DENVER -- Toshiba is in talks with Bose to sell its 2 new 2nd-generation HD DVD models through Bose retail stores, Toshiba Vp-Mktg. Jodi Sally told us at the CEDIA Expo here Thurs. Toshiba already supplies LCD TVs to Bose stores (see separate report, this issue).
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.
DENVER -- Sony expects no extraordinary Blu-ray product shortages because of the blue-laser diode scarcities blamed in tabling the PS3 Europe launch this year, a senior executive told us at the CEDIA Expo here Wed. Though Q4 back orders on the BDP-S1 are possible, there’s “no question” Sony will have enough supply to fill preorders, Jeff Goldstein, Sony vp-mktg. for audio and video products, told Consumer Electronics Daily.
High gas prices have Wal-Mart shoppers changing routines, making fewer midweek trips to the store but spending more per visit on weekend visits, Wal-Mart CEO Eduardo Castro-Wright told a Goldman Sachs retail investor conference Mon. in N.Y. To boost midweek sales, Wal-Mart is spending heavily on radio and in-store signs promoting a “reenergized rollback program,” he said. The campaign’s message: Whatever it costs to drive to Wal-Mart midweek, you'll make back in savings, said Castro-Wright. Launched a week ago, the effort already is showing “positive” results, he said. Wal-Mart has pegged 6 customer segments by ethnicity and lifestyle, using a “disciplined approach” to test them “in a few stores” before moving them to regional “customer pilots,” he said. By 2008, ideas that test successfully will be spread through the chain, he said. At a Hispanic test store in Houston, Wal-Mart increased the mix of dry groceries and took the unusual step of contracting with an outside operator to open a bakery. Results have been good, he said. That store is generating gross margins 150 basis points higher than other Houston-area Wal-Marts, he said.
NTIA expects by early 2007 to adopt final rules for its $1.5 billion coupon program for DTV converter boxes, it told potential contractors. Comments in NTIA’s rulemaking are due Sept. 25. Around the same time it publishes the final rules, NTIA will issue a formal request for proposals seeking vendors to run the program -- including designing coupons and setting procedures to fight waste, fraud and abuse, it said. Vendors will be hired by July 2007 -- about 6 months before the Jan. 1, 2008, date set by the DTV transition bill for consumers to begin applying for coupons. A retailer can apply to be a vendor, but steps are needed to prevent conflict of interest or putting a competitive retailer at a disadvantage, NTIA said. For the program to succeed, “it must be easy for consumers to purchase the boxes,” NTIA said: For boxes to be widely available, the process shouldn’t unduly burden retailers or discourage them from participating, it said. NTIA expects the rulemaking “to generate a great deal of comment from retailers and their representative organizations on the best way to certify, educate and audit participating retailers,” it said. “NTIA will consider these comments in creating guidelines for retailer participation and also to develop ways to discourage fraudulent retail practices.” NTIA expects retailers “will handle the converter boxes in same manner they handle their inventory for any other product,” the agency said. The govt. won’t “play a role in the supply or distribution of the converter box,” it said. Consumer education “is one of the biggest challenges in this program and one that we are especially looking for solutions based on the public affairs and promotion expertise of a potential vendor,” NTIA said. The law limits consumer education outlays to $5 million, “a relatively modest amount for a national campaign,” NTIA said: “Of course, we also expect that as the date approaches, the broadcasters, the consumer electronics industry, consumer groups and others with an interest in the transition will be more active in promoting the transition.” The rulemaking seeks comment “on what roles the various stakeholders will play in educating consumers” about the coupon program, NTIA said.
Toshiba’s U.S. subsidiary wouldn’t answer our queries Tues. whether the company will use next week’s CEDIA Expo in Denver to introduce 2nd-generation HD DVD players for Q4 delivery. But Toshiba’s top corporate HD DVD strategist, Yoshihide Fujii, CEO of Toshiba’s Digital Media Co., hinted in an IFA keynote Sat. in Berlin that the introduction was imminent.
BERLIN -- There’s an “absolute” glut of CE industry trade shows, and if Philips CE chief Rudy Provoost could wipe the slate clean, there would be only one CE show yearly on a “global circuit,” he told Consumer Electronics Daily in an interview at IFA here Sat.
P2P music-sharing of a throwback sort was introduced Fri. by Samsung in an opening IFA keynote by Gee Sung Choi, CEO of the company’s Digital Media Business. Samsung’s YP-K5
BERLIN -- Fox Home Entertainment delayed giving street dates on its first Blu-ray titles because it was “working to get our content to a level we're really proud of,” Pres. Mike Dunn said Thurs. at a Philips news conference Thurs. at IFA, where the announcements were made. “We won’t release a movie in Blu-ray that won’t get rave reviews,” Dunn declared in Q&A.
The Berlin IFA fair begins its run this week as an annual CE show with fewer exhibitors than in 2005, when the event ran every 2 years. The 2006 show’s 1,049 exhibitors come from 32 countries, promoters said Wed. That compares with 1,202 exhibitors from 40 countries in 2005. Even so, the number of exhibitors this year “far exceeds our expectations,” said Rainer Hecker, chmn. of the group that produces IFA. “A number of firms” have taken “substantially” larger spaces than in the past, Hecker said. Making IFA an annual event “will facilitate the ordering of new products and make the whole process much more professional,” promoters said, predicting an annual IFA would even out order volume fluctuation seen over the years. “We can expect a more effective concentration of business here, with greater continuity in particular,” they said: “The fact that business can now be concluded every year in the autumn will have a major impact on companies’ internal processes.”
Excessively slow HD DVD disc-loading speeds -- “an issue” raised in chat groups by some buyers of Toshiba’s first HD DVD players -- won’t be a problem on Microsoft’s coming HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, a key Microsoft HD DVD strategist told us Mon. at a N.Y. briefing. That’s because Microsoft’s drive will use a different transport than Toshiba’s HD-A1 and HD-XA1 HD DVD decks, said Kevin Collins, dir.-HD DVD Evangelism in Microsoft’s Consumer Media Technology Group.