NTIA estimates 420,000 nursing-home residents will seek DTV coupons under a waiver the agency proposed in a rulemaking notice in Thursday’s Federal Register (CED April 25 p3). However, an NTIA filing the same day at the Office of Management and Budget puts the number of nursing home applicants at 13 million. But 420,000 is the correct estimate, an NTIA spokesman said. “At first review, this is a typo,” he said of the filing at OMB. Both the rulemaking notice and the OMB filing estimate 340,000 households will apply for coupons if the program is opened up to consumers receiving mail at post office boxes.
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.
CE makers would have at least until May 30 to be stuffing DTV sets and related products with printed advisories on the DTV transition under a revised DTV consumer education order the FCC released late Wednesday. The original order required CE makers to comply as soon as it took effect March 31.
Nursing-home residents could qualify for a DTV coupon apiece “under certain circumstances” to assure NTIA coupons “are distributed to verifiable residents of these facilities” without waste, fraud or abuse, the agency said in a notice published Thursday in the Federal Register. Offering nursing home residents coupons raises “particular administrative challenges,” and the rulemaking seeks comments on how best to overcome them, the new notice said. Comments are due June 9.
Sony doesn’t think its new Sony Unified Resale Execution (SURE) program (CED April 23 p1) typifies a trend toward stricter manufacturer enforcement of minimum advertised pricing policies, top company sales executive told Consumer Electronics Daily. “We don’t see it that way,” Consumer Sales President Jay Vandenbree said in an e-mail reply to our query on whether SURE constitutes stricter MAP enforcement and, if so, why manufacturers are cracking down more now than in the past. “Basically,” all Sony is doing through SURE is “protecting our brand in the interest of consumers and our retail partners,” Vandenbree said. He repeated verbatim the wording of SURE’s mission statement from a letter Sony sent retailers last Thursday advising them of the new program. SURE “is designed to maintain the long- term strength of the Sony brand equity by insuring that authorized resellers can capture sufficient margin on Sony products necessary to allow them to provide the support and services required to sell Sony’s premium brand,” Vandenbree said. “It further will allow Sony products to compete with the many other brands offered in the marketplace.” Sony has no unilateral minimum retail price policy, Vandenbree said in reply to another question. Under SURE, which takes effect June 1, “dealers must advertise and sell product at minimum price or face a series of penalties,” Vandenbree said. “We are obligated by law to enforce those rules to all of our distribution.” SURE covers “specific products only,” all of which are “premium,” he said. Sony’s letter to retailers said SURE coverage includes Alpha digital imaging products, Sony’s 11W OLED TV, ES products, VPL-VW60 and VPL-VW200 front projectors and XBR Models 7 and 8. The XBR Model 8 “has not been announced at this time,” Vandenbree said. The Model 8 debuts this fall, the letter said. Sony “from time to time” will “unilaterally designate select products” for SURE and will notify retailers in a “sales news” bulletin, the letter said. SURE doesn’t replace Sony “Suggested Profit Picture Guidelines” (SPPGs), in place for years, on goods not designated for SURE, the letter said. On our question about Sony’s co-op ad policy, the company has no such program per se, Vandenbree said. But Sony does but provide market development funding (MDF) “within our discretion necessary to meet similar offers from our competitors,” Vandenbree said. “Under SPPG, as a condition to receiving MDF to support advertisements, dealer ads with a price must be at SPPG,” he said. “Dealers are free, however, to advertise Sony products at any price they independently determine on ads that they pay for themselves.”
Zoran is downplaying expectations about the short-term impact that chipsets for coupon-eligible converter boxes will have on the company’s bottom line “because of this hiccup that the FCC introduced suddenly” in the form of analog passthrough, CEO Levy Gerzberg told analysts in a quarterly earnings call. Still, Zoran sees CECBs “as a great opportunity,” he said. “Now that this analog passthrough issue has been resolved, hopefully the FCC won’t introduce any other surprise.” Zoran sees CECB chipsets as “a second- half opportunity” that will “spill over to the first half of next year,” he said. “We have a major percentage of the manufacturers who have made boxes already. We announced it in a press release. So we are playing it down right now. We are not counting on it big time right away but in the second half we will start to see it growing momentum.” Zoran has finalized its new “reference platform and software” that lowers the cost of a coupon-eligible converter box and adds analog passthrough capability, Gerzberg said. “We expect our customers to begin shipping updated recertified platforms supporting the analog requirement later this quarter, positioning us to remain a leader in the market as volume ramps,” Gerzberg said.
Nothing in the new NRSC-5-B spec for HD Radio, approved Saturday by the National Radio Systems Committee, “will diminish existing receivers,” Kenwood USA Vice President Mike Bergman, the company’s digital radio point man, told us by e- mail. The revisions “are not drastic,” he said. In updating HD Radio data service specifications and references, NRSC-5-B makes them “formally part” of the basic standard, he said, noting that they previously were only “informative.” NRSC-5- B adds a new “MP11” mode, allowing broadcasters to use the last portion of the FM spectrum’s extended hybrid part, he said. “Backward-compatibility details for existing receivers is included in the definition of this mode,” Bergman said. NRSC-5-B tweaks HD Radio’s RF spectral mask “to match real- world equipment,” Bergman said. More detail on NRSC-5-B will on NRSC’s Web site within weeks, Bergman said.
DTV coupon orders are on pace this week to exceed half the 22.25 million coupons available in the program’s current “base” phase, NTIA data show. Slightly more than 5.6 million households had ordered 10.6 million coupons as of Monday, NTIA said. That 90 percent of households are ordering two coupons at a time differs sharply from IBM’s estimate in its proposal to NTIA that 25 percent would do so. At today’s request rate, and if all coupons are redeemed, the 22.25 million would run out by Aug. 7. A “contingent” phase has funds for 11.25 million more coupons, but they will be available only to households certifying that they get over- the-air TV only.
FCC field agents have slapped a dozen CVS stores in the Baltimore and Detroit areas with citations the past three weeks alleging violations of the commission’s analog-only labeling order.
Blockbuster’s “immediate next step” in its plan to buy Circuit City is convincing the CE chain to open its books for a due diligence probe, CEO Jim Keyes told analysts Monday in a conference call to discuss the possible acquisition. But Blockbuster has been “unable to satisfy Circuit City” it will be able to finance a deal, so giving the video retailer access to inside data for due diligence would be pointless, Circuit City said in a statement released just after the Blockbuster call started.
CEA filed a motion to intervene on the FCC’s behalf in low-power TV’s suit on coupon-eligible converter boxes. The Community Broadcasters Association filed suit March 26 in U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit, urging the court to declare that coupon-eligible boxes violate the All-Channel Receiver Act (CED March 27 p1) OR (CD March 27 p4). CE manufacturers and retailers “maintain sizable inventories” of coupon-eligible boxes in anticipation of NTIA’s distribution of up to 33.5 million $40 coupons, CEA’s motion said. Many of the broadcasters group’s arguments are “grievously erroneous and highly misleading,” and CEA said it’s involvement in the case would help the court reach “an informed decision.”