So why did the number of pay-TV subscribers increase in just the last three months?

They didn’t grow much — a modest 422,000 subscribers, for a very modest 0.2 percent growth rate — but they still grew.

Those numbers come from Bernstein Research’s Craig Moffett, a longtime skeptic that “cord-cutting” is a real and pervasive problem for the cable guys (at least for now). It’s not the first time he’s shown evidence of barely-there growth for cable TV — last quarter, for instance, he gathered similar numbers.

But his numbers do conflict with other reports that show evidence of cord-cutting. Earlier this month, for instance, Nielsen said that pay-TV subscribers had shrunk by 1.5 million in 2011.

The easiest way to reconcile Moffett’s numbers with other reports is to note that almost all of the analyst’s data comes from the publicly traded pay-TV providers themselves — like Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon — in the reports they offer up to shareholders. Most of the other stuff you’re seeing comes from polls and surveys.

Here’s his data. You’ll need to click the image to enlarge it:

But what about all of you folks who tell me, over and over, that you’ve ditched cable for some kind of combo of Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, or even pirate streams? Surely I’ll hear from some of you again, just as soon as I publish this.

And I believe you folks, too. I can certainly imagine many scenarios where tech-savvy people — and even not-that-tech-savvy people — are able to satisfy their video urges without paying for a TV subscription. But my operating theory, for now, remains my vegan analogy: “They’re real, and they’re out there. They’re particularly notable in certain places like New York, the Bay Area and college towns. And they over-index at certain Web gathering places, like this one. But McDonald’s sales are still chugging along.”

In broad brushstrokes, one key aspect of the deal addresses a problem with Cisco’s set-top box business: Its lower profit margins. Adding high-value software to the mix will boost that unit’s overall profitability, De Beer told me. NDS, which has been private since 2009, is on a run rate to about $1 billion in sales this year. “And it’s a very profitable revenue stream,” he said.

But there’s also some pretty interesting tech in play. NDS specializes in software that creates a unified entertainment experience across several devices. You can watch your shows on the TV, as always, but if you want to switch to your PC or tablet, you can do it with a user-interface environment that’s entirely consistent and customized according to the service provider’s branding and needs. NDS has a software architecture called Snowflake that’s supposedly pretty good and is the basis of the Zon TV service that is being plugged in the ad that can be seen below, which I think is for Portuguese TV.

But there’s another Snowflake interface video that’s worth seeing first. Check out the demo reel (also below) of the user interface for SFR’s Neufbox Evolution, which I think is a streaming Internet media box.

The point, De Beer said, is to get more closely engaged with the service providers, and by those he means the cable, satellite and other TV and entertainment outfits around the world, and offer them white-label software they can build and brand as they see fit, to deliver a consistent experience across any device. “They’ll be able to constantly update and upgrade their experiences,” he said.

Another point: NDS is strong in India and China with the satellite TV outfits, whereas Cisco is strong in North America with the cable companies. “They’re strong where we’re weak, and vice versa,” he told me.

There are a few critical points. ISI analyst Brian Marshall observed that Cisco is using up about 20 percent of its offshore cash balance. Also NDS’s business is pretty highly concentrated. About 70 percent of its revenue comes from 10 customers, and a little less than half comes from the top three: DTV, BSkyB and Sky Italia.

While Marshall sees the opportunity in comprehensive digital media, he thinks the price Cisco is paying is “rich for a company growing sales at less than 10 percent year on year.” And with revenue per employee at $200,000 at NDS — much lower than Cisco’s $750,000 per employee — Marshall wonders how the deal will be accretive to Cisco right away. “We struggle identifying sources of accretion in year one other than headcount reduction.”

NDS STUDIO DESIGN & SFR AWARDED from NDS Design on Vimeo.

ZON online from NDS Design on Vimeo.

The Silicon Valley company has for several months been pitching media companies on a plan to create a “virtual cable operator,” which would offer their U.S. TV channels nationwide over the Internet in a bundle similar to subscriptions sold by cable- and satellite-TV operators, according to people familiar with the effort. Intel wouldn’t provide Internet access, which subscribers would obtain separately.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The video service, if approved, would move the Mountain View, Calif., company into closer competition with cable and satellite companies such as Time Warner Cable Inc. that sell cable-TV service in Kansas City.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

A stickler for detail, Dauman noted that while the House of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act was a focal point of online protests, it was the Protect IP Act, the Senate version of the bill, which would have set the legislative precedent.

“I think the bill that would have emerged would have been very reasonable,” Dauman said.

“It became almost religious dogma that any legislation built around the process would have broken the Internet and created censorship around the world,” Dauman said.

Meanwhile, he argued, many technology companies supported a patent bill last year. “There should be a system where patent and copyright are both protected to make these two industries grow,” Dauman said.

Dauman — or “Philly D,” as Snooki apparently calls him — addressed a number of other topics in an onstage conversation with AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka.

Regarding the hefty payments sports networks get from cable and satellite companies, Dauman said he felt they were due for a reduction.

He said Viacom channels account for 20 percent of all viewing on subscription television, and a greater portion for young viewers. Dauman attested that, according to an unnamed distributor’s set-top box data, half of its audience never turns on sports-only channels, while half of its content costs come from sports.

“I do believe that premium content should command premium value, but there’s a fine line,” Dauman said.

We’ll hear more on that topic from ESPN’s John Skipper at the conference later today.

As for developing internal technology and acquiring tech companies, Dauman said, “We prefer to work with partners.”

“Everyone who’s developing a new form of distribution or technology stops by our office,” he said.

But for some reason, this stunning new version of the “Blue Marble” photo of Earth — taken on Jan. 4 by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite instrument on NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite — is vaguely comforting.

Perhaps because it speaks of a much bigger picture, and of how delicately and elegantly life hangs in the dark universe.

All via an amazing piece of tech, the Suomi NPP, which NASA said is the “first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.”

Enjoy:

(Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring)

None of those guys have announced their plans for that, yet. But Myspace has: It says it will offer an “over the top” service in the first half of this year.

Wait. Myspace?

Right, Myspace: The once-hot, then very un-hot social network that News Corp. (which also owns this Web site) sold for a bag of chips last year. Its new owners, Specific Media, have made general murmurs about reviving the site, but other than rounding up an endorsement from Justin Timberlake, they haven’t spelled out what they’re doing.

So here’s the idea: Offer a full suite of TV programming — the same stuff you’re paying for via cable or satellite, and sell that bundled up with all sorts of cool interactive goodies. Pricing? TBD.

