Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill, recently passed by the Republican controlled state legislature, that the governor promotes as a way to stop Big Tech from censoring his citizens.

Republicans have argued that Silicon Valley giants have attempted to suppress conservative speech in the guise of moderating their platforms and under the protection of Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which exempts them with civil liability over most of that third party content.

The bill's language makes that clear, saying: "Social media platforms have unfairly censored, shadow banned, deplatformed, and applied post-prioritization algorithms to Floridians." The bill presumes that doing so is not acting in bad faith, which means it is legally actionable, and the governor signaled the state's attorney general would act if that were the case.

Also Read: Rep. Cicciline Says Big Tech Power Will Be Curbed

Florida Senate bill 7072 removes that civil liability protection for Big Tech platforms--like Facebook or Twitter--that violate the law, including allowing for for monetary damages up to $250,000 per day for deplatforming political candidates for statewide office, and $25,000 for non-statewide offices.

De Santis said the bill was a way to require transparency to prevent "Big Tech bureaucrats from “moving the goalposts” to silence viewpoints they don’t like."

Also Read: Mark Zuckerberg: Sec. 230 Shield Should Be Tied to Misinformation Mitigation Regime

In addition to monetary penalties, the bill would prevent violators of antitrust law, which the Florida attorney general can pursue under Florida's Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, from contracting with any public entity, a "blacklist" DeSantis' office said would create "real consequences" for Big Tech oligopolies.

Legislators in Washington have been wrestling with what to do about Sec. 230 and their issues with how Big Tech is moderating content. Democrats, on the one hand, argue that they are not doing enough to deplatform hateful speakers, while Republicans argue they use that power as cover to deplatform conservative speakers whose politics they disagree with.

Also Read: Dems Urge Facebook to Provide Retroactive Disinformation Corrections

So, that while both sides have issues with the Sec. 230 liability protection, what to do about it remains a big question mark. Florida, by contrast, has come up with a big exclamation mark in the form of this bill.

BET’s debut of two original series from prolific producer/creator Tyler Perry heads up the list of new programming hitting TV screens this week.

Perry’s Oct. 23 premiere of dramas The Oval and Sistas are part of the African-American-targeted network’s multi-year production deal with the director. 

Below are video trailers and premiere dates for several shows debuting this week on cable networks and streaming services (for some videos, viewer discretion is advised):

Oct. 21 -- Catherine the Great (miniseries) -- HBO

Oct. 21 -- Rock the Block (reality competition series) -- HGTV

Oct. 22 -- The Misery Index (game show) -- TBS

Oct. 23 -- Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner (reality series) -- Netflix

Oct. 23 -- Castle Rock (returning series) -- Hulu

Oct. 23 -- The Cry (miniseries) -- SundanceTV

Oct. 23 -- Dancing with the Birds (documentary) -- Netflix

Oct. 24 -- Daybreak (drama/horror) -- Netflix

Oct. 25 -- BoJack Horseman (animation) -- Netflix

Oct. 25 -- The Kominsky Method (returning series) -- Netflix

Oct. 27 -- Mrs. Fletcher (miniseries) -- HBO

Oct. 27 -- Silicon Valley (returning series) -- HBO

House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) has rescheduled a hearing on diversity and inclusion in tech, more to the point as far as they are concerned, the notable lack of it.

The new date for the hearing, “Inclusion in Tech: How Diversity Benefits All Americans," is Wednesday, March 6, at 10:30 a.m.Initially it had been scheduled for Feb. 14, but was postponed for the funeral of the late committee chairman, John Dingell (D-Mich.).

Silicon Valley has long been under scrutiny over the dearth of various minority populations in its workforce and the impact of its algorithms on those populations.

“People of color, women, and older Americans are largely absent from the workforce of American technology companies,” said Pallone and Schakowsky in a joint statement. “Tools like algorithms are being used to make decisions, like who gets a job or a loan, that deeply affect people’s lives. Yet designers of these technologies often don’t take into consideration the full diversity of America. As a result, their products often have biased results that lead to discriminatory outcomes. We look forward to exploring the effects of these biases and need for inclusion in the sector’s workforce.”

While construction is not yet complete on Comcast’s $1.5 billion, 60-story Technology Center in Philadelphia, the company has already began moving employees into the building and has begun giving tours to local press.

