So, of course, it also gets a new logo. This one will look awfully familiar, since it is the same trio of well-known letters, and if you’re not paying attention you won’t notice a thing.

But look closely:

See? Yup: Two lower-case letters and a period.

The idea is that the type will remain consistent, but will be “revealed” when it sits on top of different images. The old AOL swoosh triangle goes away, although the company’s sort-of iconic “running man” will stick around in some form, the company said.

Here’s some canned quote from CEO Tim Armstrong about what that means:

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people–employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade.”

Branding outfit Wolff Olins gets credit (and money) for figuring this one out. But let’s see what investors think of the work when the company spins off from Time Warner (TWX) next month.

Here is the full press release:

AOL PREVIEWS NEW BRAND IDENTITY FOR ITS FUTURE AS AN INDEPENDENT CONTENT-DRIVEN COMPANY

New Aol. Brand Expresses Commitment to Stimulating Content, Openness and Inclusion

NEW YORK–November 22, 2009–AOL today previewed its new brand identity for its future as an independent company committed to creating the world’s most simple and stimulating content and online experiences.

The new AOL brand identity is a simple, confident logotype, revealed by ever changing images. It’s one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal. The new brand identity will be fully unveiled on December 10, when AOL common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people–employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL.

AOL partnered with Wolff Olins, a global brand and innovation consultancy, to develop a brand identity that speaks to the company’s future. The identity itself is a platform for expression and creativity reflecting the content, products and services which AOL offers. Some of the world’s best creative artists, including Universal Everything, GHAVA and Dylan Griffin created art and animations for the brand.

“Historically brand identity has been monolithic and controlling, little more than stamping a company name on a product. AOL is a 21st century media company, with an ambitious vision for the future and new focus on creativity and expression, this required the new brand identity to be open and generous, to invite conversation and collaboration, and to feel credible, but also aspirational. We’re delighted to have worked so closely with the AOL leadership team to create something bold and exciting that sets AOL apart,” said Karl Heiselman, CEO of Wolff Olins.

Someone named Justin Bieber, who apparently is a teenage singer, was supposed to appear at the Roosevelt Field mall on Friday, but stayed away because the crowd had become too unruly. Police asked a record label executive to help disperse the horde using the messaging service, and claim he didn’t cooperate. More from Newsday:

Police arrested a senior vice president from Bieber’s label, Island Def Jam Records, James A. Roppo, 44, of Hoboken, N.J., saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating.

He was in custody Friday night, pending charges that could include criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor and obstructing government administration, Smith said.

“We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message,” Smith said. “By not cooperating with us we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk.”

Slightly confusing, because Bieber’s Twitter account–presumably the one the cops wanted Roppo to use–does indeed show that he asked his fans to leave at 4:30 pm Eastern:

But apparently that was too late:

Here’s what a mall full of unruly Justin Bieber fans looks like, by the way. Not sure how helpful Twitter would have in the face of this:

For those who haven’t been following along, here’s what we know about Vevo:

• It will be powered by Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, which will share ad revenue with the joint venture.
• It is being run by Rio Caraeff, Universal’s veteran digital guy.
• In addition to its equity partnership, its distribution strategy is modeled after Hulu: Sony and Universal videos will appear exclusively on the site and/or YouTube, but the site plans on licensing its stream to other outlets, as Hulu does with portals like MySpace and Comcast’s (CMCSA) Fancast. One obvious place to license the stuff: Hulu itself.
• Neither EMI nor Warner Music Group (WMG), which has created its own Vevo-like channel with YouTube, is participating in the venture, but they could.

Okay? Okay. Ben Leventhal, co-founder of the influential Eater blog, is headed to GE’s (GE) NBC Universal, where he’ll oversee “lifestyle content” for NBC’s growing local Web unit. More details here from Leventhal himself.

Eater is noteworthy because it’s a great read if you’re the kind of person who’s interested in an exit interview with former New York Times food critic Frank Bruni, conducted over a meal at Mario Batali’s Babbo. And also because it’s part of a larger network of blogs that Leventhal helped build up along with Lockhart Steele, one of the early architects of Nick Denton’s Gawker Media empire.

