March 10-12 Air Cargo 2013, Red Rock Casino, Las Vegas (here)
Media company Q4 results: Suddenlink sales rose 7.1 percent to $524.6 million from the year-ago period as the cable operator added broadband, phone and digital video customers and raised video rates. The company lost 19,100 basic video subscribers during the quarter, with 1.21 million total on Dec. 31. “Bundling and promotional discounts and digital customers purchasing fewer digital tiers of service during the trailing twelve months” also hurt results, privately held Suddenlink said in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/VLDLxN). “Revenues for our commercial business grew due to increases in the number of commercial high-speed data and telephone customers and from increases in cell tower and backhaul revenues from carrier customers.” Income from operations fell 29 percent to $57.4 million. ... Nexstar sales rose 35 percent to $116.2 million from the year-earlier period as political ad revenue surged by well over 1,000 percent to $27.3 million during the runup to November’s elections. The political ad sales were “record-breaking,” said Chairman Perry Sook, in a Thursday news release (http://bit.ly/15AmXvB). It said retransmission fee revenue rose 56 percent to $16.1 million. “The big retrans year will be 2014,” analyst Marci Ryvicker of Wells Fargo wrote investors following the company’s earnings call. “Management expects the JSA situation to remain ’status quo,'” she wrote of a draft FCC order, now on hold, that would attribute TV joint services agreements to the station brokering more than 15 percent of another in-market station’s ads (CD Feb 27 p1). Nexstar Q4 income from operations doubled to $35.4 million from the year-ago quarter. The stock closed up 4.5 percent at $16.91 on Thursday ... Journal Communications Q4 sales rose 31 percent to $124.5 million from Q4 2011. Chairman Steven Smith cited “record political spending,” in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/W8BR9x). TV revenue rose 76 percent to $55.8 million. Retrans revenue rose by a quarter to $3 million. This quarter excluding political sales, broadcast revenue will rise by a percentage in the mid-single digits from the year-ago period, the company forecast. Last quarter’s operating earnings rose 92 percent to $27.2 million. Journal Communications shares closed up 9 percent at $6.27 on Thursday.
An International Service Agreement (ISA) should preserve the licensing and citizenship requirements for U.S. customs brokers, said the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) in comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Current regulations require that only U.S. citizens can obtain a broker's license and that at least one officer of a company or association must hold a valid broker's license in order to work on customs business. "These licensing and citizenship requirements are necessary and should be preserved in any" ISA, said the NCBFAA. CBP relies on the information entrusted to brokers and the ISA should provide an exception to "National Treatment," which gives equal treatment to domestic and foreign parties, said NCBFAA.
The FTC sued alleged text-message spammers and personal data collection website operators, it said Thursday. The U.S.-based defendants named in the eight actions allegedly sent at least 180 million unsolicited text messages alerting recipients that they had won free $1,000 gift cards to stores like Walmart and Best Buy, said Steve Baker, director of the FTC’s Midwest Region, during a press call. The text messages directed recipients to websites where they would have to enter contact and personal information and provide credit card information before they could receive the “free” gift cards, he continued. Baker said the agency received 20,000 complaints about these messages, with additional complaints received by the FCC.
The FTC sued alleged text-message spammers and personal data collection website operators, it said Thursday. The U.S.-based defendants named in the eight actions allegedly sent at least 180 million unsolicited text messages alerting recipients that they had won free $1,000 gift cards to stores like Walmart and Best Buy, said Steve Baker, director of the FTC’s Midwest Region, during a press call. The text messages directed recipients to websites where they would have to enter contact and personal information and provide credit card information before they could receive the “free” gift cards, he continued. Baker said the agency received 20,000 complaints about these messages, with additional complaints received by the FCC.
The U.S. Council for International Business urged Congress to move forward with CBP reauthorization legislation last month, submitting comments to the House Ways and Means committee on the two CBP bills introduced in 2012. USCIB commended various parts of the bills, HR-6642 and HR-6656, including automated commercial environment funding, the appointment of a trade advocate and codification of the Centers for Excellence and Expertise. The group also recommended changes to the bills, such as altering the importer requirements so they're not prohibitive for small and medium enterprises. The group also recommended eliminating what it called the bill’s “overly onerous” provision requiring brokers to collect information on the identity of importers. The group’s complete comments are here. Jerry Cook, chair of USCIB's Customs and Trade Facilitation Committee, said in a press release the group was hopeful the minute differences between last year's bills can be worked out soon. “We cannot afford to let the opportunity to achieve a long awaited customs reauthorization bill pass by.”
CBP posted a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) that outline the procedures and benefits of the mutual recognition program between the U.S. and the European Union. The program was recently implemented and is said to allow for better risk analysis through acceptance of the respective trusted trader programs -- Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) in the U.S. and Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) in the E.U. The FAQs say neither C-TPAT nor AEO customs brokers will directly benefit.
A new CBP reauthorization bill is expected to materialize in the coming months, say industry stakeholders, who are pushing for some changes to the CBP bills introduced last year but say they support those bills overall. The House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees are accepting comments on the two bills introduced in December: HR-6642 and HR-6656, which, other than language on antidumping and countervailing, are nearly identical. Observers pointed to new non-resident importer requirements and the severity of penalties allowed for providing inaccurate importer security filing data as parts of the bills they would like changed.
March 3-6 Trans Pacific Maritime conference, Long Beach Convention Center (here)
As technology rapidly changes the role of customs brokers, "importers and exporters will be increasingly dependent on brokers to provide data management, advice on valuation and classification, and to be the gateway to CBP programs," according to a new report on the role of brokers produced by the Pacific Coast Council of Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders (PCC). The report was submitted to Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar as part of its discussion with CBP policymakers over recent months on issues on the Role of the Broker.