Monthly Archives: April 2012

Stations Must Reveal Political Television Ad Data

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Are you curious about how your local television station charges for political advertising? If the FCC has its way, you won’t need to guess much longer. On Friday, the commission passed new rules that require stations to post the information on a public website.

At first blush, this may seem to be a strong blow for transparency in our political process, but I have to wonder if it will ever be implemented. First, it singles out television broadcasters. The rules do not apply to radio, newspapers, billboards, or even cable and satellite television networks. Just those stations that broadcast free over-the-air television.

In addition, only 10% of the stations will have to comply with the new requirements, at least at the start. The rules will apply to just the 200 largest stations that are affiliated with the major networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. The other 1,800 stations will not have to start making their disclosures for another two years.

I recognize that I’m treading a fine line here, but I believe that this issue transcends political party divisions that have polarized the discussion of many issues in the country. However, I believe that there are many people to the left and the right who have grave concerns about the amount of money spent on political advertising, and that more transparency could be a safeguard against abuse. On the other hand, I am a business owner and I would be distressed to have to put this much detail about my company finances in the public view. According to some reports, the television broadcasters offered to provide aggregate figures about total time and costs broken down by candidate, but the FCC apparently was not interested in this compromise. They want the specific rates paid to be posted online. I can see how this could lead to complications with commercial advertisers, once they see what the politicians got to pay for airtime.

On the other hand, the television stations already have to make this same information available for public inspection at their offices, so how much difference does it make that they also have to post it online?

I’m not sure what is fair in this dispute, but the one prediction that I can make with confidence is that the television networks will make sure that this ends up in court before it takes effect. And I hope that the final outcome will result in a positive change in television that has become a political battleground.

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Traffic Jam: Is the Internet Sky Falling?

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An article by  for GigaOM cites a fascinating statistic from the Sandvine Global Internet Phenomena Report. According to last fall’s version of the report, half of all our Internet use is related to video. Netflix and YouTube alone account for more than 37% of the total traffic. And according to the recently released spring update to the report, when you include audio streaming the total “entertainment traffic” accounts for 64.5% of all Internet downstream traffic on fixed networks in North America, and 51.6% on all mobile networks in North America. Sandvine predicts that entertainment traffic will consume more than 60% of all mobile downstream traffic by 2014.

Should we be worried? Are we going to start getting the data equivalent of a busy signal when we try to send or receive email on our phones and tablets? Or even on our connected computers and other devices?

Fortunately, there are a number of factors that suggest that we’re not headed for a crisis. New technologies keep coming along that increase the amount of data that can be carried by the fiber optic backbones of our nation’s Internet system, with the result that capacity increases anywhere from two to 100 times. All that has to be changed are the encoding devices at the end of the existing cables; the labor-intensive and costly laying of new cable is often avoided.

Also the data itself is becoming more intelligent. For example, some video codecs support “adaptive bitrate streaming” which adjusts the quality of the image based on the bandwidth available in the connection.

All the same, there is the possibility of unintended consequences that could arise from broadband shortages. Already, we see the imposition of data caps on mobile device plans, even though it is a small minority of users who consume the largest share of bandwidth. And we’ve also see the rise of favored treatment for some data over others, which threatens the concept of “net neutrality” that most people appear to favor.

It would appear that the correct reaction at this point is to remain optimistic but vigilant. Watch out for changes from your mobile data or broadband service providers that could cost you more for your Internet service, or limit or slow your access to certain types of content.

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IKEA Television: What Gives?

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Have you seen the new IKEA Uppleva television? It apparently is designed to make it easy for consumers to choose a new HDTV that fits in with their Scandinavian decor. The set hasn’t been released in this country yet, so we don’t know what the price will be. Without this detail, it’s hard to assess the value of this new product, but it clearly marks some interesting changes in the market.

First, if you don’t think that the LCD TV has reached the commodity stage, this should convince you. Here’s a television branded not by any consumer electronics giant, but a furniture maker. This also conveys a message that this set will be as easy to install and use as the IKEA furniture (or with any luck, even easier). It bundles everything for you, including a Blu-ray player.

It is also interesting that a furniture maker should decide to market its own TV. I remember when Magnavox made a big deal about the furniture surrounding its massive cathode ray tube console sets, but I can’t remember another case where that was turned around.

And you don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed by a lot of choices. The Uplevva comes in three sizes; that’s it. You don’t have to deal with a lot of the specifications that you might encounter in an electronics store, such as lcd vs. plasma tv, or whether the screen is 120 Hz or not, if it supports 3D TV, or how the contrast ratio compares. Just pick the television that fits your space and you’re good to go.

