Gray TV’s Q4 sales fell 18 percent from a year earlier to $77.5 million, the company said as it released unaudited results for the quarter. Most of the decline came from selling political spots. It sold $22.4 million fewer of those than it had a year earlier. Gray’s credit rating is still limited by its strict debt covenants and the trouble it will have complying with them, Moody’s said. The share price fell 9.9 percent.
The FCC should consider how TV providers would handle customer service, digital rights, management agreements, closed captioning, parental controls and emergency alert system messages if security and navigation were divided between two set-top boxes, EchoStar told Chief William Lake of the FCC Media Bureau and aides. The company also discussed challenges in encouraging video-device innovation through the National Broadband Plan, said an ex parte filing.
The FCC should consider how TV providers would handle customer service, digital rights, management agreements, closed captioning, parental controls and emergency alert system messages if security and navigation were divided between two set-top boxes, EchoStar told Chief William Lake of the FCC Media Bureau and aides. The company also discussed challenges in encouraging video-device innovation through the National Broadband Plan, said an ex parte filing.
A proposed Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) would be housed at the FCC in the Public Safety Bureau and would come under a Public Safety Advisory Board, according to a concept paper posted on the FCC website. Meanwhile, public safety groups and companies that serve them said they liked what they heard at Thursday’s FCC meeting about public safety recommendations coming in the National Broadband Plan -- especially a recommendation on the need for a next-generation 911 network.
The NAB generally supports national emergency alert system testing, as the FCC proposed Thursday (CD Jan 14 p5), a spokesman said Friday: “We look forward to working with the Commission in working through issues that will arise in the coordination process.”
The FCC proposed amending emergency alert system rules to require national testing and data collection. In its latest rulemaking notice, issued Thursday, the commission sought comment on whether the proposed change would “effectively ensure accurate EAS testing at the national level.” Currently, FCC Part 11 rules provide for periodic national EAS testing, but mandates only state and local testing. No U.S. president has ever issued a national alert, and it’s never been tested, the agency said. EAS testing was one issue raised last year in the Public Safety Bureau’s 30- day review.
Two companies are showing how digital radio broadcasts can carry enhanced emergency alerts by demonstrating that capability at the CES in Las Vegas. HD Radio provides an “ancillary capability for public alert and warning, public safety, campus emergency communications” and other purposes, SpectraRep and Sage Alerting Systems said Thursday. The FCC Wednesday tested the emergency alert broadcast and cable system in Alaska (CD Jan 7 p10).
It will take the FCC time to review results of an emergency alert system test in Alaska Wednesday, the agency said. “The results of this exercise will yield important information on where we need to improve the EAS system,” said Chief Jamie Barnett of the Public Safety Bureau. “We will need some time to analyze the results, but we intend to move quickly to improve the system. The FCC looks forward to working with FEMA, our other federal, state, tribal and local partners, as well as broadcasters and other EAS participants, as we use these results to improve future EAS exercises.”
The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and Telecommunications Industry Association said they released a Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) specification. The standard defines the interface between CMAS and the federal alert gateway and the commercial mobile- service provider gateway. It will offer anyone with CMAS- capable mobile devices an additional way to receive alerts during emergencies. It also means wider proliferation of 90- character text message emergency alerts and warnings of imminent threats to life and property, Amber Alerts and presidential emergency messages. The alliance and the association said they will work closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, which have adopted the spec. The CMAS is an effort by the federal government and service providers to define a common mobile-alert standard.
Spectrum reallocation proposals floated by FCC broadband staffers would handicap broadcasters by preventing them from providing shows in HD as well as multicast programming and mobile TV, industry representatives told commissioners this week. The services “would be thwarted under various scenarios that would marginalize broadcasters’ spectrum resources,” said an ex parte filing on meetings between representatives of the CBS affiliates association and Commissioners Meredith Baker, Mignon Clyburn, Robert McDowell and an aide to Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Broadcasting plays a critical role in the nation’s wireless communications system. In virtually all markets, local television stations are the only source of local video news and emergency alerts.” Rural broadband could be “accommodated with proper engineering” and not hinder TV, representatives of the Association for Maximum Service Television told Commissioner Michael Copps, another ex parte filing said.