A Rockville, Md., man was arrested March 7 for allegedly exporting tens of thousands of dollars of industrial parts manufactured by U.S. companies to Iran, in violation of U.S. trade sanctions, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Mehdi Khorramshahgol, 49, a U.S. citizen and Iranian national, was charged with conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, ICE said.
DirecTV and Dish Network said they may have to discontinue The Weather Channel application if they find they can’t comply with requirements imposed in the proceeding on emergency accessibility programming rules. It would be truly unfortunate if the adopted rules “were so onerous that they resulted in the unavailability of emergency weather alerts for everyone,” they said in a joint ex parte filing in docket 12-107 (http://bit.ly/10i0obU). The application “does not have text-to-speech or aural notification capabilities,” Dish said. The companies also said the national feed they receive from The Weather Channel “does not itself include any textual emergency alert information that would be subject to the rules being considered in this proceeding.” The American Cable Association urged the commission to give the requested relief for operators of hybrid digital/analog and all-analog systems. There are some cable systems “that have yet to transition away from an all-analog platform,” ACA said in its ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/YhdNxK). Operators of these systems either have plans to offer some digital services in the future, or no plans to transition “because they see no return on such an investment,” it said. “Absent some significant change in the market or in their regulatory burdens, most of these all-analog systems will likely shut down in the future.” The FCC should refrain from requiring or precluding any particular technology for audio transcription, NAB said in an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/X4bOmK). The commission shouldn’t require on-site station voiceover announcements for a variety of reasons, including “timely dissemination of emergency information” and “configuration of stations that may be operated in ‘cluster’ or ‘hub’ operations,” it said.
Nook Media signed licensing deals with Paramount Pictures and several other new content providers for its Nook Video service, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary said Thursday. Other content providers it signed deals with were Lionsgate, MGM, Relativity Media, National Geographic, Little Pim and Film Buff, said Nook Media. The new agreements will bring “thousands” of more movies and TV shows to the Nook Video catalog, including the films The Hunger Games, Twilight, Skyfall, Rocky, Fargo, Flight, Paranormal Activity 4, Act of Valor, Safe Haven and House at the End of the Street, and TV shows Mad Men and Amazing Planet, said Nook Media. The new content will be available in the Nook Video Store “as soon as this weekend,” said Jonathan Shar, Nook Media vice president and general manager-Emerging Digital Content. “Format varies by title, but the majority of the content is in SD and HD,” B&N spokeswoman Carolyn Brown told us. Content already available at the Nook Video Store includes movies and TV shows from Sony Pictures, Disney, Warner Bros., NBCU, Fox, Viacom/MTV Networks, HBO, Starz/Starz Media and Latin Anywhere, said Shar.
Nook Media signed licensing deals with Paramount Pictures and several other new content providers for its Nook Video service, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary said Thursday. Other content providers it signed deals with were Lionsgate, MGM, Relativity Media, National Geographic, Little Pim and Film Buff, said Nook Media. The new agreements will bring “thousands” of more movies and TV shows to the Nook Video catalog, including the films The Hunger Games, Twilight, Skyfall, Rocky, Fargo, Flight, Paranormal Activity 4, Act of Valor, Safe Haven and House at the End of the Street, and TV shows Mad Men and Amazing Planet, said Nook Media. The new content will be available in the Nook Video Store “as soon as this weekend,” said Jonathan Shar, Nook Media vice president and general manager-Emerging Digital Content. “Format varies by title, but the majority of the content is in SD and HD,” B&N spokeswoman Carolyn Brown told us. Content already available at the Nook Video Store includes movies and TV shows from Sony Pictures, Disney, Warner Bros., NBCU, Fox, Viacom/MTV Networks, HBO, Starz/Starz Media and Latin Anywhere, said Shar.
