Stargate Atlantis’s next episode, Friday night at 9, is its 100^th and the last in the series. Based on the fourth and this fifth and final season, it’s a shame it didn’t get the additional season the cast and crew wanted. I know, it’s not my money to spend, and Sci Fi Channel made a business decision (from my interpretation) to wrap Atlantis at five and start a new chapter, Stargate Universe, next year.

I'm happy about Universe and, as a fan of these Stargate series, am excited that Robert Carlyle’s ...Read More

Cablevision says it can’t spike a disputed political ad; Comcast says it can’t run a disputed political ad. How can that be? Doesn’t the law dictate one approach or the other? 

Actually, like so many things in life, the answer is: It depends.

First, the facts, as reported by media outlets Newsday and BeyondChron.org on Oct. 16 and 15, respectively. 

Newsday (owned by Cablevision, in case that matters), based in Nassau County, N.Y., reported:

Citing the Federal Communications Act, Cablevision attorneys will deny a request by an attorney for the Nassau Democratic Party to pull a Republican-sponsored campaign ad a...Read More

The War Room, the documentary about the rapid-response communications team behind presidential candidate Bill Clinton, spawned the campaign message that’s become a cliche because it’s so true in every presidential race: “The Economy, Stupid.”

James Carville wrote those words on a white board in Little Rock, Ark., to help Clinton’s team stay focused on what’s important. D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus filmed the white board as they chronicled Carville, George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, Dee Dee Myers and other Clintonistas’ huge mood swings leading up to the Election Day win over incumbent Republican president George H.W. Bush....Read More

I was almost out of the room when I thought I spotted Michael Chiklis, and ambled over to chat.

It wasn’t too surprising to see the star of The Shield at last Thursday night’s event, a reception thrown by Fox Cable Networks for local advertisers in the New York City area. Actors, producers and writers of FX’s Damages and Rescue Me were there, and The Shield, FX’s hit cop drama, returns Sept. 2 for a seventh and last season. So of course that was “Vic Mackey” himself, puffing on a stogey at the outdoor rooftop bar in New York’s Hotel Gansevoort.

Being a fan of the show, and remembering how nice he was when he came to our show-daily newsroom at the National Show in New Orleans in 2002, I went over and, after askin...Read More

Warning: This post is a group effort by a few Multichannel News editors who watch Sci Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica. The opinions expressed are solely those of the editors; standard spoiler warnings and disclaimers apply. 
Midway through the final season of Battlestar, the ever-present tease to reveal the final Cylon was kicked into overdrive during the preview to this week’s episode. 
In the teaser, we see the unboxed model No. 3, D’Anna (Lucy Lawless), say to someone, “You know about the final five, but you don’t know you are one of them.” It sounds a lot like tonight’s episode will reveal that missing Cylon. Here’s the promo. (Note to legal department: Sci Fi emailed us the actual file but it’s so huge we decided to use this YouTube posting instead.) 

Verizon’s being required to seek a franchise to offer fiber-based cable television service in New York City is likened to “legalized bribery” today by an analyst who follows one of Verizon’s key FiOS TV vendors.

To which the response here is: um, yes, but so is every cable franchise. Should Verizon be any different?

Anton Wahlman, a prominent technology analyst with ThinkPanmure, sent out a note this morning (not posted online so not linkab;e) related to Verizon and vendor BigBand Networks and concerning the telco’s application to provide FiOS TV service throughout the Big Apple. Its headline was “Verizon's Struggle With Mercantilism And Institutionalized Bribery.”

“We think it is a sad day in America when Verizon has to apply for a permit in order to offer consumers an alternative. This ‘...Read More

Some survival tips for cable's last (at least for a while) "Spring Break" week in New York City, which hits a peak today (March 4).

First, don't be deceived by the balmy 61 degrees and sunshine this morning. The forecast is for rain, starting early this afternoon. Bring an umbrella.

Second, don't forget the day's events are not all in the same location, the way they have been some years past. This morning's Horowitz Associates multicultural forum and the Multichannel News/WICT New York chapter Wonder Women luncheon are a...Read More

At a public hearing in New York City on Jan. 17, a man stood up and told city officials about a category of local programming that is cable exclusive.

“You’re not going to find this on satellite,” the man said. “You’re going to find it on cable.” 

The unusual thing was, the man doesn’t work for a cable company, or even one of those for-profit programmers that rely on cable distribution to earn their profits.

The man, Michael Knobbe, runs BronxNet, the non-profit organization that operates four public-access channels on Cablevision Systems, available to about 300,000 Bronx residents. The hearing was part of Cablevision’s renewal of an expiring franchise in the borough; Time Warner Cable's franchises in other boroughs also has been the subject of ...Read More

Hallmark Channel HD will be available to affiliates on April 2 but it won't be on DirecTV, as I mistakenly reported elsewhere on this Web site and in print.

Multichannel News corrections typically don't lay blame on how these mistakes happen, so let me use this blog post to explain to our readers that I made the mistake. It wasn't bad information from anyone, it was just a mistake that I made and didn't confirm with DirecTV, much as it pains me to write that. There was a portion of the story that appeared to paraphrase a Hallmark executive as discussing affiliates in addition to DirecTV, but that was an extension of the original mistake, not the words of that Hallmark executive.

DirecTV rightly points out this is a mistake that costs them time and money, and that it could have been avoided with a phone call, and they're right. I apologize t...Read More