time warner

Don't expect Time Warner content on the Apple TV anytime soon.

Speaking at the Royal Television Conference in London this week, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that 99-cent rentals of his company's television shows makes no sense as far as the bottom line goes.

"How can you justify renting your first-run TV shows individually for 99 cents an episode," Bewkes said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. He added that doing so could "jeopardize the sale of the same shows as a series to branded networks that pay hundreds of millions of dollars and make … Read more

Netflix finally knocked off Blockbuster yesterday. Leaders of pay TV services might be wise to start doing the business equivalent of digging foxholes and manning the battlements, or the same thing could happen to them.

There's a growing body of evidence that pay TV services--that is, cable, broadband, and telephone companies that offer films and TV shows--are ripe for a smackdown. Talk of cord-cutters is all over business news and the momentum in home-video distribution appears to be with companies that do it over the Web, such as Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, and the upcoming Google TV.

Skeptics say … Read more

Welcome to another week of The 404 Podcast! We're running through several stories on today's episode, including OnStar reading you Facebook updates in the car, Cablevision and Time Warner teaming up to offer "free" public Wi-Fi in NYC parks, carrier pigeons beating the Internet, Americans increasingly distracted by the Internet, a useless product appropriately called the "Textee," and a nerdy new Tumblr that looks at how the Internet and hacking culture are portrayed in film!

Our first story in the rundown is a shameless plug for AccessMainComputerFile, a new blog that pokes fun at images of hacker culture and embellished UI in popular movies like "Independence Day," "Richie Rich," "Terminator 2," and more. Submissions are also welcome, so send over your YouTube links!

Facebook is already a ubiquitous part of daily Interlife, but now OnStar is testing a service that connects your car to the social network as well. The system uses voice recognition and even interprets Web-slang like LOL as "laughing out loud," and drivers can also record audio as status updates without taking their hands off the wheel.

Additionally, if you have an Android-powered phone with Bluetooth, OnStar can receive your text messages and translate them to audio and from there, you can use voice commands to send a reply (like "yes" or "can't talk--driving"). OnStar hopes to have an similar app available for the iPhone soon, but in the meantime iPhone users can download OnStar's MyLink App that shows you service information, tire pressure, and even offers the capability to lock your doors remotely from anywhere in the world.

New York's two main cable providers are teaming up to offer free wireless Internet in select New York City public parks. Before you head out, though, we should mention that Time Warner and Cablevision promise only three free 10-minute sessions per month; after that, you'll be charged $0.99 a day to get on the network. It sounds like a classic bait-and-switch scenario, and we can't see people jumping to pay for public Internet when truly free wireless access is already available in thousands of hot spots around the city.

Everyone complains about sluggish Internet, but a CTO of a U.K. ISP put his own pathetic broadband speeds to the test...against a carrier pigeon. The only thing more bizarre than the test setup is the result: the pigeons were able to deliver the 100MB of video by MicroSD Card faster than it took to upload the clip to YouTube. The stunt is a half-joke, but it makes a good point about the necessity for Net neutrality.

No voice-mails today, so it's up to you to call us up at 1-866-404-CNET and help out the show! You can also hit us up on Twitter or just e-mail us at the404(at)cnet(dot)com!

A group of senators want to hand the U.S. Department of Justice the power to shut down Web sites dedicated to the illegal sharing online of film, music, software, and other intellectual property.

"The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act will give the Department of Justice an expedited process for cracking down on these rogue Web sites regardless of whether the Web site's owner is located inside or outside of the United States," according to a statement from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and committee member Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah).

Under … Read more

commentary To wannabe cord cutters out there: the cable industry says you don't exist, but count some Wall Street analysts as believers.

Reuters reported yesterday that top media and cable company stocks dipped after Credit Suisse downgraded shares of Disney, Viacom, News Corp., and Time Warner.

Credit Suisse anticipates that more young Americans will elect to drop their cable TV provider and replace it with one of the services that delivers video over the Web, such as Netflix, Apple TV, and the upcoming Google TV. That will prompt the cable companies to reduce their fees to TV networks and … Read more

In the second quarter of 2010 paid TV subscriptions fell for the first time ever, with cable taking the biggest hit, according to the research firm SNL Kagan.

A weak U.S. economy is the main reason the firm cited for the dip in subscriptions, as more consumers look for ways to cut down on monthly expenses. Last year's digital TV conversion may have also played a role in lower growth rates with some people canceling service after promotions on new digital TV packages ran out, the firm said.

The entire paid TV industry, which includes cable, satellite, and … Read more

Time Warner Cable is developing an iPad app that will let customers watch current programming, among other offerings.

The app, which has yet to be named or given a release date, was demoed in a YouTube video by Time Warner Cable Vice President of Web Services, Jason Gaedtke. When it's opened, the app delivers current programming for users to view in their area. They can see all the shows on now, or flip through the TV listings to see when other shows are on later.

According to Gaedtke, Time Warner Cable wants to achieve two basic goals with the … Read more

Nobody epitomized the AOL of the late 1990s better than David Colburn, the foul-mouthed, bully-boy deal maker who oversaw the company's ad empire. Soon after AOL acquired Time Warner--a deal that was presented to the public as a merger, creating a company with a market cap of $350 billion--a Time Warner executive scolded Colburn for being disrespectful.

"You talk like you're buying us," said the Time Warner exec. Legend has it that Colburn fired back: "We are, you putz!"

Colburn's underlings had T-shirts made with his statement emblazoned on the chest. In … Read more

Producers of "The Hurt Locker" have asked a federal court to order Internet service providers to reveal the names of customers who they accuse of illegally sharing copies of the film via the Web.

Voltage Pictures, the company that produced the Oscar-winning movie, filed a 23-page document on Monday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Included in the filing were the Internet protocol addresses belonging to some of the people accused of pirating the movie. The production company said that it will file more IP addresses with the court in the future. (A … Read more