Strong demand for the movies Star Trek Into Darkness, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and World War Z on Blu-ray and DVD fueled a 24 percent year-over-year home entertainment revenue lift for Viacom in Q4 ended Sept. 30, Chief Financial Officer Wade Davis said on an earnings call Thursday. Total filmed entertainment revenue grew 11 percent to $1.2 billion, mainly due to higher home entertainment and ancillary revenue, he said. Filmed entertainment operating income grew 49 percent to $291 million, he said. Total Viacom revenue grew 9 percent to $3.7 billion. Profit from continuing operations grew to $806 million, or $1.69 a share, from $643 million, or $1.24 a share, in Q4 the prior year. The “highlight” of Viacom’s fiscal year on the distribution front was its multiyear deal with Amazon to stream library content through Prime Instant Video, said CEO Philippe Dauman. The deal “demonstrated our ability to collect significant value for our content through a new growing distributor, but also to smartly orchestrate our content windowing so that we can do additional deals as new entrants come to market,” he said. The company continues to position itself to capitalize on the “changes in content consumption that are reshaping the media landscape … across multiple platforms and devices,” he said. Viacom launched branded channel apps for Nickelodeon, MTV, and more recently, VH1 and CMT during the past fiscal year, he said. It will launch apps for Comedy Central and Logo in the coming months, he said. The Nickelodeon app has “attracted more than 5 million installs alone, and each of the apps is garnering significant time spent,” he said. Viacom is also “experimenting” with how it delivers content on the apps, he said. For example, MTV recently released the complete season of its new series Wait ‘Til Next Year on its app ahead of the show’s on-air premiere, he said. Much of the video it’s delivering via apps is through its “TV Everywhere” deals, he said. Ten distributors support its authenticated apps and websites now, and “we expect to reach additional agreements soon,” he said.
Competitive wireless carriers led by Sprint, T-Mobile, Dish Network and C Spire sent new FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler a letter Thursday stressing the importance of spectrum aggregation limits during the upcoming incentive TV auction. “None of us fears competition,” the companies said. “Consumers benefit from the give-and-take of the competitive market. But to ensure those benefits keep flowing, it is vitally important that the two dominant wireless incumbents not be allowed to lock competitive carriers out of acquiring low-band spectrum in the upcoming 600 MHz auction. That result would disserve the public interest by fundamentally undermining the wireless industry competition that has served our nation so well.” AT&T and Verizon already control almost 80 percent of sub-1 GHz spectrum, the letter said. “They have economic incentives to acquire the remaining low-band spectrum in the 600 MHz band to stop our companies -- their competitors -- from offering truly sustainable, competitive wireless broadband service across America.”
The Department of Justice must respond to ProPublica’s push for the release of court records on government phone metadata surveillance by Dec. 10, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1cZ0xeV). Replies by ProPublica to Justice are due Dec. 23, the court said. ProPublica, an independent nonprofit news organization, had requested the release of any opinion that underlies the phone metadata collection program, in a filing posted earlier this week, citing a First Amendment right to view the opinions. “Although numerous FISC opinions regarding [Patriot Act] Section 215 have now been made public, the FISC’s ultimate authority for the bulk collection of records remains secret,” ProPublica said (http://1.usa.gov/17wD4iD), urging the court to potentially use its own discretion to publish the opinions due to public interest. Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney David Greene was counsel for ProPublica and filed the request.
The selection process for NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program was “highly inefficient” because it failed to provide a means to measure the cost-effectiveness of the proposals, said a Technology Policy Institute report released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1j7CdFc). NTIA’s selection process “seemed largely subjective,” and it lacked an objective mechanism to compare the costs and the benefits of the proposals, said the report. As a result, the selection process created “massive inefficiencies” in the distribution of funds, said the report. “Some of the grantees received more than 30 times as much support as other grantees per mile of fiber deployed, and 100 times as much per new projected broadband connection.” A better alternative for distribution would have been via an auction process with the grants awarded on the basis of cost-effectiveness, said the report.
Louisville, Ky., issued a request for information Thursday for vendors or others to create a gigabit-capable network, said Mayor Greg Fischer in a news release that day (http://bit.ly/1cY7w7X). The network should be available in targeted commercial corridors and residential areas with demonstrated demand, said Fischer. A free or heavily discounted 100 Mbps Internet service down- and upstream over a wired or wireless network needs to be available for low-income families, he said. Prices for the network should also be comparable to other gigabit fiber communities across the U.S., he said. The city is willing to discuss its rights of way such as water lines, sewer lines and alleys to assist in the project, said Ted Smith, economic growth and innovation chief. Responses to the RFI are due Jan. 31.
Information technology budgets are expected to increase 3 percent in 2014, said chief information officers in a survey the Corporate Executive Board released Thursday. CEB said European IT budgets are expected to grow by 0.1 percent in 2014. IT roles are expected to be “more diverse” in 2014, said the survey, with the inclusion of business architects and service managers in IT. “Nearly two thirds” of IT organizations will begin “making the move to an end-to-end services delivery model by the end of 2014,” said the survey. CEB surveyed 165 global organizations with IT budgets totaling $47 billion.
Arianespace will launch the GSAT 15 and GSAT 16 satellites for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). ISRO designed, assembled and integrated the satellites that will provide C- and Ku-band services, including very small aperture transmissions, TV broadcasting and emergency communications, Arianespace said in a press release. They will be launched on Ariane 5 launch vehicles from Kourou, French Guiana.
Correction: Associate Executive Director Prue Adler said the section of the Copyright Act she meant to say the Association of Research Libraries expects the House Judiciary Committee to include in its copyright review is Section 109 on the first-sale doctrine (CD Nov 14 p16).
The Senate Judiciary Committee rescheduled a hearing on NSA surveillance practices. The hearing had been scheduled for Nov. 20 at 10 a.m. but will now be Nov. 21, following the committee’s executive business meeting in 226 Dirksen, said the committee in a notice Thursday. This is the first such oversight hearing Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has held since introducing the USA Freedom Act, S-1599/HR-3361, which would significantly curb NSA surveillance authorities. It has 18 cosponsors in the Senate.
The Furthering Access and Networks for Sports Act of 2013 would “end harmful blackout threats once and for all,” said Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., on the House floor Thursday. He introduced HR-3452 earlier this week at the same time Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced companion legislation in the Senate (CD Nov 14 p10). The bill would end the FCC’s sports blackout rule and prevent the imposition of sports blackouts during contract disputes between broadcasters and satellite or cable providers. Higgins cited the threat of blackouts in his home state, in which “Buffalo fans will not be able to see their NFL team on television.” The House bill has no cosponsors listed and is referred to the House Judiciary Committee. Dish lauded the legislation Thursday, focusing on the Senate version in its statement. “Sports fans should not get dragged into retransmission consent disputes,” said Dish Deputy General Counsel Jeffrey Blum.