Don’t open the floodgates for more TV programmers to start airing shows based on cartoon characters that hawk goods, by allowing a Viacom cable channel to keep running a show based on characters sell kids’ sneakers, a dozen groups asked the FCC. Those groups and Free Press backed a request by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood that the commission find the Zevo-3 show that began running Oct. 11 on Nicktoons violates the Children’s Television Act. Opposing a petition for declaratory ruling was the cable programmer, Skechers -- the sneaker maker whose Z-Strap, Kewl Breeze and Elastika characters are on the show -- and several ad industry groups. How the FCC treats the petition may show how, under Chairman Julius Genachowski, it will tackle the issue of increased commercialism on kids media (CD Sept 23 p6).
NEW ORLEANS -- Cable engineers are looking at various ways to boost their upstream bandwidth capacity for high-speed data, user-generated video, commercial services and other possible applications, they said at the Society of Cable Telecom Engineers (SCTE) convention. But don’t expect too many moves right away.
Congress is unlikely to make changes soon to retransmission consent rules despite stepped up lobbying by pay-TV companies trying to make the most of an ongoing dispute between Cablevision and News Corp., according to broadcast, cable and Capitol Hill officials. A bill on FCC handling of such disputes that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has said he'll introduce soon (CD Oct 20 p1) seems unlikely to pass this Congress, they said. Legislators focused on getting re-elected means there’s less time to pay attention now to the blackout of three Fox TV stations owned by News Corp. on Cablevision systems in the New York area, a cable executive acknowledged.
Fox and Cablevision are to describe how they've met a statutory obligation to negotiate in good faith during their retransmission consent dispute, FCC Media Bureau Chief William Lake wrote them Friday. He asked Chase Carey, President of Fox parent company News Corp., and Cablevision CEO James Dolan to explain how each is satisfying the “important statutory obligation” to conduct good-faith negotiations. Also asked: “If you are aware of any conduct by the other side that you believe violates the good faith requirement, please so indicate and provide supporting evidence.” The responses are due at the close of business Monday. Cablevision welcomed the letter. Fox declined to comment.
NEW ORLEANS -- Eager to extend their industry’s video reach to all IP-enabled consumer display devices, cable technologists are now openly discussing how they will make the big transition to all-IPTV. However, they're not yet sure how much bandwidth, time and effort will be required to carry out that transition. Speaking at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers show last week, speakers from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Cisco Systems and SCTE said cable operators will soon begin the long-awaited IPTV migration by simulcasting their linear channels via an IP overlay. They differed somewhat over the number of bonded channels that cable operators will need to get the transition underway.
Verizon reported net income of $881 million in Q3, down from $1.18 billion a year earlier. The results included 25 cents per share in non-operational charges, including a noncash charge related to pension settlements. Verizon Wireless added 997,000 net new customers --compared with 1.3 million a year earlier -- bringing its total to 93.2 million.
T-Mobile USA is looking to provide “a whole range of different pricing options” for its data services, Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray said in an interview at the carrier’s technology showcase in Washington last week. The company is “aggressively” looking at postpaid and prepaid plans to make data service affordable, he said. Many U.S. consumers don’t want to pay $30 or $40 for data plans, he said. Several major carriers have cut minimum data charges and analysts have expected T-Mobile USA to follow suit.
A House subcommittee chairman won’t be diverted from pursuing behavioral-ad legislation by the start of a multimillion-dollar self-regulation effort by a united front of industry groups including the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Direct Marketing Association and the Better Business Bureaus, a congressional staffer said. The announcement this month of the Advertising Option Icon program for online education about cookies and access to an opt-out mechanism is “not going to slow us down” in pursuing passage of the Best Practices Act (HR-5777), Tim Robinson, counsel to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, told us last week.
A federal appeals court rejected an effort to revive a class-action lawsuit against wireless carriers and cellphone makers that had been thrown out on grounds it was preempted by FCC regulations. The case in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Farina v. Cellco, had bounced around the courts since April 2001. The 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., had reached a similar decision two years ago.
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he plans to introduce a bill to end taxpayer funding of public broadcasting. The action comes on the heels of NPR’s firing Senior News Analyst Juan Williams over comments he made about Muslims in an O'Reilly Factor appearance Monday. Williams’ comments “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices,” NPR said Wednesday. The incident “shows that NPR is not concerned about providing the listening public with honest debate of today’s issues, but rather with promoting a one-sided liberal agenda,” DeMint said Friday.