Broadcasting & Cable: The Business of Television

Archives - Table of Contents

Reed Television
07/17/2000
Archives

Top of the Week

• WASHINGTON WATCH
  Clinton Admistration Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey said last week that he hopes to work with filmmakers to insert antidrug messages into movies, just as the Office of National Drug Control Policy has done with TV shows.McCaffrey would not give film studios any financial incentive to cooperate with ONDCP.
• Gemstar-TV Guide merger gets DOJ OK
  TV Guide and Gemstar were given the go-ahead to merge last week by the Department of Justice, creating an electronic-programming-guide (EPG) behemoth, given TV Guide's brand recognition, Gemstar's reach and, more important, Gemstar's patents. The new company will be called Gemstar-TV Guide International, and Henry Yuen will serve as chairman and CEO.
• Comcast sweetens sports deal
  In one of those "strategic" deals that was about more than just cash, Viacom agreed to sell Home Team Sports and Midwest Sports Channel to MSO Comcast, receiving, in part, analog carriage of some of its networks.Industry executives familiar with the deal put the price at $200 million in cash.
• CLOSED CIRCUIT
  WASHINGTONClear Channel Communications and AMFM are thisclose to finalizing their merger, according to several sources. The closure of the $23.5 billion deal, which was struck last October, could happen as soon as tomorrow (July 18).Clear Channel is said to have instructed the buyers of $4.1 billion worth of radio-station spin-offs to be ready to close their deals the day after the merger closing.
• Ness backers keep trying
  Supporters of FCC Commissioner Susan Ness are mounting a behind-the-scenes effort to overcome opposition from Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.).Last week Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) teamed with Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to push the committee to vote on Ness' third confirmation.
• fINANCIAL WRAP-UP
  7/14% changeEchostar Comm$43.9419.76Antec Corp$49.3817.91Motorola Inc$38.7517.42Unitedglobalcom$57.0014.00Shop at Home$4.3811.117/14% changeSpanish Bcst$10.25(23.72)Regent Comm$7.44(8.46)Classic Comm$7.31(7.14)Sprint Corp$49.31(6.96)Westwood One$31.50(6.49)
• Forrester foresees 'smart TV'
  The use of personal video recorders (PVRs) will kill $18 billion in television advertising revenues by 2005, as consumers will use the disk-based devices to quickly skip commercials and thus erode the traditional spot-buying market.But by the same time, the television industry will enjoy $25 billion in new revenues generated by interactive services.
• TV reporter finds suicide
  It was WFLA-TV reporter Steve Andrews who found the body last Thursday of Florida State Attorney Harry Lee Coe III-the man Andrews had investigated for financial improprieties in office.Andrews had gone to the apartment complex where Coe lived after leaving other reporters staking out the courthouse where Coe worked.
• In reality, good times for off-net sitcoms
  It's only been about 15 days into Steve Mosko's new gig as president of Columbia TriStar Television Distribution, but the guy does seem to be pushing all the right buttons.
• Too late for 'Later Today'
  After just one season, it's so long to NBC's Later Today. NBC confirmed that it will pull the plug on the series, a more chit-chatty version of its The Today Show, on Aug. 11.Later, covering topics ranging from recipe tips to health advice, never neared the ratings success of its lead-in The Today Show, which currently reigns as the top network morning newscast. (It leads by a wide margin.
• Blind ambitions split over rules
  Only days before the FCC is scheduled to require four hours of voiced description weekly in prime time programming, disagreements within the blind community have the regulators questioning their approach.
• MLB needs a better pitch
  Because they were demanding that the next set of rights holders triple the current fees, Major League Baseball officials were hoping that a respectable rating for last week's All-Star game would bolster its case.
• The Philadelphia story
  ABC-owned WPVI-TV Philadelphia's news chopper didn't just get the story last week; its dramatic video of the violent arrest of a police-shooting suspect following a car chase became the story.The incident, telecast live between ABC's daytime Port Charles and All My Children, soon became the focus of the story.

Cover

• Court TV gains appeal
  Few networks have had as tumultuous a recent past as Court TV, and few have made turnarounds as dramatic as the basic cable network founded by Steven Brill in 1991.Court TV made its mark-almost reluctantly-during the O.J. Simpson trial but suffered a can-you-top-this letdown afterward.

