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Online Video Streaming Threatening the Cable TV Business

Phillip Dampier September 21, 2015 Competition, Consumer News, Online Video, Video Comments Off on Online Video Streaming Threatening the Cable TV Business

[flv]http://phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Are Streaming Companies a Threat to Cable 9-21-15.flv[/flv]

Jeffrey Tambor and Jill Soloway delivered Amazon.com Inc. its first major Emmy awards for the show “Transparent,” as the online retailer went toe-to-toe with Time Warner Inc.’s HBO, highlighting the growing competition between video streaming services vs. traditional cable television. Berenberg Senior Media Analyst Sarah Simon discusses with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua on “The Pulse.” (4:26)

Comcast Messing Around With MSNBC Again; Major Program Shifts Help Comcast’s Politics

Phillip Dampier July 30, 2015 Astroturf, Editorial & Site News 3 Comments
Phillip "A Shakeup in Comcastland" Dampier

Phillip “A Shakeup in Comcastland” Dampier

Morale at MSNBC is reported to be very low this week as Comcast/NBC imposes some major programming changes that don’t seem to make much sense.

The cancellation of The Ed Show, hosted by Ed Schultz, has proved to be the most controversial, sparking a protest from a presidential candidate and new questions about how much influence Comcast brings to bear on how the news is reported.

Although never a ratings king, Schultz’s pro-labor, very anti-TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership — the latest controversial trade agreement) views, along with his harangues against executive pay and wealth inequality run contrary to the business agenda of parent company Comcast. While many other MSNBC meh-rated shows survived the culling, Schultz is out, along with The Cycle and Now with Alex Wagner.

Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders is not happy:

We live in a time when much of the corporate media regards politics as a baseball game or a soap opera. Ed Schultz has treated the American people with respect by focusing on the most important issues impacting their lives. He has talked about income and wealth inequality, high unemployment, low wages, our disastrous trade politics and racism in America.

I am very disappointed that Comcast chose to remove Ed Schultz from its lineup. We need more people who talk about the real issues facing our country, not fewer.

At a time when a handful of large, multi-national corporations own our major media outlets, I hope they will allow voices to be heard from those who dissent from the corporate agenda.

Not very likely.

Morning Joe: Mika Brzezinski (L), Joe Scarborough (C), Willie Geist (L)

Morning Joe: Mika Brzezinski (L), Joe Scarborough (C), Willie Geist (L)

The latest MSNBC remake will leave bottom-rated shows unscathed —  like Morning Joe, an always frustrating viewing experience featuring mercurial, long-winded and very thin-skinned Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, alternating in whiplash fashion between the deferential “don’t set Joe off”-verbally filibustered co-host and the staunch defender of women’s rights and Barack Obama (most notably when Joe is not there.)

Comcast’s best friends make regular appearances as paid “analysts” and “talent.” Consider the irritatingly frequent appearances of irrelevant Harold Ford, Jr., friend of big business and co-chair of the corporate sock puppet group Broadband for America, part funded by Comcast, or the Rev. Al Sharpton, who writes letters in favor of whatever Comcast business deal is before regulators.

If MSNBC did a sober ratings review, allowing Sharpton’s teleprompter-dependent show PoliticsNation, which couldn’t draw flies, to stay on the schedule is inexplicable. Then there is yesterday’s news regular Ed Rendell, former mayor of Philadelphia, former governor of Pennsylvania, former almost everything… but today Comcast’s BFF. While picking up a check serving as a guest political hack on various MSNBC shows, in his spare time he penned letters supporting Comcast’s merger with Time Warner Cable.

opinionMSNBC Fossil Chris Matthews is still there as well, like a permanent scar. He got his start in 1997 on CNBC and MSNBC obsessing about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, remained tolerant if not friendly to the Bush Administration during the “war years,” until he got a “thrill up his leg” for Barack Obama during the 2008 election. He loves politics but knows who butters his bread.

