Liberty Media still hasn’t presented a concrete plan to assume de facto control of Sirius XM, Sirius said in an FCC filing. The satellite radio company opposed a reconsideration petition from Liberty (http://xrl.us/bnbkxv). Liberty filed the petition last month urging the FCC to reconsider its dismissal of Liberty’s applications to assume de facto control (CD June 1 p7). Liberty’s filing recites the same facts and arguments “that the bureaus [International, Wireless, Office of Engineering and Technology] already have considered and rejected,” Sirius said. Liberty’s plans to convert half its preferred stock to common stock and to have the majority of the board consist of their nominees is illusory, Sirius said: The petition doesn’t reveal when Liberty Media intends to make such a conversion, “how it would secure a majority of the board ... who the board members may be, or even if those board members would be affiliated with Liberty Media.” Liberty’s reliance on future options to establish ownership percentage “remains inconsistent with longstanding FCC precedent,” Sirius said.
The FCC should allow rural rate-of-return regulated ILECs to submit information on a standardized form instead of filing audited annual reports, if those ILECs do not already obtain audit reports in the ordinary course of business, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association told Commissioner Ajit Pai’s chief of staff Monday, an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bnbks2). The rural ILECs should also be able to submit financial data under seal, and pursuant to a protective order, NTCA said. NTCA also raised concerns regarding getting waivers from the new USF rules, calling the process “onerous” and time-consuming.
Lawyers for the NCTA, MPAA and NAB along with attorneys for several media companies met with FCC officials in the Media Bureau and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to push for the Digital Media Association’s petition to slow down the implementation of parts of its IP-video captioning rules, ex parte notices show (http://xrl.us/bnbksb, http://xrl.us/bnbksd).
USTelecom encouraged the FCC to pursue mandatory data requests so competitive providers will provide data they are “unlikely to voluntarily provide,” said an ex parte filing detailing a meeting Thursday between USTelecom Vice President Glenn Reynolds and an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell (http://xrl.us/bnbkmu). ILECs, in contrast, have provided extensive data “demonstrating robust competition for the provision of high-capacity services to business customers,” Reynolds said. An FCC “rush to judgment” on special access is “perplexing” given how competitive the markets are where AT&T is requesting Phase II pricing flexibility relief, he said. USTelecom represents large ILECs including AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink.
The Communications Workers of America plans a rally on the steps of the FCC at noon Wednesday to press the agency to impose conditions on Verizon Wireless’s proposed buy of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox. “Verizon workers from five states and Washington D.C. will rally with consumer advocates and community organizations ... to urge regulators to put conditions on the proposed monopolistic deal between Verizon subsidiary Verizon Wireless and Big Cable,” CWA said Tuesday. “The proposal -- which in its current form would allow the companies to cross-market each other’s products, thereby eliminating competition -- would kill or prevent the creation of thousands of jobs, deepen the digital divide between cities and wealthy suburbs, reduce consumer choice and raise prices.” CWA representatives also plan meetings with FCC officials to “highlight their concerns,” the union said: “Affected workers will join the meeting to explain the impact of the deal on jobs.” CWA also filed a new report (http://xrl.us/bnbkr5) at the FCC warning of job losses if the transactions are approved without the right conditions. “Particularly worrisome is the end of FiOS expansion,” the report said. “This will leave many consumers and businesses on the wrong side of the digital divide, and by extension, on the wrong side of economic development, job growth and improvements in education, health care, energy conservation and public safety.” Among the conditions the report urges are a mandate that Verizon offer FiOS to “95 percent of Verizon households in existing markets” along with increased buildout in rural and low-income areas and a prohibition against Verizon Wireless and the cable companies cross-marketing their services within the Verizon footprint.
Audible Magic said it introduced a new Web browser plug-in designed to synchronize interactive Web content with TV programming. The Audini software is the first browser-based implementation of automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, Audible Magic said. “By using ACR and Javascript combined with the capabilities of HTML5, developers can create amazing web-based apps, not apps that have to download from the [app] stores,” said Audible Magic Vice President-Marketing Jay Friedman. The system will work across iOS, Android, PC, Linux and Mac operating systems by the end of the month, it said. TVplus, an interactive TV application developer, said it will use the technology.
