DTV coupon vendors working with NTIA must agree not to refer in ads to the program to even “imply that the services provided are endorsed or preferred by the federal government, or considered by the government to be superior to other services,” said the agency’s request for proposals. A vendor may not run ads or promote its contract without a contracting officer’s written permission, the RFP said. That may account for the vague wording of a news release Monday from Epiq Systems, part of the IBM-led team that won the contract Aug. 15 (CED Aug. 16 p1). Epiq said its Class Action & Claims business “has been retained to provide technology-enabled services on a major new engagement in cooperation with select business partners on a project expected to last 25 months with an approximate total contract value to the consortium of $120 million.” That describes the coupon program to a T. The Epiq contract, which runs through Sept. 30, 2009, is valued at $119,968,468. “The portion of the total contract earned by Epiq over the approximate 25 months will be contingent upon a variety of metrics related to the engagement,” Epiq said. That means the vendors will be paid when they hit milestones. Epiq belongs to a consortium whose members will share the total contract value, the company said. Besides IBM, Corporate Lodging Consultants and Ketchum are members of the winning team. Neither Epiq nor NTIA’s contract officer, Marilyn Whaley, responded to our inquiries.
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.
Toshiba Japan on Thursday hailed a Monday announcement that Paramount and DreamWorks Animation will support HD DVD exclusively (CED Aug 21 p1). The company didn’t say why it waited three days to comment publicly. Nor did it mention reports that the HD DVD camp promised Paramount and DreamWorks Animation $150 million in cash and promotional considerations for the endorsements. Microsoft has denied being the source of such money, leaving Toshiba the only likely candidate. “It is clearly significant that Paramount, which originally released titles in multiple HD formats, has now made the definitive selection of HD DVD as the sole format for its worldwide releases,” said Yoshihide Fujii, CEO of Toshiba’s Digital Media Network Company. “DreamWorks Animation’s decision to introduce high-definition releases, and to do so exclusively in the HD DVD format, is also an important milestone for HD DVD,” Fujii said. “I understand that these decisions reflect Paramount and DreamWorks Animation’s understanding of the present value and future potential that HD DVD brings to home entertainment, including cost-effective manufacturability and advanced features.”
Sony has assurances from Waste Management, its partner in the Sony Take Back Recycling program announced last week (CED Aug 20 p3), that any CE products junked by consumers won’t be shipped to developing countries, a Sony spokesman said. Green groups hailed Sony’s announcement but sought the assurances. “That’s why we're working with Waste Management on this,” he said. With the program, Sony is putting “a stake in the ground and saying, yes, we're taking producer end-of-life responsibility,” a spokesman said. “We're making a significant investment to do that as well.” Sony Take Back Recycling is “complementary to what’s done in California,” where consumers pay a recycling fee upfront, when they buy CE products, he said. In California, Sony and other branded products can be brought to a dropoff center and recycled at no cost, the spokesman said. “We're saying we're going to take some responsibility and some initiative here and get this ball rolling,” he said. “We welcome others -- Panasonic, whoever -- coming on board and being part of this program or setting up their own with Waste Management or whoever they want to set it up with.”
Paramount sidestepped our queries Monday about an analyst’s report that the HD DVD camp had promised the studio “substantial upfront dollars” to drop its Blu-ray support and back HD DVD only, as Paramount is doing. Richard Greenfield, managing director of Pali Research in New York, said the amount that HD DVD had promised Paramount was so large it “could have a meaningfully positive impact” on the profitability of parent Viacom’s film business in 2007’s second half and in 2008.
It’s “natural to presume” that the $5 million Congress gave NTIA to educate the public about the DTV coupon program “is not enough to create and disseminate any direct-to- consumer advertising on a national scale,” an Epiq Systems subsidiary told NTIA last fall. But the subsidiary, Hilsoft Notifications, has run many “complex and major” programs “using direct-to-consumer advertising proven through statistical evidence to reach a large percentage of the target audience for less than $5 million,” it told NTIA. Epiq is a member of the IBM-led team that NTIA picked Wednesday as its contractor to run the coupon program (CED Aug 16 p1).
