IBiquity Digital downplayed the impact of a decision by the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC) suspending standard-setting efforts on in-band, on-channel (IBOC) digital radio because of problems with the system’s AM audio quality. IBiquity said it agreed with NRSC plan to delay the standards effort “temporarily” until the AM issue was resolved. The company emphasized the NRSC hadn’t expressed any concerns with IBOC’s “core system architecture or implementation,” including signal coverage, reception or functionality. It said the resolution would constitute a software upgrade and “no other changes to the system will be necessary. As such, we have an ongoing improvement plan and anticipate resolution of the AM audio quality issue as soon as possible.” The NRSC had been expected to complete IBOC standards work by early 2003. Ibiquity CEO Robert Struble said AM audio quality concerns amounted to “one very small piece of an overall system.” Struble said AM audio quality concerns were nothing new and were unrelated to the nighttime interference problems that persuaded the NRSC to recommend to the FCC that IBOC AM be approved for daytime use only, pending additional tests: “We're being challenged with the system’s low bit rates to deliver audio quality that the broadcasters find to be a significant upgrade over what they've got now.” Because the required improvements would entail only a software upgrade, Struble said, the NRSC action wouldn’t affect rollout of IBOC transmission equipment or receivers or endanger FCC approval. The serious concerns about AM audio quality were sparked by recent private demonstrations for NRSC DAB Subcommittee members at NPR studios in Washington, where it was found iBiquity’s 36-kbps PAC compression technology was not “suitable for broadcast,” according to a memo we obtained. The memo from NRSC subcommittee Chmn. Milford Smith of Greater Media informed members the NRSC was suspending IBOC standards-setting until AM audio problems can be resolved. The NRSC’s original evaluations and “subsequent positive recommendations” of AM and FM IBOC were based on an algorithm different than that now being used in iBiquity system, the memo said. iBiquity “has chosen to move forward” with a 36-kbps PAC codec that drew the ire of members at the NPR demonstrations, the memo said. Smith, speaking as chmn. of NRSC DAB subcommittee, said a majority is “of the opinion that before we can go forward and say we have an AM audio solution it does need to improve over where it is now.” But, speaking as a broadcaster, Smith said “we're all very enthusiastic about in-band on-channel. It is a wonderful system, there’s just a portion of it that has a problem. That problem needs to be rectified, and then I think we're going to have the solution we've been looking for all these years.”
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
The FCC should move quickly to adopt the industry agreement on cable compatibility, the NCTA said in the latest round of comments to the Commission, and objections by the MPAA and others should be dismissed because the proposed rules were modeled on those already developed for secure digital connectors and agreed to by MPAA studios and others. The CEA and the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition agreed, but MPAA and others said hasty Commission action would be harmful and unnecessary.
ReplayTV’s new owner doesn’t believe it will be a party to the suit filed by major entertainment companies against former ReplayTV owner SonicBlue. D&M Holdings, which announced Wed. it had won a bankruptcy court auction bid to acquire ReplayTV and Rio assets from SonicBlue for $36.2 million, believes it’s “not a party” to the copyright infringement suit, D&M CEO Merle Gilmour told our affiliate Consumer Electronics Daily.
XM Satellite Radio filed a $400 million insurance claim in the first quarter as a long-term hedge against the “progressive degradation” of its 2 orbiting Boeing 702-class satellites because of a previously disclosed design flaw, the company said in a 10-K report filed with the SEC. At present, the output power of the satellites’ solar array and broadcast signal strength were above “minimum acceptable levels, and are expected to remain that way until at least through 2005,” XM said, repeating the wording of earlier SEC filings. XM has launch and in-orbit insurance policies for coverage against total or partial loss of either satellite ($200 million per satellite, less applicable salvage) if such loss occurs within 5 years after launch, the 10-K said. The satellites had initial useful lives of 17.5 years, but life expectancy has been downgraded to 6.75 years, sufficient at current estimates to keep them operating at minimum levels through first quarter 2008, the 10-K said. A spare ground satellite has been modified to fix the solar array problem, but the company lacks the capital to launch it or replace its 2 existing orbiting satellites, the filing said. The company said it believes it ultimately will receive insurance payments adequate to launch the spare and start work on a new satellite.
The proposed plug-and-play agreement on cable-CE compatibility (CD April 1 p5), although “potentially a very significant step” toward offering consumers “additional choices with respect to cable TV… contains some critical flaws,” TiVo told the FCC in comments. The accord signed by CE and cable companies wouldn’t do “nearly enough” to assure small innovative companies such as TiVo that they would have the ability to innovate in a market for competitive navigation devices that were “at least as good as set-top devices provided to consumers by MSOs,” the filing said. It urged the FCC to “expressly confirm” that the agreement would enable marketing of navigation devices “that consumers can directly attach to their DTV receivers” for cable-TV service reception “without the need for a set-top box provided by the cable operator.” TiVo also said the proposed encoding rules were “anticonsumer and should not be enacted.” Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the FCC to “clarify and reaffirm” Commission rules that basic-tier cable services, digital or analog, “remain unencrypted.” EFF argued that consumers “should, at a minimum, continue to have access to an unscrambled basic tier of cable service,” including any over-the-air digital or analog programming retransmitted. If cable providers were to encrypt basic-tier digital services, consumers would need to use point of deployment (POD) modules to receive that content, EFF said: “If this is the case, then the MOU would be tantamount to a technology mandate on all devices that can connect to digital cable services.”
