“A good amount of value” would be created in a Sirius merger with XM, but “I really don’t have very much to say about a hypothetical combination that could or could not” happen, Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin told analysts Wed. in a Q3 earnings call. “You can assume we will be looking to kick their ass in the 4th quarter, and they'll be looking to do the same to us,” Karmazin said of XM in Q&A.
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.
Cable seemed to give neither a direct thumbs up nor thumbs down Wed. to a proposal filed a day earlier at the FCC by the CE industry, which said it would promote quick retail availability of 2-way plug & play devices. The measure would “substantially increase consumer choice” by bringing “a wide variety” of bidirectional plug & play products to market “quickly and efficiently,” said CEA, backed by 12 CE and IT companies.
NTIA is scheduling individual 30-min. meetings Nov. 14- 15 at its Washington hq “to afford interested parties the opportunity to clarify comments” in its rulemaking on how to run the $1.5 billion DTV coupon program, the agency said in a notice Fri. The events are considered ex parte presentations, so participants must file summaries for the public record, NTIA said. Talk of vendor “procurement issues” is off-limits; this includes an NTIA request for information (RFI) that closed Sept. 15, it said. The RFI drew comments from 15 vendors; NTIA released portions under a Sept. Freedom of Information Act request we made (CED Nov 1 p3). It’s not known whether NTIA planned the ex parte meetings all along or improvised as it felt its way through a unique rulemaking. Our queries at NTIA weren’t answered by our Mon. deadline. No ex parte meetings were mentioned in a July 24 rulemaking notice (CED July 25 p1) that demanded comments by Sept. 25 with no opportunity for replies. NTIA’s website has been carrying “late-filed comments,” 10 of which have arrived after the deadline. Those interested in scheduling a meeting should contact Sandra Stewart in NTIA’s Office of Telecom & Information Applications -- 202-482-2246, sstewart@ntia.doc.gov.
Sony plans to file a “comprehensive” proposal at the FCC that would let CE makers sell non-OCAP set-tops at retail for access to basic interactive services such as VoD and PPV, the company said in an ex parte filing at the Commission. Sony’s proposal would “build on” the CableCARD spec, requiring that retail boxes have access “to the navigation data or metadata necessary to construct a CE proprietary user interface,” Sony said. CE makers could include OCAP in set-tops that access basic VoD and PPV, and would have to include OCAP in products with more advanced interactive features, Sony said. It plans to urge the FCC to require changes to OCAP and the CableCARD Host Interface License Agreement “to ensure that any OCAP- based products are consumer-friendly and commercially viable,” Sony said. Sony also will propose a “date certain” by which all cable systems must deploy OCAP and a requirement that a “substantial percentage” of leased cable boxes include OCAP, it said. Sony has been a vocal opponent of the OCAP spec at the FCC. For example, in a Jan. statement at the FCC, Sony said it engaged in the OpenCable Engineering Change Request (ECR) process to try to change OCAP “in ways that would permit the retail availability of multi-function consumer electronics products that can receive bi-directional cable programming.” OCAP, “in its current form, does not meet this goal,” Sony said then, also demanding that the FCC interpret Sony’s participation in OpenCable ECR as “evidence” that the company “is dedicated to fixing what it considers to be the flaws in OCAP… It should not interpret either action as an endorsement of OCAP as it now exists, or the process by which CableLabs has controlled the development of the OCAP specification to date.” Cable industry representatives declined comment until they could review Sony’s proposal, which a Sony spokesman said would be filed imminently.
A Democratic-controlled House or Senate is likely to take an active oversight role on NTIA’s handling of the $1.5 billion DTV converter box coupon program, Hill sources told us. And consumer groups vow that if they're emboldened by a big Democratic victory they would push for more subsidy money.
Though there’s little wiggle room in the schedule, holding a “geographic” rollout of DTV converter boxes and $40 coupons during a prelaunch “testing phase” could serve as a dress rehearsal to iron out bugs before actual coupon and box distribution begins in 2008. That’s what one vendor told NTIA it would do if awarded the contract for running the $1.5 billion DTV coupon program.
