For the first time, XM and Sirius scheduled quarterly earnings calls for the same day. XM will discuss Q1 results at 10 a.m. May 12. The Sirius Q1 call is 4:30 p.m. that day. It’s also the first time that Sirius will hold a call after the market closes. Under CEO Mel Karmazin, Sirius earnings calls have come at 8 a.m., before the market opens. XM and Sirius recently postponed their annual meetings, awaiting FCC action on their proposed merger.
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.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Debate on licensing music for new digital services is pointless as long as consumers expect to pay nothing for music and Congress fails to penalize illegal downloads, Songwriters Guild of America President Rick Carnes said. He spoke on a Wednesday “Digital Copyright Crossfire” panel at the National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention.
Cinram replicated 14 percent fewer DVDs in Q1 than in the same 2007 quarter, a sharp decline out of line with long- term expectations in the standard DVD business, CEO Dave Rubenstein told analysts in a Wednesday quarterly earnings call. Cinram expects a “slow, steady decline” in its standard DVD replication, with most of the volume “compressed” in the fourth quarter, Rubenstein said. Cinram will increase Blu-ray production capacity “in lock-step with our ability to secure replication volume for this new format, gearing up in time to be ready for the busier second half,” Rubenstein said without elaborating. In Q-and-A, he said Cinram is working on “a number of Blu-ray initiatives,” but wouldn’t discuss details. Cinram replicated 262 million DVDs Q1, compared with 305 million a year earlier, it said. Revenue from high-def disc replication, including Blu-ray movies for Fox and Warner and the last of Warner’s HD DVD releases, jumped to $4.3 million Q1 from $1.9 million a year earlier, Cinram said without giving unit figures.
The NTIA-certified site FreeDTVShop.com is selling Best Buy’s private-label Insignia-brand coupon-eligible converter box without authorization, said a spokesman for the big retailer. “Best Buy does not have a relationship with freedtvshop.com,” he said. “To date, we have not authorized the sale of our Insignia converter boxes through any third- party sellers. Right now, the boxes are exclusively sold at Best Buy stores, through our phone channel, and BestBuy.com.” He said he thinks someone from FreeDTVShop.com simply went to Best Buy stores to buy the product. The site is pricing the box at $69.99, $10 more than Best Buy sells it for, or $29.99 with a coupon. The site lists about 20 models of coupon- eligible boxes for sale, but says most are back-ordered. The Insignia box is among the few listed as “in stock.” FreeDTVShop.com couldn’t be reached for comment. Meanwhile, a million coupons have been used to buy converter boxes, the Commerce Department announced Tuesday. Nearly 12.7 million coupons had been ordered through Friday, NTIA said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- “Critical mass” for delivery of content to in-store manufacturing-on-demand kiosks demands “broad availability of video,” and vendor MOD Systems is “pretty close” to deals with major studios, Chairman Anthony Bay told us Tuesday at the National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention.
SAN FRANCISCO -- National Association of Recording Merchandisers members, made up mainly of packaged-music retailers, gathered Monday at their annual convention and marked the group’s 50th birthday. In pep talks, NARM leaders assured the rank-and-file that the group will stay relevant in the age of digital downloads. But they admitted that action is urgently needed to deal with the threat, though they offered few specific remedies.
Philips’ status as a CES exhibitor at the January show was murky Thursday, amid questions about whether it will withdraw from the event or may even have already done so after licensing Funai to distribute and sell Philips and Magnavox TVs in North America as of Sept. 1 (CED April 9 p1).
Based on its belief that Microtune’s is the only tuner chipset for coupon-eligible converter boxes that’s “fully compliant” with ATSC A/74 receiver specifications, “we question how any converter box that didn’t contain an A/74- compliant tuner could pass certification,” Microtune CEO James Fontaine told analysts Monday in a quarterly earnings call.
IBM subcontractor Epiq Systems said revenue in its Settlement Administration division, which mails DTV coupons to consumers, soared 75 percent Q1 to $17.3 million on “a major contract” launched during the quarter. But the unit’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization plummeted 56 percent to $700,000 because “the contract had significant start-up costs,” Epiq said, not invoking the NTIA contract by name. Still, “the contract is on track with achieving targeted profit and margin levels, which are projected to increase during future quarters,” it said. Last summer, when Epiq landed its piece of the IBM contract (CED Aug 16 p1), “our revenue recognition was based on the amount of milestone payments that were due,” Chief Financial Officer Betsy Braham told analysts in an earnings call. “And the milestone payments were established at the inception of that case. The project activity has been much heavier earlier in the case than what was originally projected. So, we've incurred higher costs which you see coming through that line in the fourth quarter.” Since “the activity levels for this case in fact are much heavier than what the government had expected” for Q1, they boost costs, Braham said. “And because the milestone payments for revenue were set at the beginning of the case and they don’t change, we don’t have an alignment between our revenue and our costs. And so as we head into the second, third and fourth quarter of this year, we would expect to see that flip and the cost structure to go down relative to the revenue structure.” In the program’s 22.25 million-coupon base, the contract, as posted at NTIA’s site, pays the IBM team $2.53 million for the first 10 million coupons it mails, $1.11 million for the next 5 million, $712,000 for the 5 million after that, and nothing for the final 2.25 million. Payouts are higher in the “contingent” phase, when only over-the-air households qualify for the 11.25 million coupons available. The contract pays $1.74 million for the first 5 million contingent coupons mailed, $1.71 million for the remaining 6.25 million coupons.
California and Texas in the week ended Friday became the first states to exceed a million DTV coupon requests, NTIA data show. Californians have ordered 1,070,591 coupons since Jan. 1, Texans, 1,035,480. The 11.89 million coupons ordered nationally were 53 percent of 22.25 million in the program’s “base” phase, when all households are eligible to apply. At the rate through Friday of 104,300 coupon requests a day, the 22.25 million would run out by Aug. 4 if all are redeemed. If they run out, 11.25 million coupons in a “contingent” phase will be offered to households getting TV only through antennas.