Green Porno, it’s safe for work

Green porn doesn’t mean it was filmed on St. Patricks Day. It’s a project by famous actress Isabella Rossellini that explores the mating habits of insects. And it’s just about the weirdest thing ever made.
Rossellini’s series has just been picked up by the Cablevision-owned Sundance Channel, and you can view all of these strange films [...]

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Warhol, Garbo friend sues Cablevision

The Daily News is reporting that an East Side art dealer who was once friends with Andy Warhol and Greta Garbo sued Cablevision, claiming the cable operator’s subsidiaries defamed him in the movie “Savage Grace.”
From the Daily News:
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Sam Green says the Julianne Moore film portrays him and Moore’s [...]

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More “Verizon stinks” news from Newsday

The headline reads: Verizon FiOS installations on LI in ‘poor condition’.
So what does that mean? Of the 200,000-plus installations of its fiber optic service Verizon has completed, how many would you think are in “poor condition?”
The answer: 10.
Of 14 Nassau sites inspected July 9 and 10 by staff of the State Public Service Commission, 10 [...]

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Cablevision under fire in CT

A group of senior citizens in Connecticut are infuriated with Cablevision for forcing them to obtain set-top boxes in order to watch three public access channels there.
Cablevision may be breaking Connecticut law, which requires cable companies to provide public access service, according to this report in the Register Citizen in Torrington.
Among those prepared to crack [...]

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Cablevision turns to Plunkett

When Long Island Business News needed an expert to talk about wireless technology on its “At C Level” podcast, it turned to Craig Plunkett.
Cablevision has done the same.
The company has hired Plunkett as vice president of wireless market development.
In an e-mail to LIBN, Plunkett said he is shuttering his consulting business, CEDX Corp., and looking [...]

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FiOS makes its pitch

Like sharks dressed in red polo shirts, Verizon FiOS sales reps have circled the neighborhood for weeks, winning over subscribers with various offers, from free DVR offers to discounted movie packages.
The neighbor to the left took it. So did the family next to them and the person across the street. It being Long Island, I [...]

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Verizon under PSC pressure

The state’s Public Service Commission has cited Verizon for violations regarding improperly grounding the terminal boxes it attaches to houses in order to connect its FiOS fiber optic service, according to a Newsday story.
While fiber optic cables do not conduct electricity, because they are made of glass, the PSC has said there is a possibility [...]

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The NFL is better on FiOS

It’s Thanksgiving, you’re stuffed, the family won’t leave and it’s 8 p.m.
What to do?
How about this: Open up the laptop and watch the Phoenix Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles on the NFL Network. It gets better. You can also choose which camera angle to view the game from, regardless of what the producers are showing you [...]

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Cablevision extends an olive branch

The company known best for acting in its own interest, even if shareholders and customers want something else, is apparently changing its ways.
Cablevision will meet with its major shareholders next week to smooth things over as well as to discuss its options for selling or spinning off some of its assets, according to a Wall [...]

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Shareholder wants Cablevision to sell big

While local entertainment and telecommunications company Cablevision has said it is exploring spinning off some of its units and paying a dividend to boost its stock price, its third largest outside shareholder today offered up a much more grandiose scenario.
Mario Gabelli is recommending Cablevision sell or spin off all of its assets. More specifically, Gabelli [...]

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A cable company with a conscience

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for Cablevision. The Bethpage-based media company closed on its purchase of Newsday, said its subscriber base is growing, won its fight over network DVRs and today said it is looking into spinning off a division to boost its stock value.
But perhaps this news is the most comforting: Cablevision [...]

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The DVR ruling is in, and Cablevision is smiling

Great news for Cablevision, a New York appeals court judge ruled a network digital video recorder, in which the hard drive is stored at a central location and not in individual cable set-top boxes, would not infringe on the copyrights of movies and television shows.
Studios argued a cable-company hosted DVR meant providers were essentially rebroadcasting [...]

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Private Cablevision, reporting for duty again

We all knew it was only a matter of time.
Cablevision heads are using the backdrop of a better-than-expected jump in subscribers - as well as its milestone of 2 million Optimum Voice users - to once again throw out the idea of taking the company private.
Of course, shares of the Bethpage based media company are [...]

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FiOS reclaims HD throne

It took a while, but Verizon is making inroads in its promise to offer 150 high-definition channels by the end of 2008. The tally has just hit 100.
The company’s fiber optic FiOS service now boasts …. deep breath …all of the networks in HD (CBS, ABC, etc.) as well as USA HD, TNT HD, TBS [...]

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No spin zone in HD

Can’t get enough of Bill O’Reilly? Want a clearer picture as Sean Hannity filibusters poor Alan Colmes to death each night on Fox News Channel?
Well, here’s some good news: Cablevision is set to say today that it’s adding Fox News Channel and many others to its lineup of high-definition channels.
Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) is [...]

