Many small television stations are unprofitable or bankrupt, unable to compete with cable and the Internet. Some investors are hoping to flip these failing stations by taking them over and selling their airwaves at premium prices.
The Federal Communications Commission is planning an incentive auction to “reclaim spectrum for use by wireless phone companies and other bidders,” in order to meet expanding demand for wireless broadband services, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Private investors are planning small TV station purchases in major markets where the demand for spectrum is high. When the FCC auction comes — which may not even begin until 2022 — these investors hope to sell off airwaves at a significant profit.
“While the private-equity funds are buying stations for as little as several million dollars, observers say their value could be many times higher once the FCC auction gets under way,” the article states. “The speculative buying is providing an opportunity to small-station owners who want to cash out but don’t want to wait for the auction, which could be years away.”
For investors, buying the stations could be “a big payday,” says Marci Ryvicker, a cable and media analyst at Wells Fargo. “But there’s no guarantee.”
Tribeca Film released a new documentary this weekend in New York and Seattle. Directed by Chris Kenneally and narrated by Keanu Reeves, “Side by Side” examines the impact of digital technology on today’s moviemaking.
“For a film geek this movie is absolute heaven, a dream symposium in which directors, cinematographers, editors and a few actors gather to opine on the details of their craft,” writes A. O. Scott in his New York Times review. “It is worth a year of film school and at least 1,000 hours of DVD bonus commentary.”
Scott suggests the film is not merely “pro-digital propaganda,” but features a balance of tech enthusiasts and skeptics, while “the discourse tilts toward triumphalism.”
“Not only do you get to sit at the feet of Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan and other heroes of modern cinema,” he writes. “You also get to check out the latest high-definition cameras from Panavision, Arriflex, Canon and Red.”
Scott notes the importance of discovery, experimentation and invention as part of filmmaking’s history and how crucial it has been for filmmakers to adapt to big changes over time including “the arrival of sound, of color, of wide-screen, of television.”
The film addresses both sides of arguments involving digital utopianism, instantly available dailies, and advances in editing and color timing.
Scott’s only criticism: “Kenneally might have paid more attention to the world beyond Hollywood, and also to the impact of digital technology on lower-budget, independent filmmaking and on restoration, but within the parameters it defines, this film does an excellent job of presenting complex material in an enlightening and exciting manner.”
“What it cannot do is provide the last word on the digital revolution in movies, since the revolution is in its early stages,” concludes Scott. “For now the mix of agnosticism and optimism — of respect for the old and enthusiasm for the new — seems reasonable. But we will have to wait for the sequel to know for sure.”
At the IFA show, Windows-enabled devices are changing the image of traditional PCs to take advantage of the new hybrid operating system.
“First are the straight tablets, which are primarily intended for use by themselves but often come with keyboard docks or cases. Second are the convertible PCs, which are basically Ultrabooks that fold down into thick tablets as necessary. Third are the standard PCs that have some sort of token touch support built-in — this takes the form of laptops or all-in-ones with capacitive touchscreens,” reports Ars Technica.
Sony showcased its Vaio 11 Duo convertible PC that can be used as a tablet with a stylus and digitizer for handwritten input. “Despite being a convertible, the computer sacrifices some of its utility as a laptop to be a better tablet — the keyboard looks cramped, and it forgoes a standard trackpad in favor of a pointing stick-style mouse,” explains the article. Sony also showed its 20-inch Tap 20 all-in-one with a kickstand, which can be used as a giant tablet.
Samsung promoted the Series 5 Ultrabooks featuring touchscreens, the Series 5 and 7 all-in-ones with “Samsung’s ill-advised ‘Start Menu’ simulacrum,” and the Series 5 Slate with optional keyboard dock.
Asus brings the Vivo Tab with an Intel version including a stylus, Wacom digitizer, and keyboard dock with extra USB ports, trackpad and added battery life. The company’s UX21A Touch ultrabook adds a touchscreen.
Dell’s new XPS Duo 12 convertible PC has gotten some attention online for its interesting design; it has “a 12-inch 1080p LCD that you flip over before closing the lid to put it into tablet mode — there are magnets that keep the screen in place when it isn’t being flipped,” the article states.
Toshiba presented its Satellite U925t convertible Ultrabook and has two existing computers upgrading to Windows 8 touch.
A new patent suggests Amazon’s future Kindles could feature both an e-ink and an LCD display — one on either side of the tablet, both touch-enabled.