So that’s a plan, at least. No idea if it’s going to be a reality. Specific CEO Tim Vanderhook says he’s talking to TV programmers about the deals he’ll need to launch the service, but doesn’t have them yet and won’t go into details. And bear in mind that the Consumer Electronics Show, where Specific/Myspace is making the announcement, is ground zero for vaporware announcements.

If nothing else, though, Specific’s announcement points out how plausible the idea of a Web-based pay TV service now seems to lots of sober people. Many cable programmers are just fine with the idea, as long as: 1) the new services pay full freight, and 2) the new services don’t want to break up their bundles. That is, if you want Viacom’s Comedy Channel, you’re also going to have to get VH1. Etc.

But if you’re ok with that, and if you your money is good, the programmers are happy to take it. In their mind, this is like the ’80s and ’90s, when the satellite guys bought their way into pay TV, or more recently when AT&T and Verizon did: More outlets for them equals more money.

Here’s Specific’s press release, which is quite confusing, because it plays up music and a connection with Panasonic and “social TV” — which is usually a fancy way of saying you watch TV just like you always do, but Tweet about it. And someone will pay us for it, maybe.

But I spoke with Vanderhook earlier, and he insists that the real thrust here is a full package of TV programming, delivered over the Web, to any device with a broadband connection.

I’ll believe it when I see it. But it’s sure fun to speculate about in the meantime.

MYSPACE AND PANASONIC PARTNER TO UNVEIL NEW SOCIAL TV SERVICE

Delivers social experience through over-the-top platform across 2012 Panasonic VIERA Connect-enabled HDTVs

CES 2012 – LAS VEGAS (January 9, 2012) Myspace (www.myspace.com), a leading social entertainment destination that lets artists and fans share and discover content, today announced the launch of Myspace TV, a new service that makes the television experience social. Available on the next generation of Panasonic VIERA Connect™-enabled HDTVs, Myspace TV puts viewers in control by allowing them to discover, share and comment on the programs they’re viewing.

Initial channels on Myspace TV will be music-focused, leveraging Myspace’s unparalleled music rights and leading library of 100,000 music videos and 42 million songs. Myspace TV will expand beyond music, however, to encompass movies, news, sports and reality channels, with a growing lineup of today’s most popular broadcast and on-demand content. Audiences will not only be able to view their favorite television programs, but Myspace TV will also allow them to chat about what they’re viewing while they’re viewing it and invite friends to watch with them virtually. The platform fully integrates social and television in new ways that add a dimension to content discovery and evolve the traditional television experience. A companion app will be available on tablets and smartphones, providing instant sync capabilities for a seamless experience.

“Myspace was the first successful social network because it allowed individuals to share their interests, listen to music, express their creativity and connect around the things they love,” said Myspace CEO Tim Vanderhook. “Historically, TV has been a shared experience, as people gathered together to watch their favorite programs. Our belief was that we could enhance the TV experience by increasing viewers’ ability to connect to both content and each other. By partnering with Panasonic, we’re bringing together the content that people love and a social experience in one service: Myspace TV.”
Myspace co-owner Justin Timberlake added, “We’re ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience. Why text or email your friends to talk about your favorite programs after they’ve aired when you could be sharing the experience with real-time interactivity from anywhere across the globe? As the plot of your favorite drama unfolds, the joke of your favorite SNL character plays, or even the last second shot of your favorite team swishes the net, we’re giving you the opportunity to connect your friends to your moments as they’re actually occurring. This is the evolution of one of our greatest inventions, the television. And, we no longer have to crowd around the same one to experience it together.”

Myspace TV intends to return the diminishing social element of television by connecting viewers around content, simplifying discovery by creating fan communities empowered to comment, rate, chat and invite friends to view programming together in real-time.

Launching in the first half of 2012, Myspace TV’s over-the-top television service will be offered across the Panasonic VIERA Connect platform. VIERA Connect is Panasonic’s connected TV platform, which offers access to Internet-based video-on-demand content and applications, ranging from news and fitness, to social networking and online gaming. VIERA Connect requires no external box or PC1 and is accessed via a single button on the television remote control.

“Year after year, Panasonic’s VIERA Connect Smart VIERA TV platform has continued to expand rapidly but with a singular focus to deliver to our consumers an extremely robust and interactive connected TV experience that can be customized and enjoyed on their large-screen HDTVs,” said Joseph Taylor, Chairman & CEO, Panasonic Corporation of North America. “We are proud to partner with the new Myspace on the debut of Myspace TV on our VIERA Connect Smart TV platform. By partnering with a brand like Myspace on the VIERA Connect Smart TV platform, we’re taking connected TV to a whole new level of engaging, interactive experiences for consumers.”

Myspace is currently inviting a select audience to participate in the beta launch of its TV service through a fully integrated experience on laptop devices. To be considered for invitation, entertainment fans can submit their information at http://www.myspace.com/tv.

We saw the first signs of that last year, when Clayton bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy, then used the video company to create a kind of Netflix challenger. Tomorrow we should see the next steps, when the company rolls out a big announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Here’s a good bet on what that will be: A new broadband Internet service, along with a super-sized DVR.

Trade pub Multichannel News has the details, gleaned from a report that went up briefly on Dealerscope, then went away, presumably because it violated a pre-briefing embargo. (Thanks to Jason Hirschhorn’s very useful Media Redfined feed for flagging.)

Since we never agreed to the embargo, happy to summarize here (not surprisingly, Dish declined to comment):

• The Internet service will be marketed to 8 million customers, most of whom can’t get fiber or cable broadband.
• The giant DVR will be called “The Hopper” and is designed to save and transmit shows in different parts of your house, and presumably outside of it, via Slingbox. You can see a teaser page for that one here, or look at the screenshot at the bottom of this post.
• There’s a cool feature that looks like it will automatically record the primetime lineups for the four broadcast networks (News Corp.’s Fox, Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and CBS).

All of which sounds interesting, and useful for existing Dish customers. But it doesn’t sound like Dish is ready to try a true “over the top” Web-based pay TV service that would rival traditional cable.

A lot of people think someone, or many people — could be Dish, could be Apple, could be Verizon, etc., etc., etc — is trying to line up one of those. But figuring out how to do that involves lots of deals with TV studios and programmers, and I don’t get the sense that anyone has those pacts yet. If Dish does, and announces it tomorrow, then it will truly be a press conference worth tuning into. If not, no worries — I’ll be watching anyway and will report back.