Special Report

• TV's test pilots
  When Discovery Network's Learning Channel was preparing to launch Junkyard Wars, it called on audience-research firm ASI to get a read on what viewers might think of the show. The pilot was shown to test groups, who evidently liked what they saw. But when Junkyard Wars debuted the night of July 5, it landed in the midst of a network battle, and the only survivor was CBS' Big Brother.
• Software massages the ratings data
  It's a small field, but one that is key to the decision-makers who determine the fate of national and syndicated TV shows. It encompasses the handful of companies that provide software to analyze TV viewing data.The field is populated by three "third-party processors" that juggle Nielsen Media Research data for clients including TV networks, syndicators and movie studios.
• Testing, testing
  There's a whole lot of testing going on at Nielsen Media Research as the company, which owns the TV ratings business in the U.S., prepares to measure viewing in the digital age.
• Micro-marketing
  Cable operators now have a pile of numbers-factoids at their fingertips-to tell them who is most likely to buy the Disney Channel and a cable modem, or drop cable entirely and defect to DBS.Supplying those numbers in the cable business are primarily two companies-Claritas and Looking Glass. Both offer detailed demographic and behavioral information available on an annual subscription basis.

Technology

• CUTTING EDGE
  Disney-owned Times Square Studios in New York is using fiber-optic gear from Telecast Fiber Systems to connect its control facility with the ESPN Sport Zone Restaurant on 43rd Street, allowing it to broadcast one of ESPN's programs from the restaurant each week.
• Clear Channel catches the Wavexpress
  Clear Channel Communications has formally agreed to work with datacasting technology firm Wavexpress to pursue transactional datacasting services over Clear Channel's digital spectrum. The station group will begin broadcasting Wavexpress services at WKRC-DT Cincinnati on Aug. 15 as part of a planned larger rollout.
• Thomson, Seagate enter PVR fray
  Targeting the projected huge demand for personal-video-recorder (PVR) technology, consumer electronics giant Thomson Multimedia and disk-drive manufacturer Seagate Technology have formed a company to make storage systems for various consumer devices.The new firm, CacheVision, is a 50/50 joint venture of Paris-based Thomson and Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Seagate. Based in San Jose, Calif.
• Competitors in sync on IBOC
  Following in the mold of the cooperative Grand Alliance that set the standard for digital television, Lucent Digital Radio Inc. and USA Digital Radio will work together on a standard for digital terrestrial radio.The previously competing companies announced their merger last Wednesday.

Interactive Media

• DOTS NEW MEDIA CAFE
  Gist.com, an Internet-based TV-listings provider and TelVue, a pay-per-view-fulfillment company for cable operators, will be demonstrating the ability to allow cable customers to order pay-per-view movies and events over the Internet, at the CTAM Summit in Boston July 16-19."This is really a baby step to allow the Internet to have more impact on the existing infrastructure," says Gist.
• 'Big Brother' gives 'access' new meaning
  When discussing the behind-the-scenes action of CBS program Big Brother, one can't help thinking that The Truman Show has become reality. A Web site (www.bigbrother2000.com) offering 24-hour access to camera feeds conjures up visions of Ed Harris watching every move Truman Burbank made.
• Dotcom Darwinism
  The competition among online entertainment companies increasingly begins to resemble an episode of Survivor: some are gone, some of the remaining players are overcoming adversity and those not involved are glad they aren't."The majority of the content players won't survive," predicts Nitsan Hargil, senior Internet analyst for Kaufman Bros.

Editorials

• EDITORIALS
  Once journalists endeavored-at significant economic sacrifice-to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. But much of today's corporate-controlled TV journalism seems to be defined not by avoiding cross-interests but promoting them.

• IN BRIEF
  Coca-Cola-sponsored 'Young Americans' debuted Wednesday on The WB to respectable ratings success. In households, the show posted a 2.3/4 share, which was 44% higher than its Dawson's Creek lead-in. More significant, the series ranked No. 1 among female teens (The WB's core audience) during the 9 p.m. hour with a 3.2/14 share. Among adults 18-34, Young Americans grabbed a 2.
• Reality shows push CBS beyound survival
  CBS is doing much more than surviving this summer. The network won its first weekly ratings race in the key adults 18-49 demographic (excluding Olympics coverage) since March 1994-thanks to reality series Survivor and Big Brother.
• OPEN MIKE
  Editor: The FCC announced in January that it planned to create a new class of low-power, non-commercial FM radio stations. The House of Representatives has voted to ban the proposal and Senate action is expected soon.As a Hungarian, resistance to these small radio stations is surprising and troubling.
• FATES and FORTUNES
  David Anderson, VP, communications, CNBC, Ft. Lee, N.J., joins Charter Communications, St. Louis, as senior VP, communications.Ann Montgomery, executive VP of fulfillment services and operations, AT & T Broadband, Denver, joins Adelphia, Coudersport, Pa., as senior VP, operations.Arthur R. Block, senior VP and senior deputy general counsel, Comcast Corp.
• Surviving the switch to cable sales
  Cable network sales reps find little more deliciously amusing than watching an MSO programming buyer switch sides. As the point person cutting deals with networks, an MSO programming executive spends a lot of time barring the cupboard doors from networks often reduced to begging for shelf space for some startup.
• CHANGING HAND'S
  