Steele says his sites, which encompass two other brands beyond Eater (real estate at Curbed, retail at Racked) and local sites in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, pull in a million uniques a month. Two years ago, he raised $1.5 million from a group of investors, including Denton, Spark Capital’s Mo Koyfman, real estate publisher Brad Inman and NetSuite (N) CEO Zach Nelson.

NBC, meanwhile, has been busily staffing up its network of local sites, which it overhauled earlier this year. The idea is to replace the lame extensions of its local stations’ lame newscasts with sites designed for people who actually use the Web–and to help the company break into the local Internet ad market that everyone wants a piece of but that no one has cracked yet.

Hi Peter,

My name is [Redacted] and I’m working with the ad:tech team on the social media outreach and promotion for ad:tech New York. ad:tech recognizes that you are a key influencer in the digital marketing community, and as such, I’d like to see if you are interested in a promotion exchange.

ad:tech will provide:

• Twitter announcement of your involvement with ad:tech New York to our 6,800+ followers.
• Your choice of: a free pass to the exhibit hall (valued at $35) or 35% off a full conference pass.

*If you are already registered or can’t make it to the event, you can offer it as a prize to your network, give it to a friend or client….It is completely transferrable.

We ask you provide:

• No less than 3 posts about ad:tech New York on Twitter, Facebook or your blog. Suggested postings: a session you’re interested in, why you like ad:tech, the exhibitors that you want to see or technologies that you are interested in learning about. What you share is up to you–it just needs to be posted by November 1.

Interested in writing a blog post and would like additional information on ad:tech? Quotes, photos, interviews, ideas, etc. will happily be offered with request.

To redeem the offer:
Share 3 posts about ad:tech, then email me, [X]@ad-tech.com, with links/screenshots by November 1.

• Tell me how you’d like ad:tech to promote your involvement with the event at the show.
• Let me know if you’d like the free expo pass or the 35% discount on the conference.

Please let me know if this is something that you are interested in or if you have any questions?

Thank you for your continued support of ad:tech. I hope to meet you in New York!

[Redacted]
Social Media Outreach
ad:tech

Well. Flattery is always a nice approach, so I’m pleased to hear about my influencer status. Also, it’s nice that the ad:tech team is willing to provide “ideas” for me upon request.

Alas, even if I wanted to take ad:tech up on its offer, the Dow Jones Code of Conduct would prevent me from doing so.

But this letter does generate two questions for me:

• Is my work nearly worthless? Or pretty valuable? Three posts is a little less than a day’s work for me. Ad:tech says that’s worth either $35 (a free expo pass) or up to $558 (35 percent of the highest price for an ad:tech conference pass). That’s a big swing!
• I know there are a lot of “social media experts” out there, because there are a lot of them following me on Twitter. But I don’t really know what they do. Is this it? That can’t be right. Can it?

Anyway, this kind of thing always makes we want to pull up a “Glengarry Glen Ross” clip. There isn’t a direct connection, mind you. Just a vibe.

Employees at MySpace have been waiting to find out who their new ad sales boss will be, as All Things Digital reported earlier this week.

And here she is: Nada Stirratt, who until today was running digital sales for Viacom’s (VIA) MTV Networks. (You can read her goodbye memo to MTV colleagues below.)

It looks as if MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta is assembling a team of MTV veterans at his company, which he’s in the process of overhauling.

In addition to Stirratt, MySpace has brought former digital guru Jason Hirschhorn over as chief product officer. And Courtney Holt, who runs MySpace Music, had run digital music for MTV before Chris DeWolfe, Van Natta’s predecessor, brought him on board last year. Viacom hasn’t named a replacement for Stirratt.

Next week could be Stirratt’s debut in front of the entire advertising sales staff of MySpace, who are set to gather at a new seaside resort about 20 miles south of Los Angeles to get a first glimpse of the fresh direction the company is preparing to take under its new management.

