Comcast has been hoarding cash to better manage its balance sheet. But investors worry that it could also be building a war chest for a splashy acquisition similar to its failed 2004 bid for Disney. After Comcast CEO Brian Roberts made an audacious $54 billion bid for Disney five years ago, the cable company has never quite shaken off the image of a media wannabe. Investors worry that Comcast might use growing cash reserves to go after names such as Viacom, owner of MTV Networks and Paramount, or Time Warner, which owns CNN, HBO and Warner Bros. Disney is …

Fox News is a hero to many people who are not buying the Age of Obama. The network was already on pace for its best ratings year even before the health care debate sent viewership jumping during a traditionally slow month for news. Fox's viewership is up 11% over last year, per Nielsen. CNN and MSNBC, which benefited from interest in the campaign last year, are down. Leading the way for Fox are Bill O'Reilly, who already had cable news' most popular show, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. In a June survey, roughly three times as many …

Sundance Channel is launching a video-on-demand service offering documentaries and international films -- often available the same day the movies hit theaters. Sundance Selects will debut on Aug. 26 with Spike Lee's new documentary, "Passing Strange: The Movie." The service will be available on cable TV systems owned by Comcast, Cox Communications and Cablevision, reaching as many as 50 million U.S. households. The new VOD offerings are endorsed by actor Robert Redford, Sundance festival founder and creative director of the Sundance Channel. The cable channel is owned by the Cablevision unit of Rainbow Media Holdings. A video-on-demand …

Wall Street Journal chief Rupert Murdoch wasn't kidding when he said that his properties would start charging for all online content. The WSJ has placed at least three different ads seeking executive-level editors for "a new business Web site...that will break ground in the paid-content arena." The question is whether this paid-content strategy will help News Corp. and other struggling publishers recapture revenue and profits, or whether it's an ill-conceived and anachronistic approach. It is disingenuous to claim that readers of hard copies pay for content. What readers pay for is the convenience of delivery to their homes …

A group of 36 newspaper Web sites owned by the Newhouse family, including NJ.com, has entered into a deal with Microsoft. The partnership will allow the newspaper group Advance Internet, to sell Microsoft Media Network inventory on the local level. With the addition of Microsoft Media Network inventory, Advance can now expand its local reach in the marketplace to about 75% of all adults who use the Internet. Additionally, Advance will be implementing Microsoft Advertising's Content Ads and Search Ads, which serve contextually relevant advertisements within articles and other content pages. Lastly, the deal lets Advance sell Microsoft …

Hoping to build buzz for its new fall comedy "Modern Family," ABC has begun quietly offering a group of viewers the chance to screen the show online -- more than a month before it premieres on TV. The hope is these taste makers will flip for "Family" and will begin spreading the word on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. Most previous attempts to get people to sample a show have been aimed at reaching hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of eyeballs. ABC is going the opposite route by offering the sneak peak only to its "Inner …

Jay Leno's longtime friend Jerry Seinfeld will be the first guest on the first installment of "The Jay Leno Show." The primetime strip debuts Sept. 14 on NBC. Seinfeld is making a major splash this fall after being on a TV hiatus since "Seinfeld" aired. The comedian will appear on Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO later this year with the rest of the "Seinfeld" troupe. In addition, he has reality show "The Marriage Ref" set for NBC at midseason.

As Jay Leno is headed to prime time, a whole other kind of math is at work. For NBC Universal, the success or failure of "The Jay Leno Show" is likely to be measured less by how it fares versus the network competition than by how its profit margins compare to the more expensive scripted dramas NBC previously developed and aired in that hour. "You're in a business to make a profit and if the show is profitable, then it's successful," Leno says. "We can do five or six of these shows for the price of one 'CSI: …

In next few years, set-top box data could become an integral part of the TV ratings currency. In fact, mining audience data from STB devices that deliver TV content via cable or satellite is turning into the digital equivalent of the Alaska gold rush. A growing number of research and technology companies, including Nielsen, TNS Media Research, TiVo, Rentrak and TRA hope to deliver audience viewing data of unparalleled precision based on millions of households. "The biggest barrier to entry in TV measurement is gone except for getting access to the set-top box data," says David Poltrack, chief research …

The U.S. Olympic committee has decided that it will secure the full support and cooperation of the IOC before moving forward with its Olympic TV Network. The IOC criticized the USOC for "unilaterally" announcing the launch of the TV network on July 8, saying it raised complex legal questions and could jeopardize relations with Olympic broadcaster NBC. Delaying things is a no-lose proposition for the USOC, which still had no definite startup date, no programming and not enough cable carriers committed to airing the network despite its deal with Comcast. Resolving the TV deal also helps with the …