Cable Notes In An Apparent Blow To Microsoft's Efforts To Control Cable Tv Digital Set-top Boxes,...

The service, offering WebTV-like integration of the Internet and TV, is expected to be introduced in the United Kingdom later this year.

It's the first cable deal for NCI and its DTV Navigator broadband platform technology and is seen as a mild coup for NCI against Microsoft (which owns WebTV) in overseas markets. The pact comes at a time when Microsoft's deal with Tele-Communications Inc. is also looking less solid as TCI adds more partners and allows its @Home company to develop for its boxes much of the software and services Microsoft was originally intended to provide.



Addams Family new Family values? The next "Addams Family" movie will premiere on cable TV in September with yet another cast. "Addams Family Reunion" will be an unusual joint production of Saban Entertainment and Warner Home Video, with Fox Family Channel getting the cable premiere.

Tim Curry and Daryl Hannah star as Gomez and Morticia, Kevin McCarthy and Estelle Harris play grandpa and grandma, and Ray Walston, Ed Begley Jr. and Alice Ghostley also appear.



HDTV moot? All the worries about cable's obligations regarding HDTV may be rendered pointless, judging from broadcasters' lack of interest in delivering HDTV.

At a "Network Television in the Year 2005" panel at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo., last week, UPN president and CEO Dean Valentine said he is not convinced that the sharper picture promised by HDTV will bring additional audience.

Asked about the advantage of a picture with 1,080 interlaced lines of resolution (HDTV), director Jim Burrows said sarcastically, "That really helps the comedy."

"It's 2005, and after all the hype, very few people have these sets," NBC's Warren Littlefield added. He and Leslie Moonves of CBS agreed that with the exception of major events, networks would exploit the multi-channel opportunities of digital TV.

But even the use of additional channels was debated, with panel moderator Jeff Greenfield of CNN asking how the networks expect to fill the additional space when they have trouble finding programming to attract audiences to a single channel.

In response to the prediction of ABC Entertainment chairman Stuart Bloomberg that networks would use the space to broadcast 24-hour news and sports, etc., TNT president Brad Siegel, the only cable network executive on the panel, said, "There is no way economics will support broadcasters re-creating what already exists on cable."

Andrew Lippman, associate director of the MIT Media Laboratory, said seven years from now, executives will ask, "What was HDTV?" Big-screen TV will also not work because living rooms will not get any bigger, he said.



It's a Fox Sports World: Australian rules football is coming to Fox Sports World this year in a new three-year deal that calls for weekly televised matches.

The 16-event schedule of Formula One racing will also be shown on Fox Sports Net under a new multi-year agreement between the network and Formula One.



Disney channels and toons: In addition to EchoStar's plans to be among the first satellite service to offer the spinoff Toon Disney network that launches next month, parent Disney Channel is growing as well.

The commercial-free network gained more than 2 million basic/basic-plus subscribers last month to raise its total count to more than 35 million, including 4 million premium subscribers. Only a couple years ago, the network had 7 million premium subscribers and no basic subscribers, meaning that it has successfully translated 3 million premium subscribers into 31 million basic subscribers. Four million to go...

Edited by Scott Hettrick