BERLIN -- Philips transferred its North American consumer TV business to Funai as scheduled Monday. The deal gives Philips the right to “check 100 percent of the sets” that Funai makes and markets under the Philips brand, Reinier Jens, Philips Lifestyle executive vice president for North America and Western Europe, said in an interview at IFA ahead of the transfer.
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.
BERLIN -- Sony has set a “midterm” goal of making 90 percent of its devices “network-enabled and wireless-capable” by fiscal 2010, CEO Howard Stringer told reporters Thursday at IFA. Sony, usually low key at IFA, booked the largest stand in the show’s history, bringing in Stringer to speak to stress the new import Sony assigns Europe, said Fujio Nishida, president of Sony Europe and former head of Sony Electronics in the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro, Miami, denied a trade-show organizer’s motion to set aside a preliminary injunction barring him from promoting a March event called ACES 09 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. CEA, which won the injunction on grounds that ACES infringes the CES trademark, contends that Justin Finichiarro has ignored the order and wants him held in contempt and fined $5,000 for every day he continues promoting ACES and its logo. Finichiarro asked Ungaro to throw out the injunction because his attorney quit the case without telling him. Ungaro is “sympathetic,” but the lawyer’s action provided no basis for lifting the injunction, she said. Finichiarro has been defending himself since his lawyer resigned citing “irreconcilable differences” between them. Finichiarro should hire a new attorney, the judge said, adding that she would consider one more motion from him to set aside the injunction.
Best Buy is a sponsor of this week’s Democratic convention in Denver and next week’s Republican convention in the chain’s home city of St. Paul, Minn., the conventions’ Web sites said. Best Buy didn’t respond Friday to our inquiries about whether the sponsorships involve supplying CE equipment to the convention halls in addition to giving money. Best Buy donated $30,000 to Democratic causes and $75,500 to Republicans June 2007 to July 2008, according to CQ Moneyline data compiled from Federal Election Commission reports. Target, whose headquarters are in Minneapolis, also is sponsoring both conventions. Staples, of Framingham, Mass., is sponsoring only the Republicans.
Dish Network won’t restrict sales of its $40 coupon- eligible converter box to its online store, as its announcement this week on the product’s availability had implied, a spokeswoman told Consumer Electronics Daily. Dish’s TR-40CRA box, available at no charge except for tax and shipping when bought using an NTIA coupon, will be sold through Dish retailers that have been “approved to accept coupons,” the spokeswoman said.
Free Las Vegas hotel rooms and discount airfares for CES await specialty independent retailers who are CEA members and commit to three-night stays at the show in January, CEA spokesman Jason Oxman confirmed Wednesday to Consumer Electronics Daily. CEA flyers sent the last two weeks offer qualified retailers $100 off airfare to Las Vegas using CEA’s Travel-On travel agency. Retailers committing to stay three nights at the Excalibur or the Riviera pay the first night’s lodging, and CEA will cover the rest, he said. The Excalibur is $175 and includes a free breakfast buffet for one. The Riviera is $159. The deadline for booking is Sept. 15, the flyer said. A CEA exhibit at this week’s Nationwide Buying Group meeting in Las Vegas promoted the offer, said some who attended the event. The promotion is typical of programs from CEA’s marketing department to attract retailers to CES, including “incentives” to promote early registrations at past shows, Oxman said. Retailers sent this year’s offer told us they think CEA fears independents wouldn’t show up at CES or would bring fewer employees than in years past. Oxman said this year’s offer reflects a slow economy, higher Las Vegas airfares and a hotel room shortage that has caused rates to skyrocket at recent events.
The FCC wants to fine a Kissimmee, Fla., supplier of backseat entertainment systems to car dealers $328,000 for “willful and repeated violation” of the DTV tuner mandate and misleading the agency when it investigated the company, the commission said in a notice of apparent liability released Monday. Invision Industries still posts noncompliant products on its Web site and has 10 days to report to the agency, “certifying that it has ceased all such unlawful conduct,” the notice said. A consumer who wants to buy an Invision system may do so only by ordering it through a car dealer, the notice said. Invision imports the foreign-made equipment and ships it to car dealers for installation, it said. The commission accuses Invision of importing 4,115 TV receivers and shipping 2,968 of them interstate without required DTV tuners between January and April 2008, the notice said. Heather McLeod, Invision vice president of marketing, at first told the agency her company shipped 12 products interstate without saying for sure whether they had DTV tuners, the notice said. Pressed for clarification, she raised the figure to 4,115 and admitted they had no DTV tuners but said the shipments were lawful, the notice said. According to Invision, its devices escape the DTV tuner mandate as they're “parts” designed for vehicular use, the notice said. The TV tuners built into them are an option “that is, rarely, if ever utilized for its intended purpose,” Invision told the agency, according to the notice. The FCC rejected that claim, saying the mandate “is clearly not limited to receivers produced for any particular segment of American commerce and provides no exception for the possibility of incidental use of the television tuning function,” the notice said. It similarly rejected arguments that the requirement doesn’t apply to displays used in hospital video systems or to screens built into Precor exercise equipment, it said. McLeod didn’t respond right away to our requests for comment on the notice and whether Invision still imports or ships the items on its Web site that the FCC termed noncompliant.
Former HD DVD champion Toshiba has no intention to market its new XD-E500 DVD player as a Blu-ray killer, nor was it designed that way, a senior executive told reporters last week at a series of New York briefings.
Blu-ray accounted for 11 percent of DTS’s Q2 revenue, down from 12 percent a year earlier and 21 percent Q1, CEO Jon Kirchner said Thursday in a quarterly earnings call. “Some manufacturers are moving to upgrade their Blu-ray products to either add features or reduce costs, or both,” he said. “These upgrades are important as manufacturers now need to produce feature-rich products and at competitive prices. These transitions resulted in relatively light player production at certain manufacturers.” Still, for the first half, Blu-ray and HD DVD accounted for 16 percent of DTS’s revenue, in line with expectations, Kirchner said. “We're now beginning to see increased player availability at retail,” with prices as low as $339 for “major-name brands,” Kirchner said. Players with BD-Live and DTS 7.1 Master Audio are available for less than $400, he said. “Across the board, we've seen an increasing number of titles available in the Blu-ray format, and at better price points,” Kirchner said. With new releases as low as $15.99 and catalog titles as low as $9.99, the rising software availability and lower prices should “further stimulate demand,” he said. PC industry adoption of the HD format is coming faster than the industry had expected because costs have continued falling for component Blu-ray drives, Kirchner said. “We understand that the price to implement a Blu-ray drive into PCs has now dropped to below $100,” he said. Twelve models of Blu-ray drives and more than 40 PCs with Blu-ray are available, he said. A Dell desktop PC with Blu-ray drive and DTS 7.1 Master Audio can be bought for less than $800, he said. DTS expects more than 80 Blu-ray devices on the market this year, Kirchner said. That should “dramatically increase the range of choice, pricing and availability of products for consumers ready to enhance their home entertainment experience,” he said. “We see these developments as very positive for the long-term potential for the format.”
The first a la carte satellite radios will arrive at retail this fall, CEO Mel Karmazin said Thursday in Sirius XM’s first conference call as a merged company. Sirius XM also will debut its first interoperable radio “a number of months” before the FCC-stipulated nine months, Karmazin said, without giving a date.