As detailed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which walked through the building with new tenant Brian Roberts—the Comcast chief executive owns a penthouse condo—Comcast has already relocated 1,000 of its employees into the new high rise, the highest in the city. Comcast expects to have around 4,000 employees working in the building by December.

Related: New Comcast Tech Tower Running Up to $67M Over Budget

Like many big construction projects, there were hiccups—MCN reported in April that the project was behind schedule and $67 million over budget, for example.

But Roberts sees the building as a kind of Silicon Valley oasis in the heart of Philly.

"A lot of the heart and soul [of Comcast] is in this building, in this town," said Roberts, leading local reporters through an hour long tour. "No one has tried to build a technology center in the heart of an East Coast city," he added.

Comcast began work on the building back in 2014, commissioning UK architect Norman Foster, who also designed Apple Inc.'s new Silicon Valley headquarters. 

HBO comedy Silicon Valley will returns for its fifth season on Mar. 25, the network said.

Related: HBO Renews 'Veep,' 'Silicon Valley'

Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky created the show, which takes a humorous look at the epicenter of the high-tech gold rush, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success.

The season five cast includes Thomas Middleditch, Zach Woods, Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, Josh Brener, Amanda Crew, Matt Ross, Suzanne Cryer and Jimmy O. Yang.

MCN Flashback: Judge Says Accuracy Aids 'Silicon Valley'

Judge, Alec Berg, Clay Tarver, Michael Rotenberg, Tom Lassally, Jamie Babbit and Jim Kleverweis are Silicon Valley executive producers.

The premiere of Showtime’s new Twin Peaks series drew 506,000 million viewers on its linear channel, an audience that paled in comparison with other premium cable shows' performances Sunday (May 21)

For example, on HBO during the same time period (9-11 p.m. ET), The Leftovers drew 770,000 viewers at 9 p.m., while Silicon Valley at 10 p.m. had 844,000.

Related: Serving Up the ‘Twin Peaks’ Premiere … And a Slice of Cherry Pie [subscription required]

The premiere of the original Twin Peaks in 1990 had 35 million viewers, but that was a vastly different era for television.

Showtime is airing 18 episodes of the new Twin Peaks, with show co-creator David Lynch directing all of them.

Video: The 'Twin Peaks' Trailer

The network said the show generated a record number of signups for its direct-to-consumer streaming service for the single biggest day and weekend in its history in terms of signups; Showtime did not provide the number of signups.

“In the world that we live in now, offering original programming that attracts new subscribers is our primary business objective,” said David Nevins, president and CEO, Showtime Networks. “By that standard, the Twin Peaks premiere is the biggest single-night driver we’ve ever had.”

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

FCC chair Ajit Pai said Thursday (April 20) that he met with Facebook, Cisco, Oracle, Intel in Silicon Valley this week to talk about an open internet and consumer protections.

Pai was responding to questions in a post-FCC meeting press conference Thursday (April 20).

He said the conversation was not about any pending proceeding, but outside of that context he was soliciting input on how to "Secure online consumer protections."

He said that he has been consistent in saying that he favors a free and open Internet and opposes Title II.

According to sources he has talked with telecom trade groups about what to do next on network neutrality, including possibly have the Federal Trade Commission enforce voluntary commitments not to block or degrade, but he signaled at the press conference that that was part of the same input-collection process generally and not about any pending proceeding.

A reporter had noted that there had been no ex parte filing on that meeting, which would be required if it had dealt with a proceeding currently before the commission.

Pai said he did not outline a regulatory plan for rolling back Title II in that trade group meeting. "We did not discuss the merits of any pending proceeding," he said, but, again, generally how to "secure some of those principles of a free and open Internet that I think most people agree on."

Pai said he was "reaching out and trying to solicit a diversity of views among a diversity of stakeholders" and that he thought for their part they recognized, as he did, that "there is a lot of common ground here with respect to the need for a free and open Internet."

Silicon Valley giant Oracle has asked new FCC chairman Ajit Pai to rethink the FCC's broadband privacy framework, saying former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's characterization of ISPs as gatekeepers was off the mark and to "repudiate" what called the Wheeler FCC's policies "favoring one technology sub-sector over all others."

That came in a letter to Pai this week asking the FCC not only to rethink the broadband privacy rules but to reclassify Internet access as an information service to "eliminate unnecessary burdens on, and competitive imbalances for, ISPs while still preserving the free and open Internet."

