LOS ANGELES -- Warner Home Video’s DVD release next week of the environmental film The 11th Hour will list for an unusually low $5 because the studio decided price was the best way to “engage” retailers and consumers and encourage ecological awareness, said Tamar Dolgen, Warner Home Video director of marketing and business planning for new releases, Wednesday at the Digital Entertainment Group’s Green Media Summit.
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.
LOS ANGELES -- There will be “a price to pay” within five years for companies that hurt the environment, Dan Esty, director of the Yale University Center of Environmental Law and Policy, said Wednesday at the Digital Entertainment Group’s Green Media Summit. He deems $30 for each ton of carbon released a plausible starting point for assessments on environmentally unfriendly behavior by a company, he said.
NTIA retailer sign-ups for the DTV coupon program ended Monday with about 640 certified dealers representing just over 11,200 storefronts, the agency said. It said 4.8 million households had requested 9.1 million coupons since the program began Jan. 1. That’s 41 percent of the 22.25 million coupons available in the program’s base phase.
The Community Broadcasters Association reversal on analog-passthrough converter boxes raises “legitimate questions about the true motives of its litigation strategy,” a CEA spokesman told us. “Having successfully convinced the NTIA and manufacturers to make numerous certified boxes with analog passthrough available to consumers, CBA now completely reverses itself and argues against such boxes” in its U.S. Appeals Court complaint (CED March 31 p1), the spokesman said. “CBA should be educating its viewers about the DTV transition and choosing the right converter box,” he said. “Instead, it uses constantly shifting and increasingly expensive legal tactics in a desperate effort to derail the DTV transition and transform it into perpetual analog preservation.” CBA, which claims to have been consistent in opposing analog-blocking DTV converter boxes the last 18 months, is stumped on why it never raised analog passthrough or dual-tuner converter boxes in oral or written testimony it gave at an Oct. 31 House Telecom Subcommittee hearing on the DTV transition, Peter Tannenwald, CBA outside counsel, told us in an e-mail. In the days before, the CBA was caught up in its annual convention in Las Vegas, he said. Its president, Ron Bruno, even had to leave the event early to testify, Tannenwald said. Only at the convention had CBA first “gotten wind” from CE makers about the availability of only a few coupon-eligible boxes with analog passthrough, he said. Perhaps CBA “had not really thought through the implications” when Bruno testified, said Tannenwald. Nor had CBA done “any of the legal research that led us to discover the applicability of the All Channel Receiver Act” -- the basis of its Appeals Court complaint that coupon-eligible boxes lacking analog tuners should be declared illegal, Tannenwald said.
The Community Broadcasters Association did speak out about “the analog problem” more than 18 months ago, but CBA’s 2006 filings never urged NTIA to require dual analog and digital tuners in coupon-eligible converter boxes, our review found. Still, CBA on Friday defended its filings and again denied dragging its feet on the converter box issue.
LG is “proud” of its DTV tuner chipsets and “stands by” the Zenith coupon-eligible converter box using them, said Vice President John Taylor. Taylor was responding to Microtune criticism at the NTIA that DTV tuners in some NTIA- certified converter boxes failed performance tests it ran, while boxes with Microtune components work fine (CED March 27 p1). LG will pit the quality of its DTV tuner chipsets and converter boxes against “anyone’s in the world,” Taylor said, noting that “a number” of converter boxes NTIA has certified use LG chipsets. The LG box and chipsets “more than conform to NTIA’s performance specifications,” Taylor said.
Conn’s will open seven to 10 new stores this fiscal year ending Jan. 31, top executives of the Beaumont, Texas, chain told analysts in a Thursday earnings call. Openings, to be “spaced evenly” through the year, will commence in April, said President Timothy Franks. Conn’s will add three stores in its new Oklahoma market, joining one in Oklahoma City that has done better than expected since opening about a month ago, he said. Unit sales of LCD TVs at Conn’s climbed about 80 percent in the year ended Jan. 31, though CE gross margins took a hit because the market is “very price-competitive,” Franks said. Still, Conn’s is well positioned as it’s a member of the NATM, which boasts $3.8 billion in “buying power,” he said. Historically, Conn’s has fared well in down economies thanks to “flexible credit” terms and customer loyalty, he said. Most of its stores are in energy belt states on the Gulf of Mexico, so its markets are “not in an economic downturn,” like the rest of the country, he said, citing an Associated Press report that four of the 10 most thriving U.S. cities are in Texas. Conn’s, stung by bad customer debt, is improving its “credit portfolio,” but its data for the year just ended don’t “reflect all of the improvements we have made in our collection performance,” the chain said in a statement. Money owed from 60-day delinquencies rose to $49.78 million in the year ended Jan. 31, from $37.66 million a year earlier, and the average outstanding balance went to $1,282 from $1,241. Still, its San Antonio collections center and its 100-member call staff are reaping benefits, Franks said, seeing a sign of progress in 60-day delinquencies falling significantly in February.
The Office of Management and Budget Thursday approved “without change” the FCC DTV consumer education order (CED March 27 p3). Completion of OMB’s “information collection review,” sought by the FCC in a March 12 “emergency” request, lets the order take effect immediately. It tells broadcasters to run public service announcements on the DTV transition, documenting the effort in quarterly reports at the FCC. Cable, satellite and IPTV providers’ monthly bills must include stuffers on the analog cutoff. CE makers must pack printed advisories with DTV sets and other gear. Cable, satellite and IPTV providers have 30 days to comply. CE makers must comply immediately.
Absent changes in an FCC DTV consumer education order for which CE makers and retailers have lobbied aggressively the last two weeks (CED March 14 p1), TV suppliers not packing printed advisories in new products technically will be violating the order’s new labeling rules if they take effect Thursday, for which the agency is seeking Office of Management and Budget approval.
Giving consumers “industry-leading information” on the DTV transition “is one of our core commitments,” Circuit City said in a statement replying to our request for comment on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s plan to fine the chain and 13 other CE retailers for analog labeling order violations (CED March 21 p1). “We are ready to do our part to help Americans prepare for a significant shift in the way television is broadcast and received,” Circuit City said. “We have begun a year-long, multi-faceted campaign to educate the public about the nation’s upcoming transition from analog to digital TV broadcasting and we are participating fully in the government’s coupon program to help consumers purchase DTV converter boxes.”