text:
Tag Archives: Nelson Mandela
13 December 2013 · 11:19 am
A prayer for Madiba
Almighty God,
We thank you for Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,
our beloved Madiba.
We come to celebrate his life:
A hard life, but a life well lived;
A life committed to the freedom of others;
Unselfishly seeking freedom and justice for all.
Thank you for keeping and moulding his spirit
Through those 27 years of imprisonment.
Thank you for keeping his spirit
from the seduction of power.
We know how easily we become grumpy
When we do not get our own way,
Angry in the face of perceived injustice,
Ready to use power for revenge.
Yet you moulded Madiba's soul in the furnace
of intolerance, violence, injustice and imprisonment
And helped him find true freedom.
Lord God, we celebrate Madiba's life.
Not a perfect life, but a life well lived.
Thank you that, whatever he may have gotten wrong,
He got the big things right:
He learned how to forgive, and showed us how;
He learned reconciliation,
And 'he made reconciliation happen in South Africa.'¹
Lord God, we celebrate a life well lived.
A life that allows us to live in freedom and peace,
That demands that we, too, strive for the freedom of others.
'For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains,
but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.'²
We pray for this freedom for ourselves, our children and our communities.
We ask it in the name of the one whose birth we celebrate
And whose coming as a baby sets the tone
of vulnerability and peace our world so desperately needs.
A prayer shared at a brief interfaith memorial service for Madiba held at Shuter & Shooter Publishers (where I am privileged to be a consultant) on Friday 13 December 2013
1 FW de Klerk
2 Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, 1995
Filed under Meditation & Prayer, The News
Tagged as Forgiveness, Freedom, Madiba, Nelson Mandela, prayer, Reconciliation
6 December 2013 · 5:00 pm
Nelson Mandela: friend of the world
We have lost an icon, a friend of the world, a statesman; Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela has died.
We knew this day would come but it is hard to express our feelings. I am relieved that his suffering is over and he can rest in peace. No one would want him to linger on. But he was, as President Jacob Zuma said, 'Africa's greatest son.' And President Barak Obama said, 'He was one of the most courageous, influential and profoundly good individuals.' It has been a huge privilege to live under his shadow and under his influence.
Read more of this post on my website, Simply Communicate
Filed under Articles, The News
Tagged as Forgiveness, Madiba, Nelson Mandela, passion, Reconciliation, Vision
Choices: a sermon (Pentecost 6, Year C)
A sermon preached at Prestbury Methodist Church, Sunday, 30 June 2013.
Readings: 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62
The Jordan River (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We are confronted by choices every day. What to wear? What to eat? Well, at least I've sorted lunch. Peanut butter sandwiches almost every working day for 50 years. That's one decision I don't have to worry about. Some choices are, of course, trivial. What does it really matter what we eat? But others are life changing.
Nelson Mandela chose to run off to Johannesburg rather than be forced into an arranged marriage. It was in Johannesburg that he met Walter Sisulu and studied law. Those choices were among many significant decisions Madiba made that have brought us to this point, where his health is not just of passing interest to a few family members, but of deep personal interest to the whole world.
Think for a moment about some of the life changing choices you have made? Whether they were entirely your choice, or forced on you, what were they?
Elijah and Elisha
Our 2 Kings reading, Elijah passing on his charge to Elisha, is a difficult one. I don't know what to make of the magical elements of the story. Of course, we often just call them miracles and ignore them. But trying to understand what they meant and mean will have to be for another time.
Tagged as 6th Sunday after Pentecost, Choices, Elijah, Elisha, Fruit of the Spirit, Jesus, love, Nelson Mandela
28 April 2012 · 1:33 pm
Freedom Day: an inconvenient truth
Freedom Day: commemorating South Africa's first democratic elections on 27 April 1994, and celebrating freedom everywhere. Nelson Mandela said, "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." A most inconvenient truth as Al Gore would say. It does rather suggest that those who justify their conspicuous consumption, and their greedy accumulation of wealth, by telling us they didn't endure the Struggle to be poor, have rather missed the point.
Jen and I too, no doubt, missed the point of Freedom Day by hiving off to enjoy our own private freedom, meandering up the Midlands Meander. It was a beautiful day, spent in beautiful countryside enjoying good coffee and good food, practising the three Rs: reading, writing and relaxing. But Mandela's challenge is that there can be no individual freedom that ignores the freedom of others.
Companies and organisations, in pursuit of their own freedom, often ignore the freedom of others. Signal distribution company, Sentech, has had to lower the height of the World's View tower that provides Pietermaritzburg with its SABC TV signals ("Fuzzy TV to last weeks", The Witness, 27 April 2012). The process has resulted in poor reception, driving residents to TV repair shops, but their TVs have been declared satisfactory because no one knew what was going on.
The SABC didn't bother to warn anyone because it wasn't its problem. "We only warn people if the problem is from our side and is going to affect the whole country." Forget the needs and expectations of individuals who pay for one's product; forget the freedom of others. We're all right, thank you; our freedom to make money is intact.
Sentech was also not interested; they were forced to make the changes by the aviation authorities. "Unfortunately this is inevitable. Our guys are working there every day." And, almost as an aside, "reception should improve by the end of May."
The Civil Aviation Authority, however, tells us that Sentech created the problem 40 years ago when they increased the height of the tower by 20 metres without permission. It sounds like the classic tale from the Garden of Eden: Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake and the snake didn't have a leg to stand on.
Sentech and the SABC seem not to understand that while the work and the disruption may be unavoidable; failing to inform your customers is not.
On a grander scale, the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) and the Department of Transport failed to appreciate the national mood, and ignored the freedom of others. They went ahead in the face of legal and industrial protests, with an exceptionally unpopular and excessively expensive method of tolling the national roads in Gauteng province (e-tolling). Their actions brought business, labour and ordinary citizens together onto the streets and into the courts in an unprecedented display of solidarity and cooperation. As a result e-tolling has been put on hold. The battle has been won, although the war is far from over.
On the advertising front, fast-food chain, Nando's, well known for its cheeky, in-your-face advertising, created a spoof of an advert flighted by short-term insurance giant, Santam. Creative advertising is one thing but stealing another company's ideas is quite another.
Santam might have risen up in righteous anger to protect its own freedom. Instead, South Africans have been privileged to enjoy a rare exchange of banter that inhibited no one's freedom, and from which a group of children emerged as the ultimate winners. Santam responded with another advert inviting Nando's to pay up for their cheek. However, the "payment" was to be in the form of 74 specified meals donated to the Johannesburg Children's Home. Nando's rose to the occasion, and rushed the 74 meals to the children almost before the advert had finished airing. They went the extra mile, and committed to a similar delivery every month for the next year. So Santam and the children won this battle, but this "war" is also far from over. Nando's marketing director Quentin Cronje is quoted as saying, "We might even be doing a little response back to them. We might even be working on it as we speak."
Large organisations, and many individuals, ignore Mandela's challenge and deny the freedom of others. But there are some who tread gently enough to protect those freedoms, and children are fed. Neither option is inevitable; each results from choices made every day by people such as you and me.
This post was published in The Witness on Tuesday, 1 May 2012.
Human Rights Day: Celebrating with Caution (wonderingpreacher.wordpress.com)
Nelson Mandela: 67 minutes for 67 years (wonderingpreacher.wordpress.com)
A day off for liberation (walksoffaith.wordpress.com)
Let freedom reign! (cgdelarey.wordpress.com)
freedom (sevencitys.wordpress.com)
Filed under Articles, Freedom Day, Through the Year
Tagged as Advertising, Choices, e-tolling, Freedom, Freedom Day, Nando's, Nelson Mandela, Santam
23 July 2011 · 9:29 pm
Nelson Mandela: 67 minutes for 67 years
Sixty seven minutes to celebrate 67 years of service.
Nelson Mandela, 93 years old, we salute you. A life lived to the full in serving a cause, but not so enslaved to it that he could not challenge and adapt and find new ways. He emerged from the mud and the blood of an armed rebellion, a stifling prison cell, a lifetime in politics, a position of power, and from the grasp of those who would tame him. He emerged stronger and more humble, a greater man than almost any other public figure you care to name, especially those who have come under the lure of politics and power.
Nelson Mandela has his detractors of course. There are those on the "right" who dig for dirt because they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge, let alone embrace, greatness in someone who thinks differently, believes differently, or acts differently from them. How tragic that Christians are found swelling these ranks.
There are those on the "left" who hate the idea of reconciliation; who will not share, who cannot forgive. They demand retribution; some to satisfy their bloodlust, others because their share of the pie was smaller than expected; others because they demand someone to blame. They cannot find freedom within themselves so someone else must be enslaved that their own slavery might seem like freedom. How tragic that Christians swell these ranks too.
Nelson Mandela's greatness lies as much in what he has overcome and managed to achieve as in what he has enabled others to do.
His legacy can be seen in this great land of ours, South Africa. A nation birthed and nurtured under his loving care, his determination that the healing of wounds and the nurture of freedom are far more important for the building of a future, than triumph or revenge or power.
Nelson Mandela's legacy has survived the racism that marked Thabo Mbeki's reign and the 'every man for himself, feeding at the communal trough' legacy of Jacob Zuma. Will it survive the lust for instant gratification of Julius Malema? I don't know. I think that depends on how many 67 minutes are spent by ordinary citizens serving others, reminding each other of another way, calling one another to greatness rather than power.
Long before Nelson Mandela chose his way, Jesus said the first shall be last and the last first. He said the one who wants to be first should be the servant of all and the way to save our lives is to lose them. So the front is to be found at the back, the top can only be reached from the bottom, and real power is exercised through service. How do we teach these truths to a nation? Not by force; there are no quick fixes. The only certain way is to live it out; at the risk of ridicule, rejection, and even death; to choose the way of service that goes beyond 67 minutes and becomes a way of life.
May I humbly offer this challenge as my 67 minutes of service, in gratitude and in admiration of a man at whose strength and grace one can only marvel? Madiba, we love you.
Freedom Day: an inconvenient truth (wonderingpreacher.wordpress.com)
Devoting 67 Minutes to "Changing the World" on Nelson Mandela Day (oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com)
Filed under Community, The News
Tagged as 67 minutes, Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema, Leadership, Nelson Mandela, service


