Western Pacific Broadcast asked the FCC to grant an extension until June on considering the company’s must-carry complaint against Blue Ridge Cable Technologies on behalf of its station WACP-Atlantic City, said a letter filed with the FCC Wednesday (http://bit.ly/11TgGZ5). Western Pacific said its engineers have been in discussions with Blue Ridge about WACP’s signal strength and “there is a possibility these discussions will result in an agreement between the parties that will informally resolve this dispute.” Blue Ridge had asked the FCC to modify WACP’s market so Blue Ridge would no longer be required to carry the station (http://bit.ly/17iFugB).
Bonten Media said the FCC freeze on channel change petitions and upheaval in the broadcast equipment manufacturing industry could drive one of its stations out of business (http://bit.ly/12gFbzV). Bonten said it filed a petition for a UHF channel for its low VHF station WCYB Bristol, Va., ahead of the FCC’s freeze, but the petition hasn’t been granted. Bonten’s Wednesday filing said it has learned that none of the country’s main transmitter and antenna manufacturers still make low VHF transmitters that could replace the station’s 21-year-old model. “In the case of low VHF transmitters used by stations such as WCYB, the problem is not simply a short supply of essential equipment but a complete lack of its everyday commercial manufacture,” said Bonten. The station has the same issue with its 40-year-old antenna, manufactured by Dielectric. That company recently said it’s leaving the TV business (CD May 7 p4). “With a transmitter that already is over two decades old, WCYB may be facing the prospect of going dark, indefinitely, if and when the transmitter fails,” said Bonten. “Problems with the station’s antenna or mask filter also could cause the station to go off the air.” Bonten said WCYB has more than a million viewers. By granting Bonten’s channel reallotment petition “the Commission will enable WCYB to provide a much-improved, free, reliable, digital television signal,” the company said.
Lumos Network Corp. plans to build 100 Gbps wavelength routes to connect some Virginia communities. It wants to connect via a 92-mile metro ring Richmond to Ashburn and Lynchburg, the company said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/12gFHxI). “These networks are poised to handle the exponential growth in bandwidth as well as the need for superior latency and route diversity demanded by Enterprise and Carrier customers within Virginia driven by healthcare, education, financial and other bandwidth intensive applications,” Lumos said.
The city of Lawrence, Kan., should pursue all the broadband opportunities it’s considering and more, said the Maryland-based consultants of CTC Technology Energy in a 118-page report released this week (http://bit.ly/15q1I33). These projects are associated with Kansas University and the municipal government as well as Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Lawrence Public Library and Lawrence Public Schools, according to CTC. “The City’s strategists have done an exceptional job of planning cost-effective, efficient, and low-risk infrastructure initiatives that would be mutually beneficial for the City and the potential partners,” the paper said. It included several other recommendations, including that Lawrence work with KU to join Gig.U and that it “establish contact with Google and other providers now considering fiber-to-the-premises investments.” The paper also mentions that “Verizon representatives have stated in private meetings that the company anticipates offering 1 Gbps service on its FiOS network by 2017,” citing a meeting with CTC President Joanne Hovis. The document compares the many types of potential technologies, the state of Lawrence broadband now and outlines the significance of faster broadband speeds. It places a premium on fiber.
The Parents Television Council, Morality in Media and 73 other groups signed a letter to the House and Senate committees that oversee the FCC, asking lawmakers to “protect enforcement of the broadcast indecency law,” said a PTC release on the coalition. The letter (http://bit.ly/10iU5mf) is a response to an April 1 FCC notice requesting comments on the commission’s indecency policy, which targets only “egregious” violations (CD April 2 p1). “In American jurisprudence, the scale of egregiousness for a violation of the law serves to determine the consequence for the violation, it does not define whether the law has been broken,” said PTC President Tim Winter. “If a broadcaster violates the law, then the egregious nature of that violation should help the FCC to determine an appropriate sanction -- period.” In its own release, Morality in Media said the coalition wants members to oppose the nomination of prospective FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “unless he commits to vigorously enforce decency standards under the current FCC guidelines.” Both groups are urging their members to submit comments on the commission’s indecency policy ahead of the May 20 deadline.
Telesat’s Anik G1 satellite began offering commercial service Wednesday. It’s offering X-band services in North and South America and the Pacific Ocean region and C- and Ku-band services in South America, Telesat said in a press release (http://bit.ly/14497QV). It brings new capacity over South America “to meet the growing demand for satellite communications services in that region,” it said. The satellite was launched by International Launch Services last month (CD April 17 p18).
The Board of Aldermen of Grandview, Mo., voted Tuesday night to sign on with Google Fiber. The city has about 24,000 residents and borders the Kansas City area, where Google has already begun constructing its fiber network. In a blog post (http://bit.ly/13zTqS0), Google Fiber said the process will take a while and did not present any timeline for buildout in the municipality.
Representatives of Philips Healthcare stressed the importance of the FCC appointing a Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) coordinator. Last May, the FCC approved the use of 2360-2390 MHz spectrum, on a secondary basis, for medical purposes (CD May 25/12 p1). The Philips representatives who with Matthew Quinn, director of Healthcare Initiatives at the commission, also asked the FCC to take action on a petition for reconsideration on the NPRM (http://bit.ly/YFMpjP). “Given the work needed and time required for a new MBAN coordinator to establish a coordination system and negotiate suitable procedures with the Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry (AMT) coordinator, Philips suggested that if action on the MBAN coordinator is being delayed by the more complex issues in the reconsideration, that the MBAN coordinator order be moved forward separately,” Philips said (http://bit.ly/13ii8XQ).
