The regulatory approval process for the Sirius-XM merger “is moving forward in line with our expectation,” Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin told analysts in a Q1 earnings call Tues. Sirius and XM “remain confident” the FCC and DoJ “will carefully weigh the merits of the transaction” and the merger will close this year, Karmazin said.
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.
The FCC order requiring retailers to post analog-cutoff warnings near analog-only TVs for sale (CED April 26 p1) also applies to VCRs and DVD recorders with analog-only tuners, a Media Bureau spokeswoman confirmed Mon. And contrary to those who think the Commission’s labeling requirement is a short-term measure, our survey of major brick & mortar and online retailers found the order could be long-lived.
Aug. is when Bang & Olufsen N. America likely will drop its 42W plasma TV -- that’s also when its 40W BeoVision 7 LCD TV-DVD combo arrives at B&O showrooms, senior executives told us Thurs. at a N.Y.C. launch event for the BeoVision 7. But B&O’s 65W plasma TV will be carried over, and the company may add more plasma models in still-larger sizes, said Karsten Petersen, dir. of operations for N.Y.-based B&O Retail East. B&O sources its plasma panels from Panasonic and its LCD panels from Samsung, Petersen said. The oft- delayed BeoVision 7 will be priced about $13,250, including the BeoLab 7-2 or 7-4 center-channel speaker, B&O said.
Former MPAA chief Jack Valenti, who died last week at 85, was “the platinum standard” in association and industry leadership, CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro told us in an interview: “There was no analogy for Jack in Washington. He was a class of one.” Once a foe, Valenti, whom Shapiro met in 1980, later became a personal “mentor,” Shapiro said: “We disagreed in Congress, and we debated in the media and on panels. But even when I was in my 20s, he was always very polite and very respectful. He treated me as an equal and never talked down to me.” As recently as a few weeks ago, Valenti pulled together warring factions from the broadcast, cable and CE industries into a coalition that “had us all working together on parental control technology,” Shapiro said. “And we did it not only because it was a good cause, but because Jack asked us to.” Shapiro, then a young CE industry attorney, said he was in the hearing room in 1982 when Valenti testified before the House Judiciary Committee, urging congressional protections for movie studios against the VCR. It was there that Valenti uttered his famous line: “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.” Shapiro said Valenti “got burned” for such attacks, but he later made amends with the CE industry. Twice, Valenti gave CES keynotes where he “admitted he was wrong,” Shapiro said: “He was a keynoter at a Chicago CES in the early 1990s, and he was such a pro. He was giving a 20- 25-minute speech, and his teleprompter went out for 7 minutes, but he never missed a beat. He did his speech from memory.” Valenti wrote several books about perfecting public speaking techniques. Among many Valenti legacies will be his help in forming the Copyright Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), which still meets regularly, Shapiro said. CPTWG “is an example of 2 industries that had been warring getting together to do something that has been phenomenally successful,” he said. A private memorial service for Valenti is set for tomorrow (Tues.), 10 a.m., St. Matthew’s church in Washington, said an MPAA spokesman, with burial in Arlington National Cemetery. Donations can be made to the Jack Valenti Macular Degeneration Research Fund at Johns Hopkins U. or the Stroke Research Fund, also in Baltimore.
Retailers have until May 25 to post analog-cutoff warnings on or near analog TVs for sale, under an FCC order approved Wed. in an extraordinary evening meeting (CED April 26 p1). We're told the order will take effect once it clears an expedited OMB review.
Retailers will be required to post analog-cutoff warnings at point of sale near legacy analog TVs still being sold, under an FCC order approved late Wed. A vote on the order came at 7:24 p.m. ET, soon after the Commission convened an unprecedented evening meeting that had been delayed from a 10:30 a.m. so commissioners could debate behind closed doors about rules for auctioning 700 MHz spectrum.
CE lawyer Seth Greenstein’s allegations that Motorola HD set-tops leased by RCN lack IEEE-1394 interfaces (CED April 23 p2) “are flat-out wrong, and must be summarily dismissed,” RCN told the FCC in an ex parte rebuttal filing. Greenstein’s effort “to use his personal customer experience to advocate the interests of his clients at the Commission simply grasps at straws,” RCN said. And nowhere in his letter to the FCC did Greenstein mention the DCT-700 set-top for which RCN is seeking a CableCARD waiver, the cable operator said.
A 2nd prominent RCN subscriber in as many weeks has written the FCC to complain that his cable operator dropped the ball on CableCARDs and doesn’t deserve the CableCARD waiver it’s seeking.
Cable operator RCN “disregards its obligations to provide CableCARDs to consumers upon request as required by the FCC,” and so should be denied its CableCARD waiver request, a Harvard Business School professor and RCN subscriber told FCC Chmn. Martin in a letter last week. However, the professor, David Yoffie, didn’t tell Martin the whole story when he alleged RCN refused to supply him with the 2 CableCARDs he needed for his new TiVo Series3 DVR, RCN said in an ex parte filed at the Commission. And Yoffie was politically motivated to urge the FCC to reject RCN’s petition because he’s on the Intel board, and Intel has opposed other waiver requests at the Commission, a senior RCN executive told us.
The “big opportunity” for Netflix online video delivery will come when it’s able to stream content to TVs “without requiring a laptop or a media center PC as an intermediary device,” CEO Reed Hastings told analysts in a Q1 earnings call Wed.: “We are working hard with various partners to make this a reality in 2008.”