What do you do to program your radio or TV stations economically and enable you to monetize them during a rough period of performance operation? The answer: use a programming service or supplier. Better yet, an established network to provide the programming. In the case of Television, there is AMG TV.  This little known gem of a programming oasis in a sea of crap generated by today’s major networks is just screaming to be discovered by those TV stations both full power and low power, cable systems and digital stations as well.  Check out their programming at www.amgtv.tv and you too will see the quality and type of programming that’s available for your station on a market-exclusive basis, with a basic commitment, and free of charge. All you need do is carry the programming and give up several minutes per hour of commercial programming.  Not bad, considering you save on all sorts of programming costs to yourself and your company.

The type of programming, movies, sports features and event shows are equal to or better than many of the so-called major networks today.  You will find that AMG TV and other independent networks as well, such as My Family TV, will allow you to present quality programming delivered by satellite to your market for little or no cost to you, the TV stations, and you can then turn around and promote and exclusive network affiliation and sell the local time on the station the same as any other TV station in your market would.  It is a great opportunity for many independent TV stations to take advantage of.  There seem to be an abundance of cable TV networks, but not too many when it comes to providing network coverage over the air.

The same can be said for radio. In today’s PPM environment, many stations are diving into an already competitive marketplace, competing for diminishing numbers in a market (those under 35) that are increasingly utilizing other media sources than radio to deliver their music and some entertainment.  The only segment of the market that will prove to be radio-friendly in the future is the over 45 crowd — those that grew up with radio and it has become a companion and friend and second nature for them to use as a source of entertainment and music, provided there is still music and entertainment for them to listen to.  How about programming your losing station with an alternative format?  One that will build loyalty as well as provide you with a standalone format in your market which will give you market exclusivity, and at a cost that is virtually free? Well, you have to give up three or four minutes per hour, but you have lots of commercial time anyway. And with an exclusive format, and a concerted sales effort on the part of your staff, you will become profitable without a major investment of money or cost for programming services and music.

I am talking about an established format, aimed at the over 45 crowd, a well established brand image like  “The Music Of Your Life”  and other adult standards formats,  or a “True Oldies” format like that created by Scott Shannon that actually plays many of the oldies you don’t hear elsewhere.  One format I favor that is often overlooked in many markets is that of a Classic Country station, playing many of the oldies of the great country music eras of years gone by.  It has worked for old rock and roll, why not Country?   What better way to serve a segment of your market that is well being missed by the Alternative Rock, Country and Hot AC stations of today?  Even some Oldies stations have become boring as most oldies formats only repeat some 500 to 800 titles and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. How many times can you play the same old burned out oldie?
Look for a programmed format that has an established image ready to market in your community. People already know the brand name after years of promotion and exposure in the medium.  It’s unique, it’s well programmed and free to your station.  All you have to do is exchange some air time during the hour and you have a format that is unique and exclusive in your market.  I myself rep a couple of these networks and can help you make arrangements to secure them for your station. Either way — TV or Radio — there are cost-effective alternatives to the programming expense involved today in trying to establish your station in a competitive environment that’s constantly changing and threatened with cost over runs and reduced ad income.  Something to remember when you’re building your digital platforms or changing your format to compete more effectively.

–Bill James is a radio programming consultant and TV media rep operating out of Richmond, Virginia with some 40 plus years in the industry — both radio and TV. (804) 231-0868 www.billjamesprogramming.com

Lanzano, who brings 28 years of advertising experience to his new post, maintained that despite ongoing fragmentation within the media landscape, TV remains the premier medium for advertisers and agencies.

"The latest TVB Media Comparison Study shows by every measure that television reaches more consumers every day than newspapers, magazines, radio and the Internet, and that more people spend more time with TV than with any other medium," he maintained. "That same study also shows that 71% of people learn about products and brands from television. Our competitors are left in the dust."

Since joining the TVB from MPG US, where he oversaw all client accounts and led strategic and operational duties for MPG’s marketing service professionals across the country, Lanzano has become bullish about the power of mobile DTV.

"Mobile is such an exciting opportunity because consumers overwhelmingly want the ability to watch live programming on their mobile devices," he said. "Advertisers are beginning to see mobile DTV as the next great marketing opportunity."

Lanzano also used his 30-minute presentation to stress how local TV broadcasters need to see the Internet — not as a rival to television — but as a complement. "Television ads drive consumers to the Web," he emphasized.

Lanzano concluded that TV stations’ websites are a also becoming a significant growth contributor to station revenues. "Local broadcast TV interactive revenues are projected to hit $1,361 million in 2010, up from $1,153 million in 2009," he said. "I believe this revenue will only continue to grow."

Copyright 2010 NewsCheckMedia LLC. All rights reserved.

This article can be found online at: http://www.tvnewscheck.comhttp://www.tvnewscheck.com/articles/2010/06/29/daily.9/.
Please visit http://www.tvnewscheck.com/ for more on this and other breaking news concerning the TV broadcasting industry.

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Following President Obama’s announcement last week that the White House would take up the cause of finding 500 MHz of additional spectrum from wireless broadband services, Larry Summers, director of the President’s National Economic Council, gave a speech in which he talked about how some of that spectrum could be gotten from broadcasting.

"New technologies can now support more than one high-quality signal in a space that previously could only fit one, enabling multiple stations to share a band of spectrum and free up an equal amount for other purposes," he said before the pro-broadband New America Foundation.

