Shaw Challenges Netflix

Here's the cable news roundup, T.G.I.F. edition.

Canadian MSO Shaw Communications Inc. is launching an online movie service that the Canadian MSO hopes will rival Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX). (See Netflix Canada Cuts Video Streaming Quality.)

Tier 2 cable op Midcontinent Communications (Midco) joined the 100-Meg club with a Docsis 3.0 tier that's available to about 250,000 subs in the upper Midwestern U.S. The tier matches its 100Mbit/s downstream with a 15Mbit/s upstream link. (See Midco Picks Ubee for Wideband Modems, MidContinent Buys SMC's D3 Gateways and Harmonic Gets Piece of Midcon's D3 Deployment.)

West Virginia is scaling back plans to expand its broadband infrastructure, and won't spend all of the US$126 million in federal stimulus grants it received last year. The state is giving some of the stimulus funds to Frontier Communications Corp. (NYSE: FTR) to extend its fiber optic network to local libraries and other public facilities. (See FCC: 'Broadband' Is Scarce and Policy Watch: Drafting a Broadband Plan .)

Music Choice is one of the first cable programmers to use QR codes to enable interactive TV programming. Viewers watching the video for rapper Big Sean's "Almost Wrote You a Love Song" will be able to scan a QR code displayed on their TV screens to get get a free copy of the song.

BlackBerry may be building a BlackBerry-based media set-top that some industry observers describe as a rival to Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s Apple TV box.

Two Ohio doctors weren't able to get Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) to bury a cable in their yards and fix cable TV and Internet connection issues until they got their local ABC affiliate to run a story about their complaints. (See Pay-TV Firms Flood List of Most Hated Companies.)

The last Harry Potter flick is going to help out the bottom line at Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), and it has nothing to do with the MSO's video-on-demand service. Fandango, a Comcast-owned site that lets people buy movie tickets, said sales for the midnight showings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 shattered records, outdoing previous big sellers such as The Dark Knight and New Moon.

— Steve Donohue, Special to Light Reading Cable, and Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable