ITV

Tag: Time Warner Cable

  • Time Warner Cable to offer free Wi-Fi to business internet customers

    Time Warner Cable to offer free Wi-Fi to business internet customers

    NEW DELHI: Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC), a provider of communication services for enterprises, is to offer its free Wi-Fi hotspot solution to their business internet customers across all TWCBC markets.

     

    This solution will enable businesses to offer their customers Wi-Fi access on any Wi-Fi enabled device including smart phones, tablets and laptops, said TWCBC in a statement.

     

    According to a TWCBC commissioned survey in May, 80 per cent believe their customers expect free Wi-Fi and also rank it as a top way to attract new customers, but 43 per cent of businesses offer it.

     

    The Wi-Fi access point comes with its own internet connection to ensure security to the business’s private internet traffic — with no interference from their public Wi-Fi internet traffic.

     

    Enterprise users will benefit as the solution provides a self-service management portal. The business owner can configure the service to require a password for free access or set daily time allotments for free access, ranging from 15-60 minutes. Owners can add their business name, logo and marketing message to the Wi-Fi welcome webpage.

     

    TWCBC provides signage and marketing materials to the business to promote Wi-Fi availability on-site, also helping attract more customers.

  • NDTV 24X7 hops on to Time Warner Cable in the US

    NDTV 24X7 hops on to Time Warner Cable in the US

    MUMBAI:  Hungry for expansion outside of India, one of India’s leading English news channels has grabbed a space on the coveted Time Warner Cable (TWC) in the US. NDTV 24X7 will now be available to subscribers in New York City as well as boroughs of Brooklyn, Manhattan, LA, Dallas, Austin and Rio Grande Valley region in Texas in the ‘Hindi Pass Plus’ or the ‘Passport Pack.’

     

    With this the channel aims to reach about 20,000 households through the partnership. The ‘Hindi Passport Pack’ costs about $70 while the ‘Hindi Pass Plus Pack’ costs about $40. The former has channels such as Star Plus, Sony, Zee TV, Life OK, Willow, TV Asia, Star Gold, NDTV 24×7, ITV Gold, Filmy, UTV Movies and Bollywood On Demand while the latter provides Star Plus, Sony, Zee TV, Life OK, Willow, TV Asia, NDTV 24×7 and ITV Gold.

     

    The subscription range for channels on this platform range from $1 million to $1.5 million. NDTV is also available on the DTH platform Dish Network. The average ARPU in the US is around $40 and packs such as Indian, Chinese, Arabic have high prices. Unlike India, NDTV 24X7 does not have to pay any carriage fee to the distribution platforms in the US.

     

    “Asian Indians in the US are among the affluent communities,” says NDTV AVP for network distribution and affiliate sales Rohit Jaiswal speaking to indiantelevision.com. “We will be looking at deals with more cable operators in the US going forward in the next two years,” he adds. Europe is also a part of the expansion plan since the channel says it is already well distributed in other parts of the world.

     

    NDTV Group CEO Vikram Chandra said in a press statement, “NDTV is delighted to partner with Time Warner Cable to bring its content and the election to an even wider audience in the US. The US is a very crucial market for us and the launch of the channel on TWC is a testimony to the trust that our affiliates and viewers from all over the world have shown in our brand and our quality over these years. NDTV, today, is available in 17 million households across 75 countries outside India and now looks forward to serving the TWC households with the same award-winning programmes and keeping them abreast with the constantly evolving events in India.”

     

    Earlier this year the US’s largest cable company Comcast announced that it intended to buy the second largest cable company TWC for $45 billion. This deal is under federal consideration for approval. If the proposed acquisition does get through, it could well be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for Indian channels.

  • AT&T to launch video service with Chernin Group

    AT&T to launch video service with Chernin Group

    NEW DELHI: American telecom service provider AT&T and The Chernin Group are acquiring, launching and investing in video services.

     

    It is understood that this will be more than a $500 million venture. The massive investment is seen as a response to the ongoing merger talks between Comcast and Time Warner Cable (TWC) and fiber-led Internet ambition of Google.

     

    AT&T announced its video investment plan hours after Comcast shared its Q1 2014 revenue that rose 13.7 per cent to $17.4 billion. Comcast Q1 income grew 16.3 per cent to $3.56 billion. Out of this, Cable Communications revenue increased 5.3 per cent.

     

    AT&T, which has invested more than $119 billion in the United States over the last six years, said it wants to tap the online video and OTT video market.

