The Washington public-relations firm that filed a formal protest last month at the Government Accountability Office accusing the FCC of improperly awarding mega-agency Burson- Marsteller a $3.5 million contract for DTV consumer outreach “support services” (CED May 12 p1) has withdrawn the protest, the GAO confirmed at its Web site Monday. The firm, Weber Merritt, had alleged the FCC should have given the contract to a small-business vendor, as the commission’s solicitation indicated it would. But with the DTV transition only days away, and an FCC response to the protest due this week at the GAO, Weber Merritt didn’t want to “significantly distract the agency and its lead DTV transition officials from their efforts to ensure a smooth transition for the American public,” the firm told the GAO in a letter Friday, a copy of which we obtained. However, Weber Merritt still thinks “the grounds for our protest are valid,” it told the GAO. “We understand that the intense timeframe of this project required the FCC to select a vendor with great haste, thus contributing to a procurement process that can be described, at best, as unusual,” the firm said. “We sincerely hope that this experience will help FCC improve its own internal processes so that small businesses can invest the significant time and expense required to respond to opportunities with the assurance that their bids will be seriously considered, not passed over in favor of a large business that unexpectedly enters a competition set aside for small businesses.”
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
An audience questioner at last week’s Society for Information Display conference, not Plasma Display Coalition President Jim Palumbo, expressed the opinion that plasma TV has lost the marketing war to LCD TV (CED June 3 p1), Palumbo told us in an e-mail. In the 42W and up screen sizes where plasma competes head to head against LCD TV, “plasma is a leading display choice,” capturing more than 45 percent of the segment, as industry data from sources like DisplaySearch will bear out, Palumbo said. “This is a significant share in a very important category in the industry,” he said. Moreover, coalition members, many of which “are also some of the largest LCD TV manufacturers, have introduced many of their new features and their best technology first in their 2009 plasma products,” Palumbo said. There’s no doubt that LCD leads plasma in unit sales, and that’s one reason that may have prompted the audience questioner to observe there’s more LCD broadcast advertising, he said. However, print advertising shares for product 42W and larger “is most likely equal,” he said. “Additionally, plasma technology represents a significant share of the independent retailer specialist’s business and is one of their most important products,” he said. “Plasma becomes the ‘hub’ for additional sales in the home entertainment ecosystem, including installation, TV stands and enhanced audio.” Plasma also is “is widely regarded as the benchmark for contrast, motion, and viewing angle by which LCD improvements are measured,” Palumbo said. “Our members have made tremendous investments in plasma, as evidenced by new plants and lines introduced by Panasonic and LG. “With the exit of Pioneer, retailers are searching for suitable high performance replacements from manufacturers and have indicated they are looking to plasma manufacturers.”
Hhgregg plans to pursue store expansion at a rate that will be “significantly accelerated” from the 16 to 18 stores it plans to open in the current fiscal year that ends in March, senior executives said in an earnings call Tuesday. But CEO Jerry Throgmartin vowed the chain won’t lose sight of its mantra not to “sacrifice execution for expansion.”
Five consumer groups sympathize with the Vizio and Westinghouse Digital petition that asks the FCC to regulate DTV patents and punish those that don’t license the technology on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, the groups said in joint reply comments filed Wednesday. Americans are overpaying for DTV sets because patent holders extract excessive royalties for licenses, Vizio and Westinghouse have told the commission in a petition filed under the name of a group they call the Coalition United to Terminate Financial Abuses of the Television Transition, CUT FATT (CED Jan 5 p1).