The commission is currently collecting comments on a petition by ISPs, advertisers and others to rethink the broadband privacy rules, passed by a politically divided FCC last October with Pai and fellow Republican Michael O’Rielly dissenting.

The company praised Pai for the FCC's vote to stay implementation of the data privacy portion of the broadband privacy rules as well.

Reversing the Title II telecom classification would essentially moot the broadband privacy rules, which stemmed from Title II. That is unless the privacy rules are invalidated by congressional Republicans.

Oracle said ISPs are now subject to dozens of rules to which "others in the online ecosystem," which would be the online content providers like Google and Facebook, are not.

Oracle said it was looking for some "regulatory neutrality."

The company also asked the FCC to close the set-top box proceeding, which Wheeler failed to push through after Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel had some issues with the FCC's oversight role over contracts. The company attributed that effort to the Wheeler FCC's "ill-advised interventionist instinct."

"The Wheeler FCC pushed an item that would have fundamentally altered MVPD market dynamics and seemingly handed one company the keys to the MVPD kingdom [it did not say "Google," but that was the reference], including incredibly valuable data regarding MVPD customers."

The docket remains open, though odds for approving the revamp in a Republican-led FCC are slim to none. " Adopting a technology mandate to force 'competitive'  set-top boxes in 2017 feels a lot like mandating automakers to install 8-track cassette players in 2017," the company told Pai.

Oracle encouraged Pai to work with the Federal Trade Commission to level the competitive playing field, an instance of preaching to the choir since Pai has already teamed up with acting FTC Chair Maureen Ohlhausen to promise to do just that.

HBO gave Game Of Thrones fans an early gift by greenlighting a seventh season of the fantasy series days before its sixth season premiere on Sunday.

Game Of Thrones, which is coming off a record-setting 2015 Emmy Awards performance in which the series won 12 statuettes including best drama series, will return in 2017, but network officials would not say how many episodes will be developed for its seventh season.

The tech-based dramedy series Silicon Valley will return for a fourth season in 2017, while the sixth season of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus-starrer Veep will also return next year, according to HBO. Both series will return for new sesaons this Sunday. 

Cable history buffs will turn directly to Chapter 9, titled "A Matter of Trust," the longest chapter in Steve Case's book The Third Wave,hoping for some insights into the $163 billion merger of Time Warner into Case's America Online in 2000. They'll know that the deal quickly foundered, costing chairman/CEO Jerry Levin his job, vice chair Ted Turner (Time Warner's largest shareholder at that time) billions of dollars in lost value; and even giving Case a quick shove to the exit.

Case insists that the book, published this week, is not a memoir, but rather an upbeat guide to entrepreneurial opportunities. He quickly acknowledges that his book deliberately has the identical title as Alvin Toffler's landmark 1980 "Third Wave," which influenced Case's career goals when he graduated from college that year. And he delivers plenty of advice and ideas about launching a business, many of them appropriate to telecom and tech start-ups in cable-related ventures, such as the Internet of Things and tele-health.

Whereas Toffler's Information Age "wave" followed the centuries-long Agricultural and Industrial eras, Case's short chronology starts with "Building the Internet" (1985-1999, although he cites  earlier tech precursors) the "App Economy and Mobile Revolution" (2000-2015) and the upcoming "Internet of Everything." Interspersed with frequent - but not very deep - career disclosures, Case offers valuable tips about business-building in the new era, such as "the three P's": partnerships, policy and perseverance.    

To augment such useful tutorials, the book is laced with personal and some juicy remembrances of his youthful flings with cable and early online ventures.  The little-told story about efforts to persuade John Malone of Telecommunications Inc. to invest in AOL in the early '90s typically demonstrates Case's determination.  AOL wanted both money and a future broadband alternative to its dial-up system.  According to Case, Paul Allen was on the verge of becoming a 20% owner of AOL stock, and Microsoft was threatening with its impending Microsoft Network (MSN).   Case says he made a sweetheart offer to Malone, who was also being courted by Microsoft's Bill Gates to embrace MSN.

Ultimately, Malone ignored AOL and also walked away from MSN. Case says that much later Malone said he regretted missing out on the 20-fold AOL stock appreciation during the dot-com bonanza.

