Cable Television

A group of national cable television networks on Thursday abruptly pulled out of an experimental program that sought to use EBay Inc.'s auction expertise and technology to buy and sell TV time. Several big ad agencies and major advertisers including Home Depot Inc., Toyota Motor Corp. and Intel Corp. hired EBay last summer to create an "online media marketplace" for television ads. The companies had hoped to introduce an efficient, and perhaps lower-cost, tool for selling commercial time.

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.

Time Warner Cable Inc. continued to lose pay-TV customers in Los Angeles and Dallas during the first quarter as it struggled to recover from botched efforts to integrate other cable systems it acquired last summer. But sales gains in so-called triple-play packages which include TV, Internet and phone service, helped the nation's second-largest cable TV company post double-digit increases in revenue and profit.

Comcast Corp.'s plan to show movies on its cable TV systems as soon as they open in theaters has exhibitors screaming "Cut!" Two of the nation's biggest theater chains, Regal Entertainment Group and National Amusements Inc., said they would refuse to play films made available in the home simultaneously. "We're not interested in playing anything that makes its debut in the home and at the theater at the same time," said Michael L. Campbell, chief executive of Knoxville, Tenn.

Couch potatoes rejoice: Now there are even fewer reasons to put down the remote control. Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday that it was launching travel-focused, video-on-demand programming that would let some cable television subscribers push a button on their remote and within 15 minutes get a call from a Disney reservation agent to book a vacation. Disney's Travel on Demand, which will be available to 9 million Time Warner Cable Inc. and Cablevision Systems Corp.

The City Council voted Friday to file a lawsuit challenging tentative decisions by the Federal Communications Commission that city officials fear could reduce their authority to regulate cable television franchises. Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a former cable television executive, said the proposed new rules could reduce public access programming and make it harder for the city to protect residents who are customers of the cable firms.

People who can't get enough C-SPAN are getting more chances to watch legislative coverage from the comfort of their couches. At a time when news media coverage of most state legislatures is increasingly sparse, there are now more than 20 stations across the country offering gavel-to-gavel legislative coverage. That's up from a handful in the 1990s. Only about a dozen offer full broadcast slates. Others offer limited, part-time programming.

Rupert Murdoch's long-anticipated Fox Business Network will be open for business Oct. 15. In announcing the launch date Wednesday, parent News Corp. said its rival to General Electric Co.'s CNBC had distribution deals in place with leading U.S. cable operators that would make the channel available to 30 million subscribers. Headquartered in New York, the network has set up news bureaus in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington and London.

PROLIFERATING cable networks -- widely perceived to have expanded experimental and quality television programming beyond the offerings of HBO -- had a scattered showing against the premium cable powerhouse at Thursday's Emmy nominations. Showtime, in particular, had mounted an extensive campaign for its new, critically lauded original programs such as "Dexter," a show starring Michael C. Hall as a sympathetic serial killer, "The Tudors" and "Brotherhood" but came up with just 17 nominations.

This just in! There's no more news on TV, at least not on the cable news networks. Plain old news apparently just isn't good enough anymore, so TV news stories have been getting new and improved names. President Bush's latest news conference? CNN labels it a "Developing Story." A car bombing in Baghdad? The banner on MSNBC reads "Breaking News." A blown transformer in New York City? Fox News Channel is on it, with a graphic that announces "Very Latest." Sometimes a story is a "News Alert."