MSNBC’s biggest ratings came from Keith Olbermann, who left the network in a huffy dispute with his boss Phil Griffin. Rumors are circulating wildly this week he’ll be asked back to MSNBC now that his sports gig with ESPN has ended. But Olbermann was also willing to take shots at the corporation that paid him, something not likely to change if he returned to Comcastland. The dealbreaker may turn out to be his nemesis Griffin is still there.

msnbcMSNBC brass suggest the changes are to enhance the network’s “straight reporting” during the day and leave outspoken opinion hosts unscathed in the evening. To show that, MSNBC will present viewers the disgraced former host of the NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams (now exiled to doing special reports for cable news) and Chuck Todd, who depends on good relations with politicians to guarantee their accessibility and appearance on the always predictable Sunday morning talking point time-waster Meet the Press.

In short, MSNBC really means it when they call themselves “The Place for Politics.” Except most Americans are now tired of politics, which does not bode well for improved ratings. But then Comcast doesn’t mind a television food fight between Donald Trump vs. Everyone or disputes over Planned Parenthood or police violence, because that is unlikely to cross into the risky territory of discussing corporate influence on the media or inconvenient stories about media consolidation. You’ll find those stories on PBS from Bill Moyers.

CNBC cheerleads big corporate deals all day long, but when is the last time you heard a skeptical news story about cable mergers and network acquisitions? When is big too big?

Public-Private Partnership: Did Miss. AG Staff Conspire With Hollywood to Launch Attack on Google?

Phillip Dampier July 27, 2015 Comcast/Xfinity, Competition, Consumer News, Public Policy & Gov't Comments Off on Public-Private Partnership: Did Miss. AG Staff Conspire With Hollywood to Launch Attack on Google?

quid pro quoGoogle is seeking documents from three network television conglomerates that could prove the Mississippi Attorney General’s office conspired with executives of 21st Century Fox, Comcast/NBC, and Viacom to launch a coordinated lobbying campaign against the search engine giant over its business practices.

A court filing reported by Variety alleges that staffers of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (D) conspired to launch an anti-Google media and lobbying blitz to pressure the company over its search practices, notably the “autocomplete feature” that some believe promotes illegal activities.

Copies of email from Meredith Aldridge, one of Hood’s staff members, addressed to Brian Cohen at the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA) allegedly lays out a proposed media/public relations campaign to plant negative Google stories in newspapers and on television shows with the assistance of executives inside the media companies. The examples included:

Hood

Hood

  • A custom-written editorial for placement in the Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp., former owner of 21st Century Fox, suggesting Google stock would lose value if it faced a sustained probe by Attorney General offices across the country;
  • An appearance arranged by a Comcast/NBCU government relations executive on the Comcast/NBC-owned Today show that would perpetuate “an attack on Google;”
  • A suggestion that a PR firm engineer a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of a stockholder to complain about Google.

Hood’s office appeared to be ready for a lengthy, all-out assault on Google, at least based on an outline ready for the summer meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General in Boston in 2013. The document suggests Hood was prepared to discuss how Google may have perpetuated the illegal online purchases of counterfeit goods, weapons, and prescription painkillers through its search engine.

Google argues the pattern of behavior from Hood’s office suggests the three media companies are withholding documents connecting “contributions to AG Hood’s cause and the quid quo pro they expected to receive.”

Hood’s case did not go over well in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, who ruled there was a “substantial likelihood” Google will prevail on its claim that Hood violated its First Amendment rights.

Britain’s ITV May Be Sold to U.S. Cable/Entertainment Conglomerate, John Malone, or Even Comcast

Phillip Dampier September 4, 2014 Comcast/Xfinity, Competition, Consumer News, Liberty/UPC, Online Video Comments Off on Britain’s ITV May Be Sold to U.S. Cable/Entertainment Conglomerate, John Malone, or Even Comcast

itvIndependent television in Great Britain may soon be in the hands of U.S. citizen John Malone, former cable magnate and head of the giant Liberty Global cable and entertainment conglomerate that has swept across western Europe through a series of mergers and buyouts.