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
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• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
• Why Rhapsody Is (Probably) Bigger Than Spotify — In the U.S.
• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
• Walt and Katie Take a Tour of CES (Video)
• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
• Intel Shows Just How It Plans to Get Into Phones (Video)
• Motorola CEO: We’re Going to Release Fewer Phones This Year
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• More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
• BlueStacks Bringing Android Apps to Windows 8
• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
• LG: 55-Inch Glasses-Free 3-D Screen Is on the Way
• LG Pushes 4G Smartphone Through Verizon: The LG Spectrum
• Live: AT&T’s Vegas Act Stars LTE and, Making Her Return to the Stage, Nokia
• CES Notebook: The Constant Search for Power and Vegas’ Worst-kept Secret
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• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
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• Ultrabooks, the Ultra-Fancy New Name for Laptops
• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
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• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

[Shutterstock/Marko Cerovac]

But when the Tehran family settled on the couch with a bowl of pistachios and switched on the television, all they saw was scrambled imagery. The satellite signal was being jammed.

“We were very disappointed that we couldn’t see the film,” said Shohreh, who declined to let her last name be used.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

I don’t know how to say this any other way, so I’ll be direct: Please stop with the spam.

I’m talking about crud like this, which you left in the comments of one of my stories:

Personally I’m done with Netflix. They became too much of a hassle, too confusing, and with the price hike, kind of expensive for what I was getting out of it. I have the Blockbuster Movie Pass now, and I like it a lot more. Now I realize I could be called biased since I’m a long time subscriber — and more recently an employee — of DISH Network, but Blockbuster costs less, at $10 a month, and includes streaming to my receiver and computer, DVD’s, Blu-rays and video games (which lets me cancel my Gamefly account too, saving me more money), plus 20 movie channels. And it’s all on the same bill so it’s easier too. So for me it’s a no-brainer.

Now, this pitch, written by “Andrew_K_Anderson,” does disclose that “Andrew” works for you guys. And it’s on a post about Netflix and Dish and Blockbuster and that new rental service you’re launching. So it wouldn’t seem like a completely obvious piece of spam, except that “Andrew” left the comment yesterday. And I wrote this post back on Sept. 23.

Who leaves comments on two-month-old posts? Sometimes it’s a bona fide reader who just happened across something they’ve never seen before. More often it’s a spammer.

In this case, Disqus, the commenting system we use at AllThingsD, makes it quite easy to figure out that “Andrew” is the latter. Because it tells me that “Andrew” leaves the same kind of comment on sites all over the Web.

Here’s another one he left yesterday, on SlashGear:

Now that I’ve had some time with both services, I have to say that I like the Blockbuster Movie Pass a great deal more. It simply provides more options. There’s no additional charges for Blu-rays, you can rent games (a huge bonus in my book) …

Etc.

I don’t know what else “Andrew” does for you, but he was sort of busy yesterday. He left the same comment, taking time to tweak each one by just a few words — I gather this was to defeat the Disqus spam filter — on six other sites, too: The Atlantic; VentureBeat; CNNMoney; the Washington Examiner; and two Time.com sites.

This wasn’t a one-day binge for “Andrew.” Disqus tells me he’s left 188 comments using the same account and, as far as I can tell, they’re all promotional pitches for Dish, Blockbuster, etc. Last month, for instance, he found a four-year-old blog post complaining about Dish competitor DirecTV, and chimed in on that one.

So who is “Andrew”? Disqus tells me he signed in to their system using the name “Ender Chadwick” and a Dish Network email address. Somebody on Facebook named “Ender Chadwick” says he works at Dish, so maybe it’s that guy.

But who knows. Andrew/Ender signed on using an IP address owned by Dish. It’s the same one used by people named “Rose” and “Monica” to write Dish love letters, too, as Gizmo Lovers pointed out last month.

And this gets to one of the reasons this stuff is such a downer: Look at all the calories burned on this petty little exercise, on both sides of the equation. What a waste.

I asked Dish about this yesterday, expecting them to explain that whoever was leaving this stuff probably wasn’t a Dish/Blockbuster employee. Maybe an over-zealous contractor, and that “the wires had gotten a little crossed.”

That’s what Blockbuster marketing head Kevin Lewis told me back in September, when I asked him about a story that seemed to involve the Blockbuster Twitter account offering a free year’s subscription to people who would tweet about dumping Netflix. (I wasted a bunch of time and energy on that one, too. Never bothered to post it. Glad I kept my notes!)

But Dish PR head Marc Lumpkin didn’t try to apologize for Andrew/Ender/whomever, at all.

“We require our employees who post about DISH products to identify themselves as a DISH Network employee,” Lumpkin told me via email. “This appears to be an informative posting describing the options consumers have for getting entertainment and is posted in a discussion of a similar topic.”

Really? I asked. You sure you want me to print that?

“It looks informative to me and appropriate for those Web site discussions. I’m fine with the response.”

Okay. So, Marc, Kevin, Dish Network CEO Joseph Clayton, et al. — we don’t really need to spell out why this isn’t “informative” or “appropriate,” right? Because we don’t need to explain why you shouldn’t show up at funerals for people you don’t know and hand out flyers for term life insurance, either. Right?

But think about it this way: Stuffing BS comments onto Web sites is the kind of thing that low-rent scammers do. You? You’re a big, publicly traded company. You have 14 million satellite TV subscribers, a left-for-dead video-rental brand you want to revive, and big plans to launch a new Web TV service.

That’s a whole lot to take care of. And spending time and money on tacky, clumsy astroturf seems like it won’t help, and could probably hurt. This article, for instance, doesn’t go in the “win” column, right?

Meanwhile! Here’s “Explosion,” by Eli “Paperboy” Reed, which I learned about from your newest ad campaign. It’s great. More of this, please.

[Image credit: Christina Richards/Shutterstock (litter crew);
Wikimedia (Sisyphus)]

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen has raised the idea with multiple media companies as part of a broader effort to control rising programming costs. The programming wouldn’t include sports channels in its most-basic tier of service, according to the people familiar with the discussions. Sports channels are among the most expensive for cable and satellite operators to carry.

In part, offering channels over the Internet could give Dish more flexibility to exclude channels whose existing contracts with Dish mandate that they appear on the satellite company’s most-widely distributed tiers of service.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Which sounds cool!

But let’s be clear about what this is: An extension of the “TV Everywhere”/“authentication” concept that lets cable subscribers watch programming via alternate delivery systems.

