Projected growth in U.S. auto sales should boost TV ad spending in 2012 and 2013, Moody’s said in a report on the rebounding auto sector. “TV is the most effective medium for auto advertising, and has a fixed level of inventory that magnifies the pricing impact of higher demand,” it said. Other media will benefit from increased auto ad spending, but not to the same extent as TV, the report said. The implications are the most positive for larger, diversified media companies, because they sell a higher proportion of their ads to large national advertisers, Moody’s said. CBS “stands to benefit the most from growing auto ad spending because it derives more than 50 percent of its revenue from its broadcast networks,” the report said. Viacom, Time Warner, Disney and News Corp. are also poised to benefit.
Microsoft added HBO Go, MLB.TV and Comcast’s Xfinity TV apps to its Xbox Live service, Larry Hryb, Xbox Live director of programming, said at his Major Nelson blog. All feature Kinect sensor integration, he said. But the apps are only available to paying Xbox Live Gold members.
NPR Digital Services will offer new streaming audience measurement and corporate sponsorship management services to member stations. NPR said it plans to help stations “grow their digital sponsorship revenue by more effectively presenting listeners with audio sponsorship messages,” while measuring audience and sponsorship impact. Stations using the service can produce “instant proof-of-performance affidavits that include accurate impression statistics,” the public-radio programmer said Tuesday. It said the service was developed in part by Triton Digital.
Granting CableCARD waiver requests from Adams Cable Equipment and Baja Broadband would “avoid economic and environmental waste” by allowing used integrated-security cable set-top boxes to be redeployed, give customers the option to buy lost-cost set-top boxes at retail, and allow Baja Broadband to manage subscriber demand for digital cable services until more FCC-compliant digital terminal adapters (DTAs) become available later this year, a lawyer for both companies said in an ex parte letter to the commission (http://xrl.us/bmzmj5). Consumers would be better off with a grant of the requested waivers, a fact that recent CEA pleadings in the proceedings distract from, the letter said. “CEA seems to be arguing that the Commission turn a blind eye to the facts (the high cost of CableCARD devices and the short supply of DTAs), and that it should only seek to address CEA’s wish list for the future (AllVid) while completely ignoring actual consumer needs and problems of the present,” the letter said.
The AFL-CIO is “deeply concerned” about the effect commercial agreements between Verizon Wireless and cable companies would have on “competition, consumer choice, network investment, jobs, and prices,” the labor group said in an FCC filing. It raised objections to Verizon’s proposed purchase of AWS licenses from SpectrumCo and Cox, and associated market agreements that were also unveiled in December (CD Dec 5 p1). “Prior to the announcement of this transaction, Verizon and the cable companies competed vigorously against each other,” AFL-CIO said (http://xrl.us/bmzkob). “This competition drove Verizon’s investment in its all-fiber FiOS network, sustaining thousands of good middle-class jobs and providing working families with access to a truly world class broadband network that competed with cable’s video and Internet access services. Now it appears that these formerly bitter rivals have declared a truce, choosing to collaborate rather than compete.” The deals would mean Verizon has less incentive to build out its FiOS network and that is bad for the economy, AFL-CIO said. “It will result in the loss of thousands of good, middle-class union jobs and represent a significant setback for workers’ rights in this country.” T-Mobile questioned whether Verizon has been able to show the deals are in the public interest. “In an effort to show public benefits from the Transactions, they reiterate the well known industry-wide need for spectrum resources to satisfy growing consumer demand for mobile broadband services,” T-Mobile said (http://xrl.us/bmzmeu). “However, such generalized benefits would be realized whenever any carrier obtains any additional spectrum -- and in this case, would be substantially greater if virtually any carrier other than spectrum-rich Verizon acquired the frequencies at issue.” Sprint Nextel raised similar concerns (http://xrl.us/bmzmmg). “The agreements between Verizon and the Cable Companies significantly change their commercial incentives, converting the owners of these wired ecosystems from natural competitors to comrades in arms, on an apparent mission to divide the markets for a wide range of services in a manner that would increase their profits, raise retail prices, and limit consumer choice."
As the number of BendBroadband’s Internet-only subscribers has steadily increased over the last few years, the problem of limiting their access from unencrypted basic-tier cable programming has intensified, Bend CEO Amy Tykeson told FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and an aide in a recent meeting, an ex parte notice shows (http://xrl.us/bmzmkf). The company was responding to questions raised by Boxee about why preventing broadband-only subscribers’ access to those signals had suddenly become a priority for the cable operator. “That trend is likely to continue -- among other reasons because companies like Boxee seek to urge customers to take our basic services without paying for them,” the notice said. Analog traps, the only alternative to encryption to prevent such signal theft, would hurt Bend’s ability to diagnose, repair and manage its cable system and would reduce broadband speeds, it said. “Interference degrades broadband and traps impair our ability to detect, isolate and respond to interference and other service-affective problems in the network,” it said. They also get in the way of using dynamic network management tools and can cause service outages, it said.
Reports that Newport TV Holdings is evaluating strategic alternatives could trigger “change of control” provisions in some of its debt, Moody’s said Tuesday. “Moody’s believes that depending on the deal structure, change of control protections under the indentures (requiring repayment of these notes at 101 percent) and under the credit agreement is likely to mitigate the potential negative impact of a sale of the company under a typical highly-leveraged LBO capital structure,” analyst Carl Salas said. A spokesman for Providence Equity Partners, which owns Newport, declined to comment.
The Co-Chairmen of the House Cybersecurity Caucus introduced a House resolution Tuesday that urges the U.S. to oppose any United Nations resolution that would allow regulation of the Internet. The bill aims to curb a recent UN proposal (http://xrl.us/bmzmis) by China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan that they said could allow foreign governments to censor the Internet. Such a proposal would be a “significant setback for anyone who believes free expression is a universal right,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. “It must be made clear that efforts to secure the Internet against malicious hacking do not need to interfere with this freedom and the United States will oppose any attempt to blur the line between the two.” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said: “Any action taken by the United Nations to attempt to limit Americans’ right to free and open Internet content is unacceptable.”
House Commerce Manufacturing Subcommittee Chair Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., on Tuesday introduced a companion cybersecurity bill to go with the Senate SECURE IT Act. The GOP-backed bill largely mirrors the Senate bill and includes new provisions to update the federal criminal code to account for cybercrimes. Bono Mack offered a thinly veiled criticism of the Senate Cybersecurity Act (S-2105) and said that her bill avoids a “heavy handed ‘gun-to-the-head’ approach” to cybersecurity. “The best way to fight cyber attacks in the future is to unleash that innovation in a cooperative, ‘we're-all-in-this-together’ effort,” Bono Mack said. “Just as importantly, we can accomplish all of this during these difficult economic times without creating a new bureaucracy and spending money that we don’t have, while protecting consumer privacy at the same time.” The bill breaks down legal barriers to increase voluntarily private sector information sharing; modernizes the Federal Information Security Management Act; updates federal criminal codes; and increases cybersecurity research. The bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. But Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said the bill would be “a major step backward in efforts to protect against the serious threat of severe economic and physical damage from a cyberattack,” in a separate statement. Langevin is a co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus and the author of the Executive Cyberspace Coordination Act (HR-1136).