Headlines, Broadcasting

The Open Mobile Video Coalition today released a white paper prepared by IDC called "Assessing the Mobile DTV Opportunity and Its Role in the United States' Communication Ecosystem."

Reacting to the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan and its call for transferring a big hunk of TV broadcasting spectrum to wireless broadband, proponents of broadcasting's nascent mobile DTV service said that the service is better than broadband for delivery of mobile video and that the government should not choke off the spectrum needed for it.

The FCC is now seeking comment from all interested persons to assist the Commission in its independent review of this proposed transaction.

In the wake of last month's heated Senate hearing with executives from NBC and Comcast, Sen Al Franken (D-MN) wanted some guarantees that the companies would continue to offer their content online on sites like Hulu.com after the proposed merger.

The Federal Communications Commission will undertake a review of the retransmission consent rule amid the growing contentiousness between broadcasters and cable operators on carriage agreements, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said...

Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes.

The honeymoon for the National Broadband Plan ended quickly.

The National broadband Plan calls for freeing up 300MHz starting just below the UHF zone (300MHz to 3GHz) to be made "newly available for mobile use within five years."

The National Broadband Plan comes down to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski saying this to broadcasters: We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way, but, make no mistake, we are going to take back 120 MHz of your spectrum and sell it to wireless providers so that more Americans can have faster mobile access to the Internet.

GAO found major broadcasters produced about 76 to 84 percent of prime time programming hours.