Based on a Supreme Court ruling yesterday, ABC and Fox will not be required to pay fines for broadcast indecency.
“The justices unanimously threw out fines and other penalties against Fox and ABC television stations that violated the Federal Communications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on television airwaves,” reports The Washington Post.
The ruling determined that the networks could not have known in advance that the objectionable material (including obscenities uttered during award shows and brief nudity in an episode of “NYPD Blue”) would lead to fines.
However, the decision did not address the broader issue regarding the FCC’s basic ability to regulate the airwaves or the possible need to revise its indecency policy.
“Broadcasters had argued that the revolution in technology that has brought the Internet, satellite television and cable has made the rules themselves obsolete,” explains the article. “The regulations apply only to broadcast channels.”
“The Supreme Court decided to punt on the opportunity to issue a broad ruling on the constitutionality of the FCC indecency policy. The issue will be raised again as broadcasters will continue to try to grapple with the FCC’s vague and inconsistent enforcement regime,” suggested First Amendment expert Paul Smith in his brief supporting the broadcasters.
In an effort to boost theater attendance, cinemas across the U.S. are expanding their screenings to include concerts, plays, operas and sports events.
Among this year’s offerings have been the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of “Twilight of the Gods,” a live version of radio show “This American Life,” the National Theatre’s stage production “Frankenstein,” and the Mayweather-Cotto boxing match.
“Along with improved food offerings, bigger screens and 3D projections, theaters nationwide are programming more so-called alternative content,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Hoping to reverse long-term declines in theater attendance by luring customers away from an increasing array of entertainment options in the home, they’re showing live rock concerts, plays, operas, boxing matches, college basketball games and even public radio shows, often to sold-out houses.”
Approximately two-thirds of the 40,000 U.S. screens have converted to digital, making electronic delivery via satellite possible. “In the next two years 2,000 theaters with a combined 15,000 screens will be connected to a new satellite distribution network,” notes the article.
This opens up new options for exhibitors, especially during traditionally low attendance times.
At $25 per ticket, some 400 theaters screened the Mayweather-Cotto match in May. “At many of those theaters, the fight was sold out and was, on a per-screen basis, the second-highest-grossing offering that day, behind Marvel Studios’ blockbuster ‘The Avengers,'” explains the article.
“With the technology we’re putting into place, we will have a high-quality digital delivery system that can support both live entertainment and theatrical exhibition,” said Darcy Antonellis, chief technology officer for Warner Bros. “It’s the natural evolution of digital cinema.”
The newly rebranded Dolby Theatre (former Kodak Theatre), home of the Academy Awards, reopened this week with new signage and a new audio-visual system.
As previously reported by ETCentric, Dolby Laboratories recently signed a 20-year deal with CIM Group (Hollywood & Highland Center owner) for naming rights to the facility.
The four-level, 3,400-seat venue has been outfitted with Dolby 3D projection and the company’s new Dolby Atmos audio system. The premiere of Disney-Pixar’s new film “Brave” will be the first to showcase the new sound format.
Dolby Surround 7.1 uses different audio channels, while Dolby Atmos object-based sound uses individual speakers rather than entire speaker arrays. In the newly outfitted facility, Dolby Atmos also adds overhead speakers installed on 50-foot trusses.
Atmos offers the equivalent of 128 channels, as compared to the six channels of 5.1 or the eight of 7.1.
“With sound ‘objects,’ directors and mixers stop thinking about which channel a sound goes on,” reports Variety. “They place the source of the sound in space relative to the listener — that is, they make the sound source an ‘object’ — and then the playback device routes the sound to whatever speakers give the desired effect.”
“The Atmos decoder learns all the speaker positions and the acoustics of the room, then the decoder uses the speakers that place the sound where the filmmakers wanted it, whether there are two speakers in the room or 102,” explains the article.
South Korean manufacturers are betting big on a new line of high-end TVs that are much thinner than traditional flat screens and display sharper images.
“Undeterred by the 3D TV flop and failure of Internet connected TVs to boost sales, Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. are hoping OLED technology will keep them ahead in an intensely competitive business that has caused losses in the TV division of Japan’s Sony for the past eight years,” reports TVNewsCheck.