Is this the start of a trend? Will you be able to buy a television branded by Sterns and Foster that is designed just for your bedroom? Maybe the major supermarket chains will offer their own television brands; buy one at Thanksgiving and get a free turkey. The price of a flat screen tv has fallen to the point where they could be sold by retailers other than the traditional consumer electronics, shopping club, and discount chains. IKEA could be the bellwether for a whole new approach to selling televisions.

You can be sure that the Uppleva experiment will be watched closely to see if it is a strategy worth emulating. Of course, the company may have to endure a little rib-pocking before the new HDTV can be deemed a success, as has already been ably demonstrated by late night television host Conan O’Brien:

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Death Spiral for Broadcast TV?

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Did you ever hear the squeal of feedback in a public address system? It occurs because a sound coming from the amplified speakers finds its way into a microphone, where it travels to an amplifier that makes it louder. This louder sound comes out of the speaker and goes back into the microphone louder than before, where it gets amplified again. And the cycle repeats until someone turns down the amplifier or the equipment reaches its limits. Or it breaks.

This is called a positive feedback loop, because each time the sound passes through the system, it gets louder. A negative feedback loop does the opposite; it causes the sound (or signal or whatever you’re measuring) to decrease with each cycle, until it finally disappears. We also call this a “death spiral”.

A story in the Washington Post reports that by the third quarter of 2011, we were down to just 5.8 million U.S. homes that rely solely on free, over-the-air broadcasts for their television content. That’s a decline of more than 7% from the 6.25 million of just one year earlier. Many of these viewers are elderly, poor, living in sparsely-populated rural areas, or some combination of those three factors. And from a marketing perspective, these are not demographics that appeal to major advertisers.

It is the advertisers that drive the “free” broadcasts, but smaller television stations have found it increasingly difficult to attract advertising dollars. Companies are already dealing with constraints on their revenues as a result of the down economy, and at the same time, their marketing budget is being stretched to cover new media channels such as the Internet.

Larger stations have been able to replace some lost revenues by demanding larger retransmission licensing fees from subscription television services — though this is coming under increasing scrutiny from Washington D.C. and other quarters — but smaller stations often don’t have this luxury. In fact, many have to forego any retransmission fees at all, trading them instead for a guaranteed slot on the local cable system’s channels which increases their reach and helps improve their appeal to advertisers.

Should we allow the free broadcasts to simply spiral down into oblivion? This is a national question, and one of many similar thorny issues such as preserving the US Postal Service or subsidizing rural air transportation. What would be the impact of a national broadband plan? Is it time to replace the 1930s mandate for free television with a 21st Century mandate for free access to broadband? Six out of 10 U.S. consumers now get their news online in one form or another, according Nielsen. Would free broadband service be enough to provide access to streaming audio and video, replacing current over-the-air radio and television broadcasts?

These are not easy questions, but it’s clear that change is going to come whether we plan for it as a society or not. And we certainly won’t have a plan if we don’t start discussing it.

2nd Screen Future Is Bright, but Watch Those Shades!

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We’re a society that is joined at the hip to our technology: literally. With smartphones in holsters and ebook readers and tablets in our shoulder bags, we now take our digital connections with us wherever we go. But you may be in for a shock when you try to read your indispensable device when you’re out and about, wearing your favorite shades.

I made this discovery years ago, the hard way. Our sailboat has a GPS that doubles as a depth finder, and as we sail on the Chesapeake Bay, knowing how much water separates you from the bottom is essential information. I was making a tricky approach to a creek when I glanced down at the LCD screen to see what the depth was, and I saw a black screen. In a moment of panic, I thought the power had gone off on the device and I whipped off my sunglasses to start troubleshooting the problem. And the image on the screen magically reappeared.

What happened was that the polarization of the display and my sunglasses cancelled each other out. Polarizing films only transmits light waves that are oriented in a specific direction. This helps eliminate glare, and it creates a dimmer image because it blocks the light waves that are not in the correct orientation. You can witness this for yourself; look through two pairs of polarized sunglasses, and then rotate one until it is at right angles to the other. All the light should be blocked and you’ll just see black. (This is also a handy way to check to see if the lenses are really polarized.) You also can demonstrate the same effect using a pair of hair combs. When they are aligned so that their teeth line up, you can see through them. Rotate one to right angles, and your view will be blocked where they overlap.

So much for the science lesson; what does this mean in the real world? As I mentioned already, LCDs rely on polarized light to create their image. So it is possible that the light will not be correctly oriented to view when wearing polarized sunglasses. And that’s exactly what happens.