The struggling social networking site, HQed in Beverly Hills, has been trying to reboot its image, spur innovation in its product and most of all, pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook, has seen explosive growth.

In late August, MySpace sales and marketing head Jeff Berman left the company as MySpace hired MediaLink, a New York- and Los Angeles-based media consultancy, to help get its ad sales business back on track.

That effort has been led by MediaLink President Wenda Millard, who is well known in the ad industry and was longtime leader of the ad sales force at Yahoo (YHOO).

Getting an experienced top ad exec in place will round out a recent spate of new hiring by MySpace, including a new CTO, Alex Maghen, who moved over from its MySpace Music joint venture, and a new CFO, Mark Rosenbaum.

This has been part of Van Natta’s wholesale flushing out of most of the top execs who worked under DeWolfe.

Now, with a new team of execs, the News Corp. (NWS) property is putting the finishing touches on a master plan, which will include a new redesign of its hopelessly messy interface and doubling down on a product strategy that will center on, said one source, “what we own,” namely, music and entertainment.

Music is the obvious key leverage point, the still-bright spot of MySpace, followed by adding big entertainment categories like movies, television, gaming, video and other pop culture arenas.

Once the rejiggered product is in place, it will be up to Stirratt to sell it to advertisers.

Until we see how she does in that key job, here’s her missive to MTVers:

From: Stirratt, Nada
To: MTVN Digital Advertising
Sent: Fri Oct 09 16:34:51 2009
Subject: Thank You for Everything

Hi Everybody–

It is with mixed emotions that I write to inform you that I will be leaving MTV Networks. I have accepted the job of Chief Revenue Officer at MySpace and will be starting there later in the month.

The past 3+ years have been such a wonderful experience and I thank you for the extraordinary work you all have done to make MTVNetworks Digital stand for a best-in-class sales organization unlike any other in the business. Truly. We rocked the industry with our innovation, ideas, relationships and results. And we had a ridiculous amount of fun along the way. So thank you for everything. And a special heartfelt thanks to my leadership team of Kevin, Brad, Jason and Heather: I have learned so much from each of you and will cherish your friendship.

Xo 
Nada

(Full disclosure: News Corp. also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

In fact, reps from Google and the AP linked up in Manhattan on Wednesday to discuss the deal, which expires at the end of this year, people familiar with the meeting tell me. This timing makes sense since Google (GOOG) had flown in many of its top brass to New York for a series of internal meetings this week.

But that would come as a surprise to anyone who took Curley’s words, delivered after a speech in Hong Kong on Tuesday, at face value.

Here are Curley’s comments, recorded by an attendee at the Hong Kong meeting and transcribed by Zachary Seward at Nieman Journalism Lab:

Someone asked Curley if Microsoft was willing to accept the AP’s demands. “They have said very strongly that they would,” Curley responded. A bit earlier, he said of Microsoft, “They know how to have a conversation.” And what about Google? “I’m not talking about Google,” he said. “We haven’t talked. We haven’t talked. We haven’t talked with them in any serious way.”

AP spokesman Paul Colford says he has nothing to add to Curley’s comments. But I’ll try to make a case on his behalf: Maybe this is one of those “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” situations whereby Curley doesn’t consider the talks the two sides have been having to be “talks.” Alternate proposal: Maybe Curley is going for “truthiness” instead of “truth.”

I guess that’s possible. The recurring story I’ve heard from sources on both sides of the negotiations, which have been going on for months, is that they’re not moving very far.

The problem: The AP has a list of demands, which start with more money and move on from there, including assurances that its copy will receive better treatment than secondary outlets. And Google hasn’t expressed much interest in changing the existing agreement. The company is “quite happy” with the deal it has now, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters on Wednesday.

I understand why Curley would want to play up his talks with other portals, as well as the notion that he’s willing to pull his cooperative out of the world’s biggest traffic generator. Per above, I don’t think those are particularly effective tactics, but I understand them. But that’s different from creating an alternative reality altogether.

