So two weeks ago, a tight-knit band of cable television installers gathered at a company depot in Canarsie, Brooklyn, to pick up route sheets and put ladders and tools in their vans.
Time Warner had already refused to carry the channel on its regular band of cable stations, which reach 1.1 million subscribers in the city, saying that there was not enough space.
That day at 10 a.m. the diagonal tie attached to the midspan band of one main cable loosened and the cable began to slip through the band.
In most cases, geolocators that were not recovered had broken free of the leg band as a result of cable tie failure, despite the bird itself returning.
TBS is the Sherwood Forest of late-night television and Conan O'Brien is its Robin Hood, leading his band of merry followers to basic cable to battle against the usurper host of "The Tonight Show".
What would happen if all of these firms a band of specialised upstarts, the giant cable companies and the traditional telecoms titans were to clash head-on in a global battle to provide a new communications technology that is certain to replace the one most commonly used today?That is what is about to take place.
With all of the applications in and approved, notable newcomers include the satellite companies, with DirecTV, Echostar and News Corp. forming a partnership, as well as a group of cable companies Cox Communications, Comcast, TimeWarner Cable and Sprint Nextel –banding together.
AND viewers are frequently playing catch-up with long, plot-driven series like "24" and cable shows like "Band of Brothers" and "The Sopranos".
HBO presents "We Stand Alone Together" at 8 30 p.m., a companion piece to the cable channel's "Band of Brothers" mini-series about an American parachute company in World War II.
In Lib Dem parlance, it often seems as much a slogan to unite the party's incongruous parts—a leftist majority, led by Mr Cable; a small band of centrists, associated with Mr Clegg; and additional localists and anti-establishment folk as a serious creed.
There is President Bush and John Kerry and the merry band of bragsters, pollsters, pontificators, image-shapers flashing around on the higher reaches of cable TV.
