Whether NAB seeks more money for the DTV coupon program in the next Congress depends on what NTIA decides in its final rules, NAB Exec. Vp Marsha MacBride told a Future of TV panel in N.Y. last Fri. NAB has asked NTIA to expand the coupon program, MacBridge said. NAB joined CEA and MSTV in urging NTIA to drop its proposal to confine coupon eligibility to exclusively over-the-air households. It also has called on NTIA to reject means-testing in determining coupon eligibility. NAB has hinted at plans to go back to Congress to seek more money (CED Oct 17 p2) and has said it agrees with Consumers Union (CU) “that there may need to be upward adjustments to the subsidy program” to protect consumers from being disenfranchised at the analog cutoff (CED Nov 7 p2). CU has told NTIA it thinks the $1.5 billion allocated for the coupon program is at least $2 billion short of what’s needed.
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.
Various Sony business units “across the house” are teaming for the first time to promote Blu-ray and the Sony brand, Tim Baxter, Sony Corp. of America senior vp-strategic mktg., told Consumer Electronics Daily Mon. That’s on top of an expensive TV Blu-ray ad campaign that broke last Fri. and is being sponsored by 7 companies -- Buena Vista, Fox, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Sony and Warner. The 30-sec. spots, produced by SicolaMartin, of Austin, will run on Discovery HD INHD and HDNet through Feb. 15. Not participating in the campaign are Blu-ray supports Paramount and Samsung. The ads are being limited to those 3 channels for now, Baxter said: “We just really wanted to focus right now on those HD channels where you can procure advertising in the HD-only space,” he said. The spots are the latest facet of a print and online ad campaign launched in May that already has created over a half-billion impressions, Baxter said. The TV ads are a “key part of our strategy going after the hi-def owner.” Each individual Blu-ray company will mount its own ad and marketing support, he said. “Artist meets engineer” is the theme of a Sony campaign taglined, “More. In every sense.” It’s to position Sony as “the only brand with resources in entertainment and technology -- therefore able to create the ultimate expression of Blu-ray,” Baxter said. The campaign is a “starting point, but it’s important piece because it showcases all of Sony’s groups working together” for Blu-ray, he said. Various “horizontal initiatives” will be tried across several Sony subsidiaries, he said. They include placement of Sony Blu-ray brochures echoing the “More. In every sense.” tagline, he said. The foldout brochure, which is designed to resemble a Blu-ray disc, will be placed in 15 million boxes of Sony HDTVS, Vaio PCs, PS3s, blank media products and select DVD products, he said: “We will introduce consumers to Blu-ray in very relevant and related products.” The brochure trumpets “the benefits that Sony brings to the table.” As for PS3 support for Blu-ray, Sony will introduce Blu-ray-dedicated PS3 TV spots before year-end, Baxter said. They'll have “the look, feel and tone that supports the PlayStation3 messaging and strategy,” he said. A copy of the Sony title Talladega Nights will be bundled with the first 500,000 PS3s sold, he said. Rebate promotions from Blu-ray studios will drive PS3 owners to retail, he said. Sony also plans 14,000 interactive PS3 kiosks at retail in which Blu-ray will be featured “front and center,” Baxter said. About 1/2 the kiosks will be connected to Bravia LCD TVs, he said. Starting in Dec., Sony will bow retail “end caps” that tie together Sony Blu-ray players, Bravia TVs and content from Sony Pictures and other studios, Baxter said.
Democrats on the House Commerce Committee Wed. joined a chorus of critics urging NTIA to drop its rulemaking proposal restricting eligibility for DTV converter box coupons to households relying exclusively on over-the-air signals. The demand, in a letter not seeking legislative changes in the coupon program, strongly urged NTIA to make sure the program periodically informs Congress and the public on how many coupons are being requested and redeemed to prepare for any changes that may be needed later.
SAN JOSE -- LCD “is to semiconductors what plasma is to vacuum tubes,” Brian Berkeley, vp-advanced technology, Samsung LCD Business, told Samsung Semiconductor’s Future Unlimited conference here Wed. in a stunning indictment of LCD’s rival flat-panel technology.
ATSC A/74 for adjacent-channel interference and FCC 05- 199 for co-channel interference are “adequate and reasonable” standards for certifying coupon-eligible boxes without hurting the potential for using TV white spaces, New American Foundation (NAF) told NTIA in a Tues. ex parte presentation. NAF based its conclusion on preliminary findings in receiver interference tests at the U. of Kan. The findings matter because NTIA’s DTV coupon program could “impact” use of TV white spaces for unlicensed wireless devices, depending on the specs it adopts for certifying converter boxes as coupon- eligible, NAF said. NTIA scheduled 18 ex parte meetings Tues. and Wed. (Wed.) in its DTV coupon rulemaking (CED Nov 7 p5), a spokesman told us. All slots were filled, he said. Another ex parte presenter, Garden City Group, of Weston, Fla., said it would be “useful” for NTIA “as soon as possible” to publish final rules on such issues as eligibility of households to “facilitate the DTV transition” in the tight schedule that was handed the agency. Garden City Group was the vendor in NTIA’s separate procurement proceeding that proposed a test rollout of DTV converter boxes and coupons before the program launches Jan. 2008 (CED Nov 1 p1). NTIA’s goal is to finish the coupon rulemaking and publish final rules by Q1, a spokesman told us.
