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RICHARD COLE
Each time Time Warner Cable adds a new local news channel, its broadband Web takes on increased importance, company officials say.
Broadband will allow viewers of Time Warner Cable's two new 24-hour news channels in North Carolina to build their own newscasts, a feature similar to one available now from the operator's New York 1 News Internet site.
"Before, we added these sites onto existing properties, but in North Carolina we're going to build news organizations in Raleigh and Charlotte from the ground up to be both TV- and Web-centric from day one," says Kirk Varner, VP-news service for Time Warner Cable.
The MSO also operates all-news channels in Tampa Bay and Orlando, Fla., as well as Rochester, N.Y., and Austin, Texas, and is planning to launch channels in Houston and San Antonio, Texas, in partnership with broadcaster Belo.
The company has yet to decide the mix of content on the North Carolina sites, which, along with the channels themselves, are slated to be up and running by the end of 2001.
Varner points to the Tampa Bay channel as an example of what the sites can do. During a recent hurricane threat, he says, the Web site directed users to storm maps and evacuation routes.
The North Carolina broadband sites are intended to give users the tools to create their own news channels.
"Each of our segments will be digitized to a Web server and streamed out onto the site," Varner says. "People can say, `I want to see just the weather and these headlines; play them for me on my desktop.'"
In the Tampa Bay area, office workers frequently run the channel's audio stream on their computers as a de facto all-news radio station, he adds.
Running the Web site isn't as expensive as it might seem. The cable channel's all-digital format makes it simple to move video onto the Web server, and reporters will be trained to write stories in a format that can be moved onto the site with minimal changes.
Varner says each Web site should require only two or three extra employees to operate.
GIANTS BACK NEW VENTURE In a direct challenge to cable operators, Disney, GE Capital and Intel are among a number of giants backing a company that says it can help TV stations broadcast high-speed data over existing analog signals. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Dotcast, which plans a trial with PBS next year, received a total of $80M in new financing. One drawback - the signal is one-way, meaning users still need a cable or phone connection to send information to the Web.
CISCO DOES CONTENT Cisco has seen the future, and it's in entertainment content delivery. President/CEO John Chambers says voice and data transport will soon be commoditized, but people will pay for entertainment. So the data networking company is trying to convince service providers they should manage content networks, and, naturally, use Cisco products.
HBO OFFERS DIGITAL PREVIEW HBO is enticing analog subscribers to move up to digital cable with CD-ROM direct mail packages that give them a programming "e-preview." AT&T is testing the package with a shipment to analog, non-HBO subscribers in the San Francisco and Pacific Northwest areas. The CD allows the consumer to sample HBO and digital services, including clips, and the network's multiplex channels.
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