Amy Maclean

Cathy Rasenberger is a well-known name in cable circles, having helped launch more than 40 cable and FAST channels over the past 27 years, including AccuWeather, Newsmax, Outdoor Channel and RFD TV. She formed her consultancy business after a career that included business development at ESPN and helping with the launch of Food Network. Rasenberger has been content over the years to wear the hat of trusted adviser, but opportunity recently came knocking and she’s jumped in as a partner for new sports streaming platform, Free Live Sports. The idea is to create a Pluto-like platform specifically for sports FAST offerings. The service already features more than 100 channels, including MAVTV, MotoAmerica, TNA Wrestling and Boxing TV, with more to come. We caught up with Rasenberger to discuss what made her say yes to joining Ryan James and James Patrick of OTT Studio and Geoff Clark of acTVe as a partner. Our conversation, edited for concision and space, follows.

Diversity Week 2022 While there’s growing concern about some U.S. companies scaling back DEI initiatives in recent months, the media and telecommunications industry’s diversity organizations feel good about the levels of commitment they continue to see. DEI will be front and center next week as the industry gathers in NYC for its annual Diversity Week, a decades-long tradition that includes The WICT Network ’s Leadership Conference, NAMIC ’s 38th annual conference and the annual Kaitz fundraising dinner.

The best approach for companies or individuals looking to enhance their AI implementation is to overcome the fear associated with it and just start experimenting, according to professionals from Accenture, FreeWheel, Cisco and Amazon Web Services during a WICT Network Leadership Conference general session Monday.

The message from a CEO panel at Diversity Week is that video is not dead—but there’s work that needs to be done.

Liberty Media ’s investor day covered a lot of ground Thursday, from Charter ’s upcoming acquisition of Liberty Broadband to GCI’ s future and Qurate ’s upcoming rebrand to the QVC Group. But it wouldn’t be a Liberty event without some prognosticating from the Good Doctor, with John Malone weighing in on everything from M&A under the new administration to video’s future.

The speed wars seem to be coming to an end. Broadband providers are increasingly acknowledging that messaging needs to focus on more than numbers, particularly with the slower speeds of fixed wireless meeting many consumers’ needs.

When Stacy London entered the TV scene as co-host of TLC’s “What Not to Wear,” no one could have predicted where it would take her—least of all herself.

It’s been more than two years since DirecTV carried Mission Broadcasting and White Knight stations. The provider spent Monday morning in a federal appeals court making its case before a three-judge panel on why it believes a lower court erred in dismissing its antitrust suit that claimed Nexstar is engaging in an illegal conspiracy with Mission and White Knight to manipulate, raise and fix prices of retransmission consent fees for broadcast TV stations.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider arguments from ACA Connects, USTelecom and other ISP groups regarding New York’s Affordable Broadband Act, allowing the state to move forward with its law that ISPs offer qualifying households broadband for $15/month ($20/month for higher speed offerings).

Those regular “Fiber Frenzy” headlines in Cablefax detailing the latest fiber builds really add up. A new Fiber Broadband Association report found that 2024 set a record for the highest annual fiber-to-the-home growth, with 10.3 million homes marketed to. That compares to 9.1 million in 2023 and 7.2 million in 2019 (all data is through 3Q of each year). Since 2020, all-fiber availability has grown from less than 40% of U.S. households to almost 60%, and all-fiber connectivity has grown from approximately 15% to approximately 30%.