November 2010

BBC Journalists Call Off Strike

BBC journalists have called off a strike scheduled for next week, saying that management had agreed to meet with union leaders to try to resolve a dispute over proposed pension cuts.

The National Union of Journalists, which represents 4,100 of 17,200 workers at the BBC, said its willingness to resume talks was dependent on management's dropping disciplinary action against three employees in the United States after a strike last week. The BBC said it had agreed to meet with representatives of the five unions representing the company's employees to discuss "points of clarification" to the pension proposal.

Christine O'Donnell haunted by Ghost of TV Appearances Past

Christine O'Donnell, the tea party darling from Delaware, was fighting late-night terrorism when she declined to appear on Bill Maher's weekly HBO show during her recent Senate campaign, she explained to NBC late-night host Jay Leno.

Maher had a boatload of O'Donnell clips -- more than a decade ago, she was a frequent guest on his previous late-night show, "Politically Incorrect" -- including one in which she talked about having dabbled in witchcraft (hence her "I'm not a witch" campaign ads). As Election Day neared, Maher told viewers he would run an O'Donnell clip every week until she came on the show, which she never did -- so he did. "I wanted to do the show. We just couldn't get it worked out," O'Donnell said. "And then, my sister and I were watching the show when Bill made his threat, and I just thought . . . whether it's a comedian or a terrorist, you should not respond to threats."

Charter Follows Comcast With Broadband Usage Caps

Charter Cable plans to start enforcing monthly data caps on its users in December.

The cable operator will also implement a congestion management plan similar to the one Comcast designed after it got in trouble with the Federal Communications Commission for blocking P2P files in 2008. Charter will start notifying excessive users next month to make them aware of their usage patterns, to help identify possible causes (e.g., unsecured wireless routers or viruses) and review security options with these customers to reduce the risk of unauthorized Internet use. Charter doesn't yet have a tool to help those customers measure their use, but it is working on one. Currently, 98 percent of Charter's 5.2 million customers will be unaffected by the decision to enforce the caps.

22% of Americans Canceled or Cut Back Cable TV in Last Six Months

Harris Interactive estimates that about one in five Americans canceled or scaled back their cable TV service in the last six months to save money.

An online poll found that about 22% of respondents said they downgraded or eliminated their cable TV service, and another 21% considered it over that time. 28% of consumers 34 to 45 (Gen Xers) said they canceled or cut cable, followed by the 46-64 baby boomers (23%) and 18-33 Echo Boomers (22%). Of the 65-plus "matures" cohort, just 13% said they dropped or cut back cable TV. Meanwhile, 17% of respondents said they canceled their landline phone service and are only using their cell phone, while another 17% have changed or canceled cell phone service.

The most popular money-saving measures on the Harris poll: 62% of U.S. consumers have been purchasing more generic brands in the last six months, and about 45% are brown-bagging lunch instead of purchasing it.

iPad Users (And Would-Be Users) More Likely to Ditch Cable TV

The Internet hasn't killed cable TV (yet). Nor has Google TV. But the iPad might.

A study from the Diffusion Group (TDG) claims that iPad users and intenders--that is, people who plan to buy iPads in the next few months--are more likely than regular adult broadband users to downgrade or cancel their pay TV services. According to the study, a third of iPad owners are "likely" to cancel their pay TV service sometime in the next six months, and 12.9% are "highly likely" to cancel their service. In comparison, 13.5% of iPad intenders and 9.6% of average adult broadband users are likely to cancel their service.

It gets even worse when the possibility of downgrading comes into play: A whopping 35.5% of iPad owners and 29.5% of intenders are to varying degrees likely to downgrade their pay TV service, compared to 20.7% of regular broadband users. For some perspective, Apple sold 4.19 million iPads last quarter.

Cable TV networks are caught between a rock and an iPad, in effect. They could try to offer subscriptions on the tablet but that might cause a further collapse in their cable audience. Alternatively, networks and content creators might expand their online offerings in an attempt to increase viewership. It's hard to say at this point which tactic will work -- but we have a sneaking suspicion that cutting iPad user access to high-quality content won't be the best tactic in the long run.

Health IT Facing Consolidation

A report from financial advisory firm Marlin & Associates predicts that the US healthcare information technology market is in the early phases of a massive consolidation that will ultimately translate into a handful of mega firms that form healthcare IT "superstores," or healthcare information networks.

