A local editorial slammed an Illinois broadband project as a “failing business,” inspiring strong defenses from a project official as well as a project consultant. “Champaign-Urbana residents have been hearing for several years now about what a big success [Urbana Champaign] ‘Big Broadband’ is going to be,” a Thursday editorial of the News-Gazette said of the program known as UC2B (http://bit.ly/10NROBe). “But the only thing people know for sure is that, as things stand now, it’s a big mess.” The editorial has “little basis in verifiable facts and represents an editorial board that is playing to its ever dwindling base,” Mike Smeltzer, UC2B principal investigator and campus information technologies and educational services director of networking at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told us in an email. He said the project is not running out of money and it has anticipated the end of its federal stimulus broadband grant money through NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The editorial attacked the project for dismissing Power Up Electrical, which the editorial cited as defending its service, and called it a sign that the “installation process has been so bad.” Smeltzer noted the project didn’t renew the contract of a “terrible” contractor and asked what the editorial board would have project leaders do instead. Joanne Hovis, president of consulting firm CTC Technology & Energy, has worked with the project and also expressed confusion at the editorial. “It’s been a really well regarded project that’s extremely well run,” she told us, citing the leaders’ “phenomenal job.” The editorial struck her as “somewhat ill-informed,” she said, adding, “It would have been irresponsible not to terminate a contractor who was underperforming.”
CBS wholly acquired TV Guide Digital, including TVGuide.com and TV Guide Mobile, the broadcaster said in a Friday news release (http://bit.ly/11Ems4A). CBS bought the remaining 50 percent of the company’s shares from Lionsgate. “TVGuide.com and TV Guide Mobile have the biggest and most-engaged audiences in the valuable TV information category, making them a perfect fit for our portfolio of premium content brands,” CBS Interactive President Jim Lanzone said. The 50/50 partnership between CBS and Lionsgate for the TVGN cable network will continue, CBS said.
The House Homeland Security Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee scheduled a hearing to examine the impact of new technologies on the nation’s emergency response for June 4 at 10 a.m. in 311 Cannon. Witness scheduled to testify at the hearing are: Google Vice President Matthew Stepka; Internet Association President Michael Beckerman; and Jason Payne, philanthropy engineering team lead at Palantir Technologies.
The Senate Commerce Committee plans to examine a media violence bill this month authored by Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., industry officials said. The Violent Content Research Act (S-134) would direct the FTC and the FCC to work with the National Academy of Sciences to determine if violent programming and videogames have any harmful effects on children. A committee spokesman declined to comment. Rockefeller introduced similar legislation less than a week after the deadly elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., but it did not advance before the end of the last Congress. David Cerullo, CEO of South Carolina-based cable network INSP, commended Rockefeller for “insisting that potential links between violent video content and violent behavior should be studied by experts in the field,” in a letter sent Friday. “It is my hope that scientific studies showing the harmful impact television violence has on children will help reduce the amount of violent video content on television and will help convince video service providers to include more family friendly channels in their offerings.”
Consumers are using electronic peer-to-peer (P2P) payment technology, and the opportunities to do so are growing, according to survey results released by Consumer Action on Friday (http://bit.ly/12mq7pi). Of the 505 consumers surveyed during April, 63 percent of respondents said they used a bank to make P2P transfers -- saying “using a P2P system through a bank was ’safer’ because payments could be tracked and disputed” -- while 23 percent made P2P payments through a P2P website, Consumer Action said. The group said opportunities to use these technologies are growing, citing existing P2P payment mechanisms from PayPal and Venmo and an upcoming Google product. “Consumer Action warns consumers to read the payment processor’s terms and conditions before making a P2P payment,” the group said in a statement announcing the survey results. “Liability for lost payments, fraud or unauthorized use of a P2P account usually is based on how the personal payments are funded."
Forecasts for UltraViolet to reach 65 million active users by 2018 are jeopardized by key players not supporting the ecosystem, said a report by ABI Research. “After a shaky start, UltraViolet is starting to pick up steam,” said analyst Michael Inouye. Key players Apple, Disney and Amazon have yet to embrace the digital content locker format backed by Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, RIAA, Best Buy, Walmart and numerous hardware companies, said the industry research firm. Apple already has a strong ecosystem and Amazon is trying to replicate Apple’s success with its own, Inouye said, giving neither company incentive to make its content available elsewhere. If the big players don’t end up joining, that would “diminish UltraViolet’s value,” Inouye told us. It could also further “fragment” the market, already chopped up into iTunes, Microsoft, Netflix and Amazon ecosystems, he said. The UltraViolet service has been referred to as “clunky” from a consumer point of view, especially compared with straight streaming services that are more streamlined, but Inouye said UltraViolet has enough studio and retail support to be successful. “As long as consumers continue to buy Blu-rays, which they seem to be doing, it seems like a pretty good transition to UltraViolet,” he said. Long-term continuity of a consumer’s digital library is another key uncertainty that could “diminish UV’s appeal,” said ABI. Consumers are looking for access on all their devices as well as assurances they will not be forced to repurchase digital rights to content they thought they already owned, said analyst Sam Rosen. The shift is on from physical to electronic media, he said, but “consumers continue to opt for subscription services and premium rentals rather than purchases,” he said. For UltraViolet to be successful, video transactions have to be as simple to access and store as music is in the digital realm, he said. “If competing video libraries gain consumers’ trust without joining the UltraViolet ecosystem, many of the components of UltraViolet will help facilitate B2B commerce but will fail from a consumer perspective.” ABI estimated UltraViolet’s active user account base is 6 million-8 million and predicts a base of 108 million by 2018, if key players support the platform.
Discovery Communications’ investment in 3D-based 3net has been a “good experience,” but it isn’t clear “the channel is going to work,” Discovery CEO David Zaslav told us at the Nomura Securities conference in New York. The 3net channel began in 2011 as a partnership involving Discovery, Imax and Sony and has since gained carriage on Comcast, DirecTV, Service Electric Cablevision and Netflix. “It’s doing OK, but we don’t have any plans to do anything differently with it,” Zaslav said Thursday. “It’s not clear that 3D is catching on in the home in a way that’s meaningful.” But Discovery, which has an extensive library of 3D content, can use the technology for securing carriage deals with cable operators, Zaslav said. The 3net channel and its 3D content has given Discovery an advantage on its competition, in that “we know better than anybody what looks good in 3D,” he told us. Despite being offered by DirecTV and Comcast, “only a small number” of viewers are watching 3net, Zaslav said. Discovery’s new-media business, which includes online video service Revision3, is losing money, but “it’s not a material amount,” Zaslav said. Revision3, which Discovery purchased a year ago, recently introduced TestTube.com, a science-theme digital video network, last month with 15 short-form series that will be rolled out gradually. TestTube.com, which will initially be available through Revision3’s website and app, Microsoft’s Xbox and Google’s YouTube, will have a range of programming including science-based DNews and Thanks, Disaster, which seeks to find “silver lining” in tragic events, Discovery said. “We're trying to figure out who the audience is” for TestTube.com, “how we can hang out with them and what the economic model is for these shows,” Zaslav said. “It’s also for us to learn more about this type of programming.” Revision3 also acquired Internet video developer Philip DeFranco’s online channels and ventures, including The Philip DeFranco Show, SourceFed and The Vloggity. DeFranco will join Revision3 as a senior vice president. The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), which Discovery operates in a venture with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, will turn profitable in the second half of the year, Zaslav said. OWN in May showed Tyler Perry’s The Have and Have Nots and Love Thy Neighbor, each getting 1.5-1.7 million viewers. Discovery also will seek to build on its April acquisition of Norwegian cable operator SBS Nordic from Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1, Zaslav said. SBS, which has been renamed SBS Discovery, had a 30-40 percent share of the Nordic market, operating 12 TV and 19 radio stations, he said. SBS had annual revenue of about $700 million and gross margins of 22-23 percent, SBS said. Discovery’s fiscal 2012 annual gross margin was 72.8 percent, the company said.
Eastern Airwaves, an affiliate of Curtis Media, will buy the construction permit for Greensboro, N.C., FM Translator W249CN Fairfield from Community Public Radio for $125,000, said a release from broker Media Services Group.
CEA and NAB want the FCC to “immediately” create a joint working group of public and private officials to address the problem of coordinating the spectrum auction repacking along the borders with Canada and Mexico, the associations wrote acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn (http://bit.ly/14bn4Ld). “Absent substantial progress in the near-term in ongoing coordination efforts, the Commission will face uncertainty regarding the repacking process and the future availability of mobile services in key border areas.” The joint working group could expedite the coordination process and that having industry members would increase transparency, said a filing posted Friday in docket 12-268. The associations and others had asked the commission to address coordination with Mexico and Canada before the incentive auction of broadcast spectrum the agency wants to hold as soon as next year (CD March 8 p6). “Industry participation is critical in this process, as both broadcasters and wireless providers have had extensive experience coordinating with our international neighbors,” said last week’s letter. “We urge the Commission to form the working group without delay and to host the first meeting this summer.” The associations said if such a group is created, they want to be part of it, “either as active working group participants or as coordinators of our respective industries’ participation."
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property plans a hearing on legislation to permit cellphone users to unlock their phones to switch carriers. The hearing, scheduled for June 6 at 10 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn, will evaluate the bipartisan Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act (HR-1123), which was introduced by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. (CD March 15 p15). Witnesses haven’t been announced. Goodlatte’s legislation is a companion piece to a Senate bill with the same name (S-517) (CD March 13 p10), which was authored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt. The bills were introduced in March after a White House official advocated for legislative fixes to give consumers more control over their devices, after the Copyright Office last year removed an exemption for cellphone firmware unlocking granted in previous triennial reviews of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The bills offer a legislative fix that restores an exemption to the 1998 law for cellphone firmware unlocking that permits consumers to use their phones with other carriers once their contract terms have expired. Under the DMCA, those who unlock their phones without permission from their carriers may be subject to civil lawsuits, criminal fines or imprisonment. Goodlatte’s bill also would direct the Copyright Office to determine whether similar treatment should be given to other wireless devices, like tablets. HR-1123 is cosponsored by House Judiciary Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Mich.; IP Subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble, R-N.C.; Ranking Member Mel Watt, D-N.C.; Suzan DelBene, D-Wash.; Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; Hank Johnson, D-Ga.; Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; and Ted Poe, R-Texas.