“The e-commerce giant has been awarded a patent where e-ink and LCD would work together — one display would be static for reading, while the LCD would be optimized for video watching,” reports Mashable. “The patent filing states that it would make use of the device’s front and rear-facing cameras to determine which side to display content.”
“A device might alternatively utilize at least one camera to determine which side of the device is facing the user, and might activate the display on that side of the device to convey content,” notes the patent. “A device might display notifications on an edge of the device, such that a current orientation of the device might be less important.”
According to the filing, the dual-screen concept may actually lengthen battery life by deferring to e-ink when slow- to non-moving content is displayed.
Amazon is planning a press event in Los Angeles for September 6, and is expected to launch its next-gen Kindle e-reader and Kindle Fire.
Powered by IBM’s technology and analytics, the U.S. Open has new enhanced apps that go beyond merely tracking who beat whom.
The mobile apps for iPhones, iPads and Android devices offer live streams, player analysis along with statistics, highlights and Twitter conversations.
For the tennis fans at the New York City stadium, IBM has an interactive touchscreen wall that allows users to see what’s happening around the complex. There’s also a fan center for playing tennis-related video games.
In what Mashable calls “perhaps the most innovative” feature on the apps, predictive technology suggests which tennis star is likely to win. IBM’s on-site tech hub manages real-time match data and previous statistics, using analytic algorithms to formulate predictions.
“The data is invaluable to coaches, athletes and others working the grounds, including referees who hold a small device in their hands that analyzes each serve volley and point,” notes Mashable. “The same technology that delivers this insight is also being used to monitor babies in prenatal wards, help police departments prevent crime and enable financial services firms to improve customer service.”
Politicians are spending about $10,000 to $100,000 or more for 140-character Twitter ads, bringing politics closer to consumers — and faster, too.
“Twitter has become a central tool for most political campaigns, letting campaigns reach voters nearly instantly, whether for fund raising or political messages, as well as simply to gather more Twitter followers to build audience for future tweets,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Now, paid ads — which make a campaign’s message more prominent, and less likely to get lost in users’ ever-churning news feeds — are moving into the spotlight ahead of the parties conventions and the November election.”
Twitter enables a rapid response from campaigns, allowing advertisers to take advantage of developing changes. For example, Democratic senator Claire McCaskill quickly launched a tweet saying, “Don’t let Todd Akin get elected. He thinks ‘women can’t get pregnant from #legitimaterape.’ Donate to @clairemc now” — after her rival made his now famous gaffe.
But, as the article points out, Twitter’s offerings go beyond just pinning paid tweets to the tops of news feeds or search results. “Aside from buying ‘promoted tweets’ in users’ Twitter news feeds or on certain searches, advertisers can also buy spots known as ‘promoted accounts’ and ‘promoted trends’ — accounts and trends that are listed alongside other suggestions for whom to follow and hot hashtags,” notes WSJ.
As the election draws nearer, expect to see more political Twitter ads, the article suggests. Fortunately for Twitter, this election could signal a notable switch in political advertising if the speedy campaigns prove effective.
As evidenced by two recent events, Twitter is in the midst of changing “from being a kind of real-time information utility to being a global media entity,” which has led “the company to restrict access to its API, in order to control as much of the content flowing through its network as possible,” according to GigaOM.
In the first event, “the company abruptly yanked Tumblr’s ability to connect to Twitter’s friend-finder API, and in the second it bragged about how positive its recent partnership with NBC was around the Summer Olympics,” notes the post.
Tumblr was disappointed by the move, which wrote in a statement: “To our dismay, Twitter has restricted our users’ ability to ‘Find Twitter Friends’ on Tumblr. Given our history of embracing their platform, this is especially upsetting. Our syndication feature is responsible for hundreds of millions of tweets, and we eagerly enabled Twitter Cards across 70 million blogs and 30 billion posts as one of Twitter’s first partners… We are truly disappointed by Twitter’s decision.”
The future is unclear for Twitter, suggests GigaOM, and only time will tell its fate.
“The only question that remains is whether enough users want Twitter to become that kind of media entity, with all the controls and restrictions and advertising messages that come with it. It’s possible that — as some have argued — the third-party developers who are complaining about their treatment by the company are no longer relevant… or Twitter may have miscalculated badly, and sealed its fate as yet another media entity scrambling to promote its ads to a declining user base, just as MySpace did,” explains the post.
A new TiVo product called Stream enables users to transfer and store pre-recorded television content on mobile devices for immediate or later viewing, a service similar to some current app offerings from cable operators.