And let’s be clear about what this isn’t: A tool for cable cord cutters or cord shavers.

Bloomberg laid most of this out last month in a story previewing tomorrow’s announcement. Steve Ballmer has been “promoting the Xbox 360 console as a way to switch easily between games, DVDs and pay TV” — not as a way to ditch cable. Which is why cable providers and programmers like Comcast and Verizon are working with him.

Another way to think about it: Look at the iPad and iPhone apps we’ve already seen from the likes of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and ESPN. They let subscribers watch some (though usually not all) of what they can get from their various cable packages on a different device. The Xbox deals should work the same way.

A more direct analogy: This will be an extension of deals Microsoft has already put together with the likes of ESPN, which gives some cable subscribers access to the network’s ESPN3 digital channel via their game boxes. (UPDATE: Readers note that the ESPN3-Xbox deal doesn’t require a cable subscription, but a broadband Internet subscription from particular providers. So it’s theoretically possible for an Xbox owner to get Comcast broadband — but not cable — and still get sports beamed to his TV.)

There’s always a miniscule chance that one of Microsoft’s partners will stray way outside the reservation and actually offer cable-like programming without requiring a cable subscription. One day, for instance, I could see Time Warner finally giving its HBO unit the go-ahead to start selling a la carte subscriptions to the pay service, at the same rates that it’s charging the cable guys.

The cable guys wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t like when HBO, et al, did the same with the satellite guys in the ’90s. There’s not much they can do about it.

But given that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is the chief proponent of the cable-protecting “TV Everywhere” plan, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

More tomorrow, once Microsoft makes it all official.

The last part isn’t getting much attention, but Google itself mentioned its interest in Motorola’s big set-top box business during today’s call announcing the deal. And some Wall Street analysts and other observers are making positive noises about the possibility of Google, which has tried and failed for years to make headway into the TV business, to finally make inroads.

Could be! I’m skeptical, though.

A couple basics: Motorola’s “Home” unit accounts for about a third of its revenue. It’s not a sexy or high-growth business — last quarter, revenues increased 2.3 percent — but unlike handsets, it is profitable. Last quarter it generated operating earnings of $67 million on $907 million in sales.

It is also the biggest cable set-top box business in the world. The reason that you, the average consumer, don’t know or care whether you’ve got a Motorola box next to your TV is that you don’t really have a choice — Motorola sells its boxes to the cable and satellite guys, and they turn around and rent them to you. As long as you’re getting pay TV, you’re using a box from Motorola, or perhaps Cisco’s Scientific-Atlanta unit (Cisco is going to stop making the boxes itself, but will stay in the business.)

The reasonable notion is that Google, which hasn’t had much success getting the cable business to work with it in the past, could do so now, via Motorola’s longstanding relationships with the cable guys.

But I don’t think Google hasn’t made progress with the TV business — both the cable providers and the networks that provide them with programming — because the guys from Mountain View can’t get meetings. It’s because the TV business is paranoid about what Google could do if it ever did make headway in the TV business.

The cable guys don’t have a problem working with Motorola, Cisco, etc., because those companies have never shown any inclination to compete with their core subscription business, as GoogleTV theoretically does.

And while the cable guys do want better, cheaper, more powerful boxes — ones they could upgrade without sending out a guy with a truck, which gets very expensive — it’s highly unlikely they’re willing to let Google offer to help them out. Note Comcast’s “Excalibur” project, which in many ways is supposed to be a GoogleTV alternative, controlled by the cable company itself.

And even if Google does make headway in the box business, it’s still going to face plenty of challenges with the programmers who push stuff through those boxes. They’re the same ones that kept their stuff off of GoogleTV when it rolled out last fall.

And while it’s possible Google could change its mind — some big checks might help — I don’t see them getting more comfortable with the notion any time soon.

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And they do! But they also require subscribers to do some work.

Part of that is because the cable guys really haven’t worked out the technology yet (Facebook could help here).

But it’s really because the point of The Great Free TV Web Pullback of 2011 (alternate title: The Great Web Video Piracy Boom of 2011) isn’t to make it easy to watch TV shows on the Web. It’s meant to protect the traditional TV business.

And it looks like the new “authentication” program that Fox announced last night, which will pull back free TV shows on Hulu and Fox.com, will follow form. (News Corp., which owns Fox, also owns this Web site.)

Take a look at the Web site that Fox rolled out last night in conjunction with the move. It warns surfers that in order to watch shows on the Web, they’ll need to:

• Be a Dish Network subscriber.
• Create an online Dish Network subscriber ID and password, which will require them to dig up their account number from their paper bill.
• Be prepared to log in again every 30 days.

This is about standard for authenticated TV, and while it’s not rocket science, it’s also not much fun. (Quick quiz: Where is your most recent cable bill?)

On the other hand, it is easier than being waterboarded, as “Glee’s” awesome Jane Lynch reminds us in a 15-second video. But it’s certainly nowhere near as easy as the instant gratification you can get by going to Fox.com or Hulu.com and watching last night’s “MasterChef” (or just stealing a peek from a pirate site).

Speaking of Hulu — it’s interesting to note that there’s absolutely no mention of the site on Fox’s Web page, even though Hulu Plus customers can also get access to the Fox programming. But also not surprising.

This morning, News Corp. CEO and majordomo Rupert Murdoch, his son James (who is also a top company exec) — as well as former employee and full-time lightning rod Rebekah Brooks — march on down to the British Parliament to answer questions from a committee there about the ever-growing PhoneGate scandal.

For those living under a rock, News Corp. is embroiled in ever more serious controversy about who knew what and when (also where, why and how much) in the hacking of phones of a myriad of well-known people in the U.K. by its News of the World tabloid newspaper.

Besides celebrities and politicians, that has included the voicemails of a murdered girl, an appalling act that has galvanized public opinion and the weak spines of legislators into action in this inquiry.

It’s sordid, it’s ugly and it makes for what could be an explosive event, starring the man who brought you “Titanic,” Glenn Beck, “Glee” and, most recently, the sale of Myspace.

There’s no question, getting the 80-year-old Murdoch on the ropes will be the aim of the committee members holding the hearing, and how one of the world’s most famous and legendary media moguls performs — or does not — will be a big deal to both interested observers and News Corp. shareholders.

By way of full disclosure, that’s not me, but this site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp. In other words, somewhere up the corporate food chain, Murdoch is my boss.

