Rebecca Day

An FCC order approved last February requiring a redesign of cellphone signal boosters has booster-makers scrambling to bring products up to spec in time for CES, which opens Jan. 7 for a four-day run. Among the changes required by the order are threefold reductions in power limits and automatic shutoff features to avoid interference with cellular towers and wireless networks, John Crook, marketing communications manager of booster-maker Cellphone-Mate, told us. Cellphone-Mate is redesigning its SureCall line of cell signal boosters to comply with FCC specs set to go into effect March 1, Crook said, and four products are undergoing the testing process required by the FCC. The company supplies cell signal boosters for residential, automotive and commercial applications. Prices for 2014 SureCall products haven’t been set because the company hasn’t factored in re-engineering costs in the “thousands of dollars” along with $10,000-per-product testing fees, he said. Costs required to make boosters compliant could shrink the number of U.S. booster suppliers, Crook said. “It will be interesting to see how many companies remain in the U.S.,” he said, citing the “huge costs” involved in making existing product compliant. The ruling could deliver more booster sales for Cellphone-Mate because at a lower wattage, more boosters will be required to serve a large space, he said. Long term, the ruling is positive for booster makers that can weather the costs because as more customers cut out landlines in favor of cell services, marginal coverage areas will require signal boosters, Crook said. Those aren’t just in rural areas, he noted. Customers in large cities such as San Francisco struggle to receive a good cell signal due to large buildings and hilly terrain. Current SureCall residential booster kits -- including indoor and outdoor antennas, cables and the booster itself -- run in the $900-$1,000 range, he said. At that price, “you really have to want it,” he said.

Pandora had a 2.6 percent falloff in active listeners from September to October after the launch of iTunes Radio on Sept. 18, said Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews on the company’s earnings call after regular U.S. markets closed Thursday. He attributed the slippage to “casual” listeners experimenting with other streaming music services, “most likely iTunes Radio.” McAndrews said declines occurred during the first few weeks following the iTunes Radio launch and since then Pandora has seen active listeners “stabilize and begin to return to growth at the end of October.” Pandora’s share of total U.S. radio listening in October was 8.1, up from 6.6 percent a year ago and from 7.8 percent in September, McAndrews said. Total listener hours at Pandora grew to 4.18 billion for Q3, a 17 percent increase over the year-ago quarter and grew from 1.36 billion to 1.47 billion from September to October, he said. Year-over-year, the number of active listeners was up 20 percent to 70.9 million, he said, while advertising revenue grew to $144.3 million, up from $106.2 million in the year-ago quarter. Subscription revenue was also up, jumping to $36 million from $13.8 million in Q3 2012, the company said. Wedbush Securities maintained a “neutral” rating on Pandora, citing better-than-expected subscription and other revenue after Pandora removed its mobile listening limit, which analyst Michael Pachter said reflected “stickiness” with consumers. Wedbush had expected a subscription decline from Q2 with users reverting to Pandora’s free offering after the mobile listening limit was removed. Pandora’s $144 million Q3 ad revenue represented a slowdown in growth to 12 percent from 22 percent in Q2, said Pachter, who had expected growth of 20 percent from Q2 to Q3 due to Pandora’s efforts to build out its sales force in recent quarters. In the Q-and-A, McAndrews expressed concern about the “subscription balance” since licensing agreements favor the ad-supported, non-subscription model. While not speaking directly to a possible subscription price increase, McAndrews said subscribers “are obviously among our most loyal listeners, and it would be our job to make sure that we have the optimal pricing over time.” Pandora’s model is driven by free, ad-supported listening, he said, and “that’s where the biggest opportunity is.” Chief Financial Officer Mike Herring said, “It’s not that we discourage people to be subscribers,” but licensing agreements “disincentivize” the subscription model on a cost-per-hour basis versus the advertising model. An increase in the number Pandora’s ads per hour for the quarter did not negatively affect listener hours, Herring said.

Netflix launched what it called a “radically new look” to its screens Wednesday that it said presents a “richer and more immersive” experience for viewing on the big screen. The new design shows multiple cinematic images for each title, a “snappy description” and more personalized detail on why Netflix suggests particular content for a user, it said. The new design was scheduled to be delivered Wednesday by a new Netflix software platform that runs on set-top boxes, “recent model” smart TVs and Blu-ray players and game consoles, Netflix said. Devices supporting the new experience include PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Roku 3 and recent Smart TVs and Blu-ray players, said a news release. A Netflix spokesman told us any “newly bought Smart TV or Blu-ray player this holiday season will definitely have” the new look. Older devices “may get it, depending on the update cycles of the manufacturer,” he said. Consumers who “just bought” a late model TV or Blu-ray player have a good chance of getting the new experience, “but we can’t guarantee it,” the spokesman said. Additional devices, including other Roku boxes, will be added at a later date, Netflix said. It called the new design “the biggest change to the Netflix experience on televisions in our history, making it even easier” to find content to watch.