Roof cladding is another incredibly important component in a roofing system. Cladding completely transforms the look of your home and also makes it more secure, protecting your property from the damaging effects of weather. Roof cladding refers to the layer of material that makes up the external surface of the roof. It can be made from various materials including wood, metal and plastic. Traditionally, cladding was high in price and difficult to maintain. Some companies substitute these for inferior products that allow water and dampness to seep through. At Empire, we insist on the use of premium quality UPVC cladding products. They look great, giving a kerb appeal of real painted wood and are also simple to maintain. They're designed and built to last for many years to come.
Why choose Empire for Roof Cladding?
Cladding protects your home by keeping the elements out.
It Provides insulation. All of our UPVC products use a unique hidden ventilation system to increase airflow which eliminates dampness.
Low maintenance – our UPVC cladding wipes clean with a damp cloth and never needs repainting.
Durability. For peace of mind, all of our cladding services come with a 15-year guarantee as standard.
Add that 'finishing touch' to your property. Experience a complete roofline transformation by adding matching guttering, soffits and fascias. Our roof cladding comes in a range of colours for great visual appeal.
Roof cladding is important for many different reasons and needs to be regularly maintained to fulfil its purpose. To keep your roof cladding in top shape, contact us today to discuss our cladding services throughout Hertfordshire, Essex and London. Whether you need a small repair or a full replacement, put your trust in our experts and give us a call today.


text:
'use strict';

angular.module('metAppApp.admin', [
  'metAppApp.auth',
  'ui.router'
]);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tag: Sussan Ley
Malcolm Turnbull suffers turbulent start to 2017
January 14, 2017 January 14, 2017 by Drag0nista
Pretty much anything that could go wrong for our hapless Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this year has already gone dramatically pear-shaped.
Weekly column for The New Daily.
Turnbull Government looks shaky on its trainer-wheels.
December 19, 2015 December 19, 2015 by Drag0nista
The Political Weekly: The Government's budget update was an amateur affair.
For The New Daily.
The best and worst of the week
April 24, 2015 August 2, 2015 by Drag0nista
The Political Weekly: 'Courageous' policies and cringe-worthy moments. A look back at the moments served up by our politicians this week.
Our second "woman of merit"
December 23, 2014 January 7, 2015 by Drag0nista
In a world of cookie-cutter politicians with little real life experience before entering parliament, new Health Minister Sussan Ley stands apart from the rest.
Column for The Hoopla.
Ministry reshuffle built on paranoia not progress
December 22, 2014 July 5, 2016 by Drag0nista1 Comment on Ministry reshuffle built on paranoia not progress
A full 12 months earlier than it's customary to do so, Tony Abbott has reshuffled his ministry. This is what governments usually do one year out from an election to prove they're not stuck in a rut but capable of the regeneration that brings vigour and fresh ideas.
PM Abbott brought the activity forward a year as part of his attempt to scrape off the Government's barnacles before Australian voters turn their attention to the beach and the barbie.
The move finally brought to an end the PM's insistence that the ministry's continuity was necessary to create a sense of political stability, a stubbornness demonstrated by 20 members of Abbott's ministry having served in the last ministry of the Howard government.
The most intriguing thing about the reshuffle is not Abbott's belated recognition of the need to do it, but his concession to the demands of critics while handing poisoned chalices to dud ministers and potential competitors.
The young guns in the Victorian Liberal MPs have essentially been rewarded for their years of agitation and complaint about having to cool their heels on the backbench. This group is responsible for a proportion of the grumbles about the PM's chief of staff Peta Credlin, particularly her reported resistance to an early reshuffle.
While it could be argued that NSW Liberals benefited most from the reshuffle by getting another MP into Cabinet, they also lost a spot in the outer ministry with the resignation of stood-aside Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos. In fact, the Victorian young guns gained more than any other state, with two of their MPs being promoted.
Victorian MP Josh Frydenberg was elevated from parliamentary secretary to Assistant Treasurer, while his Victorian colleague Kelly O'Dwyer was brought from the backbench to the rank of parliamentary secretary. In doing so, the PM has made considerable concessions to the ambitious Victorians, even going so far as to make Frydenberg Assistant Treasurer instead of Hockey's preferred candidate, the Queenslander Steve Ciobo.
Whether this will be enough to quell the Victorians' noisy agitation over Credlin is yet to be seen.
Many of the other ministerial changes are better understood if viewed through the lens of Abbott's leadership.
While the PM made no changes to the stellar Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's portfolio, he did remove her friend and ally, the poorly performing David Johnston, from Cabinet. That leaves Bishop with only one Western Australian colleague, Mathias Cormann, at the big table.
No changes were made to Turnbull's portfolio either, suggesting Abbott is content with leaving the former Liberal leader to disappoint his progressive fan-base with the Government's cut-rate NBN.
And then there is Scott Morrison's promotion from Immigration and Border Protection to a revamped Social Services portfolio, which the PM says is essentially a ministry for economic participation. Morrison is also tasked with producing a holistic families package that Abbott described as being "an important part of our political and economic agenda in the first half of next year".
Political commentators are calling this a big win for Morrison, who is keen to broaden his experience with an economic portfolio, thereby strengthening his leadership credentials. But a closer look at the appointment does not bear out this interpretation.
Much of Morrison's success in the Immigration portfolio was built on the Australian community's antipathy for asylum seekers. His willingness to do whatever it took, and unwillingness to talk about it, essentially gave Australian voters permission to turn a blind eye to the human cost of border protection while giving him kudos for "solving" the asylum seeker issue.
However, Morrison will not be able to deploy the same tactics in Social Services. While asylum seekers are for most voters a distant concept, pretty much everyone knows someone who is dependent on the welfare system. As a result, the impacts of welfare reform are seen, felt and known, and there will be no glory for Morrison having "stopped the dole" in the way he "stopped the boats".
It's therefore likely Morrison's promotion is a poisoned chalice, and a way for Abbott to push through one of his toughest reform agendas while also reducing the appeal of one of his competitors.
Curiously, Morrison was not the only minister to receive a dubious and potentially career-limited promotion in the reshuffle.
Kevin Andrews' move to Defence will likely see him begging to be let go by the next election, for the Department is known for chewing up and spitting out their civilian "masters". The future doesn't look particularly rosy for former Health Minister Peter Dutton either. Dutton may be a retired policeman but it's difficult to see him bring the same steely resolve that served Morrison so well in the Immigration and Border Protection portfolio.
And then there is the welcome appointment of NSW's Sussan Ley to Cabinet, thereby doubling the number of women to two. Clearly the representation of women in the Cabinet is unacceptably low, and not due so much to a lack of merit as the arcane balance of states, factions, and parties that make up the Coalition's ministry. Abbott at least did the right thing in appointing two more women as parliamentary secretaries, so they can become ministers-in-training.
Prime ministers usually reshuffle their ministry to provide a fresh aspect on their government while hopefully also evoking a sense of stability through the regeneration. But with one or two exceptions, like the promotion of Ley, Abbott's reshuffle is characterised by concessions to antagonists, throwing competitors in the deep end, and leaving the deadwood to atrophy.
Abbott's reshuffle may superficially appear to be a reset in preparation for 2015, but in reality it is more about the PM's paranoia and tenuous leadership than it is about his Government's rejuvenation.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Today we start a series of articles where we will be exploring and testing different products for jewelry and storing the jewelry.
We want to share with you some simple methods which can help remove tarnish and make your jewelry look beautiful for years to come with proper care. In this article, we will be sharing a simple method for removing tarnish from sterling silver using baking soda and aluminum foil. This method is very simple and you will be impressed with the results.
First, a couple of words about the chemical process that will restore shiny silver appearance. Silver becomes tarnished because sulfur is present in the air. When silver reacts with sulfur it creates sulfur sulfite which has a black coloration.
We will use a chemical reaction to restore silver from sulfur sulfite by using aluminum foil and baking soda.
Let's clean tarnished sterling silver amber ring.
1. Take a heat-resistant bowl.
2. Inline a bowl with a layer of aluminum foil. Choose the bowl size to accommodate the number of items you wish to clean.
3. Put tarnished jewelry in the bowl. Please note that it is important to make sure that each piece of jewelry is in contact with aluminum foil.
4. Place baking soda over the jewelry to completely cover all items.
5. Slowly pour boiling water to cover all contents of the bowl which will immediately bubble cleaning the jewelry.
6. Remove jewelry from the solution approximately after two to three minutes being careful of hot water.
7. Rinse jewelry under cool running water.
8. Dry with soft cloth.
Here is the result !!!
We tested this method on many different kinds of amber jewelry and we always had excellent results.


