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Three Things: It’s All About the Cable, Mabel. Oh, and the Mooch

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If last night’s Twitter timeline was any measure, folks have a LOT to say about premium cable programming let alone the cable television industry. Add the crazy surrounding White House communications and it’s best if I just get out of the way and run like hell.

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I simply can’t write fast enough or better about the situation than many folks have on Twitter already.

Basta.

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Crazy amount of chatter about cable networks and M&A. Biggest stories:

Discovery to buy HGTV’s owner Scripps because of Scripps’ audience demographics — heavily weighted toward women.

Charter Communications will not merge with Sprint to expand into cell phone business; it already has a reseller agreement with Verizon.

However, Japan’s Softbank, Sprint’s parent, is interested in buying Charter Communications. This deserves debate in Congress as well as CFIUS review. There’s a reason why Charter isn’t Cable but Communications now; do we want additional foreign ownership of another communications network even if it isn’t fully into the cell phone business (yet)?

Should note here that a beef I have with my GOP representative on regulating cable networks is on this very point. Rep-who-will-not-be-named sent a pro forma response spouting what is probably party line: FTC has always regulated cable, shouldn’t increase regulation by allowing cable to be regulated by FCC.

Except that cable isn’t just a series of tubes distributing entertainment content. It’s also a series of tubes carrying our communications.

Again, do we want to allow foreign ownership of these particular communications tube in addition to existing cell phone network ownership?

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By now you may have heard HBO’s most popular series, Game of Thrones, may have been affected by a breach of the cable network’s system. Based on conflicting reports, it’s not clear what was stolen from HBO, though unlike other recent hacks HBO itself was attacked and not a content creator/producer. It may sound reminiscent of the Sony Entertainment hack but HBO is nowhere as leaky as Sony.

Will winter still come after this hack? You’ll have to tell me — this isn’t a series I follow.

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There you have it, your next open thread. Trump-Russia stuff in the last one, please. Everything else here.

Monday: Magic

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You want some magic this Monday to start your week? Check this short film Vorticity by Mike Olbinski. If you can launch it in full screen or cast it to a television, even better, and I hope you have decent speakers for the sound. Mike’s wife is a saint, a wholly different kind of magic off screen to support a guy who does this stuff.

Under the gun here today, too much real world stuff to check off my To Do List. Only a quick list of stuff worth looking at.

Kudos
Bravo to Michigan’s Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint Township) who filed the Families of Flint Act last week to provide $1.5 billion in relief funding for water system repairs, additional health care, monitoring and education, as well as economic development to support the struggling city. Co-sponsors include U.S. Reps. Sander Levin (D-Royal Oak), Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn MI), Brenda Lawrence (D-Southfield MI), and John Conyers (D-Detroit), along with 167 other House Dems.

Lean on House GOP members to do the right thing and support this bill when they are next in session in August.

Leftovers
Couple of things screwed up or left unfulfilled before Congress left town:

Quick List

Catch you tomorrow, gotta’ dash!