July 9 PLI seminar on copyright law, 9 a.m., PLI, 685 Market St., San Francisco -- http://xrl.us/bncms6
Research In Motion shares closed 19.1 percent lower Friday at $7.39 after the struggling company reported results for Q1 ended June 2 that were even weaker than analysts expected. RIM also said the launch of its new BlackBerry 10 operating system will be delayed until January-March 2013 and it’s slashing about 5,000 jobs in a cost-cutting move. After the latest setbacks, it was “becoming clearer than ever that the company needs to wave goodbye to hardware and focus more on delivering services and licensing software,” Informa Telecoms & Media Principal Analyst Malik Saadi said Friday. RIM’s Q1 loss widened to $518 million, or 99 cents a share, from $125 million, or 24 cents a share, in Q4. It posted a $695 million, or $1.33 a share, profit in Q1 last year. Revenue tumbled 43 percent from Q1 last year to $2.8 billion. About 59 percent of revenue came from hardware, 36 percent for service and 5 percent for software and other areas, it said. RIM shipped 7.8 million BlackBerry smartphones and about 260,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets in Q1, it said.
Free Press submitted a letter signed by hundreds of Pacific Northwest residents urging FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to hold field hearings on the commission’s media ownership rules (http://xrl.us/bndbrw.) “Summer in Seattle is not to be missed,” the letter said. “While you're in town, we'd like to discuss the new media ownership rules that the FCC is considering adopting."
Dish Network was expected Saturday to replace three AMC Networks channels in an escalating battle over carriage fees. Dish will provide HDNet Movies to replace AMC and offer Style and HDNet to fill in for WE tv and IFC, Dish said. Dish told AMC earlier this year it wouldn’t renew its contract with the programmer based on the channels’ high costs compared to relatively low viewership. AT&T and AMC also are negotiating, with AT&T citing a request for an “excessive rate increase.” AT&T’s contract with AMC also expires Saturday. AMC fare includes Mad Men and The Walking Dead and a new season of Breaking Bad premieres July 15. Meanwhile, Dish is expected to combine satellite-based broadband services it markets from ViaSat and EchoStar’s Hughes Communications under the DishNet banner later this summer, a source familiar with the plans said. A Dish spokesman declined to comment. ViaSat’s Excede and Hughes’s HughesNet services target customers in different regions of the U.S. based largely on satellite coverage. HughesNet is expected to benefit from the launch of the EchoStar-17 Ka-band satellite, formerly Jupiter. The satellite’s launch was recently postponed from this month to July 5 aboard Arianespace’s Ariane-5 rocket. The satellite was been expected to be put into service by August (CED Jan 12 p4). Dish also won’t introduce new Hopper DVR/satellite receivers this year, but expects to add Wi-Fi to future versions in 2013, said Michael Michuda, product marketing specialist at Dish. The Hopper has three tuners and a two terabyte hard drive. Customers getting the Hopper product are typically adding two Joey HD- and 3D-capable client set-top boxes that use Multimedia over Coax (MoCA) technology to get content from the main receiver, Michuda said. Wi-Fi technology is likely to be added to Joey clients, Michuda said.
Time Warner Cable attorneys discussed with Media Bureau officials whether FCC rules would prevent a TV station from pulling its signal off a cable system during a ratings “sweeps” period, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bndbqv). The company’s retransmission consent agreement to carry Hearst’s TV stations was set to expire Saturday, the notice said. “Hearst has taken the position that the rule imposes obligations only on cable operators, and that it therefore may pull its signals during sweeps period with unilateral control of the timing of such a decision,” the notice said. TWC sees it differently, its lawyers explained in the meeting. “The sweeps rule is contained in Section 614 and, as part of the must-carry statute, should apply only to stations that have elected must-carry status,” the notice said. But even if the commission views the rule as applicable to retransmission-consent stations, “the plain language of Section 614(b)(9) is best read to impose symmetrical obligations on cable operators and broadcasters, such that if a cable operator is barred from taking down a signal during a sweeps period, then broadcasters likewise are required to maintain carriage throughout a sweeps period,” it said. “Accordingly, where a station has withdrawn retransmission consent immediately before or during a sweeps period, the sweeps rule would appear to authorize a cable operator to continue carrying the station as a must-carry station through the end of the sweeps period.” A Hearst spokesman declined to comment.