In any case, that has never stopped me or AllThingsD.com from telling it like it is, so here is the liveblog of what is sure to be a doozy of a media event:

6:36 am PT:: It all starts for the Murdochs, as soon as the former Scotland Yard head John Yates has completed questioning about the police’s obvious bungling of the various investigations over the years.

Rupert Murdoch and his son, James Murdoch, are on, looking grave and dressed in grey.

Sitting behind them are Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, and his top adviser at News Corp., Joel Klein, who is heading up the phone hacking scandal internally at the company.

The hearing — in a room that looks like a high school debate could take place there — starts off politely enough.

But the first question is directed toward James Murdoch about his clearly incomplete investigation when phone hacking allegations were first made many years ago. He begins with an apology.

“These actions do not live up to the standards of News Corp.,” says the younger Murdoch.

He is interrupted by his father, Rupert Murdoch, who notes rather dramatically: “This is the most humble day of my life.”

The questioner quickly asks the obvious query, after James Murdoch claims News Corp. was not in full possession of the facts when execs had told a previous committee there was no reason to believe there was more widespread hacking.

Were News Corp. execs lying?

James Murdoch continues to insist that the bulk of evidence came out — “real evidence” — in later civil trials. And also, that News Corp. is now investigating the situation fully.

He throws around words like “proactive action” and “transparency,” which is probably cold comfort now to those hacked when things were less clear to News Corp.’s senior management.

Now up, Rupert Murdoch, who is asked quickly about statements he made about not tolerating wrongdoing and who had lied to him at News Corp. about the phone hacking.

Apparently, he “didn’t know” a lot about the hacking that took place, while also defending the non-hacking employees of his company.

But the questioner is still on him about exactly what he did know about the situation, which seems to be — at least according to his testimony — a lot of I-don’t-knows.

6:53 am: It continues about what Rupert Murdoch knew and when he knew it and what he did. Or not.

As Rupert Murdoch keeps up with this tone of not being clued in to what have turned out to be critical events, James Murdoch wants to keep jumping in with the details, which he is eager to impart.

“At what point did you find out criminality was endemic at News of the World?” asks the questioner.

Rupert Murdoch does not like the word endemic, but stresses that he was “shocked, appalled and ashamed” by the case of the murdered girl, Milly Dowler.

The questioner seems frustrated by Rupert Murdoch’s answers, which are, for the typically razor-sharp media mogul, unusually slow.

Like a persistent terrier who wants to perform, James Murdoch is back again offering to serve up the deets.

7:04 am: Now, it is onto the closing down of News of the World: Was the tabloid shut down because of the criminality?

“We had broken our trust with our readers,” says Rupert Murdoch. “We felt ashamed for what had happened.”

A new questioner is on, with a bizarre query about why Rupert Murdoch came in the back door of the Prime Minister’s house at 10 Downing Street on a recent visit there.

It’s a cloddish effort to show him as a powerful puppetmaster to pols, but only serves as a punch line.

Back on track, with questions about whether there was hacking in the U.S., which Rupert Murdoch said he could not believe had happened.

More questions about how badly the company acted, which came down to the questions about whether he was “ultimately” responsible for the hacking.

“Nope,” says Rupert Murdoch, who keeps insisting he relied on others, some of whom apparently “misled” him.

It’s an astonishing admission and, really, excuse, given he has been chairman, CEO and a very strong leader of News Corp. for more than a half-century.

7:16 am: A new questioner, who asks who decided to close down News of the World. It was Murdoch himself, his son and other execs.

Next up, why did News Corp. pay off a victim of hacking, which James Murdoch did without informing his father or the News Corp. board.

James Murdoch essentially points out that it is typical to do this in companies of the global scale of News Corp.

These are apparently very busy, busy, busy people, who do not seem to have time to notice how such juicy and best-selling scoops might have been magically produced by News of the World.

Onto ethical conduct guidelines, which News Corp. has in a pamphlet form, says James Murdoch, but pages which some at the company have obviously never cracked.

Rupert Murdoch is asked again about his culpability in the case, which he continues to maintain he does not shoulder the blame.

James Murdoch does note that the company “will think more forcefully … about our journalism and ethics.”

Given the situation, in which every day brings a new revelation of bad acts by News Corp. employees, this promise of better behavior seems to be a case of much too little and very, very late.

Rupert Murdoch still uses the opportunity to stress the need for a free press, despite its excesses.

7:31 am: More about the payments to settle with phone hacking victims and how soon the company realized the problems were more widespread.

James Murdoch talks about how he might have acted differently had he known more then as he does now.

“If we knew now what we knew then,” says James Murdoch, “we would have taken more action and moved more aggressively.”

But what else is he going to say? It’s a could-have, would-have, should-have line of questioning that is eliciting very little in the way of true information.

Finally, a good point about “willful blindness,” which is a term from the Enron scandal about avoiding knowing about problems you really should have known about.

“Is that a question?,” asks James Murdoch. It is a statement, actually, and a decent enough one.

“We didn’t do that,” says Rupert Murdoch firmly this time.

Still, soon enough, Rupert Murdoch is insisting he was not as involved as people have imagined him to be with the management of his newspapers.

A new questioner is pressing this important point, but Rupert Murdoch is not biting on a query about his legendarily hands-on managing style.

“I’d say, ‘What’s doing?’” he explains about his conversations with editors, but adding he might not have been told about payoffs to phone hacking victims.

The questions are in the deep weeds here, but it’s still interesting that Rupert Murdoch continues to maintain that his life was too busy to wallow in the details, however controversial and important those details might be.

7:55 am: More and more don’t-knows pile up and up in a giant mountain of acts perpetrated by someone somewhere, but not the Murdochs.

“I can tell you I was surprised as you were,” says James Murdoch about certain payments to various hackers and those who were hacked.

Was it Les Hinton, who then ran News International and later Dow Jones, from which he recently resigned?

Could be! Maybe! Mistake were made! Who knows!

Well, someone does!

It moves onto Brooks, the tarnished News International exec and editor whom Rupert Murdoch does note he still trusts. Finally, some certainty!

Brooks is definitely one of the more compelling characters in this drama, although the media focus on her striking red hair color seems odd and vaguely sexist, as if she is some flame-haired she-devil from media hell. She might certainly be guilty in this mess, but her fabulous hair has nothing to do with it.

(Rupert’s mane is grey, by the way, and James’ is brown, if you really need to know.)

Fascinatingly, Murdoch’s backing of Brooks has been strong and consistent, despite intense criticism of her by many in this scandal.