Consumer electronics is “probably the highest growth opportunity we have,” and Cisco will move “with tremendous speed” to acquire new companies in that space, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers told the JPMorgan Technology Media Telecom Conference Monday in Boston. Cisco’s purchase two months ago of Pure Digital Technologies and its Flip brand of miniature camcorders (CED March 20 p7) “was just the first of many moves we're going to make,” Chambers said. As for our queries whether Cisco is eyeing the purchase of all or part of Sony Electronics, Cisco spokesman Terry Alberstein told us his company “has a policy of not commenting on potential acquisitions or market speculation.” Similarly, a Sony Corp. spokeswoman said her company “does not comment on rumors or speculation.” Sony Electronics spokesman John Dolak added that he had spoken to his management team about our queries and was told there’s “no truth” to the Cisco-Sony speculation.
Cablevision said Monday it’s standing by the 60-second TV commercials it’s running extensively in the New York area to warn homes unprepared for the DTV transition June 12 that they should subscribe to cable without delay. Consumer Reports blogger Anthony Giorgianni blasted the commercial last week as a “misleading doomsday message” because it fails to mention other options for getting digital-ready, including buying a low-cost, government-subsidized converter box.
The FCC on Monday denied an application by Warren Communications News under the Freedom of Information Act for speedy release of the documents that landed Burson-Marsteller its $3.5 million contract to provide the commission with DTV consumer education support services (CED May 12 p1). The commission now has until June 10 to decide whether to release the documents Warren is seeking under the FOIA, including copies of Burson-Marsteller’s performance work statement that was at the heart of its contract proposal. Warren is the publisher of Consumer Electronics Daily. In denying its application for expedited processing, the commission said Warren failed to demonstrate how speedy release of the Burson-Marsteller records “is a matter of current exigency to the American public.” According to the FCC, “while undoubtedly there is public interest in the DTV transition, there is no demonstrated public interest in the Burson- Marsteller documents,” it said. Granting “expedited processing to this FOIA request would open the door to expediting all FOIA requests involving DTV,” the commission found. A Washington public relations firm, Weber Merritt, has filed a formal protest at the Government Accountability Office alleging that the FCC improperly awarded Burson- Marsteller the contract that should have gone to a small- business vendor. A GAO decision on the protest is due Aug. 17, well after Burson-Marsteller will have finished its contract work for the FCC.
A month before full-power TV stations go all-digital, DTV coupon redemptions broke 29 million total in the week ended Tuesday, NTIA data show. That’s about 4.5 million fewer than the original 33.5 million that the DTV Transition and Safety Act funded. With enough economic-stimulus money having been thrown in for 12.25 million extra coupons, $388.5 million, enough for 9.7 million coupon redemptions, was still available Tuesday, the data show. Coupon orders jumped Monday and Tuesday to about 90,000 a day from about 75,000 the same days a week earlier, NTIA said. Daily orders in the week ended Tuesday averaged 67,600, up from 61,000 previous week but well below the peak of 500,000 a day early in January, when NTIA began compiling a waiting list. The cumulative redemption rate also keeps dropping, reaching 55.7 percent in the latest data, versus 55.8 percent a week earlier and 55.9 percent the week before that. On average the past four weeks 598,000 coupons have expired weekly and 475,000 have been redeemed, the data show.
In the week since landing its contested $3.5 million contract to provide the FCC with DTV transition consumer education support (CED May 12 p1), Burson-Marsteller has given the commission “a comprehensive list of media outlets that directly serve our at-risk constituents in the 49 hot spot markets and beyond,” said Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Chief Cathy Seidel. Speaking at the commission’s Wednesday meeting, she was referring to those who are least prepared for the June 12 analog cutoff.
A month before the nationwide analog cutoff, the weekly DTV coupon redemption rate among over-the-air-only TV homes has reached the lowest point since the program began January 2008, NTIA data released Wednesday show. Coupons for over- the-air homes that expired in the week ended Friday were redeemed only 45.8 percent of the time, NTIA said. That’s only the second time since the program began that weekly redemptions among over-the-air homes fell below 50 percent and is the lowest weekly rate since the week ended May 30 last year when only 45.9 percent were redeemed. For the program to date, 58.7 percent of coupons for over-the-air homes have been redeemed compared with 55.7 percent for the program overall.