Mitchell Stern, who has been chairman and CEO of Fox Television Stations Group for a decade, will run DirecTV when News Corp.’s acquisition is completed in the next few weeks, News Corp. announced Friday. Lachlan Murdoch, the News Corp. deputy…
The legal battle between Rainbow Programming’s American Movie Classics and Time Warner Cable has implications that go beyond the vitriolic charges filed in a $250 million lawsuit (TelevisionWeek, Nov. 17). The lawsuit charged that Time Warner Cable improperly announced termination…
Classrooms with too few books. Teachers with too many students. Students with plummeting test scores. It’s all part of the chronic underfunding of U.S. public schools.But there’s a bright spot, and it’s coming from that TV set at the front…
Thanks to cable, off-network dramas are selling better than ever. When Universal brought “Law & Order” to cable on A&E in 1994, the much-coveted NBC franchise player-now airing as many as five times a day on TNT-led a resurgence of…
You could call it video-on-de-Mandarin. Citing the fast growth of the foreign-language-speaking population in the United States, Cablevision Systems’ Rainbow Media Holdings is introducing new services featuring an array of programming from overseas, including China and Russia. Gregg Hill, executive…
The 77th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade kicks off the holiday season Thursday at 9 a.m. (ET) with live entertainment and more than 200 parade elements, including bands, cheerleaders, helium balloons and colorful floats. It starts with Tom Turkey and…
Last week I probably ruined the holidays for some people by dishing out my awards for the biggest turkeys in TV technology. So to even things up, I want to give thanks for the industry’s greatest accomplishments. In the spirit…
Viacom Going All Out to Market Super Bowl For CBS’s upcoming Super Bowl, which will air Feb. 1, 2004, the network will get help from all Viacom companies in a marketing effort, according to one executive close to the company….
‘Monk’ Heads Back to ABC ABC will replace the canceled “L.A. Dragnet” with repeats of USA cable network’s hit show “Monk.” “Monk” will air on Saturdays at 10 p.m., starting Jan. 17. In a unique deal with USA, ABC has…
Congress Ready to Roll Back Station Cap The Federal Communications Commission rules passed in June that increased the percentage of U.S. TV homes any one broadcast company can reach from 35 percent to 45 percent would be rolled back for…