“The $130 box, available September 6 from TiVo.com and in Best Buy soon after that, streams content from your TiVo to up to four mobile devices in your home at high-definition quality,” reports Katie Boehret for the Wall Street Journal.
TiVo Stream is compatible with iPhones, iPads and newer iPod touch models. An Android version is currently in development.
“Stream also turns mobile devices into TVs of their own: You can scan the channel guide, select a show and watch it live,” explains the article. “It also lets people wirelessly download content to their mobile devices for watching anytime, like on planes or during road trips.”
Stream requires that the user owns one of TiVo’s Premiere models ($150, $250 or $400, depending on the model) and subscribes to the TiVo monthly service fee (there is no additional service fee for Stream).
After evaluating Stream in her home, Boehret writes that she doesn’t want to give it up. She praises the easy set-up, download and buffer speeds, and the convenience of watching programs on multiple devices in different rooms of her house.
Maxwell Wessel discusses the inevitable disruption of television in a guest blog for Harvard Business Review. Wessel is a member of the Forum for Growth and Innovation, a Harvard Business School think tank focused on disruptive innovation.
“Periodically, technologies or business model innovations allow start-ups to enter industries offering services that are generally cheaper and more accessible, but of far lower quality,” he writes. “However, over time, these start-ups tend to invest in performance improvements in such a way that allows them to displace industry incumbents.”
Already, for a fraction of the cost of cable, consumers can subscribe to streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus, which may not have all desired content, but are becoming increasingly viewed as “good enough” alternatives.
And as more people opt into these disruptive services, “the big studios and distribution companies, armed with their outrageous overhead structures, will be unable to compete with small production studios designed to leverage novel distribution channels at much lower cost,” writes Wessel.
But he also notes that a change in the overall ecosystem will be difficult (though not impossible and still inevitable) because it is currently built around “multi-billion dollar wire infrastructures” and a consumer base in need of high-speed wireless Internet access.
Change on a massive scale will happen slowly, according to Wessel. “Academics have noted that disruptive cycles take place over periods of 15-30 years. Even if those cycles are faster than ever with the ever-falling costs of distributing information, educating the public about new ideas, and producing innovative products, it will still be a number of years before we see meaningful change.”
TV screens are becoming an increasingly popular way to consume online video — a medium that’s grown exponentially in the last three years.
According to a study by NPD, about 18 percent of 14,000 users surveyed are accessing online video on TVs on a daily basis while around 25 percent access it several times a week. Movies are driving much of that growth, reports TechCrunch.
The rise in online video viewing on TV has been made possible by televisions with built-in Internet as well as game consoles such as the Xbox and set-top boxes that link up with broadband-enabled on-demand services.
“China is coming out as the most online-video-friendly country at the moment,” notes the post. “China’s urban users beat every other country surveyed, across every device. This may be down to simple user behavior, but it’s also, NPD says, because Chinese users can access a lot more video content online than they can from domestic broadcasters and pay TV providers.”
“Online content is mostly viewed on computers or mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, but TVs are increasingly becoming devices of choice for consumers, particularly since an increasing numbers of sets have either built-in connectivity or can be connected to the Internet via a peripheral device such as a connected Blu-ray player or set top box, among others,” said Riddhi Patel, NPD DisplaySearch research director, in a statement.
Taggable video start-up wireWAX just got the Google stamp-of-approval to place its interactive videos on YouTube brand channels, where before videos files were only embeddable on third-party sites.
The company says getting approved was difficult — top YouTube brand users like Nike even put pressure on Google — but the partnership will greatly increase wireWAX’s exposure.
“Going beyond simple video ‘hotspots’ or annotations, wireWAX’s drag ‘n’ drop tool enables users to add full motion-trackable and clickable links around objects, such as faces, products or just about anything,” explains TechCrunch.
“The applications for such interactivity are almost infinite, but include monetizable uses such as ‘shoppable videos’, as created by the likes of fashion retailer Oki-ni. On that note, wireWAX operates a freemium model, charging for additional premium features, such as customizations, on a ‘pay for what you use’ basis.”
YouTube is enabling mobile publishing to provide skippable in-stream ads on mobile devices, which could make more videos available to smartphones and tablets.
“YouTube’s lack of mobile advertising has been one reason a small number of content suppliers bar their YouTube content from going out through YouTube’s mobile and tablet channels,” reports paidContent.
Before, YouTube only had mobile website banners, non-skippable 15-second pre-rolls and Promoted Video ads in mobile searches.
