A coalition of consumer advocates has “grave concerns” about many aspects of the “far-reaching, yet fundamentally flawed” Universal Service Fund/Intercarrier Compensation Order, according to comments filed Wednesday by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates, the Maine Office of the Public Advocate, the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel, and the Utility Reform Network (http://xrl.us/bmt9px). The possible illegality of the order makes it difficult to respond to issues raised in the commission’s further notice, the group said. Because the bill-and-keep regime is now subject to various petitions for review consolidated in the U.S. 10th Circuit of Court of Appeals, the issues the commission raised in its notice are “problematic at best because the immediate transition for terminating access charges may be overturned,” the filing said.
SeaChange said it introduced a white paper series designed to help pay-TV operators better use cloud-based video services. “The merging of the Internet with traditional television technology has influenced the emergence of connected TVs, Roku, Google TV, Apple TV, Xbox and more that deliver flexible viewing options,” said Steve Davi, senior vice president of advanced technology at SeaChange. SeaChange “is investing heavily in research and development in these areas,” and publishing the white papers to lay out the challenges and opportunities for service providers, he said. The first paper discusses content discovery, cloud security and existing inadequate user-interfaces. It’s at http://xrl.us/bmt9ou.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau is soliciting comments on an update to its video player ad-serving interface definition (VPAID) specifications, it said. The new version of VPAID improves the in-stream ad interaction capture and will provide advertisers more data about the ads, the IAB said. It also provides support for HTML 5 formatting, and adds features to support skippable ads, self-regulation of online behavioral ads and interactions “beyond the clickthrough,” it said. VPAID v2.0 is available at www.iab.net/vpaid.
Q4 sales at Starz gained 8 percent from a year earlier to $432 million, its parent Liberty Media said. Total Liberty Media sales gained 96 percent to $1 billion, a result of a one-time recognition of previously deferred revenue and costs at TruePosition, it said. As of Feb. 22, Liberty Media’s stake in SiriusXM was worth $5.4 billion, Liberty Media said.
Broadcasters have no “reasoned or legitimate explanation” of why keeping “an online political file entails more burden or requires more staff time than is already expended to maintain the existing paper file,” the Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition told the FCC. “In 2012 it is ludicrous for broadcasters to deny the efficiency advantages gained from switching from paper files to electronic ones,” said PIPAC, a coalition of nonprofits seeking to move the information to the FCC’s website from the studios of all TV stations. “Exempting some licensees from the online posting requirement based on station or market size would result in arbitrary line drawing by the Commission.” PIPAC criticized a list of “the limited data” that 11 companies that own TV stations proposed to put online (CD Feb 22 p2), because it wouldn’t include the entire political file. That plan “could be construed to exclude information on political and issue advertising purchased by groups organized under sections 501(c)3 and 527 of the internal revenue code, including ... so-called Super PACs,” it said. Broadcasters want to “omit from online disclosure the cost of individual ads, whether a request to purchase broadcast time was accepted or rejected, the date and time on which the broadcast is aired, or the class of time purchased,” the coalition said. Officials with the Campaign Legal Center, Free Press, Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Representation and Media Access Project met with aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmt9j4) posted Thursday in docket 00-168. Another filing from Steve Waldman, author of the FCC report that recommended public files go online, outlined pros and cons from his view of the industry proposal. A “potential positive” is the possibility that the information could be in an easily searchable database format,” Waldman wrote (http://xrl.us/bmt9mu) of conversations with FCC Chief of Staff Zac Katz and Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake. A drawback is “the possibility that it could leave some important information out of the online system,” Waldman said. “Pursuing this approach could cause delays that might undermine the ability to get meaningful disclosure implemented this year, which would be a very unfortunate outcome.” The filing was made four days late, and expanded on a recent ex parte document (http://xrl.us/bmt9o4).
Liberty Interactive said it will recapitalize into two tracking stocks: Liberty Interactive and Liberty Ventures. The Interactive tracking stock group will include QVC, its eCommerce companies, 34 percent of HSN, about $500 million in cash and about $3.1 billion in debt. Liberty Ventures will include Liberty’s stakes in Expedia, TripAdvisor, Time Warner, Time Warner Cable, AOL, Interval Leisure Group, Tree.com, and Liberty’s green-energy investments, as well as about $1.25 billion in cash and $3 billion in debt. Q4 sales at QVC gained 5 percent from a year earlier to $2.6 billion, it said. Aggregate quarterly sales at its eCommerce businesses gained 18 percent to $430 million, it said.
World Wrestling Entertainment Q4 sales fell 7.8 percent from a year earlier to $112.9 million, the company said. Sales at its live and televised event division fell 2 percent to $81 million, though pay-per-view revenue gained 2 percent to $14.6 million. TV rights fee revenue fell 5 percent to $33.9 million on the absence of certain programming. A drop in online ads led to a 14 percent decrease in digital media revenue. WWE had a $8.6 million net loss, down from a $8.1 million profit a year earlier, on lower sales and higher costs.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., praised Comcast for new minority-owned channels. The vocal opponent of Comcast buying control of NBCUniversal said the scheduled starts of channels by Magic Johnson and Sean Combs show the company “making progress in efforts to fulfill its public interest commitments.” The “initial steps are commendable,” and Waters urged “the company to continue to cultivate diversity among its executive leadership, showrunners, and other studio heads with ‘greenlighting’ authority, all across its owned and operated media properties,” she said. “In doing so, Comcast-NBC Universal would be a trailblazer within an industry that continues to struggle with diversity and inclusion."
HSN Q4 sales gained 4 percent from a year earlier to $955 million, the company said. Profit increased 13 percent to $46.5 million on the higher sales. Much of the growth came from digital initiatives, CEO Mindy Grossman said. Q4 digital sales gained 13 percent, the company said without providing the total amount.
Q4 sales at Liberty Global increased 7 percent from a year earlier to $2.4 billion, the company said. Factoring out acquisitions the company made in the previous year, sales would have increased 5 percent in that period, it said. The company swung to a $435 million net loss from $57.5 million net earnings a year earlier on a $209 million income tax expense and losses on foreign currency transactions.