DENVER -- The connected device market is at a “transition point,” said Nest Labs CEO Tony Fadell during a Q-and-A session following his Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association Expo keynote speech Wednesday. “The old brands you have known are not necessarily the brands you are going to be installing in the next two or three years,” Fadell predicted, citing a “major sea change” that’s occurring in the cloud-based, app-driven world.

There’s really only one screen, said panelists in a session on content for the second screen at the Future of Television conference in New York Wednesday. Web browsing time has already surpassed the amount of time people spend watching TV, and this year app usage will jump past the amount of time consumers spend watching TV, said Craig Palmer, CEO of Wikia, a network of collaboratively published content. “So the only way you're going to create a really compelling second-screen content experience is make the second screen the first” and integrate content of the two screens from the start, he said.

MobiTV announced an HDMI dongle solution at the IBC2013 show that’s designed to give MVPDs a low-cost entry to TV Everywhere services. The dongle offers wireless, IPTV and DSL operators a way to enter the home, leverage existing customer relationships and broaden their branded offerings, the company said in a news release. With the dongle, MVPDs can take advantage of the second screen “as the tablet or smartphone becomes the remote control,” and create a better user experience in the living room, the company said.

Big-box retailers wasted no time spotlighting the upcoming arrival (CD Sept 12 p12) of the colorful, and discounted, iPhone 5c, we found in a scan of websites Monday. Target, which sent an email blast announcing the Sept. 20 arrival of the 5c, displayed 30 SKUs of the device in the full rainbow of colors, at $99 for the 16-GB version and $199 for the 32-GB model. The iPhone 5c will be available online and in stores on Friday via contracts for Sprint, Verizon and AT&T, Target said. Target is also selling 16-GB and 32-GB versions of the iPhone 5s, including the gold version, through the three carriers at $299 with two-year-contract. Walmart.com led with the iPhone 5c on its splash page Monday, also touting Friday’s launch date, and quickly followed with an ad for a $50 discount off the 16-GB iPad with Retina Display (now $449) and the 16-GB iPad 2, now $349. Walmart sweetened the pot for both iPads with a $50 iTunes gift card for the higher priced tablet and three $10 iTunes cards for the older model. Verizon offered a trade-in calculator on its website for a vast number of devices from various manufacturers and carriers. It was accepting trade-ins for Apple’s top competitor Samsung and its Galaxy S 4 for up to $189 for a 32-GB smartphone, while a 32-GB iPhone 5 on the Verizon network fetched $210. The iPhone 5’s predecessor, the 32-GB iPhone 4s, had a maximum trade-in value also of $210. On eBay, sales of the iPhone 5 jumped 44 percent in trade-in listings in the past month, said a news release issued by the online marketplace last week. As of Sept. 9, the day before Apple unveiled the 5c and 5s iPhones, the average selling price of a 16-GB iPhone 5 on eBay was more than $400. When we checked Monday, prices were still holding up for the iPhone 5 on eBay, where a 16-GB model on Verizon had a $266 price with 19 bids; a 16-GB AT&T model had 10 bids up to $315 with five minutes to go; a 32-GB Verizon model had 47 bids up to $520 with three minutes to go; and an unlocked 32-GB model was up to $555 on 42 offers with three minutes left.

Microsoft’s plan to acquire Nokia’s Devices and Services business for $7.2 billion is the first step in the acquirer’s steep climb to gain solid share in an increasingly brand-driven market dominated by iOS and Android mobile operating systems, analysts said Tuesday. “The branding of the phones to date has been the primary means of success” in the smartphone market, NPD analyst Stephen Baker told us. “The fact that Samsung stepped so far up in front of all the other Android brands shows that more and more the market for phones is a brand market versus an operating system market."

Cognitive Networks confirmed that its real-time data service is the automatic content recognition (ACR) technology adopted by LG for its smart TV platform (CD Aug 16 p9). LG is the first to adopt Cognitive’s solution, based on the cloud-based Engage service that provides real-time event triggers to application providers. The technology operates in the background of a program, such as Showtime’s Homeland, and provides intelligent synchronization between the “graphics plane and the video plane,” said Cognitive CEO Michael Collette, on a media tour in New York.

Coming from two different angles, Showtime and LG joined forces to deliver an automatic content recognition (ACR)-based interactive TV experience that runs on smart TVs rather than second-screen devices. For LG, it could be seen as a way to preserve the vitality of the TV -- and LG’s proprietary LivePlus platform -- when its turf is increasingly threatened by anytime/anywhere connected devices. For Showtime, the new platform could be seen as a way to broaden the reach of interactive TV by bringing it to a larger, more mainstream audience.