The procedural back-and-forth between Bloomberg and Comcast over carriage of Bloomberg TV continued this week. Comcast asked the FCC to stay a recent Media Bureau order in response to Bloomberg’s application that the commission review parts of it. That prompted Bloomberg to ask for more time to respond to Comcast’s motion to stay the rule. Comcast filed the stay motion because of the confusion and uncertainty that resulted from Bloomberg’s application for review, it said (http://xrl.us/bnbkpn). “In what can only be characterized as gross over-reaching, Bloomberg claims it is entitled to be placed not just in one neighborhood, as decided by the Media Bureau, but also in all neighborhoods found in a given lineup -- even if that means Bloomberg TV (BTV) will appear in three different locations on the lineup,” Comcast said. That, combined with Bloomberg’s challenge of the bureau’s definition of a news channel make it “enormously complicated and risky for Comcast to proceed with compliance on its original timetable and to deal with potential requests by other independent news networks,” it said. Bloomberg said it needs a few more days to respond to Comcast’s latest pleadings. “Bloomberg’s response will be filed well before the July 1, 2012 implementation date,” it said (http://xrl.us/bnbk).
A group of TV station owners asked the FCC to reconsider its order requiring certain TV stations in large markets to put the contents of their public political files on the Internet. In a petition for reconsideration (http://xrl.us/bnbkk5), Barrington, Belo, Cox, Dispatch, Gannett, Hearst, LIN, Meredith, Post-Newsweek, Raycom, Schurz and Scripps, together calling themselves the Television Station Group, asked the commission to let broadcasters out of the requirement to post online the rates they charge political advertisers. “It is axiomatic that disclosure of price information is anticompetitive and disrupts markets,” they said. “In this case, not only local political advertising markets but also the local commercial advertising marketplace more generally, because stations’ political ad rates, by law, must be based on commercial advertising rates,” they said. Under their proposed compromise, broadcasters would provide aggregated information about the money spent on ads for candidates, about candidates and about political issues. Stations would provide updates every other day during the lowest-unit-cost (LUC) period in which candidates for federal office can buy ads at the same rate as that paid by a station’s best advertiser. During the final week before an election the material would be updated daily. Outside the LUC period they would update the information weekly. The proposal builds on a series of suggestions broadcasters made ahead of the rule being adopted that were not reflected in its outcome, the petition said. “At the Commission’s open meeting at which it adopted [the order] ... it appeared the commission may have not had adequate opportunity to dig deeply into these alternative proposals,” the petition said. “For its part the Television Station Group continues to stand ready to work with the Commission to achieve a win-win solution that achieves the goal of transparency without disruptive, anti-competitive effects in the commercial and political advertising marketplaces."
TiVo signed an agreement with PayPal, expanding its user interface by fall to include the electronic payments service. TiVo users will be able to use PayPal to buy products featured in 30-second spots and interactive advertisements. After setting up an account, TiVo customers “will be able to instantly purchase products with just a few clicks of the remote,” said Tara Maitra, TiVo senior vice president and general manager-content and media sales. Other companies have attempted a similar service. Maitra has said TiVo needs about 10 million subscribers to have a “meaningful” advertising business (CED March 12 p3). It ended Q1 with 2.48 million subscribers. Cablevision last year launched a service called Request for Information that allows subscribers to find out more about a product being promoted on its advanced advertising platform. Verizon also uses a similar approach with its FiOS network.
The Entertainment Software Association supplemented its petition for the FCC to exempt all videogames and services from advanced communications services disabilities accessibility rules (CD March 26 p6). “This supplement provides textual descriptions of the visual material included in ESA’s previously submitted Petition,” the association said in a Monday filing in docket 10-213. “It is for the benefit of those stakeholders who are using screen-reading software to read ESA’s Petition.” The supplement’s at http://xrl.us/bnbkmf, and has examples of the three classes of games and services the group wants exempted from rules the agency implemented under the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.