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Weekly Preview for September 27, 1999
Green Light for NCTA
Digital Fest
By LINDA MOSS September 27, 1999
After getting responses from more than 40
networks, the National Cable Television
Association is going forward with plans for
what it's calling a "Digital Cable Programming
Festival" next month in Washington, D.C.,
officials said last week.
"We are going ahead," NCTA vice president of
industry affairs Barbara York said.
The NCTA will mail out invitations this week to
the five "festival" events -- movies, sports,
kids' shows, documentaries and
Spanish-language programming -- to
government officials including members of
Congress, the Federal Communications
Commission, local county commissioners and
the Capitol press, among others.
The NCTA had given programmers until Sept.
3 to file proposals and indicate their interest in
participating in the festival, which is meant to
showcase cable's up-and-running digital
networks to government officials.
The festival -- which will come at a time when
the cable industry is lobbying against digital
must-carry for broadcast -- will highlight
cable's own digital offerings.
One network will be in charge of doing a
featured presentation at each of the five
events, with other programmers participating
in the sessions based on their genre.
The schedule of events for the digital festival
has been rejiggered. It will now kick off Oct. 13
with "Hook-up to Hollywood," with BET
Movies/Starz!3 screening filmmaker Melvin
Van Peebles' documentary, Classified X, on
how movie images throughout the years have
sustained racism.
That will be followed Oct. 19 by "The Wired
World of Sports," with ESPN Classic in charge
of the featured presentation. On Oct. 23
comes "Digitall-o-ween," where Fox Family's
boyzChannel and girlzChannel and Discovery
Kids will host the featured presentation. Part of
that session will include letting guests try to
scale a climbing wall.
The Biography Channel will take a look at first
ladies over the past 35 years for the "Digital
Docs" presentation Oct. 28. And the fifth
festival event, "Livin' La Vida Digital" Nov. 3,
will have Canales ñ in charge of showing how
technology is allowing the packaging of
channels to fill the needs of the Hispanic
market.
The networks slated to participate in the
festival include AMC's American Pop!, BBC
America, several Home Box Office and
Showtime multiplexes, Viewer's Choice, Fox
Sports World, ACTV Inc.'s Fox Sports Net
Plus, SET Pay Per View, The Outdoor
Channel, several of Discovery
Communications Inc.'s digital networks, Nick
Games and Sports, Noggin, WAM! America's
Kidz Network, Do It Yourself, The Biography
Channel, History Channel International, Trio,
The Independent Film Channel, BoxExitos,
BoxTejano, CBS TeleNoticias, CineLatino,
CNN en Español, Discovery en Español, MTV
en Español, Fox Sport World Español and
Toon Disney en Español. |
