Hurricane Irene: The
FCC said communications networks held up better than expected during Hurricane Irene. The agency reported 130K wirelines are down, 1400 cell cites are out of service, 1100 cell sites are running on backup power and 500K cable service subs can't get service. Officials said cell phone outages are likely to worsen as battery reserves expire. ---
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chair
John D. Rockefeller reminded the FCC about his dedicated nationwide wireless broadband plan for first-responders as the country's commercial networks are being asked to do so much during emergency situations.
Analyze This:
Forrester research says consumers and marketers alike will become addicted to
Groupon-like daily deals... then overdose on them and kill the service. "Consumers will grow so conditioned to micro-impulse offers that they’ll lose practice at considered decisions (and) employers will blacklist impulse deals to keep people intentional," the firm says.
Gov't: In the shadow of
News Corp.'s phone-hacking scandal, the state of New York canceled a $27M contract with News subsidiary
Wireless Generation to develop software to track student test scores. --- The
FCC restarted the "shot clock" on its review of
AT&T's proposed $39B takeover of
T-Mobile.
$$$:
WSJ reports that
Tumblr is close to raising b/t $75M-$100M in venture capital, valuing the blogging site at $800M.
Strategy:
Apple pulled its trial run of $.99 TV rentals from iTunes... and
VentureBeat has a great piece on those Apple TV "rumors"
here. --- In more Apple news, the company is shutting down
Slide, the social apps firm it bought last year for $182M.
Deals:
SiriusXM landed a multi-year broadcasting agreement with
Learfield Sports and
IMG College for live broadcasts of collegiate sports from 11 conferences. Financial details were unavailable.
Scandal du Joir:
Disney said it is launching its own investigation into claims that a Chinese factory the company employs to make toys uses child labor and forces workers to put in upwards of 120 hours per month in overtime. A human rights org claims one employee committed suicide over the working conditions at the plant. The
Guardian has details.
Programming:
WADL Detroit is prepping to launch
Antenna TV on its dot .2 on Oct. 1.
SkyREPORT:
Eutelsat inked a 6-year distribution agreement for the company's
Skylogic subsidiary and
Egyptsat for satellite and broadband service. ---
DISH agreed to settle with the state of Vermont for $125K after the state AG filed a complaint against the company for convincing customers to unnecessarily upgrade equipment and sign new programming commitments. --- DISH also intro'd its
Tailgater portable satellite TV antenna for outdoor mobile video services.
Folks:
Charter hired
Robert Quicksilver as EVP and CAO overseeing the company's legal, government affairs, human resources and ad sales teams.
D'Oh!: When members of the infamous hacker group
Anonymous appear in public, they wear the plastic
Guy Fawkes masks made recognizable from the (ridiculously cool)
V for Vendetta movie. The group likes to take on gov't's and corporations, but
Time Warner actually owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask...
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Catch today's media market news from The Evening BRIDGE. •
