Cable Television Industry

A plan by Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. to ensure that people who watch TV on the Web are already cable-TV subscribers faces several hurdles, including the technical -- a workable encryption system -- and the political -- whether consumers will view it as an attempt to wall off free content.

Mexican cable companies Monday urged President Felipe Calderon to curb the market power of Carlos Slim's telephone companies, saying they overcharge consumers and hurt the country's competitiveness. The National Chamber of the Cable Telecommunications Industry took out full-page ads in Mexico's largest daily newspapers, Reforma and El Universal, to demand special regulation for Slim's Telefonos de Mexico and America Movil's Telcel unit.

AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Qwest Communications International Inc., the three biggest U.S. home-phone companies, are working together for the first time to keep customers away from cable providers. Subscribers moving to an area served by a different carrier will be referred to movearoo.com, a website that offers help in switching service, AT&T marketing executive Frank Mona said. The site doesn't show digital phone service from cable companies.

Cable TV rates keep rising, and federal regulators said last week they're investigating -- again -- whether cable companies are gouging consumers. Why bother? We're squandering limited regulatory resources policing an industry that's stubbornly clinging to an outdated business model (which, as a newspaperman, I know a little something about). It's time for the $79-billion cable industry to switch to a la carte pricing that would allow customers to pay only for the channels they want to watch.

The long-anticipated announcement by Major League Baseball to shift its Extra Innings pay package to DirecTV came Thursday -- but with a twist that one high-ranking cable executive called a "sham." MLB President Bob DuPuy said the seven-year agreement with DirecTV -- first reported in January as an exclusive deal -- includes a new provision that would allow the package to remain on cable television and Dish Network if certain criteria are met. But the window to negotiate closes April 1.

Helen Freeman is a second-generation New York Yankees fan whose mother was buried under a tombstone engraved with a baseball bat and the team's stylized "NY" logo. So the Anaheim resident was understandably upset when opening day came without an agreement between MLB and cable TV companies so that rabid fans could watch out-of-town games.

Charter Communications Inc., the cable television company controlled by billionaire investor Paul Allen, reported a narrower first-quarter loss as it sold more packages of TV, telephone and Internet services. The net loss was $381 million, or $1.04 a share, down from $459 million, or $1.45, a year earlier. St. Louis-based Charter's sales rose 8% to $1.43 billion. Shares of Charter jumped 12 cents to $3.39.

John Malone's Liberty Global Inc., the largest owner of cable television systems outside the U.S., said Monday that it might bid for Virgin Media Inc., the second-biggest British pay-TV company. "We see it as our duty to evaluate all opportunities in broadband cable, including this one," said Bert Holtkamp, a spokesman in Europe for Englewood, Colo.-based Liberty Global.

Among Fox News Channel's influences on television news has been the proliferation of the "swoosh," the dramatic sweeping graphics and loud chime that accompany a breaking news bulletin on the cable network. So, as its sister Fox Business Network launches today, what kind of attention-grabbing innovations will News Corp.'s latest cable venture introduce? "We have a klaxon from a World War II submarine, one of those, 'Ah-oo-gahs!'

Two senators called for a hearing to investigate reports that phone and cable companies were stifling communications among subscribers. Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said incidents involving several companies, including Comcast Corp., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., had raised serious concerns over the companies' "power to discriminate against content."