That clip, it turns out, is an unlikely homage to…wait for it…the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy. Really!

Go ahead and look at the first two clips at the bottom of the post. Note Hurley’s reference to “salt and pepper” and “two kings getting together.” See? In the Diddy clip, too. Who knew? (Okay, so at least one of you did).

Anyway, Hurley references both clips in a blog post he published this morning commemorating the anniversary of the sale. He also announced that the site is now serving up “well over” one billion video views per day. Last month comScore (SCOR) estimated YouTube was doing 10 billion views per month in the U.S.

And there’s also some general talk about the site’s evolution: Rather than focus solely on short clips, it’s also working to bring in movies and TV shows, etc. Nothing you didn’t know already.

Expect to hear more meaningful–but equally upbeat–talk about the site’s progress next Thursday, when Google (GOOG) announces its Q3 earnings.

Last quarter, Google executives went out of their way to talk up the site, and CFO Patrick Pichette said YouTube could start generating significant profits soon. This week, CEO Eric Schmidt also made a point of praising the YouTube deal and the site’s performance during a New York press conference.

Here, once again, is that famous clip:

And here’s the one Hurley was apparently referencing:

And here, once again, is the most popular clip in YouTube’s history:

Unless the 400 or more people I follow on Twitter have all gone mute at the same time, I suspect that something’s wrong with Twitter, since I haven’t seen a new message for the last hour or so. A quick scan of Facebook–and Twitter’s own search engine–indicates that other people are seeing the same thing: We’re tweeting, it appears, but into a void. How meta!

Twitter’s status site, designed just for instances like these, has a message it says is 16 hours old: “We’re currently diagnosing the causes of an unplanned site outage that happened a few minutes ago. We are recovering from this issue now and apologize for the interruption in service.”

Twitter now acknowledges there is a current problem: “We are currently investigating a problem causing many users’ timelines to be delayed. We will update with status here shortly.”

I’m confident we’ll survive this crisis if we all band together. And perhaps go out for a walk–it’s really nice today in New York.

The semi-serious point here is that this stuff used to happen to Twitter all the time, and happens much less now. But the pressure is on Twitter–users are increasing, and so are expectations–to make these outages even less frequent.

Counterpoint: Even mighty Google (GOOG) is prone to this kind of thing.

Warner (WMG) is handing those duties over to Outrigger Media, a New York-based rep firm that specializes in Web media (Outrigger’s preferred description: “Internet video sales and marketing firm”), the companies announced today; oddly, Warner’s release goes on and on without even once mentioning Google (GOOG) or YouTube. Go figure.

I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of Outrigger before this morning, but I had heard of its CEO, Mike Henry, an ad sales veteran who was previously running ad sales for Veoh, one of the many video sites that aimed to become the next YouTube in the past few years. Turns out, Henry is still running ad sales for Veoh–the company has outsourced its ad sales business to Outrigger.

Warner’s strategy is different from the one rival Universal Music is taking with Vevo, the “Hulu for music videos” joint venture it launched with Sony (SNE), with help from YouTube. Vevo is creating its own in-house salesforce, to be led by Nokia (NOK) and and Viacom (VIA) vet David Kohl.

I can understand Warner’s reluctance to build a salesforce of its own–if you really want to do this stuff right, you’re looking at 20 or 30 people–but it seems that long term, if the labels have a future, it’s going to be primarily as a sales and marketing force, and you’d want to make a bet on that now. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

A treat for those of you who love reading about Hollywood’s inner workings: About 7,800 words in this week’s New Yorker dedicated to power blogger Nikki Finke and those who fear her and/or read her. Which pretty much includes everyone in Hollywood.

It’s a classic New Yorker profile, which means it’s thorough and a great read, though there’s not much in the way of news there. Writer Tad Friend mentions Jay Penske’s purchase of Finke’s services in passing, and there’s no update of Penske’s and Finke’s plans to expand the site.

For the record, in late June, Finke said she’d have a New York correspondent hired within three months; four weeks ago, Penske told me said correspondent was going to be signed within two weeks.