The report notes that the confluence of technologies is at a pivotal point to enable radical changes at relatively reasonable costs. In addition to continuing advancement in the field of medicine, major breakthroughs in telecommunication, data management, infrastructure, and analytics technologies have laid the foundation for more innovative solutions for the industry. "The responses reveal that the social and economic imperatives for a better healthcare system have never been so pronounced," said Afsaneh Naimollah, co-author of the report and a partner at Marlin & Associates, in a statement. "Solving the cost of healthcare from the fringes has never worked. Now, with the healthcare IT mandates in the federal healthcare reform bill, coupled with a stream of superior technologies, we are finally in a position for technology to have a measurable impact on the costs and the quality of care delivery."

Mexican Billionaire Salinas Goes After Televisa With New Cable-TV Service

Ricardo Salinas, Mexico's second-richest person, is challenging Grupo Televisa SA with a new cable-TV service in the nation's capital. Total Play, a unit of Salinas's Mexico City-based mobile-phone carrier Grupo Iusacell SA, offers packages of video, Web and phone service in 13 Mexico City neighborhoods, with plans to expand. The video service gives closely held Iusacell, which began offering Internet and land-line phone calls in parts of Mexico's three biggest cities this year, a new way to lure customers from Televisa, which controls three of the nation's largest cable-TV carriers. Salinas's TV Azteca SA is the second- biggest broadcaster in Mexico after Televisa. Total Play's packages of video, voice and Internet range from 649 pesos to 1,399 pesos ($53 to $114) a month. The cheapest plan has download speeds of as much as 5 megabits a second. The comparable package at Televisa's Mexico City carrier Empresas Cablevision SAB costs 699 pesos a month.

Internet TV battles come to head at FCC

Changes in the television marketplace have been fast and furious in recent months, and soon more tumult may come by way of the Federal Communications Commission. A push to break open the technology of the television set top box, and the FCC's review of Comcast and NBC Universal's proposed merger, could chart a new course for the industry as the Internet and television collide, observers said.

First, media and communications firms are watching to see if the FCC proposes a rule in coming months that would standardize set-top-box technology and loosen the grip of cable and satellite providers over the gateway device to the television. The All Video (known as AllVid) idea was first introduced in the FCC's broadband plan last spring, and the agency said it would aim for a December proposal for concrete rules. Observers say the agency is more likely to introduce a policy proposal in early 2011.

Second, the agency's review of Comcast and NBC Universal's merger is now being cast by competitors and public interest groups as the nexus of many hot-button issues in the telecom and media industries. The FCC recently asked Comcast dozens of additional questions about its merger, many related to contract negotiations with content programmers and how the merger could affect online video distribution deals. Analyst Rebecca Arbogast of Stifel Nicolaus said the FCC's review could extend into early 2011.

Barton gets help from former committee heads in effort to House Commerce Committee

Former House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer (R-TX), former House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bud Shuster (R-PA) and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) -- former chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure and House Natural Resources panels -- have sent a letter to the House GOP Majority Transition Team in support of Rep Joe Barton's bid to regain the chairmanship of the House Commerce Committee.

"We believe he deserves that second term now, and that neither the spirit nor the letter of the rule was ever intended to prevent it," they said. A 17-year-old Republican Conference rule states, "No individual shall serve more than three consecutive terms as chairman or ranking member of a standing, select, joint or ad hoc committee or subcommittee." But Archer, Shuster and Young point out that Senate Republicans "adopted the same ambiguous language and have since clarified it to mean that no one can serve more than six years as chairman and six years as ranking member."

Regardless, House GOP leaders are looking to get rid of Rep Barton, who they say ignored their calls to replace his staff director and made an embarrassing gaffe by apologizing to BP during a hearing in the midst of this summer's Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Rep Barton quickly apologized for that apology and has since raised a lot of money for fellow Republicans.

Washington Post Still King, But Online newcomers Storm Gates

Politics isn't the only battle raging in the nation's capital these days. Media companies, too, are using sharp elbows -- and new technology -- in a grab for online readers.

The stakes are high. While the Washington metro area is the nation's ninth largest in terms of population, it's fifth from the top when it comes to local online ad spending, according to media consultants Borrell Associates. A full $500 million is expected to be spent on local online advertising here this year, reports Borrell, and that amount is projected to almost double -- to nearly $914 million -- by 2015. The big guy in the fight is The Washington Post, whose Web site is visited by almost half of the area adults during a given month, according to the spring survey by The Media Audit, a local and syndicated market and media research firm based in Houston. But nipping at its heels is a growing array of D.C.-area Web sites. The most aggressive challenge these days is Allbritton Communications, which has leveraged its ownership of ABC affiliate WJLA and regional cable network NewsChannel 8 into two lively, well-funded Web sites.

Benton

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