On Jan. 15, the FCC fined Electronic Corporate Pages (ECPI) in Florence, TX, for failing to properly maintain its tower lights. Then on Aug. 11, 2009, the commission’s Houston Office of the Enforcement Bureau received a complaint that antenna structure number 1048971 was unlit, and the owner listed in the registration could not be reached.
A month later, agents from the Houston Office inspected above tower and found that structure’s medium intensity obstruction lights were not operational. Upon investigation, the FCC discovered that while the tower owner had hired a person to monitor the lights, that person had moved from the area, and the tower owner did not know precisely when that happened. In addition, ECPI had failed to update the tower’s registration information with the FCC. The tower owner repaired the lighting system, and it appeared to be working properly that same day. more
Hulu CEO Jason Kilar last week said his company will next push into the mobile space, possibly across several platforms. When asked about supporting an Apple tablet before the iPad launch, Kilar made it clear that his TV streaming service will “embrace any device” and won’t lock itself into supporting any one platform. Kilar said his company’s mobile solution would be complementary to the desktop rather than detrimental. more
The battle between the CEA/CTIA and NAB continues. Last week, the NAB filed a response to a December filing from the CEA/CTIA, which called for broadcasters to move to single-frequency networks (SFN).
Unfortunately, both actions add to the ever increasing list of examples of back and forth, he said/she said between these groups. The NAB has been playing catch-up ever since the CEA put forth its October 2009 report titled, “The Need for Additional Spectrum for Wireless Broadband: The Economic Benefits and Costs of Reallocations” by Coleman Bazelon. That report became the foundation for the public side of the FCC’s call for additional broadband spectrum. These megasize associations have been butting heads for years. But this issue has ratcheted the intensity to critical on the seriousness scale. more
Apple has a reputation for introducing “revolutionary” products, but that’s not what many in the telecom/media industry are calling the iPad. Phrases like “disappointing,” “I’ll need to jailbreak it,” “stunted,” “handcuffed,” and other less-than-complimentary words were common.
Of the couple dozen stories I’ve read, they break equally across two lines: Either you love Apple products or you don’t care so much. The arstechnica.com site posted a series of briefs by several of its writers along with a comparison table of features supported by the iPad, smartphones and soon-to-be-released tablet-type products. The table indicates that while Apple may claim the iPad is “first,” significant features common to other products are missing from its latest introduction. more
The Federal Communications Commission’s director of scenario planning, Phil Bellaria, claims we all misunderstood the agency’s intentions to take away TV broadcast spectrum. He’s now gone on the record saying the commission never “seriously” considered implementing such a plan. Rather, the commission was looking at “a scenario that establishes a voluntary marketplace mechanism so that broadcast TV stations have a choice in how they want to use their spectrum.”
I guess that means you can keep your spectrum. For now. more
OK, let’s first view the glass as half full. NBCU claims it has doubled the amount of coverage for this year’s Winter Olympic Games. This will be the first time the entire event will be shot in HD, encompassing almost 835 hours total coverage across all 15 sporting events. This compares to 419 hours from Torino in 2006 and just over 375 hours from Salt Lake City in 2002. The coverage will air across NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Universal HD and NBC Olympics.com. For Web streaming viewing, NBC will again rely on Microsoft’s Silverlight player. more
This year’s Las Vegas CES convention was filled with people, products and perhaps a little smoke and mirrors. But hey, that’s to be expected at any product convention. Here are a couple of announcements that caught my attention.
3-D television the next home revolution?
The number one theme was 3-D television. Not only were almost 50 3-D television sets released, several content producers announced plans to begin broadcasting 3-D programming. more
Searching for the next big consumer gold mine, electronic giant LG recently inked a deal with Skyview Korea to bring 3-D programming to Asian viewers. LG will make the sets; Skyview will provide satellite delivery of the 3-D content. more
Yep, that brain-busting statistic is from a Q3 Nielsen study. The report says that in Q3 2009, the average American watched more than 31 hours of television per week. Thirty-one minutes of that time was sourced from a DVR. While TV viewing is down 29 minutes from the same period in 2008, that’s to be expected because there wasn’t the Beijing Olympics or a presidential election. more
Broadcast Engineering editorial director Brad Dick offers his thoughts and insights on the changes in the industry. For more, check out his monthly Editorial in Broadcast Engineering magazine.
On Jan. 15, the FCC fined Electronic Corporate Pages (ECPI) in Florence, TX, for failing to properly maintain its tower lights. Then on Aug. 11, 2009, the commission’s Houston Office of the Enforcement Bureau received a complaint that antenna structure number 1048971 was unlit, and the owner listed in the registration could not be reached.