Jeff Cove, Panasonic vp-technology & alliances, said our report of his remarks at the iSuppli Flat Information Display conference (CED Nov 13 p2) didn’t make clear the contexts in which they were made and in some cases indicated he was discussing Wal-Mart when he wasn’t. We quoted Cove in the report as saying: “Everybody’s surprised by the pricing, and it’s not because it’s going up.” Responding to our report, Cove said the comment came from his speech at the conference. “The theme of the speech was about how to avoid commoditization in the flat-panel display business,” Cove told us Mon. “It had no reference at all to Wal-Mart” or to details of significant Wal-Mart price cuts on Panasonic 42W plasma TVs that ran next to Cove’s comments. We also quoted Cove as saying: “Everybody has talked about how the pricing continues to move and how competitive the industry is. You lower prices to be competitive. The market is moving quickly now and when you ask ‘Who is leading the price moves?,’ you always find someone doing it before you did.” He told us this was in reply to an interview question that didn’t pertain to Wal-Mart. Finally, we quoted him as saying: “If you look at profitability from manufacturing through promotion and you look at a total picture in which sales promotion money gets used periodically during the year… the total picture is profitable, but it isn’t big right now. You really have to look at it from the panel manufacturing to marketing to sales promotion.” Cove told us he was answering an analyst’s question: “The context was about manufacturing, and the follow-up questions were in reference to differentiating between panel manufacturing and the consumer TV business. It was not in reference to Wal-Mart at all.”
Panasonic “is a strong believer that OCAP is necessary for interactive digital cable service” through set-tops and DTV sets, Chief Technology Officer Paul Liao told us, reacting to a CE industry proposal filed at the FCC last week for speeding the retail availability of 2-way plug & play devices at retail (CED Nov 9 p1). The proposal, signed by CEA and 12 CE and IT companies, would make OCAP optional. LG, Panasonic and Samsung -- all OCAP licensees -- were among the companies not signing. To our follow-up query whether Liao’s statement could be read to mean Panasonic supports only those proposals in which OCAP is a requirement, not an option, a spokesman gave us an equally nebulous response: “Panasonic supports only those proposals that include OCAP.” We pressed again and were told Liao’s comment “represents as much as we are able to say on the issue.”
Digital movie downloads as a direct competitive threat to physical DVDs are “more noise than substance,” Dave Rubenstein, CEO of replicator Cinram told analysts in a quarterly earnings call Fri. In a passionate defense of physical media as Cinram’s core business, Rubenstein called DVDs “the milk and eggs of big-box retailers” like Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart.
CEA doesn’t hire by party affiliation, Pres. Gary Shapiro said in reply to our query whether Jason Oxman was tapped as new vp-communications because he’s a Democrat. “I honestly did not know he was a Democrat,” Shapiro said. “I'm still not sure he’s a Democrat. But frankly I would have been equally happy if he were a Republican. Neither party has a monopoly on brains or talent. We hire based on experience and potential. Jason has both. Plus, he was hired before the election.” CEA hired Senior Vp Michael Petricone from “the Clinton-Gore team” when Congress was Republican, Shapiro said. That’s proof that “whatever their party affiliation, the people we hire are smart enough to know that technology is not partisan,” he said.
NTIA decided to schedule individual meetings this week on its DTV coupon rulemaking (CED Nov 7 p5) because it received several calls from interested parties “seeking to clarify their comments,” an agency spokesman told us. “We wanted to give the public an opportunity to participate as well so that no one could say, ‘Hey, there’s an unfair advantage here,'” the spokesman said. Though NTIA didn’t provide for reply comments in the rulemaking, it publicly has “reserved the right to request information as needed to provide us the most flexibility so that we put together the best program possible,” he said. Discussion about vendor “procurement issues” is off-limits at this week’s meetings, NTIA has said. This includes NTIA’s request for information (RFI) that closed Sept. 15 in which 15 vendors submitted replies. Discussing the RFI is barred because the meetings this week pertain to the rulemaking, and the RFI is a separate govt. procurement program, the spokesman said. It would be “mixing apples and oranges” to allow discussions of the RFI, he said.