New technology can now support more than one high-quality signal in a space that previously could only fit one.

Really?

Not according to the Broadcasting Engineering Forum, an assemblage of mostly top broadcast engineers that the FCC convened on June 25 to address various technical issues surrounding the FCC’s (and now the president’s) plan to take back about a third of broadcast spectrum and auction it off for wireless broadband.

According to the forum’s panel on video compression and channel sharing, you really can’t put two "high-quality" signals on one broadcast channel, if by "high-quality" you mean high-definition and I don’t know how else you would define it in the second decade of the 21^st century.

Speaking for that panel, Andy Setos of Fox said that channel sharing is"not viable" because one or both of the signals would be "significantly degraded."

"Ultimately, when you are required to do this, you are forced to create a winner and loser in HD streams," he said.

Part of the problem is that the MPEG-2 compression scheme used by broadcasters is now almost 20 years old and unlikely to yield much more help in squeezing fat pictures through small spaces, he said. And moving to MPEG-4 compression is impractical since it would involve replacing the tens of millions of new digital TV sets that have been sold over the past decade, not to mention the 50 million digital-to-analog converters that were bought and painfully installed during the final DTV transition.

Of course, he said, you could put an HD and a degraded HD or an HD and an SD signal on one broadcast channels, but the owner of the inferior signal would not have much of a chance in a TV world that will soon be all HD. It would be like trying to make your way as a B&W TV service after color had taken over.

To sum up, the panel of experts represented by Setos severely undermined one of the cornerstones of the FCC’s plan to take back broadcast spectrum.

And so did the forum’s other three panels — on band repacking, cellularization of the broadcasting system and VHF propagation.

Speaking for the repacking panel, Bruce Franca of the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV) said recovering 120 MHz of broadcast spectrum as the FCC intends could not be done without a massive amount of channel sharing, something most broadcasters are loath to even consider. More than 700 TV stations in 85 heavily populated markets would have to share channels. In 21 of the markets, including New York and Chicago, every station would have to share. In 12, some stations would have to triple up.

Speaking for the VHF panel, Victor Tawil of MSTV and Kerry Cozad of Dielectric Communications said the FCC should forget about the idea of packing more TV stations into the VHF band, particularly the low end, chs. 2-6. Why? Because reception is lousy. To make low V effective, you would have to kick up the output power 100 times and it would it still wouldn’t be enough to overcome all the noise in the band and the limitation of antennas.

Speaking for the cellularization panel, Bob Seidel of CBS said distributed transmission systems, either of the single frequency or multiple frequency varieties, are not keys to recovering spectrum. They are expensive to implement and, for all the time and money, would produce little improvement in spectrum efficiency. To even consider such a system, he said, the country would have to adopt a new broadcast transmission scheme — COFDM — and that’s not going to happen for the same reason it’s not going to go to MPEG-4.

During this whole spectrum hoo-ha, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has run an open process, giving broadcasters ample opportunity to express their concerns with the broadband plan, even before it was put on paper.

In his speech at the NAB in April, he promised to hold an "engineers forum … to address concrete technical issues raised by the plan."

He delivered on that promise on June 25.

Now all he has to do is listen.

By Glen Dickson — Broadcasting & Cable, 7/12/2010

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 12 /PRNewswire/ — Telegent Systems, the company that makes television mobile, today announced that its analog mobile TV receiver, the TLG1121, has won the International Stevie® Award for Best New Product or Service of the Year in Telecommunications, at the seventh annual International Business Awards(SM). 

The TLG1121 is the world’s first single-chip analog mobile TV receiver based on 65nm CMOS process technology, delivering worldwide support for free-to-air analog TV and FM broadcast reception on mobile devices, enabling consumers to enjoy live television programming while on the go.  The TLG1121 reduces package size by 25 percent when compared to the previous generation product while consuming 25 percent less power from the battery.  The smaller package size provides manufacturers with greater flexibility in PCB layout, enabling smaller, sleeker handset designs.  Reduction in power consumption translates to longer continuous viewing time for consumers of their favorite live broadcast programs.

"Telegent is committed to continually enhancing our mobile TV solutions to increase ease of design for manufacturers and to deliver the best user experience to consumers," said Ford Tamer, chief executive offer of Telegent Systems. "Telegent has now shipped more than 80 million chips globally, expanding access to broadcast television, including regions of developing markets where conventional television sets may be a luxury shared across households.  The International Business Award recognizes Telegent’s achievement in providing free-to-air mobile TV to the masses, and we are honored to be named the best product or service in Telecommunications for 2010."

The International Business Awards are the only global, all-encompassing business awards program honoring great performances in business. Recipients of International Stevie Award trophies were selected from more than 1,700 entries received from organizations and individuals in more than 40 countries. Honorees were selected through two rounds of judging by business professionals worldwide.

Nicknamed the Stevie® for the Greek word "crowned," the awards will be presented to winners at a gala dinner on Monday, 27 September in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

Complete lists of honorees and other details are available at www.stevieawards.com/iba.

About Telegent Systems, Inc.

Telegent Systems is a fabless semiconductor company that enables the reception of live, free-to-air analog and digital broadcast television in mobile handsets and other portable consumer devices. Telegent’s television-on-a-chip solutions solve the long-standing technical challenges that have precluded mobile reception of analog broadcast TV, enabling manufacturers and operators to benefit from the convergence of broadcast TV with mobile and portable devices. Telegent’s products are the most widely sold broadcast television solutions for mobile handsets in the world. For more information, visit www.telegent.com.