text:
The Wild Wild Heist!
One can't get enough of the Wild West themed slots, right? The more the better! Probably you yourselves have spun plenty of those before. They all are fantastic. NetEnt has offered us its Wild West themed slot machine. Here, you will get involved in one of the greatest train heists of the century. Hope you are ready as here it comes!
The slot's gameplay is not rocket science, trust us. We have standard 5 reels with 3 rows that can't really surprise anyone nowadays. But 10 paylines certainly can. All the paylines are fixed, but that is standard for NetEnt. The slot's general mode is just like in any other slot. Its main idea is simple: spin, hit combos of identical tiles on the reels and get paid.
The tiles are the mixture of the cards-borrowed tiles and several unique icons. All the winning combos start on the leftmost reel and should consist of three or more tiles of one kind. The low-hand tiles are four icons featuring the cards' suits. The Diamonds and Cubs are paid the same: the combo of 3 is paid 5x, the combo of 4 is paid 30x and the five of a kind are paid 80x. Hearts and Spades' payouts are also identical: 3 of a kind are worth 10x, 4 of a kind are paid 50x and the five of one kind are paid 100x.
The high-hand tiles of the slot were uniquely designed for it. Those are four tiles featuring four bandits. The tile featuring a young blond Guy with a scar across his face is paid 200x for the 5. The payouts for the Man with mustache and a knife are the same. The one-eyed Bandit wearing a hat is paid more, 300 times the bet for five. And the highest-paid tile of the slot is the female Cowgirl Bandit.
She certainly does look like the lady of the house and is paid 50x for five. What is awesome about the design of those face tiles, is that they match the card suits tiles! The blond boy wears a scarf with a diamond pattern on it. The guy with a knife has a clubs tattoo on his neck. Our lady-bandit has the ace of spades pinned to her hat. And the one-eyed chap wears a heart-shaped pin on his shirt collar.
Even though the regular wins are high, usually we don't care much about the regular mode. The regular game plays of all slots are pretty much identical. And as far as the wins are concerned, they are usually quite modest. What we do wait for anxiously is the bonus features. They can bring huge wins, and they are fun, let's face it. So what is waiting for us at the Train Heist?
No slot can do without a Wild. The Train Heist went further. They don't have only one wild. Instead, they have four different wilds. It's plenty to choose from. Each Wild comes with its own perks, they are all as hot as heck. First, there is a regular Wild. It appears in the regular game mode only and replaces any tile but the scatters. It may also form combos, say five Wilds are paid 500x.
But there is also the free games' mode. It comes with plenty of wilds. To initiate the free games' mode, hit at least three Scatter tiles in one spin. For three tiles, you will get 10 free games. Four Scatters will give you 20 games. And the max Scatter combo of five comes with 30 free of charge spins.
Each free game session features one of the 4 available Wilds. Like in the regular mode, they appear on the reels while those are spinning. Just like other tiles do. Apart from the regular Wild we have already mentioned, there are also: Expanding Wilds, Spreading Wilds and x2 Multiplier Wilds. All the wilds are pretty self-explanatory but the Spreading Wild. The Spreading Wild turns one diagonal or one adjacent tile into an extra wild.
What Wild will your Free Spins round feature is chosen randomly with a spin of a Wild Selector Wheel. But all the wilds form combos and their payouts will be identical to those of the regular wild. Also, during the free games, the Overlay wild symbol appears over the first three reels. It appears randomly. As an active wild feature, the Overlay Wild may appear only over the reels not already covered by other Wilds.
The Free Games can be re-triggered, but there won't be any additional wild selection procedure. After the game is over, you return to the main mode and your free spin wins are added to your account.
There is one more bonus feature in the Train Heist slot. It's called the Pick and Click Feature, and it's a plain pick-me bonus game. To trigger the feature, hit three bonus tiles in one spin. The bonus tile appears on the odd reels only, and they look like a safe.
After you hit the three of those safes on the reels, you choose one and click on it. When the safe of your choice opens, you will receive a coin win. Usually, it is worth 5-50 times the bet. There is only one pick per feature.
Betting at Train Heist? Nothing's easier. Select the coin value and the betting level. The coins are worth from 0.01 to 1.00. And you may choose one of the available 10 betting levels. Thus, your total spin wager will be anywhere from 0.10 to 100.00 per spin. It doesn't strike us as a big wager, but as there are only 10 paylines, the winnings are quite substantial.
So would we recommend the Wild Wild West: The Great Train Heist? Certainly. We enjoyed the regular mode payouts immensely, but it's the Free Spin feature that simply rocks. So many ways to win in the Wild West. So let's keep on spinning!
Wilds Deluxe Wild West
Do you like cowboy slots?


