Verizon cashes in on WABC brouhaha; New Study: Cable a luxury

> Finally, one last item about the unholy trio of Cablevision, Disney and WABC. We promise. It's just that we can't help noting that Verizon ran ads on its FiOS service in New York City offering a $75 discount on television to people who sign up through March 14. The ads, of course, were targeted at Cablevision customers who had lost--but recovered--their WABC signal yesterday. Story.

> A new study indicates that the broadband digital divide is narrowing as low income Americans increasingly demand access to the Internet because it is "increasingly a prerequisite of social economic inclusion." Most of the respondents, on the other hand, described cable TV as a "luxury." Story.

> Somehow this seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but the McAdoo (Pa.) borough council's plan to raise the franchise fee for Service Electric Cablevision could in the end be passed to subscribers via higher cable fees. Story.

> General Communications Inc. will use $88 million in RUS funding to install a broadband Internet network connecting 9,089 households and 65 communities in Bristol Bay and the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta in Alaska. Story.

> Sports will be the way that 3D comes flying into consumer homes when ESPN launches a 3D channel in June. Story.

> Broadband services will spur the future growth of cable TV operators in the Philippines, according to Gamaliel Cordoba, chief of the head of the National Telecommunications Commission during a speech at the 11th Federation of International Cable Operators in the Philippines. Story.

> A new Leichtman Research study says that 24 percent of all U.S. homes can get video from the Web to their televisions but only about 5 percent of American adults--and that's a key descriptor there--actually watch video like YouTube and Hulu on their TVs. Story.