Mediacom lost about 22,000 video subscribers during Q2 through its two subsidiaries, Mediacom LLC and Mediacom Broadband, it said. The subsidiaries combined added about 7,000 broadband and 7,000 phone subscribers. Quarterly sales at Mediacom Broadband gained 1.9 percent from a year earlier to $223.9 million while free cash flow increased 1.4 percent to $15.1 million. At Mediacom LLC, sales were the same as a year earlier at $170 million while free cash flow fell 4.9 percent to $17.2 million.
North American ad revenue from online real-time bidding will reach $7 billion by 2017, said a Parks Associates report Tuesday. The projected growth in real-time bidding is being driven by industry platforms like Facebook Exchange, SpotXchange, Nexage and Google, the report said.
Prometheus Radio Project representatives met with an aide to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai to push for rules to facilitate low-power FM service, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bnjry8). An outside lawyer for Prometheus and a staffer there “expressed Prometheus’ support for a final order in the LPFM docket in the near future and for a reasonable time frame between an LPFM order and LPFM filing window,” the notice said. That will give organizations enough time to prepare their applications, they said.
Time Warner Cable said it began an underwritten public offering of 30-year notes. Moody’s gave the notes a Baa2 rating.
The Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials endorsed a request by Louisiana for a waiver of a requirement that 700 MHz narrowband radio systems operate with a bandwidth of no more than 6.25 kHz by Dec. 31, 2016. APCO said the FCC should “modify the underlying rule, which would obviate the need for waiver requests from Louisiana and similarly situated 700 MHz band licensees” (http://xrl.us/bnjrxn). “Due to the lengthy digital television transition, the 700 MHz public safety spectrum was unavailable in much of the nation until June 17, 2009, much later than originally contemplated,” APCO said. “Under the current rule, non-compliant 6.25 kHz equipment in the 700 MHz band would have to be replaced long before the end of normal equipment life-cycles (generally at least ten years from system deployment), at considerable expense to cash-strapped state and local governments. Questions have also been raised as to whether there will be competitive sources of standardized 6.25 kHz equipment available in time to meet the 2016 deadline. Those facts alone suggest the need to extend the current deadlines for 700 MHz narrowband licenses to convert to 6.25 kHz technology, and to grant appropriate waivers in the interim."
AT&T’s U-verse TV renewed its carriage agreement with the NFL Network and NFL Redzone channel, the network said Monday. Terms of the multi-year contract extension weren’t disclosed.
The Media Bureau let WMGM-TV Wildwood, N.J., out of new FCC online political file requirements, an order released late Monday shows (http://xrl.us/bnjrv9). The station had asked for a temporary waiver of the requirement to post political file information to the FCC’s new online database because of its location. Even though it is technically in the Philadelphia designated market area, the town of Wildwood it serves as an NBC affiliate is smaller and is more part of the nearby Atlantic City DMA than Philadelphia, it had argued, according to the order. The FCC’s political file requirements apply to the major network affiliates in the top 50 markets. “WMGM has shown that it serves -- and has served -- a smaller market ... and that it is not the primary network-affiliate in the Philadelphia DMA,” the order said. “We will therefore waive compliance with the requirement that WMGM post its political file documents online.” The waiver expires July 1, 2014.
Bounce TV’s co-founder urged Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., to reject the Next Generation Television Marketplace Act (S-2008). Martin Luther King III said in a letter sent Friday that the African-American TV programming company was “troubled by the sweeping changes” that would impact U.S. broadcasters if the bill became law. The legislation’s proposal to eliminate the FCC’s “must-carry” and retransmission consent rules would adversely affect many broadcasters, he wrote. While the sponsors of S-2008 “naively promise a more robust U.S. television marketplace when these rules are repealed, the reverse will happen: broadcasters will lose the financial flexibility to fund diverse programming, both on a broadcasters’ prime channel as well as the digital sub-channels that are allowing Bounce TV to entertain and inform previously neglected African American viewers,” he said. The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., had no comment.
The Texas 9-1-1 Alliance, the Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications and the Municipal Emergency Communication Districts Association urged the FCC to adopt location accuracy requirements for multi-line telephone systems (MLTS). “In almost all Internet Protocol MLTS contexts, E-911 solutions are feasible,” the groups said (http://xrl.us/bnjq8i). “The fact that the service may be ‘nomadic’ is not a valid reason for the Commission to delay in proceeding to promulgate nationwide E-911 IP MLTS rules or best practices. Certain wireless IP and campus hot-spots and hybrid situations may present special and unique challenges, but these can be addressed separately via exceptions as the Commission has done in its wireless E911 rules to address mobile satellite services and wireless indoor location issues."
Verizon Communications announced its support for the national 811 excavation alert number Tuesday. Its staff will participate in Aug. 11 events such as prominently wearing 811 shirts, holding 811 posters, attending the New York Mets baseball game and ringing the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange the night before, all in conjunction with the Common Ground Alliance.