The payment of legal fees of perpetrators and payments to the victims in the hacking seems to obsess one questioner, who wants News Corp. to stop doing it.

Murdoch says he’d like to if contracts did not preclude that, which essentially means News Corp. will keep up forking over the legal fees and payments.

8:12 am: The attention turns to how James Murdoch found out about the various emails that showed there was more evidence of hacking than was first thought about and what he felt about it.

He says very little, noting that the matter is under police investigation. It’s not don’t-know now, but can’t-say.

The hearing is beginning to feel a little rope-a-dope, with the Murdochs apologizing and taking blows, saying very little — either claiming lack of knowledge or lack of ability to comment about the ongoing police inquiry — and tiring out the questioners.

It is a classic tactic of the boxing champion Muhammad Ali and it works in the ring.

Whether that will be the case with PhoneGate remains to be seen, but it certainly has made what could have been a more explosive hearing much less so.

Instead, it seems to have turned into a what didn’t the Murdochs know and when didn’t they know it hearing.

On questioner gets this irony. “That’s frankly unsatisfactory,” he says about the Murdochs continuing shock and surprise at the thorny situation they find themselves in.

Maybe it seems a little hard to believe, but the persistent story from James Murdoch is that they were told by their lawyers, the police and others that nothing was awry once the initial phone hacking investigation was complete and only found out about the larger problem in later civil lawsuits.

But, asks the questioner to Rupert Murdoch, should his editors and managers at News of the World have known about it?

Of course, they should have.

But, once again, the legendary media baron, who made his fortune and fame in disseminating news and information across the world in newspapers, on television, on satellite and on the Web — at least for now — can’t say.

So, was he “kept in the dark” about the situation? Rupert Murdoch acknowledges he might have asked more questions, although he noted his British newspapers were only a small part of his massive empire.

But, he adds, “Anything that is seen as a crisis comes to me.”

Well, not the phone hacking crisis, it seems.

But, they’re sorry. So sorry. And, of course, humbled.

8:54 am: Suddenly, there is a disturbance, in which someone seems to have possibly attempted to accost the Murdochs.

But it is not clear what has happened, as the hearings are suspended for 10 minutes.

James Murdoch leaps up quickly to protect his father, which he has been doing in this hearing verbally already, where the strategy seems to be to let him largely do all the talking.

Even faster on her feet and with arms raised toward a man in a plaid shirt and carrying a pie plate with shaving cream is Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi.

The man seems to have managed to get some of the foam on Rupert Murdoch, but Wendi Deng appears to have partially thwarted her husband from receiving a full pie in the face.

It’s the first striking visual of this hearing, protecting the patriarch and the king of the empire from harm, no matter what.

Here is a video of the incident:

According to Britain’s Channel 4: “As the man was being led away in handcuffs escorted by a single police officer, he refused to give his name, saying: ‘As Mr Murdoch himself said, I’m afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation.’”

9:09 am: The room is cleared, so it is only the Murdoch crew behind James and Rupert Murdoch, and now the committee is even more solicitous.

Rupert Murdoch is without his jacket and his wife is being commended for her most excellent left hook.

Still, it’s back to business and the questioner does zero in on a major disconnect over how two media execs as famously aggressive and involved as the Murdochs were so passive in this hacking situation.

It “was a terrible shock,” says James Murdoch.

The same is said about what would be even more disturbing and recent allegations of the hacking of the victims of the 9/11 bombings.

Both father and son say there is no evidence of this so far, but they were surely looking into it.

While it certainly did not come through in what have largely been feckless questions from the committee, the final questioner does correctly ask the pair if they might want to pay more attention.

The last question is for Rupert Murdoch and finally gets to the real query everyone wants to ask.

Noting Murdoch is “captain of the ship,” she asks if he has considered resigning.

“No,” answers Murdoch firmly.

“Why not?” she presses.

“People let me down and it’s for them to pay,” says Rupert Murdoch. “But I think, frankly, I am the best person do clean this up.”

He finishes up with a statement about being sorry, how he was also betrayed and how phone hacking and bribery is wrong.

“Saying sorry is not enough, things must be put right,” he says.

Finally, something we do know.

“It has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate,” News Corp. COO Chase Carey said in a statement, referring to the ever-widening PhoneGate scandal that has already forced the company to shut down its News of the World tabloid.

The paper’s closure was a huge news event in Britain, but the BSkyB deal, which would have seen News Corp. buy the 61 percent of the company it didn’t already own, would have been much more meaningful for Rupert Murdoch’s company.

It’s unlikely that this is the last shoe to drop at News Corp. (which also owns this Web site). Murdoch, his son James and News Corp. executive Rebekah Brooks are all scheduled to appear in front of the British Parliament next week to answer questions about the scandal.

Meanwhile, News Corp. has discussed selling off or spinning out its News International unit, which runs its remaining British papers.

And preliminary reports indicate that a scheduled debate about the News Corp. BSkyB deal will still take place today in the House of Commons.

Yesterday News Corp. announced a $5 billion stock buyback program, designed to allay investor fears. But it didn’t do much good, as shares drooped from $16.25 to $15.48. For now, it seems, investors are happier that News Corp. has moved on from BSkyB, and are pushing shares back a few cents toward the $16 mark.

If that’s the only fallout, Rupert Murdoch will have dodged a bullet. [Update: It isn’t the only fallout. News Corp. just announced it is shutting down News of the World.)

Earlier this month the transaction, which would see News Corp. acquire the 61 percent of the British satellite TV company it doesn’t already own, looked like a done deal.

Now, as a string of new allegations in the three-year-old voice mail hacking affair at the company’s News of the World tabloid have surfaced, the BSkyB deal is going to take much longer to close. And there’s some speculation that the whole thing may be in jeopardy. (News Corp. also owns this Web site).

The Financial Times (registration required) says the deal won’t be approved until September at the earliest, citing an influx of public comments on the proposal. The British government, in response, says there isn’t an official timetable, but that’s more of a “definition of the word ‘is’” response than a denial.

In any case, hackergate is definitely going to cause more problems for Murdoch than the run-of-the-mill scandals that News Corp. is used to dealing with.

The New York Times has a concise synopsis of the new problems at the tabloid: Allegations “that its executives had paid police officers, lied to Parliament, hired investigators to intercept voice mail messages left on the cellphones of murdered children and terrorism victims, and, in one instance, tampered with a murder investigation in which the suspects were linked to The News of the World.”

