed anything here on my end. Of course, if it keeps up, I'll call customer service. I'm just wondering if I'm the only one seeing this.

If you're a Time Warner Cable subscriber, you can expect more High-Definition in the near future. Lots more. That's according to Time Warner's top executives who commented yesterday on the company's HD plans during an investors call with Wall Street analysts. COO Landel Hobbs told the analysts that the cable service now has carriage agreements with 53 high-def channels -- and deals with an additional 20 channels "pending." Hobbs said some Time Warner systems, such as Albany and San Antonio, are now offering more than 40 HD channels. But more HD channels are expected to be added soon throughout the...

Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) Inc., the world's largest media conglomerate, reported lower earnings in its fourth quarter Wednesday following a big gain in the year-ago period on the sale of AOL's online access business in Europe. Excluding the effect of that gain, earnings rose on stronger results at the company's cable TV and movie operations. Time Warner reported net income of $1.03 billion or 28 cents per share, versus $1.75 billion or 44 cents per share in the same period a year ago. Without the AOL gain a year ago and other one-time effects, the earnings were 29 cents per share...

Bay Area cable provider Comcast Corp. and San Jose-based eBay Inc. may be potential bidders for Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, as Microsoft Corp.'s offer for Yahoo Inc. threatens to knock out the two most likely suitors for the Internet unit, Pali Research said. There's a lack of buyers for AOL, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Research, said Monday in a note. Still, Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts may be interested in AOL to get its advertising network and Web site, he wrote. Roberts is unlikely to pay more than $10 billion, according to Greenfield. In 2000, AOL purchased...

Having a tornado demolish her home was bad enough. But weeks later when Ann Beam received a $2,000 cable bill for destroyed equipment, she was floored. "I just couldn't believe it," Beam said. "I was like: 'What are they thinking?"' Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland residents for equipment damaged in the Jan. 7 twister... She immediately called the cable company but a man who identified himself as a manager said there was nothing the company could do. "They said I would have to take the bill and turn it in to my insurance company," ... But her...

Time Warner Cable Tests Data-Usage Rate StructureThursday, January 17, 2008 NEW YORK — Time Warner Cable will experiment with a new pricing structure for high-speed Internet access later this year, charging customers based on how much data they download, a company spokesman said Wednesday. The company, the second-largest cable provider in the United States, will start a trial in Beaumont, Texas, in which it will sell new Internet customers tiered levels of service based on how much data they download per month, rather than the usual fixed-price packages with unlimited downloads. Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed...

Up to 1,000 employees on the Warner Bros. lot theoretically could be laid off anytime after Friday under federally mandated notices the studio recently distributed. The notices, or so-called WARN mailings, represent the first concrete sign that the WGA strike could trigger massive layoffs in Hollywood. A WB studio spokeswoman declined to say how many workers might be laid off or when actual pink slips would fly, but she stressed the notices were mandated under the U.S. Department of Labor's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications regulations. The WARN notices are mandated in strike situations, to give employees some advance notice...

NBC may broadcast "The Biggest Loser," but in terms of 2007 stock price performance, Time Warner ran away with that title. Of the big five entertainment conglomerates - CBS, Disney, News Corp., Time Warner and Viacom - only Viacom managed to post a share price increase this year, as uncertainty over the impact of digital delivery of content and a weakened advertising environment due to a weak economy dampened investor enthusiasm for the space. (NBC is part of General Electric and doesn't trade on its own merits like the other companies.) Time Warner took the largest broadside from jittery investors,...

For someone with a reputation for being unsentimental about his company, it was perhaps surprising that Jeffrey L. Bewkes looked to the past when he spoke at a Time Warner management retreat in Miami in late November — his first since being tapped as the company’s next chief executive. Before the top 200 executives at a ballroom in Miami’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, Mr. Bewkes invoked the legacies of Henry R. Luce and Ted Turner in ticking off the accomplishments of the assembly’s predecessors: inventing the newsmagazine (Time), and spearheading cable news (CNN) and pay television (HBO), according to three executives...

"Bewkes is not a magazine guy." Time Warner’s third quarter numbers were released recently, and while overall revenues rose nine percent over same period 2006—despite revenue declines from AOL—Time Inc.’s revenues were flat. Any gains in earnings were largely attributed to “non-magazine businesses, particularly Synapse,” a customer acquisition and management service subsidiary of Time Inc., according to company financials. The numbers form the backdrop of a pending change at the top as COO Jeffrey Bewkes is set to succeed Dick Parsons as Time Warner CEO on January 1 and ongoing speculation about whether the company will spin off one or...

Time Warner 3Q Profit Falls but Harry Potter Helps Conglomerate Meet Wall Street Expectations NEW YORK (AP) -- Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday reported a 53 percent decline in net income for the third quarter versus the same period a year ago, when results were boosted by tax and investment gains. The earnings met analyst estimates, though, as higher earnings from cable TV and movies including "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" outweighed a decline at AOL, which continued to lose subscribers as it shifts toward an online advertising model. The media conglomerate, which also owns HBO, Warner...

Dick Parsons is on the way out -- officially. Time Warner (TWX) , the world's largest media conglomerate, on Monday confirmed widespread speculation that Jeff Bewkes will take the reins from Parsons as CEO. The move is effective at the end of the year. Parsons will remain chairman of the company. The ascension of Bewkes, Time Warner's president and chief operating officer, to CEO has long been expected, but the timing was unclear. In recent weeks, speculation has heated up that the change would be in the near future. "Today's decision is the culmination of a thoughtful and disciplined process...

Jeff Bewkes is poised to take over the reigns at one of the world's largest media groups as soon as next week Richard Parsons, the chief executive of Time Warner, is poised to announce that he will hand over the top job at the CNN to Harry Potter conglomerate to longstanding number two Jeff Bewkes. The announcement of the end of the African-American’s five and a half year tenure could come as soon as next week, after the matter was discussed at a board meeting in London on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Technically, no final decision was taken...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The Supreme Court ordered Time magazine to pay $106 million in damages for defaming former Indonesian dictator Suharto by alleging his family amassed billions of dollars during his 32-year rule, officials said Monday. The May 1999 cover story in the magazine's Asian edition said much of the money had been transferred from Switzerland to Austria before Suharto stepped down amid riots and pro-democracy protests in 1998. Suharto, who said the article defamed him and the state, filed a lawsuit with the Central District Jakarta and later the Jakarta High Court, both of which ruled in Time's...