I have been trialing the 4 wheel spinner 3-Piece luggage set during my travels here in the US. The set is on sale at for $199, which for all 3 is a huge discount. It's a great time for me to do this review! I also got some that I took along on my recent travels to try out and see what all the fuss was about and write this IT luggage review!
Someone is getting a pack of the same ! All you have to do is follow the Rafflecopter instructions below. After you leave a blog post comment and click that you have, more options will open up to get extra entries. You have 5 days to enter and the machine will choose a winner at random- starting now! This giveaway is open to everyone and I will email the winner.


text:
Q: XSLT - Insert element at a position based on value of another element at same level <Level>
    <Name>XYZ</Name>
    <Number>456</Number>
    <DateTime>2020-03-11T08:53:00</DateTime>
 </Level>
<Level>
    <Name>ABC</Name>
    <Number>123</Number>
    <DateTime>2020-03-13T08:53:00</DateTime>
 </Level>
 <Level>
    <Name>PQR</Name>
    <Number>789</Number>
    <DateTime>2020-03-12T08:53:00</DateTime>
 </Level>

Insert a new element Value below the element  only when Level/Name = ABC
So that result should be as follows:
 <Level>
    <Name>XYZ</Name>
    <Number>456</Number>
    <DateTime>2020-03-11T08:53:00</DateTime>
 </Level>
<Level>
    <Name>ABC</Name>
    <Number>123</Number>
    <Type>Value</Type>
    <DateTime>2020-03-13T08:53:00</DateTime>
 </Level>
 <Level>
    <Name>PQR</Name>
    <Number>789</Number>
    <DateTime>2020-03-12T08:53:00</DateTime>
 </Level>

thanks in advance.

A: Here's a possible solution.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    version="1.0">

  <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="Level/Number[../Name='ABC']">
    <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
    <Type>Value</Type>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="@*|node()">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

See it working here : https://xsltfiddle.liberty-development.net/6pS26mN/1

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


LAHORE: The Minhajul Quran University expelled the 320 girl students from the hostel on Sunday -- a few days after a controversial video of Pakistan Awami Tehreek Secretary-General Khurram Nawaz Gandapur went viral.
The video showing Mr Gandapur yelling at the students of the university proved embarrassing for the party.
Mr Gandapur was seen scolding students and threatening to throw them out for protesting against the administration for not allowing them to attend an Iftar party outside the university. "We all know what kind of exploitation takes place in the private hostels," he told the students.
The girls tried to convince Mr Gandapur who refused to lend a sympathetic hearing to them and threatened them with dire consequences. He said the administration had summoned the parents of the students for a meeting and would allow them to step out of the hostel premises if the parents had no objection. "The Minhaj administration will not be responsible in case of any mishap," he added.
Later, Mr Gandapur told media that the girls misbehaved with the hostel administration when they did not allow them to attend an Iftar party outside the university. He said no girl could leave the hostel after 6pm under the rules and if anyone wanted to go outside, she should be accompanied by a woman member of the staff.
The university administration took disciplinary action against all the students who protested against them and posted the video on social media. It announced that they had closed the hostel and cancelled the admission of the students. The institution expelled the 320 students from the hostel on Sunday.
The parents of the students held a press conference outside the Minhajul Quran Secretariat and condemned the behaviour of the PAT leader. They said it was unjust to penalise all the students because of protest by a few of them.
The parents said they had paid the entire fee at the time of the admission and the remaining dues as well and were willing to cooperate with the varsity administration. They said Mr Gandapur should have shown respect to the girl students.
Punjab Higher Education Commission chairman Dr Nizam said the students had every right to protest and they would take action against the Minhajul Quran University administration. "We will recommend action against the university administration," he said.
Commenting on the development, PAT spokesman Noorullah Siddiqui said it was not the responsibility of Khurrum Nawaz Gandapur to look into the matters of the university but he intervened in the best interest of the students. He said they had established the hostel on the request of the parents and under the rules no girl could be allowed to leave or go outside the hostel after 6pm.
He said they had permitted the students to go outside only in case of an emergency.
"Now we have no other option but to close the hostel," he said.
Have some sense sirs.. If the viral video was embarrassing, the expulsion will be even worse !
These female students have to learn to be disciplined.
I think somebody should try and teach manners to this Gundapur on how to treat woman in general.
Gandapur should be booked, for his ill-treatment with the students.
Who have approved this University and who is final authority for student's future? Where is Chancellor of this University? if not, close this University. Lahore University or Islamabad University may take over it. People like Ganda poor are running universities in this country, shameful for the country.
The expelling of poor and powerless girls is a true reflection of authoritarianism and cruelty of party leaders. The great Allama is silent on such event, though he is always available and ready to come to the scene and contribute his part to creating chaos in country.
I saw the video footage, although Mr. Gandapur appeared aggressive, i am sure the stern action was in the best interest of the girls, who have been placed in his custody and guardianship. he had no option but to act firm. Every child needs to be disciplined ... perhaps not harshly....but the events that happened earlier are unknown. For future the administration may like to consider allowing students for limited socializing accompanied by their parents/ guardians. Mr. Gandapur should reconsider his decision to expel students after a formal apology by students. These situations should not be allowed to be exploited for political gains.
is it a hostel or jail that you can't go out after 6:00 pm . And are those girls minors or adults that someone has to accompany them . What kind of stupid rules are these .
@Al Kuwaiti This is religious university which has set rules and regulations. If someone has problems to adhere with the rules switch the university and study in another university.
Why to send your children to such institutions which are more political than academic.
As an administrator you need to know how to handle such situations. The are very common and need to be dealt in a proper manner. In this case kick out Ganda por.
Another example of how decadent practices prevail in this country's educational institutions.
Living in a hostel one has to abide by the rules of the organization. Or if we will have prefer independence of all rules concerning timing of our arrival and departure maybe any hotel would serve quite alright..
@Michael Desouza There is no reason of shouting and being aggressive. Hostel is not a prison and girls are not prisoners. Our society believes that if we talk in a calm way no would take them seriously. Shouting will do no good to any party.
@Faheem average university student is an educated adult. Nowhere in world, hostel administration are responsible for individuals act. Their mere duty is to provide clean room and food to the students, what they are normally paid for. There is contrasting differences in women and men hostels in Pakistan which evidently shows hipocracy of this society. This society believes suppressing women is one solution to solve all the problems, that is the reason to imply rules which are completely ridiculous for educated, adult human being.
Chief Justice should take notice!
Rules are rules and cannot be violated by these girls' demands. They should have requested rule change ahead of Ramadan. So, the girls are at fault and must abide by rules. They made admin's job very difficult because had something happened when girls were out, they would have been held responsible for breaking the 6 pm rule. What is right is right and admin took the correct decision. Thank you or lawlessness wins.


