July 2011

Sen Grassley Says FCC Has Been Nonresponsive on LightSquared

Sen Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) says Federal Communications Commission staffers ignored document requests about the FCC's communications with LightSquared and its backers and with the White House. Sen Grassley said in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that following an "unresponsive" answer to his May 10 request for information, his staff followed up and was told that the FCC "chose to intentionally ignore the document requests," and said that if a FOIA request was made for the same information, the process could be drawn out over a couple of years and the eventual documents would be "heavily redacted." "As none of this information was contained in the letter you sent to me, I am writing to see if it is in fact accurate and if so, explore the FCC's apparent decision to take an extreme position against transparency, which would stifle congressional oversight and public scrutiny in direct contradiction to President Obama's stated policies and instructions on open government," said Sen Grassley.

Report: DVR Households to Hit 51.3% in 2016

The number of households with digital video recorders will hit 63.1 million in 2016, up from 40.5 million at the end of the first quarter of 2011, according to a new On-Demand Quarterly report from media agency MagnaGlobal.

Magna says DVRs will be in 51.3% of TV households in 2016, compared to 34.7% at the end of the first quarter. Video-on-Demand households will reach 71 million, or 57.7% of TV households by 2016, up from 53.3 million, or 45.6% at the end of the first quarter, Magna says. Magna includes over-the-top services such as Netflix in its VOD universe. It estimates that by the end of 2011, 87,000 there will be 87,000 households totally reliant on OTT for their media consumption. That number will grow to 8.4 million by 2016, according to Magna, which now that most people who use Netflix, AppleTV and other services also are cable, DBS or telco video subscribers.

Sen Rockefeller Betting Online Gambling Will Help Reduce Deficit

Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has a long list of ideas for reducing the deficit and one of them calls for generating tax revenue by legalizing online gambling.

Last week, Chairman Rockefeller released 18 proposals that he said could generate $1.29 trillion over 10 years in deficit savings. The list includes a proposal for regulating and taxing online gambling, which he said could result in more than $41 billion in tax revenues over 10 years. "Establishing online gambling regulations will protect consumers, state's rights and state sovereignty, and eliminate a huge illegal market that today benefits only countries and companies overseas," Rockefeller's office said in a statement. Chairman Rockefeller is considering offering legislation to legalize online gambling and he believes the proposal should be on the table in deficit reduction talks.

Wi-Fi’s coming identity crisis

In the coming year, Wi-Fi will become a different animal than what we currently know and love. Thanks to carriers getting more involved in using Wi-Fi for network offload — as well as more devices seeking a Wi-Fi signal — this hippie technology is about to get the layers of security, authentication and manageability once reserved for cellular networks.

The mobile broadband service provider iPass has created a new service offering for mobile operators that allows them to offer the equivalent of Wi-Fi roaming, a key element to enabling carriers to charge for access to ubiquitous and quality-assured Wi-Fi. The new iPass service, called the Open Mobile Exchange, is only one of many data points in Wi-Fi’s slow transition from home networking tech for geeks to must-have for every mobile device, to perhaps another source of carrier revenue.

Can Android be Microsoft’s next $1 billion business?

Google last year said Android is a $1 billion business. Microsoft, it seems, may have similar plans for Google’s mobile operating system.

Thanks to a barrage of patent licensing agreements with Android manufacturers, including a potentially highly lucrative deal in the works with Samsung, Microsoft is on its way to making big money with Android. How much could it all be worth? Well, with 500,000 daily Android activations that Google recently reported, Microsoft could make $912 million in a year if it extracts $5 per activation on every Android smartphone or tablet sold. That’s how much it reportedly makes on each HTC Android device, as part of a licensing deal struck last year. It’s a long way to getting all Android makers to pony up, but you can see how big an opportunity this is for Microsoft, which is studiously lining up licensing deals with Android manufacturers. There are some 36 Android licensees as of May, making some 310 devices.

Stewart, ESPN and "Mad Men" Drive Cable

When cable executives want to make the parity argument going forward, the most firepower may come from Jon Stewart.

Cable reaches fewer homes and much of it is geared towards niche audiences. Yet even with those hurdles, Stewart topped both Leno and Letterman in key ratings in the second quarter, albeit if using original episodes only. Yes, a cable show outdrew "The Tonight Show," the American hearth when Johnny Carson held court and a continuing stalwart with Leno. And Letterman's top-10 list and notable guests were not enough to topple clips mocking Glenn Beck and more of Fox News. It wasn't a wipeout, the Hollywood Reporter reports: Stewart barely edged the NBC star, with an average of 1.295 million viewers (18 to 49 demo) versus 1.292 million. Letterman had 1.096 million. And when using the traditional metric for late night -- averages for all telecasts, including repeats -- Leno beat Stewart's "Daily Show" in the quarter handily, with averages of 1.283 million and 1.167 million, respectively. Still, more Americans get their late night from Comedy Central than from any other source? Seems like Comedy Central might still be able to play with the ABC News-rooted tagline.

USAID cellphone program aims to enhance Afghan media

The U.S. Agency for International Development is promoting a project to give Afghan mobile phone users free nationwide access to Afghanistan's newspaper, radio and TV news stories.

Here’s How A Subscription Service For E-books Could Work

Science fiction and fantasy publishers have been on the front lines of experimentation with e-book pricing and promotions. Now sci-fi/fantasy publisher Angry Robot has launched a new e-book subscription service that’s already showing results. Angry Robot is based in the UK (its titles are available globally), and a one-year subscription is £69 (about $110) -- about a third less than it would cost to purchase all of the titles individually. Subscribers get every Angry Robot e-book published over the next year -- a minimum of 24 titles.

We Got Game: Nielsen Figures Show Games Are The Most Popular Mobile Content

If the rankings you see of most popular apps -- and the IPO filing from mobile and social gaming giant Zynga and Tapjoy‘s recent $30 million round -- didn't already tell the story for you, Nielsen has spelled it out a bit more: games are the most popular category for mobile content.

Figures released by its analysts note that games are the biggest form of apps content and paid content; and that gamers on the iOS platform play games far more than those on other mobile operating systems. According to Nielsen’s figures, 93 percent of those who have downloaded apps in the last 30 days say that they would be willing to pay for games; compare that to news, at 76 percent. Overall, a whopping 64 percent of downloaders said they had downloaded a game—showing how, while games can be considered niche content by some, they are, at the end of the day, more mainstream than even weather apps.

Google dealing with privacy bugs in Google+

Google's new social networking site Google+, built to beat Facebook primarily on privacy features, has several privacy bugs the company is working to fix. While some enthusiastic beta testers clamor for Google to open the social networking site to everybody now, it's clear Google needs to address these issues before launching Google+ more broadly.

Benton

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