Charter To Buy Time Warner For $55B

Via Mashable:

Time Warner Cable didn't take long to recover from the breakup of its deal with Comcast. The second-largest cable TV provider in the U.S. is close to a deal to be acquired by Charter Communications for $55 billion in cash and stock, according to reports from Bloomberg and CNN Money. The deal also reportedly include the acquisition of Bright House Networks, another cable TV provider. A combined Charter, TWC and Bright House is expected to have less trouble getting past government regulators since it will have a smaller broadband Internet audience. Still, the FCC effectively scuttled the Comcast/TWC deal on concerns about negatively impacting the burgeoning Internet-based television market that has grown rapidly in the past year. Such concerns would undoubtedly be investigated about this newest deal.

Should the deal go through, the combined company will be called New Charter.

Comcast To Buy Time-Warner Cable

Comcast announced today that it will buy Time-Warner Cable in an $45B all-stock deal. Whoa.

The friendly takeover comes as a surprise after months of public pursuit of Time Warner Cable by smaller rival Charter Communications Inc, and immediately raised questions as to whether it would pass the scrutiny of anti-trust regulators. Comcast will pay $158.82 per share, which is roughly what Time Warner Cable demanded from Charter. The combined company would divest 3 million subscribers, about a quarter of Time Warner's 12 million customers. Together with Comcast's 22 million video subscribers, the roughly 30 million total would represent just under 30 percent of the U.S. pay television video market. The new cable giant would tower over its closest video competitor, DirecTV, which has about 20 million video customers.

Comcast bought NBC-Universal last year for $17B.

Time-Warner Cable: We Don't Want A War

Time-Warner Cable Vs CBS

All Time-Warner Cable customers got this email yesterday:

CBS Corporation, the owner of several TV networks and broadcast TV stations, has made outrageous demands for the right to continue delivering their programming to our customers. As a result, several CBS-owned channels have been removed from your lineup while we continue to negotiate for fair and reasonable terms. We deeply regret being forced into this position by CBS, but we're prepared to stand by our customers and do what it takes to fight these unreasonable demands.

The removed channels include CBS, Showtime, the Movie Channel, and Flix. 

FCC Allows Basic Cable Encryption

If you've been hooking up your internet modem to rip off basic cable, those days are over.

Federal regulators are letting cable companies scramble all their TV signals, closing a loophole that lets many households watch basic cable channels for free. The Federal Communications Commission voted Friday to lift a ban on encryption of basic cable signals, saying it will reduce the number of visits by cable technicians to disconnect service and reduce cable theft.

NEW YORK CITY: Ali Forney Center To Hold Annual Gala On October 26th

Via press release:

This October 26, the Ali Forney Center (AFC) - the nation’s largest services and advocacy organization working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) runaway and homeless youth - will hold its annual A Place at the Table benefit dinner at Capitale. This year’s event, hosted by MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts, will celebrate the tenth anniversary of AFC’s work to protect and empower homeless LGBTQ youth, and to support them in becoming safe and independent as they move from adolescence to adulthood. The 2012 dinner comes as the AFC prepares to expand its shelter facilities by an additional twelve beds, as well as to open the nation’s first-ever 24-hour drop-in center for homeless LGBTQ youth.The evening will kick off with a cocktail reception including passed hors d'oeuvres and a silent auction, followed by a sit-down dinner with an awards show, live auction and entertainment. The night continues with a speakeasy-style VIP after-party. The 2012 honorees - chosen for their for their work in the LGBTQ community and their support and advocacy of homeless LGBTQ youth - include: David Mixner, leading LGBTQ author and activist; Chris Salgardo, President of Kiehl’s Since 1851; Time Warner Cable; and recent graduate of AFC’s programming, Chris Bilal. Presenters include Jeremy Bernard, the first openly gay White House social secretary, who will present Mixner with his award, and actress Ally Sheedy, who will present Salgardo.

Tickets are now available. It's always a great night.

Patrick Stewart Vs Time-Warner Cable

A spokesman for Time-Warner responds: "Our Care and Social Media teams are fully engaged to make sure he's well tended to. On behalf of the many Trekkers and Sir Patrick Stewart fans across our company, I can assure you, we will make it so."

