The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will examine the effect that the Law of the Sea Treaty has on the telecommunications industry on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in Room 216, Hart. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam will testify along with representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers.
CTIA told the FCC there’s no need for the commission to issue rules on wireless cramming, an issue examined in an April further rulemaking notice (http://xrl.us/bncyk3). “There is no persuasive evidence that cramming is a prevalent issue in the wireless industry. In fact, wireless cramming is such a de minimis concern, the Commission did not see fit to place it on its last 36 quarterly complaint reports,” the association said (http://xrl.us/bncymf). “FCC action is unnecessary because the wireless industry is already successfully engaged in voluntary initiatives to prevent cramming. For example, Tier I, and other carriers have adopted the Mobile Marketing Association’s Consumer Best Practices that inter alia, require, wireless consumers to ‘double opt in’ to premium services."
Attorneys for Free Press, the American Cable Association and Time Warner Cable raised concerns about broadcasters’ shared services agreements in a meeting with FCC Media Bureau officials (http://xrl.us/bncyjy). “ACA, Free Press and TWC each discussed proposed remedies for addressing the competition problems associated with resource sharing arrangements, including a bright line, multifactor test for attribution of broadcaster resource sharing arrangements and a prohibition on the coordination of retransmission consent by separately owned broadcasters in the same media market,” an ex parte notice said. “Any new rules adopted by the Commission to address these practices should not grandfather existing combinations, but should instead provide a reasonable and timely period for stations to come into compliance with the new rules."
Journal Broadcast Group said it completed its purchase of KHTT(FM) and KBEZ(FM) Tulsa, Okla., from Renda Broadcasting. The acquisition brings to five the number of FM stations Journal owns in Tulsa, it said.
Sinclair Broadcast Group said it will use Rentrak’s TV ratings service at the stations it recently acquired from Four Points Media in four markets, allowing its contract with Nielsen to expire at those stations. “We plan to evaluate whether or not to make similar moves in other markets when our contracts with Nielsen come up for renewal in the near future,” Sinclair Chief Operating Officer Steve Marks said. The broadcaster said it already uses Rentrak data in 12 markets.
News Corp. confirmed it’s considering splitting its assets into two companies. The Wall Street Journal, which News Corp. owns, reported the move would separate the company’s newspaper and book publishing assets from the rest of its businesses, which include broadcast and cable networks. News Corp. shares gained 8.3 percent Tuesday. The biggest question for some investors is who will get News Corp.’s $11 billion in cash in the event of a split, Sanford Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger wrote investors. “One possible use of the cash is a special dividend, rewarding shareholders and ’solving’ the cash problem.” In the alternative, News Corp. could keep the cash and make another attempt to buy out BSkyB, despite the likelihood that such a move would prove politically unpopular, he said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supported allowing terrestrial use of the 2 GHz band. The chamber urged the FCC to create service, technical and licensing rules for spectrum between 2000-2020 MHz and 2180-2200 MHz “to help address our nation’s looming spectrum crunch and appropriately protect incumbent services from harmful interference.” The support came in a filing in docket 12-70. The chamber said it’s concerned that “without additional spectrum for mobile broadband, this virtuous cycle of innovation and job creation will be stifled.” Allowing terrestrial broadband use of mobile satellite services spectrum in the 2 GHz band will help alleviate the spectrum crunch, the chamber said. Allowing such use will permit Dish Network to build a terrestrial network (CD March 21 p1).
Sprint re-hired approximately 240, including engineers it had previously outsourced to Ericsson, said Kelly Schlageter, a spokeswoman. Sprint originally outsourced the workers during a period of stabilization but has rehired them in order to foster growth, she said. The transition will occur at the end of July, she said. Sprint originally outsourced the engineers as a part of its Network Vision, but rehired them to keep Network Vision experts within the company, Wells Fargo said.
Clear Channel Media’s iHeartRadio digital platform will get Cox Media Group and Emmis Communications radio stations under an agreement among the companies, they said Tuesday. Cox will add 86 stations from 19 markets, and Emmis 20 stations from six markets, and those stations “will promote iHeartRadio on-air” as well, they said. The stations will continue to be streamed from Cox and Emmis websites apart from iHeartRadio. Clear Channel said iHeartRadio reached 10 million registered users in May, “a milestone reached in only eight months” and “faster than all other popular entertainment and communication platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, Spotify and Instagram."
The White House is gathering “input” on its intellectual property report released in March, U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel said in a blog posting (http://xrl.us/bncyff). The “overarching objective” of the new IP strategy is “to improve the effectiveness of the U.S. Government’s efforts to protect our intellectual property here and overseas,” she said. Part of information gathering will be a Federal Register notice seeking comment, she said. Essential to developing an effective enforcement strategy is “ensuring that any approaches that are considered to be particularly effective as well as any concerns with the present approach to intellectual property enforcement are understood by policymakers,” she said. The White House wants recommendations that include “legislation, regulation, guidance, executive order, Presidential memoranda, or other executive action,” she said.