* The Blogosphere & TWC: Was reading some of the tirades in blogs obsessing over Time Warner Cable‘s experiment in tiered pricing for broadband usage… my conclusion: I think the next major step forward in content via broadband will be to have auto-text conversion of all high school lunchroom conversations streaming live. Seems a lot of the blogosphere rises to just that level!

* Beach-TAM: Love the various CTAM chapter events… this one is Thurs the 12th at the St. Regis Hotel in Fort Lauderdale… besides the beach, this event has panels (sure, of course, no really!). Info @ www.ctamflorida.com/registration_beachtam2008.htmwww.ctamflorida.com/registration_beachtam2008.htm.

* Convention TV Watching: Anybody noticed that most of the hotels in convention towns have a video service driven primarily by a DTH platform? LodgeNet dominates the business… but there’s a competitor now that uses a cable platform and has signed some tests with TWC and Comcast systems and is serving hotels with an interactive cable solution from MiTV… check out the Woodlands outside Houston or the Hotel Indigo (new boutique brand from Intercontinental) near the Galleria. MiTV is mostly active in Mexico but charging ahead here.

* Bye, Bye TED: Good riddance.

* Public Policy Ownership Caps Just for Cable?: Just don’t make any sense. Verizon Wireless buys Alltel. The really big get really bigger. Nobody blinks (except, of course, those squirming banks on the line… fastest major private equity flip so far!). But the Federal Confusion Commission is determined to cap the number of cable subs! Makes no sense.

* Appreciated: All the hundreds of notes last week about Balto. Katya sends her thanks, too.

* Ouch: Hard not to feel pain for FCC chmn Kevin Martian’s "loyal lieutenant and gatekeeper" Daniel Gonzalez. The adventure in the energy business—and personally guaranteeing loans for millions—by a lawyer without business experience is a truly painful lesson in economics and the real world. I shan’t comment on how that helps explain some of the FCC’s peculiar actions.

The Daily

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Wednesday–September 17

MSNBC-NBC News Split Dates Set

In a Wednesday editorial call reported on by the trades, MSNBC SVP, Newsgathering Scott Matthews outlined when the cable network will break away from NBC News as part of the Versant spinoff from NBCUniversal.

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