Time-Warner Cable Launches "Look Back"

After test-running the feature in some markets, this week Time-Warner Cable officially launched its free "Look Back" feature, which is a sort of On Demand function that allows you to pull up shows that have run in the previous 72 hours. That's handy if you forgot to set your DVR or see a bunch of raves about something on Facebook. In NYC the feature is currently available on 48 channels.

Daily Grumble

The horrible shrieking noise that startled most of Manhattan last night was the sound of tens of thousands of gay men when Time-Warner Cable's Fox signal fucking froze during the last fifteen minutes of the season finale of GLEE. This was at least second time that's happened during GLEE. TWC is clearly anti-gay. Or at least, anti-show queen.

Daily Grumble

Realizing that complaining about one's cable provider is as fruitless as complaining about the weather, I still must vent about Time-Warner's "paperless" billing system. In addition to providing your 87 digit account number, to pay online one must also enter a "customer code," which, hello, is only available on the paper bills. And of course, to get your customer code you have to call them and spend 20-30 minutes navigating useless menus before finally getting a real person in Bangalore to scream at. Aside from the idiocy of requiring two unique codes to pay one's bill, requiring a phone call to get one of those numbers defeats the point of "online" billing, dunnit? The icing on the cake was the below message I got when trying to send an annoyed email. When is our communist/socialist leader going to nationalize the cable industry? I'm standing by.
UPDATE: Almost forgot. To pay by phone, as I finally did, Time-Warner charges a $1.99 "transaction fee." Five minutes later, I got a robo-call survey asking what I thought of their "customer service."

Time-Warner Selling Time Inc

One of Time-Warner's biggest shareholders has revealed that the company is planning to spin off its namesake magazine publishing unit.

"Time Warner just spun off their cable division, they are going to sell their print division, they are going to spin off AOL and they're just going to be Warner Brothers, HBO and the Turner Networks," said Crawford, managing director of The Capital Group. "Now, they will make acquisitions ... but they're probably going to buy just stuff in their wheel house of those businesses. They're not going to, I don't think, go very far afield from their core competency." Time Warner declined to comment on Saturday. Time Inc's magazines include popular titles such as People and Sports Illustrated. In the second quarter, revenue at Time Inc publishing, the largest U.S. magazine publisher, fell 22 percent to $915 million due to a 26 percent decline in advertising revenue.

Time Inc presently publishes 22 titles, some of which will undoubtedly will not survive the sale.

Time-Warner Vs. Viacom

If you subscribe to Time-Warner Cable, you and their 13 million other customers nationwide will lose all of your Viacom channels at midnight tonight as the two media giants continue to spar over a new carriage fees. Viacom wants to raise the charges for Time-Warner to carry their 19 channels, Time-Warner says they're being greedy. Same old, same old.

Among the disappearing channels will be LOGO, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Spike, TV Land, and basic cable's most watched channel, Nickelodeon. (That last one might be particularly annoying for the millions of parents who'll have kids underfoot for the long holiday weekend.)

These disputes tend to be resolved rather quickly once a few hundred thousand complaining customers start flooding cable companies' phonelines. Time-Warner claims they will stand firm this time, but Viacom has posted a YouTube clip inviting pissed off viewers to call the main Time-Warner complaint number.

UPDATE: It gets meaner. Time-Warner will also be blocking Viacom websites so their customers can't watch their shows online.

Cable Babes

My cable box is still busted, but I guess I'm slightly mollified by the cutesy 2009 calendars Time-Warner New York is sending out, which feature local cable guys (and a couple of gals) in various seasonal poses. The calendars are free to customers, view the "cable babes" here.

212-Screw U

So I finally have a landline, after six years in NYC with just a cellphone. And very surprisingly, I have a highly prized 212 number, which even shocked the Time-Warner digital phone guy who installed the line, telling me it was only the second 212 he'd ever put in. Even though I haven't given anybody the new number yet, I have gotten four calls on it. And ALL four came from a scam outfit calling themselves "the New York Fraternal Order of Police", soliciting donations for "needed safety equipment." As most New Yorkers should know, the state police never solicit public donations.

Although these phone scams piss me off, at least I knew about them before the calls started and was able to give those con artists a few choice words before they hung up on me. However, I am more than a little pissed at Time-Warner, whom I presume immediately added my new number to some list they sell. Grrrr.