Jack Messmer, RBR-TVBR Executive Editor
There’s no doubt about it, business is better and the 2010 NAB Show in Las Vegas was the most upbeat in recent years. Yes, broadcasters still face important challenges, but at the same time the industry is moving full-steam ahead on some exciting things.
By Andrew Krukowski NetNewsCheck, April 14, 2010
With viewers finding more and more screens to move their attention toward, advertisers are quickly churning out ideas for getting their products in front of consumers.
Web sales growth at broadcast TV stations outpaced newspapers in 2009 as broadcasters gained ground against their principal in-market competitors and posted an 8.7% share of all local online advertising, according to a report released by the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB).
By: Jacqueline Renfrow - Response This Week
WASHINGTON – Television viewers in the Washington, D.C. area are a few days away from receiving a new broadcast technology that enables viewing of TV programs while on the go. For the first time, viewers will be able to watch local digital TV broadcasts – including emergency community alerts – on a variety of mobile devices including some cell phones, netbooks, portable media players and a unique adapter that can send mobile DTV to laptops, iPhones and iPads.
By David Goldman, staff writer CNN Money.com April 30, 2010
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Despite rising cable and satellite TV prices and easy access to streaming TV and movies on the Internet, few consumers have cut the cord. But that looks like it’s about to change.
Posted on March 25, 2010 by Brendan Holland of Broadcast Law Blog
The FCC today issued a Public Notice instructing applicants for new analog low power TV (LPTV) stations to amend their pending short-form applications by May 24th in order to specify digital operations. If the short-form application is not amended by May 24th it will be dismissed. As some of you may recall, way back in 2000 the FCC opened a window for the filing of new LPTV stations. Rather than full applications, at the time applicants were simply required to file a "short form" tech-box application specifying the basic parameters of the proposal. And of course, at the time the proposals were all for new analog LPTV facilities. Over the years, many of these proposals were found to be non-mutually exclusive, and the applicant applied for and received construction permits for new LPTV stations. Other proposals were conflicted and were included in an FCC Auction to resolve the conflict, which also resulted in the grant of new construction permits. Many others, however, remained mutually exclusive and deadlocked. The FCC has now decided that, as it will no longer grant any new analog LPTV stations, any remaining proposals that are still pending must be amended to specify digital operations.
No longer a future technology, but now reality, Mobile DTV is big at this week’s NAB Show in Las Vegas. Leaders from the NAB, Open Mobile Video Coalition, Advanced Television Systems Committee and Consumer Electronics Association hailed the new technology for broadcast TV stations as they officially opened the Mobile DTV Marketplace.
A session in Las Vegas jointly assembled by NAB and the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) looked at where television advertising is heading. What’s clear is that it’s not just about selling spots anymore.
“Whatever the future is, it is about extending our brands,” said Fisher Communications President and CEO Colleen Brown.
Posted on April 1, 2010 by David Oxenford of Broadcast Law Blog
In a decision by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, the Commission issued a $1250 fine to a station that did not have its licensee’s Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws in its public file when a listener came to check the file. While the rules allow such documents to be left out of the file if there is a list of ownership-related documents in the file and the documents themselves are provided within 7 days of a request, here the licensee did not provide the missing documents for over a month of the request. After investigating the complaint from the person who had looked at the file, the Commission arrived at the $1250 fine. But there is another troubling aspect to this case, and that deals with the decisions references to the Alternate Broadcast Inspection Program ("ABIP").
Seidenberg doesn’t expect shortage broadband plan predicts
By John Eggerton — Broadcasting & Cable, 4/8/2010
Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg says he thinks the FCC should not try to get spectrum back from broadcasters, that there won’t be the kind of spectrum shortage the FCC’s national broadband plan predicts, and that market forces and technology should take care of whatever shortage there is, likely driven by the rise in online video.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made his pitch to broadcasters at the NAB Show to embrace his National Broadband plan and its proposal to reallocate 120MHz of TV spectrum. But a few hours later, even his fellow commissioners were expressing misgivings about how that may play out.
Three of the commissioners, Michael Copps (D), Mignon Clyburn (D) and Meredith Baker (R) joined NTIA Administrator and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce Anna Gomez in the Washington Face-Off panel moderated by NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith.
With a thaw predicted to be coming to the long winter that has beset the station trading environment, it is time to revisit the special RBR-TVBR report on the pitfalls and potholes inherent in the act of station trading. It comes from Garvey Schubert Barer attorney Erwin Krasnow and broker/consultant Doug Ferber.
The station trading may be opening up soon, making it a perfect time to revisit the special RBR-TVBR report on the pitfalls and potholes inherent in the act of station trading. It comes from Garvey Schubert Barer attorney Erwin Krasnow and broker/consultant Doug Ferber.
When it’s time to make a deal, and the prognosticators are saying that the time may soon be here, you don’t want to blow it due to some minor oversight. That’s why we’ve picked this occasion to dust off an RBR-TVBR report on the pitfalls and potholes inherent in the act of station trading. It comes from Garvey Schubert Barer attorney Erwin Krasnow and broker/consultant Doug Ferber.
Contract: Eureka Broadcasting Company, with holdings in California and Oregon. If you want to sell your broadcast stations to members of your family, the FCC isn’t any more of a problem than usual, if the application and other associated documents are in order. The IRS, however, is another matter. Garvey Schubert Barer attorney Erwin G. Krasnow walks us through a contract designed to transfer the stations to the kids while keeping the taxman happy.
Keeping your station all in the family
By Erwin G. Krasnow (ekrasnow@gsblaw.com)
FCC Reboot YouTube Videos
National Association of Community Broadcasters
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