Outside Cable News

Via The Columbian
Comcast to add 11 HD channels on May 1

Comcast Corp., Clark County’s cable television provider, is adding 11 high-definition channels to its lineup and eliminating ShopNBC from its nondigital tier effective May 1.

The moves are part of an effort to serve the growing share of customers with HDTVs, the company says.

ShopNBC, channel 19, will still be available to digital subscribers. The HD channels Comcast is adding are: Discovery Channel (707), TLC (738), ABC Family (739), Disney Channel (741), Animal Planet (743), CNN (744), TBS (755), Sci Fi (759), Food Network (766), AMC (771) and Science (772).

The sports entertainment tier is also gaining a new channel, NHL Network on 418.

Details have been mailed to Comcast customers in their bills.

Via cnn.com/hln

NOT JUST ANOTHER CABLE NEWS SHOW
Premiering Saturday, April 5

This new series will take a lighthearted look back at famous – and infamous – stories that made the news, including some of the most unforgettable political blunders of our time. “Not Just Another Cable News Show” will air each Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m., with re-airs at 9 p.m. and midnight.

• Watch a preview of ‘Not Just Another Cable News Show’

>Earlier post about it.

Via The Standard
By Sebastian Nyamhangambiri
How Mugabe was beaten to the game with the SMS

It is a fact that Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF has lost the majority seats in Parliament. For the Zimbabwean president, the writing was there. Unfortunately for him, it was not on the wall. It was in technological space and maybe, age was not on his side.

Numerous short text messaging services (SMSs) did the rounds during and after the election, from Harare to newsrooms all over the world.

International media like BBC, Sky News and CNN were barred from covering the hotly contested election. But when the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) declared victory at a press conference, the figures were shown live on CNN.

A reporter was sending SMSs to CNN’s head office in Atlanta, US. BBC and CNN have carried live feeds of press conferences held in Zimbabwe despite being officially not in the country, thanks to technology.

Read the rest at The Standard.

Via CJR
By Megan Garber
Oops!
FNC’s chryon an Al-batross

Call it “Dewey Defeats Truman” for the age of twenty-four-hour cable. Amid all the hubbub about who, oh who, the Democrats’ Grand Poobah might endorse as the party’s nominee, the Fox News Channel jumped the gun just a bit yesterday afternoon:

Only…as the New York Daily News reported (hat tip, HuffPost), and as has been widely noted elsewhere, “Democratic icon Al Gore said he won’t step in as broker or peacemaker in the venomous nomination battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.”

So…scoop or blooper? Seems to be the latter. Somewhere, Dewey must be smiling.

>Screen shot available at CJR.

Via Multichannel News
By Linda Moss
Head To Head To Head Race
Obama, Clinton Contest Yields Greater Competition Among Cable’s News Networks

While the would-be presidential nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties bitterly battled during the primaries, the cable news networks were also slugging it out in the first quarter. Last week, the initial results came in.

Fox News Channel remained the king of all-news channels, enjoying a gain of 211,000 viewers in primetime, placing fifth among all cable networks in average total audience.

But CNN, the second-ranked news network, came out first in the key news demographic — adults 25 to 54 — for the first time since 2001. In addition, Anderson Cooper 360 for the first time won its 10 p.m. time slot in that same desirable demographic, another CNN coup.

But the network’s victories could be short-lived. An overriding question remains to be answered: Can CNN ride the coattails of widespread interest in 2008’s presidential campaign for the rest of the year, or will it only see a primary-season spike in viewership?

“I congratulate them on their bragging rights, but it’s really a question of what’s going to happen going forward,” said Katz Television Group vice president and director of programming Bill Carroll.
(more…)

Any thoughts on this one? As you might recall, Ftvlive, ICN, TVN reported she’d be on this weekend.

>Related: What Do You Think Of Megan Henderson?