Dependence on networked IT systems has “increased the reach and potential impact” of “economic espionage” against the U.S., the GAO said in a report that called for “effective public-private partnerships” in sharing information on cyberthreats (http://xrl.us/bndbkm). “To address this threat federal agencies have a key role to play in law enforcement, deterrence, and information sharing,” the report said. To protect against the threats several security controls and other techniques are available, it said. They include technical controls such as those that manage access to systems, ensure system integrity, and encrypt sensitive data, it said. “But they also include risk management and strategic planning that organizations undertake to improve their overall security posture and reduce their exposure to risk.” Multiple federal agencies, including the Departments of Commerce, Justice and Homeland Security are taking steps to protect IP rights, the report said. “Ensuring effective coordination will be critical for better protecting the economic security of the American businesses."
Lawsuits, business cooperation, and new technology deployment provide viable means for addressing Internet piracy, said House IP Subcommittee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., in an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators series (http://xrl.us/bndbp6) scheduled for telecast Saturday. Goodlatte cited the need for faster responses to solving piracy than legislative action can provide. Although general agreement exists that Internet piracy is a problem, few agree on how to solve it, he said. He also described Internet regulation as a “slippery slope” to avoid and suggested company transparency and consumer control as better protections for Internet privacy. Goodlatte said that the Telecom Act of 1996 will probably need to be adjusted to account for technological development, but he withheld judgment on the extent of the alterations needed.
Lobbying on the FCC’s stalled basic tier encryption proceeding continued last week after Comcast and Boxee presented a proposed compromise to the commission (CD June 29 p8). Attorneys for the NCTA, Time Warner Cable and Comcast met with Media Bureau officials, the FCC’s chief technology officer and an adviser to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to discuss the proceeding, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bndbp8). “We discussed potential technical solutions for enabling customers with IP-capable Clear QAM devices to access encrypted basic tier channels,” the notice said. “We also discussed the relationship of potential equipment-based technical solutions, such as digital transport adapters or set-top boxes with home-networking capability, to the consumer protection measure proposed in the rulemaking,” it said. Separately, an attorney for RCN urged an aide to Genachowski to “grant an interim waiver of the encryption ban upon release,” an ex parte notice said (http://xrl.us/bndbqg). “RCN has continued to be victimized by theft of service by broadband-only customers that could have been prevented through encryption during the year that its request for a waiver of the encryption ban has been on file,” it said. “RCN asks that it not be required to endure further preventable theft while a Commission order eliminating the encryption ban is published in the Federal Register and undergoes any necessary approvals pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act."
The National Weather Service Thursday formally launched a system for sending weather alerts to cellphones through the Commercial Mobile Alert System (http://xrl.us/bndbpq). All of the major U.S. carriers have elected to make the alerts available to subscribers with CMAS-capable handsets.
The Supreme Court denied petitions to review appeals of FCC media ownership rules brought by Media General, Tribune and the NAB (http://xrl.us/bndbnq). The NAB said it was very disappointed in the decision. “NAB will continue to advocate for modernizing ownership rules that stem from an era of ‘I Love Lucy,'” a spokesman said. Free Press cheered the development. “This is the second time the Supreme Court has declined broadcaster requests to reconsider the constitutionality of the media ownership protections,” said Corie Wright, senior policy counsel. “In 2005, the Court declined to hear industry appeals of Prometheus I, the predecessor of Prometheus II” the case the court rejected Friday. “The constitutionality of these rules is well settled,” she said. “The Supreme Court wisely declined to waste its time reviewing these ill-founded attempts to undermine the FCC’s media ownership protections.” The decision bodes well for carriers hoping more TV station owners will participate in the coming incentive spectrum auction, Stifel Nicolaus analysts Christopher King and David Kaut wrote investors. “If the broadcasters had won big, we believe it could have made their businesses more attractive and give them more incentive to keep their spectrum, rather than sell it off for wireless auction and use."