As for the stealthy Time Warner deal, there are few revelations.  Case acknowledges that with its cash trove and market valuation in late 1999, AOL scouted many acquisition possibilities, including Disney, AT&T (again for its broadband), Electronic Arts (for its games) and eBay.  In one of the few "juicy" tidbits, he describes how eBay CEO Meg Whitman "was waiting in adjacent conference room at our headquarters in Virginia" as a back-up deal if "the negotiation deteriorated with Time Warner."  He cites encouraging early chats with Turner and Case's own "absolute belief" that the deal would have worked out if the boom market had continued for a few more years than it did.

The rest of the chapter goes into the subsequent dysfunction of the merger, picking on the culture clashes and Time Warner's insular strategy.  He shares a few stories about his growing frustration with Levin, who held the reigns although Case was the nominal chairman, and with the fallout as Levin was shoved aside.  Case explains why former MTV chief Bob Pittman, briefly considered for the top TW job, was too short-sighted and that Dick Parsons, who eventually took to job, lacked vision.  Of course, as he has said in interviews and speeches, Case put most of the subsequent blame for the deal's ultimate failure on Parson's reorganization of the company. The restructuring  put Don Logan, a long-time Time Inc. magazine executive, in charge of AOL and Time Warner Cable, where he shunned  the online unit. Case skewers Logan for killing what Case believes were ahead-of-their-time projects, such as a pre-Skype communications feature because the existing cable group wanted to push the triple-play.

The book includes the requisite name dropping, from Ahmet Ertegun of Warner Music to "Barry" Obama, a Honolulu high-schoolmate and later the President who invited Case onto several federal entrepreneurial/start-up initiatives. Even Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is mentioned, although in a much later encounter (2015), when - reflecting on the core strengths of different companies - Roberts said, "The culture is the one thing you've got to get right."

And that concept, of course, is one of the underlying messages that Case seeks to promote throughout this self-help volume. After he gets the personal stories out of his system, Case emphasizes the tools that entrepreneurs should use. For example,  he believes that most future businesses will be touched by regulation, which is why "policy" is one of his building blocks. 

Whether it's Über dealing with local transportation rules, drones facing multiple levels of oversight or health and communications regulations, he encourages awareness of the growing role of government, which he considers a necessary burden.  Case offers tips about fund raising in an ecosystems with investment constraints (again: some policy-driven). There are plenty of marketing insights, drawing from his youthful experience as a Pizza Hut development manager, which involved taste-testing pizzas around the country. Barely a decade later, Case was calculating how AOL could run a guerrilla action that leveraged the online hubris of competitor Prodigy (the IBM/CBS/Sears venture).

Case engages in some deserved chest-thumping for his Revolution venture capital project and for the "Rise-of-the-Rest" campaign to encourage entrepreneurship in communities of all kinds -not just in Silicon Valley, the Boston area, New York and the other digital-magnet towns.  And he encourages curiosity and continuing dedication - even when it seems to fail.  He cites his own passion for new digital media after he read Toffler's "Third Wave": Case applied unsuccessfully to graduate business schools with a letter citing his firm belief that "innovations in telecommunications (especially two-way cable systems) will result in our television sets become in an information lifeline...."

Recognizing the short-attention-span community that he helped create, Case's conclusion starts with a shrug, "I won't take offence ...if you've decided to skim this book or skip to the end."  In truth, you can absorb this slim book on short flight: a shuttle along the coasts; or half-way to Denver from anywhere. (And that's even if you linger over photos of the victorious arm waves by Levin and Case on that momentous January 2000 morning.) 

The new "Third Wave" provides perspective for those of us who lived through the telecom rollercoaster of that era plus useful ideas for entrepreneurs who will create the next wave of things we didn't know we couldn't live without.

Get more news from #TCA16 here.

Pasadena, Calif. -- The wait will soon be over for Game of Thrones fans.

HBO announced Thursday that season six of the hit show will premiere on April 24 followed by the season three debut of Silicon Valley and season five bow of Veep.

The cabler has been teasing Game of Thronesfans since last year, releasing a cryptic trailer in December and a poster in November.

HBO took home the lion’s share of Critics’ Choice Television Awards during Sunday night's live telecast.

HBO won seven awards to lead all cable shows, followed by FX with four wins, according to the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (BTJA). Amazon, AMC, Comedy Central and Fox also took home multiple awards with two each.

