August 2014

ESPN Pays Four Times the Going Rate to Air NFL Games

According to published reports, ESPN pays roughly double what the three broadcast networks do for the rights to air National Football League games, $1.9 billion per year.

ESPN aired the fewest games, with only 17. But unlike the other networks, which have to share the fans’ attention on Sundays, ESPN owns Monday -- a weeknight in prime time.

Not surprisingly, Monday Night Football is the highest-rated show on cable television and the highest-rated show for young men. ESPN has been able to pass along its additional costs to the cable operators -- which, in turn, pass them to the customer to the tune of $6/month/subscriber.

Why Would Anyone Watch Twitch?

[Commentary] A great deal of the bafflement over Amazon’s purchase of Twitch comes from people who, like me, are too old to understand gaming on a deep-down, emotional level.

It’s a gaping generational chasm: For the younger cohort that populates Twitch, there’s nothing weird at all about passing an evening watching, learning, and chatting about the pastime they adore.

Numbers Game: Behind Consumers’ Desire For Connected TV

Most people looking for a new device for watching video want a big screen TV, and they want one that allows them to stream content -- or at least that is what is strongly suggested by findings of a qualitative study conducted for the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) by GfK.

We found that the dominant consideration driving video-device purchase and usage decisions was content, and that consumers demand devices that can stream content -- to enable time-shifting or binge-watching, for example. All participating households, regardless of demographic or technographic differences, sought ways to stream content, while some sought to “cast” content from one device to another.

Our longitudinal ethnography exposed us to what we and the research team have coined “hyper viewing.” We learned that special viewing events and favorite shows compel these behaviors: Pronounced simultaneous, multiscreen usage and mobile viewing; continuous conversation via social media, IM, in-person and remote chats; and the use of new applications, websites and platforms in the effort to enjoy an enhanced viewing experience.

[Brink is VP Digital Research & Analytics at Scripps Networks; Cowan is director, analytics and insight at MEC]

President Obama Asks Todd Park to Continue Administration Service in New Role after Returning to Silicon Valley

President Barack Obama has asked US Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President Todd Park to take on a new role for the Administration as a technology advisor based in Silicon Valley.

Park will begin the new role in September after he and his family have returned home to California.

Park’s focus will be recruiting more top tech talent like Mikey Dickerson into government and identifying innovative ways to improve the quality of government digital services, two central goals of the President’s Smarter IT Delivery agenda. He will also help ensure that the Administration has an on-the-ground sense of how technology is evolving and can craft policy and initiatives accordingly.

Broadband pilots could serve as models for other states

Arkansas and Virginia have teamed up with EducationSuperHighway to design a cost-effective plan for meeting President Barack Obama’s goal of ensuring broadband access for every student.

EducationSuperHighwayis surveying the available bandwidth in Arkansas and Virginia classrooms. The group then will assess what broadband technologies are available in each state.

To take an inventory of the current state of Internet access in Arkansas and Virginia classrooms, EducationSuperHighway is analyzing E-rate requests for each of these states’ schools, among other data.

FCC Seeks Comment On The Accessibility Of Communications Technologies

This Public Notice seeks comment on tentative findings for the 2014 Biennial Report to Congress on the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA).

Public comment will assist the Federal Communications Commission in assessing the following: (1) the level of compliance with the CVAA’s mandates requiring telecommunications and advanced communications services and equipment to be accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities; (2) the effect of related recordkeeping and enforcement obligations; and (3) the extent to which accessibility barriers still exist with respect to new communications technologies.

The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau will submit the final Report to Congress by October 8, 2014. Interested parties may file comments on or before September 11, 2014.

Next-Gen TV Tops New NAB Tech's Agenda

A Q&A with Sam Matheny, new executive vice president and chief technology officer of National Association of Broadcasters.

Matheny said he’s trying to identify the major trends and threats so broadcasters can stay competitive. Among items on his plate: working with ATSC and broadcasters on the development of a next-generation TV that has to be robust enough -- and flexible enough -- to serve the needs of any broadcast business plan.

“Part of my job is really going to work with all broadcasters and have them feed into the NAB TV technology committee as well as the ATSC so that we can move together as an entire industry, not just parts and pieces,” Matheny said.

US wireless users may get to share military spectrum

The US military might have to share its radar frequencies with mobile broadband providers under a plan the Federal Communications Commission continued to flesh out under the name Citizens Broadband Radio Service.

The proposed rules could allow sharing a wide band of spectrum spanning 3550MHz to 3700MHz. Parts of that spectrum are home to high-powered military radar, especially within 200 miles of US coastlines, which is also home to a majority of the country's population.

To prevent interference, the FCC calls for using a dynamic database to keep track of where and when the frequencies can be used.

NewWave Sets Stage for 1-Gig

NewWave Communications is gearing up to bring 1 Gbps speeds to a handful of rural markets in 2015, and said it will use the emerging DOCSIS 3.1 platform to deliver them.

NewWave will start the deployment in the fourth quarter of 2014 and intends to boot up Gigabit-class services to residential and business customers in a handful of markets -- Poplar Bluff (MO), where it competes with AT&T, and in Monroe, Rayville, Delhi and Tallulah (LA), where it tangles with a mix of municipal and local service providers.

Phil Spencer, CEO of NewWave and Rural Broadband Investments, said it made sense to focus on those initial markets first because the infrastructure there is well-prepared to take on the upgrade.

Guns, butter and broadband: How technology has finally emerged as a viable campaign issue

[Commentary] The New York Times has endorsed Tim Wu, the progressive candidate for New York lieutenant governor, in its editorial pages. The endorsement is a sign that technology, long relegated to the fringes of political discussion, has finally become a dinner-table issue and the basis for a viable campaign platform.

As the Web keeps taking over ever larger chunks of the economy, the policies that govern it have become increasingly relevant to the average consumer. Large, public debates like the one involving SOPA and PIPA, or cellphone unlocking, or net neutrality, have a direct effect on what Americans can do with their connected devices and the services layered on top of them. And that's made tech a hot-button issue.

Benton

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