Programmers in the News

History: Get Ready for July 4th!

Americans conquer a new frontier: the modern city, with Carnegie's empire of steel as its backbone. Skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty are symbols of the American Dream for millions of immigrants. The discovery of oil is a boom to industry; Henry Ford puts America on the road. Look for America: The Story of Us on History.

ESPN and Univision help create record-breaking audience for soccer
With ESPN's marketing and an ABC audience -- along with Univision's Spanish-language pull -- the US-Ghana World Cup match attracted the biggest audience ever in the United States for men's soccer. ESPN said that overall ratings are nearly 50 percent higher for these games than the 2006 World Cup.

Stanley Cup ratings soared on VERSUS
VERSUS' coverage of the first two rounds of the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs was the most-watched first two rounds on cable on record...“Versus has provided a home for hockey, particularly in the playoffs,” said John Collins, the NHL’s chief operating officer. “Now you have the casual fan finding Versus.” Versus President Jamie Davis said "Our philosophy is to super-serve the fans and dive into fewer sports more deeply."

Disney Channel's Handy Manny Dons Milk Mustache For Ad Campaign
Handy Manny is sporting a mustache -- made out of leche. The star of Disney Channel's preschooler show will become the company's first animated character to appear in the long-running Got Milk? campaign, with an English version of the print ad appearing in parenting titles like Disney FamilyFun, since June 8.

Can cable win the Super Bowl?
Basketball isn't the only sport to discover the joys of cable. "If you ask someone under 40 about the difference between broadcast and cable, they're going to look at you like you're from a different planet," says John Wildhack, exec VP of programming and acquisitions at ESPN. "People now gravitate more toward a brand than a channel."

Texas Broadband Maps Released

Maps underscore that the broadband stimulus program has been ill conceived and poorly executed by the federal government.

TCA  issued a statement in connection with the recent release by Connected Nation and the Texas Department of Agriculture of maps that show broadband connectivity in Texas. The mapping is part of the $7.2 billion national broadband stimulus plan.

Key points from the release:

• As the largest provider of broadband services in Texas and the United States, the cable industry understands the tremendous economic and social advantages of broadband connectivity. However, TCA believes the Texas broadband availability map underscores that the broadband stimulus program has been ill conceived and poorly executed by the federal government.
• The map shows that less than 1 percent of all Texans cannot access some form of broadband, whether, wired, wireless or mobile. Yet – without this information – the federal government has already awarded more than $200 million in grants and loans to projects in Texas. Some of these projects propose to duplicate service in an area already served by multiple broadband providers.
  
• Taxpayer dollars – in the form of government grants – should not be used to duplicate services or to provide free capital that allows grant winners to gain market advantage over private companies that have invested millions of dollars of their own money to make broadband available. Read full release.

Texas Cable Association Celebrates 50 Years in 2010!
Today cable providers offer the most advanced television, phone and broadband technologies available.

TCA  was founded in the fall of 1960 to represent the cable industry in Texas.  While cable began as a way to bring television to homes in remote areas that were unable to receive conventional over-the-air broadcast signals - today Texas cable providers offer the most advanced television, phone and broadband technologies available.

For 50 years TCA  has provided its member companies with a single, unified voice on issues affecting the cable and telecommunications industry in Texas. TCA is proud of the role the cable industry has played in development of competition for video, high-speed Internet and telephone services in Texas. Stay tuned for events across the state commemorating this important anniversary.