High-end TV manufacturers are facing heightened competition from Chinese makers — as well as from smartphones and tablets, as consumers are accessing more content on portable devices.
“But Samsung and LG are giddy about a technological leap that they are comparing to the invention of the first color TV in the early 1950s,” suggests the article. “Short for organic light-emitting diode, the wafer-thin OLED TVs boast vivid, saturated colors and deeper contrast than the TV displays now available.”
The new TVs will arrive in Europe, Asia and North America for the holiday shopping season. Retail is expected to initially be at least $9,000 for a 55-inch set, about twice as expensive as current models that size.
“Samsung and LG weathered the downturn in the TV industry well enough to keep cash to invest in production lines for the new display technology,” notes the article. “They think its profitability will not fall as quickly as LCD TVs because the technological gap is wide enough to keep late-coming rivals at bay.”
Time Warner Cable has received a U.S. patent for technology that disables fast-forwarding of TV spots and other trick mode functions on physical DVRs, network-based DVRs and third-party recording devices.
The patent’s technology essentially offers the opposite functions of the Hopper DVR, recently launched by Dish Network.
“The ability to prevent trick mode functionality may be important for a number of reasons,” TWC writes in the patent. “Advertisers may not be willing to pay as much to place advertisements if they know that users may fast forward through the advertisement and thus not receive the desired sales message. Content providers may not be willing to grant rights in their content, or may want to charge more, if trick modes are permitted.”
Although Time Warner is unlikely to implement the features anytime soon, it has started to disconnect its Look Back tool and its Start Over function.
Look Back allows subscribers to watch a show they forgot to record within three days of its initial airing.
“The penchant viewers with DVRs have for skipping ads has prompted other multichannel providers to look at ways to preserve advertising placed in TV programs,” notes TVNewsCheck. Comcast recently submitted a patent application that details how it could deliver alternative commercials to subscribers that hit the fast-forward button on their remotes to skip ads.”
Google has opened up its Google+ API to Flipboard, which will allow users of the popular mobile app to browse, publish and comment on Google+ posts.
The move is part of a larger effort to make Google+ more mobile-friendly, explains Bradley Horowitz, Google VP of product management in charge of Google+.
During a presentation at LeWeb in London, Horowitz demonstrated a Flipboard prototype running on an iPad, bringing “its familiar page-turning experience to Google+ text and photos,” reports CNET.
“The quick demo showed Flipboard’s typical interface, with its design of virtual pages that people can flip from one subject to another. One page showed various photos from a particular user, another textual comments, and a third a combination of some text with a large photos. He also showed a basic interface for posting a comment to Google+,” notes the post, adding that it looked more polished than the iPhone version.
Horowitz also suggested that Google+ tablet apps are in development. “We’re dramatically investing in mobile,” he said. “For us, mobile usage is not a problem. It doesn’t impact our business model. It’s a good thing for us,” perhaps giving rival Facebook a jab.
The Engadget editorial team offers some interesting comments in an extensive post that takes a close look at Windows Phone 8 and its possibilities. The following are some of the highlights:
“Rather tragically, there’s no upgrade path from any current Windows Phone device (the 7.8 stopgap notwithstanding). Your hot new cerulean blue Lumia 900? It’ll be obsolete this fall.”
“None of the handsets sold between today and the release of WP8 (this fall) will be upgraded, and none of the devices sold between now and then will run Windows Phone 8 apps… That may be the right thing to do for the platform’s future, but it’s sure going to sting for current users who, it must be said, are left feeling a bit like beta testers.”
“Microsoft ran down my list of complaints about Windows Phone and put a big red line through each of them. High-res screens, multi-core support, more homescreen customization and a seriously modern browser. All-in-all, Windows Phone 8 is shaping up to be a beastly update to the most visually appealing mobile OS on the block.”
“It’s common knowledge at this point that the availability of quality apps plays a huge part in the failure or success of a mobile platform, and the ‘Shared Windows Core’ provides just what’s needed to get more devs cooking up apps for WP8.”
“Unfortunately for Microsoft, balking a bit at the business space allowed Android and iOS time to offer up their own solutions. But Redmond’s got a long history of enterprise support to fall back on, and this slew of new features certainly looks promising with regards to Window Phone’s place in the business space.”
“Because of Windows’ momentum and massive market share, there will be plenty of people writing software for Windows 8, and with WP8, Microsoft just turned every one of those folks into developers for its mobile platform. In short, this, at the very least, should help Microsoft close the app gap, and it has the potential to eventually vault Windows Phone Marketplace ahead of its competition from Cupertino and Mountain View — and that bodes well for Windows Phone’s future.”
Microsoft announced ambitious plans for its Windows Phone 8 operating system at a sneak peek event on Wednesday.
The biggest take-away is that for the first time there will be one software platform — Windows 8 — across desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Developers will be able to create apps that run across platforms, reports Engadget.
Windows 8 phones will support multi-core processors (up to 64), three screen resolutions (800 x 480, 1280 x 720 [16:9], and 1280 x 768), NFC for payments and SD cards. Nokia Maps is built in and includes use offline.
Unfortunately, current phones running Windows Phone will not be able to run Windows Phone 8. However, according to AllThingsD: “Microsoft is planning an update for existing devices that will bring one key feature of Windows Phone 8 — the more customizable Start screen. That update, known as Windows Phone 7.8, will be available for the current crop of Windows Phones from Nokia, HTC and Samsung.”
Microsoft is also promising enterprise-level support and security including encryption, secure booting, and the ability to deploy and manage apps.
The average person receives 63,000 words of information daily (about the length of a novel) from emails, tweets, Facebook updates and other assorted avenues.
Cue, formerly named Greplin, is an iPhone app that seeks to manage that data flow so you don’t have to remember where you saw something important or manually pull together related information.
The vision of its co-founders “is for Cue to be the first thing you check in the morning and the app you return to throughout the day to ‘find out what’s next,’ as the tagline puts it,” reports Businessweek.
You use Cue’s calendar to see what’s next in your schedule. The app pulls info from up to 26 data sources including email, Facebook, Salesforce, Yammer, and others to gather information on, for example, your meeting attendees’ contact information, Facebook updates from them, tweets they posted, addresses, etc.
The app can get smarter over time. It recognizes flight reservations, movie ticket confirmations and package deliveries so that it can automatically enter them on your calendar.
Interestingly, Robby Walker, co-founder and CTO of Greplin, feels that one day they may have to listen in on your conversations so they can catalog them for searching.
A new update to the My Xbox Live app allows users to control their Xbox 360 gaming console using an iPhone.
Although the iOS app is available for the iPod touch and iPad, this specific feature only works on the iPhone.
To access the feature, users must connect their Xbox 360 and iPhone to the same Wi-Fi network. Users must then connect their iPhone to the Xbox 360 via the Console Settings menu.
Once connected, the app allows users to “navigate through the Xbox menu using the onscreen buttons on your iPhone,” reports CNET. “Functionality really doesn’t go beyond that, but it might be easier to scroll through the Xbox’s various media apps and content delivery portals this way.”
The post includes step-by-step instructions and a video tutorial. Once the video plays through, a second video report offers additional details regarding the My Xbox Live app.
Spotify’s new app update allows users to access Spotify Radio on iOS devices for free. Previously, the recommendation-based application was only available on mobile for Spotify Premium subscribers.
Spotify Radio is similar to Pandora and Slacker in that it allows users to “pick a song, album, artist, or playlist, and build a radio station using it.” Spotify then “makes recommendations based on millions of hours of user data combined with data based on playlists users create — since playlists are already places where users organize similar content,” reports The Verge.
The app will employ a thumbs up and thumbs down rating service. The ratings will not apply to all playlists, but rather the currently playing playlist only, since “people often create playlists for specific moods.”
Inter-device functionality allows users to start a playlist on an iPad and continue listening on an iPhone. Social functionality enables songs and playlists to integrate with friends’ Facebook streams.
The updated app will be available in the next few days for all users in the United States, and to Premium subscribers internationally.
It is not yet available on Android, but according to Spotify: “we think it’s core to the mobile experience, and we’re looking to bring it to all of the major platforms in due time.”