About The Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.  Honoring companies of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide.  Learn more about The Stevie Awards at www.stevieawards.com.

Download Image at http://www.telegent.com/images/TLG1121_chip.jpg

SOURCE Telegent Systems, Inc.

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In light of today’s decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit invalidating the FCC’s indecency policy, it would be hard to justify writing about anything else. From my first days as a young lawyer screening programs before they were aired (I still remember assessing the legalities of airing a live satellite feed of "Carnaval" from Rio) to defending stations accused of airing indecent programming in FCC enforcement actions, the FCC’s indecency policy has been an ever-present, ever-broadening part of the practice. While the definition of indecency has remained largely constant ("language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities"), its interpretation has always been a moving target.

When the Supreme Court originally found that requiring indecent content to be channeled into late-night hours was constitutional, it did so based upon a narrow view of what qualified as indecent content (basically George Carlin’s "Seven Dirty Words" routine) and the assurance of the FCC that restrained enforcement would protect First Amendment concerns. Over the next twenty years or so, broadcasters programmed accordingly, and with a few exceptions, broadcasters and the FCC learned to coexist on the issue of indecency.

However, the rise of cable television placed immense pressure on both television and radio broadcasters to more precisely map the boundary between "decent" and "indecent" content. While most broadcasters remained determined to stay on the "decent" side of that line, they could no longer afford to remain at such a safe distance from that line as to be deemed "fogey programming" by a generation of consumers that did not distinguish between broadcast programming and cable programming. To these viewers, all channels are equal, and whether programming arrives by cable, satellite, or antenna is beside the point. To reach this audience, many programmers struggled mightily to make their programming more edgy and relevant to young adults. This programming stayed clear of Carlin’s seven dirty words, and focused more on situation and entendre to engage its audience.

In response, the FCC stepped onto a slippery slope, seeking to broaden its interpretation of indecency by expanding its view of what constitutes "patently offensive" material. The FCC was not prepared for the mission it undertook. What at first appeared to be a slippery slope of line drawing quickly became a well-greased plunge into the abyss of eternal peril. Those filing complaints at the FCC often urged the agency, as a practical matter, to forget that indecency must be patently offensive and instead sought action against content that was merely offensive to the complainant. The result has been a gut-wrenching high speed slalom down the slippery slope, resulting in the FCC’s headfirst encounter today with the large oak doors of the Second Circuit’s courtroom.

Although the court based today’s ruling on a finding that the FCC’s interpretation of indecency is impermissibly vague, and therefore chilling of protected speech, the problem actually goes far deeper than that. Some of the greatest damage to free speech has resulted from complaints where just about everyone, including the FCC, would agree that indecency is not present. While baseless complaints were once met with a prompt and pleasant FCC letter notifying the complainant that the subject of their complaint was categorically not indecent, the FCC in later years treated every complaint even mentioning the word "indecency" as a reason to put a hold on that station’s license renewal or sale application for literally years until the FCC could investigate the complaint. In the meantime, these stations struggled, as a delayed license renewal made obtaining financing difficult, and a delayed sale often meant that the contract to sell the station expired before the FCC could resolve the indecency complaint and approve the sale. Under these circumstances, it is pretty easy to see how a station would be hesitant to say anything offensive to anyone, even without the potential for a $325,000 indecency fine.

Among the "indecency" complaints I have encountered that were holding up a station’s applications at the FCC was a complaint from a politician who didn’t like what a station said about him (apparently using the word "indecent" in his complaint got it put into the indecency pile), and a complaint that a Spanish word yelled at soccer matches when a goal is scored sounds too much like a bad word in English. When such complaints are allowed to languish or become the basis of a pointless inquiry, they interfere with the operations of a station, serve to chill future speech, and create a "bunker mentality" among broadcasters that anything they say will be held against them.

So where does this leave us? Well, as a pragmatic matter, the court’s ruling will not become effective until it issues its mandate, and the FCC may ask that the court delay taking that action while the FCC seeks a rehearing en banc or review by the Supreme Court. If the court’s ruling does become effective, it will apply only within the jurisdiction of the Second Circuit (which includes Connecticut, New York and Vermont). Both legally and politically, the FCC will feel compelled to pursue an appeal, and the result of that effort will determine the future of its indecency enforcement efforts across the US.

That places the FCC in a very high stakes game of poker. Does it place an ever larger bet on trying to defend its existing policy? If it does, it runs the risk that the Supreme Court will rule that the very notion of indecency enforcement is unconstitutional in light of a changing media landscape and the FCC’s seeming inability to apply a narrow and restrained enforcement policy. Or, does it fold this hand and return to the table later with a "back to basics" indecency policy similar to what was once found constitutional by the Supreme Court? One thing’s for certain–for the first time in a long time, broadcasters are holding all the right cards in this game.

At a recent presentation on legislative matters affecting the communications industry, I noted that broadcasters, while lately feeling much under siege, should not underestimate their part in the digital future. It is true that the government wants broadcasters’ spectrum (the National Broadband Plan), cable operators want broadcasters’ programming, ideally for free (the retransmission battles in Congress and at the FCC), politicians want broadcasters’ airtime (the DISCLOSE Act), musicians want broadcasters’ money (the Performance Tax), and the Internet would love to have broadcasters’ audiences. However, the conclusion to be drawn from those facts is that broadcasters have what everyone else wants, and need to themselves capitalize on those important assets.