Instagram seems to befuddle business owners of all sizes including some seasoned social media agencies.
From Mom & Pops who own a Home-Based Business Opportunity that need clicks from seriously interested buyers to a National Event Promoter that desires to expand revenue while branding and boosting advance ticket sales – all seem to have the same questions about Instagram.
Truth be told, with endless competition, your mission is clear, and your brand needs to find fresh ideas to stand out from the standard to be special. I want to help make your brand go from aspiration to operational in one blog post.
How do I set up more than one Instagram account?
How do I get traffic from my Grams?
How can I monetize my Grams?
How can I make my Grams better?
In the US alone, there are 64 million active users, a figure that is projected to hit 111 million by 2019.
Another report by Forrester Research found Instagram users were 58 times more likely to like, comment on or share a brand's post were Facebook users, and 120 times more likely than were Twitter users.
Instagram has more than 400 million active users around the world.
Over five million businesses around the globe utilize Instagram to tell their story and grow their brand.
Who is on profiting on Instagram right now? Your competition most likely along with A-listers, to Royalty to Rappers to companies branding wrapping paper. The amount of content is truly endless and that is one main reason you need to make your brand shine from the rest of the pack.
60 million photos have been updated with the hashtag #selfie and with the #metoo movement and many others have seen the power of the hashtag.
90% of users are under age of 35 68% of which are and 70% of all users check the app at least once a day. Who gets the most Celebrity followed? Taylor Swift. A fact that I'm sorry I now know lol. How is the most followed brand? Nike. More facts that you now know. You're welcome.
Here are my top app selections to make your brand pop, get more followers than you thought possible, make your life easier, make your business more profitable, get traffic flowing, and I hope to answer most of your questions.
1. How do I set up more than one Instagram account?
You need more than one account for sure! If you have one account already, have no fear you can simply add another. step is to create a Feature account that will end up being your content house. All you need is an email address to get another account opened. Create one Gmail account and create one account per email on Instagram.
Tip: make your Gmail address the same as the account name that you want to open. Example: isetupyourbusiness@gmail.com will translate to I Set Up Your Business on Instagram. Then you have more than one account and a new home.
2. How do I get traffic from my Grams?
Use strong calls to action (in your bio, images, and comments).
A lot of companies are starting to post on Instagram. Unfortunately for them, they never tell people what to do or where to go!
3. What is the best time of day to Gram you ask?
To get the best results, you need to be using the WhenToPost app. It's important to post Instagram content at a time when your audience is likely to be online. The WhenToPost app is an Instagram specific app that helps take some of the guesswork out of this process.
WhenToPost: Generates a heat map which tells you the best times to post your Instagram content – Provides a countdown to your next top time to share content – Shows a graph with the best times of the week to post to Instagram.
4. How can I monetize my Grams and increase revenue?
Have2Have.it is the answer in app form.
Let your followers discover. Your followers find something they want on your Instagram feed but have no way of easily purchasing it. Send them to the Have2Have. profile.
Make it easy for your followers to shop – The Have2Have.It link takes your followers to a shoppable, curated page that has the same look and as your brand's Instagram feed.
They can now tap the images and discover the products they love. Increase revenue with higher conversions- Have2Have.it drives followers directly to your E-Commerce website to complete their purchase and discover more products.
A dashboard made for sellers like you – Manage everything in one place on desktop or mobile. Easily add posts to your Have2Have.it feed by tagging one or multiple products in the images on your dashboard. Make strategic social decisions based on the analytics Have2Have.it provides, as well as capture and export customer data.
Try Have2Have.it free for 30 days!
5. How can I make my Grams better?
Then post niche content in each account that is highly specific to your topic.
CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT – Boomerang is my app of choice for this critical function. It lets you create engaging content with just one button. The tool shoots a burst of 10 photos and turns them into a short mini-video that loops back and forth, GIF-style.
You can share your Boomerang right from the app or save it to your camera roll to share another time. Boomerang gives marketers the opportunity to delight their audiences with a fun visual that deviates from a regular Instagram photo.
Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Instagram: Be Consistent – Connect It to Your Other Social Channels – Respond to Comments – Use Hashtags – Don't Overlook Video – Crowdsource Your Images – Portray Your Brand's Vibe – Measure Your Likes – And it'll grow your account … FAST.
Learn SFS ("share for share"). SFS is a tactic whereby you share and promote other partners work on your page.
Use the Color Blue to Get More Likes! Seriously, images on Instagram that had blue as the dominant color got 24% more likes than other colors.


[Santa Clara, The United States, March 6, 2014]: Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, has unveiled a number of key software-defined networking (SDN) solutions and technologies based on the framework of SoftCOM at the Open Networking Summit (ONS) 2014 in Santa Clara. These include a SDN-based next-generation virtual network (NG-VN), the first carrier-level SDN flow engine, and Protocol Oblivious Forwarding (POF) technologies for data centers, demonstrating Huawei's leading role in the SDN evolution.
Introduced in 2012 against the backdrop of emerging cloud technologies and the explosive growth of digital data, Huawei's SoftCOM strategy and solutions help carriers around the world navigate the challenges of improving efficiency, reducing costs, and creating new business opportunities in a time of cloud, virtualization and ICT convergence.
Huawei has been conducting all-out research and development efforts in the SDN sector in order to continuously offer new technologies that overcome these challenges. Huawei showcased, for the first time, a SDN-based IP & optical synergy solution which adopts a unified network controller to automatically detect and maintain resources at the IP and optical layers, together with resources between the layers. In addition to supporting automatic deployment of service routes over layers to expedite service provisioning and eliminating complex horizontal signaling to simplify network devices, Huawei's solution also supports various network requirements and resource usage restraints to ensure that service-level agreements (SLAs) are met and realizes unified optimization of cross-layer network resources and quick detection and recovery of network faults. As a cutting-edge SDN-based solution, Huawei's SDN-based IP & Optical Synergy enables highly efficient synergy and automation between IP and optical networks.
Huawei's SDN-based NG-VN is a virtualized E2E IP network solution that enables virtualization of all devices and links and also provides Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Network as a Service (NaaS). NG-VN supports dynamic modification, expansion, and upgrade of the virtual network without perceiving the physical network topology or the virtual network services. It also allows the virtual network to migrate dynamically and eliminate network faults, creating a "fault-free" virtual network.
The SDN flow engine has been a key breakthrough for the SDN algorithm as it calculates the best route for a service according to requirements on service quality (bandwidth/latency), and quickly detects dynamic traffic changes to automatically adjust network traffic. The engine enables the entire network to operate at its optimum state and provides more services than the traditional distributed network, thus avoiding frequent network expansions. The flow engine has been deployed on several service provider networks and the results from these trials show that network throughput can be boosted by 60%. The engine can quickly adapt to dynamic service changes and support service requirements by future SDN networks, in terms of the speed of computation and global traffic optimization.
After launching Huawei's SDN-based POF technology at ONS 2013, this year the company showcased many other innovative research results based on POF, including POF-based data centers, source path routing, and content-based fast path load balancing. Using the full programmable POF technology, users can conduct service innovation on applications, which makes network devices more powerful and flexible than ever before.
Working towards their SoftCOM vision, Huawei actively participates in global SDN and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) standardization efforts and are dedicated to promoting the E2E application of SDN/NFV in all layers of telecom networks. The company also joins hands with major service providers to explore business opportunities and build an open ecosystem, and will continue to promote SDN/NFV commercialization as well as drive technological innovation for the wider industry.


Photo Above: The water heater ruptured and ruined all the floors. See our GALLERY and how this became a beautiful wood feature tile and the insurance paid for it all!
Specialty plumbing services can do a number on a home! Here at Hackett Plumbing & Remodel div of HCP Inc we offer specialty plumbing services for a variety of things. We can install sauna or steam showers that can brighten or mellow any morning or afternoon! We offer brands for steam or sauna showers such as thermosol!
We design, build and install each steam or sauna shower. These type of showers are known to help lower blood pressure! Recirculated hot water can help issues with lack of hot water. When you install a specialty plumbing, we can also save you on energy and water! Call us today and let us help you.
We specialize in conversions. This could be a conversion of your bathtub into a shower. If you have physical issues, a shower may be easier for your body. Specialty plumbing services change your home and how you feel about it. We are glad to help convert your lifestyle today!
We here in the Rowlett can help you with gas features that may include your BBQ essentials, gas lights, or deck heaters. Count on us to keep these up and running throughout the seasons! Through the seasons, you might want to take advantage of tank less water heaters. Let us be there for you!
Water harvesting and water re-usage is important to our economy today. Water harvesting is the recycling of water for laundry between water purple plumbing and water rain. Water re-usage helps the recycling process to save water and energy in your home.
We want to give you the best service with the best possible products. Our goal here at Hackett Plumbing & Remodel div of HCP Inc in Rowlett, Texas is to satisfy our client's needs! We are here for your specialty plumbing needs. Don't ever hesitate to call us! We can start today on your plumbing or remodeling needs!