So far most of the pressure from the scandal has been directed at Rebekah Brooks, who runs the News International group that oversees News of the World. Murdoch, in a statement, has backed Brooks. But it won’t be surprising to see her go, regardless. The big question is whether the scandal bubbles up to engulf Murdoch or his son James, his likely successor.

Yesterday investors weighed in and drove down News Corp. stock as much as 5 percent; this morning it’s ticking back up.

That didn’t happen. In 2001, at what was very nearly the last minute, a group of private investors nabbed the assets of the old Motorola-backed concern for fractions of a penny on the dollar, and kept the satellite phone service running. The timing was right. The 9/11 terrorist attacks, which led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ensured that the U.S. Department of Defense would remain the system’s biggest customer, and it still is today. And though no one will tell me with any certainty, it’s even possible that Seal Team Six used an Iridium-based communication system when they slipped into Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden. Just sayin’.

The big mistake of the original Iridium was that it aimed to be “the phone” that globe-hopping executives would carry with them everywhere. In what could only be described as a monumentally bad judgement call on the the state of the wireless market, common cellphones started working pretty much anywhere a mainstream user might happen to be, obviating the need for a single wireless phone that worked anywhere in the world.

Take out the word “mainstream,” and the business case for Iridium was and is strong. It finished its March quarter with 447,000 subscribers around the world — a 25 percent increase over the previous year — of which more than 315,000 are voice customers. They’re people whose jobs take them to the remotest corners of the globe — oil platforms at sea, drilling rigs in the desert, mines in mountainous terrain, you get the idea — and for whom being without a working phone is simply not an option. As big as the conventional wireless phone networks are, they still cover less than 10 percent of the globe. Government voice users — about 37,000 at last count — are the heaviest users, averaging about $140 in revenue each month, while commercial voice users — 279,000 at last count — average about $47 a month.

But the fastest-growing bit of Iridium’s business is in data. If you have a piece of equipment or an asset whose status or movement you have to track, even in a remote desert, across the ocean or at the South Pole, the chances are pretty good you can put an Iridium modem on it and follow its status in short regular bursts of data. This “machine to machine” or M2M business is small but growing fast. As of the last quarter, the business had 122,000 customers — nearly double the number from the year-ago quarter — and brought in $6.4 million, accounting for about 10 percent of sales.

And here’s where you find another key difference of the new Iridium versus the old. Rather than anticipate every kind of use for the Iridium network, the company provides both the satellite data service and a modem module that third-party companies build into scores of applications as varied as tracking trucks across Brazil to buoys in the ocean watching for tsunami waves. There are some 150 third-party outfits putting the Iridium network to use today.

In 2009, the company went public. (I wrote about it for Businessweek at the time.) It raised $200 million to help finance a new $1.8 billion constellation of 81 satellites (66 plus 15 spares, some of which will remain on the ground) that are due to start launching on SpaceX rockets in 2015. And unlike its money-losing predecessor, this Iridium is profitable, having finished 2010 with $22.7 million on sales of $349 million.

Last week I caught up with Iridium CEO Matt Desch while he was on a swing through New York. We talked about what’s next for the Iridium satellite system more than a decade after most people had written it off as a failure. Today it’s anything but.

Matt, Iridium came public about two years ago, well ahead of all these other tech IPOs that have been going on in recent weeks. How’s business been since then?

Desch: Our initial plan was to do a more traditional private-equity to IPO process, but the world cratered in that time. And so going public was still important. We needed financing to pay for our next-generation satellite system, so we went public and then probably thought we’d do some high-yield debt offerings. But frankly we took advantage of the troubles in the world economy, and against that backdrop, export credit agencies really wanted to support their governments. We had a competition going on to build our new satellite system between the U.S. and France. The winner turned out to be France. Their policy to support their industry was a little faster-moving and had more depth than what the U.S. was able to do at the time. The French banks gave us $1.8 billion in financing at less than five percent interest over five years. And then we closed other financing last summer. So now we have a fully financed plan to obtain all the cash we need to fund our operations and build our next fleet of satellites. We continued to grow at an average of 25 percent over the last five years. We even grew through the recession.

Who’s building the new satellites and when will you start launching them?

We’re about four years into a five-year program. Thales Alenia Space is the prime contractor building them, but its a $2.3 billion multinational contract. SpaceX will launch them starting in 2016. We’re Elon Musk’s largest commercial launch contract. He’s still working on the platform, but we don’t need him for four years, so that’s going to be perfect timing. Lockheed is on the team. Even though they competed to build the satellites, they’re still going to write some of the flight software. Boeing is on the team and ViaSat is on the team and there are others. All told it will be 81 satellites, of which 72 will be launched, 66 will be operating with six orbiting spares, and then nine more spares on the ground.

Your traditional satellite phone business accounts for how much of your revenue, versus data and other things?

Phones account for about 50 percent, but the data business is growing the fastest. Everyone thinks that our business is limited to just satellite phones that provide voice services, and they worry that that business is going to get more competitive. Inmarsat introduced a new phone last year, and Globalstar is going to come back. But I’ve been saying for the last few years that its more complex than that. We’re going to change the rules around the personal device environment. We’re moving away from satellite phones to enabling people to work on the move a lot better. This will include using your smartphone in ways that you can’t use your smartphone today. Using devices like iPads and other things. Our business is more about working with partners who enable unique solutions that put our service to work rather than the old ‘I have a phone, do you want to buy it?’ model.

And what about data?

It’s our fastest-growing business. A couple of big things have happened in the last few years. Our network has always had some distinct advantages — it has the lowest latency and covers the entire planet. We’ve come out with some devices that are both really cheap and really small, we have more than 200 partners, and at least 250 of them put our modems into things that they don’t even tell us about. It may be aviation or shipping or fishing.

Back to the data business: Part of it is what’s called machine-to-machine communications. What is that, and why is it a big opportunity for you?

It’s still in early days, but it has expanded dramatically. That industry started on the terrestrial side. Other companies would put a cellular modem in devices like the handheld pad the FedEx delivery guys use, or for tracking the truck or a shipping container, or a train or a bus. Those applications are great, but they only have so much room. They’re limited by the coverage of the cellular networks. If you want to track a truck as it moves across Brazil and not just when it’s close to major cities, we end up getting built into those products. Satellite still only accounts for about one percent of that business, but it’s growing really fast for us. We’re talking like 50 to 60 percent a quarter, so its really exploding. Once you track something on the ocean, or in the desert or in the sky, we’re the best option. People say, well, 99 percent of the populated areas are covered, but there’s a lot of reasons why you might want to track something when it’s not in that populated area. It’s really enabling things that weren’t possible before. We end up solving a lot of high-value problems that governments and companies are willing to pay a few extra dollars for. It used to be that these things cost hundreds of dollars for the airtime; now it’s in the tens of dollars, so the cost is no longer an issue.

