FCC Watch… Random Notes

Think the Federal Confusion Commission will do the right thing by the American Cable Association as they meet this week?

Think anyone at the Portals can even find where they filed the request for waivers?

* Schuss! Another successful SkiTAM… gets better every year. Some of it should be on one of the ESPN channels, don’t you think? (The competition, I mean, not the…) Or how about doing coverage in VOD for on The Ski Channel next year? Some of those classic race runs could live forever.

* Speaking of Programming: Got the DVD of 300 SportsCenter ads. Actually watched (most of) them. Funny stuff. And “cable” (well, multimedia, multiplatform) channels keep doing better… note the Peabody Awards this year. HBO has a winner with “John Adams”—real history — even semi-vetted on History, too. And, Showtime has a real winner with “The Tudors”—history skewed for fun—loved the O’Toole Pope. Most deserving Peabodys though, in my opinion, went to Discovery for “Planet Earth” (absolutely stunning… should be in every elementary and middle school on Earth) and Comedy for “The Colbert Report.”

* Kudos: Wideband deployment is underway from Comcast… now, how about launching it in Summit County, Colorado next week?

* Cable Stock Rebound? Should be underway by now… last week’s story in The Wall Street Journal indicated the bounce off the bottom had begun. We—along with cable analytical guru Paul Kagan —have been saying for years that Wall Street would give up (probably too soon) on the telco build-outs. While I still think Verizon is building the right thing, it sure does cost a bundle. Meanwhile, AT&T remains beholden to DISH for any real video upside.

* CTAM Cable Apprentice: Coming in Denver (again) on the 25th from the Rocky Mountain CTAM Chapter… great fun, worthy cause and really useful information… this year’s case study revolves around the digital transition. More details soon.

* Censorship @ The Cable Show? The Cable Channel, which is affiliated with Reed Elsevier (McNews, B&C), along with the NCTA, did a way cool thing for New Orleans in cooperation with all the hotels that will be showing the channel… a buck a room goes to Cable Cares via the Room To Care project (because the hotels aren’t charging for carriage this year). Very nice. This year, in affiliation with adgorilla and whereishd.com, I was set to do the video introductions at a press conference and for an ad on the Cable Channel during the show ( MBC, my company, developed and owns whereishd.com; we work closely with Dan Ryan and adgorilla on a number of projects). Too bad that Cable Channel’s Steve Nelson vetoed my participation. (I used to do a closing daily stand-up bit for Steve’s channel for years). And I’m hawking his do-good project here in CableFAX Daily today. As a board member of the Cable TV Pioneers, I get to welcome Steve into the Pioneers this year; a deserved award. And he is doing something good for N’awlins.

* The N’awlins Pioneer: Another Pioneer coming into the fold this year is Cox GM Greg Bicket of the New Orleans system… cool. Bringing him some Rocky Mountain Oysters (just kidding).

* Cable TV Pioneer Dinner: Sponsorships still available. Email Les Read at [email protected].