Olive Kitteridge (HBO) was most honored program with three wins including best limited series. AMC’s Better Call Saul, HBO’s Silicon Valley and Amazon’s Transparent won two awards each, according to the BTJA.

FX’s The Americans won the award for Best Drama Series, while Silicon Valley (HBO) won Best Comedy Series. HBO’s Bessie took top honors in the best movie made for television category. 

Best actor in a drama series went to Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul), while Jeffrey Tambor took home top honors for best actor in a comedy series for his role in Amazon’s Transparent.

The Best actress in a drama series was awarded to Taraji P. Henson for her role in Fox’s Empire, while the best actress in a comedy series nod went to Amy Schumer (Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer.)

The 2015 Critics’ Choice Television Awards were hosted by Cat Deeley (So You Think You Can Dance) and aired live on A&E

The Complete list of Critics’ Choice Television Awards is as follows:

Best Drama Series: The Americans (FX)

Best Actor in a Drama Series: Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul (AMC)

Best Actress in a Drama Series: Taraji P. Henson, Empire (FOX)

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul (AMC)

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Lorraine Toussaint, Orange Is the New Black (Netflix)

Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series: Sam Elliott, Justified (FX)

Best Comedy Series: Silicon Valley (HBO)

Best Actor in a Comedy Series: Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent (Amazon)

Best Actress in a Comedy Series: Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: T.J. Miller, Silicon Valley (HBO)

Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: Allison Janey, Mom (CBS)

Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series: Bradley Whitford, Transparent (Amazon)

Best Movie Made for Television: Bessie (HBO)

Best Limited Series: Olive Kitteridge (HBO)

Best Actor in a Movie or Limited Series: David Oyelowo, Nightingale (HBO)

 Best Actress in a Movie or Limited Series: Frances McDormand, Olive Kitteridge (HBO)

Best Supporting Actor in a Movie or Limited Series: Bill Murray, Olive Kitteridge (HBO)

Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Limited Series: Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Freak Show (FX)

Best Reality Series: Shark Tank (ABC) 

Best Reality Competition Series: Face Off (Syfy)

Best Reality Series Host: Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance (FOX)

Best Talk Show: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)

Best Animated Series: Archer (FX)

Critics’ Choice LOUIS XIII Genius Award: Seth MacFarlane

In HBO’s season-two trailer for Silicon Valley, a hulking, Birkenstock-wearing computer programmer grabs an enormous bong and fires it up to the relentless strains of Danny Brown’s “Smokin’ & Drinkin.’”

The series, which returned April 12, is but one of many premium, basic-cable and broadcast shows in which weed plays into the story line in one form or another. In Comedy Central’s Broad City and Workaholics; Showtime’s Episodes; IFC’s Maron; and even A&E’s Bates Motel, where the local town is run by a weed cartel, getting high is just something people do. On a fairly regular basis. And the act is not just implied or covered by a jump-cut to the after-effects; characters are casually toking away on screen.

Download the 4/20 timeline.

With 23 states and Washington, D.C., having legalized marijuana in one form or another, TV programming has gone to pot as well. Since the earliest references to weed in scripted TV shows to today, pot-related story lines have evolved from “Protagonist smokes weed — with disastrous results” to “with nostalgic results” to “with comic results” to, essentially, just “Protagonist smokes pot.” It’s tangential to the results.

Is TV merely reflecting the nation’s changing attitudes about pot or are we a nation under TV’s influence? In an effort to answer this 4:20-inspired question — that being the legendary time of day stoners would gather after school to get high, making the date April 20 a totem on the stoner calendar — Multichannel News presents this “4/20 Timeline” looking at the concurrent evolution of pot and plot.

Pasadena--HBO will return its hit drama series Game Of Thrones for a fifth season April 12, the network announced during its Television Critics Association press tour presentation Thursday.

Game Of Thrones will be joined by season two of dramedy Silicon Valley, and the fourth  season of the Emmy-winning comedy Veep, said network officials.

The network also announced it will return talk show Real Time With Bill Maher for a 14th and 15th season. HBO will also premiere on Feb. 8 Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst and on May 4 Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, said network officials. Other projects include Night Will Fall (Jan. 26); Rosie O'Donnell: A Heartfelt Stand Up (Feb. 14); It's Me. Hilary: The man Who Drew Eloise (March 23); Living with Lincoln (April 13); Tales Of The Grim Sleeper (April 27); Southern Rites (May 18); and The Lion's Mouth Opens (May 25).

