Since the end of 2010, investors have spent nearly $345 million on TV stations that are likely to be sold at the FCC’s incentive spectrum auction, according to SNL Kagan. Among them are 14 full-power stations and 25 Class A stations, it said. The deals reflect an average price of about 25 cents per MHz/pop, a common metric in valuing spectrum transactions, it said. SNL Kagan said NRJ TV LLC has spent the most at $234.2 million, followed by OTA Broadcasting at $52.8 million. “Spectrum buyers planning to tender at auction are no doubt counting on strong demand from wireless buyers and a valuation premium versus what they invested in the stations,” SNL Kagan said.
Comcast and its NBCUniversal, while facing no new carriage complaints, meanwhile are making deals with online video distributors to use NBCU’s programming, Comcast told the FCC. The companies got requests for programming under conditions in the order approving the combination of the firms, said Comcast’s second annual compliance report. It said the operator is “negotiating several “full freight’ requests” and hasn’t received any more requests under the benchmark provision of the order. That provision is the subject of a dispute between Comcast and Project Concord (CD Jan 14 p10). OVD deals “have become a regular part of the Company’s program licensing business,” said Thursday’s filing in docket 10-56 (http://bit.ly/YH8nhQ). NBCUniversal has signed such deals in the 52 weeks through Jan. 28 with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Flixster, Google, MediaNavi, Target, Toys R Us and Vdio, said the filing. It said NBCUniversal, which Comcast seeks to buy the rest of from General Electric, has renewed deals with Apple, Blockbuster, Hulu, iN Demand, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, Vudu and others. Comcast/NBCUniversal “carefully reviews proposals to limit online display of video programming” so it meets the deal condition to not restrict such distribution except in certain circumstances, the filing said. “Its approach positions it as the most ‘online friendly’ programmer” and multichannel video programming distributor, it said. “Notably, the Company continually receives proposals that seek to limit online display by MVPDs and programmers alike, illustrating the degree to which the practice remains common in the industry.” Comcast’s June FCC consent decree over a broadband condition (CD June 28 p2) “reinforced” the operator’s commitment to sell standalone ISP service, and “expanded” training, the filing said. Comcast said it has expanded its broadband network by more miles than was required, and passes more households now than will be required in the next year of the deal. Comcast/NBCUniversal’s “ongoing commitment to diverse programming is illustrated by its resurgent Telemundo unit,” the filing said on diversity conditions and the Spanish-language broadcast network. “For the first time in the network’s history, Telemundo offered live streaming of broadcast coverage together with exclusive, digital-only content of Olympic events, news, announcements, and information for authenticated subscribers totaling more than 200 hours of digital video.” Comcast has now begun carrying three of the 10 additional independent cable networks that it committed to distribute, the filing said. Comcast “continues to meet and in some cases exceed its obligations,” Executive Vice President David Cohen wrote on the company’s blog Friday (http://bit.ly/13uoMMd). The ISP’s Internet Essentials reduced-price product for low-income households is “the largest and most comprehensive broadband adoption program in America,” he wrote. Internet Essentials has 150,000 subscribers, the filing said. The product costs customers $9.95 monthly.
Iridium further urged the FCC to consolidate consideration of its petition and Globalstar’s petition on Big low earth orbit (LEO) spectrum into a single rulemaking. The petitions “arise from exactly the same factual background and raise highly interrelated issues,” Iridium said in its opposition to Globalstar in docket RM-11685 (http://bit.ly/Z7bnny). Globalstar urged the FCC to reject Iridium’s request for consolidation, claiming that Globalstar’s petition allowing it to create a terrestrial low-power service should be separate (CD Feb 25 p16). Combined consideration would serve the policy goals of consolidation to promote efficiency and administrative convenience, Iridium said. It also would be consistent with Big LEO band precedent, it said: Though Globalstar suggests that it will focus first on deploying its 2.4 GHz solution, “its proposal to remove the ATC [ancillary terrestrial component] protections would apply to the entire Big LEO band."
The FCC Wireless Bureau released an order on changes sought by industry to the 2007 order establishing rules for the FCC’s 700 MHz auction. The order addresses some questions raised long enough ago that some companies filing for review, including Cyren Call and Frontline, have disappeared. “This MO&O denies or dismisses petitioners’ requests to modify the earlier decisions on the performance requirements applicable to licensees in this band, the auction and competitive bidding rules, the open platform rules, the narrowband relocation procedures, and the decisions not to impose wholesale requirements, eligibility restrictions, and spectrum aggregation limits,” the order said (http://bit.ly/ZQTA8R). “This MO&O also dismisses as moot petitions for reconsideration regarding the establishment of the Public/Private Partnership between the Upper 700 MHz D Block licensee and the Public Safety Broadband Licensee in the 763-768 MHz and 793-798 MHz bands.”
The German Parliament voted 293-243 to approve legislation allowing publishers to make Internet news aggregating services pay for the news excerpts they use. The so-called “ancillary copyright” targets Google’s Search and News services, among others. The licensing fees would help to fund quality journalism, argued publishers and legislators. As long as news aggregating services or search engines only use “individual words” or “minimal parts” of a text, as well as linking or quoting, no fee would be required. Members of the Social Democrats and the Green Party opposed the legislation, saying it would be “outsourcing legislation to the courts,” is a “job creating measure for lawyers” and a “a blow against innovative services, especially future ones."
U.S. pay-TV providers added about 150,000 new subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2012, down from 228,000 in the same period in 2011, UBS Investment analysts said in a research note. It’s the weakest fourth quarter since 2010, when net adds were 115,000, UBS said. The decrease was driven partially by Superstorm Sandy, they said. Telco subscriber additions fell 18.9 percent year-over-year, after rising 3.3 percent in the third quarter, they said. “Cable losses improved 9.5 percent as Comcast came close to adding video subs for the first time in five years.” The industry also added about 564,000 new broadband customers in Q4, down from more than 715,000 a year ago, they said. Telco subscriber additions fell 54.1 percent annually to 53,000, while cable additions fell 14.8 percent to about 511,000, UBS said.
In a victory for CTIA, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week declined to hear as a full court a three-judge panel’s decision that permanently enjoined enforcement of San Francisco’s “Right to Know” cellphone warning ordinance. In September, the court sided with CTIA (CD Sept 11 p4) and the city sought broader review. An industry official said the decision “effectively ends the litigation.” The appeal stemmed from a city ordinance requiring cellphone retailers to provide information about phones’ RF emissions and information about how to limit exposure to such emissions.
The Copyright Alliance is distributing a petition targeting brands that advertise on websites alleged to facilitate copyright infringement. The open letter to CEOs of such brands says their advertising on those sites harms “independent artists and small businesses” and “encourages others to exploit our work for economic gain without a return to us. It deprives us of the opportunity to build communities with fans when they visit illegal sites to obtain our work, rather than our sites. It also gives consumers a false sense of security by lending an air of legitimacy to these sites. And, it rewards activities that are illegal.” The signatories understand “it can be difficult to know” where ads for the companies’ brands can end up because of online advertising’s complexity, but it “damages your own brands by association,” they said. Linking to a Los Angeles Times article (http://lat.ms/Z38q64), the letter said it “appears that other companies make ad buys in ways that don’t result in their brands being tarnished and our work being exploited.” The article said jeans-maker Levi’s directed its ad agency to remove ads from such sites only after being notified by Jonathan Taplin, director of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab. The lab released a report in January citing Google and Yahoo among the top 10 ad networks that support pirate sites. Brand CEOs should “employ high-quality control standards and ... demand the same from the ad networks you use,” by adopting practices like those devised by the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies and Interactive Advertising Bureau, the letter said. “According to research and documentation by artists working in tandem with this project,” it said, linking to a post by The Trichodist blog (http://bit.ly/VJtakf), “your companies have been identified as brands that repeatedly advertise on infringing websites.” It asks the CEOs to sign a pledge (http://bit.ly/12hg0l1): “I support the rights of artists, creators and innovators to be compensated for the fruits of their labor. I run my business ethically, and value my brand. I pledge not to advertise on sites which illegally exploit the work of creators without their permission.” As of Friday afternoon the petition had more than 3,200 signatures. The letter was to be sent to the CEOs and marketing directors of dozens of companies, including Adobe, Amazon, AT&T, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, “DirectTV,” Dish Network, eBay, Electronic Arts, “Google Chrome,” Hewlett-Packard, Kayak, LG Electronics, Netflix, Register.com, Skype, TuneCore and Yahoo. A spokeswoman for the alliance confirmed it first started distributing the petition with a Feb. 19 tweet. The letter will be sent to brands sometime in March, she said.