Prices inc VAT Prices subject to vehicle availability and any manufacturer's price changes.
The payment terms are Deposit 6 in advance followed by 23 monthly payments commencing in month 2 payable by variable direct debit.
The order form contains the full vehicle specification including make, model, colour choices and optional extras. Please ensure that you check the details as it is the customer's responsibility to ensure the details on the order form are correct and correspond exactly with the vehicle requested. Carleasing-online accepts no responsibility for order forms being incorrect and subsequently accepts no responsibility for incorrect vehicle orders as a result of an incorrect order form. Upon signing the order form you confirm that we are to supply you the vehicle as described above. When you place an order you will be advised of an approximate delivery date. This should be taken as an indication only and not an exact date. Delivery of the vehicle is outside the control of Carleasing-online and therefore we accept no responsibility for delivery dates being changed by the dealer or manufacturer. Carleasing-online will not be held liable for any losses or damages arising from any delay in delivery.
Should you decide to cancel the order before delivery then you will be liable for a cancellation charge of £500 including vat.
Some diesel vehicles are fitted with a DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) and are required to be driven in a certain way and aren't suitable for stop/start journeys. Should a DPF become damaged it is not covered by warranty and the customer must pay for a repair/replacement. By signing the order you confirm you are aware of this.


text:
Q: Excel if statement I am using this if Statement to check to see if a cell is blank. If it is blank than it leave it blank. Once something is enter into the sell it creates a ticket number. So that would be in E2. In E3 i need the same if statement but +1 added on to the number.
Here is the if statement =IF(ISBLANK($B2),"","AG"&10000)
E2 would be AG10000
E3 i would like to be AG10001
any help would be greatly appreciated.


