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Diller Braces for Battle With Broadcasters

March 12, 2012 | Jeff Baumgartner |

Here's a look at what's pushing cable's buttons this morning.

  • Aereo Inc.'s famous backer Barry Diller spouted some fightin' talk as the startup prepares for broadcaster-led lawsuits against a new service that uses special, thumb-sized antennas to take in over-the-air TV signals and ship them to customers via broadband. "It's going to be a great fight," Diller said Sunday at the SXSW confab in Austin. He says Aereo will talk about paying fees to broadcasters when they can "get Radio Shack to pay you some slice of their profit when they sell an aerial." Aereo's US$12 per month service, which also includes a network DVR component, is set to debut Thursday in New York City. (See Diller's Aereo Under Legal Attack and Aereo Makes Cord-Cutting Bid in NYC.)

  • Former SeaChange International Inc. President Yvette Kanouff is to become EVP of Cablevision Systems Corp.'s technology group, and will start there this week, reports Multichannel News. Kanouff left SeaChange last month, and going to an MSO is among her viable near-term options. Her departure from SeaChange, a video software specialist that counts Cablevision as a long-time customer, included a one-year non-compete clause. (See Now SeaChange Loses Its President.)

  • Entropic Communications Inc. got a step closer to acquiring the set-top box chip assets of Trident Microsystems Inc. on Friday (March 9) when the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware approved the deal. Entropic expects to close the deal before the end of March. (See Entropic Takes $55M Stab at Trident and Entropic Sweetens Pot to Win Trident .)

  • DirecTV Group Inc. has plans to launch its own over-the-top video streaming service as a customer retention tool, though it's not expected to be as big as Comcast Corp.'s new Streampix subscription offering, says Forbes. (See Comcast Goes OTT to Target Netflix, Hulu Plus .)

  • Charter Communications Inc. has launched a national "All In" customer guarantee program that includes a 30-day money-back guarantee for new customers, and a $20 credit if the MSO is late for a scheduled appointment window, doesn't complete the service call on the first visit, or if a customer's service is out for more than 24 hours.

  • ZiXi LLC, a startup that's developed a low-latency video-over-the-Internet platform, has tapped Dennis Albano as CEO. Albano is the former CEO of digital media software firm Signiant Inc.

    — Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable



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