Cable Television

Don't panic if you're watching Fox's New Year's Eve special and the screen goes black moments before host Carmen Electra finishes screaming "Happy New Year." There's nothing wrong with your TV. You're just caught in a brawl between two media giants. At issue are the fees that News Corp., Rupert Murdoch's sprawling media empire, is demanding that Time Warner Cable pay for transmitting its Fox stations -- including KTTV-TV Channel 11 and KCOP-TV Channel 13 in Los Angeles -- as well as cable networks such as FX, Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket.

Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon folded its Noggin and Nick Jr. cable channels into Nickelodeon Preschool and united the creative and management teams to better target its audience of young children. Brown Johnson, who led Nick Jr. as executive vice president, was named executive vice president and executive creative director of Nickelodeon Preschool and general manager of Noggin, New York-based Nickelodeon said. She will oversee all preschool programming across Nickelodeon networks.

Dimension Cable Services announced Tuesday that it has acquired Crown Valley Cable Television, a small cable system that serves part of Laguna Niguel. Dimension, a Times Mirror Co. subsidiary, will gain about 1,200 customers, giving it 133,000 county subscribers. Times Mirror Cable has about 1.1 million subscribers nationally. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. Crown Valley Cable is a subsidiary of Jones Spacelink Acquisition Corp. of Englewood, Colo.

After seven years and 1,850 programs, Shelley Mangrum presides over her final line dance today as TNN's "Club Dance" series presents its last original show at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Reruns of the cable program continue through the end of the year.

For decades, public access programming on cable television has provided a virtually free forum for community activists and aspiring entertainers, for preening star wannabes as well as serious-minded political watchdogs. But in Los Angeles and across California that forum began crumbling last week, a development that advocates say will strip ordinary citizens of a valuable 1st Amendment platform.

At a time when television is under pressure to reduce violence, four major pay-TV channels are instituting a labeling system to warn viewers about the content of every program they offer--but not only with regard to mayhem. The advisories also will cover nudity, sex and language. Cable executives deny that the move is in response to congressional pressure and say it will not affect what gets programmed on HBO, Showtime, the Movie Channel and Cinemax.

Two competing cable-TV comedy channels, which have struggled to gain acceptance among viewers, advertisers and local cable systems, will merge into a single channel. Viacom International's Ha! channel, on the air since April 1, and Time Warner's Comedy Channel, launched in November, 1989, plan to pool their assets under the name Comedy TV by early next year, the companies said Tuesday.

Is this a cool way to kick off the new year or what? Roller Derby is back! Wheels spinning, elbows flailing, bodies hurtling over the rail, yessir! So what if they're calling it "Rollerjam" when it premieres on TNN next Friday for a weekly, Friday-night 8-to-10 run? Sure, the teams speed 'round the banked track on in-line skates now, with all the sound-stage gleam and laser-light staging that wrestling has perfected for tube-friendly family appeal.

Residents of more than 14 Southern California locales will now have a third option, besides satellite and cable, for subscribing to pay TV. AT&T Inc. said it would offer pay television service, with bells and whistles not provided by its rivals, beginning today, in Anaheim, Burbank, Glendale, Riverside and other parts of Southern California.

VideoCipher is sitting on top of the world these days, much like the communications satellites on which its technology depends. A division of General Instrument Corp.

With only hours to go until their current contract expires, News Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. were still trying to hammer out a new deal for the cable system operator to carry News Corp.'s Fox TV stations and several of its cable networks. The likelihood of a new accord before today's midnight deadline appeared to be quickly diminishing, and the possibility was increasing that millions of Time Warner subscribers could see Fox shows disappear from their TV screens. On Wednesday, News Corp.

Don't panic if you're watching Fox's New Year's Eve special and the screen goes black moments before host Carmen Electra finishes screaming "Happy New Year." There's nothing wrong with your TV. You're just caught in a brawl between two media giants. At issue are the fees that News Corp., Rupert Murdoch's sprawling media empire, is demanding that Time Warner Cable pay for transmitting its Fox stations -- including KTTV-TV Channel 11 and KCOP-TV Channel 13 in Los Angeles -- as well as cable networks such as FX, Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket.

Starting at midnight Dec. 31, Time Warner cable customers could find themselves without Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Ducks, UCLA and USC television coverage, thanks to a fee dispute that escalated Friday. Time Warner and News Corp., which owns the Fox stable of channels, have been unable to renegotiate the carriage agreement that runs out at the end of the year. If the impasse is not resolved, local subscribers not only would be without much of the entertainment programming on Channel 11 -- including new seasons of "American Idol," "24" and "House" -- but also Prime Ticket and FS West, home to L.A. sports teams, including the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers and Angels.

Cable operator Comcast Corp. said it would make its experimental Web TV service available to millions of its subscribers who pay for high-speed Internet access and television, paving the way for people to watch cable shows online. The newly christened Fancast Xfinity TV service allows subscribers to watch full-length television shows from 27 networks -- including pay cable offerings HBO, Cinemax and Starz -- on their computers. The cable giant is aggressively rolling out the online service, which it tested with 5,000 customers over the summer.

Friday's premiere of Disney Channel's "Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie" was cable television's most-watched program of the year and nearly beat out all of the week's prime-time programming on the five major broadcast networks. "Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie," a two-hour version of the series about three siblings with magical abilities, drew 11.43 million viewers, just 30,000 behind the Tuesday version of NBC's "America's Got Talent," according to figures released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

The nation's biggest cable operator can now get bigger. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with Comcast Corp. and against the Federal Communications Commission on Friday in a closely watched case over how many of the nation's roughly 100 million cable TV subscribers one company should be allowed to serve. In throwing out the FCC's rules that no cable company can serve more than 30% of the nation's TV marketplace, the court said the regulatory agency did not factor in competition in the form of satellite television in its arguments for why the industry should not be allowed to expand.

Cable TV providers cannot have exclusive rights to provide service in apartment buildings that they wire, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The decision by the Court of Appeals in Washington upholds a Federal Communications Commission ruling that banned the exclusive agreements as anti-competitive. The National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. and a pair of affiliated real estate groups sued, saying the FCC did not justify the change in policy or have the authority to regulate the deals.

Sasha Grey: An article in Thursday's Calendar section about adult film performer Sasha Grey said that "The Girlfriend Experience," the new indie drama in which she appears, opens today. The movie reaches theaters today but it became available on cable television April 30.

Time Warner Cable Inc. said Director Glenn Britt will succeed Don Logan as chairman when the nation's second-largest cable TV company completes its spin-off from parent Time Warner Inc. at the end of the current quarter. Logan will remain a director, and Donna A. James, Edward D. Shirley and former Sen. John E. Sununu also will join the company's board, bringing its membership to 12. As previously announced, Time Warner Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes will leave the board.

For decades, public access programming on cable television has provided a virtually free forum for community activists and aspiring entertainers, for preening star wannabes as well as serious-minded political watchdogs. But in Los Angeles and across California that forum began crumbling last week, a development that advocates say will strip ordinary citizens of a valuable 1st Amendment platform.