The cable industry, having sat out Monday’s deal on net neutrality between Google and Verizon, isn’t likely to take part in any future agreements between supporters and opponents of rules, industry officials said. There’s little to be gained politically from cable operators’ signing on to the Google-Verizon agreement, said pay-TV executives and lawyers. Attacks on that wireline-broadband deal by many nonprofit groups supporting net neutrality -- and the lack of support from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, at whose behest representatives of NCTA and five other bodies met unsuccessfully to seek consensus -- show that similar deals may not have support among regulators and lawmakers, industry lawyers said.
BigBand should be able to sell more IPTV equipment to cable operators now that they're focused on expanding IPTV service to more devices (see separate report in this issue), CEO Amir Bassan-Eskenazi said during a teleconference. “And we believe that our vIP Pass [system] is very unique in that regard in offering a very smooth transition that scales and is proven in the field.” Sales of BigBand’s switched digital video product have slowed as operators who have already deployed the product are pausing their rollouts and new customers are still preparing for capacity expansions, Bassan-Eskenazi said. “We believe this is a temporary situation, but it impacts our Q3 outlook.” BigBand Q2 sales fell 32 percent from a year earlier to $26.4 million. It had loss of $9.9 million versus a profit of $3.4 million. The shares fell 8.4 percent Thursday.
The on-again, off-again FCC clock for Comcast-NBC Universal began running after a second pause. The clock, counting down to the commission’s goal of approving deals in 180 days, was restarted Tuesday as if it had begun ticking again July 6, Media Bureau Chief William Lake wrote the companies. It stood at day 45 Tuesday, he said. The clock started up again because Comcast -- which plans to buy control of NBC Universal -- and NBCU submitted further information to the FCC, curing “certain deficiencies” in previous responses on requested data, Lake wrote.
Comcast will add a Latino board member within two years as part of a memorandum of understanding among the company, NBC Universal and six Hispanic groups, released as the cable operator seeks regulatory approval to buy a controlling stake in NBCU (CD June 30 p3). The company separately on Wednesday afternoon submitted to the FCC documents the agency sought, a request which had triggered a pause of the deal’s “shot clock.” As part of the Hispanic-group agreement, Comcast and NBC Universal will add Latino employees, particularly in senior and mid-level management and at the entry-level, the companies said Wednesday, http://xrl.us/bhqe7m. They'll seek guidance from an Hispanic Advisory Council, to be created with nine members, as they increase the percentage of business done with Latino-owned vendors to the portion of such businesses in areas the companies serve. That council will be part of a larger body made up of African American, Asian Pacific Islander, Native American, disabled, veterans and lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender representatives. The deal disclosed Wednesday includes the Cuban American National Council, Hispanic Federation, National Council of La Raza and National Hispanic Media Coalition. Separately, parts of an economic analysis submitted in 2007 by DirecTV as it sought FCC approval of transfer of control to News Corp. will be treated as highly confidential by the commission as it reviews Comcast-NBC Universal, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake wrote Tuesday. DirecTV had sought the ruling. Monday, an executive of deal opponent Bloomberg met with an aide to Commissioner Meredith Baker to discuss its concerns (CD June 29 p11), a filing said.
The FCC should “take an extraordinary step” of not enforcing equal employment opportunity rules on radio and TV stations while it retools the regime, a group representing minorities said. After a year of taking no EEO enforcement actions as of Tuesday, the commission must restructure its system by moving staff overseeing the program from the Media to the Enforcement bureau, track existing cases so statutes of limitations aren’t again breached and work more with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council said. Broadcasters closely follow EEO rules, which they expend considerable time and attention complying with, industry lawyers and officials told us.
There’s precedent for the FCC to pause the so-called shot clock in its review of Comcast’s plan to buy control of NBC Universal, though doing so more than once as the commission has in this case is somewhat rare, veteran agency and industry officials said. That the FCC has twice paused the clock, moved back to day 37 and held there until the companies file additional materials, augurs that the commission will end the review before day 180, the agency’s goal in reviewing all deals, they said. Thorough review by the commission and Justice Department had been expected and doesn’t necessarily mean the deal won’t be approved (CD Jan 19 p8).
Conventional book sales will plunge $2 billion during the next four years as electronic versions surge to $6 billion in annual revenue, Barnes & Noble Chairman Leonard Riggio said Tuesday at an analyst meeting in New York.
The FCC will again stop it’s 180-day “shot clock,” in its review of the Comcast-NBC Universal merger, FCC officials said . NBCU and Comcast had not fully complied with the instructions of the FCC’s information requests, Media Bureau Chief William Lake wrote separate letters to their lawyers. The shot clock will be paused as of June 11, the day the responses were due, Lake said. As of Thursday, the clock was at day 50.
Vizio will field active-shutter and passive polarized 3D TVs as a hedge against a market where a 3D system hasn’t emerged yet as a clear-cut winner, Vice President Ken Lowe told us Tuesday at CEA LineShows in New York. The 65-inch passive 3D LCD TV will ship late this year at $3,000-$3,500 as the first in what’s expected to be a line of sets, Lowe said. The TV uses an AU Optronics 1080p panel, though the 3D resolution will likely be lower because of the polarized film applied to the screen. The polarized film adds about $200 to the cost of the set, Vizio officials said. The passive 3D TVs will be packaged with Sensio glasses that sell separately for about $30, Vizio officials said.
A Silicon Valley firm says it wants to eliminate the promotional paper trail in retailing. MoBeam, a new Cupertino, Calif.-based division of technology company Ecrio, is trying to stir interest in a keychain-based device that it dubs “the first practical digital wallet.” The company will demonstrate its “numi” key at the “CEA Line Shows” conference this week in New York with the hope that its LED-based technology will find interest among CE manufacturers and retailers.