Take an Apple iPad and look at it in landscape mode while wearing a typical pair of polarized sunglasses, and the image will just look a little dimmer. Take that same table and turn it to portrait mode, however, and it goes black. You might think that OLED displays would not have this problem since they are emissive and do not rely on polarization to create the image, but some models like the Samsung Galaxy S actually go dark when held at a 45-degree angle because it uses a polarizing film to reduce internal reflections.

These observations were made by Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate, who also points out that there is a readily available solution for the manufacturers. They could use a “circular polarizer” — which is what is used in the 3D glasses at your local cinema — that will not block the image. Instead, there is a small color shift. According to Soneira, both the iPhone 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 use this technology to eliminate the sunglasses problem.

So if you’re planning to catch up on some Netflix movies or other video on your next picnic, be sure to make a test run while wearing shades. You don’t want everything to go dark when you go outside.

TV Connect Rates Still Growing

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According to a report by Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG), 24% of U.S. households had a television connected to the Internet in 2010. By last year, this rose to 30%. LRG’s latest research shows that this share has jumped to 38% this year.

The survey includes video game consoles, Blu-ray players, network media players (such as the Roku and Western Digital boxes), and Internet TVs. One of the most interesting results of the survey is that 28% of all households use a video game console to connect the TV to the Internet. That’s nearly three out of every four. While this may signal the video game console’s move from the teenager’s bedroom to the living room, I suspect that it is more likely a measure of young adults in college and living on their own who have chosen to include the video game console in their living room entertainment system.

Whatever the cause, online viewing of long-form content is clearly catching on. The survey indicates that 16% of all adults now watch full-length TV episodes and movies at least weekly, up from 12% last year and 10% three years ago.

According to LRG, traditional linear television services including cable, satellite, and broadcast still dominate the average viewer’s time. The total time spent watching TV has remained fairly constant, and the online services are slowly getting a growing share of that total. So far, however, it appears that few households are “cutting the cord” and dropping the traditional services entirely in favor of streaming video. That is not to say that it won’t happen in the future, and it would appear that the video game console may be the gateway device to that transition.

It’s NOT a Hologram, Folks!

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The legendary rapper, Tupac Shakur, made an appearance at Coachella in California last weekend, in spite of the fact that he’s been dead for more than 15 years. He performed on stage alongside Snoop Dogg, including a “live” shout-out to the Coachella audience. Putting aside the creepy factor of performing with dead singers, let’s talk briefly about the technology.

Let me say at the outset that even though I was not there, it appears that this production was a triumph of technology. The creators apparently combined video recordings and computer animation and audio manipulation to create a completely new performance by the rapper. It is impressive, to say the least.

What I wish people would not say, however, that it is a “holographic” image. Just Google “Tupac hologram” and see how widely the term was used to describe this production. As I understand the technology, it is not a hologram; there is no 3D component to the display. It is simply a 2D image projected onto an invisible screen. It’s not clear if it’s rear or front projection, or if perhaps there is some sort of beam-splitter material involved. But in any case, it is not a 3D hologram. When you move your head from side to side, you see different views of the object; you can see details on the side of the object that were not visible before. With a projected image like this, it may look like 3D because you can move your head and see objects placed behind the image, but the image does not change. It’s as if it were constantly turning to face you, no matter where you move.

If you’re too close to the projection screen, you can see a strangely distorted image:

The image of Tupac appears strangely thin from this angle.

This is not the first time that the press has incorrectly named this sort of production a hologram, and I don’t expect it to be the last. But I still wish that they’d use the term correctly.

Consumer Electronic Recycling Increases

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On Monday, the Consumer Electronics Association announced that participants in the eCycling Leadership Initiative managed to recycle 460 million pounds of consumer electronics in 2011. This number is even more impressive when you consider that this is more than one and a half times the 300 million pounds that was recycled in 2010. Drop-off locations increased from 5,000 in 2010 to 7,500 in 2011. The CEA also reports that 96% of all the recycling was performed by certified third-party recycling facilities.

This is an important step in the right direction. The program has set an ambitious goal of 1 billion pounds recycled in 2016, which will keep a football-stadium’s worth of waste out of our nation’s landfills.

If you want to participate by recycling your unwanted consumer electronic devices, you can find the nearest drop-off location at the GreenerGadgets website.

Best Buy Lists Stores to Close

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Two weeks ago, Best Buy announced that it was planning to close 50 stores as part of its cost-cutting moves designed to help reverse its recent financial losses. Over last weekend, the company released a list of the stores that will close.

These stores are expected to close permanently by May 12. This obviously is a tough decision for the company, and eliminates the jobs of many people who work in those stores. The silver lining in this cloud is that we now have locations and a timeline, so if one of these stores is near you, you may want to watch for closing sales that could offer some special bargains.

