The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) told its members the incentive auction for broadcast TV spectrum could hurt minority ownership of TV stations. In a newsletter to members, NABOB Executive Director Jim Winston said only seven full-power commercial TV stations are owned by African Americans. “Obviously, if African American station owners conclude that is in their business interest to turn in their spectrum, NABOB supports their decisions,” he wrote. “NABOB’s concern, however, is that while the FCC reverse auction process may encourage some minority broadcasters to leave the industry, the FCC has no policy to encourage minority entrepreneurs to enter the telecommunications industry.” He asked members for input on the auction process and to indicate whether they are considering participating in the reverse auction. Separately, Winston wrote that NABOB is cautiously optimistic about Nielsen’s planned acquisition of Arbitron. “The combination of the companies could provide better and more extensive audience measurement benefits to both the television and radio industries,” he wrote. He said NABOB recently joined the Media Ratings Council, which accredits the ratings services provided by those companies, to get a better understanding of the accreditation process and to “involve itself in future accreditation decisions."
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers published a new standards document for spot check loudness measurements. The document is intended to help cable systems comply with federal Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act mandates, said an SCTE release Thursday. The Act requires that the audio level of commercial messages be at the same average loudness as the associated programming content. Titled “Recommendations for Spot Check Loudness,” SCTE 197 2013 provides best practices for measuring the audio content carried in a single programming channel of a program network, guidelines for recording measured loudness and interpreting the collected data. The new SCTE document was developed under the SCTE Digital Video Subcommittee Audio Drafting Group and is at http://bit.ly/XTf03V.
The FCC scheduled a workshop May 3 to talk about one big issue tied to an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum: The 600 MHz band plan the agency will create tied to the auction. The agency said the workshop will look at the “technical aspects” of the plan (http://bit.ly/10BKXtC). The commission’s proposed preferred band plan was widely criticized in comments filed on auction rules (CD Jan 29 p1).
AT&T continues to support Vonage’s FCC waiver request for direct access to numbering resources, it told Wireline Bureau officials Tuesday (http://bit.ly/12kwF74). In its upcoming NPRM facilitating direct access to numbers for Internet Protocol-based providers, the commission should focus on “key attributes of an end-state, as well as how to transition to that end-state,” AT&T said. The telco also proposed several questions for the commission to seek comment on, including whether IP-based providers should face certain additional requirements as a condition of having direct access to numbers; whether they should be required to establish TDM interconnection; and what effects the elimination or broadening of the geographic basis of numbers might have on the commission’s intercarrier compensation transition.
An attorney for tw telecom met Monday with an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to discuss ILEC interconnection obligations, said an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/XT6QZa). The FCC should clarify as soon as possible that ILECs have a duty under Section 251(c)(2) of the Communications Act to establish Session Initiation Protocol interconnection for the exchange of VoIP traffic with any requesting telecom carrier, said tw telecom.
BIA/Kelsey is predicting rapid growth in local mobile ad sales. The media advising company expects total local mobile ad sales in the U.S. to reach $9.1 billion a year in 2017, up from $1.2 billion in 2012, it said. That’s an average annual growth rate of about 50 percent. “Though inventory growth currently outpaces advertiser demand, we believe the latter will begin to accelerate,” said Michael Boland, a senior analyst and director of content at BIA/Kelsey. As demand increases, so will the overall amount spent on local mobile ads, pushing up ad rates too, he said. Mobile search ads represent the bulk to the growth in BIA/Kelsey’s projections. It estimates that text ads supplied to search queries on mobile devices will climb from $704 million in 2012 to $5.7 billion in 2017.
AOL and the Publishing Group of America (PGOA) said they'll work together to distribute each other’s video online. The partnership will see AOL On Network videos syndicated across PGOA sites. Additionally, the AOL On Network will carry video from PGOA sites such as Relish.com and Moneyliving.com. “Given the synergies between our two brands and our deep expertise in the video space, we're confident we can help bring their video strategy to the next level with our premium content and exposure to a vast online audience,” said Ran Harnevo, senior vice president-video at the AOL On Network.
In light of the recent federal ruling in the digital music resale case Capitol Records v. ReDigi, Congress should consider how the first-sale doctrine applies to digital goods when discussing any reforms to copyright law, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Senior Analyst Daniel Castro said in a blog post this week (http://bit.ly/Zb2BTU). “If Congress does consider additional reforms to the Copyright Act, it is worth revisiting whether the technology has changed enough to warrant rethinking the First Sale doctrine for digital goods or if we are willing to accept that the First Sale doctrine is no longer feasible in a digital world,” he wrote.
TV Max lacks a retransmission consent deal with Washington Post Co.’s KPRC-TV Houston, the second company’s broadcast unit responded to an FCC Media Bureau email about a retrans complaint against the first firm (http://bit.ly/ZCnKGs). If TV Max carries the station on its fiber ring, it doesn’t have the needed OK from the unit, Post-Newsweek, that division said in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 12-222. Univision had made a similar filing about two of its Texas stations (CD April 4 p13). An affiliate of TV Max told the Texas Public Utility Commission that it’s exempt from needing to get a retrans deal, said Post-Newsweek. “TVMax is unusual among franchised cable operators in that all of its subscribers reside in multi-dwelling unit” buildings, and because they use a master antenna to get the signals, it’s exempt from FCC retrans rules, said that company’s response to the PUC. It was included as an exhibit to Post-Newsweek’s FCC filing.
T-Mobile USA added a net 579,000 subscribers during Q1, bringing its total customer base to 34 million, it said Wednesday. T-Mobile added a net 61,000 subscribers during Q4 and 187,000 in Q1 2012. The carrier still lost a net 199,000 branded postpaid subscribers, but that figure is an improvement from its 515,000 postpaid subscriber net loss during Q4. T-Mobile added a net branded 202,000 prepaid subscribers, along with net gains of 200,000 M2M customers and 376,000 MVNO customers. The results show T-Mobile’s “first positive branded growth in four years,” CEO John Legere said in a statement. “We have made material progress in stabilizing our branded business in Q1, which provides a solid foundation to build on with the new Un-carrier customer offers we launched last week across America.” T-Mobile said it plans to release a full report on its Q1 results May 8 (http://t-mo.co/16sXYcc). Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said in an email to investors that “we credit this to a better marketing push by the company and the announcement of the impending iPhone device.” T-Mobile plans to begin selling the iPhone 5 and other iPhone models on April 12.