Icahn: Netflix Sale Has 'Crossed Our Minds'

Welcome to today's broadband and cable news roundup.

A sale of Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) is among the strategies that have "crossed our minds," billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn told Bloomberg TV soon after word spread that he had taken a 10 percent stake in the video streaming and DVD rental giant. He said the over-the-top video market is getting crowded and he expects to see some consolidation, identifying Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) among potential suitors. "We don't have any definite plans or proposals, but I think it's almost obvious that there should be consolidation," Icahn said. (See Icahn Nabs 10% of Netflix .)

He also thinks "nobody has a better platform than Netflix" to take advantage of a trend that is seeing consumers view more and more video via Internet-connected TVs, tablets and smartphones. Icahn believes Netflix should place less emphasis on older library content and spend a lot more developing original programming to help it compete with premium subscription services such as HBO. For more, check out the interview below:

Cable outages in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy had fallen "well under" 20 percent as of Wednesday morning, Broadcasting & Cable reported, citing David Turetsky, chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. The day before, the FCC said the average was about 25 percent. (See Service Providers Assess Sandy's Impact .)

Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) said recovery efforts underway following the storm has caused it to reschedule its third-quarter earnings call to Tuesday, Nov. 6 at 11 a.m.

Online video publisher Brightcove Inc. posted a third-quarter net loss of $600,000 (2 cents per share) on revenues of $22.1 million, up 32 percent from the year-ago quarter. Brightcove ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $30.8 million, down from $58.6 million in the previous quarter due primarily to its $27.2 million acquisition of Zencoder, a cloud-based video encoding service. (See Brightcove Raises $55M in Nasdaq Debut .)

The Denver-based The Cable Center has expanded its board by three with the appointments of: Cox Communications Inc. SVP of Customer Experience Paul Cronin; CableLabs President and CEO Phil McKinney and newly named Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) Regional VP, Mountain Region, Kyle McSlarrow. They'll serve three-year terms. (See McSlarrow Takes Over Comcast's Mountain Region and Ex-HP CTO Named CableLabs CEO.)

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable