Rules & Regs:
U.S. Telecom President/CEO
Walter McCormick took to the blogosphere to blast just about everyone who has an opinion on USF reform. His solution? Adopting the telco industry's proposal… no questions asked. Meanwhile, media reform groups like
Free Press, who McCormick calls "career protestors" and "reactionaries" disagree. FP Director
Josh Levy says if you want to hand over even more or your hard-earned cash to the telcos, then the FCC's plan is for you. Read
his take at
Huff Post. --- Broadband via wall sockets is a step closer to becoming reality, as the FCC green-lit rules for BPL (broadband over power lines) without any major changes.
TVTech has details.
Q3:
Amazon reported yet another lower quarterly profit, down 73% to $63M. Sales, however, were up 44% to $10.88B. ---
Sprint reported Q3 operating revs of $8.3B with the company's best total wireless net sub adds in more than 5 yrs with 1.3M (includes wireless, pre-paid, post-paid, wholesale and affiliate). The company reported operating income of $208M, a net loss of $301M and a diluted loss of $.10 per share. ---
Broadcom reported Q3 net revs of $1.96B, an 8.4% y/y increase with $534M in FCF. The company's GAAP net income for the period was $270M ($.48 per share-diluted), compared with $328 million ($.60 per share-diluted) in Q310. ---
DreamWorks reported total revs of $160.8M with net income of $19.7M ($.23 per share-diluted). ---
RadioShack reported total net sales and operating revs increased 3% to $1.03B. Net income on the period was $.3M ($0.00 per share-diluted), compared to Q310's net income of $46M ($.37 per share-diluted). ---
LodgeNet reported Q3 revs of $106.8M compared to $113.8M in Q310. The company's operating income increased 30.5% to $8.9M with net income attributable to stockholders reaching $.02 per share, an improvement over the $-.12 the stock lost in Q310. ---
Rogers Communications reported a 7% increase in Q3 adjusted EPS to $.89 with $492M in FCF. The cable op added 161K new wireless customers with wireless data revs increasing 28%, cable revs up 4% and media revs up 10%.
In Court:
Bloomberg is reporting that
Groupon is suing two former employees for allegedly taking "confidential trade secrets" to their newly-hired positions at
Google.
Research: Last week we reported on the
American Academy of Pediatrics' recent study that says infants and tots shouldn't be watching TV. Here's a
follow-up story in the
NYT (on a subsequent study set for release next week) that says parents are placing their kids in front of video screens more than ever before. "Parents increasingly are handing their iPhones to their 1 1/2-year-old kid as a shut-up toy…" ---
Pyramid Research says mobile devices will become the platform of choice for accessing social networking sites in Latin America as the region is poised for 116.8M users by 2015.
Alt. Vid: Want more
Netflix coverage?
Company Town writes about the company's
"nuclear winter" and how some (but not all) analysts are jumping ship after the company's 74% plunge since July.
Online:
YouTube unveiled a couple changes to its user experience this week with the launch of WeVideo - a cloud-based video editing platform - and a new end-screen that appears when videos are finished playing to help users find more content. ---
Cablevision launched a cool tool that turns phone numbers on a website into clickable instant-dialing links. The company's Click-to-Call is a free service to any Optimum Voice customer across Cablevision's entire footprint.
M&A:
Local reports say
New Wave should close on its
Comcast assets purchase in Illinois by mid-December.
SkyREPORT:
Intelsat is teaming up with
du, a telco service provider in the United Arab Emirates, for turnkey MCPC (multichannel per carrier) distribution on the Intelsat-10 satellite located at 68.5ºE offering a video neighborhood across Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
Folks:
IBM said
Virginia Rometty will replace
Sam Palmisano in January becoming the company's first female CEO. Palmisano will stay with IBM as chairman. ---
Rogers said that current CFO
Bill Linton will retire in Q212 and be succeeded by senior financial executive
Anthony Staffieri. ---
Christopher W. Shean is new SVP/CFO at
Liberty Media;
David J.A. Flowers is new SVP/managing director for alternative investments. --- Former Democratic
FCC Commissioner
Susan Ness (94-01) has been elected to the board of directors of
Gannett.
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Catch today's media market news in The Evening BRIDGE. •