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A lie by any other name

If consumers didn’t question Cablevision’s advertising about its service versus Verizon’s FiOS, they’d believe Optimum online is faster, Cablevision uses fiber optic cables too, Verizon has changed its name to “the phone company” and people are actually persuaded by a glib, cocky knucklehead in a black sports jacket.
But they’d be wrong. Optimum is faster than [...]

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Newsday cleared for takeover

To anybody out there hoping something or someone will thwart the pending takeover of Newsday by Cablevision (Jaci Clement, can you hear me?), the feds have a message for you: Keep dreaming.
The Federal Trade Commission today gave antitrust approval to the deal.
From the Reuters brief:
Antitrust authorities completed their review of the $650 million deal without [...]

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A shuttered Suffolk Life is a bad sign

Suffolk Life, a chain of community newspapers that have been covering the county for more than 4 decades, will close next week. And aside from the sad reality that many will lose their jobs in these down times, media appraiser Kevin Kamen worried that the news foreshadows a bleak future for the little guys on [...]

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Now they have to pay for Newsday

Cablevision should have no problem coming up with the $650 million it needs to purchase Newsday.
According to Reuters, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup will put a $650 million loan up for sale on Thursday, which will back the Bethpage-based company’s acquisition of the region’s only daily newspaper.
From the story:
The borrower for the transaction [...]

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Expand your DVR

If you’re like us, the digital video recorder has changed the way you watch television. Fast forwarding commercials, storing movies for later watching, recording a whole series, these things have become part of the usual television experience.
One problem: The box fills up too fast, especially if you’re saving a lot of high-definition programs.
Iomega just released [...]

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Cablevision: Enough about FiOS

The Town of Babylon today officially approved Verizon FiOS, which means, of course, residents of Deer Park, Lindenhurst and other parts of the South Shore town can get phone company TV if they want to.
The deal is huge for Verizon, which can now boast that it offers its television, Internet and phone services to a [...]

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Will Voom make it?

Cablevision’s slate of high definition channels, Voom Networks, could be in jeopardy. Which means its HD edge over bitter rival Verizon could come to an end.
In May, satellite television provider Dish Network decided to drop the 15 HD channels, which include Monsters HD, Gallery HD, Equator HD and Rush HD, because it claimed Cableivision did [...]

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FiOS approved by NYC

Verizon is one step closer to what could be its biggest ever franchise agreement …  next to Babylon, of course.
New York City’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee today unanimously approved the agreement. That means Verizon can soon roll out its FiOS fiber optic television and Internet service in the five boroughs. State approval is all [...]

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It’s about competition

Why are the cable companies throwing their hats into the Wi-Fi arena? They have to since telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon have thrown their own hats into the television frontier.
On Long Island, Cablevision said it will blanket Long Island with Wi-Fi hot spots, which will offer free Internet access to subscribers.
Verizon offers broadband wireless [...]

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Verizon, Babylon strike accord

Verizon, which has aggressively rolled out its FiOS television and Internet service throughout Long Island, has reached a tentative deal to launch that service in the Town of Babylon.
The New York telecom giant already offers its service in parts of Huntington, Islip and Smithtown, but a deal in Babylon was slower to come - until [...]

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The FiOS Affair: 1 year later, no HD

Exactly one year ago, LI Biz Blog jumped into the cable wars when I decided to switch to Verizon’s FiOS fiber optic television, Internet and phone service and conduct a comprehensive review of the process, and the new product.
But a lot has gone on in the past year, so we feel it’s due time for [...]

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The real head of Newsday

With Cablevision set to purchase Newsday, a lot of people are wondering how Dolan family’s prince, James Dolan, will run the daily newspaper.
But the company’s chief operating officer, Thomas Rutledge, is the man in charge of overseeing Newsday, which is why the paper just published a profile of the exec.
Here’s what it comes down to: [...]

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Newsday tackles the objectivity issue

A day after publishing a humanitarians-of-the-year article about the Dolan family, Newsday is looking into the very quagmire that article caused. Will Newsday be objective in its coverage of the Cablevision empire?
Here’s a bit from this morning’s article:
A day after Cablevision Systems Corp. chief executive James Dolan announced his company would acquire Newsday for $650 [...]

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How about those Knicks?

While we’ve already seen today how Newsday is covering the coronation of its new owner, Cablevision, the absence of Knicks and Rangers news leaves us to wonder about one pressing question: How will Newsday cover the Dolan-owned sports teams, especially the Knicks, which have been one of the weaker teams in the National Basketball Association?
Crain’s [...]

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The future of Long Island journalism

As David Reich-Hale proved in his lower post, if you read about Cablevision’s purchase of Newsday in any other news source you’ll find out that Wall Street was unimpressed with the news and experts questioned why the Dolans wanted the paper in the first place.
Read about it in Newsday and you learn how happy everyone [...]

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