Posting record free cash flow and $76 million in third-quarter profits, Comcast Corp. officials last week responded to last-minute questions in a move to win final regulatory approval of its acquisition of AT&T Broadband.In a letter to the Federal Communications…
Attention, Madison Avenue, there’s a new pitcher on the block.Syndication, known for being both fractious and fractionalized, will be calling on top advertisers and agencies as one entity-the Syndicated Network Television Association, headed by agency veteran Gene DeWitt-to tout its…
CBS has issued full-season extension orders for freshman series “CSI: Miami,” “Still Standing,” “Without A Trace” and “Hack”-four of the network’s seven new fall shows. The network canceled Sunday 8 p.m. sitcom “Bram and Alice” after four episodes.“Bram and Alice,”…
It’s sweeps time again. That means stations shamelessly pulling out the stops when it comes to attracting viewers to local newscasts.This has got to end.Let’s face it, sweeps periods, as they now exist, have become a joke. The original intent…
To the man with a hammer, the old adage goes, everything looks like a nail. As national cable news networks covered the Washington-area sniper case, the “experts” they turned to pounded their rhetorical hammers at length in every direction but…
Oh baby, how TV stations would love to get some of that eBay money.eBay, the popular Internet auction site, is one of the truly great success stories of the Web, and of American business. In its most recent financial results,…
What it is: Media Manager Select, a new feature of the Media Manager asset management system from Avid. Media Manager Select should be available the first week of December.What it does: The “Select” feature opens the production environment beyond editors…
Meredith Broadcasting Group is hearing from the advertising community that its stations will pay a price if they use Time Machines and other technology to create extra commercial inventory.“Any possession and usage of this technology that does anything to alter…
The stagnation and recent decline in cable’s basic subscriber growth are not the aberration some company executives contend, and in fact, underscore the industry’s increasing financial vulnerability to outside forces.The recent jolt to the basic subscriber foundation-on which cable operators…
New York-Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouses, the nation’s 14th-largest retailer, has re-upped for a third straight year as the category-exclusive sponsor for “Trading Spaces,” TLC’s room-redesign basic-cable ratings hit. The one-year deal calls for Lowe’s to provide the budget, products and…