Let there be no doubt that broadcasters are in for some challenging times fending off those who covet their riches, but that is a far better position than having no riches to covet in the first place. As the possibilities for television and radio multicasting become better developed through experimentation and innovation, mobile video gains the prominence in the U.S. that it is experiencing overseas, and broadcasters continue to refine how best to leverage their content on multiple platforms, broadcasters have as good an opportunity as anyone to make their mark in a digital future, while others fall by the wayside as "one-idea wonders."

Unfortunately, government has begun to place its thumb on the scale, discouraging broadcasting while encouraging other wireless uses. The latest example is this week’s introduction of the Spectrum Measurement and Policy Reform Act (S. 3610) by Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). The legislation would encourage broadcasters to abandon spectrum for a share of the government’s auction proceeds for that spectrum, and authorize the government to impose spectrum fees on broadcasters. In other words, the FCC can use spectrum fees to "encourage" broadcasters to relinquish their spectrum.

This government push is propelled by one of the oldest myths regarding broadcasting, and one of the newest myths. The first myth is that broadcasters are the only licensees who have not paid for their spectrum, and therefore merit less leeway in how they use it, or whether they get to use it at all. Of the thousands of broadcasters I have worked with over the years, however, only a handful actually received their spectrum for free. The vast majority bought their stations (and FCC licenses) from another party, paying full market price, and therefore being really no different than the wireless telephone licensee that also bought its FCC authorization from a prior licensee. Whether some earlier, long-gone broadcast licensee that built the station enjoyed some financial windfall doesn’t bring any benefit to the current licensee. The current licensee inherited the dense regulatory restrictions of broadcasting, but not the "free spectrum."

In addition, new broadcast licensees have generally purchased their spectrum at FCC auction since Congress changed the law in 1997, just like wireless licensees. Despite that, no one has suggested that even these more recent licensees should be released from FCC broadcast regulations because they paid the government for their spectrum.

The second and newer myth, propogated by advocates of the National Broadband Plan, is that broadcasting is a less valuable use of spectrum than wireless broadband since spectrum sold for wireless uses goes for more money at auction than broadcast spectrum. That is, however, a distorted view of value. Everyone, including the FCC and the wireless industry, has denoted broadcast spectrum as "beachfront property" from a desirability standpoint, meaning that it is not the spectrum, but the regulatory limits placed on it, that is creating the difference in cash value at auction. An alternate way of viewing it is that the public receives that difference in auction value every day from broadcasters in the form of free programming and news, rather than in the form of a one-time cash payment to the government. That the public receives more value for their spectrum from continuing broadcast service than from a one-time auction payment (that is swallowed by the national deficit in a matter of seconds) becomes more obvious when you realize that the public will then spend the rest of their lives leasing "their" spectrum back from the auction winner in the form of bills for cellular and broadband service.

An apt analogy is national parks. Would selling them outright for industrial use bring in more cash than keeping them and allowing them to be enjoyed by the public? Certainly. Is selling them for industrial use therefore the most valued use of parkland? Hardly.

Broadcasters have been good tenants of the government’s spectrum, paying the public every day for the right to remain there. If they stop those public service payments, they lose their license, making way for a new tenant. This new legislation aims to entice these paying tenants from their spectrum so that the spectrum can be sold outright to the bidder who perceives the greatest opportunity to extract a greater sum than the auction payment from the public. That may be poor public policy, but it is at least voluntary for the broadcaster, though not for the public. Threatening to tax broadcasters with spectrum fees until they surrender their spectrum is not marketplace forces at work, but the government forcing the marketplace to a desired result. Proponents of wireless broadband must have little confidence in their value proposition if they feel they can come out ahead only if they first devalue broadcast facilities by imposing yet more legal and financial burdens on broadcasters.

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In his earnings call, Jacobs said Qualcomm is in discussions with several companies over the future direction of the service. Talks are in early stages. They center on understanding “things that different companies might be interested in relative to that business and relative to the spectrum that we own.”

Qualcomm said three options are on the table: selling the business, selling the spectrum or finding a partner.

Qualcomm spent $683 million acquiring the wireless spectrum to run FLO TV, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. A couple of years ago, it predicted that it would invest $800 million in all — including spectrum, network build-out and marketing costs — to get the network up and running.

The service offers about 20 channels of live mobile TV, including ESPN , ABC, Comedy Central and CNN. Coverage is not nationwide, but FLO TV is available in most major cities and several smaller ones, covering 68 million potential subscribers.

FLO TV powers the Verizon and AT&T mobile TV offerings for cell phones that contain a Qualcomm chip that enables the service. Qualcomm sells its own personal TV device for about $150 on Amazon.com. Subscriptions range from $10 to $15 a month.

Despite a marketing effort, including advertising as part of last year’s Super Bowl, FLO TV doesn’t have a large subscriber base, according to analysts. Qualcomm won’t release subscriber numbers.

Recently, the company has talked about other uses for the FLO TV network besides television. Qualcomm has said the network could potentially be used by publishers delivering electronic magazines and newspapers to mobile subscribers, for example. Qualcomm also is sponsoring a contest among software developers to come up with additional non-TV applications that would work on FLO TV network, said the Union-Tribune.

Qualcomm acquired the spectrum when broadcast television switched from analog to digital. The company thinks the spectrum has significant value as a way to ease data traffic that’s clogging existing 3G networks.

