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HOLLYWOOD The atmosphere of last week's Western Cable Show was redolent of paranoia as cable operators filled panel sessions and corridor talk with gothic images of a 'Pandora's box' that, [...]

WASHINGTON 'Everyone thought this play couldn't be done,' says Joy Zinoman of Tom Stoppard's 'Indian Ink.' After seven years, the play has only seen two productions in the United States [...]

WASHINGTON DirecTV announced it has closed deals to carry the signals of ABC and NBC owned and operated stations, thus giving the satcasters signed retransmission agreements with three of the […]

As soon as President Clinton signed a bill allowing satellite broadcasters to offer local programming, leading direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) services EchoStar and DirecTV responded by immediately offering consumers in New [...]

WASHINGT0N President Clinton has signed into law legislation that will allow satcasters to offer local TV stations, kicking off what many hope is a new era of competition for the […]

WASHINGTON Now that the House and the Senate have signed off on a bill that will allow satcasters to offer local programming, EchoStar and DirecTV have responded by identifying 14 […]

WASHINGTON Congressional leaders reached a fired agreement last week that will allow DirecTV and EchoStar to offer local broadcast channels to their subscribers by Christmas. The legislation will allow satcasters […]

WASHINGTON FCC chairman Bill Kennard just can't get a break. Having tried to do a favor for a Republican congressman and 100,000 car racing fans, he now stands accused of […]

WASHINGTON Broadcasters may want to start rubbing their lucky rabbits' feet now that the FCC has decided it will use a lottery to decide who should be allowed to buy [...]

WASHINGTON Congress will not be doling out any tax breaks to Hollywood this year -- even if it means losing more movie-of-the-week jobs to Canada. That was the final word [...]

WASHINGTON A group of leading broadcasters has announced the creation of an investment fund that it says will make $1 billion available to minorities and women who need capital to […]

WASHINGTON It already wasn't looking too good last week for supporters of legislation aimed at stemming the tide of run-away production, but then disaster struck. An aide to powerful Ways […]

WASHINGTON Celebrities will soon be masters of their own Internet domain names thanks to a vote by the House -- that is, unless the White House blocks the legislation. Bill […]

WASHINGTON If Congress won't act to save thousands of steel workers from going on unemployment, what makes the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America think that Washington [...]

Pubcasters brave stormy decade, eye era of digital development WASHINGTON PBS was founded in 1969 with the expectation that it would become a rival to the three networks of the [...]

WASHINGTON The merger of Viacom and CBS is a 'little scary.' a key Republican senator said last week expressing concern about the pace of consolidation in the media marketplace, as [...]

WASHINGTON Cablers don't want to be forced to carry broadcasters' digital channels, and 25 industry execs will descend on the FCC this week to let the agency know their views [...]

WASHINGTON, D.C. It was an especially mad mad mad mad world Oct. 20 when the Kennedy Center's Concert Hall stage filled with comedians ranging from Sid Caesar to Robin Williams […]

WASHINGTON Soon it may take more than deep pockets to close a duopoly deal in some of the nation's hottest television markets -- it may also require a lucky number. […]

WASHINGTON Miami-Dade County Commissioners handed the cable industry a big victory by voting last week against imposing any restrictions on cable companies that want to give their own Internet Service […]

LANGLEY, Va. For the first time in its history, the Central Intelligence Agency threw open its heavily guarded gates and allowed a pic -- Showtime's 'In the Company of Spies' [...]

WASHINGTON Consumer advocates are beginning to lash out at FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, who has disappointed them with a series of decisions that will allow for greater media concentration. 'He [...]

WASHINGTON DBS subscribership continues to rocket higher, and it's sending EchoStar's stock value into the stratosphere. Although GM Hughes DirecTV has signed up more subs than EchoStar, EchoStar is signing […]

WASHINGTON As part of the Motion Picture Assn.'s ongoing effort to find favor with China's government, the studio trade org unspooled several Chinese films in New York last week. The […]

WASHINGTON The FCC loosened its cable ownership rules last week -- though not enough for AT&T to swallow MediaOne immediately. But at the same time, the agency did provide a [...]