Thomson thinks Charter deserves an FCC CableCARD waiver on 7 low-end, limited function set-top models, Thomson said in a letter to Chmn. Martin. The waiver involves less than 1/2 the set-tops Charter deploys, said the letter, signed by Frederic Kurkjian, Thomson vp-Consumer Premises Systems. That’s the Thomson division that sells gear to cable operators and telcos. The waiver would serve the public interest, Kurkjian said. Thomson backed a similar Comcast bid for a waiver on 5 low-end set-top models but has been neutral on more sweeping NCTA and Verizon requests. Once a staunch CableCARD advocate, Thomson changed stances after selling the TV business to TTE, for which it no longer is a sales agent. Kurkjian reminded Martin Thomson “has participated actively in almost all” FCC DTV transition proceedings as a Grand Alliance member and as the only CE maker besides Zenith to back a DTV tuner mandate before the FCC ordered it. Thomson also played an “active role” in negotiating with the cable industry the unidirectional plug & play agreement that bred CableCARD, he said. “Overarching principles” guide Thomson’s DTV advocacy and drove its endorsement of a waiver for Charter, he said. Thomson wants: (1) Consumer products that span “a full range” of function and price. (2) The speediest possible analog-to-digital transition. (3) A regulatory environment “that is conducive to competition and innovation and affords flexibility consistent with marketplace developments.” Thomson agrees with Charter that low-end set-top prices have “declined dramatically” since 2003, Kurkjian said. But that’s not true of CableCARD “separable security” costs, which now are “a very large percentage” of box cost, he said: “The continued availability of genuinely low-cost set-top boxes not burdened by the substantial incremental costs necessitated by compliance with the integration ban is important to millions of consumers seeking a relatively low-cost solution as their first step in the digital television world.” A waiver for Charter “would preserve an affordable entry point for consumers making the transition to digital video technology and therefore facilitate and accelerate” the DTV transition,” Kurkjian said. It also would enable Charter to devote more resources to downloadable conditional access security (DCAS), he said. It’s “imperative” that DCAS go into use “as quickly as feasible,” he said. Thomson doesn’t believe the waiver “will undermine competition,” as CEA and others claim, he said. Thomson still believes “common reliance” is “essential to the development of a competitive marketplace” for DTV products, Kurkjian said. Charter has said it agrees and vowed to deploy hundreds of thousands of HD and PVR CableCARD set-tops to its “highest-revenue, best customers,” he said: “Thomson trusts that Charter’s recognition of the continued importance of common reliance will inform its marketplace behavior.”
DTV tests are the last element being completed in a CEA- commissioned study on CE product energy consumption. CEA is funding the study to amass “high-quality research” to hone policies on CE energy consumption, said Kurt Roth, of Tiax, the company doing the survey.
Silicon Image has “a growing number of design wins with major customers” for 2007 products using its VastLane HDMI 1.3 receiver and transmitter ICs, which have begun shipping in production volumes, CEO Steve Tirado told analysts in a quarterly earnings call. Over 450 companies are HDMI licensees -- 70% more than a year ago, Tirado said. The list includes over 80 companies in China, he said: “Our vision, simply put, is to be the enabler of digital content everywhere. Our mission is to drive the architecture and semiconductor implementation of the storage, distribution and presentation of high-definition content in the consumer environment.” He vowed that the company would “continue to innovate” in HDMI technology. Silicon Image sees the global digital devices market growing “substantially” to 300-500 million units in 3-5 years from 60 million in 2006, Tirado said. “Secure digital content distribution will be a major consumer requirement in coming years, as consumers recognize their growing investment in content and seek to move content around the home between CE, PC and mobile devices.” In Q&A, Tirado said Silicon Image is “feeling pretty good” about its HDMI 1.3 design wins “going into next year.” Its customers include “all the major top-tier OEMs,” he said. “So I already have some visibility on the platforms we're going to be on. I don’t know how well they're going to do. But we're pretty happy with where we sit today.” Silicon Image believes “there'll be a lot of noise made” about HDMI 1.3 at CES, he said. “In the higher end of the market, we're doing pretty well with HDMI 1.3,” he said. He said it’s likely to gain more “traction” in 2007’s 2nd half.
Despite unexpectedly strong LCD TV price erosion, particularly in the U.S., Sony is sticking with projections of profitability for its TV business in the 2nd fiscal half, senior executives told a Tokyo news conference Thurs. on release of the company’s Q2 financial results.