RBR-TVBR observation: There could be a flaw in the subscription mobile TV business model. First of all, most consumers are already paying for TV in the home, post-DTV transition. The ones that aren’t are not likely to pay for it on a mobile device; the ones that are, are likely not willing to pay more monthly than they already are. As well, much of this content, whether it be delivered live or not, is already available by going directly to the broadcaster’s/content providers’ website or app. Likely AT&T or Verizon will absorb the service and call it their own – and try to get as much ROI as possible through advertising insertions. But they’ll have to compete with the free-to-consumer ad-supported mobile DTV now being rolled out by broadcasters.

Asia Vision Inc. and its CEO, Rehan Siddiqi, claim they have a contractual option to buy the station for $3.5 million and tried to exercise that option. The lawsuit states that Asia Vision agreed to LMA the station under a five-year contract that began January 1, 2010. The company even paid $180,000 upfront for the first six months.

Asia Vision states that it was unaware of the SEC’s fraud litigation against Albert Fase Kaleta and Kaleta Capital Management (KCM) and its request to have KTEK placed in receivership by the federal court. After broadcasting on KTEK for a month and a day, Asia Vision was knocked off the air on February 2nd and the station was subsequently LMA’d to Salem Communications, a former owner which is now preparing to buy it back.

Not surprisingly, Asia Vision is suing everyone involved, including Kaleta, KCM, Business Radio Network LP, former Business Radio owner Daniel Frishberg and Salem Communications. Asia Vision claims to have lost over $100,000 per month in advertising by having its LMA canceled. It has accused Salem of tortious interference and the other defendants with fraud and breach of contract. The lawsuit seeks at least $18 million in damages.

RBR-TVBR observation: What is clear is that the defendants no longer have possession of KTEK, since the FCC has transferred the license to the federal court receiver. Asia Vision may have to stand in line with several other victims in this convoluted case.

Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com

Chip maker Qualcomm Inc. last week signaled it may give up a costly six-year quest to bring broadcast TV to mobile phones and other devices in the U.S. Not too many people are surprised, however, given the reception for mobile-TV services in the country so far.

But other entrepreneurs remain undaunted, arguing that technology decisions and other factors slowed adoption of a medium that has gained traction in other countries. A group of U.S. local broadcasters, in fact, is just beginning to gear up an effort to deliver a broadcast service called Mobile DTV to U.S. markets, using transmission capacity freed up by a transition from analog to digital technology.

Meanwhile, a start-up called MobiTV Inc., which helps carriers offer mobile-TV services, says viewership of the World Cup helped turn June into the best month in its 10-year history. The Emeryville, Calif., company claims more than 10 million users, up from seven million this time a year ago.

Yet that’s not a very large number when weighed against the U.S. cellular industry’s estimate of more than 285 million wireless subscriber accounts. Qualcomm hasn’t released usage figures for the wireless network it calls FLO TV, which powers mobile-TV services marketed by AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, yet it has conceded that growth has been disappointing.

"You know, there are people who love it, but the numbers are not nearly what we expected," said Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm’s chief executive, in an onstage interview last month at The Wall Street Journal’s "D: All Things Digital" conference.

Mr. Jacobs, during a July 21 conference call to discuss the San Diego-based company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings, disclosed that Qualcomm was "considering a number of alternatives" for FLO TV. He wasn’t more specific, and a company spokeswoman declined to elaborate. But he said Qualcomm is in early-stage discussions with unnamed companies about FLO TV and the radio frequencies it controls.

That spectrum is a distinguishing element of FLO TV. Most users of smartphones use conventional cellular networks to call up video programming, such as downloads from services like Apple Inc.’s iTunes store and streamed videos from sites such as Google Inc.’s YouTube. MobiTV also uses conventional cellular networks that work with most cellphones. The four-largest U.S. carriers—AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA—use MobiTV to offer a mix of scheduled and on-demand versions of TV shows and other content, for an average monthly fee of $9.99.

But video generates large data files that can clog conventional cellular networks. So Qualcomm built FLO TV as a broadcast network, featuring scheduled channels of programming that a user can tune into.

The approach comes with challenges. One is the cost of acquiring wireless frequencies to set up a nationwide network. Qualcomm, which announced plans for what became FLO TV in 2004, paid $125 million for the spectrum the service uses now, and paid $558 million in 2008 for additional spectrum in five major metropolitan areas.

Another hurdle is that receiving FLO TV requires special chips. Consumers not only pay monthly fees to carriers for content—starting at about $9.99—they also have to buy specially equipped handsets or other devices to use what AT&T calls Mobile TV and Verizon calls V Cast.

"I don’t think it’s a consumer acceptance issue; I think it’s a technology issue," said Paul Scanlan, MobiTV’s president and co-founder. "The bottom line is they didn’t get the chips into enough phones."

Others see more fundamental handicaps in the U.S. Unlike markets like Japan and South Korea, where mobile TV has a sizable following, many Americans are driving when they aren’t at home or at work—and less able to watch TV on the go than users in countries where public transportation is more widely used.

"Here it is a little difficult," said Mark Beccue, an analyst at Market-research firm ABI Research. The market-research firm estimates that 12.8 million people will subscribe to mobile TV in North America in 2010, which he expects to grow to 25.9 million in 2012 in response to factors such as a proliferation of devices with bigger screens for watching videos. By comparison, the firm’s world-wide estimate calls for 178.4 million subscribers this year and 384.5 million in 2012.