WASHINGTON In the past month and even the past week it has become much tougher to defend the logic behind the national cap on the number of stations a broadcaster […]

WASHINGTON Surprise! We are not going to complete the digital transition in time to throw out our old analog TV sets by the federally imposed deadline of Dec. 31, 2006. […]

WASHINGTON On the day pubcasters released a report covering allegations that several pubcasting outlets regularly traded their donor lists with Democratic political candidates, PBS prexy Ervin Duggan is stepping down [...]

WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commissions has postponed a decision on its cable ownership rules for at least three weeks, giving AT&T more time to pressure the agency to liberalize the [...]

WASHINGTON ABC News Sam Donaldson is cutting back his duties at the White House, where the correspondent has commandeered presidential attention at photo ops and press conferences with his booming [...]

WASHINGTON Now that the Federal Communications Commission has revealed that it is reluctant to relax its ownership caps for cable companies, AT&T -- which is busy trying to swallow MediaOne [...]

WASHINGTON Chase Manhattan Bank has agreed to help finance a several-hundred-million-dollar fund being set up by CBS CEO Mel Karmazin and Clear Channel Communications CEO Lowry Mays to finance minority […]

WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission decided Aug. 5 that broadcasters had been flouting its rules long enough. So it changed the rules. Now it's OK to own two stations in [...]

After two months of informal talks with entertainment trade orgs, the Federal Trade Commission is starting to sift through studio marketing memos, and Hollywood is very uncomfortable about it The [...]

The FCC waved its regulatory wand last week and decreed that broadcasters may now own two stations in the same market -- a decision that Lowell "Bud" Paxson says instantly […]

WASHINGTON One of the nation's richest hunting grounds for political candidates is Hollywood, and it is particularly important to Democrats. So while the presidential candidates may be happy with all [...]

WASHINGTON "Outrageous" and "stupid." These two words were often repeated at a House subcommittee hearing last week that looked into revelations that some of the nation's major pubcasting outlets regularly […]

Stations cozy with DNC put PBS funds on endangered list Public broadcasters will have to scramble on Capitol Hill this week to avoid losing tens, if not hundreds, of millions […]

WASHINGTON A search committee has chosen former Media-One exec Robert Sachs to become the next president of the National Cable Television Assn. Sachs will replace Decker Anstrom, who is ankling [...]

WASHINGTON It's hard to say if Washington's efforts to stoke competition to the cable industry have paid off yet for consumers, but they've already made EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen a [...]

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court wants to take another look at Playboy Television -- to see if Congress went too fax when it ordered cable systems to completely block all audio […]

WASHINGTON Producers will now think twice before they use hidden cameras--at least in California where the state Supreme Court, ruled that news orgs can be held liable for secretly taping […]

WASHINGTON Listeners in major markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have dozens of radio stations to choose from, so why do they all sound the same? Radio's eccentric [...]

WASHINGTON Telecommunication companies could collect significant tax breaks by selling their media properties to minorities, women or fledgling entrepreneurs under a proposal outlined by the Federal Communications Commission. FCC topper […]

WASHINGTON The tide turned in Washington last week when Congress decided protection of the First Amendment was more important than beating up the entertainment industry for creating a "culture of […]

For cable execs, it was worth the trip to Chicago last week just to hear FCC chairman Bill Kennard say he doesn't agree with an Oregon judge who ordered AT&T [...]

WASHINGTON Satcasters said last week that they need more time before they are forced to carry TV stations in markets where they offer local programming. Proposals in the House and […]

WASHINGTON After six months of making the threat, Fox finally ankled the National Assn. of Broadcasters last week out of frustration with the trade org's support for regulations limiting the [...]

H'wood jumps as politicos target violence With D.C. solons taking aim at Hollywood, the town is suddenly changing its ammunition. On one side of the shootout is showbiz, which says [...]

WASHINGTON NBC has informed the National Assn. of Broadcasters that it may exit the trade org as part of a company-wide cost-cutting effort, and over the trade org's opposition to […]