Due mainly to costly International Trade Commission patent infringement litigation against Motorola and HTC, Immersion’s litigation expenses in 2012 soared to $8 million from about $500,000 in 2011, Chief Financial Officer Paul Norris said on an earnings call Thursday. Immersion filed a complaint in February 2012 with the ITC claiming that Motorola Mobility Android-based smartphones infringed on six Immersion patents covering various uses of haptic effects in connection with touchscreens. Immersion also filed a patent suit against Motorola Mobility in U.S. District Court, Wilmington, Del. Immersion later added HTC to the complaints. Immersion signed a settlement and license deal with Google and Motorola Mobility in November, resolving their patent dispute. Immersion is continuing its Basic Haptics litigation against HTC and feels “confident regarding the strength of our case,” Immersion CEO Vic Viegas said Thursday. A hearing in the ITC action is scheduled for late March, with an initial determination due in June and a final determination in October, he said. Forty-six percent of Immersion’s Q4 revenue came from the mobile device sector, Norris said. Interactive games were 21 percent of revenue, while 23 percent of revenue came from the medical sector, 6 percent from the auto industry and 4 percent from chip and other areas, he said. That included revenue from royalty and licensing, product sales and development contracts, he said. Revenue for Q4 ended Dec. 31 grew 15 percent from Q4 the prior year to $8.9 million. Its loss narrowed to $200,000 from $270,000. Royalty and license revenue grew 12 percent to $7.6 million. Immersion’s software licensing business is profitable and is “expanding rapidly, particularly” in the mobile market where its OEM customers have shipped more than 550 million TouchSense-enabled smartphones and tablets to date, said Viegas. Immersion expanded its mobile market presence in “important new geographies” including Japan and China last year, he said. The company recently expanded its license deal with LG Electronics and signed a license deal with Panasonic. Immersion is “seeing great opportunities with new OEM customers,” he said. In China, Immersion is “actively engaged” with chip partners to offer haptic solutions to OEMs there and ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi all released new devices in 2012 that incorporated Immersion chip-based solutions, he said. Immersion is “engaged” with various companies that aren’t existing licensees or litigants and “we continue to make progress,” he said.
The Georgia Legislature’s bill on municipal telecom networks cleared committee, with some changes, Thursday. The Georgia House Energy, Utilities and Telecom Committee approved House Bill 282, which would restrict a municipality’s ability to create its own network, after some debate and despite resistance from some community leaders in their state and beyond (CD Feb 21 p11). “It’s really a very straightforward bill,” Rep. Mark Hamilton (R) said Thursday: “We say that any public provider that wishes to offer broadband service has to meet several exemptions.” The initial bill said municipalities could only build if an area lacked sufficient broadband service, establishing a threshold of 1.5 Mbps in the faster direction, but an amended version (http://1.usa.gov/YOSCav) increased that threshold to 3 Mbps in the faster direction. Hamilton added that any entity that’s made infrastructure investments can continue to use their networks and described the process by which the Georgia Public Service Commission would have to determine if a region were unserved or underserved and whether a municipality could expand a network or build there. The amended bill would also make clear it “shall not include a municipal corporation, or any authority or instrumentality of a municipal corporation, that owns or operates an electric utility": “That area is completely exempt from this,” said Hamilton, one of the bill’s sponsors. “It was done in a way to protect the citizens.” He described the municipal telecom business as “high risk,” a cost to Georgia communities in the millions. “We applaud them and we thank them,” he said of the more than dozen municipalities with networks. “They got into the business when they very possibly didn’t have any alternatives. We're not trying to hurt anybody.” Hamilton framed the issue as one of free markets and job creation. “They're playing Monopoly, we're playing life,” Amy Henderson, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Municipal Association, told us. “Broadband is about economic development.”