Most Disney divisions “appear to be heading in the right long-term direction,” including Disney Interactive and Studio Entertainment, Nomura Securities analyst Michael Nathanson said Wednesday, after the company reported stronger results for Q2 ended March 30 than in Q2 a year ago. Broadcasting “remains an area of concern but only represents” 7 percent of total company segment profits, he said. Despite improved results at Disney Interactive, that division likely won’t be able to achieve profitability or even “break-even” status this year due to the delay of the Disney Infinity game initiative, CEO Robert Iger said on an earnings call after regular U.S. trading Tuesday. Q2 Disney profit grew to $1.5 billion from $1.1 billion. Total revenue grew to $10.6 billion from $9.6 billion. Disney expects an operating loss in Disney Interactive for Q3 that’s “comparable to” the Q2 loss, said Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo, “due primarily to the shifting” of the release date of Infinity from Q3 to Q4. Like Activision’s popular Skylanders franchise, Infinity combines videogames with collectible toy characters that are used in conjunction with the title. In the case of Infinity, the toys are based on Disney characters that get placed on a base unit to be used with the game that is being released for multiple platforms. The market for the rental and sale of DVD and Blu-ray titles remains a “challenged business,” Iger also said. But the home entertainment business has been “growing nicely on the digital front and I think that bodes well for the future,” he said. Q2 home entertainment revenue was “essentially flat,” as a 4 percent decrease due to lower unit sales was “offset” by a 3 percent increase from higher pricing, Disney said in the 10-Q filing. The increase in pricing reflected a higher sales mix of new releases, which have higher prices than catalog titles, in Q2 this time, it said. “Significant” Q2 home entertainment titles included Wreck-It Ralph, Lincoln and the Peter Pan “Diamond Release,” it said. Q2 Studio Entertainment revenue grew to $1.3 billion from $1.2 billion and swung to a $118 million operating profit from an $84 million operating loss, due in part to the theatrical movies Oz The Great and Powerful and Wreck-It Ralph performing much better than John Carter a year ago, said Disney. Media Networks revenue grew to $5 billion from $4.7 billion, with operating profit growing to $1.9 billion from $1.7 billion. Within that division, broadcast revenue was about flat at $1.5 billion and operating profit tumbled to $138 million from $229 million, but cable networks revenue grew to $3.5 billion from $3.2 billion and operating profit increased to $1.7 billion from $1.5 billion.
Europe’s telecom market needs further deregulation to halt its financial decline, said a report for the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association Wednesday. The report (http://xrl.us/bo2bto) was written with the cooperation of ETNO members but is independent, management consulting firm A.T. Kearney said. The financial state of European telecom companies lags behind that at all other major regions of the world but could generate an additional 40 billion euros ($53 billion) by 2020 with the right policies in place, it said. But if nothing is done, the sector could be 50 billion euros smaller by the end of the decade, it said. The main problem is that the decline in voice revenues isn’t being offset by growth in broadband access charges, it said. Traditional revenue sources are essentially being replaced by lower-priced services that benefit consumers and spur volume but cost operators. Regulatory price cuts on termination charges and mobile roaming fees are also taking a toll, although the entry of over-the-top players with VoIP and messaging applications that are free at the point of usage has a bigger impact, it said. But it’s industry’s own price structures, particularly flat rate or unlimited service bundles, and customers’ efforts to lower their monthly bills, that have the biggest effect on core revenue decline, it said. But there are many opportunities for growth. A value-based pricing model that considers value as consumers’ willingness to pay would help customers as well as operators, it said. Some tariffs already contain elements of a range of factors, including access speed, quality or connection time, although the fixed-fee component is almost always a high proportion of the total. If operators innovated in this area, they could offer services to “underserved” segments while getting more value from the services they offer heavy users, it said. The study assessed five key opportunities for new or adjacent markets: payments, mobile advertising, machine-to-machine communications, Internet Protocol TV and cloud computing. There’s a wide range of opinion about how addressable these opportunities are, with the biggest question being how much value-add operators can sell and deliver, it said. Given the uncertainty of the returns, “operators will need to enter with confidence and sufficient ambition to compete with experienced global players,” it said. They should also consider more radical cost-improvement measures such as transforming information technology platforms and increasing automation while phasing out legacy systems; integrating multinational groups across borders to achieve efficiencies; extending network-sharing agreements to cover full, active radio access network sharing; and further consolidating operators within countries. The EU regulatory framework can help boost the sector’s revenue by giving operators more pricing flexibility and fewer price caps, the report said. Competing with global players also requires symmetric regulation of all value chain players and possibly lighter-touch competition law, it said. Further consolidation must be allowed, it said. The report recommended that national and EU regulators focus on giving operators “three freedoms": (1) To develop retail pricing proposals that are customer-centric and unconstrained by rules on bundling. (2) To innovate on the same terms as non-telecom operators. (3) To pursue scale in operations, in-country and across borders.