The FCC shouldn’t change media ownership rules before collecting and analyzing data on ownership by women and minorities “to satisfy the mandate” of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in last year’s partial remand, a group opposing ownership deregulation said. “The state of media ownership in the Brownsville-McAllen-Harlingen-Weslaco media market” in Texas exemplifies “the deficiencies of broadcast ownership by people of color,” the National Hispanic Media Coalition reported executives told Commissioner Robert McDowell (http://xrl.us/bm59zc). The agency’s recent request for proposals and award of a contract to review media ownership literature should “be the first step of a much larger, quantitative study of broadcast ownership by women and people of color,” the coalition reported telling Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (http://xrl.us/bm59za). The ex parte filings are in docket 09-182.
Discovery said last week it agreed to buy Web video producer Revision3. “The transaction helps fuel Discovery’s strategy of being the number one nonfiction media company on all screens,” the company said. The companies expect the deal to close before June 1. Terms weren’t disclosed.
Fiscal Q3 sales at The Madison Square Garden Company’s media unit increased 13 percent from a year earlier to $166.2 million, it said. Operating income at the business unit increased 4 percent to $58.5 million. Affiliate revenue from pay-TV distributors was $10.4 million higher than a year earlier despite a month-plus standoff with one of its key affiliates. MSG didn’t name that affiliate in its earnings report, but it was Time Warner Cable (CD Jan 27 p3).
The FCC Wireline Bureau consented to four proposed service area redefinitions Thursday. The redefinitions were requested by Cox Georgia Telecom, NE Colorado Cellular d/b/a Viaero Wireless, Triangle Communications Systems and Virgin Mobile USA (http://xrl.us/bm59mj).
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on the technical requirements to be used in preparing the solicitation for the thousands-block Pooling Administrator contact (http://xrl.us/bm59mh). Comments are due May 17 in CC docket 99-200, replies May 24.
The lack of housing formation is probably behind a drop in Nielsen’s TV universe estimates, Sanford Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger wrote investors Friday. The Nielsen numbers are preliminary and will be updated later this year, but they show total number of TV households fell about 0.5 percent from a year earlier to 114.1 million. “This decrease has significant (and we believe under-appreciated) industry ramifications,” Juenger said. “Even if a network delivers the same number of Nielsen panel viewers watching a program, it will produce a lower estimate of total U.S. viewers than it would have a year before.” Another even likelier explanation for the drop is the margin of error in Nielsen’s survey, he said. “They have world-class statisticians, but at the end of the day this is just an estimate based on a survey."
The FCC Wireline Bureau seeks comment on a Telenational petition for waiver of a high-cost universal service deadline to file an annual certification with USAC (http://xrl.us/bm59md). Comments are due May 3 in docket 08-71, replies June 19.
The FCC released a notice of proposed rulemaking Friday detailing regulatory fee obligations for radio stations, digital low power, Class A and TV translators/boosters, and interstate telecom service providers (http://xrl.us/bm59ka). The commission expects to collect close to $340 million in regulatory fees for FY 2012, an amount statutorily mandated by Congress. Fees will be collected during a September filing window in order to collect the required amount by year-end, the notice said. Comments in the proceeding are due May 31 in docket 12-116, replies June 7.
ICO Global seeks a rehearing of an appeals court’s decision to overturn a verdict that found Boeing Satellite Systems International (BSSI) liable for breaking an agreement to build and launch satellites for ICO, a subsidiary of Pendrell. In 2008, a jury in the California Superior Court for Los Angeles County awarded ICO $603 million after ICO accused Boeing of concealment and misrepresentation, Pendrell noted in a news release Tuesday. If granted a rehearing, ICO requests a new panel of justices after two justices recused themselves during the appeals process. Boeing had no comment. The California Court of Appeal, 2nd Appellate District, opinion last month (http://xrl.us/bm59nc) said that while evidence shows a conflict concerning whether the Delta III satellite was truly flight-ready as of May 5, 2000, a May 16, 2000, ICO memo also shows that ICO believed at the time that it was not flight-ready by that date. ICO doesn’t point to any evidence that anyone at Boeing concealed facts that would have strengthened ICO’s claim of termination, “or made misrepresentations that cast doubt on the validity of ICO’s claim, thereby adversely affecting ICO’s negotiation with Boeing Launch and causing ICO to accept less than a full refund,” Associate Justice Laurence Rubin said. The court reversed the order because evidence showed “that ICO waived its claim for breach of the satellite contract.” There was “insufficient evidence that Boeing Satellite’s alleged misrepresentations and concealments caused ICO’s alleged damages under the launch contract,” Rubin said. He also pointed to ICO’s agreement under an amendment, which held the company liable to pay Boeing $419.6 million to complete 10 satellites under an extended delivery schedule. In its petition, ICO rejected the court’s conclusion that it waived its breach claim by signing Amendment 25 (http://xrl.us/bm59ob). The original jury’s determination was supported in the satellite contract’s anti-waiver provision and “evidence demonstrating that BSSI acted inconsistently with a belief that a waiver had occurred,” the petition said. ICO also argues that its rights to due process were violated when Associate Justice Elizabeth Grimes, who was required to recuse herself, “participated in the court’s decision-making for up to 13 months through all the pre-oral argument preparation ... and near finalization of the opinion.” She was replaced by Presiding Justice Tricia Bigelow, who also recused herself. Bigelow was replaced “with another Justice just days before re-argument,” ICO said: This process did not “comport with due process under federal or state law.” The mobile satellite company is seeking a new panel of justices to hear the case “given ICO’s substantial concerns that opinions may have been influenced by justices who were later compelled to recuse themselves,” ICO said.
Cincinnati Bell intends to spin off its data center unit, CyrusOne, into a separate business and pursue an initial public offering to help pay down debt in its other units, the company said late Thursday. The company acquired CyrusOne in 2010 for $525 million. The company’s total wireless subscribers decreased to 446,000 at the end of Q1, from 504,000 in the year-ago quarter. But the company continued to grow its smartphone subscriber base and had a total of 126,000 smartphone customers at the end of the quarter, up from 111,000 from Q1 2011. The carrier’s Q1 profit of $13 million was down about 27 percent year over year. Total wireless revenue dropped to $64 million from $71 million. When Cincinnati Bell said recently it was considering options for the data-center business, analysts predicted that mergers and acquisitions among such operations industrywide would continue rising (CD Feb 14 p15).