Qualcomm tried to spur demand for its FLO TV service last fall by introducing its own pocket-sized device for watching TV on the go, priced initially at $249 with six months of service included with the hardware. The company has kept up a stream of announcements of new content offerings in addition to programs from major networks like ABC, NBC and CBS, adding plans recently to offer interactive capability to let users click for more information about shows and the ability to store and replay programming on FLO-equipped devices.

Still, as Mr. Jacobs conceded at the "D" conference, most of what the company has offered to date is "cable TV on the phone," which isn’t yet fully exploiting the possibilities of the technology. Qualcomm has "very valuable spectrum, and now the question is are we using it well with the FLO TV service," he said.

Qualcomm isn’t the first to pursue, and drop, a similar broadcast approach. Crown Castle International Corp., which had been planning a service similar to FLO TV called Modeo, in 2007 changed strategies and announced plans to sell its wireless spectrum. Later the same year, Aloha Partners LP, whose subsidiary HiWire had tested a mobile broadcast service, instead announced a deal to sell its spectrum to AT&T for $2.8 billion.

But the backers of Mobile DTV, dubbed the Open Mobile Video Coalition, is pressing ahead with plans for services that also require special chips for receiving broadcast signals, typically built into media players or included with a device called a dongle for outfitting a laptop computer to use the service.

Anne Schelle, the coalition’s executive director, says that its research shows that Americans are willing to pay for the right mix of locally generated programming and other content. "I don’t think [Qualcomm's experience] means that consumers aren’t interested in this," she said. "Consumers are highly interested."

The FCC has announced that full payment of all applicable Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2010 must be received no later than August 31, 2010.

As mentioned in a July 9, 2010 Report and Order, the Commission will mail assessment notices to licensees/permittees reflecting payment obligations for FY 2010, but intends to discontinue such notifications beginning in 2011. Be aware that the notices sent may not include all of the authorizations subject to regulatory fees, and do not take into account any auxiliary licenses for which fees are also due. Accordingly, you should not assume that the notice is correct or complete. Similarly, if you do not receive a notice letter, that does not mean your authorizations are exempt from regulatory fees. It is the responsibility of each licensee/permittee to determine what fees are due and to pay them in full by the deadline.

Annual regulatory fees are owed for most FCC authorizations held as of October 1, 2009 by any licensee or permittee which is not otherwise exempt from the payment of such fees. Licensees and permittees may review assessed fees using the FCC’s Media Look-Up website – www.fccfees.com. Certain entities are exempt from payment of regulatory fees, including, for example, governmental and non-profit entities. Section 1.1162 of the FCC’s Rules provides guidance on annual regulatory fee exemptions. Broadcast licensees that believe they qualify for an exemption may refer to the FCC’s Media Look-Up website for instructions on submitting a Fee-Exempt Status Claim.