On the original movie front, the network has tapped actress/performer Queen Latifah to star in Bessie, which chronicles the iconic blues singer Bessie Smith. The film, director by Dee Rees (Pariah) will debut this Spring, according to HBO. The network will also air the Edward Snowden documentary film CitizenFour on Feb. 23.

Finally, HBO will produce a special featuring comedian Tig Notaro.

Kansas City-- Finding a small cable operator complaining about high programming costs at the Independent Show is easier than finding a barbeque joint in this city.

But a group of analysts tried to persuade the cable faithful here that programmers shouldn’t be the focus of their fear and ire…Silicon Valley should be. 

The panel, “Wall Street Update for Main Street MSOs,” was featured at The Independent Show, the annual confab for small and mid-sized cable operators hosted by the American Cable Association and the National Cable Television Cooperative

Indeed, far from carping about increased programming costs, cable operators should feel good about their business. New digital entrants destroyed the newspaper, music and Yellow Pages business, but the cable industry has largely avoided the mass migration of subscribers and revenue to new digital entrants. 

“This is the only industry to date that has been able to fight the onslaught of digital platforms, and so far no leakage”  said Laura Martin (pictured), a managing director at Needham & Co. -- a testament to the collaborative relationship between cable operators and programmers. "If that fractures, said Martin, "seventy percent of gross revenue will disappear.”

Overall viewing of TV content on more devices in the home is up, Martin said, which should provide more cover on price increases. In round numbers, cable’s $75 billion of subscription revenue, in addition to $75 billion in advertising revenue, is up roughly 20% over the past five years.  Moreover, “all those consumers that are whining to you that they can’t possibly pay more money are paying another $3 billion to Netflix and another $1 billion in subscription fees.” 

“You’ve got a better mousetrap – it’s just a question of execution,” said Naveen Nataraj, a senior managing director at Evercore Partners. 

Martin suggested the operators in the room think more holistically about their business. True, video margins are getting squeezed, compared to broadband margins, but video content, in not so many years, will be moving to toward a more interactive, real-time experience. Cable operators have a strategic advantage with the double bundle – and far better discovery than online sites such as YouTube.

“You should think of your video and broadband product as integrated” because of interactive possibilities around the corner…”only you can do those fast speeds two way.”  “Keep the bundle… the bigger the bundle the better,” Martin said.

“These Silicon Valley companies are much more threatening enemies to you than your content companies are,” said Martin. Google, for example, has 50,000 employees and $55 billion in revenue last year with $20 billion in free cash flow. “They lose money on Google Fiber and they don’t care.”  Their intent is to disrupt and they have “plenty of money to play with” 

All disruption starts at the low end where there’s no economics and in time it moves up into the profit pool, Martin said. Google Fiber is “losing a fortune”  trying to get cable to invest in higher speeds.  “They want free access to fast speeds so they can innovate and deliver things over your pipes for free… they’re coming after you and they have big teeth…”

San Francisco -- Even more than "convergence," the terms "clustering," "bundling" and "stickiness" were the buzzwords at the CTAM Summit here last week, as marketers gathered to discuss the challenges facing them in stepping up introductions of digital cable, telephone and high-speed Internet products.

The annual Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing conference drew a better-than-projected crowd of more than 2,600. General-session speakers such as AT&T Broadband & Internet Services CEO Leo J. Hindery Jr., CNET CEO Halsey Minor and Benchmark Capital general partner Bruce Dunlevie drew standing-room-only crowds in the large ballroom at the San Francisco Marriott.

Not all of the attendees were cable marketers: Because of its proximity to Silicon Valley, the summit drew attendees who were interested in the anticipated convergence between television and the Internet.

The show also drew a healthy number of international cable executives who were interested in hearing U.S. success stories. And there were more than a few well-known former cable and satellite executives between jobs who were as quick to exchange resumes as others traded business cards.

But their out-of-work status carried no stigma at the CTAM Summit, considering the fact that one of the more popular masters of ceremony there, CTAM Summit co-chair Lou Borrelli, is himself without a full-time gig.

Cable marketers were urged to get their operational houses in order before they move too quickly to new product launches.

"It's hard to do many things at once well," Dunlevie cautioned, saying MSOs would be wiser to improve customer service or programming than to branch out into local telephony.

