Advertisements across traditional TV and digital platforms are coexisting and feed into each other, though measurement improvements are needed in some areas, panelists from several industries said at INTX here in Boston Monday. One area where digital ads are further ahead than TV commercials is automation, said many of the speakers from the cable distributor and programmer and tech sectors. Measurement in some areas needs improving to what speakers called the census level. Eventually, TV will catch up to digital in terms of being automated, panelists said. Eliminating the “human touch” from the start was “easier on digital,” Charter Communications President-Media Sales David Kline said. “On television, it is a little bit more complex.” Such “automation will come, it's a bit more difficult to do on TV,” he said. Putting the right ad in the right place at the right time and giving viewers a chance to interact with the commercial content is “starting to happen," Kline said. “That's really when buyers start looking at television” as akin to digital, he said. “It's well within our grasp to do all this stuff. It's not going to replace it. Digital and TV can coexist.” AMC Networks President-National Advertising Sales Arlene Manos said that “the right ad at the right place at the right time” is the goal. While “the media gets all the responsibility for whether that [message] is getting across,” she said that “the ad itself does matter.” One hurdle to census-level measurement of ads is privacy, said IBM's Braxton Jarratt, general manager of the company's cloud video unit. There may be a “pretty large audience where you are not going to be able to do census-level measurement,” he said. One advantage of cable is that companies like Cablevision can match viewing to those who authenticate their credentials to watch online, versus elsewhere on the Web where cookies are used as proxies, said the company's Ben Tatta, president-media sales. With much video moving to an IP connection, “the ability to link all of that connected session data to a single household” will “be extremely important to content,” Tatta said. “That, to me, is the dream."

BOSTON -- With the pay-TV bundle threatened by competition and cord cutting, four stock analysts disagreed on a panel at the INTX show whether cable operators face a financially bright or somewhat challenging financial future, compared with other sectors of the multichannel video programming distributor and content industries. But all the analysts, including some who think the cable industry is the best poised for success in the MVPD/programmer business, said cable will be subject to increased scrutiny and ultimately regulation from Washington and particularly the FCC. They see the FCC trying to promote competition, with some contending that benefits big tech companies like Google.

The FCC may have bolstered a forthcoming media ownership draft order and chances of not further angering three appellate judges by issuing a study that found a possible linkage between Hispanic ownership of TV stations and local programming, public interest lawyers told us Friday. The study, which was a long time in the making and was revealed Thursday, was mentioned April 19 at oral argument in broadcaster and public interest group challenges to media ownership rules at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judges were skeptical of FCC delays in acting on media ownership and diversity after two previous losses for the commission in related cases before the 3rd Circuit (see 1604190041). Now, a peer review by FCC Wireline Bureau economist/industrial organization expert Octavian Carare of the study will be completed by Thursday, interviews and agency documents show. Then, the agency will accept public comments, it said in a news release.

PHILADELPHIA -- The FCC faced skepticism from all three judges considering for a third time public interest group and broadcaster challenges to media ownership rules, as expected (see 1604150059). The FCC lawyer told the jurists that Chairman Tom Wheeler remains committed to his plan to circulate by June 30 an ownership item. Courtroom observers siding with FCC challengers said in follow-up interviews that rather than accepting the commission at its word, the 3rd Circuit may mandate the FCC take action.

The global music market achieved a “key milestone” in 2015 as digital became the “primary revenue stream” for recorded music, overtaking sales of physical formats for the first time, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in its annual state of the industry report, as it sought copyright-policy changes. By the end of 2015, digital sales generated 45 percent of total revenue, vs. 39 percent for physical formats, said the report released Tuesday. RIAA recently reported that in 2015, for the first year ever, streaming was the largest component of music revenue, slightly higher than downloads (see 1603220061), and said tech companies aren't paying their share of royalties.

The FCC got its way for now in what lawyers called an unusual court case they said Thursday will help one station sell all its spectrum in the incentive auction. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously with one abstention gave Gray Television a stay Wednesday of a Superior Court March 2 preliminary injunction (see 1603110074) requiring the broadcaster reinstate to its past condition for WAGT Augusta. Officials and court records said that would have meant the station, which Gray agreed to sell in the auction so the company wouldn't have a duopoly in the market, couldn't be included in the auction that starts Tuesday. Instead, it would have been restored to a discontinued joint sales agreement with Media General.

The war of words over draft FCC proposed rules on untying set-top boxes from the multichannel video programming distributors that often provide the boxes to MVPD customers (see 1601270064) escalated Wednesday. After AT&T slammed Google over the Internet company's transition plan and by extension the FCC for considering it, the Justice Department emailed us a statement backing the commission's tack. That statement was the subject (see 1602030055) of a Communications Daily Bulletin. The FCC likewise defended its plan.

A top antitrust official weighed in on the FCC's side on controversial draft proposed rules on untying set-top boxes from the multichannel video programming distributors that often provide the boxes to MVPD customers (see 1601270064). An emailed statement from Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division came on a day in which AT&T slammed the set-top rule changes backed by Google and others and being explored by the commission. The FCC in turn defended its approach. (See the next regular issue of Communications Daily for a related report.)

The FCC held some dozen events for news media that weren't on the record in the first half of this year, more than any other communications-related federal body. Such commission media events, often "on background" where officials couldn't be identified, numbered twice as many as were fully on the record. Partisan politics (see 1510280062 and 1512150011) and a divided FCC (see 1512150030) appear to be making commission officials more cautious in what they say when their names are attached, said experts who reviewed a Communications Daily database. They said such politics partly reflect a politically divided Washington. That's apparent to a lesser degree at NTIA and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

CenturyLink is among the ISPs with concerns about FCC broadband performance measurement, an issue attracting some industry attention in recent lobbying of the agency and during gatherings of program participants. The Measuring Broadband America program, for consumers to learn about ISPs' services including those from the telco, has "test sampling that understates the quality of DSL providers’ service," the company said representatives told FCC Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan and officials from the Consumer and Governmental Affairs, Wireline and Wireless bureaus. Some of these ISP concerns aren't new, but have arisen again because Jordan was discussing other related issues with stakeholders, said an industry official.