FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski paused the media ownership proceeding to give the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council time to study the impact of waivers allowing common ownership of stations and daily newspapers on minority and women-owned broadcasters. The delay had been expected (CD Feb 21 p5) and shortly after NAB and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) backed MMTC’s plan to spend its own money on the research. Other FCC members and broadcasters generally support the delay in voting on rules first circulated Nov. 14, agency and industry officials told us, and commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Robert McDowell said they backed the delay.
The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council no longer seeks an immediate vote on an FCC media ownership order that has deadlocked commissioners (CD Feb 19 p13). MMTC made a new proposal for steps to take before a vote on whether to deregulate newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules. The council last month sought a vote on the draft Media Bureau order before studies were complete on the rules’ effect on minority ownership (CD Jan 28 p7), saying if the research showed deregulation would harm people of color, the order could be reversed. Executive Director David Honig told us the council now wants the proceeding put on hold so a study the group will pay for on cross ownership’s effects on minority-owned stations can be done by a research firm.
Take-Two Interactive delayed the release of Grand Theft Auto V for the PS3 and Xbox 360 from this spring (CED Oct 31 p7) until Sept. 17, it said Thursday. The game needed “additional development time,” it said. Take-Two shares closed 6.8 percent lower Thursday at $12.17. Bank of Montreal Capital Markets analyst Edward Williams continues to believe the game “will be among the best performing games” of 2013, following the “success of earlier titles in the series,” he said. Grand Theft Auto is Take-Two’s top-selling game property and one of the best-performing game series in the entire industry. But Williams lowered his earnings per share estimate for Take-Two’s fiscal year, “in part due to the delay of the game and partially due to higher than previously assumed expenses,” he said. Take-Two’s fiscal year ends in March. The publisher is “poised for significant growth” over the next two fiscal years behind the releases of “several major titles” that also include BioShock Infinite, said Williams. Take-Two’s online initiatives in Asia that leverage key game series including NBA 2K and Civilization offer a “potential long-term catalyst” for the publisher, he said. But “uncertainty about the company’s ability to consistently hit release dates gives us pause,” he said.
Carriers asked the FCC to allocate more money to Phase II of the Mobility Fund, arguing in reply comments this week that $500 million annual support for wireless eligible telecom carriers to accelerate mobile deployment is not nearly enough, and pales in comparison to the support offered to ILECs. But Verizon Wireless cautioned that consumers and business could suffer if the fund gets too large.
ATSC 2.0 will emerge as a new candidate broadcast standard early this year with a goal of deploying it in CE products by year-end, Richard Chernock, chairman of the ATSC technology and standards group, told us. The candidate standard designation is a precursor to formal implementation of ATSC 2.0, he said.
ATSC 2.0 will emerge as a new candidate broadcast standard early this year with a goal of deploying it in CE products by year-end, Richard Chernock, chairman of the ATSC technology and standards group, told us. The candidate standard designation is a precursor to formal implementation of ATSC 2.0, he said.
ATSC 2.0 will emerge as a new candidate broadcast standard early this year with a goal of deploying it in CE products by year-end, Richard Chernock, chairman of the ATSC technology and standards group, told us. The candidate standard designation is a precursor to formal implementation of ATSC 2.0, he said.
Some at the FCC are considering whether to allow waivers of media ownership rules for some types of arrangements that are barred under draft rules involving TV stations, agency and industry officials said. They said in interviews that some Media Bureau staff members are considering a waiver process for joint sales agreements where a TV station brokers ads for another outlet in the market, when spots on the second station in the JSA exceed 15 percent of that broadcaster’s commercials. A draft order ending the 2010 quadrennial media ownership review would require the attribution of such JSAs to the station doing the brokering within two years (CD Nov 15 p1). That would mean many of the JSAs would need to be renegotiated so the arrangements don’t violate ownership rules, reducing their cost savings, said executives at companies that own brokering stations. There are more than 100 stations in JSAs (CD Nov 29 p5).
Smartphones continue to “steal” market share from portable game players and point-and-shoot digital cameras, according to data from ABI Research. Annual shipments of handheld game players are on track to drop 4 percent worldwide in 2012 compared to last year and nearly 13 percent in the more mature North American market, ABI said. Digital camera shipments are expected to fall more than 11 percent in 2012 compared with 2011 and nearly 20 percent in the North American market, it said.
The Court of International Trade affirmed CBP’s Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification of R.T. Foods’ tempura vegetables from Thailand as vegetable preparations in Chapter 20, rather than as miscellaneous edible preparations in Chapter 21. CBP’s classification as vegetables specifically described the product, so it could not instead be classified in R.T. Foods’ preferred catch-all edible preparations provision, CIT said.