"One of the key challenges I see is the healthy tension between deployment of new services and hanging on to our [current] customers," said David Watson, newly appointed executive vice president of sales and marketing and customer service for Comcast Corp.'s Comcast Cable Communications Inc.

Some of the things MSOs need to focus on operationally are answering the phones in a timely manner, solving customer problems and sending technicians out when they say they will, Watson said. "We have to do all of this right before we can go forward with the new services," he added.

At a Tuesday-afternoon panel, Watson recounted a complaint by a customer who had called Comcast with a problem only to have the operator hang up on him after saying, "I have nothing I can do for you."

Of course Comcast, like other MSOs, has started to deploy new services in some of its markets.

MSOs are doing so not just to put their collective marketing prowess to the test, but also as a defensive strategy against other communications industries and, probably more important, to make good on promises made to Wall Street.

Speaking of the importance of adding new services to help protect the core business, Hindery said, "Retention is always a challenge, especially in a fiercely competitive market. Our goal is to market bundled product and service packages that are so attractive and value-oriented that they become what I call 'sticky.'"

In a test in Fremont, Calif., AT&T Broadband is offering a 25 percent discount on long-distance and local telephone service for cable customers, although the bills are not yet bundled.

AT&T Broadband has 1.4 million digital-cable customers, with expectations of hitting 1.8 million by the end of the year, not including those expected to come over to it from MediaOne Group Inc. next year.

The MSO also aims to gain 25 percent penetration of homes passed for its AT&T@Home high-speed online service within the next five years, Hindery said.

Minor cautioned that the battle over open access to cable pipes could work against cable, advising cable marketers to remind potential data subscribers that other Internet brands are available through their broadband pipe.

"Open access is actually good because companies will pay cable operators for a place on their pipe, and it will make it good for consumers," he added.

Time Warner Cable, which just launched its first digital-cable markets earlier this summer, has already signed up nearly 40,000 customers in its first four markets, chairman and CEO Joe Collins said. The MSO is targeting a deployment of 400,000 digital set-top boxes by the end of the year, and it is in launch mode in 22 markets.

This fall, Time Warner will launch its Road Runner high-speed online service in Manhattan to heavy pent-up demand, Collins said. At the same time, the MSO will launch digital cable to New York City's outer boroughs, such as Brooklyn and Queens. Next year, Manhattan and the outer boroughs will have both services.

"The New York market is 1.2 million subscribers," Collins said. "We'd simply get overwhelmed if we offered our products to everyone all at once."

While continued clustering will help MSOs to advertise more efficiently across a given market, Collins expects that at least initially, Time Warner will only market as heavily as needed to fill the customer pipeline. "Otherwise, we have too many people in the backlog," he said, "and they get mad if they have to wait too long."

An early believer in the power of bundles, Cox Communications Inc. already has several-thousand customers who buy all three of its services -- voice, video and data -- although they're not yet bundled under a single bill.

"Ultimately, we want to give customers a choice of a single or multiple bills," Cox executive director of marketing David Pugliese said. "Some customers don't want to pay $150 at once for cash-flow reasons."

Pugliese added that Cox plans to offer bundles to drive revenues, to reduce acquisition costs by sending a single marketing piece instead of three, to discourage competitors from coming into its markets and "to make it difficult -- even painful -- for customers to downgrade" when they're pitched by direct-broadcast satellite, for example.

He stressed that brand extension would be crucial in the transition from a video-only provider to a supplier of multiple communications services.

"What good does it do you to offer new products and services if your customers only know you and trust you as a cable company?" Pugliese asked.

Even as MSOs protect their core video business and continue to roll out new services, they must keep at least one eye out for new consumer applications that are likely to gain force in the next five years, such as electronic commerce, video-on-demand and new services yet to be invented.

But not every new idea will win cable customers over.

"The saying, 'If we build it, they will come' just doesn't apply anymore," Oxygen Media CEO Geraldine Laybourne warned. "If you don't build it with the consumer in mind, they won't stay."

Collins gained some perspective on consumers' interactive buying habits through Time Warner's two-way Full Service Network trial in Orlando, Fla., in 1992.

Initially, it's hard to get customers to buy certain products, like clothing or curtains, online, Collins said, but consumers do like to buy stamps online.

"People don't like to go to the post office," he added. "It's kind of scary there."

Jim Forkan and Hank Kim contributed to this story.