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from: Rocky Mountain News

Qwest's push for cable-TV bill gets an ally

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Thursday, December 6, 2007

Qwest is taking another stab at statewide cable-TV franchise legislation, this time with a key Democrat in its corner.

from: WPLN News

Tuesday, December 04th, 2007
AT&T Struggles to Get Message Out

The largest communications company in the world is having trouble airing ads on Tennessee’s local cable channels.

A-T-and-T’s Tennessee president Gregg Morton says the company has been trying to air informative ads about its desire to ink a statewide franchise agreement to provide cable TV services. That would take a change in current state law that now requires cable companies to negotiate individual contracts with cities and counties.

Note: Missing from this fluff press release is the fact that Verizon is raising cable TV rates 11.5% this year, on top of a 7.5% increase last year - far greater than the increases of competing cable companies. The promise of lower rates that originally led to the Florida state video franchise, simply aren't happening.

from: CNN Money

from: Nashville Post

AT&T Round 3: Franchise reform gets new House leader

By Milt Capps
12-04-2007 10:19 AM

UPDATED 6:15 P.M. - Sen. Bill Ketron confirmed by mid-afternoon he will be carrying the franchise bill in the Senate, in 2008.

As originally reported:

Note: TV4US is an astroturf organization paid for by the telephone companies. What they fail to mention in this press release is that Verizon just announced a 11.5% rate increase on their cable TV services (on top of a 7.5% increase earlier in 2007). There is currently no evidence in any state that competition in cable TV services has resulted in lower prices. In Tennessee, AT&T is currently trying to ram through a state video franchise for the second time.

from: KnoxNews

AT&T statewide cable franchise round 2: KNS already in their pocket

Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2007/12/03 - 9:31am.

The AT&T statewide cable franchise bill is headed back to the Tennessee legislature. Not surprisingly, the Knoxville News Sentinel has once again taken the pro-big business, anti-consumer anti-local government position and endorsed it (see below).

from: Monroe Times

Local TV could go dark
Published Monday, December 3, 2007 11:28:56 AM Central Time

By Jim Winter

newseditor@
themonroetimes.com

MONROE -- Earlier this month, the state Senate passed a cable competition bill. The Assembly passed the bill before that.

Once the legislature comes up with a unified bill, Gov. Jim Doyle will have to sign it into law. He generally supports the bill.

from: Times Herald

Comcast wrong to fiddle with public access

State law harms communities' ability to watch local government

Just when television broadcasts of the new Port Huron City Council's sessions promised to be interesting, Comcast soon will make them more difficult - and eventually more costly - to see.

from: Times Herald

Comcast stations to shut down
Municipalities are left scrambling to produce broadcasts

By SHANNON MURPHY
Times Herald

Local municipalities, such as Port Huron and Marysville, have been scrambling this week to make sure their city council meetings still will be broadcast on public access channels next year.

from: Hartford Business

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
AT&T Got Special Favor

12/03/07

To The Editor:

I take this opportunity as the state’s Consumer Counsel to address several inaccuracies in a letter to the editor filed on Nov. 12, 2007 by AT&T’s president in response to an editorial in the Journal (“Scrambled Signals,” October 29, 2007). This is a situation in which AT&T’s cries about fairness ring false: the loser here will be the state’s video services consumers and indeed the market for those services itself. AT&T has spent millions of dollars in a campaign around the country selling legislatures and regulators on the magic that could result from freeing it from regulation, without mentioning that where this one company “wins,” consumers and its competitors must necessarily lose.