The Sony Take Back Recycling program, announced Thursday at a New York briefing (CED Aug 17 p5), is “a first move” to “push” the CE industry and the federal government toward a national e-waste program, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow told Consumer Electronics Daily. Sony expects a huge “bump up” in the number of discarded analog TV sets as consumers flock to flat-panel digital TVs, Glasgow said. “And that’s why we're going to move on it now.”
NTIA and its NOAA procurement office won high praise from industry groups Wednesday for awarding the DTV coupon program contract to an IBM-led team and for meeting the Aug. 15 deadline set in the program’s request for proposals (CED March 15 p1).
The control that XM and Sirius wield over receiver production “allows them to use hardware pricing as a tool to promote self-serving practices that can harm the consumer,” distributor U.S. Electronics told the FCC in opposition to the satellite radio merger. The company said it thinks XM and Sirius are moving from using multiple receiver distributors to “sole source supply.” Sirius “is believed to be entering into an exclusive distributorship” with Directed Electronics, and XM is negotiating an exclusive arrangement with Audiovox, U.S. Electronics said. Executives at Audiovox and Directed -- both competitors of U.S. Electronics -- couldn’t be reached for comment. Sole source supply arrangements “will eliminate all intrabrand competition in the design, development, manufacturing and distribution of satellite radio receivers,” the distributor said. If the merger is approved, “the only existing interbrand competition -- between Sirius and XM -- to develop and manufacture the best and most attractive receivers will be eliminated as well,” U.S. Electronics said. In any merger approval, the combined entity “must be prohibited from limiting the availability of satellite radio receivers to those designed, developed, manufactured and distributed by the network provider directly or through a single agent,” it said. “Robust competition must be encouraged through unlimited open access, and financial incentives for the development and distribution of receivers that could distort open competition must not be left to the unfettered discretion of the merged entity.”
PEABODY, Mass. -- Boston Acoustics (BA), sporting a new logo and “Play Smart” tagline, plans January CES introduction of new tabletop radios under the Horizon sub- brand unveiled on a line of speakers at a media briefing Thursday. Bowing to consumers demanding iPod-like “personal expression” in their CE products, BA will let owners of Horizon speakers and tabletop radios buy replacement front grilles in any of eight colors. But the Horizon radio line won’t include a new HD Radio tabletop, since BA has scrapped plans to introduce a successor to its popular Receptor model.
Fox’s The Simpsons Movie is among important DVD titles that Cinram will produce Q4, senior executives at the replicator told analysts Wednesday in a quarterly earnings call. The film opened in theaters July 27. Retailers have been expecting The Simpsons Movie for Q4 release on DVD and possibly Blu-ray, but studios haven’t announced street dates for most summer blockbusters. Nothing has been confirmed on release of the The Simpsons Movie on DVD or Blu-ray, including whether the Blu-ray will “street” day-and-date with DVD, a Fox spokesman told us. DVD replication has become an increasingly seasonal business, with ever more of the revenue skewed toward fourth quarter, CEO Dave Rubenstein said. Though Q2 was “softer” than Cinram had expected, “we're expecting the latter part of the year to pick up quite a bit of that volume and actually bring us more volume than we had in 2006,” Rubenstein said in Q-and-A. “The latter part of Q3 into Q4, we expect to be extraordinarily busy.” Orders at Cinram for Q4 are “booked to the hilt,” Rubenstein said. HD disc replication revenue at Cinram is growing but isn’t enough to offset DVD’s declines, senior executives told analysts in a Q2 earnings call Wednesday. Cinram drew $4.23 million revenue from HD disc replication Q2, the company said. That’s a threefold increase from the $1.09 million it generated from Blu-ray and HD DVD a year earlier. Still HD disc replication accounted for only 1 percent of total revenue, the company said. Cinram also replicated 209.5 million DVDs and 97.8 million CDs during Q2, down 6 and 18 per cent from 2006, it said. DVD revenue fell 10 percent in the quarter to $167.88 million, Cinram said. Declines in DVD average selling prices contributed to the lower revenue, it said.