What’s the status now? “Not ready to comment right now,” Finke says via email. I’ve also asked Penske for an update.

Back to the story. There’s a lot of inside baseball about the symbiosis between the studios and the people who write about them, and some smart reporting about the tradecraft of reporting and how it has been altered by the rise of blogging.

I also detected at least a whiff of allusion to Janet Malcolm’s famous description of journalism, published in the New Yorker two decades ago:

Finke’s code is the Hollywood code. She is for hard work, big box-office, stars who remain loyal to their agents and publicists, and the little guy–until, that is, the big guy chats her up. Then she’s for that big guy until some other big guy calls to stick it to the first big guy. And this, too, is the Hollywood code: relationships are paramount but provisional. One executive observes that people who heed Finke’s call to snark about their competitors shouldn’t get too comfortable: “The idea is, The lion won’t eat me if I throw it another Christian. It works for a day, but you’re going back to the Colosseum soon.”

The bond between journalists and their sources is always complex–you’re friends with benefits, without being friends–but its contingent nature is particularly apparent in Hollywood. Finke’s sources can hear in her voice when she sounds low or unwell, and will ask if she needs anything. She’s grateful for the solicitude, but determined to maintain the barrier between her and those she calls “these people.” “A veterinarian treats animals–he’s not an animal,” she says.

What does Finke think? Glad you asked. She has an entire post dedicated to it, of course.

The gist:

As I expected, it’s an amusing caricature, only occasionally true but hardly insightful. Still, I’m relieved that The New Yorker didn’t lay a glove on me. I found Tad Friend, who covers Hollywood from Brooklyn, easy to manipulate, as was David Remnick [the magazine's Pulitzer Prize-winning editor in chief] , whom I enjoyed bitchslapping throughout but especially during the very slipshod factchecking process.

No comment from Friend or the New Yorker’s PR staff, which sent me a copy of the article this afternoon.

You know what you can touch? Today? How about a PC you control by shoving your hands in a box full of mud?

Seriously. All you have to do is get yourself to New York’s Nolita neighborhood and drop by Gizmodo’s annual gallery show, chock full of cool, weird and often gloriously useless gadgetry.

Among other geegaws on display: An automated pancake maker, some spark-emitting and dangerous-looking Tesla coils, a “Star Trek” tricorder and a videogame that dispenses beer. And, of course, an array of Apple (AAPL) paraphernalia, including some arts-and-craftsy iPhone cases.

The free show, which runs through Sunday, is mostly a labor of love on the part of head gadgeteer Brian Lam. But I gather it’s now making some money, via sponsorships, for Gawker Media’s Nick Denton. (And if that’s the case, I hope Denton uses some of that money to make sure there’s enough power and air conditioning at next year’s gallery. Also maybe some cots for his charges.)

Lam gave me a mini-tour yesterday afternoon, which I filmed with a Flip camcorder. If want to to see for yourself (it’s much less shaky that way), drop by the gallery at 267 Elizabeth Street.

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090923/tablet-shmablet-how-about-a-mud-pc/feed/ 0 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoos-bartz-microsoft-deal-was-very-clever/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoos-bartz-microsoft-deal-was-very-clever/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:35:15 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11225 Say this about Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz: She promised to answer any and all questions at a New York press conference today, and she delivered! The event, which was meant to highlight Yahoo’s new $100 million marketing campaign, went on for a good hour, and the Q&A covered a wide variety of topics (and a PG-rated F-bomb).

And when that finished, Bartz agreed to answer yet more questions. Video is below, but here’s a synopsis:

• Should press and investors really compare Yahoo (YHOO) to Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL unit? “We aspire higher than that.”
• Bartz explains and defends her Microsoft (MSFT) search deal yet again. Key point: “I never wanted a big upfront payment,” she says. “What I got was revenue, with my expenses covered. I think that’s actually very clever…cash doesn’t help me. But revenue helps me. Revenue without expenses really helps me.”
• Bartz says major Yahoo investors like Gordon Crawford support her tactics and strategy: “They’re fine. I meet with them a lot.”
• Yahoo is interested in M&A, but “nothing on an epic scale,” says Bartz. “Buying interesting sites and content so we can pull in users or smart people, always a great option for us.” Giant joint merger combinations? “That’s really hard. Small and medium-sized opportunities are really what make sense for us.”