But the skippable ads won’t be coming to your iPhone just yet. “Don’t expect to find the ads inside YouTube’s current, aging iOS app, however. That was built by Apple. Google will build its own for iOS after Apple’s iOS 6 update rips out the app,” notes the post.
Millions of American citizens still do not have adequate access to broadband Internet, according to a report from the Federal Communications Commission that points at service providers for taking their time in offering high-speed services in rural areas.
“The FCC’s annual broadband report, released Tuesday, says that 19 million Americans are still without broadband,” reports CNET. “And even though things are improving, the agency says, the pace of deployment is still too slow.”
This is an improvement over last year’s 26 million without broadband, but marks the third year in a row that the FCC says the high-speed service is not being rolled out in a “reasonable and timely fashion.”
“The U.S. has now regained global leadership in key areas of the broadband economy, including mobile, where we lead in mobile apps and 4G deployment,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement. “But in this flat, competitive global economy, we need to keep driving toward faster broadband and universal access.”
However, John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney for Public Knowledge, argues that much needed competition is lacking when it comes to broadband.
“Unfortunately, the FCC is about to approve a deal between Verizon and several large cable companies that would allow Verizon to start selling cable broadband instead of its own DSL broadband in many markets,” said Bergmayer in a statement. “This is the clearest sign yet that broadband competition in the U.S. is far from what it should be. The FCC should work to improve broadband competition, which will in turn help its goals of broadband deployment and adoption.”
There are numerous ways to bypass commercials today. With radio, listeners can change the station or opt for commercial-free satellite subscriptions. With TV, DVRs allow viewers to fast-forward through content they don’t want to watch.
A new patent granted to Apple this week is taking a different approach and could be applied to all broadcasts.
The patent protects a new technology for “seamless switching between radio and local media,” according to the filing. It enables a mobile device to “automatically switch between broadcast content and stored media to offer the user a type of customized content consumption experience,” Apple Insider reports.
The device would allow users to bypass any media they were uninterested in — advertisements, segments of a talk show, news programming, etc. — and substitute it with their own content.
“By using metadata from assets like Radio Data System (RDS) data, broadcast listings or published third-party schedules, a device can ‘determine when an upcoming broadcast segment or media item is not of interest to the user,'” the article explains.
“When such an event is detected, the device will seamlessly switch to stored media until the unwanted content is completed. Also included as methods of discerning what a user may or may not want to consume are analysis of audio or video from the source, akin to current iOS apps Shazam or IntoNow.”
The technology would allow users to “like” or “dislike” certain content in order to develop a preference profile. It would also look for appropriate stored content to replaced the undesired sections, using a “relevance algorithm” to keep the media consistent with the broadcast stream.
The post suggests the device could work well with Apple’s rumored set-top box, blurring “the line between live and on-demand television.”
In his Scientific American column this month, David Pogue suggests five ways Hollywood can fight piracy and promote its products successfully by more effectively embracing the digital age of content distribution.
1) “Include DVD extras.” Things like deleted scenes, commentary, behind-the-scenes features and more can be found nowhere else but with the DVD itself, encouraging purchase or hard-copy rentals. “Not to mention subtitles and captions — important options for millions of viewers,” adds Pogue.
2) “Offer a reasonable viewing period.” Give online renters the chance to finish the movie in a timely fashion. Pogue suggests viewers should have at least 27 hours, providing the ability to finish the movie the next night if sleepiness or other circumstances cut off their viewing the first night.
3) “Eliminate the starting time. You have to start watching a movie within 30 days of renting it. Okay, this isn’t a big deal — most of the time you rent a movie because you want to start watching right away — but what’s the need for the 30-day restriction? If we paid for it, we should be able to watch it whenever.”
4) “Eliminate the ‘release window’ concept.” When a movie’s theatrical run ends, it is rolled out to other outlets (pay-per-view, DVD, HBO, etc.) in a formulaic way that Hollywood believes holds the best financial yield. But as Pogue aptly notes, “during each window none of the other movie sources are making any money for Hollywood.” He thinks the movie should be available to all outlets at one time.
5) “When it’s buyable, it should be rentable.” A movie will often be put on sale online for more money before it’s available for rent, thus missing revenue from renters excited for a new release.
“Listen up, Hollywood: Nobody ever went out of business offering a good product for sale at a reasonable price with an eye toward pleasing the customer,” concludes Pogue. “You should try it some time.”