So government is your biggest customer? And I presume a lot of that is the military? Was Seal Team Six using Iridium when they killed bin Laden?

(Laughs.) Sorry, I can’t say. But yes, government accounts for about 25 percent of our business, and growing rapidly. We do things like Blue Force tracking — that is tracking so the good guys can see where everyone is, all the vehicles and people. Special operations guys do tend to use our system, and I’ll tell you why. The military has their own systems and their own satellites that they can pre-position when they have enough time to get ready. But special forces tend to work anytime, anywhere and on short notice. When the Navy was called in to help in Japan after the earthquake, they didn’t have anything they could use beyond the immediate area of the ship, so they used our system. When they go into a new place, sometimes we’re the only thing that will work for them, and their own systems are too expensive to set up. So, yes, the Department of Defense is a big customer, but commercial customers are growing much faster. A lot of the companies that use our system are smaller, and you won’t hear about them because they supply niche products to specific industries. There’s one in Salt Lake City that builds a product that’s built into trucks that monitors the driver to see if he’s riding the brakes or going too fast. In Australia they use our system to track trains in real time. At chemical and oil companies we’re used in “man down” products, where if the systems detects you as motionless for several minutes, you have to hit a button to say you’re okay, because if you don’t you’re probably lying flat on the ground because you’re incapacitated or injured, and someone will come and rescue you. The list gets so long that we don’t even know about them all.

Will you build an add-on for my iPhone that will let me make a call from some remote place where Verizon or AT&T’s network doesn’t reach?

We won’t, but one of our partners might. My view is that you shouldn’t make a satellite phone to compete with the iPhone, because it will never be as cool as the iPhone or Android phones. What you really need to do is let them talk to our network so you can make calls on it and send messages and pictures. It probably won’t be any good for watching Hulu videos, but you will certainly be able to communicate and send pictures back and forth.

Filed in 2009, the complaint claims the union gave Sirius a monopoly in radio services, one which resulted in higher prices for consumers. Which is interesting, considering the Department of Justice’s comments on the merger when it first approved it.

“After a careful and thorough review of the proposed transaction, the Division concluded that the evidence does not demonstrate that the proposed merger of XM and Sirius is likely to substantially lessen competition, and that the transaction therefore is not likely to harm consumers.”

Anyway…

An unfortunate turn of events for Sirius, which is likely still reeling from the other high-profile lawsuit it was slapped with earlier this month.

“When Sirius needed Stern, it promised him a share in any success that the company achieved,” the suit reads. “But now that Sirius has conquered its chief competitor and acquired more than 20 million subscribers, it has reneged on its commitment to Stern, unilaterally deciding that it has paid him enough.”

According to the suit, Sirius did give Stern his initial stock award after he signed on in January 2006, but it failed to pay him out on any others even though it “exceeded its own internal estimates by more than 2 million subscribers” each year for the remainder of the original contract.

“Stern enabled Sirius to surpass its internal subscriber targets by more than 2 million subscribers in 2006 and in 2007,” the suit alleges. “Because of this success and the revenue that it brought into the company, [Stern] was entitled to receive the performance-based stock awards Sirius promised [him].”

So Sirius is stiffing Stern. Not a particularly wise move given the latter’s irascibility and reach of his daily radio show. If there’s a PR battle to be fought here, Sirius will likely lose it first thing tomorrow morning when Stern’s back on the air again.

Reached for comment, Sirius claimed to have met its obligations to Stern. “SIRIUS XM just signed a contract through 2015 with Howard Stern, and he is a valued part of our company,” spokesman Patrick Reilly told me. “We were thus surprised and disappointed by the subsequent legal action initiated by his production company and agent. We have met all of our obligations under the terms of our 2004 agreement with Howard, his agent and production company.”

Here’s a copy of the suit:

SternSuit –

“Cyber terrorists could cripple banks, send ships floundering on to rocks and bring death to the roads at the click of a mouse,” wrote one British newspaper.

The report’s author, Dr. Martyn Thomas, dismissed such reporting as hype. He said aim of the report, “Global Navigation Space Systems: reliance and vulnerabilities” was to highlight the “dangerous over-reliance” on satellite navigation and timing signals, which are vulnerable to disruption, either from natural events such as solar storms, or jamming.

While most people think of GPS as a navigation system such as your in-car navigation, it is also used in data networks, sea and air transport, railways and emergency services. It is also a global, synchronized, highly-accurate clock which is used in systems like high frequency trading.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Data-gathering firms and technology companies are aggressively matching people’s TV-viewing behavior with other personal data—in some cases, prescription-drug records obtained from insurers—and using it to help advertisers buy ads targeted to shows watched by certain kinds of people.

At the same time, cable and satellite companies are testing and deploying new systems designed to show households highly targeted ads.

The goal: emulate the sophisticated tracking widely used on people’s personal computers with new technology that reaches the living room.

One of the most advanced companies, Cablevision Systems Corp., has rolled out a system that can show entirely different commercials, in real time, to different households tuned to the same program. It can deliver targeted ads to all the company’s three million subscribers concentrated in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The following is an edited version of the interview.

WSJ: What is the future of the Internet?

Mr. Cerf: There are several trends which will carry the Internet over the next several years. First is mobile–mobile technology and the access to the Internet via mobile devices is becoming extremely important. We’re also seeing Internet infrastructure reach more deeply into places where there isn’t any–in places like Africa. Another trend is submarine cables and satellite capability while another trend is the ability to bring video and audio to entertainment devices in cars or homes using the Internet.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Analysts had been calling for Sirius to break even in its fourth quarter on revenue of $740 million. Instead it reported a loss of $81.4 million, or two cents a share, on revenue of $735.9 million. The reason for the miss: An increase in operating expenses and $85.4 million in debt-extinguishment losses.

Unfortunate. Still, the company’s latest financials weren’t without some good news. Sirius added 328,789 new subscribers in the fourth quarter, up from 257,028 in the fourth quarter of 2009. And it ended 2010 with 20.2 million subscribers, 8 percent more than the 18.8 million it claimed at the end of 2009, and well above its target of 20.1 million.