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoos-bartz-microsoft-deal-was-very-clever/feed/ 0 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090921/aol-more-org-chart-shuffles-coming-so-are-ad-dollars-but-mum-on-microsoft/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090921/aol-more-org-chart-shuffles-coming-so-are-ad-dollars-but-mum-on-microsoft/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:15:01 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11130 It’s Advertising Week in New York! Which means that for the next few days, ad sellers will be meeting, greeting and buttering up ad buyers in hopes of prying some of their dollars free. Just like every week in New York.

One difference for the likes of me: Big ad sellers are making themselves very available to the press. This morning, for instance, AOL sent out CEO Tim Armstrong, sales boss Jeff Levick, sales deputy Erin Clift and content boss Bill Wilson to poke at eggs and ignore a plateful of bagels and lox.

Oh, and they talked, too! The big message was that they’re still in the process of overhauling the Internet giant on behalf of Time Warner (TWX), which brought in Armstrong from Google (GOOG) earlier this year and says it still plans on spinning off the company by the end of 2009.

Afterward, I got a brief interview (along with PaidContent’s David Armstrong) with the AOL chief. The video is at the bottom of the post, and you may need to turn up your speakers to hear it. But the takeaways are:

• AOL is still looking for a chief marketing officer. The search is in the “early stages.” Do you know anyone? Internet experience is not a prerequisite.
• More org chart moves, like the one that saw COO Kim Partoll pushed out last week, are coming. They’ll be part of the internal review process Armstrong has dubbed “Project Everest,” which should be complete by the end of the year.
• So are layoffs. See above.
• Internet ad dollars are beginning to flow out again–or if they’re not flowing, Armstrong thinks they will be, as big marketers like Procter & Gamble (PG) make permanent shifts in their advertising mixes.
• Armstrong professes to be surprised by a report last week that he had met with Yusuf Mehdi, who runs Bing and MSN for Microsoft (MSFT). “I know Yusuf. I’ve known him personally for years. So if I saw him I would be happy, but…”

]]> http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090921/aol-more-org-chart-shuffles-coming-so-are-ad-dollars-but-mum-on-microsoft/feed/ 1 http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090828/gentlemen-start-your-engines-time-for-another-round-of-cable-deals/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090828/gentlemen-start-your-engines-time-for-another-round-of-cable-deals/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:21:53 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=10459 Did a federal court just give underemployed M&A guys a boost? Could be: The United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., has overturned a longstanding cap on cable-system ownership.

If the court’s decision holds up, it could well start another round of dealmaking similar to the one we saw at the beginning of this decade in which the industry consolidated to about half a dozen major players.

Reuters:

“The commission has failed to demonstrate that allowing a cable operator to serve more than 30 percent of all cable subscribers would threaten to reduce either competition or diversity in programming,” the court said.

The judges pointed to rising competition among video providers, including satellite companies like DirecTV Group Inc, as well as telephone companies like AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc, which have been rolling out their own subscription television services.

“Cable operators, therefore, no longer have the bottleneck power over programming that concerned the Congress in 1992.” the court said. The FCC’s cable ownership limit has been the focus of court challenges for years.

As Reuters points out, new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski can try to appeal the decision or try to write a new one. But if the cap stays off, we’re likely to see another round of combinations, or attempted combinations, at the very least.

Lots of handicappers have already been expecting big cable operators like Comcast (CMCSA) to make a run at programming assets, as it did with Disney (DIS) years ago. But what if the company deploy its assets to bulk up with more subscribers instead? Investors in Cablevision (CVC), the smallish, New York-based cable system that is a perpetual supposed takeover target that never gets taken over, like the idea: CVC shares are climbing modestly in a flat market.

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