This afternoon, HBO announced the details of its HBO Now streaming service that will finally allow consumers without cable TV to access the premium pay-TV network without having to be burdened with a cable bill for channels they don’t watch. But the fact that HBO has opted to go with Apple as its launch partner and not Comcast or any of the major pay-TV carriers is a reminder of just how important net neutrality is. [More]
time warner cable
Could Comcast Try To Buy Netflix Or T-Mobile If Time Warner Cable Deal Fails?
By 3.6.15
After more than a year of stop-start-stop regulatory review, the FCC and Justice Dept. are currently in the final stretch of deciding whether to approve, block, or put conditions on the mega-merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. With even some formerly optimistic industry analysts now having their doubts about the deal’s success, it’s time to consider what Kabletown might do if the acquisition falls through. [More]
Comcast Not Afraid Of Streaming Services; Won’t Commit To Playing Nice With Them
By 3.5.15
Earlier this week, a Dish executive claimed that Comcast was afraid of so-called over-the-top streaming services like Dish’s Sling TV and that the cable giant could use its size and influence to prevent broadcasters from signing onto Sling and others. Now Comcast is saying it has nothing to fear from these new services, but won’t commit to avoiding deals that make it difficult for them to compete. [More]
Dish: Comcast Could Still Use Its Size To Block Streaming Content
By 3.3.15
The FCC’s recently approved net neutrality rules will prohibit all Internet service providers from blocking any legal content from being sent or received by their users. But when an ISP also controls the nation’s largest pay-TV audience, perhaps it could use that leverage to prevent certain content from ever going online in the first place. [More]
These 2 Charts From Comcast Show Why Net Neutrality Is Vital
By 2.24.15
Comcast released its quarterly earnings report and the timing couldn’t be better, with the FCC set to vote on Chairman Tom Wheeler’s net neutrality proposal later this week. [More]
Time Warner Cable Out-Comcasts Comcast, Renames Customer “C*nt”
By 2.19.15
Lest you think that it’s just Comcast employees that are spitefully renaming customers “A**hole Brown,” or “super b*tch,” the company’s pending merger partner has proven it can do much worse — by slapping the C-bomb on a customer’s bill. [More]
Hollywood Groups, Congressman Call For Feds To Block Comcast/TWC Merger
By 2.19.15
Today, Los Angeles is a Time Warner Cable town, with Charter poking in around the edges. Of course if Comcast and TWC get their way, Hollywood will be Comcast central before the year is out. However, there are plenty of Californians around who emphatically don’t want that to happen, and in a new report and press event this week they got together to call on federal regulators to block the corporate marriage before it could hurt their hometown — or anyone else. [More]
Analyst Downgrades Odds Of Comcast, Time Warner Cable Merger
By 2.17.15
An important industry analyst who had previously placed decent odds on Comcast being allowed to spend $45 billion to acquire Time Warner Cable is now looking at the deal in a less-sunny light, downgrading the likelihood of the merger succeeding. [More]
Comcast Doesn’t Want to Improve its ‘Internet Essentials’ Program for Low-Income Consumers
By 2.16.15
With Comcast’s $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable nearing the finish line, you’d think the company would be willing to do something as insignificant as make promises to improve its broadband program for low-income users. You’d be wrong. [More]
New MLB Commissioner Won’t Do Anything To Get Dodgers Back On L.A. TV
By 2.13.15
With pitchers and catchers set to report to spring training in the coming week, and the start of the 2015 Major League Baseball season fewer than eight weeks away, the overwhelming majority of Dodgers fans in Los Angeles are still unable to watch their hometown team on TV. And even though now-former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig had said during his final months that the league would do “everything we can to break the impasse,” those words now ring hollow as Selig’s replacement has confirmed he wants nothing to do with getting baseball back on TV in L.A. [More]
5 Empty Promises Comcast Has Made About Time Warner Cable Merger & One Promise They Won’t Make
By 2.11.15
It’s been a year since two-time Worst Company In America winner Comcast confirmed it would spend $45 billion to acquire another much-loathed pay-TV provider, Time Warner Cable. And while we all wait for the FCC and Justice Dept. to finish kicking the tires and looking under the hood of this deal, what better time to review some of the promises Comcast has made about the post-merger pro-consumer wonderland we’ll all enjoy. [More]
Despite Threats Of Disaster, Investors In Comcast, Verizon, Etc. All Seem Totally Fine With FCC’s Plan To Reclassify Broadband
By 2.4.15
For a year now, the big ISPs have been having a series of public freakouts that stronger net neutrality rules would make for an uncertain regulatory future, leave them exposed, drive investment down, and hurt their businesses. And yet earlier today the chairman of the FCC dropped his bombshell that the agency is going to aim for the strongest possible regulation anyway. So how’d the market respond?
The stocks all went up. [More]
Are Cable Companies Lowering HBO Rates In Advance Of Standalone HBO Go?
By 1.30.15
Though we still don’t know a specific launch date, name, or monthly cost of HBO’s upcoming standalone streaming service, it looks like some pay-TV providers are cutting their rates for the premium service or offering discounted promotions in advance of its debut. [More]
Two Big Reasons The New Broadband Standard Is Bad News For The Comcast Merger
By 1.29.15
None of the big ISPs are happy about today’s FCC vote drastically increasing the bare minimum that qualifies as “broadband.” But even though executives at Verizon, AT&T, and plenty of others are probably muttering aloud rude words in the C-suite right now, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have good reason to be more worried than most. [More]
Politicians’ Letters In Support Of Comcast Merger Were Actually Written By Comcast
By 1.26.15
In the eleven months since Comcast announced that it would acquire Time Warner Cable, numerous local and national politicians have written to the FCC in support of the merger, claiming it will create jobs (in spite of the fact that thousands of employees will inevitably be made redundant), spark investment (even though Comcast could just invest the $40 billion instead of using it to buy TWC), and provide broadband access for the poor (a program that’s been criticized as window dressing), without hurting competition (because there isn’t any to begin with). Many of the letters hit the same points… almost as if they were ghostwritten and the politicians just signed their names to them. [More]
North Carolina May Be Next To Get Google Fiber
By 1.23.15
It’s been nearly a year since Google announced plans to expand its Google Fiber broadband and pay-TV service to new markets around the U.S., but the company has yet to say which of the 34 eligible cities would be the next to benefit from much-needed competition, but there are some indicators that folks in North Carolina may be getting on the Google fiberwagon. [More]
Why Dish’s Sling TV Is A Factor In Pending Comcast/Time Warner Cable Merger
By 1.15.15
Later this month, Dish will finally launch its much-awaited Sling TV streaming service that gives subscribers live online access to a dozen cable channels. And even though Sling has yet to go live, it’s already being factored into the pending mega-merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. [More]
More Groups Pile Onto “Stop Mega Comcast” Coalition
By 1.12.15
Only a month ago, a coalition of more than a dozen groups formed in an effort to work together in stopping the pending merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. And while the federal regulatory review process inched forward on this deal, more and more groups have joined in the fight to prevent Comcast from dominating the consumer broadband market in the U.S. [More]