Deregulation has allowed the prospect of Britain’s biggest independent network, dwarfed only by the BBC, to soon be owned lock, stock, and barrel by Americans.

U.S. media conglomerates have already picked up the smaller Channel 5 network, purchased by Viacom in a surprise $757 million deal.

ITV produces an enormous number of television shows for its network of regional independent television stations across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It is these productions that are attracting attention from content-hungry U.S. media companies.

Liberty Global logo 2012John Malone’s Liberty Global is seen as a leading contender, already owning a 6.4% stake in ITV acquired from BSkyB for $824 million. Liberty Global and Discovery Networks have maintained close association and jointly bid $930 million to acquire All3Media, the production arm of reality shows like “Undercover Boss.”

ITV’s own needs for programming have increased dramatically with the introduction of digital free-to-air television across the United Kingdom. ITV’s single network, operating for decades, is today accompanied by ITV 2, 3, 4, Citv, and Encore.

Malone hopes to build a European media empire, and has amassed holdings including a takeover of Virgin Media and cable systems in Germany and the Benelux region.

Malone has wooed some of ITV’s biggest investors — all American — including Fidelity, which has a nearly an 8% stake, BlackRock, with 4.9%, and the California hedge fund manager Brandes, which has 4.8%.

Malone may face other bidders, however, notably Comcast-NBCUniversal, which has not yet publicly revealed whether it is interested or not.

Another potential benefit of the transaction would be to allow its American buyer to avoid U.S. taxes by relocating their corporate headquarters to Great Britain in a controversial practice known as tax-inversion.

Comcast’s Growing List of Owned/Operated Networks Gets Bigger With Time Warner Cable

Phillip Dampier August 11, 2014 Comcast/Xfinity, Competition, Consumer News, Editorial & Site News, Public Policy & Gov't 1 Comment

psctest

This week’s revelation that a Comcast-controlled enterprise deliberately and consciously removed news content critical of Comcast and its public policy lobbying practices speaks to the impact media concentration has on news dissemination.

It also exposes the close relationship Comcast maintains with non-profit groups it financially supports, encouraging the kinds of positive letters about its operations the New York Public Service Commission can now find on file in this case.[1]

comcast twcThe group involved in the current controversy reportedly received $350,000 from Comcast and promptly began a vocal opposition campaign against Net Neutrality, an open Internet policy Comcast still opposes being enacted as official FCC policy.[2]

Professor Todd Gitlin of Columbia University called Comcast’s close relationship with the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) the “closest thing I can imagine to a political quid pro quo. The fact NewsOne saw fit to delete a report that they previously posted without any claim that anything was mistaken in the report tells you something about their commitment to open discourse.”

Jeff Cohen, an associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College, also commented on the NewsOne decision. “Just as corporate cash can corrupt civil rights groups, this incident shows how corporate power can corrupt and censor the news.”[3]

Time Warner Cable operates local news channels in most of the major New York cities it serves. These channels will also come under the umbrella of Comcast, giving it an even greater news voice through its NBC and Telemundo networks, MSNBC, local cable news operations, and owned and operated local broadcast affiliate stations in New York City.

In closing, as a reminder to the Commission, Comcast’s list of broadcast, cable and digital media assets is already enormous and will grow even larger if a merger with Time Warner Cable is approved.[4]

Comcast-NBCUniversal

Broadcast Television
NBC Television Network
NBC Entertainment
NBC News
NBC Sport Group
Universal Television (UTV)
Universal Cable Productions
NBCUniversal Domestic Television Distribution
NBCUniversal International Television Distribution

NBC Local Media Division
NBC New York (WNBC)
NBC Los Angeles (KNBC)
NBC Chicago (WMAQ)
NBC Philadelphia (WCAU)
NBC Bay Area (KNTV)
NBC Dallas/Fort Worth (KXAS)
NBC Washington (WRC)
NBC Miami (WTVJ)
NBC San Diego (KNSD)
NBC Connecticut (WVIT)
NBC Everywhere
LX TV
Skycastle Entertainment