A trial date is set for April 3 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Richmond, Va., to resolve the dispute between Sirius and the supplier of its subscriber management system, Sirius said in a 10-K report filed with the SEC. At issue are Sirius allegations that Sentraliant, a Glen Allen, Va., firm that developed and operates Sirius subscriber management system, had breached its agreement with Sirius because the system had unspecified “defects” that Sentraliant had failed to correct, the 10-K said. Sirius in Nov. threatened to terminate the agreement with Sentraliant if the problems weren’t corrected by Jan. 3, and later extended the deadline to Jan. 17, it said. The 10-K said Sentraliant had maintained that the issues in dispute had been resolved earlier, that defects cited by Sirius were “enhancements” in the system that Sirius hadn’t yet authorized, or that the defects weren’t material. Sentraliant filed a Chapter 11 petition Jan. 15 and a week later asked the Bankruptcy Court for a judgment requiring Sirius to pay it $150,000 in fees owed, the 10-K said. Sentraliant also is seeking a declaratory ruling from the court that its Sirius agreement still is in force and that the system is free of material defects, the 10-K said.
Full and “expeditious” approval of the FCC rulemaking encompassing the “plug-and-play” agreement on cable-CE interoperability (CD Dec 20 p1) was urged in joint comments filed at the Commission by the CEA and Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC). Others, including broadcasters and the MPAA, disagreed.
Emboldened by shareholder approval of a major new funding plan that it said removed “major roadblock” toward reaching cash-flow breakeven by late 2004, XM Satellite Radio Thurs. stood by its earlier projections of achieving 1.2 million subscribers by the end of 2003, despite the tough CE economy. CEO Hugh Panero told financial analysts in a conference call to discuss results for 4th quarter ended Dec. 31 that XM had the most successful quarter to date in terms of subscriber and revenue growth. The company ended the year with 347,159 total subscribers, including 145,065 added in the 4th quarter alone. It said the 4th quarter accounted for 40% of the year’s total subscriber growth. XM said it expects to add 130,000 new subscribers in the first quarter, about 2-1/2 times the growth rate in the same quarter a year earlier. Net subscriber additions are expected to grow steadily in the 2nd and 3rd quarters before rising “steeply” again in the 4th quarter on holiday season selling buzz and the arrival of more XM-equipped 2004-model cars on dealer lots, the company said. Panero said: “XM should end 2003 with a firmly established mass-market entertainment service and be in a solid position to reach cash flow breakeven in late 2004.”
About a dozen stations nationally were operating digital in-band, on-channel (IBOC) HD Radio as of mid-Feb., said licensor iBiquity Digital in comments to the FCC opposing a petition by Amherst Alliance and others to reconsider the Commission’s Oct. 2002 decision approving HD Radio as an IBOC digital AM and FM system. Repeating announcements at the Jan. Las Vegas CES, iBiquity said about 130 AM and FM stations owned by 46 groups and operating in 26 states had licensed HD Radio technology and planned to begin transmissions early this year. “This strong introduction of HD Radio technology among broadcasters is accompanied by a corresponding receiver rollout” in which many CE companies are participating, iBiquity said. Given the FCC’s “compelling conclusions” endorsing IBOC last Oct., iBiquity said there was “a large burden on any party seeking to change the Commission’s findings,” and opponents hadn’t met that burden. IBiquity said filings by Amherst Alliance suggest it “will use any possible procedural argument in an attempt to delay the introduction of IBOC services.” The NAB, in separate comments, agreed that adopting a “piecemeal” approach to nighttime AM IBOC would be premature and urged the FCC to “await additional data,” including a nighttime AM IBOC report being prepared by iBiquity. John Anderson, who said he was a party to the Amherst Alliance petition for reconsideration, said he found it “laughable” that iBiquity cited 1% station adoption rate as amounting to “strong introduction among broadcasters.” He said that in light of fact that iBiquity was backed by big investors from broadcast industry, “one would have to say that, in general, the radio industry is not happy with its investment.”
Declaring that some of most “egregious” examples of false or deceptive weight-loss ads permeated cable infomercials and other media “with the notable exception of network TV,” FTC Chmn. Timothy Muris used keynote at Cable Ad Conference in N.Y.C. Tues. to urge cable industry’s help to promote voluntary screening program to weed out worst offenders. Muris sought to allay fears that screening would be too broad in scope or raise First Amendment concerns, and said goal wasn’t to impose mandatory “network-style clearance procedure for weight loss ads.”