Nook Media signed licensing deals with Paramount Pictures and several other new content providers for its Nook Video service, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary said Thursday. Other content providers it signed deals with were Lionsgate, MGM, Relativity Media, National Geographic, Little Pim and Film Buff, said Nook Media. The new agreements will bring “thousands” of more movies and TV shows to the Nook Video catalog, including the films The Hunger Games, Twilight, Skyfall, Rocky, Fargo, Flight, Paranormal Activity 4, Act of Valor, Safe Haven and House at the End of the Street, and TV shows Mad Men and Amazing Planet, said Nook Media. The new content will be available in the Nook Video Store “as soon as this weekend,” said Jonathan Shar, Nook Media vice president and general manager-Emerging Digital Content. “Format varies by title, but the majority of the content is in SD and HD,” B&N spokeswoman Carolyn Brown told us. Content already available at the Nook Video Store includes movies and TV shows from Sony Pictures, Disney, Warner Bros., NBCU, Fox, Viacom/MTV Networks, HBO, Starz/Starz Media and Latin Anywhere, said Shar.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai threw his weight behind an IP pilot program, based on AT&T’s proposal for deregulatory trials in various wire centers around the country, in a speech Thursday at the Hudson Institute (http://bit.ly/WNAjif). The program would allow “forward-looking companies” to select wire centers where they could “turn off their old TDM electronics and migrate consumers to an all-IP platform.” Some criticized Pai’s proposal as going even further than AT&T’s original “beta trials,” warning that the deregulatory proposal could harm consumers without leading to any real data.
Comcast and advocates for the hearing impaired lobbied the FCC on their different interpretations of a 2010 law’s requirements for what types of TV services should face emergency accessibility programming rules. The cable operator backs a rulemaking notice proposal that multichannel video programming distributors should be required to pass through such information from broadcasters on the secondary audio stream. The company also backed a rulemaking’s proposal to cover broadcast TV and MVPD services but not Internet Protocol-delivered content that’s not otherwise an MVPD service, a filing said executives told an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Comcast today passes through the secondary audio stream for all of its cable services and supports access to secondary audio in its set-top boxes.” The ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/YM5JoL) was posted Tuesday in docket 12-107, where a lobbying disclosure from two deaf groups also appeared that day. The agency should “clarify that the emergency information rules will apply to all video programming providers” and video programming distributors, “not just broadcasters” and MVPDs, National Association of the Deaf and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing reported telling aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The law “prevents the Commission from excluding classes of apparatuses” such as those getting IP-delivered content from MVPDs, from the rules, the groups said (http://bit.ly/YM5JoL).
Comcast and advocates for the hearing impaired lobbied the FCC on their different interpretations of a 2010 law’s requirements for what types of TV services should face emergency accessibility programming rules. The cable operator backs a rulemaking notice proposal that multichannel video programming distributors should be required to pass through such information from broadcasters on the secondary audio stream. The company also backed a rulemaking’s proposal to cover broadcast TV and MVPD services but not Internet Protocol-delivered content that’s not otherwise an MVPD service, a filing said executives told an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Comcast today passes through the secondary audio stream for all of its cable services and supports access to secondary audio in its set-top boxes.” The ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/YM5JoL) was posted Tuesday in docket 12-107, where a lobbying disclosure from two deaf groups also appeared that day. The agency should “clarify that the emergency information rules will apply to all video programming providers” and video programming distributors, “not just broadcasters” and MVPDs, National Association of the Deaf and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing reported telling aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. The law “prevents the Commission from excluding classes of apparatuses” such as those getting IP-delivered content from MVPDs, from the rules, the groups said (http://bit.ly/YM5JoL).
Tarrant County, Texas, officials told the FCC any requirement that public safety answering points must receive 911 text messages will be costly to local governments. “The volume associated with text to 911 service will likely double or triple the volume of calls to local PSAPs and thus require additional personnel to deal with the increased demand,” the county said in a letter to the commission (http://bit.ly/1666vV3) detailing concerns raised in a recent meeting with Public Safety Bureau officials. “How [will] this be funded?” the county asks. Tarrant County also warns that there is a “misconception among our citizens” that they can already send emergency texts to 911. “The general public is typically not aware of the limitations on texting for emergencies and does not recognize the enormous complexity of deploying this service in an emergency dispatch center,” the letter said. The county notes that texts will add a new layer of complexity. “The success of today’s 911 service can be largely attributed to the simplicity of operation between the caller using the 911 system and the PSAP receiving the call. Call 911 -- someone answers the phone, and a responding resource is sent based on information received. The Text to 911 concept adds multiple complicating factors for emergency call center personnel for which no funding solutions or national guidelines currently exist.” The county includes the cities of Fort Worth and Arlington.
The Senate’s most senior statesmen pledged to protect the nation’s broadcasters from any FCC effort that would force them to relinquish spectrum for the incentive auctions, Tuesday at the NAB state leadership conference. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., and former Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, touted the importance of broadcasters in communicating lifesaving information to local communities during emergencies and put a spotlight on the importance of retrans consent. The Judiciary Committee will attempt to pass a reauthorization bill this session to extend the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA), which expires Dec. 31, 2014 (CD Jan 17 p1). On a separate panel, FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel discussed their decision-making processes on media issues.