Digital Trends

Well, it's spending tens of millions of dollars to support HDTV. That's a start.

It was the first time that attending a press event scared me half to death. It wasn't the event itself—it was the scene. This was my first trip to Time Warner's new twin towers, jutting into the sky high above Columbus Circle in New York City. Let's face it, nowadays, twin towers aren't quite the safest places to be. Just going past the shiny glass-sheathed buildings on the bus makes me nervous. Nonetheless, duty called, and turning down free food is against my ethical code as a journalist, so I took the elevator to the Mandarin Oriental restaurant and its commanding view of the city.

The occasion was a major one. Samsung has struck a deal with eight companies, representing 95 percent of U.S. cable subscribers, to promote the cable industry's growing involvement in delivery of high-definition television. The cable operators include Adelphia, Bright House, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Insight, Mediacom, and Time Warner (or as it was known until recently, AOL Time Warner, bwahahaha!). Comcast was missing from the list for reasons not fully explained at the press conference.

An unspecified eight-figure sum will be spent for joint advertising and promotion to raise awareness of the fact that you can get HDTV via cable. You may have already seen the initial results in ads accompanying the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament.