Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group will see increased leverage with digital music providers after industry consolidation and an increase in competition among digital service providers, Moody’s Investors Service said Tuesday, announcing its report “Global Music Industry: Consolidation to Three Major Label Groups Should Fuel US Digital EBITDA Growth” (http://bit.ly/19222Eh). “Following this latest round of industry consolidation, the three remaining major label groups have increased scale, expanded their respective rosters of top-selling artists and increased their holdings of valuable recording and publishing copyrights,” said Moody’s Vice President Gregory Fraser in a statement. However, “the benefits to the three major labels outlined are largely conditional upon the success of Universal, Sony and Warner to negotiate royalty rates that allow them to earn a respectable return on their investment in Artists & Repertoire and certain high-priced acquisitions,” he continued. Moody’s predicts digital music sales will be more than $6 billion in 2013, according to the release.
The city council of Missoula, Mont., Monday approved $13,125 to help fund a next-generation broadband study. The council voted 9-1, with two members absent. The resolution guarantees matching funds as part of a grant to the Bitter Root Economic Development District. The grant’s purpose is “to contract with a professional service provider to conduct a feasibility study outlining the demand for and options to improve access to extreme broadband at an affordable cost for businesses in Missoula,” said the resolution text (http://bit.ly/12TlTRq). The city “recognizes affordable, high-capacity and high-speed internet service across the city is vital to Missoula’s economic growth,” it said.
HTML5 will continue to be a “core” technology powering LG Electronics’ Smart TVs “for a long time,” despite the company’s purchase of webOS open source software early this year, Matthew Durgin, director-Smart TV content, told us at the Streaming Media East conference in New York Tuesday. In buying webOS from Hewlett-Packard, LG said the software would help enhance its Smart TV platform and that it would make the software available to its fellow Smart TV Alliance members, including Panasonic and Toshiba. Whether the software will be made available to the other manufacturers in the form of a license was still not clear Tuesday. LG remains committed to the Smart TV Alliance, said Durgin. It has no plans to use Android’s operating system on its Smart TVs, he told the conference, saying its own operating system provides “strong differentiation” for its TVs. Android devices remain too “fragmented” across the many devices that use that operating system, said Joe Inzerillo, MLB.com senior vice president. It’s “very unlikely” that the Android OS can be ported entirely to a new device such as a TV, he said. One of the “biggest obstacles” for “TV Everywhere” viewing across multiple screens remains “standardization” across devices, said Eric Hybertson, Time Warner Cable director-rendering devices, during another Streaming Media East panel. The WatchESPN app will be made available on a growing number of devices “over time,” said Damon Phillips, vice president-WatchESPN and ESPN3 in a keynote. It’s only available on Xbox Live, iOS and Android devices now. ESPN is “looking for new platforms,” but the size of a device’s installed base and strategic factors are the criteria that it uses to decide what platforms to be on, he told us. The ESPN app is available on eight of the top 10 U.S. TV service providers and “it’s a process” to get a deal with each one, he said. “More people” have access to the app than don’t have access to it now, he said. There is “more content available today than ever before,” and there is growing demand from consumers for content, he said. Sports is one of the few remaining types of programs that is “DVR-proof” because most people want to view sports live, he said. “Content is not king anymore,” he said. Rather, “live,” “exclusive” and “relative” content is what’s “king,” he said.
Midstate and Arthur Mutual telcos seek waivers of FCC intercarrier compensation revenue recovery rules for rate-of-return carriers, the Wireline Bureau said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/191RJ3a). Midstate wants the waiver to “correct a clerical error in the identification of its Base Period Fiscal Year 2011 reciprocal compensation revenues received by March 31, 2012,” the notice said. It said Arthur Mutual wants a waiver to let it include in its FY 2011 base period revenue amounts for Transitional Access Service that were billed and collected, but “not properly accounted for.” Comments in docket 10-90 are due June 4.
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on FairPoint’s petition for declaratory ruling or a waiver allowing it to provide broadband access on a non-common carrier basis, a public notice said (http://bit.ly/12saZSe). FairPoint wants a ruling that its rate-of-return ILEC subsidiaries that offer wireline broadband access transmission services on a common-carrier basis may elect blanket certification to discontinue it as a common-carrier service, while following Part 60 cost allocation rules that the commission adopted for price-cap carriers. “Enforcement of the Commission’s Part 64 cost allocation rules would not serve the Commission’s policy goals,” FairPoint said, according to the public notice. Comments are due June 10 in docket 10-90, replies June 20.
The Lifeline program is very important to many people, several public interest groups told then-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Thursday, said an ex parte filing by Consumers Union (http://bit.ly/16Mj4XI). “Many diverse immigrant communities lack access to basic phone service and would be unable to look for jobs, communicate with family, or use 9-1-1 services” without it, the filing said. Lifeline should be expanded to include broadband, said groups also including the Asian American Justice Center, Center for Digital Democracy, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, National Urban League, New America Foundation and Utility Reform Network. The groups encouraged Clyburn to issue a rulemaking on inmate calling rates, and look into making more data available to the public on broadband adoption and complaints.
Level 3 submitted a trial proposal to obtain access to telephone numbers on behalf of its subsidiary WilTel Communications (http://bit.ly/18fFLBs). Level 3 requested 200,000 numbers be ported: 95,000 ports in the Los Angeles LATA, 45,000 in eastern Massachusetts, 25,000 in Dallas, 17,000 in Denver, 11,000 in Charlotte, N.C., and 7,000 in Rochester, N.Y. Level 3 said it wanted to obtain network interconnection with AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Frontier, New Cingular, Qwest, SBC Internet, and Windstream. IntelePeer also submitted its trial proposal (http://bit.ly/12s4r5W), but it requested that the specifics be withheld from public inspection under Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, which exempts proprietary, commercially sensitive information not normally revealed to the public in the normal course of business.
No Video Relay Service provider can provide service at the rates proposed by Rolka Loube Saltzer Associates (CD May 20 p14), Sorenson told then-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Thursday, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/10MtRgn). RLSA’s proposals “would lead to the deterioration of service and innovation, fundamentally undermining the mandate of functional equivalence established by the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Sorenson said. The company said the “fundamental flaw” in RLSA’s proposal is the rate-of-return methodology that underlies it, which is “incomplete” and “inappropriate” for a “labor-intensive business” like the Video Relay Service. As the commission has abandoned rate-of-return rulemaking in every other setting, it would be “arbitrary and capricious” to use it only to set VRS rates, Sorenson said.
July 1 is the effective date for reporting rules requiring eligible telecom carriers that serve tribal lands to file documents demonstrating they had discussions with tribal governments, said an FCC notice in Tuesday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1a0W4kS). The FCC had inadvertently omitted the filing deadline from earlier orders, the commission said.
Verizon submitted to New York state regulators, as requested in a recent order, revised terms of service (http://bit.ly/16KyNY3) Monday for the Voice Link fixed-wireless service it hopes to replace landline service with on the western part of Fire Island. The New York State Public Service Commission gave conditional approval for the service, intended as a copper replacement after Superstorm Sandy wiped out the island’s copper, earlier this month (CD May 17 p8). The PSC had ordered Verizon to file a new terms of service agreement that “should remove provisions in conflict with the Commission’s regulatory requirements and substitute information relating to customer protections, while retaining the information unique to the use of wireless transmission for the service” and “provide adequate assurance to customers that they retain the protections provided to them as customers of traditional service.” The terms spell out the virtues and limitations of Voice Link and mention that it’s “not compatible with fax machines, DVR services, credit card machines, medical alert or other monitoring services or some High Speed or DSL Internet services” and requires 10-digit dialing. The terms explicitly list some limitations during emergencies: “You agree that any 911 calls made using the Service may be subject to network congestion and/or reduced routing or processing speed.” Verizon has defended the performance of the service and said in some ways it’s superior to landline service during adverse conditions (CD May 13 p9).