High “turnaround” -- including massive severance pay to terminated employees -- combined with lower wireless sales to pummel RadioShack to a $16.3 million loss Q3 vs. a $108.5 million net profit a year earlier, the chain said Wed. Under new CEO Julian Day, RadioShack has scrapped quarterly earnings calls, opting for “comprehensive” releases (CED July 17 p6).
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 format war is the only “dark cloud” shadowing an $8 billion DVD rental industry, with Blu-ray and HD DVD “trapped in the videogame boxing ring” as Microsoft and Sony slug it out to defend their Xbox 360 and PS3 “interests,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told analysts Mon. in a quarterly earnings call.
Funai “conservatively” estimates it will be possible to bundle a DTV converter box and “smart” antenna and price it for under $100, the supplier told NTIA in comments on an agency rulemaking on how to run the $1.5 billion coupon subsidy program. Funai -- one of Wal-Mart’s leading CE suppliers -- again urged NTIA to make such bundles eligible for subsidy (CED Sept 27 p1).
Whether DVD players, VCRs and other “TV interface devices” are more prone than TV sets to interference from unlicensed devices operating on or adjacent to channels 2-4 is among many CE questions for which the FCC seeks answers on use of TV white spaces, according to the Commission order and further rulemaking released last week (CED Oct 19 p1).
SAN FRANCISCO -- CEA and copyright allies Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge will team on a “broad-based campaign,” Digital Freedom, telling policymakers and public “restrictions on digital technology are bad policy, very bad for the economy and very bad for democracy,” CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro told the CEA Industry Forum here Wed. The Media Access Project and others will participate. The effort starts Oct. 25.
CE makers “simply do not understand why an important group like yours would want to force consumers to rent boxes from monopoly cable companies,” CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro said in letters to 10 consumer groups Tues. responding to their calls at the FCC urging that it grant cable’s various CableCARD waiver requests. One such group, the Black Leadership Forum, wrote FCC Chmn. Martin Sept. 28 complaining that cable companies would be forced to pass along $600 million in yearly added costs to besieged consumers if the Commission enforces the July 1, 2007, CableCARD deadline. “Particularly troubling is the unnecessary nature of what can be only described as a regressive ’tax’ on cable customers,” said the Forum’s exec. dir., Joe Leonard. “With gas prices spiraling through the roof and wages stagnant, the federal government should be seeking ways to provide working Americans relief,” Leonard said. “Instead, the FCC appears poised to allow a regulation to go into effect which would saddle consumers with added costs and give them nothing tangible in return.” The Forum “would certainly support FCC rules designed to usher in new competitive technologies and equipment designed to help consumers navigate their incoming cable signals,” Leonard said. For example, downloadable security will allow next generation DTVs “to navigate cable signals without imposing unnecessary costs on consumers,” Leonard said. But a “backward-looking” CableCARD rule “will divert resources that could be better invested in these newer technologies,” he said. Similarly worded letters have been written to Martin by dozens of others in a campaign managed by LMG, the Washington-based lobbying firm founded by Julian Epstein, chief Democratic counsel on the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment trial. In his replies to Leonard and 9 others -- copies also sent to Martin and filed in the Commission’s CableCARD docket (97-80) -- Shapiro said consumers “can and should have more choices, so we are puzzled that your organization is not supporting” CableCARD rules enacted by Congress in 1996. CableCARD -- designed by the cable industry -- was the “key to ensuring that consumers could use devices of their choice to receive cable programming,” Shapiro said: “After numerous delays, including extensions granted by the FCC and 2 lost court cases, the cable companies are still chaining their customers to technology of the past and requiring them to pay higher fees for the privilege of using their pre-1996 first-generation technology, not to mention defying the will of Congress and the FCC.” If the Commission grants another waiver, cable companies “will continue to use their proprietary set-top boxes safely within their monopolies, while eschewing consumer choice, innovation and technological advancement,” Shapiro said. “Ultimately, consumers pay for these actions through high monthly costs and minimal choice.”
SAN FRANCISCO -- The 2007 CEA videogame show that won’t happen was to have been a 3-day event in 150,000 sq. ft. of the L.A. Convention Center June 20-22 or July 11-13, with the final day open to the public, senior CEA executives told us Mon. at the CEA Industry Forum here.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Nothing in the Blu-ray or HD DVD licenses forbids a manufacturer from marketing a dual-format player, representatives of the formats told a panel at CEA Industry Forum here Mon. The session was noteworthy more for the frustrations that boiled over among panelists and audience members over lack of a format compromise than for shedding new light on the format war.
CE makers and broadcasters tore at each other’s throats during the DTV transition debate. So it was a big surprise last month when CEA, MSTV and NAB filed comments jointly in NTIA’s rulemaking on running the $1.5 billion DTV converter box coupon program (CED Sept 26 p1).
Satellite radio hasn’t materialized as “one of our major drivers” for 2006 as Audiovox had hoped, CEO Patrick Lavelle told analysts Wed. in a Q2 earnings call. A reason: Halting shipments of its top-selling Audiovox Xpress plug & play XM receiver for the FCC’s power emissions probe meant Audiovox had no revenue on Xpress Q2 and Sept. 1-14, Lavelle said.