text:
The Nexus of Television and Sports in Transition, Part III: The Fight for the Sports Cable Dollar
May 7, 2014 May 8, 2014 by Morgan Wick
For gearheads, August 17, 2013, may well go down as Black Saturday. The first signs of it were the previous day, when many of the personalities heading up Speed Channel's coverage of NASCAR practice and qualifying started talking about the end of an era, and the network's Trackside talk show held its final edition ever. Then, when they woke up the following morning, Speed had been replaced with something called Fox Sports 1. For much of the day, Fox Sports 1 carried much of the same NASCAR coverage that had been on Speed, but that night it aired a bunch of fights from the glorified cagefighting promotion known as the UFC, followed by a couple of snarky Canadians yukking it up alongside a bunch of ex-jocks talking about just about every sport except their beloved cars. The succeeding days would see Speed's lineup of car-oriented shows completely gone by the wayside, replaced by a bunch more shows talking about nothing but stick-and-ball sports. Just like that, the only network gearheads had that was totally dedicated to cars was gone.
Speed fans were not happy, and quickly took to the Internet to voice their displeasure, flooding the comments of just about any article having anything to do with the new network. Here are just some of the comments they posted, all reprinted with spelling, grammatical, and other errors intact:
what idiot decided we needed another stick and ball sport station? mma? boxing? you people are totally out of touch. speed was a car channel, the only car channel…hopefully this channel will fail miserably and maybe we`ll get a car channel back. we don`t need more retired jocks and announcer wannabes telling us the same retread crap that we get fed on 100 other channels.
did you really need anther stick and ball channel? I thought cutting wind tunnel to 30 min. was bad enough but then to cancel it!!…I have an idea, change the classic espn channels format. I can't believe anyone whatches that channel…car guys spend a lot more money on motorsports than most stick and ball sports fans. I can only hope you will change your minds, but I will not know because I will not be watching any espn channels!
who in the world decided to take speed off the air my god another sports program channel really no speed channel come on this sucks now what I can watch chopped but nothing about cars which is a large industry you have gear heads every where that watched speed n all the shows including Barret -Jackson action . also gearz and all the other shows like pinks and motorcycle racing this sucks
we did not need another all live sports channel, not everyone watches sports, we want all the car shows back from speed and everything else it had on it, now what, where did all those shows go? this is crazy that corporations keep messing with everyones lives on what we have to watch and we still have to pay the price for it.
All of my car shows, car repair shows, collector car shows are gone. Not on the air anymore. No more Stacy doing donuts in a Year One Bandit Trans Am, or climbing mountain trails in some crazy 4X4 that he just welded together. NO, Just another ESPN Wannabee Channel sadly similar to how Comcast destroyed Versus with my fishing and hunting shows. Now both of those lame ass channels are playing European Soccer games instead. Seriously. Fox and Comcast can both go screw themselves.
the reason America is a great country is because of change. What makes it the best country on the planet is admitting our mistakes. FX1 is an obvious mistake. Im sure this channel was created to further better the lives of Fox share holders. SPEED was what built America, cars. trucks. racing. DIY! shows. buying selling/auctions. Ive been patiently awaiting some good from FX1, its just not there. a huge mistake! please, bring back SPEED, u can even keep your crappy FX1 channel, just put channel 607 back on my receiver so Americans can feel like Americans again. am i the only one that feels like moving to Canada? ha, i hear SPEED still aires there. Fix this mistake FX1, i refuse to watch your programming, at least ESPN is original. l.o.l.
While Discovery's Velocity network remained and remains focused on cars, and several old Speed programs found their way to the fledgling MavTV network, neither is anywhere near as prominent or widely-distributed as Speed was. Speed fans had been swept up by a force far bigger than their own corner of the world, one no demographic could be rich enough to avoid. That the new Fox Sports 1 format was a carbon copy of ESPN, and so many other networks, was precisely the point: ESPN was making over $8 billion a year, over half a billion from subscriber fees alone, and a business model that's making that kind of money is one any businessman would be falling over themselves to emulate.
Fox had spread out many of their sports contracts across several different networks – besides Speed, there was FX, Fox Soccer, and Fuel – but by consolidating them all onto a single network Fox hoped to charge cable companies higher subscriber fees and lure away some of the massive ESPN audience. Speed, in fact, was a victim of its own success: its presence in nearly 90 million households was far more than Fox Soccer, which had barely 50 million, and Fuel had even less, so it was, from the perspective of the Fox corporate bean-counters, a logical choice to convert to a prospective competitor to ESPN.
It didn't work out the way Fox had hoped – several cable operators balked at paying the increased rights fees Fox demanded, insisting on paying the same rate they had been paying for Speed, and Fox only gave in a couple days before the launch – and the ratings would be so miniscule, especially in comparison to ESPN, that Fox ended up giving advertisers make-goods on its World Series coverage, but with rights to major college football and basketball and big-time European soccer on top of the UFC, and Major League Baseball, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and the World Cup and US Open golf tournament coming down the pike, Fox likely felt that, in the long-term, they could take a bigger bite out of ESPN's pie than anyone else. What were a few pissed-off gearheads to them when those were the stakes?
The challenges ESPN faces today are very different from the challenges it faced for the first twenty years of its history. Putting sports on FX made sense for Fox during the 1990s, when ESPN's biggest challengers dating back to the 80s were the Turner networks and USA, general-entertainment networks all, with Turner arguably holding the upper hand with the NBA, half the NFL season, TBS' long-standing Atlanta Braves coverage, and more. The continued presence of NBA games on TNT and baseball games on TBS today is very much an anachronism. With most cable providers not offering much more than 70-odd channels, a good chunk of which was chewed up by local broadcast stations, ESPN was the "sports channel", just as other channels, following ESPN's "narrowcast" lead, staked their ground to their own fields or, as Turner and other such networks did, threw up a potpourri of programming.
The growth of digital cable and direct-broadcast satellite services (such as DirecTV, which boomed in popularity on the back of its exclusive carriage of the NFL's out-of-market games) in the late 90s and early 2000s changed all that by allowing an explosion of channels of all types, and the end result was a vindication of ESPN's all-sports strategy. People had been talking about the possibility of television growing to a thousand channels; now half that number was very much a reality, even as HD increasingly chewed up that capacity as the latter decade progressed. Brand-new channels sprung up that were even more niche, looking to fill out all the new space the cable operators had, while existing channels expanded their brand onto more specialized channels (including CNNSI and ESPNEWS) and previously niche channels found their corner increasingly crowded out and broadened their appeal in response. In a sense, digital cable ended the first war over sports on cable with ESPN scoring a resounding victory, while setting the stage for a second war. Why did Fox need to put sports on FX when they could spread FX itself to several other networks (including Fox Soccer's rebrand to FXX) and still have enough room for two all-sports networks?
One of the new channels was the 1999 launch of NBA.com TV, which launched with highlights, live look-ins, and other NBA-produced programming; although it started as almost a glorified barker channel for the League Pass out-of-market package, some saw it as a bulwark for the league in case they needed to take their games in-house in the post-Jordan era, as well as a hedge on this Internet thing whose role in sports going forward no one was quite sure of yet.
The NBA has long been at the forefront of new revenue streams and innovation, especially during David Stern's leadership. The standard was that sports leagues had a network partner and a cable partner, and each only aired your product one or two days a week, but as it entered a new round of negotiations with NBC and Turner in 2002, Stern was open to a brand new scheme hatched up by ESPN, which wanted to get into the NBA without having to compete with Turner. ESPN and Turner would share cable coverage of the NBA, with ESPN having games on Wednesdays and Fridays and TNT holding on to a Thursday doubleheader that would be the only games of the night. ABC would take over the broadcast package, but wouldn't show any games until Christmas and only show 15 games total (less than half of what NBC was showing); TNT would show the All-Star Game, and the playoffs would air mostly on ESPN and TNT until the Finals.
Placing its product so heavily on cable was a big risk for the NBA, but the end result was that the league saw a 25% increase in its rights fees despite a recession and ratings tanking in the post-Jordan era, as well as games all throughout the week. The new deal also put games on the renamed NBATV, and began a long relationship between that network and Turner, almost by accident: the league originally wanted to partner with Turner on a new basic-cable general sports network, but cable operators balked.
The NBA blazed a trail that other leagues would eventually follow; the NHL Network launched in Canada in 2001 and the United States in 2007, while Major League Baseball, though late to the network party, eventually launched one in 2009, using its Extra Innings out-of-market package to blackmail cable operators into acquiring a stake in it. The NFL launched the NFL Network, its time filled mostly with programming from the NFL Films library and some basic studio shows, the year after the NBA's landmark 2002 deal, and it would end up becoming the focal point of the controversy over sports on cable for the latter half of the decade.
The NFL's 2005 rights negotiations turned out to be a landmark for multiple reasons. ESPN was looking to renew its Sunday night package while ABC looked to continue an over 35-year-long relationship airing Monday Night Football. But Disney was in disarray as Michael Eisner was on his way out as its head, having recently fought off a takeover bid by Comcast, and both Eisner and the NFL was concerned about the dwindling ratings for MNF. The league wanted to move the NFL's main primetime package to Sunday, where people would already be home and where flexible scheduling could allow the league to ensure quality matchups throughout the season, but ABC was loath to interfere with the ratings hits they had found on Sunday night.
Bob Iger, Eisner's heir apparent, was convinced NBC had no interest in the NFL, and so was willing to wait for the dust to settle over his own ascension, but the league's executive vice president of media, former ESPN head Steve Bornstein, slowly brought Dick Ebersol around and inked a $600 million/year deal to take over NBC's Sunday nights. It's possible Disney could have kept both packages for much less than they ultimately paid had they jumped in sooner; instead, Iger was left with no choice but to accept a $1.1 billion deal to put Monday night games on ESPN. (Under the old arrangement, ESPN and ABC had paid $1.15 billion combined.) Just like that, ABC's Monday night tradition was over.
NBC benefitted from the new flex-scheduling arrangement, but ESPN began setting cable ratings records left and right. By the time ESPN's first season of Monday night games was over, it already accounted for the nine most-watched programs in ESPN history – in other words, more than half the Monday night games in just the first season had beaten every single Sunday night game on ESPN – including one game that became the most-watched program in cable television history, beating a 1993 CNN debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot, a record ESPN would set again each of the next three seasons and then hold until the BCS deal came along.
Monday Night Football still had cachet, was still a destination program, even if the NFL considered it on par with ESPN's old Sunday night package and lower in the pecking order than what NBC had; it was the one game that had people's undivided attention all day, and ESPN was able to build up to it all day and make it a true event. NFL games may have put ESPN on the map, but the move to Monday night established ESPN's NFL games – and thus ESPN itself, and cable as a whole – as destination, must-have television. On the flip side, the end of Monday Night Football marked the end of ABC Sports itself; by the time the 2006 season, the first under the new deal, started, all sports programming on ABC had been rebranded as "ESPN on ABC", complete with ESPN graphics. Soon, the sports that were airing on ABC began to inexorably dwindle.