Main Studio Ambivalence

By John M. Pelkey

How are you remaining effective? Mevorach: To me being effective means being relevant. That has nothing to do with the number of people who work for you. The question is whether we as an organization are staying relevant to our audience.  Do our people know what matters to our listeners? If we, as managers, give our people the tools to succeed and to take collective ownership in our future, there is no need to worry about how to remain effective because it is always in play. Farley: Trying to stay focused.  There’s a time to answer e-mails, there’s a time to return calls.  I try very hard not to be distracted when I am speaking to my newsroom staff. They deserve my full attention.  I have two computer screens and 4 monitors with non-stop news in my office.  I remind myself to concentrate…….. Rayfield: Cost reduction is not our primary focus. Delivering on our promise to the audience is. We have great respect for our own protect. That pride shows on the air. It’s easy when your people treat the station as if it were their own. KYW Newsradio has never been better.   How do you face today’s challenge of doing more with less/fewer people and fewer resources/cost cuts? Mevorach: It is management’s job to hire, train, mentor, challenge, and encourage workers to grow and succeed.   If you are constantly evolving then so too are the priorities and workload. I believe firmly in being open and honest with the people who work for me and in seeking their input on every facet of what we do. Every challenge has a solution and if you have surrounded yourself with passionate, creative, and smart people, the challenges are actually nothing more than opportunities to find ways to do things more effectively. Farley: WTOP has a big newsroom.  Still, we stretch our resources through strategic alliances: a TV station, a business newspaper, suburban newspapers, using Metro for most traffic and sports, smart interns.  And we try NOT to duplicate what our audio networks (CBS and CNN) already do for us. Rayfield: Fortunately CBS allows us to run our stations at the market level. I have never received an edict to cut resources in a specific area. Given our relationship with CBS TV, I’d say we’ve made an even greater investment in our product.   How are you successfully managing multi-platform media, in addition to "broadcasting?"  Mevorach: In the beginning, people saw the new technology as a threat. Today, those same people see it as part of the fabric of our overall success. We do not see ourselves as a radio station and a multi-platform media. We see ourselves as the most recognized local news brand in the world that is available to you online, on your phone, on your radio or anywhere else. Farley: Everybody in the newsroom knows the mission: inform and engage as many people as possible as often as possible across as many platforms as possible.  We push out information on FM and HD Radio, streaming audio, wtop.com, e-mail and text alerts, Facebook and Twitter.  They know we are not radio: we are a DNO (Digital News Organization).  Rayfield: We view are stations as brands that have many platforms. We don’t see this as “in addition to.” This is part of the landscape. You simply have to redirect your thinking and we did that a long time ago.   What are you doing online to serve your audience and build your brand?  Are you using twitter? Social or mobile media? Mevorach: We are one of the few news operations that sees itself as an extension of its audience not the other way around. You can join our station’s Facebook page or friend any number of our on-air talent on their personal Facebook pages. Turn on the radio and we are sharing information from our website. Log onto our website and you can hear the radio. You can hear traffic on the radio or see it online. We will give you the forecast on the air or you can track a storm online. We have text alerts for up to the minute news sent to your phone and you can get a twice daily e-mail blast to your desktop. Our morning anchor Judy DeAngelis provides a 7 minute news podcast very weekday that you can subscribe to or download. You can follow us on Twitter or you can e-mail any of our staff directly. The goal is simple: No matter where you go to consume news and service elements, we want your first choice to be 1010 WINS. Farley: Yes.  All the time and more tomorrow.  The brand is WTOP, and it is a strong local brand.  (Notice, I did not say "WTOP Radio") Rayfield: We are using social media, as well as podcasts, email blasts and mobile apps. The game has changed. We are no longer simply radio stations. We are news organizations that just happen to have radio as one platform.   How is your time management?  Are you challenged with so much on your plate right now you can hardly come up for air? Mevorach: As a 24-hour news operation, time management is always an issue. I average 8-hundred e-mails a day, my voicemail fills up every 3-5 hours, and the news needs to be managed around the clock.  The key to surviving it is to be open with your staff. Let them know what is on your plate and what you need help with. Farley: I feel slammed by the end of the day.  But every morning I look forward to coming back into the newsroom!  E-mail and web-surfing eat up gigantic chunks of my time. I try to answer 95% of listener e-mails personally.  Some evenings I consult my muse, John Jameson. Rayfield: Early on, it was a challenge. But you make sure you surround yourself with people who are creative, open to change, passionate about how to best serve the listener and you engage in constant dialogue with them. For me, the challenge is geography. We have five stations on four floors in two buildings separated by 8 miles. Our news and news talk stations aren’t even in the same county. You have to love this business and have a supportive family, which I do.   Do you have time to aircheck your talent and producers?  Mevorach: Airchecks are done in real-time. I listen to the radio all the time. On air mistakes are part of being human. I listen for things that become patterns or bad habits and work with the talent to correct them. Farley: I prefer immediate feedback to formal sit-down sessions.  Criticism is done quietly in my office, praise publicly in the newsroom.  I send e-mails to staff when I find a teaching moment. Rayfield: Our Program Directors do that. I do have my ears on our stations perhaps 12 hours a day so I air check more than some people want me to but again, I trust my partners.   Are you involved in the news meetings?  Mevorach: Yes. You have to make time for them. They are the daily blueprint for the radio station. Farley: I have a great News Director in Mike McMearty and he does 90% of it. Rayfield: No How proactive is your product?  Mevorach: We are an extremely proactive news operation. We own the ‘breaking news’ image in the market. We swarm stories, will dispatch reporters to cover major stories around the world, and we are relentless in the pursuit of ‘impossible to get’ interviews.  Farley: Very. We get regional debates started.  We break news.   Local TV (and some network) assignment desks monitor us for ideas.  Rayfield: Very proactive. We didn’t use to be that way. But the future is now. My own impatience is both a blessing and a curse. Is most of your news reactive?  Mevorach: Logic would dictate that news happens and we react to it. Too many news organizations produce "exclusives" that aren’t news or relevant to their audience. They just like to put things on the air so they can use the word "exclusive."  We certainly originate our share of stories and we give our staff as much freedom as possible to come up with their own ideas but we don’t do it for the sake of doing it. Farley: As an all-news station, we do so much news that SOME of it has to be reactive. How much of your product on air is "planned?"  Mevorach: 95%. An occasional seat-of-your pants approach is a healthy way to stay sharp. Farley: 90% but we NEVER hesitate to throw out the line-up and scripts when news breaks or we can grab a great newsmaker live.   Do you feel as though you are playing a game of “Catch up” 24/7?  Mevorach: It tends to go in cycles. There are weeks when I am ahead of the curve and plotting new ideas and there are other times when I think it’s Wednesday and it’s actually Friday. Farley: Some days it feels that way, but I signed on for a marathon, not a sprint.  I have been in broadcast news…and now digital news….since 1966 and I still love it every day. Rayfield: Not anymore. I do work nearly every waking hour, even when I’m on vacation. It isn’t because I have to, it’s just part of who I am. I have had serious discussions on my cell while waiting in line with our kids in Disneyworld. It’s not easy. The option is to scale back when I am away and get jammed up for the next three days when I return. I like to play offense rather than defense. In Parts II and III, we hear solutions from the Newsroom and News Production Software providers. Participants include: Steve Schneider: RCSnews Product Manager; Chip Jellison, EVP, Development/Technology, RCS; ChiChi Liu: President, Burli Software Inc.; and Scott Roberts: Virtual News Center Company President

