Liberally borrowing from ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and those home improvement shows on HGTV, Verizon has been producing their own “home technology makeovers” for infomercials airing in different Verizon service areas, designed to pitch their fiber to the home FiOS product line. It’s a non-threatening introduction for those not so technology-inclined, but love the premise of home makeovers.

The Reyes family of Clearwater, Florida is the latest to receive a Verizon-inspired makeover this March, which will air later as an infomercial in the Tampa Bay area.

The family was chosen from those who auditioned for the role during the past two months.

Verizon traditionally sets up each show by illustrating the challenges busy families face when trying to work with outdated electronics.  It’s also a great chance to bash the competition, suggesting their cable reception isn’t so great, their calls to 911 are broken up and unclear, and their Internet is slow and generally lousy.  At this point, Bright House Networks, Tampa’s predominate cable company, is supposed to be squirming, because you can bet these families aren’t complaining about Verizon phone service or Verizon DSL.

After the family leaves the home, a bandwagon of Verizon workers and self-described “Design,” “Tech,” and “FiOS”-Gurus show up and replace their obsolete equipment with Verizon’s family of products, ranging from FiOS for their television, phone, and broadband needs, and some extra goodies thrown in from Verizon Wireless for mobility.  Add some new electronics and some room makeovers and the job is complete.

When the family returns, they are suitably impressed with Verizon’s products (which they presumably obtain for free, at least for awhile), the company throws a block party for the entire neighborhood, and everyone goes away with a positive feeling about the company.

“I like the concept of the show, how one company can bring so much happiness to a family just by changing their home technology,” said Jessica Reyes. “It may seem simple to some people, but I know this will have a huge impact on our family.”

See?

Actually, it’s a brilliant execution of marketing to those who don’t suddenly start drooling at the mere mention of FiOS in their neighborhood.  For plenty of Americans, a decidedly non-technical demonstration of the technology products Verizon sells is a much better way to sell service to those who think fiber is a matter of diet, not home entertainment.

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Verizon’s promotional reel for My Home 2.0 shows home technology makeovers, and can’t resist taking a few pokes at the competition’s service. (1 minute)

Brain Trust: Time Warner's Gerald Levin (left) and AOL's Steve Case (right)

Gerald Levin, the former CEO of Time Warner, who presided over the company’s disastrous merger with the AOL online service confessed “I presided over the worst deal of the century, apparently.”

Appearing Monday on CNBC with Steve Case, former head of AOL, the two lamented the blockbuster wealth destruction vehicle on its 10th anniversary.

“I’m really very sorry about the pain and suffering and loss that was caused. I take responsibility,” Levin said. “It wasn’t the board. It wasn’t my colleagues at Time Warner. It wasn’t the bankers and lawyers.”

“It’s a little hard to exercise compassion, connection, and love when the market is very unforgiving,” Levin added.

The striking admission that a corporate master of the universe exercised flawed judgment was rare enough, but to apologize for it is near unprecedented.

The Times-Online called it “a tad late,” coming a decade after the deal, noting the deal was only made possible because of the Dot.com Boom launching AOL stock value into the stratosphere.

“In the US, there have been no apologies from the chief executives who steered Wall Street banks on to the rocks, notably Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers. Given he is likely to spend the rest of his life defending legal actions, that is hardly surprising,” the newspaper adds.

The Financial Times notes corporate apologies come with some rules of etiquette:

There are – rightly – limits on what responsibility a business can accept until it has talked to its lawyers. Executives whose contrite words turn out to contain too great an admission of liability may soon end up apologising all over again.

But there are a few straightforward rules for an effective corporate apology, and the first one is to keep it simple. Expressions of penitence that come with explanations of how the event was not a total catastrophe or was partly someone else’s fault lose their impact. Equally, a statement that equivocates on the extent of remorse will fail to convince. The apology must also be clearly directed at those adversely affected by what has happened, rather than aimed at making those responsible feel better about it.

Mr Levin mixed his belated apology with a call for today’s corporate leaders to accept responsibility for the financial crisis. Though some bank executives have apologised, expressing regret for this crisis is a harder task than it sounds. People can take responsibility only for their own misdeeds, but explaining this may sound weaselly. At the same time, if an angry public favours ritual sacrifice, then other acts to make amends might seem inadequate. So those executives who pull off an effective apology for the crisis deserve our respect – as long as they do not leave it until 2018.

Amusingly, post colossal failure, the two executives have found remarkably similar career paths divorced from the high tech telecommunications market.

Levin runs the California-based new-agey Moonview ‘addiction-rehab-for-the-rich’  Sanctuary, which markets itself as “a place to revel in the wonder of you.”  New York Magazine said Levin was pitching “brain painting, equine therapy and soul communion with the dead.”

