LAS VEGAS -- “It’s the right time” to spread “Braviazation” throughout the Sony TV line from LCD TVs where the name was born to microdisplays and even front projectors, Phil Abram, vp of Sony’s Bravia TV business, told a media briefing at the company’s line show here Tues.
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.
Regulatory delays are “impacting” HD Radio’s rollout and FCC action is needed quickly “to restore regulatory clarity” to the technology, senior iBiquity Digital executives told FCC Chmn. Martin in meetings last week, according to an ex parte filing at the Commission. Noting “significant progress” implementing HD Radio, iBiquity urged speedy completion to the FCC rulemaking to advance the rollout. Company executives, including CEO Robert Struble and Senior Vp Albert Shuldiner, pressed the Commission to authorize nighttime AM service and let HD Radio broadcasters begin offering supplemental audio and advanced data services, the filing said. There 1,225 HD Radio stations on the air in 50 states, including 555 that are multicasting, iBiquity said. That’s a jump from the 814 stations and 249 multicasters in iBiquity’s last progress report July 5 at the FCC.
Contrary to XM claims that no regulation bars its $13 billion “merger of equals” with Sirius (CED Feb 22 p1), the FCC “explicitly prohibited any such merger” in a 1997 order establishing the 2 satellite digital audio radio services (DARS), said a memo written Fri. for NAB, a foe of the deal. NAB sent copies of the document to the media.
CableLabs has refused to approve DTCP-IP as a digital output protection technology for one-way plug & play cable devices and DTLA members plan to appeal that refusal to the FCC, they told the Commission in an ex parte filing. DTCP and DTCP-IP have won “widespread adoption,” said the DTLA members -- Hitachi, Interl, Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba. License conditions CableLabs plans to impose on DTLA and its licensees “would effectively give cable operators rights to exercise control over multiple devices along the home network,” the DTLA firms said. They also would “inhibit home network interoperability and disenfranchise products currently on retail shelves and in consumer homes that provide effective and robust protection to content without risk of theft of cable service or harm to the cable network,” they said. A CableLabs spokesman said his organization “continues to engage with DTLA and its member companies to resolve outstanding business and licensing issues in an attempt to come to a marketplace solution similar to those CableLabs has reached with Microsoft, Real and Motorola for IP-based outputs.”
Staples plans to roll out its service technician program nationally by year-end, COO Mike Miles told financial analysts Thurs. in a 4th-quarter conference call. The program is fully in place in the Northeast, Miles said: “By deploying these certified technicians, we're making it easy for our customers to install and use products such as wireless networks or clean their computers and protect them from viruses and pop-ups.” He said Staples believes the tech program “holds great potential as a complement to our current in-store technology product offering,” which includes PCs and digital cameras. Responding to a questioner, Miles, without mentioning names, said Staples believes it has “struck a nice balance” in its retail PC assortment partway between one competitor’s “broad offering” and another’s relatively “barren offering.” He said Staples also believes it has invested wisely in the “razors” part of the PC business as well as in digital cameras, where the “blades” are very healthy. “We've got a great program at retail to drive attachment-selling” in PCs and digital cameras to ensure “we're getting a great follow-on business,” Miles said. The Staples direct-marketing effort also is a “healthy program” that “does a nice job capturing the folks who bought those razors and make sure we're selling them the blade.” For the year ended Jan. 29, Staples’ profit grew 41% to $708.39 million ($1.40 per share) on 11% higher revenue, $14.45 billion, including a 4% rise in N. American same-store sales.
Sirius and XM think chances are better than 50-50 they'll win regulatory approval of their all-stock $13- billion “merger of equals,” Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin told analysts Tues. in a joint conference call with XM Chmn. Gary Parsons. Karmazin wouldn’t have taken the merger proposal to the Sirius board if he weren’t so confident of regulatory approval, he said. XM and Sirius wouldn’t have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to antitrust attorneys if they weren’t sure they're on “solid” regulatory ground, Parsons said. However, Parsons, said he wasn’t willing to specify odds on merger approval.
Working with CES and other trade shows and conventions is a big part a new Las Vegas Monorail campaign aimed at reversing the rail system’s sagging fortunes. The monorail has woes, documented recently in the N.Y. Times. It has far fewer riders than the 53,000 daily envisioned when the system opened July 2004. A low of 18,197 was hit in Dec., and 2006 ridership was 31% below 2005’s, the report said. But each year for 4 days, CES dispels the doldrums, according to the system’s operator. During the Jan. 2006, CES, 38,913 people boarded at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) station, a spokeswoman said; that was up 13% from the 34,321 during CES 2005. Jan. 2006 ridership overall fell 3.6% from 2005, to 144,137 from 149,504; the number getting off at LVCC that month also fell, the spokeswoman conceded. She blamed a 67% fare rise imposed the previous week. But the 36,034 daily ridership during Jan. 2006 CES was well above average for the year, she said: “We do really well with CES attendees. They definitely use the system.” Data for 2007 aren’t available yet; the company has switched from monthly to quarterly reporting. The company is in talks with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to raise money to link the MGM Grand station with McCarran Airport, the spokeswoman said.
Charter can ill afford the $100 million cost 2007-2009 of complying with the FCC CableCARD rule if the company is denied a waiver, it told the Commission. If Charter gets a waiver, it will deploy 240,000-280,000 new low-end set-tops and 300,000-350,000 new high-end boxes a year, it said. Low- end boxes the waiver would cover are 40-45% of the total but would run up most of the CableCARD compliance costs, Charter said. A waiver “would save it, and its customers, more than $50 million,” the company declared, citing “actual price information” from box suppliers Motorola, Scientific-Atlanta and Pace Micro. Those savings are “essential” for the company in the DTV transition, since it has “far fewer financial resources” than other big cable providers, it said. Charter has $20 billion debt, much from upgrades of old cable systems acquired in the 1990s, it said. The debt, 11 times yearly EBITDA, is more than triple Comcast’s and Time Warner’s, and 50% above the average of most large public MSOs, Charter said. The company said it has had negative cash flow each of the past 5 years. Charter runs many small, “widely dispersed” cable systems, so the digital transition will cost it far more than “more consolidated MSOs” per subscriber, it said. Charter called itself a “decentralized, highly scattered collection of local systems” in 31 states, with 3,379 franchises -- 4-1/2 times as many as Cox, which has a comparable number of subscribers. Unlike other large operators, Charter has no “national backbone” connecting its local systems, it said: “Charter must therefore spend significantly more per subscriber to launch digital simulcast in many of its markets because of higher distribution costs and because the fixed per-headend costs must be recouped from smaller, more localized bases of customers.” If Charter hadn’t spent so much money appealing the Commission’s rules for the CableCARD technology that “the cable industry came up with in the first place,” it might have the financial resources it now says it lacks, said Julie Kearney, CEA senior dir.-regulatory counsel.
If any American “loses the ability” to view over-the-air TV after the Feb. 2009 analog cutoff, it won’t be for lack of “accurate information about the transition,” the heads of CEA, NAB and NCTA told House and Senate leaders in joint letters Wed.
Samsung finished Q4 with the world’s top overall TV unit and dollar brand shares, DisplaySearch and iSuppli said Tues. in separate reports. In Q4, Samsung overtook Q3 leader Sharp for top unit share in LCD TVs, iSuppli said. DisplaySearch said Sony eclipsed Q3 leader Samsung to take top LCD TV revenue share Q4.