Here is the list as posted on the Best Buy site:

Store Name Address City State
Casa Grande 1004 N Promenade Pwy Casa Grande AZ
Lake Pleasant 10134 W Happy Valley Rd Peoria AZ
East Palo Alto 1751 E Bayshore Rd East Palo Alto CA
Westwood 10861 Weyburn Ave Los Angeles CA
Manteca 934 Perimeter Dr Manteca CA
Moreno Valley East 27220 Eucalyptus Moreno Valley CA
Ontario 4120 E 4th St Ontario CA
Pittsburg 4405 Century Blvd Pittsburg CA
Jamboree 2857 Park Ave Tustin CA
Arapahoe & Parker 15800 E Briarwood Cir Aurora CO
The Forum 9370 Dynasty Dr Fort Myers FL
Oldsmar 11655 W Hillsborough Ave Tampa FL
Fayetteville 128 Pavilion Pkwy Fayetteville GA
Loganville 4014 Atlanta Hwy Loganville GA
Addison 1038 N Rohlwing Rd Addison IL
87th & Dan Ryan 8900 S Lafayette Ave Chicago IL
Deerfield 200 S Waukegan Rd Deerfield IL
Matteson 4707 Lincoln Mall Dr Matteson IL
Mundelein 1100 N Rt 83 Mundelein IL
West Dundee 979 W Main St West Dundee IL
Speedway 10500 Parallel Pkwy Kansas City KS
Back Bay 360 Newbury St Boston MA
Wareham 2421 Cranberry Hwy Wareham MA
Inner Harbor 600 E Pratt St Baltimore MD
Hunt Valley 118 Shawan Rd Hunt Valley MD
Biddeford 405 Mariner Way Biddeford ME
*Brooklyn Center 5925 Earle Brown Dr Brooklyn Center MN
*Edina 3200 Southdale Cir Edina MN
*Hutchinson 1350 Hwy 15 S Hutchinson MN
*Lakeville 18350 Orchard Trl Lakeville MN
Rochester South 4540 Maine Ave Se Rochester MN
*Rogers 20870 Rogers Dr Rogers MN
Ellisville 15678 Manchester Rd Ellisville MO
Monroe 3151 W Highway 74 Monroe NC
Rocky Mount 1100 N Wesleyan Blvd Rocky Mount NC
Millard 12210 K Plz Omaha NE
East River Plaza 517 E 117th St New York NY
Steelyard Commons 3506 Steelyard Dr Cleveland OH
Salem Mall 5031 Salem Ave Dayton OH
Caguas Las Americas Expry PR52 Zafiro Caguas PR
Middletown 890 W Main Rd Middletown RI
Hickory Hollow 5255 Hickory Hollow Pkwy Antioch TN
Techridge 12901 North I-35 Austin TX
*Woodlake Parkway 6218 Woodglen San Antonio TX
Landmark Mall 5901 Stevenson Ave Alexandria VA
Cosner’s Corner 9745 Jefferson Davis Hwy Fredericksburg VA
East Richmond 4410 S Laburnum Ave Richmond VA
Mill Plain 16611 Se Mill Plain Blvd Vancouver WA

* indicates stores notified March 29, 2012 of closure plans

Note: Two stores in Kansas City, MO (Metro North) and Scottsdale, AZ (Shea) permanently closed in February 2012.

 

Cable Services Dangle Bonuses

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If this keeps up, you’ll be getting a new toaster when you upgrade your cable subscription.

Cablevision announced on Friday that members of its Optimum Rewards loyalty program now get a new perk: discounted car rentals from Hertz. The deal also offers free rental upgrades and free membership in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards.

Wow, when I sit down in front of my television, I often find myself thinking about renting a car. Not. I’m not saying that there isn’t value in this new partnership between the two partnerships, but I think it is a strong indication of just how lost the cable services are in general these days. Cablevision is in a particularly difficult situation in its New York City metropolitan market, because it faces competition on a number of fronts, and not just satellite services. According to The Bridge, Cablevision’s subscriber list has been slowly but steadily dropping since the fourth quarter of 2010. Most large cable services show similar results.

The cable services have to figure out how to deliver more perceived value to their subscribers while charging more for the same service due to increased retransmission fees, infrastructure maintenance, and other rising costs. They have to fight off the pressure for a la carte pricing of their enormous inventory of linear programming channels, while finding a way to get video on demand (VOD) offerings to compete with online streaming and DVD rental services. They certainly have a difficult task on their hands, but I’m not clear that putting the subscriber in the driver’s seat is the solution.