LAS VEGAS -- FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal on changing the process for interference complaints between FM translators and full-power stations is expected to be get broad support from industry, broadcasters and their attorneys told us. Though few details were released, industry officials don't expect much push back from the eighth floor.
LAS VEGAS -- Amid "disruption" by technology, owners of radio and TV stations and newspapers are eyeing overcoming challenges with smart speakers and new management strategies, executives told the NAB Show. Cox Media Group and Hubbard Radio are focusing on content for smart speakers, their executives said Monday. That people can listen to radio stations on smart speakers at home is helping the medium's return to households, those executives said. A day later, Edison Research Vice President Megan Lazovick recommended radio be more aggressive in such efforts.
LAS VEGAS -- ATSC 3.0 market tests won’t end with the model market project Pearl TV is running in Phoenix and Sinclair’s single-frequency-network trials in Dallas, Pearl Managing Director Anne Schelle said at a Tuesday NAB Show workshop on maximizing 3.0's future business potential. Phoenix and Dallas “are just the markets today,” she said.
NBCUniversal, when doing affiliation agreements with MVPDs and virtual MVPDs, doesn't think about how such deals might affect Comcast's MVPD business and never has been asked by corporate to make that part of its negotiating strategy, NBCU Content Distribution Chairman Matt Bond testified Tuesday in U.S. v. AT&T and Time Warner. NBCU never withheld content from an MVPD so as to drive subscribers from that distributor to Comcast, and Comcast corporate never asked it to do so, Bond said. "We're interested in getting the most ... distribution we can get."
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) carved out local governments from legislation to cap annual right-of-way fees for wireless structures. Localities applauded Northam’s amendment as more good news this spring after 5G small-cell infrastructure bills failed in several other states. “Local governments need to keep sending the message that pre-emption is not the answer,” said NATOA General Counsel Nancy Werner Tuesday.
It was “clearly a mistake” for Facebook to trust Cambridge Analytica had deleted ill-gotten user data in 2015, and the platform needs to proactively police to ensure its tools are used for good, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told nearly half the Senate in a hearing Tuesday (see 1804090026). Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters separately about a “privacy bill of rights” they are crafting in response to the controversy. The bill is modeled after the EU’s general data protection regulation, they said. An aide for Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said the senator is working on his own legislative proposal.
LAS VEGAS -- Life for wireless mic operators may grow more complex once TV stations reshuffle frequencies, an engineer at a maker of mic systems said at the NAB Show. Spectrum for such transmissions may grow more scarce and there may be more competing uses, these and other comments Tuesday suggested.
Sprint and T-Mobile US stocks jumped on reports Tuesday that they are once again in merger talks. Analysts and other industry observers saw renewal as all but inevitable but warned that regulatory and other hurdles remain. Sprint shot up as much 25 percent and closed up 17 percent at $6.02. T-Mobile closed at $63.13, up 5.7 percent.
Amid a steady stream of data breach news, there's broad agreement from various industries that Congress should establish a federal notification standard, but disagreement remains between retail groups over data security mandates, stakeholders told us.
LAS VEGAS -- Pearl TV and Sinclair used the early hours of the NAB Show to tout expansions of the ATSC 3.0 trials they're running in their two test markets. The Pearl-led Phoenix “model market” project (see 1711140053) announced the addition of nine more collaborating companies, while Dish Network, with Sinclair's urging, joined the Sinclair-led consortium of Nexstar, Univision, American Tower and Cunningham Broadcasting -- newly named the Spectrum Co. -- that’s running 3.0 single-frequency-network (SFN) trials at three sites in the Dallas area (see 1801170053).