All but one of 19 underperforming Tweeter stores slated for closing have been shut, the chain said Fri. in releasing 3rd-quarter results.
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.
All but one of 19 underperforming Tweeter stores slated for closing have been shut, the chain said Fri. in releasing 3rd-quarter results.
Broadcasters, in comments filed last week at the FCC, overwhelmingly hailed an FCC bid to move up the July 1, 2007, DTV tuner deadline to Dec. 31, 2006 at the latest (CED June 10 p1). But CE interests said it’s too late in the product cycle to plan for a 2006 deadline, and the earlier date would disrupt 2006 holiday sales of DTV sets, not help as broadcasters claim.
Sony is working to improve its “cost structure” in LCD TVs in wake of unexpectedly harsh price “deterioration” that hit hard at its first-quarter results and prompted the company to downgrade its sales forecast for the fiscal year ending in March, the company said Thurs.
Chipmaker ATI Technologies, in comments at the FCC on the Commission’s bid to speed the DTV tuner mandate deadlines to Dec. 31, 2006, didn’t comment specifically on the proposal. But ATI said components such as its Xilleon 240 DTV “reference design” chip should help reduce the retail price of DTV converter boxes to about $50 by fall 2006 “if substantial demand for such devices materializes through steps taken by the Commission or other means.” The Xilleon 240 incorporates all the functions of a DTV converter box in a single chip, ATI said. Assuming “historical price reductions and anticipated manufacturing volumes,” ATI said, the production cost of adding DTV functionality to a TV set will be less than $40 by fall 2006. Other chip producers such as Motorola and Zoran have offered similar cost projections. In considering an earlier deadline for the tuner mandate, the FCC also should study the time and cost burdens of CE makers’ redesigning existing engineering and manufacturing plans, “as well as the logistical, distribution and marketing hurdles that an earlier deadline would create,” ATI urged. But the company said it believes “all affected industries will address these issues in the most appropriate manner to ensure full compliance with the Commission’s mandate.”
TiVo urged the FCC Wed. to keep July 1, 2007, as the DTV tuner mandate deadline for all remaining sets. In comments on an FCC bid to move the deadline to Dec. 31, 2006, TiVo said it “fully supports the Commission’s efforts to expedite the DTV transition” and agrees on the need for a date certain by which all TV sets are capable of receiving over-the- air DTV signals. However, advancing the deadline 6 months “will have unintended consequences of significantly disrupting the market and causing economic hardships” to TiVo and other CE makers, the company said. Making Dec. 31, 2006, the new deadline will “exponentially compound the hardships” posed by a speedier deadline because it falls at the end of the holiday selling season, TiVo said. Typifying others in the CE industry, TiVo said it “experiences a significant increase in sales during the holiday season and therefore needs to ramp up its manufacturing output to ensure that a sufficient quantity of the product is available to meet the public demand.” During the holiday season, “the sales channel is full of TiVo’s products” as a result, it said. A Dec. 31, 2006, deadline “would throw a wrench” into TiVo’s manufacturing and shipping plans, it said. “It would require TiVo not only to cope with the unpredictable and increased holiday season demand, but at the same time attempt to coordinate the timing of sales of non-DTV tuner products and DTV tuner products during these busiest consumer buying months,” the company said. To avoid being saddled with non-DTV tuner inventory that can’t be sold after the deadline, TiVo would need to ship such products well before the deadline, “which is not feasible from a practical and business standpoint,” it told the Commission. More woes would result with substantial numbers of product returns historically made after the holiday season, TiVo said. Last year, about 25% of TiVo PVRs bought by consumers during the holiday season were returned after Dec. 31, the company said. With a Dec. 31, 2006, deadline, “TiVo would be prohibited from reselling the non-DTV tuner merchandise returned post-holidays and it would be forced to take a massive loss,” it said.
Next-generation optical disc is of such importance to major studios, CE firms and owners of big-screen DTVs “that we are convinced there will be a technological or commercial solution to the current format disagreement,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told financial analysts Mon. in the company’s 2nd-quarter conference call. Hastings described the next generation of HD discs as “the 2nd wave of DVD,” saying Netflix is confident “it will extend the dominance of packaged media for many years to come.”
“Contrary to what you may have heard otherwise,” the role of U.S. companies in the development and production of DTV products “is quite significant,” CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro told the Senate Commerce Committee in a letter Fri.
Although the FCC’s Dec. 1 deadline is still over 4 months away for cable’s delivery of a progress report on the deployment of downloadable security for set-top boxes, progress is being made in development of downloadable conditional access, Comcast told the Commission in an ex parte filing. Comcast, Motorola, Nagravision and Scientific-Atlanta representatives met July 15 with officials from the FCC’s Media Bureau and Office of Engineering & Technology, the filing said. “These companies all successfully demonstrated their ability to download their respective conditional access systems over a cable system to set-top boxes” not equipped with embedded security, the filing said. In the demonstrations, each used its own “differentiated” headend equipment to download “entitlement management messages” that would enable a consumer to access “individually authorized” levels of service, Comcast said. “Additional work is in progress to enable conditional access systems to be downloaded to a variety of set-top boxes and to consumer electronics products in this manner,” it said. Under the Commission’s March 17 order, cable’s Dec. 1 progress report is required to discuss the feasibility of downloadable security and a proposed “timeline for deployment.” If the report finds downloadable security to be feasible, cable must commit to deploy it both in its own set-tops and those to be sold at retail, the order says. The report also must commit whether such functionality can be implemented by July 1, 2007, and if not, must propose a new timetable.
There’s no “legitimate technical or business reason” not to disclose details of iBiquity Digital’s HDC codec in the National Radio Systems Committee standard (NRSC-5) on in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio. That’s the view of Jonathan Hardis, who urged the FCC to withhold NRSC-5 from inclusion in the Commission’s final IBOC service rules. The Gaithersburg, Md., engineer, who said he was commenting as “an individual,” told the FCC NRSC-5 is “substantially incomplete and, as such, not suitable by itself for either engineering or regulatory purposes.” Hardis said the Commission “has little choice but to reject NRSC-5 in its present form” and order all temporary and interim IBOC authorizations be rescinded immediately. He said such an order could be stayed 60 days under Commission rules to give iBiquity “one final opportunity to honor their commitment” to provide “substantial public benefits” through IBOC. Such a “stand-down” would give iBiquity a chance “to remove from their transmission and reception software anything that they might consider to be too sensitive to see the light of day,” Hardis said. Other commenters, such as iBiquity and NAB, didn’t address the issue that NRSC-5 lacks a specified codec. CEA found the situation not the most “optimal,” but called it “acceptable” in that it shouldn’t bar FCC approval (CED July 20 p3). But Microsoft urged the Commission to “remand” NRSC-5 to the NRSC so that body can complete the standard by incorporating HDC as an initial codec and establish provisions for adding alternative codecs.
Core-store wireless sales remained the big drag on RadioShack results 2nd quarter, but the chain predicts improved sales and profit performance in the 2nd half, it said Tues.