Cable Operators

For Comcast Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian L. Roberts, the key challenge in today's digital video world is how to become the Google of television. Roberts, who heads the nation's largest cable television provider, said broadband Internet makes the traditional cable TV business obsolete. As a result, he said, Comcast is stressing its on-demand video service, which enables customers to view movies and programs whenever they want. Consumers are beginning to get more choices in how they view video content, whether it is online, on mobile phones or new delivery schemes coming soon from the phone companies.

CHICAGO - Two of the nation's leading phone company executives offered a glimpse of the industry's future at an industry trade show in Chicago yesterday. David W. Dorman, chairman of AT&T Corp., which is to be acquired by SBC Communications Inc., said at the SuperComm trade show held at McCormick Place that the merger - along with the proposed acquisition of MCI Inc. by Verizon Communications Inc. - would spur a vigorous rivalry between the nation's two largest local phone carriers. SBC and Verizon compete for wireless customers but have never been rivals for landline residential customers, Dorman noted.

CHICAGO - With the nation's two largest cable-TV operators reportedly poised to complete their $17.6 billion purchase of rival Adelphia Communications Corp., the race to bring high-speed Internet service into American homes appears likely to intensify. As technical advances have revolutionized the methods by which entertainment and information are delivered to consumers, the nation's telephone-service and cable providers have squared off in a high-stakes tussle over providing customers with everything from telephone service and Internet access to pay-per-view TV and standard cable television.

In a setback for Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. and other broadcasters, federal regulators ruled yesterday that cable companies would not have to carry more than one television signal for every broadcast company - a key ruling as the industry shifts toward digital TV. A digital signal can carry more information without using any more space on the broadcast spectrum. Sinclair and other broadcasters want cable companies to be required to carry six digital channels offered by a local television station - known as multicasting.

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. - Adelphia Communications Corp., the U.S. cable-television operator in bankruptcy proceedings, said yesterday that it will begin arranging a sale of the company after the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 6 and complete the auction by year-end. The company's bankers, UBS Securities LLC and Allen & Co., will solicit bids for the entire company and for individual cable systems, Adelphia said. The bankers have held "informal discussions" with potential bidders, the company said.

NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. and other cable operators won support yesterday from Republican and Democratic lawmakers who criticized an idea to let consumers buy channels individually rather than in packages. "We have a marketplace that is working," Rep. Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who heads the House telecommunications subcommittee, said at a hearing. "The government must resist the urge to re-regulate and tinker with this marketplace." No bill has been introduced to require so-called a la carte service, which would dismantle the current system in which cable operators select the channels viewers get in packages.

Comcast Corp. may have lost the fight to acquire a giant programming company when it withdrew its offer for the Walt Disney Co., but it has apparently not lost its appetite for entertainment programming. Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, is in talks with potential partners to create a digital cable channel for children, according to people close to the discussions. Those potential partners include the Public Broadcasting Service, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment of Britain, according to one of the people, who added that any deal was a month to six weeks away.

Cutting household spending is mostly about examining the optional and wasteful expenses in your life. That's why subscription television - cable and satellite - is a good target for savings. TV is certainly optional. And of the scores of channels fed into your home, how many do you actually watch? Research says the typical household regularly tunes in to 17 channels, while many TV packages deliver more than 100. Americans today easily spend $45 a month on cable TV service, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

WASHINGTON - In a decision that could spur new competition, a federal appeals court yesterday struck down rules allowing cable TV operators to bar rivals from offering high-speed Internet access on their networks. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the Federal Communications Commission to treat cable high-speed Internet access similar to the way it treats broadband on telephone networks. Phone companies must allow competing Internet service providers - such as EarthLink Inc., AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online and Microsoft Corp.

A publicity-shy charity headquartered hundreds of miles from Maryland is quietly working on plans to build an office building in Carroll County that would provide rent-free space for area nonprofit organizations. The Georgia-based foundation has for several months met behind the scenes with Carroll charitable groups and government officials to determine how it could help serve the county's needy. Avoiding public meeting agendas and stressing the importance of proceeding with discretion, the nonprofit Anverse Inc. foundation has come up with a preliminary plan to donate space for groups such as Head Start and the Community Foundation of Carroll County.