Canadians Un-Bundle for Approaching Cable Snap

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Canadian cable and satellite tv viewers may soon pick and choose which stations to watch without being saddled with bundles of stations of no interest to them, Reuters reports.

Industry Minister James Moore said Canada's Conservative government wants to unbundle tv channels to enable viewers to purchase the particular stations that they want to view. Some satellite and cable tv providers are taking the hint and already are touting "a la carte" pricing, the Reuters article noted.

Al Gore Sells to Al-Jazeera

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The financially-strapped, viewer-deprived Current TV cable network founded by former Vice President Al Gore this week announced it will be purchased by Al-Jazeera.

According to articles by NPR.org and The Huffington Post, the Qatari government-funded network plans to operate Al-Jazeera America from New York-based headquarters. The Arab-language news operation, based in Qatar, already offers Al-Jazeera English, which is available in Washington, D.C. and New York City, but scarcely accessible in the U.S.

Buoyed by its acquisition of Current TV, which reaches approximately 60 million homes through cable or satellite service, Al-Jazeera America plans to bolster its staff to 300 and open bureaus nationwide to join its current operations in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles, according to the NPR report.

Although Al-Jazeera English will provide some programming, more than half of the network's shows will be produced in the U.S. The transition, however, may not be as smooth as the Qatari news operation may have hoped. The Huffington Post reported today that Time Warner Cable ("TWC"), which has carried the ratings-starved Current TV to roughly 12 million homes, will not make Al-Jazeera America available to its subscribers. The TWC decision was condemned as politically motivated and an act of cowardice by the founding director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University.

However, according to a tweet by a New York Times reporter, Al-Jazeera America is likely to benefit from Current TV's arrangement with other carriers, including Comcast, DirecTV, Verizon, A T&T and Dish.

Hits Keep Coming to CNN Prime-Time Audience

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)The devoted staff of "TUOL" has dutifully tracked viewers' migration away from CNN's slate of evening programming over the years (see "TUOL" posts 5/3/12, 3/30/10, 12/17/09), but rock-bottom may have been reached by the cable giant as a New York Times article today reveals the network's prime-time ratings for the week ending May 14 were its lowest since September 1991.

CNN ("Collapsing Nobody Notices") drew on average only 395,000 prime-time viewers for the week in question. Not to pile on, but among the demographic group advertisers  crave--25 to 54 year olds--CNN yakker Piers Morgan could muster only 39,000 watchers.  A cat coughing up a fur ball on You Tube could draw that many viewers within 10 minutes, even without a British accent.

Martha Stewart and Hallmark Cable Venture in the Cards?

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Broadcasting & Cable reports that talks are underway between Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia("MSLO") and Crown Media Holdings-owner of Hallmark Channel and Halllmark Movie Channel--concerning a new joint venture cable tv lifestyle network.

Talks are in the nascent stage, so its difficult to predict whether the outcome will be a new mega-company owned by the two entities or a more modest new cable channel, tentatively named Hallmark Home. Beginning in September, Hallmark will air the Mark Burnett-produced "Martha Stewart Show," which previously was a syndicated program. This week saw the debut of Stewart programming running seven hours daily on Hallmark, which is a lot of doilies and potpourri for a 24-hour viewing cycle.

Both companies would just as soon forget 2009, as Crown Media had a net loss of $22.5 million, and MSLO a net loss of $14.5 million. "TUOL" wonders if the Hallmark Movie Channel will air the "chicks in chains" movies featuring Linda Blair as a tribute to Stewart's brief incarceration in 2004.