Moonview’s “comprehensive multi-modal mind, body and spirit assessment creates a customized plan of psychological, spiritual, physical healing and optimal performance.”

It had better.  They don’t take health insurance and charge $2,500 for a one-half day and from $5,000 for a full day. Minimum is $15,000.  That makes me depressed.

Steve Case founded Revolution, which claims to: “drive transformative change by shifting power to consumers and building significant, category-defining companies in the process.  Focusing on multiple market sectors, including Health, Financial Services, Resorts, Living and Digital, Revolution’s mission is to give people better choices, more control and more convenience in the important aspects of their lives.”

Looking through their collection of companies, the middle class need not apply.  I especially enjoyed Case’s vision of a getaway with his “Exclusive Resorts” company:

We believe that your Exclusive Resorts membership plan should be designed around your lifestyle, not the other way around.

With Membership Fees starting at $160,000 (75% refundable) and Annual Dues of just under $1,000 per day on all plans, our memberships are designed to be tailored to your individual needs.  A wide range of plans from 10 to 60 days of vacation per year and optional features such as priority holiday access ensure that you will find the unique combination that is right for you.

My last vacation getaway was in Calgary and Kananaskis Country in Alberta in 2007.  The private chef “at your beck and call” at Exclusive Resorts for them was a trip to Tim Horton’s for me.

But then I didn’t preside over the worst deal of the century, requiring a mind, body and spirit assessment and a getaway to the French Alps.

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Gerald Levin and Steve Case revel in the wonder of their failure 10 years ago merging Time Warner with AOL. (22 minutes)

Americans can look forward to additional rate increases in their monthly cable bills on top of the usual annual rate increases already underway as broadcast stations demand, and get, cash in return for cable carriage.

Just a few days after Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks concluded their precedent-setting agreement in principle with News Corporation’s Fox network, other networks and television stations owners are lining up to get their piece of the action.

The cable operators’ agreement to pay an estimated 50-60 cents per month per subscriber for the right to put Fox-owned local broadcast stations on the cable dial will likely be used as the starting point for negotiations between other cable operators like Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, and Charter when their agreements with stations and broadcast networks come up for renewal.  If every major broadcast network and station owner gets the same 50-60 cents per month, or more, those costs will certainly be passed on to subscribers.  That’s just the beginning says David Joyce, media analyst for Miller Tabak , a Wall Street trading firm.  Joyce believes annual increases demanded by networks could easily be in the 7-8 percent range.  Bloomberg News predicts that could add up to more than $5 billion dollars a year.

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Bloomberg News interviews David Joyce, a media analyst who predicts annual 7-8% increases for retransmission consent. (3 minutes)

Sinclair owns stations in these communities

There is nothing new about these kinds of disputes — just the sums involved.

Sinclair Broadcast Group owns television stations serving nearly 22% of the United States (mostly Fox affiliates), and has contentious negotiations for retransmission consent agreements with Mediacom, a cable operator serving mostly smaller cities in the midwest and south.

The two companies just agreed to an eight day extension of their negotiations over a new agreement to replace the one that expired December 31st.

“We just decided we wanted to avoid, with such important events coming up, the disruption that it would cause customers,” Sinclair General Counsel Barry Faber said. “I don’t expect there will be a further extension. We recognize we’re giving up, perhaps, a small amount of (negotiating) leverage, but we don’t think it’s very much. Our channels are worth so much more than we are asking for.”

Sinclair has been willing to force its stations off Mediacom cable systems in the past to prove its point.  But another experience with angry sports fans upset over the interruption of Fox programming was apparently sufficient to give negotiations another week.

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Bloomberg News explains how Rupert Murdoch bullied his way into an agreement with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks that could change the landscape of broadcast television forever.  (4 minutes)

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The ‘Holy Grail’ of cable programming essentially boils down to silly ball games.  Sports programming is one of cable’s biggest expenses, yet few would dare to alienate sports fans, as this Bloomberg report explores.  (2 minutes)

After much sound and fury, and plenty of media attention, Fox programming remained on Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks systems through the New Year’s festivities, as the three companies reached “an agreement in principle” to make cable customers ultimately pay more for the right to watch Fox broadcast stations and cable networks.

The wide-ranging agreement covers all of Time Warner Cable’s more than 12 million subscribers as well as 2.4 million Bright House customers.  The deal encompasses Fox-owned, Fox-affiliated television stations covering nearly four million Americans and Fox’s sports and entertainment cable networks seen nationwide.

The major point of contention between Fox and the two cable companies was the fee for carriage rights to Fox television stations.  Known as “retransmission consent,” cable operators must obtain permission from television station owners before they are allowed to put them on cable lineups.  For years, broadcasters were happy just getting clear pictures to cable’s extended reach into suburban and rural communities.  But over the years, broadcast interests have sought cash payments from cable operators in return for that consent.

Leveraging their popularity, station owners feel they have plenty to room to negotiate higher payments, and the cable industry has tried to avoid setting any precedent for cash payments, fearing a new benchmark set with one station owner will soon become the asking price for every other major station in a community.  Cable operators have traditionally signed agreements that launch station or network-owned cable channels instead of large direct cash payments, but Fox’s game of hardball suggests those days are over.

While none of the companies involved would disclose the terms of the final agreement, industry analysts suggest the parties met somewhere near the middle of their respective asking price.  Fox had demanded $1.00 a month per subscriber for each of its affiliated television stations, while Time Warner Cable suggested a quarter per month per subscriber was a fair offer.  Most agree the final deal is in the 50-60 cent range, not including any extras Time Warner Cable threw in on the cable network side.

Chase Carey

All of the parties represented at the negotiating table were pleased with the outcome.

“We’re pleased that, after months of negotiations, we were able to reach a fair agreement with Time Warner Cable — one that recognizes the value of our programming,” News Corp. president and COO Chase Carey said in a press release. Time Warner Cable president and CEO Glenn Britt adds that his company is “happy to have reached a reasonable deal with no disruption in programming.”

Amusingly, Bright House Networks’ own press release is a mirror copy of Time Warner Cable’s — only the names have been changed:

“We’re pleased that an agreement has been reached with no disruption in programming for our customers,” said Steve Miron, Chief Executive Officer, Bright House Networks.

Who wasn’t represented at the negotiating table?  Customers.  Ultimately, whatever amount agreed to, it will be added to customers’ bills in future rate increases.

If other networks seek similar terms, cable operators may have to fork out as much as $5 billion a year — and would likely pass the cost on to subscribers, Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in New York told Bloomberg News.

“The broadcast networks are really struggling to find a viable business model,” Moffett said. “They’re looking at the cable networks that make money both on advertising and the money that the cable operators pay them and saying, ‘We need a dual revenue stream to survive too.’”

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CNBC reports on the deal reached just in time to prevents sports fans from missing out on their New Year’s football games on Fox. (2 minutes)

Nothing beats an overcharging scheme like cell phone text messaging.  What originally was envisioned as a small text paging add-on has become a massively lucrative service from America’s cell phone companies who rake in millions from one line messages.  In 2008, 2.5 trillion messages were sent from cell phones worldwide, up 32 percent from the year before, according to the Gartner Group.

Woe to those who send or receive text messages without a special texting plan.  Although the actual cost to send and deliver dozens of text messages is literally a fraction of a penny, almost every carrier charges a uniform 20 cents per message sent or received.  A text-happy teen can rapidly skyrocket your cell phone bill, as one Massachusetts father discovered.

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WWLP-TV in Springfield reports on a Massachusetts dad confronted with a $500 text message cell phone bill last year.  (1 minute)

Texting plans typically add a few dollars to your cell phone bill, although unlimited texting can cost you a ten spot every month per phone from some providers.  For those customers receiving unwanted text message spam, most simply pay the bill, which only adds to provider profits.  Carriers promise they will credit customers receiving unwanted text messages, and several will block them altogether for no additional charge.  Carriers claim the popular text messaging service adds value to subscribers, and frankly utilizes less of their network resources than customers making quick voice calls back and forth.

Yet prices for cell phone text messaging keep increasing.  Some carriers originally charged just five cents per message.  Yet since the number of wireless phone companies have shrunk from six to just four today, prices have increased: first to 10 cents per message, then 15 cents, and today a near-uniform 20 cents per message. That generates profits credit card companies can only drool over.  In fact, doing the math, sending 140 bytes of data in a typical text message costs you one cent for every seven bytes of data.  That’s $1,497.97 per megabyte.

Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) has had his share of constituent complaints from those who’ve received surprise enormous bills.  Kohl is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.  He began investigating why text messaging costs so much.

“Text messaging files are very small,” Kohl says, “as the size of text messages are generally limited to 160 characters per message, and therefore cost carriers very little to transmit.”

Perhaps even less than Kohl suspects.  Text messages are limited to 160 characters because they ride across barely-utilized control data circuits cell phone companies use to manage calls.  Because these circuits are idle or underutilized, yet still occupy part of the spectrum, riding text messages across these channels costs carriers next to nothing, and don’t bog down wireless networks.  But that staggering bill can sure bog down your budget.