Television Broadcasting

Call it Goliath Versus Goliath. Cable giant Comcast Corp. is locked in an ugly battle with satellite broadcaster DirecTV over the sports channel Versus. Unable to strike a new deal with Comcast, DirecTV on Tuesday dropped carriage of Versus to its 14 million subscribers. Such disputes are usually resolved behind the scenes, but not in this case. After removing Versus from its lineup, DirecTV slapped a notice on the channel the network had occupied, announcing: "Comcast, which owns Versus, has forced us to take down the channel because we will not submit to their unfair and outrageous demands."

Beryl W. Sprinkel Economic advisor to Reagan Beryl W. Sprinkel, 85, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan administration and who helped guide the administration's response to the October 1987 stock market crash, died Aug. 22 at a nursing home in Beecher, Ill. He had Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, a rare neuromuscular disease. Sprinkel, protege of conservative economics guru Milton Friedman, taught economics at the University of Chicago and was executive vice president and economic advisor at the Harris Trust and Savings Bank in Chicago for nearly 30 years.

June is typically the time of year when the broadcast networks ring up billions of dollars in commercial sales for the coming television season. But this hasn't been a typical year. Declining audiences, an extremely fragile economy and bankruptcy filings by cash-strapped U.S. automakers -- traditionally among the biggest TV advertisers -- have made it more difficult for network advertising executives this spring to sell commercial time.

Less than 36 hours after a deadly bombing in southeastern Iran, three men were hanged Saturday in front of the mosque they allegedly targeted, official news media reported. Local TV broadcast images of the executions, showing three people hanging from the gallows and spectators watching from behind a metal gate. Officials accused the men of involvement in the bomb blast Thursday at the mosque in Zahedan, which left as many as 25 dead and 125 injured.

It was a voice of anguish that pierced a nation. Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital.

British television aired film of the assisted suicide of a 59-year-old Chicagoan at a Swiss clinic. Craig Ewert, a former computer scientist, was shown in bed with his wife at his side while he took barbiturates with a glass of apple juice. Then he used his teeth to turn off his ventilator, and died on camera. Parliament quizzed Prime Minister Gordon Brown about the propriety of airing the program. Care Not Killing, an anti-euthanasia group, denounced the broadcast as "a cynical attempt to boost television ratings" and persuade Parliament to legalize assisted suicide.

ProSiebenSat.1 Media, Germany's biggest broadcaster, is expected today to receive three competing bids valuing the company at about 6 billion euros ($7.9 billion), two people familiar with the discussions said. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Permira Advisers are preparing a joint bid, as is a group including Apax Partners Worldwide and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said two people with knowledge of the offers, who asked not to be identified before an announcement.

Satellite television broadcaster DirecTV Group Inc. said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit nearly quadrupled, driven by higher revenue and a lower rate of customer defection. Shares of the El Segundo company, controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., rose $1.13, or 5.2%, to $22.97. Its earnings surged to $370 million, or 30 cents a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, up from $95 million, or 7 cents, a year earlier. Revenue rose 13% to $3.67 billion.

Viewers of Hezbollah's Al Manar television may have been surprised this week to see the image of a dead guerrilla flash on their screens. "This is the corpse of one of the members of Hezbollah's special forces," the accompanying text said. "Hassan Nasrallah lies," it continued, referring to Hezbollah's leader. "We're not the ones who are hiding the real numbers of our dead." With that, Israel returned Al Manar viewers to their regular programming.

Turkish television stations will be allowed to broadcast some programming in Kurdish and other languages spoken by minority groups beginning late next month, the head of Turkey's broadcasting board said Wednesday. The move is seen as a step toward expanding the cultural rights of the country's long-repressed Kurdish minority in line with Turkey's efforts to gain full membership in the European Union.