Telemundo
KVEA (Los Angeles)
WNJU (New York)
WSCV (Miami)
KTMD (Houston)
WSNS (Chicago)
KXTX (Dallas/Fort Worth)
KVDA (San Antonio)
KSTS (San Francisco/San Jose)
KTAZ (Phoenix)
KNSO (Fresno)
KDEN (Denver)
KBLR (Las Vegas)
WNEU (Boston/Merrimack)
KHRR (Tucson)
WKAQ (Puerto Rico)
KWHY (Los Angeles) (Independent)

Television Channels
Bravo
Chiller
CNBC
CNBC World
Comcast Charter Sports Southeast
Comcast Sports Group
Comcast SportsNet Bay Area
Comcast SportsNet California
Comcast SportsNet Chicago
Comcast SportsNet Houston
Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic
Comcast SportsNet New England
Comcast SportsNet Northwest
Comcast SportsNet Philadelhpia
SNY
The Mtn.-Mountain West Sports Network
CSS
Comcast Sports Southwest
New England Cable News (Manages)
NBC Sports Network
The Comcast Network
E! Entertainment Television
G4
Golf Channel
MSNBC
mun2
Oxygen Media
Cloo
Sprout
The Style Network
Syfy
Universal HD
USA Network
The Weather Channel Companies
Syfy Universal (Universal Networks International)
Diva Universal (Universal Networks International)
Studio Universal (Universal Networks International)
Universal Channel (Universal Networks International)
13th Street Universal (Universal Networks International)
Movies 24 (Universal Networks International)
Hallmark Channel (non-U.S.) (Universal Networks International)
KidsCo (Interest) (Universal Networks International)

Film
Universal Pictures
Focus Features
Universal Studios Home Entertainment

Parks and Resorts
Universal Parks and Resorts

Digital Media
DailyCandy
Fandango
Hulu (32%)
iVillage
NBC.com
CNBC Digital
Plaxo

Communications
XFINITY TV
XFINITY Internet
XFINITY Voice

Sports Management
Comcast-Spectator
Philadelphia Flyers
Wells Fargo Center
Global Spectrum (Public Assembly Management)
Ovations Food Services
Front Row Marketing Services
Paciolan
New Era Tickets (ComcastTIX)
Flyers Skate Zone

Other
Comcast Ventures, which is invested in numerous companies.

Time Warner Cable

Local channels`
Time Warner Cable News[5]
NY1: Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island
NY1 Noticias: Spanish language news for New York City
NY State of Politics Blog
TWC News Capital Region (Albany, Amsterdam, Saratoga and Berkshire counties)
TWC News Central NY (Syracuse, Ithaca/Cortland, Utica/Rome)
TWC News Hudson Valley
TWC News Northern NY (Watertown/Ft. Drum)
TWC News Southern Tier (Elmira/Corning, Binghamton/Oneonta)
TWC News Western NY (Buffalo, Finger Lakes Region, Jamestown, Rochester, and Batavia)

Regional Sports Networks
Metro Sports
Time Warner Cable Sports
Time Warner Cable SportsNet
Time Warner Cable Deportes
TWC Sports 32
SNY

Other Holdings
Adelphia — former cable television company in PA
NaviSite — cloud and hosting services company
Insight Communications — cable operator
DukeNet Communications — Fiber optic network
Time Warner Cable Internet
Time Warner Cable Media (advertising)

—

[1]http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?MatterCaseNo=14-m-0183
[2]http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/06/06/12769/civil-rights-groups-fcc-positions-reflect-industry-funding-critics-say
[3]http://www.republicreport.org/2014/comcast-affiliated-newsite-censored-my-article-about-net-neutrality-lobbying/
[4]https://archives.cjr.org/resources/index.php
[5]http://spectrumlocalnews.com/

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