But the NFL also opened a package of eight games on Thursday and Saturday nights up for bid. While Comcast on behalf of its Versus network, NBC Universal on behalf of USA, and Turner all expressed interest, the league ultimately opted to put the games on its own network, foregoing a rights fee in exchange for getting better distribution for its network whose profits the owners would all share in. It didn't work as planned; for the rest of the decade the league constantly fought cable providers for carriage. Comcast initially offered the network to its digital cable subscribers the first year but moved it to a sports package the next, while Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, among others, held out entirely, many refusing to carry the network unless the league made the Sunday Ticket package available to them.
The league was able to get broad distribution for the network on Comcast again and break several other holdouts by offering a modified version of the Red Zone channel DirecTV had been offering Sunday Ticket subscribers as a premium service, but couldn't get Time Warner Cable and Cablevision on board until it increased NFL Network's schedule to a full season in 2012. It was the first high-profile carriage dispute arising from quality sports programming being placed on a marginally-distributed network cable providers were loath to carry at the prices they were being charged, but it would be far from the last.
The power of sports programming has the potential to create some strange bedfellows. It is such that two very different media companies can be drawn very close together almost entirely on the back of their complementary assets that they can bring to a sports contract, to the point of drawing speculation about a merger. Such is the case with the split between the CBS Corporation and Viacom in 2005, a split borne of personality conflicts between Les Moonves and the head of MTV Networks as well as a generally stagnant business, one that promised to insulate MTV Networks from the slower-growth businesses that CBS inherited, yet which created two companies with very similar revenues – and CBS was the one better situated to take advantage of the boom in sports rights… if it weren't for most of the old Viacom's cable networks joining the new Viacom.
By 2010 CBS wanted to get out from under a contract to air the NCAA Tournament that was set to lose it considerable amounts of money each year, to the point of engaging in talks to get ESPN to take it off its hands. Certainly the NCAA was very interested in moving most of the tournament to cable, which not only had the potential to increase the rights fees the NCAA collected but also allowed every game to be shown nationally, without the regionalization CBS had engaged in. CBS ended up retaining the tournament by forming an alliance with Turner to show games on TBS, TNT, and truTV in addition to the CBS broadcast network. Turner had never shown college basketball before and truTV, once known as Court TV, had never shown sports of any kind before, but Turner went so far as to start alternating the Final Four with CBS starting in 2016 (later negotiations allowed TBS to show the national semifinals in 2014 and 2015 while the national championship game remained on CBS).
CBS' lack of any credible cable network prevented it from holding on to the tournament on its own, but neither was Turner in particularly good position to mount a bid without CBS. For the moment, the ability to partner with a broadcast network remains a critical piece of any effort to build a strong cable sports operation. To be sure, Turner's strategy, as an owner of general-entertainment networks with almost-vestigial sports programming, has generally consisted of limiting itself to high-profile, big-ticket items like the major sports, but that didn't prevent it from losing the rights to its portion of the NASCAR schedule, in part due to monetary losses. Since the NCAA Tournament deal, Turner has repeatedly looked for other properties to put on truTV, and has reportedly looked into turning it into a sports-heavy network, possibly moving over their MLB and NBA programming from TBS and TNT, but hasn't been able to secure any other properties to put on the channel.
CBS' broadcast network and Turner's cable networks have talked about alliances for other sports rights, and CBS and Time Warner present complementary pieces in other ways as well – the two entities each own half of the CW network – with the only real point of competition between their respective television networks being the premium-cable networks HBO and Showtime. Even so, you'd expect any talks of an actual merger between the two companies to be limited to a very superficial analysis by a poster on a message board, yet it's something respected financial analysts have discussed since the start of the NCAA Tournament alliance. There are a whole host of reasons to expect such a merger to remain limited to people's fantasies, but given just how important sports have become, it's easy to see just how enticing such a merger can look to armchair CEOs.
The prospect of ESPN and Fox competing to rack up sports rights, while also fending off advances from NBC, as CBS and Turner lurk trying to get their own piece of the action, has sports leagues salivating at how high it could drive their rights fees. Even for those without a horse in the race, the competition between the bunch of them can often seem like something out of a soap opera.
Major League Baseball has already seen the benefits the newfound competition can net them. Already it had benefitted from the steps taken by the NFL and NBA to move to cable: its 2006 rights re-negotiations placed almost the entire postseason on TBS, which ended its long tradition of national Braves games in favor of a general package of games on Sunday afternoons, with only the World Series and one League Championship Series remaining on Fox. (Previously Fox and ESPN had split the postseason with Fox airing both LCS's and marquee Division Series games, effectively taking over Fox's primetime in early-to-mid October.) But by 2012 it found itself in position to take advantage of its position as programming it would be hard to replicate, certainly in the near term, on sports networks.
First, it renewed its existing deal with ESPN. The new deal was not much different from what ESPN had before: ESPN kept its Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday night packages, only adding games on holidays, one game from the new Wild Card round, and any tiebreakers, yet ESPN paid close to double what it had been paying under the old contract. Doubtless a big part of the premium ESPN paid was to reduce the value of baseball to any other competitor, especially NBC, by locking them out of any of the most popular cable packages. Baseball intended to consolidate its remaining inventory to a single partner.
Desperate to maintain its presence in baseball that helped build TBS into what it became today, Turner began talking with CBS about an alliance that could allow CBS to air as little as the All-Star Game and World Series, but baseball was skeptical about the offer. That left the remaining inventory as Fox's to lose, but Fox was unwilling to take on the weak Sunday afternoon package TBS had held for the price baseball was asking, so baseball ultimately split the rights between TBS and Fox. End result: Fox has two time slots every Saturday, with the vast majority of those games airing on Fox Sports 1, and splits the division series with TBS along the same league lines as the LCS, again with as many games as Fox wants, potentially up to and including (as is reportedly planned this year) every one of its LCS games, on Fox Sports 1, except for two games surrendered to MLB Network, while TBS reduces its Sunday afternoon commitment to the later half of the season. Both entities also paid double what they were before, despite TBS' reduced commitment.
The biggest leagues and conferences may be salivating at having multiple competitors groveling at their feet for the valuable programming they represent, but smaller leagues, conferences, and events may benefit even more. With multiple ESPN networks, plus Fox Sports 1, NBCSN, and CBS Sports Network, there's a lot of time in the day that needs to be filled. All these channels are desperate for programming, and that's very good news for entities that might otherwise be completely ignored.
This is especially the case for CBS Sports Network, which is substantially weaker than the others, and which has signed contracts with the likes of Major League Lacrosse, the National Lacrosse League, the Arena Football League, and the last, abortive season of the UFL. After George Mason's magical run to the Final Four and other NCAA Tournament success, the CAA managed to secure a substantial number of games on NBCSN, only to lose many of their best teams to the Atlantic 10, which also had a deal with NBCSN; NBCSN also has agreements with the likes of the Canadian Football League.
However, no sport may have benefitted more from the rise of cable sports networks than soccer, whose rise in the American sports landscape has been intertwined with the rise of digital cable, especially the Fox Soccer Channel, which launched in 1997 as Fox Sports World. For its entire existence through its closure last summer, Fox Soccer was the home to England's Premier League, and as such was instrumental in spiking its rise in popularity. By the end, the Premier League was joined by games from Italy and occasionally France, as well as Europe's biggest club competition, the UEFA Champions League, while GolTV, a significantly smaller operation launched in 2003, carried games from Spain and Germany, and sublicensed some of the former to ESPN.
Then Al Jazeera, the outfit best known as the news operation that aired Osama bin Laden's tapes, stepped in, spiriting away the Spanish, Italian, and French leagues to create a network in beIN Sport that cable operators would have to carry, decimating GolTV and taking away a significant part of Fox Soccer's depth. Fox Soccer, in many ways, became a victim of its own wild success; it built up the Premier League so much stateside that NBC swept the league away with a new deal that made it featured programming for NBCSN. Combined with also losing its MLS inventory to NBC, it made Fox Soccer's conversion to the entertainment channel FXX inevitable, even with the Champions League set to be joined by World Cup soccer and other FIFA competitions. But starting next year Fox will take the German Bundesliga away from GolTV, leaving them with mostly South American leagues and potentially setting up the Bundesliga as the second-most popular European league in the states with most other leagues on the much-smaller beIN Sport.
Television has long had an impact on the biggest sports, but with sports increasingly becoming more important as programming for cable networks than in their own right, nearly every one has contorted itself to extract more money out of its partners, even in ways the fans may not like but will watch anyway. Such was the case when the NCAA considered expanding the basketball tournament to 96 teams during its 2010 renegotiations, as well as when baseball introduced its new wild-card games – in both cases motivated at least in part by a desire to increase inventory to sell to television networks. No doubt the evolution of the BCS to the new College Football Playoff was motivated as much by the desire to extract more money out of a TV partner as by the outrage surrounding the BCS system. And of course we've already seen how TV money has fueled conference realignment in college sports. Even smaller sports have been affected: Oracle head Larry Ellison signed an agreement to show the 2013 America's Cup on NBCSN and designed a fast-yet-dangerous boat to make the race more TV-friendly, earning criticism and pricing almost all potential competitors out of the race.
Nothing shows the power of TV money to shape a sport, however, quite like the NFL. Forget the introduction of the Red Zone channel or the recent move to 4:25 ET starts for its late-afternoon doubleheaders. Consider that the NFL (and to a lesser degree, football as a whole) has come under fire in recent years over the issue of concussions and player safety more generally – yet the league has expanded its Thursday-night slate to a full season, meaning every team will have to play after only three days' rest once a season, and continues to toy with the idea of expanding the regular season to 18 games, meaning more wear and tear on players' bodies. But two more games means collecting another pound of flesh from the TV partners, and an expanded Thursday night slate means the possibility of selling some of it to a cable outlet – possibly one like Fox Sports 1 or NBCSN that would fall over itself to get the valuable programming of the NFL, even if the quality of play on Thursday nights has tended to be poor.
But when the NFL finally did sell part of the Thursday night package earlier this year, they made clear that whoever got the package would simulcast games on NFL Network, and that they were primarily looking to do business with a broadcast partner, not a cable network. The NFL didn't like how the Thursday night games were lagging behind the other packages in viewership; by putting games on the largest possible platform, the league hoped make Thursday more of a destination night for football, thus increasing the value of the package for a longer-term deal. Audience size still matters, even for the almighty NFL, and broadcast television still provides the largest audiences. How much of the relatively weak Thursday night audiences are due to NFL Network's still-relatively-limited distribution, how much due to some of the weaker teams the NFL's rules require to play on Thursday night (the NFL has made clear it sees CBS' part of the Thursday package as on par with NBC's Sunday package), and how much due to the poor play that comes with only three days off, are all things the league will find out as the package plays out later this year. The requirement to simulcast games on NFL Network suggests that the NFL may still be leaving open the possibility of keeping games there without selling any at all over the long term.
Tomorrow: How the bubble may already be bursting and what the future might hold for sports and television in general.
Categories Sports TV Business, TV Business	Post navigation
The Nexus of Television and Sports in Transition, Part II: College Sports' Faustian Bargain: A Case Study in ESPN's Influence
The Nexus of Television and Sports in Transition, Part IV: Pricking the Bubble