LOCAL BUSINESS
Natural gas prices fall
The monthly natural gas price for customers who have chosen Dominion’s Standard Choice Offer (SCO) or those who don’t choose their own supplier will be going down.
Effective Feb. 14, the identical SCO and Standard Service Offer (SSO) prices will be $3.83 per thousand cubic feet (mcf). The new rates are 12 cents, or 3 percent, lower than the January SCO/SSO price of $3.95. It is 15 cents, or 4 percent, higher than the price a year ago, which was $3.68/mcf.
The average SCO/SSO residential customer’s bill for February would be $104.74, up 98 cents, or 9 percent, from $103.76 in February 2012.
Residential customers pay the same usage-based charges (to deliver gas to a residence) and monthly service fee, regardless of whether customers choose their own supplier or stay with Dominion. The monthly service fee is $20.80 and the usage-based charges are $1.18/mcf.
TELEVISION
Report: CEO Britt to retire
Time Warner Cable Inc. Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt, who has run the second-largest cable company for more than a decade, will retire at the end of the year, reports said. The company declined to confirm the report. Rob Marcus, Time Warner Cable’s chief operating officer, is believed to be the top candidate to replace Britt. Shares have more than quadrupled in price since March 2009, during the depths of the last recession.
HBO Go teams with Apple?
Apple Inc. is in negotiations to start carrying Time Warner Inc.’s HBO Go application on Apple TV by mid-2013, reports said. Cable and satellite subscribers who pay for HBO will be able to watch 1,700 films and television shows on Apple TV, which is a $99 set-top device that streams content purchased on iTunes and via other online services to consumers’ televisions. Adding HBO to the lineup of Apple TV services including Netflix Inc. and Hulu Plus may help the iPhone maker bolster sales of a set-top box that has faced stiff competition from similar video-delivery devices from Roku Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Apple TV would let Time Warner, which already offers HBO Go for Roku and Microsoft’s Xbox, deliver another option to consumers who are increasingly shunning broadcasts in favor of on-demand viewing and streaming video over the Internet. HBO Go is only available to customers who subscribe to the network through their cable or satellite service, and would be the first app on Apple TV that requires pay-TV authentication. There are currently HBO Go apps for the iPad and iPhone. Apple sold more than 2 million set-top boxes in the fiscal first quarter, which ended in December. Over the two prior fiscal years Apple sold more than 7.8 million.
ELECTRONICS
Sony planning unit update
Sony is poised to unveil the next PlayStation game console on Feb. 20, a date that would give the Japanese electronics company a head start over Microsoft’s expected announcement of an Xbox 360 successor in June. A console would follow Nintendo’s Wii U, which launched last fall, and precede Microsoft’s next Xbox, likely to be unveiled in June.
Compiled from staff and wire reports
