Cable Channel

You say you can't get enough of college basketball on television? Try SportsChannel Philadelphia, whose recently expanded lineup will offer 157 games this season, including seven in one day on Jan. 30. This bonanza of basketball is mostly attributable to an affiliation agreement between SportsChannel Philadelphia and Prime SportsChannel Networks that began Nov. 1. Prime, which has 20 affiliates with almost 40 million subscribers, is supplying 104...

In a sudden about-face, the Lower Camden County Regional school board unanimously voted last night to become a full member of a new government and education cable channel that will serve Berlin Township, Clementon, Lindenwold and Pine Hill. The regional district allocated a one-time fee of $1,820 for equipment to run the channel. In doing so, the Lower Camden County panel joined the local school boards and governing bodies of the four towns, which have already given $1,300 each to get the project off the ground.

With the popularity of video games growing like a grade-schooler's Pokemon collection, it was only a matter of time before gamers got their own cable channel. Comcast Corp. announced yesterday that it would launch G4, a cable network devoted entirely to video games, along with an accompanying Web site, G4TV.com, in April. The channel initially will be available to seven million Comcast and Insight Communications cable-TV subscribers. Philadelphia-based Comcast, the principal investor in the project, said it could get the venture off the ground for less than $200 million if it could make the channel available to 20 million to 30 million cable subscribers.

NBC News and Comcast Corp. moved on Monday to fix brand confusion between the MSNBC 24-hour cable news show, whose ratings have surged with liberal commentators Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz, and the straight-news MSNBC.com news website. Comcast and NBC bought out Microsoft's 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million late last week. Readers logging on to MSNBC.com on Monday were redirected to NBCNews.com, a new website. NBC officials would not comment on the financial terms of buying out their 16-year partner in the venture.

Fox Sports Media Group, a division of News Corp., is elbowing into the national 24-hour cable sports arena with Fox Sports 1, which will debut Aug. 17. It had been one of the worst-kept secrets in the media business that Fox was planning a sports cable channel, as it acquired billions of dollars in TV sports rights over the last 16 months. The company officially disclosed the new channel at a New York media event Tuesday and said it would air NASCAR, Major League Baseball, college football and basketball, soccer, and Ultimate Fighting Championship events.

Okay, so the prizes weren't the much-coveted gold statuettes of a svelte Greek goddess holding aloft the world. These were but a chunk of Lucite with a plastic base. Okay, so the competition was different, too. Instead of best actor and actress in a television series, best comedy television series and so on, this competition was for best graphics, best interview, best sports coverage, best editing, best series, best student sports announcer, best news show, best news pack (or news spotlight)

The good news is that last night there was a civil, but lively, exchange among the four candidates for mayor, where real differences surfaced. The bad news is that it was on cable TV, Channel 66, and not even the A.C. Nielsen Co. knows if anybody was watching because cable TV is unrated. That said, Democratic Mayor Rendell and Republican Joe Rocks, a former state senator, Consumer Party candidate Lance Haver and Social Workers Party candidate Deborah Liaitos shared their views for an uninterrupted half-hour at the Mummers Museum.

BET is getting unreal. And it's the reality of the competitive television market that's forcing it. Since its launch in 1980, the African-American cable network of record has provided viewers with a broad palette of programming, including its flagship show, "Video Soul. " But this fall, the lineup is undergoing sweeping changes, the most significant of which is the replacement of "Video Soul" with "UnReal. " Instead of focusing on news and information programming, the network has decided to go after a narrower, younger audience.

To David Rostetter, the court-appointed overseer of Chester Upland's special education program, it was simply a matter of the public's right to know. That was why he considered it entirely proper to present a 43-minute report criticizing the district in a recent program on the Chester Upland educational-access cable channel. School board member Wanda J. Mann, however, thought it was an outrage for the district to be bashed on the informational station. She demanded that the segment be banished and replaced with more positive news.

The Township Committee is expected to sign a 15-year non-exclusive agreement with Garden State Cable TV when the township's 15-year contract with the Cherry Hill company expires at month's end. The agreement will allow the township to choose a different cable television provider, if one should become available to service the area. In addition, the agreement will require that Garden State Cable offer local Channel 18 to all households in Voorhees Township, according to the township solicitor, Howard Long.

Fox Sports Media Group, a division of News Corp., is elbowing into the national 24-hour cable sports arena with Fox Sports 1, which will debut Aug. 17. It had been one of the worst-kept secrets in the media business that Fox was planning a sports cable channel, as it acquired billions of dollars in TV sports rights over the last 16 months. The company officially disclosed the new channel at a New York media event Tuesday and said it would air NASCAR, Major League Baseball, college football and basketball, soccer, and Ultimate Fighting Championship events.