     

    Comcast, which is currently negotiating a $45 billion merger with TWC, said it added 124,000 cable customers in Q1 2014 and reached 26.8 million. It added 24,000 video customers in the first quarter of 2014. The company also added 383,000 high-speed internet customers. Internet revenue growth of 9 per cent is the strongest growth rate in two years.

     

    AT&T chief strategy officer John Stankey said: “Combining our expertise in network infrastructure, mobile, broadband and video with The Chernin Group’s management and expertise in content, distribution, and monetization models in online video creates the opportunity for us to develop a compelling offering in the OTT space.”

     

    One-day before the video announcement, AT&T said it would expand its high speed internet network to an additional 21 cities in the American internet network. It also suggested that the online video venture will make AT&T a leader in the American broadcasting industry. It seems internet search engine Google may not be the big rival for AT&T, but Comcast and others.

     

    The Chernin Group, which invests in media businesses, brings assets and expertise to the venture, including contribution of its majority stake in Crunchyroll, a subscription video on demand service.

     

    This alliance positions AT&T and The Chernin Group to take advantage of the rapid growth of online video and OTT video services. The strategic goal of this initiative will be to invest in advertising and subscription VOD channels as well as streaming services.

     

    AT&T has over 110 million wireless subscribers and more than 16 million total broadband subscribers. Video makes difference to better customer experience. At present, Google and AT&T are competing in high speed internet network roll outs. AT&T will benefit from video as it will compensate possible revenue loss from voice services. 

  • Comcast acquires Time Warner Cable for $45.2 bln

    Comcast acquires Time Warner Cable for $45.2 bln

    MUMBAI: Comcast Corporation, the largest video, high-speed internet and phone services provider in the US, will acquire its competitor Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion in all-stock deal.

     

    Through the merger, Comcast will acquire Time Warner Cable’s approximately 11 million managed subscribers. In order to reduce competitive concerns, Comcast said it is prepared to divest systems serving approximately 3 million managed subscribers.

     

    As such, Comcast will, through the acquisition and management of Time Warner Cable systems, net approximately 8 million managed subscribers in this transaction. This will bring Comcast’s managed subscriber total to approximately 30 million.

     

    Following the transaction, Comcast’s share of managed subscribers will remain below 30 percent of the total number of multi-channel video programming distributor (MVPD) subscribers in the US.

     

    Comcast Corporation  and Time Warner Cable today announced that their boards of directors have approved a definitive agreement for Time Warner Cable to merge with Comcast.

     

    Comcast will acquire 100 per cent of Time Warner Cable’s 284.9 million shares outstanding for shares of Comcast amounting to approximately $45.2 billion in equity value.

     

    Each Time Warner Cable share will be exchanged for 2.875 shares of CMCSA, equal to Time Warner Cable shareholders owning approximately 23 percent of Comcast’s common stock, with a value to Time Warner Cable shareholders of approximately $158.82 per share based on the last closing price of Comcast shares.

     

    The transaction will generate approximately $1.5 billion in operating efficiencies and will be accretive to Comcast’s free cash flow per share while preserving balance sheet strength. The merger will also be tax free to Time Warner Cable shareholders.

     

    Comcast said this transaction will create a leading technology and innovation company, differentiated by its ability to deliver ground-breaking products on a superior network while leveraging a national platform to create operating efficiencies and economies of scale.

     

    “The combination of Time Warner Cable and Comcast creates an exciting opportunity for our company, for our customers, and for our shareholders,” said Comcast’s Chairman and CEO Brian L Roberts. “Also, it is our intention to expand our buyback program by an additional $10 billion at the close of the transaction.

     

    The new cable company will generate multiple pro-consumer and pro-competitive benefits, including an accelerated deployment of existing and new innovative products and services for millions of customers.

     

    Comcast’s subscribers today have access to the most comprehensive video experience, including the cloud-based X1 Entertainment Operating System, plus 50,000 video on demand choices on television, 300,000 plus streaming choices on XfinityTV.com, Xfinity TV mobile apps that offer 35 live streaming channels plus the ability to download to watch offline later, and the newly launched X1 cloud DVR.

     

    Comcast is also a technology leader in broadband and has increased Internet speeds 12 times in the past 12 years across its entire footprint. Time Warner Cable owns cable systems located in key geographic areas, including New York City, Southern California, Texas, the Carolinas, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

     

    Time Warner Cable will combine its unique products and services with Comcast’s, including StartOver, which allows customers to restart a live program in progress to the beginning, and LookBack, which allows customers to watch programs up to three days after they air live, all without a DVR.

     

    Time Warner Cable also has been a leader in the deployment of community Wi-Fi, and will combine its more than 30,000 hotspots, primarily in Los Angeles and New York City, and its in-home management system, IntelligentHome, with Comcast’s offerings.

     

    The companies said the merger agreement between Comcast and Time Warner Cable is subject to shareholder approval at both companies and regulatory review and other customary conditions and is expected to close by the end of 2014.

     

    J.P. Morgan, Paul J. Taubman, and Barclays Plc acted as financial advisors to Comcast and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP are its legal advisors. Morgan Stanley, Allen & Company, Citigroup and Centerview Partners are financial advisors to Time Warner Cable and its Board of Directors, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP are legal advisors.

  • ABC to block DirecTV, TWC, Dish subscribers from watching TV series online

    ABC to block DirecTV, TWC, Dish subscribers from watching TV series online

    MUMBAI: The American broadcasting company, ABC, has announced that it will start restricting access to complete episodes of new TV shows to customers of pay TV providers that it has signed to TV Everywhere authentication deals.

     

    This means that subscribers from DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Dish Network will not be able to watch new episodes of “Modern Family,” “The Bachelor” and other ABC series on ABC.com in the week after their premiere. However, the subscribers from AT&T, Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Midcontinent and Verizon can continue watching new episodes on WatchABC.com or through the Watch ABC mobile video app the day after their premiere, according to a notice posted by ABC online in December 2013.

    The company will also stop offering free, ad-supported versions of new episodes through Hulu, but will allow premium Hulu Plus subscribers to watch new programs the day after their initial broadcast. At the cost of $2.99 per episode web surfers can download high-definition programs from Apple’s iTunes store or Amazon Instant Video.

     

    ABC isnt alone, in August 2011, Fox became the first major network to limit access to complete versions of new TV episodes to authenticated pay TV or Hulu Plus subscribers. Both Fox and ABC own equity stakes in Hulu.

  • FTC penalises Time Warner Cable $1.9 million for violating pricing rule

    FTC penalises Time Warner Cable $1.9 million for violating pricing rule

    MUMBAI: Time Warner Cable (TWC) has agreed to pay a $1.9 million civil penalty to settle the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges as it allegedly violated the risk-based pricing rule by failing to send notices to subscribers.

    TWC has been accused of demanding upfront payments or deposits from subscribers with negative credit reports, according to FTC. Under the rule, finalised in 2011, creditors have to notify the customers of higher charges that are based on less-than-favourable credit histories.

    “Beginning Jan. 1, 2011, through at least March 5, 2013, TWC failed to provide consumers who paid a deposit or other pre-payment with a notice, as set forth in the Risk-Based Pricing Rule, that the deposit requirement was imposed based on information in the consumer’s credit report,” assistant U.S. attorney Ellen Blain wrote in the complaint that was filed Thursday at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

    According to FTC, TWC, the second largest cable MSO in the US, is the first company to face charges after the pricing rule was amended in 2011.

  • Comcast, TWC likely to close acquisition deal

    Comcast, TWC likely to close acquisition deal

    MUMBAI: Time Warner Cable and Comcast Corp are likely to close an acquisition deal that could be worth $58 billion. It is learnt that the duo are in informal discussion for the same.

     

    Several pay TV operators have showed interest in acquiring Time Warner Cable. While so far it was Charter Communications that was eyeing the operator, now several media reports are hinting towards a possible acquisition by Comcast.

     

    Charter has been on the hunt for an acquisition, as John Malone, who controls 27 per cent in the company through Liberty Global, looks to bootstrap Charter’s growth. With 4.3 million subscribers, mergers and acquisitions has become an ongoing strategy for Charter. It should be noted that earlier in the year, Charter bought Optimum West from Cablevision for $1.6 billion.

     

    Media reports suggest that Comcast and Charter could, however, buy Time Warner Cable together, and divide its holdings, as they did with Adelphia Communications back in 2006. Comcast could take the New York City operation and gain a more valuable presence there, while Charter could gain dominance in LA.

     

    Consolidation in the cable industry is likely as MSOs look to gain enough size to have a card to play against content owners regarding programming costs considering that no media company could be economically viable if they lose 33 per cent of the country’s pay-TV subscribers.

     

    One way or another, TWC will likely be bought by someone. It lost 306,000 video subscribers in the third quarter after a month-long blackout of CBS and Showtime in a retransmission dispute.

     

    TWC currently has 11 million customers, and Comcast has 21 million; together, they would serve about a third of the nation’s pay-TV subscribers.

  • Close Charter launches TV streaming app

    Close Charter launches TV streaming app

    MUMBAI: Charter Communications launched its first mobile TV streaming app on Tuesday, offering a lineup of more than 100 live TV channels in the home, though the plan is to eventually allow authenticated customers to access live TV streams while they are on the go as well, Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said during Charter’s third quarter earnings call.

    Rutledge said the MSO anticipates that the new Charter TV app, offered first on Apple devices and coming later to the Android platform, will eventually add video-on-demand content to the mix and offer out-of-home access.

    Rutledge said: “Charter’s TV app is the beginning of a lot of things. It may ultimately be monetisable in ways that are different than we currently envision it.”

     “We may sell download-to-go services. We may sell video-on-demand everywhere. We may sell subscriptions everywhere,” he said. “But right now our primary business and our primary objective is to enhance our service offering and to make the total value of what we sell more valuable to the consumer.”

    Rutledge, who was a champion of Wi-Fi at Cablevision Systems, said Charter is drawing up a Wi-Fi plan of its own.

    “We think that Wi-Fi makes sense,” Rutledge said, noting that the MSO intends to start off by using dual SSIDs in Wi-Fi gear installed at commercial customer locations.

    “We want to start putting it out in our commercial customer base next year…While we don’t have a complete rollout plan yet, we’re working on beginning to deploy Wi-Fi at Charter,” Rutledge said.

    He did not mention if Charter has any plans to join the “Cable WiFi” roaming initiative that counts five members – Comcast, Bright House Networks, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and Cox Communications – that have collectively deployed more than 200,000 Wi-Fi hot spots, with more than 500,000 on the horizon.

  • Charter launches TV streaming app

    Charter launches TV streaming app

    MUMBAI: Charter Communications launched its first mobile TV streaming app on Tuesday, offering a lineup of more than 100 live TV channels in the home, though the plan is to eventually allow authenticated customers to access live TV streams while they are on the go as well, Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said during Charter’s third quarter earnings call.

    Rutledge said the MSO anticipates that the new Charter TV app, offered first on Apple devices and coming later to the Android platform, will eventually add video-on-demand content to the mix and offer out-of-home access.

    Rutledge said: “Charter’s TV app is the beginning of a lot of things. It may ultimately be monetisable in ways that are different than we currently envision it.”

     “We may sell download-to-go services. We may sell video-on-demand everywhere. We may sell subscriptions everywhere,” he said. “But right now our primary business and our primary objective is to enhance our service offering and to make the total value of what we sell more valuable to the consumer.”

    Rutledge, who was a champion of Wi-Fi at Cablevision Systems, said Charter is drawing up a Wi-Fi plan of its own.

    “We think that Wi-Fi makes sense,” Rutledge said, noting that the MSO intends to start off by using dual SSIDs in Wi-Fi gear installed at commercial customer locations.
    “We want to start putting it out in our commercial customer base next year…While we don’t have a complete rollout plan yet, we’re working on beginning to deploy Wi-Fi at Charter,” Rutledge said.

    He did not mention if Charter has any plans to join the “Cable WiFi” roaming initiative that counts five members – Comcast, Bright House Networks, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and Cox Communications – that have collectively deployed more than 200,000 Wi-Fi hot spots, with more than 500,000 on the horizon.

  • Apple TV gets Disney Channels app, Microsofts Xbox offers Time Warner Cable

    Apple TV gets Disney Channels app, Microsofts Xbox offers Time Warner Cable

    MUMBAI: Apple and Microsoft have added new channels to their streaming video devices that boost their available content. It’s a step forward for both gadgets but doesn’t break the a la carte wall just yet. Apple TV was upgraded to include apps for Disney channels – pay TV subscription required – Vevo and the Weather Channel, while Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console added a subscription-contingent Time Warner Cable app. The latter offers access to 300 TV channels including CNN, AMC and Comedy Central.
        

    Blair Westlake, corporate VP of Microsoft’s media and entertainment group, told the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog that his company had considered licensing channels directly from media companies to create a service similar to the kinds of online cable TV products planned by Intel and Sony. “We looked at it and said if we can deliver an app or apps like the one we are lighting up today” with Time Warner Cable, that’s “really what people expect.”