Scott Thompson is off this week at Hamilton’s CHML so I spoke with Jim Carriere, who seems to have missed all the fuss about Glee. I try to bring him up to speed, and also deconstruct Conan O’Brien’s surprise move to TBS and U.S. cable. Plenty of analysis pouring in on that shocker, including this savvy big business take from Peter Lauria over at The Daily Beast. Lauria speculates that the O’Brien pickup is part of an aggressive content build up as TBS parent company Time Warner escalates its war with Comcast and other major cable and satellite distributors. The plan: in a fragmenting marketplace, keep TBS a “Must Carry” network. It’s all part of a carriage fee death match between networks and cable that threatens to make Canada’s little “Save Local TV” spat look like a schoolyard tussle. Read Lauria’s take on the Conan connection here and listen to the CHML radio chat here.
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