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How are you remaining effective? Schneider: Newsrooms are dynamic ecosystems.  RCSnews™ is a state-of-the-art radio newsroom system, providing solutions for your entire news operation from newscast gathering, writing and editing to actual on-air broadcast (with teleprompter function) and story archiving.  There is no downtime in learning RCSnews.  Journalists personalize the application to match their existing workflow including layout, keystrokes, toolbars, libraries and audio editors. Liu: Anything a newsroom system can do to reduce steps in a journalist’s daily workflow gives them that much more time for other tasks. Over the years Burli has strived to keep the workflow simple, quick and efficient. We want the journalists to concentrate on the content more than the production process itself. Roberts: Managing anchors in three time zones and a product that airs on 75+ stations, each of which has different needs and expectations, is sometimes a Herculean task. For our anchors, I encourage serial single-tasking, rather than trying to multitask. In other words, focus on one market at a time. I do this myself as much as practical, separating my days into blocks where I deal with items having a common thread – creative items, strategic items, management, and so forth. The discipline imposed by also anchoring in several markets makes it easier to group activities most days. Which is not to say 18-20+ hour days are uncommon – I run a growing company, so they are part of the territory!   How do you face today’s challenge of doing more with less/ fewer people and fewer resources/ cost cuts? Schneider: Our strength is providing a user friendly way to share materials and resources within the same facility or across facilities worldwide. RCSnews provides cost savings by allowing a news anchor in a single location to present newscasts across multiple stations via the ability to push directly into your automation system. Jellison: RCSnews is completely scalable from large network news operations to a single station news bureau, RCSnews can be configured to adapt perfectly for any of environment.  So a group could buy it for a one station operation now, and then expand to many workstations later. Liu: We’re striving to simplify a lot of tasks that used to be labor-intensive. Filing news stories from the field is now a couple of click on an iPhone or a drag-and-drop on a laptop screen instead of a long series of steps to save audio and text and feed them back to the station. It’s also simpler for the newsroom itself – most news material now arrives in the system automatically and ready-to-go. That means less time spent recording cuts, sorting stories or manually cutting up network audio feeds. Tools like the assignment manager can help managers better deploy their staff. Remote access to those assignments on a mobile browser means reporters don’t have to come into the newsroom to have access to press releases, audio cuts, maps, archived scripts relating to their current assignment. Roberts: That’s the problem people are turning to us to solve. VirtualNewsCenter staff is a shared resource. With our “One + Us” approach, for instance, a station can employ a local news director with us providing the depth on the bench – voicing other dayparts, making calls on assignments, cutting sound, web posting – and have a multi-voice presence in each newscast.  Our first “One + Us” client, KIRX/Kirksville, MO is an example – their News Director continues to thank us regularly for “giving him back his life.” Actually, as of today we’ve made it possible to develop, enhance, or stabilize a cluster’s news presence and image with no cash outlay. VirtualNewsCenter has just become available via barter through a partnership with Envision Radio Networks. One of the advantages our station partners gain with VirtualNewsCenter is the ability to shape the content by making story assignments. A number of the solo News Directors that have added VirtualNewsCenter say this is the factor that makes the most improvement in their life and product.   How are you successfully managing multi-platform media/ in addition to "broadcasting?"  Schneider: RCSnews can push stories complete with audio directly into your stations’ website. Liu: Not many newsrooms these days only produce content for one medium. Many newsrooms re-purpose their content as stories on their website or as podcasts. A couple of years ago that was a multi-step process, but tools like Burli are now make it largely automatic and stress-free for news staff. Website content management systems can get their data from Burli completely and automatically without users having to retype, copy-paste or upload stories. And Burli can automatically make podcasts out of newscasts, traffic updates or weather hits and get them to iTunes or the website without news staff even being involved. Better networks and broadband internet now mean affiliated newsrooms of any size can now collaborate on their news production. Burli, for example, lets newsrooms of any size share their stories into a single pool, almost like a newswire. The newsroom system itself distributes audio cuts and text to other newsrooms completely automatically to all other stations in the chain, so journalists have stories from affiliated newsrooms appear in front of them automatically. With fewer reporters in each newsroom, you can actually still get a wider variety of voices and cuts on the air from a larger geographical area. And your cuts are not the same ones from the same national services that the competition is running. Roberts: We use custom-built news collection and management software, and pushing content to multiple outputs is baked in. Our anchor can write a story, include newsmaker audio, and have it on the station website, on Twitter, on Facebook or elsewhere without additional effort. Our goal is for each person in our staff to only have to handle the item once and for the entire product, both on-air and online, to be plug-and-play for our station partners. Tomorrow we ask: What are you doing online to serve your audience and build your brand?  Are you using twitter? Social or mobile media?; and How proactive is your product?

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WYLE, a former Jewelry TV shopping channel affiliate went off the air on February 8, 2007 due to financial difficulties. On February 3, 2008 the station went back on the air and broadcast a test pattern for 24 hours, then went off the air again, with ETC notifying the FCC on February 8th of that brief renewal of broadcasting and requesting permission to remain dark for the next year.

As previously reported, the FCC ruled that broadcasting a text pattern was not sufficient to qualify as “broadcast signals” under the Commission’s rules. That meant that the station had been off the air for more than 12 months straight and the FCC cancelled the license, scuttling efforts to sell the station to the owner of in-market WHDF-TV (CW) Huntsville, AL under a failed station waiver.

ETC appealed that decision. In the latest development, Barbara Kreisman, Chief, Video Division in the FCC’s Media Bureau rejected the appeal, finding that the former licensee had failed to provide any new facts or arguments to warrant reinstatement of the license.

By Glen Dickson & John Eggerton — Broadcasting & Cable, 8/10/2010