• HOOKED UP
  Comcast Cable is adding 11 more Encore thematic channels to its digital lineup. That will bring to 20 the number of Encore Super Pak channels that will be available to at least 44 Comcast systems and 4 million subs by year-end.
• CTAM: Forget the hard sell
  Tech company briefings but no sales pitches? Hard to believe, but that's one of the major elements of this year's CTAM Summit.Pursuing its goal of educating cable marketing executives about pushing products created by new technology, this week's annual convention of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing will feature the usual slate of briefings by high-tech companies.
• Liguori heads home
  Peter Liguori is president of FX and FOX Movie Channel now, but 20-some years ago, he was sharing a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx with his mother and sister and riding the school bus to Truman High. His father was gone, having died when Liguori was 16. The teen-age Liguori had all the baggage that turns angry young men into potentially explosive vessels of hatred.
• CABLE'S TOP 25
  Following are the top 25 basic cable programs for the week of July 3-9, ranked by rating. Cable rating is coverage area rating within each basic cable network's universe; U.S. rating is of 100.8 million TV households. Sources: Nielsen Media Research, Turner Entertainment.
• A TV critics buffet
  HBO won the prize for most ambitious cable project at the Television Critics Association tour in Pasadena last weekend. The pay network is laying out $120 million for a 10-hour WWII miniseries based on Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers and produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.
• Satellite's 4% solution
  At 10 a.m. on a recent Friday morning, DirecTV's Channel 375 launched into two hours of up-tempo Latin music by a band from Venezuela-one of the global TV offerings of WorldLinkTV: Television Without Borders.
• SBCA: One to grow on
  Now that the satellite TV industry has won its long fight to offer local TV signals, it only has one thing left to focus on: growth.Subscriber growth-and how to sustain it as cable goes digital-will be a major topic at the annual Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association conference this week (July 18-21) at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
• Switching to satellite TV
  Faced with crushing competition from satellite TV, a consortium of owners of cable's tiniest systems is looking to do the unthinkable: partner with the rival medium.Two Midwestern MSOs, Galaxy American and Anderson-Eliason Cable Group, are assembling a venture that would delete most cable programming from systems sometimes serving as few as a hundred rural subscribers each.
• STATION BREAK
  WSB-TV Atlanta last week began translating its signal into Spanish, apparently the first such outreach in the area and a long overdue one, according to News Director Ray Carter."How could a city this size, with the Hispanic population growing so fast, not have this? I blame myself. I should have done this two years ago.
• Maury's movin' on up
  Regis may be the talk of prime time these days, but Maury-the guy neither looking for a replacement host nor moonlighting on Millionaire-has become the talk of syndicated talk.Maury Povich boasts the greatest year-to-year growth among talkers, up 28% from this time last year (according to Nielsen Media Research for the week ended June 25). And he's still growing. Maury was at a 3.
• Syndication Wrap-up
  RankProgramHH AAHH GAA1.Wheel of Fortune8.78.72.Jeopardy7.57.53.Judge Judy6.18.34.Oprah Winfrey Show5.96.05.Wheel of Fortune (wknd)5.45.46.Friends5.35.96.Entertainment Tonight5.35.58.Seinfeld4.84.89.Frasier4.75.410.Jerry Springer4.14.511.Hollywood Squares3.83.812.Maury3.73.813.Judge Joe Brown3.64.613.Drew Carey3.64.013.Regis and Kathie Lee3.63.616.Sally Jessy Raphael3.43.517.ER3.33.917.
• Belo's Huey to retire
  Ward Huey, vice chairman of Belo and president of its broadcasting division, will retire at the end of the year, the company announced last week. Huey, 62, will celebrate his 40th anniversary with Belo in September. He will also retire from the company's board of directors after its December meeting, although he will remain a consultant to the company and active in the A.H. Belo Foundation.
• Hispanic net to fix itself first
  There's a new TV group in town, and it's aiming to break the virtual monopoly on Spanish-speaking viewers held by Univision Communications.Fort Worth, Texas-based Hispanic Television Network Inc. hopes to do so by targeting Mexican-Americans, who comprise some 65% of the Hispanics in the U.S.
• At Synditel, show and tell
  To the chagrin of a number of TV critics, many high-profile syndication stars didn't make it to Synditel, the annual curtain raiser for first-run programming in Los Angeles.In the chagrinned camp was USA Today critic Robert Bianco, who stood up during the Queen of Swords roundtable to ask the show's distributor, Paramount (also Dr.
• Duck, duck, HBO!
  It would be easy to assume that the highly acclaimed NBC News Overnight of the early '80s was the high point in Linda Ellerbee's career, but no, merely second or third. "Nick News would probably lead that list," says Ellerbee.