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What the hell happened to MSNBC?
Filed under: News, Cable/Satellite, Reality-Free  Um....OK, so I just turned on MSNBC to get the latest news and I get a notice on the screen that says this.
NOT AUTHORIZED
To order MSNBC service on channel 114, call 1-800.... What the hell? So I go to channel 114 and it has the same message. At first I thought it was one of those temporary glitches that sometimes happen to cable systems (in this case, Comcast), but then I read this over at TV Newser. Seems that Comcast is starting to drop MSNBC from its basic package in many areas and putting it in the digital package. They're doing it...
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Things I learned from my cable TV
Filed under: OpEd, Cable/Satellite, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, So You Think You Can Dance  I'm going to hazard the guess that if you are a regular visitor to TV Squad that you, like me, probably watch more television than the average bear. Partly out of good old fashioned curiosity, and partly because I'm paying for all of those channels so I might as well use them, I make it a point to cover as much of my cable TV package as I can when time allows. Doing so, you end up finding some odd and interesting things. After the jump, five things I've learned...
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Would you give up TV for gas?
Filed under: Cable/Satellite, Reality-Free  This just might be child abuse.
OK, I'm kidding, but I know this would have freaked me out when I was a kid. A mom in Salt Lake City was spending so much money on cable television that she had to cancel it so she'd have money to commute to work. And what did her kids do? They protested, of course! The woman's two daughters, Pyper and Sadie (two very television character-ish names) got out protest signs and started walking up and down the streets to protest the high price of gas. And in a remarkable twist, the big oil companies saw the protest the girls...
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TCM presents movies for kids - The Essentials Jr.
Filed under: Cable/Satellite, Celebrities, Reality-Free  Way back in the early 1970's, when I was a kid (I'm not that old!), I remember seeing some amazing movies on the CBS Children's Film Festival. It was on either Saturday or Sunday afternoons and I vaguely recall my mother encouraging me to watch. Kukla, Fran and Ollie introduced the movies and to this day, I can still remember seeing classic foreign films that were made for children like The Red Balloon (French), Hand in Hand (British) and Skinny and Fatty (Japanese). I think those movies may have been the first that really got be interested in film.
Turner Classic Movies...
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Hulu snags Daily Show, Colbert Report, and NOVA
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, PVR Wire, Cable/Satellite, The Daily Show, Web
Online video site Hulu has added some high profile programming to help tie you over during the summer rerun season. Thanks to a partnership with PBS, Hulu users will be able to watch shows like Nova, Carrier, Scientific American Frontiers, and Wired Science starting later this month.
Wait, that's not the really exciting part. I mean, sure, it's pretty cool for science geeks. But most of those shows are already available via the PBS web site, not to mention available for free over the air. But...
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HBO signs writer to Scorsese's Boardwalk Empire
Filed under: Cable/Satellite, Reality-Free  It sounds like HBO is looking for another series in The Sopranos tradition. Or maybe it was The Sopranos that was in the Scorsese tradition? Either way, we recently told you about Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese's HBO project Boardwalk Empire (teaming with Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson of Entourage fame), and now we can report that they've hired Terence Winter to pen the script for Boardwalk Empire. That's the name of Nelson Johnson's book about the dark underbelly in the rise and fall of Atlantic City, on which this project will be based. Call me crazy, but this sounds like perfect material for Scorsese's...
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Automatic TiVo deployment coming soon to cable companies
Filed under: PVR Wire, Cable/Satellite, TiVo  Comcast, Cox, and TiVo have been working on deploying TiVo software on cable company hardware for well over a year now. But while the original goal was to let cable operators flip a switch and automatically send the TiVo software to a customer's box, the reality has been a bit trickier. For the most part, if you've been one of the lucky few people who even had access to Comcast's TiVo service, you probably had to wait for a guy in a truck to roll up to your house and work some magic.
But now TiVo CEO Tom Rogers says the days of...
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DISH files preemptive lawsuit against TiVo to defend new PVR
Filed under: PVR Wire, Cable/Satellite, TiVo  You didn't think the legal battles between DISH and TiVo were actually over, did you? TiVo may have won the last round, which means that the PVR technology DISH had been offering customers infringed on TiVo patents. But TiVo officials have also apparently been going around making claims that DISH's new software also infringes on TiVo patents.
Rather than wait for TiVo to file another suit, DISH has taken its own legal action by asking a court to rule that the company's new software does not violate TiVo's patent. On the one hand, this obviously shows that the company is confident...
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Verizon FiOS to debut in NYC?
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, PVR Wire, Cable/Satellite, Reality-Free  Verizon Communications is hoping to have its FiOS TV service available to customers in New York City within the next two months. This would be a tremendous boon to those who subscribe to cable, as suddenly the choice for providers will increase from solely Time Warner.
From the article: "Verizon spokesman John Bonomo said the city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee had given the green light to the video service, which is delivered along with high-speed Internet over...
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HBO's Recount: A review
Filed under: Cable/Satellite, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free  After the first 15 minutes of the HBO movie Recount, I was so upset, so filled with rage that I wondered if I wanted to watch the rest of the movie. Did I want to relive the events of November 7, 2000? Did I want to watch what happened, the craziest election fiasco in the last 25 years? I was compelled to stick with it because I had lived through it and I was dying to know what I didn't know when it unfolded in real time. I thought the HBO movie might teach me something, and, in fact, it did....
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