The rebranded NBC Sports Network is looking for sports fans. The National Hockey League lockout and a transition to new sports programming - after dropping UFC mixed-martial arts bouts and bull-riding - resulted in the Comcast Corp.-owned 24-hour sports network posting eight months of lower prime-time viewership in 2012. In December, its worst month, an average of 58,000 homes tuned in to the channel during prime time compared with 158,000 homes the previous year, according to Nielsen.

Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, and the Allentown Morning Call, as well as local TV stations including Channel 17 in Philadelphia and numerous cable and Internet properties, emerged from bankruptcy Monday. The move came four years after a doomed leveraged buyout by billionaire Sam Zell led to Chapter 11 proceedings. As part of its exit from bankruptcy, the Chicago-based company closed on a new $1.1 billion term loan and a $300 million revolving credit line.

Looking for new live sports for its 24-hour national sports channel, CBS Sports Network has reached a two-year rights deal with the Arena Football League. Terms were not disclosed, and the contract is much shorter than those for the NFL, Major League Baseball, and major college sports. The deal "satisfies the nation's hunger for football, especially in the spring," said Dan Weinberg, senior vice president of CBS Sports Network. Arena games, including those of the Philadelphia Soul, are played between March and July.

NBC News and Comcast Corp. moved on Monday to fix brand confusion between the MSNBC 24-hour cable news show, whose ratings have surged with liberal commentators Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz, and the straight-news MSNBC.com news website. Comcast and NBC bought out Microsoft's 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for a reported $300 million late last week. Readers logging on to MSNBC.com on Monday were redirected to NBCNews.com, a new website. NBC officials would not comment on the financial terms of buying out their 16-year partner in the venture.

Hey, Kardashians! Make room for the Jonas Brothers and Tim Tebow. E! Entertainment is getting a makeover. Since it launched more than two decades ago, the sassy, celebrity-obsessed cable channel has basked in the glow of Hollywood glitz. For the last five years, it has specialized in the high-profile exploits of Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, and their mom, Kris. Now the channel that once featured a reality show about tabloid train wreck Anna Nicole Smith is widening its lens and trying to leave its trashy elements behind.

"PARTY ROCKERS" is the latest in a long line of produced-in-Philly TV dance-party shows (many of which ultimately gained national distribution) dating to the earliest days of commercial broadcasting. Here's a look at some of the others that are part of the local (and in many cases, national) pop-culture fabric: "Bandstand" The granddaddy of all TV dance-fests was inspired by the popular afterschool radio show hosted by WPEN-AM disc jockeys Joe Grady and Ed Hurst. It debuted on what was then WFIL-TV (Channel 6)

It's a long and twisty trail that leads from Alexander the Great to Larry the Cable Guy, but the History Channel would gladly travel it again. The cable outlet launched on New Year's Day in 1995 with lofty aspirations befitting its name. It offered a library of documentaries about everything from the Precambrian Era to the Crusades to the Korean War. Ladies and gentlemen, we have discovered the cure for insomnia. The subject matter was too dry for TV's heightened narrative style.

It's showtime for the new head of NBC Sports, Mark Lazarus, and programming executive Jon Miller on the 15th floor in Rockefeller Center. After Monday's televised Winter Classic - the Rangers-vs.-Flyers NHL game at Citizens Bank Park - the also-ran Versus 24-hour sports channel that never lived up to its ratings expectations under Comcast Corp.'s ownership will be rebooted as the around-the-clock cable outlet NBC Sports Network. A national sports channel was one of the economic justifications for the $30 billion marriage of Comcast and NBC Universal Inc. in 2010, which combined the cable distribution power of Comcast, whose cable lines pass about 50 million homes, with the artistry and sports legacy of NBC-TV.

U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be able to celebrate a special Christmas Eve Mass courtesy of a sympathetic bishop, a South Jersey church, and a Philadelphia television station. A unit of a soldiers based in an isolated area of Afghanistan was without a military chaplain. Parishioners of St. Andrew the Apostle Church in Gibbsboro, which had already "adopted" the unit, asked NBC10 whether the station might simulcast the Mass, a station spokesman said. One problem: The earliest a Christmas Eve Mass can be celebrated in a Roman Catholic church is 4 p.m. But the time in Afghanistan is 91/2 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.