Basic Cable

WASHINGTON -- Holding out against fierce lobbying by the cable TV industry, the House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to cap rates for basic service and set national standards for customer protection.The 280-128 vote exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to override a threatened veto by President Bush (though it was short of the 289 votes needed if the whole House were to vote), but the bill must still clear the Senate, where the outcome is expected to be closer. A Senate vote could come next week.

Maybe you're a tennis fan, and you found last month's ruling that Comcast did not have to put the Tennis Channel on its basic level of service quite troubling. Or, more likely, you're a Deadspin reader and you found that website's reprinting of a screed authored by the Tennis Channel CEO as hilarious as it is preposterous. Yeah. Probably that. John Koblin got his hands on the letter, which is in the approximate style of something a precocious 14-year-old might write during an ill-advised Facebook outburst.

Prestige Cablevision customers will pay $1.49 more for monthly basic cable service, beginning March 15, company officials said yesterday.Rates for the 42-channel basic service will rise from $22.15 to $23.64, or 6.7 percent, which includes a 3 percent franchise fee imposed by the county and towns, said Bill Bethune, the firm's general manager. Excluding that franchise fee, rates will rise from $21.50 to $22.95.Fees for other services, including premium channels, a lower tier of cable channels and use of remote controls, will not increase, Mr. Bethune said.

Comcast Corp. cable TV subscribers might have noticed a small new charge in their bills recently. After years of giving customers with "standard/expanded" basic cable service up to two digital TV adapters for free as part of the upgrade to all-digital broadcasting, the cable provider now is charging $1.99 a month per digital adapter. The new fees, being rolled out in each of Comcast's markets, took effect in March in the Baltimore area. The company, which declined to provide the number of subscribers affected, said it notified customers ahead of time of the decision and that pricing always has been subject to change.

The cost of basic cable television service, which increased 36.5 percent in western Howard County Nov. 1, will go up 11 percent for eastern county subscribers Jan. 1.Howard County Cable Associates, which serves the county from Columbia eastward, will raise its monthly rates to $19.95, from $17.95, for its basic 36-channel package.In addition, subscribers should expect to pay more for some premium channels, with Howard Cable raising its Home Team Sports fee $2, to $13.95.The fledgling Mid-Atlantic Cable, which started up in September 1989 and serves areas between Columbia and Lisbon, has already raised its monthly charge for a basic 23-channel service from its original $10.95 to $14.95.

Lisa Chong rarely watches "Must-See TV Thursday." She has her own television event: "Gotta Rent Videos Monday." That's when the latest episodes of Chong's favorite shows, Korean soap operas, are released to local Korean-language video stores. On Monday, Chong and a friend drove straight from school to a video store in the Bethany 40 Center to get the latest episodes of her favorite soap, Orlin, which focuses on the struggles of a young gambler. "Once you start, you just can't stop," said the 16-year-old River Hill High School junior.

LOS ANGELES - Strictly in terms of dollars and cents, the deal announced yesterday for the Walt Disney Co. to buy Fox Family Worldwide for about $3.2 billion is not in a league with a transaction like that of AOL-Time Warner or even Viacom-CBS. But it is, nevertheless, a noteworthy moment in the relentless push toward media consolidation, with important programming implications for television networks like Disney-owned ABC, and an even larger cultural significance in terms of who will become the principal teller of children's stories worldwide.

Maybe you're a tennis fan, and you found last month's ruling that Comcast did not have to put the Tennis Channel on its basic level of service quite troubling. Or, more likely, you're a Deadspin reader and you found that website's reprinting of a screed authored by the Tennis Channel CEO as hilarious as it is preposterous. Yeah. Probably that. John Koblin got his hands on the letter, which is in the approximate style of something a precocious 14-year-old might write during an ill-advised Facebook outburst.

Comcast Corp. cable TV subscribers might have noticed a small new charge in their bills recently. After years of giving customers with "standard/expanded" basic cable service up to two digital TV adapters for free as part of the upgrade to all-digital broadcasting, the cable provider now is charging $1.99 a month per digital adapter. The new fees, being rolled out in each of Comcast's markets, took effect in March in the Baltimore area. The company, which declined to provide the number of subscribers affected, said it notified customers ahead of time of the decision and that pricing always has been subject to change.

Good morning--NFL, Comcast officials--Would it be too much to ask to figure out a way to bring the Cowboys-Packers game to basic cable?

Megan's sun-bronzed stomach and bikini bottom versus Dante's “The Inferno.” Guess which one Don Draper is locked in on at the opening of Sunday night's “Mad Men” on AMC. If you guessed the midsection of the divine Mrs. Draper, you would be wrong, because Season 6 of this even more divine drama opens with the return of the guy I think of as Existential Don. That's the dangerous and lost Don Draper - the guy who haunts late-night bars...

Last month, the CW came to Baltimore to film an episode of its new reality singing competition, "The Next: Fame is at Your Doorstep. " On it, Joe Jonas, Nelly, Gloria Estefan and John Rich took 72 hours to coach four unsigned  performers, who sang for a live audience at the Hippodrome. And (spoiler alert) on the episode, which aired last night, a singer from Gainsville, Virginia won. Take that, Baltimore. "The Next" is essentially one-part talent show, two parts interactive game show -- the audience picks which performer moves on to the semi-finals in Los Angeles.

With the arrival last week of HBO's "VEEP," it is official: Sunday night TV is out of control, but in a good way. Hard as might be to imagine in a medium that some characterize as having 10 million choices but nothing worth watching, Sunday nights now seem to have way too many options. And some of them include the richest and most compelling writing and performances in all of popular culture. Take the 9 o'clock hour. HBO continues to thrive in premium cable with the mythic madness of "Game of Thrones," while AMC counters with its dark, existential and acclaimed cop saga, "The Killing.

As I noted Saturday, The Hunger Games movie was off to a big weekend, and the totals are huge: about $155 million. To give it some perspective, that topped the total from the Top 12 movies for all but two weekends this year, according to Box Office Mojo, which tracks these things. The adaptation of Suzanne Collins' novel ranked third all-time for opening weekend gross, behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169.2 million) and The Dark Knight ($158.4 million)

(From the Z on TV blog) I was not a big fan of Conan last year on NBC. I thought he was too nervous, needy and always trying too hard to be a network star in some weird sense he had of the Johnny Carson tradition. But I kind of like the guy and show I saw Monday night on TBS. He seems more certain of who he is and comfortable and confident in that role. If he was pitcher in baseball, I would say he's playing within himself instead of trying to throw too hard. He's not straining and begging to be loved the way he was last year.

Once upon a time, there was a land called Basic Cable TV that was filled with televangelists, infotainment, Atlanta Braves baseball, wrestling and endless reruns of the 1960s sitcom The Andy Griffith Show. That world of 1980s cable TV seemed centuries away yesterday as AMC's Mad Men, a brilliant series about post-World War II Madison Avenue, and FX's Damages, a hard-edged legal drama starring Glenn Close, made history as the first basic cable series to earn nominations as best dramas. They joined a field of finalists for the 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards that was dominated by cable productions - at the expense of the broadcast networks.

The premiere of Over There, cable channel FX's drama about the war in Iraq, was seen by 4.1 million viewers Wednesday night, making it one of the 10 highest-rated debuts in the history of basic cable and the highest rated series of the night on cable TV. The series from Steven Bochco and Chris Gerolmo, the first prime-time drama to depict an ongoing war, scored with young viewers drawing an audience of 2.4 million viewers 18 to 49 years of age. ...

The cable company that serves the Annapolis area has rejected a proposal by the city government to add more sports programming to the basic cable packages.The Annapolis City Council voted unanimously last month to approve a new contract requiring TCI Cablevision to include in a basic cable package extras such as Home Team Sports and ESPN2, which feature local sailing shows and the Orioles, the Capitals and the Bullets.TCI Cablevision had 30 days to review that proposal and rejected it Friday, the last day of the old contract.

Good morning--NFL, Comcast officials--Would it be too much to ask to figure out a way to bring the Cowboys-Packers game to basic cable?

HOT ON THE HEELS OF A SUM-mer that saw audience levels sink to an all-time low, the broadcast networks could be in for more pain yet tonight at the 59th annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. The Emmy telecast is designed to promote the start of the new fall season on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CW. But tonight's program on Fox could wind up celebrating the cable industry instead -- all those regulation-free channels that have been thrashing the networks in the ratings in recent months.