Nice victory for Comcast when the FCC stripped Dallas of the authority to regulate basic cable. Comcast was successful in proving DBS operators had 15%+ of the multichannel video subs in the area. Most intriguing is how long it took for the FCC to bat back Dallas’s ridiculous arguments. The city complained the ’00 Census data Comcast was using was dated and that the satellite penetration numbers Comcast got from SBCA and our Paul Maxwell’s MBC amounted to "hearsay." Dallas even tried to get the FCC to throw out Comcast’s petition because the MSO used the wrong font and spacing size for its footnotes. Seriously. It took the commission 1 yr to decide boot Dallas’s arguments. — By coincidence, Mon also was the day when USDTV announced the launch of its wireless digital TV service in Dallas. That’s the terrestrial pay-TV service funded by a group of broadcasters offering 30 channels at $19.95/month. (Looks like competition to us…)

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Friday–September 5

Football Forecast: NFL-YouTube Experiment a Sign of the Future

Tonight’s the first time an NFL game will exclusively stream live and without a paywall on YouTube, and while it’s expected to attain a hefty number of viewers, the question then becomes whether YouTube—and the networks of internet providers enabling access—can handle the blitz.

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