Cable

News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey made big headlines Monday for suggesting that Fox could go from a broadcast network to cable channel to make ends meet.  The implication is that consumers would have to pay to watch Bart Simpson or catch some NFL football on Sunday afternoons. But for all intents and purpose, Fox is already a cable channel and has been for a long time. Yes, about 10% to 15% of the country's TV consumers still get Fox via antennas, but everyone else receives its signals from a pay-TV provider such as Time Warner Cable or DirecTV.

Is Bart Simpson heading to cable? It could happen, warned Chase Carey, the president of News Corp., which owns Fox Broadcasting, home to such popular shows as "The Simpsons," "Glee" and "The Following" as well as National Football League games. Most consumers already pay to get Fox through their pay-TV provider. A cable or satellite company typically pays Fox a fee to carry its signals, and those costs get passed on to their customers. This so-called retransmission consent fee has become a key revenue stream for broadcast networks, which previously made most of their money from selling advertising.

CBS and News Corp. apparently aren't worried about cord cutters. Both companies are making investments in pay-television channels at a time when the very business model on which the industry is built faces challenges from changing consumer habits and legal battles. This week, CBS agreed to plunk down $100 million for half of the TV Guide Network and News Corp. announced it was creating FXX, a sister channel to its FX network. FXX is the second major cable initiative News Corp. has in the works: The company also is building a national sports network called Fox Sports 1 that will debut later this year.

FX is going to try to clone itself. The News Corp.-owned cable network -- home to such critically acclaimed shows as "Justified" and "Sons of Anarchy" -- is launching a sister channel this fall, dubbed FXX. To get the channel off to a strong start, FX will move its comedies "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "The League" to FXX, as well as its late-night show "Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell," which will expand from a weekly to a...

In a move that could be a godsend to accident-prone users, Apple may be working on a way for iPhones to fall the same way cats do to protect its most fragile parts. In a patent filing, Apple has designed a system called the "Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device" that would detect when the phone is falling and shift the phone's weight so it falls on the side that would cause the least amount of damage, according to a report by Apple Insider .  "In one example, the protective mechanism is configured to alter the device orientation as the device is falling," part of the patent reads.

Democratic state senators gathered in La Jolla over the weekend to enjoy rounds of golf and high-priced meals and lodging at an annual fundraiser paid for largely by an association of cable television companies seeking favorable treatment on legislation. The 2013 Pro Tem Cup hosted by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg at Torrey Pines Golf Course is a major fundraiser for the state Democratic Party. The event's lead sponsor each year is the California Cable and Telecommunications Assn., which last year reported contributing $100,000 to the party around the time of the fundraiser.

Political pundit Lawrence O'Donnell, a former writer and producer of "The West Wing," has hosted "The Last Word" on MSNBC for 21/2 years, often kicking up a ruckus for his blunt opinions. What's your connection to L.A.? Are you bicoastal? I live in Los Angeles. PHOTOS: Real lessons from fake presidents Why here if MSNBC is based in New York? Because MSNBC was an afterthought in my life. I've never designed anything in my life to accommodate MSNBC. I've had to squeeze it in. And so most of my workdays for MSNBC now are in New York probably, but last week I did the show in L.A. the whole week.

Against all odds, David emerged victorious over a giant ... named Donald Trump?  "The Bible," History's 10-part epic produced by Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey, converted 10.8 million total viewers for chapters three and four on Sunday, covering the stories of King David, Samson and other characters. That was down 17% from last week's record-shattering premiere, but it was still an impressive number for a scripted miniseries on basic cable. "The Bible" also easily outdrew NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice," the reality competition overseen by Trump, which scored just 5 million from 9 to 11 p.m. Sunday.

In the latest sign of how valuable the media industry considers sports programming, News Corp. on Tuesday unveiled plans for Fox Sports 1, a new national cable channel it hopes will eventually challenge Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN empire. Scheduled to launch in mid-August in almost 90 million homes, the channel's initial lineup is to include NASCAR, college football and basketball, ultimate fighting and soccer. Next year, Fox Sports 1 is to add regular-season and postseason Major League Baseball to its lineup.

This story has been corrected. See below for details. Don't look for HBO to take a page from Netflix and make an entire season of one of its hit series, like "Game of Thrones," available to its subscribers in a single instant. Speaking at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference in Miami on Monday, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes dismissed the idea of releasing an entire season of a TV show that way.  "We don't want to put it up all at once, we want the water cooler effect," Bewkes said.