Television Stations

The Bush administration Wednesday imposed financial sanctions on a satellite television operation in Syria that has outraged U.S. officials with broadcasts of attacks on Americans troops and calls to violence. The administration also imposed sanctions on the Iraqi businessman who owns the station, along with a top general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard and two men accused of directing terrorist attacks. All were accused of committing or promoting violence in Iraq. The sanctions freeze any U.S.

Broadcasts by the private Geo television network resumed Monday in Pakistan more than 2 1/2 months after its transmission was blocked during a state of emergency. Geo News and its sister sports channel came back on the air hours after President Pervez Musharraf began a four-country trip to Europe, where he expected to face tough questions on media restrictions and human rights.

When veteran Los Angeles news anchors Harold Greene and Ann Martin were felled by a round of jobs cuts last week, they were in good company. At least 160 employees at CBS Corp.-owned television stations in 13 cities were let go, including such seasoned broadcasters as prominent Chicago anchor Diann Burns, renowned Boston sportscaster Bob Lobel and longtime Minneapolis meteorologist Paul Douglas.

NBC Universal's local television stations are seeing a "tremendous effect" from the economic climate, though advertising sales haven't been hurt at the national level yet, Chief Executive Jeff Zucker said Friday. The economic downturn in the U.S. has had a "profound effect on our local television stations, whose businesses were highly dependent on auto" industry and retail advertising, Zucker said at a conference in London.

Nearly a fifth of the nation's full-power television stations will no longer reach at least 2% of viewers now covered by their existing analog signals after they switch to digital broadcasts in February, federal regulators say. The Federal Communications Commission report comes amid mounting concerns that some consumers who rely on analog-only television sets could lose some or all over-the-air broadcast channels after the Feb.

A Los Angeles judge threw out a defamation lawsuit by a man who contended Fox Television and a hip-hop magazine falsely accused him of involvement in the unsolved slaying of rapper Notorious B.I.G. Tyruss Himes said he lost a record deal because of the stories by Fox-owned KTTV-TV Channel 11 in Los Angeles and XXL magazine. Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was shot to death in Los Angeles in 1997.

Fox Television Stations Inc. is signing up new affiliates for its news programs: bloggers. The News Corp. group, which owns 35 TV stations across the country, struck a deal last week with Internet company Critical Mention Inc. to push video segments from its local news shows to blogs and other enthusiast websites.

Timing seems to be a factor working against Tribune Co. as the media company that owns the Los Angeles Times attempts to auction itself off. For the company's broadcast division, the auction comes too late to catch the hot market for TV stations that existed a couple of years ago and perhaps too early for an advertising bump that analysts project running up to the 2008 presidential election.

Tribune Co. took a calculated risk when it purchased Times Mirror Co. in 2000, acquiring newspapers in markets where it already owned TV stations despite federal rules barring such combinations. Tribune executives expected the restrictions to be gone by now. That they are not has posed an obstacle to the Chicago-based company's sale.

A cable news program was temporarily replaced with hard-core pornography, shocking viewers who had been watching a health show featuring former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. The incident on KPPX-TV was "an act of human sabotage" at the Phoenix-area station, said Ion Television, which operates the station. "We have launched a rigorous investigation, and any implicated employees will face strict disciplinary action and termination," spokeswoman Leslie Monreal said.