Speaking at the TV of Tomorrow Show in San Francisco last week, Roku CEO Anthony Wood predicted Blu-ray player sales would peak this year or next and then decline.
“Will people use Blu-ray players in four years? I don’t think so,” he suggested.
While admitting that most video streaming takes place on game consoles today, Wood doesn’t expect we’ll see much growth in that area. “New customers don’t go out and buy game consoles to stream video,” he said.
“Wood sees momentum shifting to streaming players like the current-generation Roku boxes, as well as Smart TVs,” reports GigaOM. According to Wood, his company’s “goal is to be the dominant platform in those two segments.”
Roku’s streaming stick is scheduled to launch later this year and Wood sees it as an initial step into the Smart TV space for Roku.
“Wood also shared some new numbers about his company’s performance: He said that Roku made $100 million in sales last year, and that the number of devices sold tripled year-over-year,” notes the post. “However, he didn’t mention that the company missed its projected sales goal by 500,000 units.”
Online video is evolving from an entertainment medium geared toward viewers with short attention spans to a legitimate platform featuring programs running 30 minutes or more.
Long-form content is finding a home online thanks in part to YouTube’s made-for-Web initiative, services such as Netflix and Hulu, and the cord-cutting trend.
“I think our creators always wanted to make longer content — we’re just reaching a certain point in the lifecycle of online video where people have the command over the audience and the budget to make longer video,” says YouTube Next Lab director Tim Shey. “More creators are building huge audiences on YouTube, and once you build a loyal audience online, they all tend to want more.”
Producers are experimenting with more full-length content, and research suggests that consumers are responding, with retention rates of more than 75 percent reported for some archived programs.
GigaOM lists a number of early success stories including Wil Wheaton’s “Tabletop” on YouTube and Wilson Cleveland’s “Leap Year” on Hulu.
“What’s encouraging to me is that the platforms are becoming networks funding their own original series,” says actor/producer Cleveland. “These series are on-par with the broadcast and cable fare audiences have already been comfortably consuming on these same platforms for years. THAT’s the marriage of TV and digital programming realized.”
In a reversal of its long-standing opposition to selling subscriptions through Apple, Time Inc. has announced plans to offer all of its magazines through the newsstand section of Apple’s App Store.
The Apple newsstand, which currently lists more than 5,000 magazines and newspapers, has softened some of its initial restrictions in order to better compete with the likes of Amazon and Google. The imposed restrictions are what drew concern from Time.
“For a magazine or brand like People or Time, a tablet will become an increasingly important part of the experience,” says Time CEO Laura Lang. “Our goal is to offer content where our consumers want to read it.”
“The agreement also moves Apple further along in its strategy of expanding its App Store beyond popular games like ‘Angry Birds’ and making it more of a destination for news, information and videos,” reports The New York Times.
The article also notes that Time Inc. has been struggling with a decline in print advertising revenue (about 30 percent in the last five years), joining the ranks of others in the print publishing business looking to a digital transition for change.
The Huffington Post is a prime example of how digital media continues to impact the magazine and newspaper businesses.
Last week, it introduced a sleek new digital magazine for the iPad called Huffington and it is moving aggressively into online video.
“Huffington is a particularly acute reminder of how much things have changed,” writes David Carr for The New York Times. “Last year, The Huffington Post was sold to AOL for $315 million, less than a year after Newsweek was sold for a dollar, and in April the site won its first Pulitzer, for David Wood’s 10-part series about wounded veterans.”
“More unique Web visitors now go to The Huffington Post each month than The New York Times, according to the research company comScore,” writes Carr.
Meanwhile, traditional media is being dragged reluctantly into the digital era. Time Inc., for example, just agreed to Apple’s terms so it can sell its digital magazines on iTunes. And local newspapers continue to struggle. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, for example, is undergoing a big layoff.
“It’s true that legacy media brands still have juice and powerful assets at their disposal,” notes Carr. “No purely digital media product has kicked up anywhere near the profits that beleaguered traditional brands still do. But smart minds will figure that out. As his lawman uncle told the sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones in ‘No Country for Old Men,’ ‘You can’t stop what’s coming.'”
