December 31, 2007

360AM: Digital Converter Vouchers Ready

Feds Open For Digital Converter Business, Bloomberg for President, My Kingdom for a Writer, HD Tennis and other news.

By 360 Staff

Cable360AM — News briefing for Monday, Dec. 31 »

Select members of the Cable 360 newsroom are preparing a batch of their patented post-hangover elixir, just in case. Good morning.

Should college football and your New Year’s Day brunch fail to inspire, you can use the first day of the year to apply to the federal government for an application that will net you a $40 voucher good toward the price of a digital converter box, should you need it The hotline will be open for business beginning tomorrow, a spokesperson for the feds says. You can also apply online. Feb 17, 2009, will be here before you know it. [LA Times]

Bloomberg TV namesake NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) is moving closer to joining the crowded race for president, The NY Times says. [The NY Times]

Briefly Noted
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer received an email from Benazir Bhutto in late October saying she feared for her life, an AP story in The Hollywood Reporter says. The email was also critical of Pakistani President Musharraf. The message was sent to Mr Blitzer with one condition: he could report on it only if she were killed. [THR]

A trio of tributes: to Robert Adler, the man who invented the TV clicker, and to Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers, mainstays of GSN’s Matchgame franchies. All three passed away this year.  [The NY Times, Adler] [The NY Times, Reilly, Somers]

Among the faces that American audiences are likely to know better soon, The LA Times believes, are two appearing in HBO series: Mia Wasikowska, 18, who plays Sophie, a suicidal gymnast in the Box’s In Treatment (premieres Jan 28) and Felicia Pearson, 27, who grew up on the streets of Baltimore, spent time in jail, and landed a role as androgynous killer Snoop in The Wire. [The LA Times]  

Can late-night hosts (other than Craig Ferguson and David Letterman, whose production company crafted an interim agreement with The Writers Guild) be funny this week without the services of their writers? And which stars will cross picket lines to sit on late-night show couches? A smaller question: Will a physics professor get a late-night cameo? Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert return next Monday.  [The NY Times]

The Writers Strike is creating awkward encounters away from the picket lines, Brooks Barnes writes in The NY Times. Even going to synagogue can be tricky. [The NY Times]

The final season of HBO’s The Wire is available today at HBO On Demand. The Wall Street Journal looks at why the series, whose eps averaged just 1.6 million viewers per premiere last season—The Sopranos averaged nearly 9 million, is more central to HBO than in the past. [The WSJ] The Atlantic Monthly has a lengthy essay about David Simon, the former newspaper reported who created The Wire. [Atlantic]

Some people make resolutions for the New Year; others download new music. Cable channel fuse will help with the latter. Beginning Jan 2 it’s offering 12 Days of Downloads, providing legal downloads of music expected to be hot in ’08. The streams, plus tour dates and other material, will be at fuse.tv

Tennis Channel today formally moved its production and operations activity to a new, state-of-the-art facility near its LA headquarters. The move comes as the network launches its HD feed on DirecTV, also today. It anticipates more HD launches to come, a statement said. 

[Saturday's Update]

[Sunday's Update]

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