360AM: Bloomberg, Verizon Deep in Talks to Bring FiOS to Big Apple
Cable360AM — News briefing for Wednesday, Jan. 16 »
New York City government officials were busy working out the terms of a 15-year franchise deal yesterday with Verizon that will bring FiOS TV into Time Warner Cable and Cablevision’s high-profile backyard, the Daily News reports. The major sticking point right now is Verizon’s desire to bring the service to New York’s wealthiest neighborhoods first, according to the New York tabloid. Verizon also faces some technical problems running its glass fiber lines in New York’s unique, sharply angled infrastructure. [Daily News]
CNNMoney.com has built a TV studio and will produce 30 video business news pieces a day, the New York Times reports. [New York Times]
Prices of flat-screen high-definition TVs will drop 15.6% this year, according to a forecast from Pacific Media Associates. [TVPredictions]
Comcast received a letter from the FCC this week asking it to respond to consumer complaints that it has blocked some peer-to-peer file sharing, PC Magazine reports. The FCC wants to receive Comcast’s written response by Jan. 25. [PC Magazine]
In addition to introducing the sliver of a notebook computer, the MacBook Air, at Macworld Expo in San Francisco yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that he has made deals with the major movie studios to rent their titles to iTunes shoppers, as reported in CableFAX Daily. The company is also releasing an update to its Apple TV software that will enable users to access movies directly from their Apple TVs rather than having to rent or purchase movies on their PCs first.
As reported in CableFAX Daily, Oprah Winfrey is taking over Discovery Communications’ Discovery Health network. The 50-50 venture owned by Discovery and Oprah’s company Harpo will be renamed the Oprah Winfrey Network, or OWN, and will launch in late 2009.
The decline of the quasi-fictional Baltimore Sun as depicted in the final season of HBO’s The Wire sets off heated Internet posts among current and former employees of the real Baltimore Sun and other journalists. [Washington Post] Yesterday’s 360AM.
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