NBC TV affiliates met with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday to discuss the incentive auction, retransmission consent and media ownership rules. “It is essential that there be a transparent process for accomplishing a spectrum auction and repacking, and the FCC needs to engage with broadcast engineers,” to make sure that TV service is preserved for viewers, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnv2p3). “Concern was expressed that if the FCC conducts the reverse auction and the forward auction simultaneously, there will be no safety net available in the event that the predictive engineering models have miscalculated the amount of spectrum” needed to accomplish the repacking, it said. Discussing retrans, the executives said the rules are working as Congress intended. “Altering the retransmission consent or good faith negotiation rules to benefit pay TV operators would undermine the vitality of the public’s local broadcast service and harm consumers who benefit from the unique services that broadcasters provide,” the notice said. Hearst Television Executive Vice President Jordan Wertlieb, chairman of the NBC affiliates’ association, Vice Chairman Ralph Oakley, CEO of Quincy Newspapers and Senior Vice President Brian Lawlor of E.W. Scripps, a past chairman of the group, also pushed the commission to bring its media ownership rules more up to date.
Attorneys for the AllVid Tech Company Alliance met with an aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to push the agency to clarify its set-top box home-networking rules, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnv2pg). TiVo has asked for an 18-month waiver from complying with home-networking output requirements that are set to become effective in December. “The Alliance stated that any meaningful extension of time, based on progress toward an open standard interface, must clarify what will be considered a compliant implementation, and how compliance will be enforced,” the notice said.
Journal Communications’ Q3 broadcast sales rose 25 percent from a year earlier to $58.8 million, the company said Thursday (http://xrl.us/bnv2pk). Broadcasting earnings increased 86 percent to $13 million due to higher sales. Political ads of about $8.6 million made up the bulk of the increase. At its TV stations, retransmission consent revenue increased 24 percent to $2.7 million. Total TV revenue increased 40 percent to $38.9 million. Radio revenue increased 4.4 percent to $19.9 million. Journal stock rose 6.1 percent Thursday to close at $5.56.
Sales at Meredith’s local media group, which includes its TV stations, for its fiscal Q1 increased 26 percent from a year earlier to $87 million. Operating profit more than doubled to $28 million, it said. “We are focused on keeping the momentum going in the non-political advertising revenues, along with maximizing our political advertising opportunity this election cycle,” said Paul Karpowicz, president of Meredith Local Media Group. For its fiscal Q2, Meredith expects sales to increase more than 20 percent compared to a year earlier, it said.
Executives want government to play a “moderate role” in the technology industry, according to a new survey by the Technology Councils of North America (TECNA) and the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). The survey of 926 technology and business executives working for TENCA-affiliated companies, done this month, found that 66 percent of respondents believe government should play “some role in promoting innovation and growth in the tech sector.” Fifty-eight percent said “government should be doing more to expand access to capital for start-up and high-growth companies” (http://xrl.us/bnv2hm). The survey found that 49 percent of respondents list science, technology, engineering and math education at a K-12 level to be a top priority, while 42 percent are planning on increasing their workforce by including people with career, technical and vocational education. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
Prometheus Radio Project said a local origination requirement for new low-power FM stations would ensure that scarce LPFM licenses are awarded to local organizations intending to serve their communities. Such a requirement would “dis-incentivize national, non-local organizations from circumventing commission [FCC] rules on local ownership of LPFM by persuading local organizations to act as licensees while controlling all content decisions at the national network,” Prometheus said in an ex parte filing in docket 99-25 (http://xrl.us/bnv2hy). The filing recounted a teleconference with Prometheus and staff from the office of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Prometheus also pushed for a nationwide cap on FM translator ownership from Auction 83, “as well as a local, one-per-market cap on translator applicants from the auction,” it said.
Verizon’s FiOS said it added Time Warner’s Cartoon Network in high definition to its channel lineup. The deal also includes carriage of Time Warner’s Adult Swim, the “late-night” network that shares the same channel as Cartoon Network.
Eutelsat revenue increased 6.5 percent to $408.5 million in its Q1 ending Sept. 30. Sales of video applications are up 9.1 percent to $281 million compared to the same period last year, driven by satellite capacity added for service delivery in the Middle East and North Africa, Eutelsat said in a press release (http://xrl.us/bnv2b8). Multi-usage business dropped 5.8 percent to $44.3 million, “reflecting limited capacity in regions of highest demand.” This decrease reflects weaker contract renewals in February and March in such regions, it said. There also was a 7.1 percent decline in data services revenue, which dropped to $58.3 million. Eutelsat said it expects Eutelsat 21B and Eutelsat 70B, scheduled to launch later this year, to help support data services “by addressing applications of greatest demand including enterprise networks and mobile services in fast-growing markets."
NBN Co., an Australia-based broadband provider, selected companies in that country to build 10 satellite ground stations. The earth stations will help to bring “fast, reliable and affordable broadband to Australia’s most isolated communities,” NBN said in a news release (http://xrl.us/bnvzwt). The earth stations will be built by Perkins Builders and Cockram Corp. Construction is expected to be complete in 2015, in time for the launch of NBN’s satellite service, NBN said. The service will deliver high-speed broadband “to an estimated 200,000 homes, farms and businesses in rural and remote parts of the country,” it added.
The FCC granted special temporary authority to EchoStar, Lockheed Martin and others, in an International Bureau public notice (http://xrl.us/bnvzun). HNS License Sub got special temporary authority to communicate with EchoStar XVII. The STA was granted from Oct. 1 to Nov. 29 to continue communicating with the satellite located at 107.1 degrees west in the 28.35-29.25 GHz and 18.3-20.2 GHz bands using earth stations within the continental U.S., the bureau said. Lockheed Martin got an STA from Oct. 19 to Nov. 18 to provide launch and early orbit phase support services for the Intelsat 23 satellite during the drift of the satellite to its assigned 53 degrees west location, using an earth station in Carpentersville, N.J., the bureau said. EchoStar’s STA regarding telemetry, tracking, command operations and feeder link communications is for the company’s EchoStar 6 satellite using fixed earth stations in Wyoming, Arizona and Virginia.