Deals on digital antennae -- get your CBS for FREE!!! The way it was intended. But what about Showtime?

FREE!!!

Sorry if I'm harshing your negotiating tactic buzz, Time Warner Cable, but it's true. FREE!

Channel Master has a deal for you on digital antennae, just use the coupon code "RestoreCBS" at the checkout.

Radio Shack is reporting double digit increases in sales of both indoor and outdoor digital antennae at their stores in cities affected by the CBS blackout; Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Detroit, per Multichannel News.

I can't get you Showtime with an antenna, though. What I can do is implore both Showtime and HBO to make their content available outside the purview of a cable or satellite company. And so can you. Now
HBO's Richard Plepler has already batted down rumors that HBO would offer HBO Go to non-HBO subscribers, interestingly rumors that he started himself. I still don't have access to Showtime Anytime at all because Time Warner Cable isn't compliant.

Take My Money HBO is a website link you can click to check up on the progress of such and occasionally voice your opinion via Twitter. It's run by Jake Caputo, you can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

Variety's Andrew Wallenstein makes a great case for this in March:

HBO has good reason not to untether HBO Go. Such a move would undoubtedly trigger a mass exodus from the subscriber base that provides the lion’s share of the $1.5 billion in profits the Time Warner unit pocketed last year. Such a split would also upset the pay TV distributors who fork over billions to lock up that programming exclusively, not to mention shoulder some or all of the marketing and subscriber acquisition costs.

And yet the whiners are correct: It’s time for a broadband-only offering from HBO in the U.S. Let’s call it HBO Go-It-Alone.

Reducing copyright infringement isn’t even the primary reason to make HBO Go available on a standalone basis. More to the point is that the demand for a broadband-only version of HBO is going to grow astronomically; the subscriber count for the linear channels will not.

It is a foolish idea for the pay cable channels to ignore what the consumer wants. The consumer will win. They should get on the bus sooner rather than later.

ICYMI -- ArScheerio Paul: To Script, actual Arsenio Hall interviews reenacted by Paul Scheer & funny friends

This is all I need, I don't really need actual Arsenio to come back if I have this. Thank you Paul Scheer and the crew at Jash.

Watch them all. Right here. NOW! Do it. Look, they're right here ... below this word.

UPDATED: NBC just bought a new Tina Fey/Robert Carlock pitch. Info is limited, this is what I think it is.

UPDATE BELOW, Scroll down.

I'm posting this photo because this is how I feel upon hearing the news that Tina Fey will be back in the sitcom business soon with NBC. The new show, a pitch with former 30 Rock writer/producers Robert Carlock and Colleen McGuinness (who created it) is described by Deadline.com:

Written and executive produced by McGuinness, the project, said to be in the vein of Cheers, is a character-driven workplace comedy where a young woman in search of reconnecting with her father finds a new home and family on Fire Island.

And then later is described by The Onion's AV Club:

What we do know for certain is that it’s about a young woman trying to reconnect with her estranged father, which leads her to discover “a new home and family on Fire Island.” Of course, given Fire Island’s long history as a comedic shorthand for the gay community, you can probably extrapolate what that means: That on this show, everything is constantly on fire. Can this young woman truly have it all, before it’s all reduced to cinder? 

Now, finally, here's what I think it's about. Of course I'm just spitballing, but ...

Lead is a 30ish woman who's just broken up with some asshole guy. She doesn't know what she'll do (complications about where to live result in her being homeless) and at the same time her bitch of a sister manages to impart that their gay dad who left them many years ago now owns a downtrodden resort on Fire Island and needs help. She goes there, hijinks ensue, Dad's maybe a drag queen in the show at the resort, cute guys abound ... and she starts to learn life lessons that will let her eventually find happiness but probably not a boyfriend because that kills shows. She has brown hair.

Whaddaya think? I'd watch my show. I'm sure what this group brings to the table will be just fine. And it's on broadcast television, which is free and not something a cable system can take away from you.

Unless you live in a rough geographic area that impedes that broadcast signal. Or your station is owned by the network that's having a problem with your cable or satellite company.

Or you could just wait till the whole first season hits Blu-ray or Netflix. Your call. Modulate your expectations accordingly.

Sigh. 

UPDATE: Stuff happened on Twitter, here's a screengrab. 

Cut The Cord: I am fully, completely entertained by Netflix & Hulu on Roku

I am. Absolutely, full, completely entertained by a combination of Netflix Instant and Hulu on my Roku 2 device. It's been a perfect viewing experience. I had only one issue with the actual streaming on only on one Hulu video (from the 2010 Just For Laughs festival). Otherwise the picture is pristine on my 40" LCD, the useability of the Roku device is solid, and with adding on over-the-air broadcast stations I'd be set. No cable TV necessary.

Last night I watched a couple episodes of The IT Crowd on Netflix, The Speech, which features my favorite thing in all sitcomdom, the Moss and Roy plot that I affectionately call "Jen, this is the Internet" and Friendface, the episode that ends with Moss and Roy fighting to be Jen's fake boyfriend in front of all her old college chums. EVERY episode of this international Emmy and BAFTA winning sitcom that manages to squeeze so much funny out of only four regular characters and does it better than almost any other sitcom in history.

After that the final two episodes of Moone Boy on Hulu (also Chris O'Dowd, who's in The IT Crowd and also the recent HBO series Family Tree). Moone Boy's a show he created about a young boy kinda like him growing up in Boyle in Ireland who happens to have an adult imaginary friend (played by him). Delightful! Wonderful! Very sweet, funny, tale of Liam Moone, a moon faced boy living in the 80s in an Irish town with all the usual hurdles and hardships of being a kid ... with an encouraging someone on his shoulder.

Lovely show.

And great for your not-too-young kids, too.

And Steve Coogan shows up in an incredible guest starring role in the second episode. Don't miss that. His scenes with Liam's mom, played by the beautiful Dierdre O'Kane are hilarious.

NOTE: There are commercials on Hulu. You can't skip them. However, they are short breaks (maybe 40 seconds, tops), not the overlong breaks that broadcast and cable TV needs to keep the lights on. It's doable. These are the first TV ads I've watched in a long time, because I record EVERYTHING, even if I watch the same day. Or in the cast of last night's Jeselnik Offensive on Comedy Central, I started watching 11 minutes after it started so I could FF through the commercials.

Today's Time Warner/CBS dispute news links: Frustration, piracy, predictions, rebates & ratings

As you can imagine, I'm not the only one writing about this. Here's a taste of what some media are focusing on in this battle.

Fern Siegel is a deputy editor at MediaPost and you can hear her frustration:

Assuming you, like me, have been following the exploits of America’s favorite serial killer — or avenging angel, as Dexter sees himself — for years, the frustration is acute! Added diss: The day after I lost the ability to watch the first of the three final episodes, TWC raised my cable price.

Oh, the humanity.

And it did so, while running a statement on TV that read, in part, it was committed to “reasonable rates.”

This is what is known as irony.

After all, when the shouting is over, whatever the resolution, TWC customers will be stuck with the bill, which unlike the stock market, is on a perennial upswing.

Wired Magazine reports that the big winner so far in this dispute is piracy:

Viewers of new CBS hit Under the Dome didn’t seem to be moved by either side’s argument, looking elsewhere for ways in which to keep up with the latest episodes of the series. According to the Torrent Freak blog, “In New York City, one of the largest affected markets, the relative piracy rate more than doubled from 1.3 percent of all U.S. downloads last week to 3 percent for the episode that aired after the blackout.”

In fact, Under the Dome piracy spiked in each of the areas affected by the TWC blackout, jumping 34 percent from the previous week’s episode. This localized increase coincided with a slight drop for the episode in terms of overall downloads for the episode internationally.

NYC mayoral hopeful & City Council Speaker Quinn on TWC/CBS dispute

The war plays out on Twitter, too.

At @TWC & @CBS hearing urging both parties to negotiate & not hold NYers hostage to their contract disputes anymore pic.twitter.com/HVQncdmsxw
— Christine C. Quinn (@ChrisCQuinn) August 8, 2013

So you say you want to sue Time Warner Cable. You're not alone!

So? So do a lot of other people. Check out the results of this Los Angeles Times poll that asked what end users would like to do in reference to the dispute.

You can still vote in that poll, click this link. It's on the same page as Jon Healey's most recent story on the retransmission dispute (carriage war) between CBS Inc. and Time Warner Cable, from Friday's paper. I know, I think they should have a story every day, too. I'd rather see the Times to original reporting on this than recap So You Think You Can Dance, which they do.

(A newspaper. In a major city. Recaps the dancing show on Fox and publishes it in the paper, often. As if it were news. SMH.)

There are some people following through, people uniquely qualified to do so. In Milwaukee there's a retransmission dispute between Time Warner and their NBC affiliate which is owned by the Journal Broadcast Group. They missed a Green Bay Packers preseason game this past weekend.

The guys bringing the suit, those uniquely qualified guys? Lead plaintiff is Milwaukee attorney Paul Scoptur, and I'm guessing he's not paying himself for his work on this case. That suit might have legs, if only because of an angry lawyer. I never thought I'd be applauding an angry lawyer, but GO PAUL SCOPTUR!!!

His mention in a Friday Hollywood Reporter story at this link.

I'll follow this and keep you in the loop.