Owners, providers and distributors of video programming that’s delivered using IP and providing “live” and “near-live” programming will be subject to the FCC’s closed captioning rules March 30. The definition captures all programming performed simultaneously or recorded within 24 hours of its first transmission to a video programming distributor, said Paul Cicelski, a broadcast attorney at Pillsbury Winthrop, who has several clients who would have to adhere to these rules. The requirement is part of the FCC’s implementation of rules governing closed caption requirements under the Communications and Video Accessibility Act. The FCC intentionally decided not to provide a specific threshold for the length or number of clips aired “that would constitute ’substantially all’ of a program,” he said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/14GnEmy). Parties should keep in mind that the commission “will not allow them to game the system by simply shaving off a few minutes ... of a full length program in order to avoid the IP captioning obligation,” he said. By Sept. 30, all pre-recorded programming that’s edited for Internet distribution will need to be captioned for online viewing, he said.
ABC and the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-Communications Workers of America reached a comprehensive Memorandum of Agreement on a new contract, said the federal mediator overseeing the labor talks. “The agreement is subject to union ratification, but it represents a major step toward the successful completion of long and difficult negotiations,” Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director George Cohen said. “Out of respect for the ratification process” the terms weren’t disclosed, he said.
The FCC must ensure that only those areas actually served by 4/1 Mbps broadband, by an ILEC or unsubsidized competitor, are excluded from eligibility for Connect America Fund Phase I support, Windstream told FCC officials Tuesday (http://bit.ly/ZQOdDo). Windstream said it expects that a majority of currently unserved customers in an area enabled for 4/1 Mbps service “actually would receive broadband speeds greater than 4/1."
Sandvine said a North American cable operator ordered another $3 million of the network management vendor’s business intelligence and traffic optimization systems. Sandvine didn’t name the cable operator, but said it has been a customer since 2005.
Unconfirmed press reports that Local TV LLC’s assets are for sale do not affect the company’s ‘B’ credit rating, Standard & Poor’s said. “If Local TV sells its stations and uses the proceeds to repay the balance of the outstanding debt, we will withdraw the corporate credit ratings on the company and the issue-level rating on the company’s debt,” it said. Local TV has about $450 million in debt outstanding, Standard & Poor’s said. The company was formed in 2007 when it bought nine TV stations from the New York Times Company, and it has added another 12 stations since.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., advocated on behalf of his Violent Content Research Act (S-134) Monday, during an event in Martinsburg, W. Va. “Our children are constantly bombarded with violent images on television and in movies and video games,” Rockefeller said according to a news release. “We need to arm parents and other responsible adults with the best available information about violent media. We also need more answers about what this exposure is doing to kids’ impressionable minds and emotions, and I pledge to do everything possible to get those answers.” Rockefeller’s bill 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 (CD Jan 28 p8).
Representatives of the Sports Fans Coalition met separately with aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Ajit Pai to discuss the “likelihood of the Commission moving to a rulemaking” on changing the sports blackout rules, an ex parte notice said (http://bit.ly/ZQmhiY).
Granting Charter’s CableCARD waiver request would be a further “system development away from CableCARDs at a time when the Commission has taken no steps ... to identify a successor common interface,” as required by statute, an attorney representing CEA told aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Media Bureau officials, an ex parte notice shows (http://bit.ly/10GwiRo). Even if Charter continues to offer and support CableCARDs, “a waiver granted on the basis proffered by Charter would induce a flood of follow-on waivers on behalf of disparate systems, premised only on purported cost savings,” it said. The FCC promised in the National Broadband Plan, the basic tier encryption order and elsewhere to identify a successor to CableCARD, it said.
The Game Show Network (GSN) opposed Cablevision’s motion to exclude some evidence from an upcoming administrative law hearing over a carriage dispute between the cable operator and the programming service (http://bit.ly/YAuvMR). The objections Cablevision raised misunderstand the nature of the evidence it sought to exclude and are “at odds with the basic idea that the Federal Rules of Evidence govern only to the extent that their application serves the ends of justice,” GSN said in an opposition filed last week. “Any disagreements as to the admissibility of record evidence should be addressed at the hearing when the Presiding Judge has the opportunity to consider the evidence in the context of the relevant testimony,” GSN said.
Alabama will now have a secretary of information technology, the office of Republican Gov. Robert Bentley said last week (http://1.usa.gov/ZQEZqO). The governor signed Senate Bill 117, intended to streamline the state’s tech and “identify ways to save money and improve coordination within the state’s I.T. networks” and “develop and implement a responsible plan to coordinate the purchasing, management and use of I.T. across state agencies” through the new office, it said. Bentley will appoint such a secretary “in the near future,” his office said.