Industry

FCC Meeting Does Happen… 11 Hours Late

Despite a failed webcast, yesterday’s FCC open meeting did take place, albeit 11 hours late. The result was a cable industry victory. The FCC voted unanimously to require cable operators to broadcast local digital channels in both digital and analog for three years after the DTV transition date. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin had been pushing … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs: 3D TV, The Next Heavy-Bandwidth App: Connected Home 2 Go New NCTA Proposal on Digitial Must-Carry Channels: Connected Home 2 Go Video Streaming vs. Video Downloading: Connected Home 2 Go

Picture of the Day: The FCC Non-Webcast

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Seriously, if you’re going to offer an “audio/video broadcast” of an event, I expect a little more than muzak and images of businessmen casually conversing. That’s what I got for more than 4 hours when I activated the FCC’s AV link that was supposed to show me coverage of today’s open commission meeting. Guess I’ll be waiting for updated info on a-la-carte programming and digital must-carry rules from someone who made it there in person.

UPDATE: Multichannel News reports that the public meeting never happened because FCC leaders were “stuck in negotiations all day Tuesday.”  The hold-up is primarily debate over the digital must-carry rules.

More exciting photos after the jump.

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Half Price DigitalLife Tickets

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DigitalLife is just a few weeks away (9/27-9/30) – unlike most trade shows, this one is consumer-oriented and all are welcome. It’s also a fairly manageable event you can probably knock out in a day. So if you’ll be near NYC later this month, register for DL using the code ZATZ for 1/2 price tickets. (Disclosure: I receive zero kickbacks and have no monetary relationship with DigitalLife.) I’ll be in NYC that week, including working ShowStoppers and attending DigitalLife in one form or another – at least on Thursday.

The DL folks provided some event highlights to share:

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Get Ready for Digital TV… Says Feather-Duster Lady

The National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has launched a new commercial campaign to inform American consumers about the upcoming digital TV transition. In one of four new spots, Eunice Mixon tells us not to worry about February 2009, cable’s got it taken care of. I find her authority somewhat undermined by the purple feather … Read more

Liberal Tech

It’s like the 1960s all over again. Okay not really, but there are a couple of left-leaning trends in the tech world these days. First, as seen in the graphic above, tech companies are contributing more to Democrats this year than Republicans. John Chambers may be stumping for McCain, but it looks like Cisco as … Read more

NBC Content Lands on Amazon Unbox

Amazon Unbox is serving up NBC video: NBC says up until December you’ll be able to download programming from iTunes. But after that you will have to turn to other download distribution channels for NBC content including Amazon.com’s “Unbox” service […] NBC wanted iTunes to jack the price of its TV shows to $5 an … Read more

Apple, the Musical; Apple (Hearts) Starbucks

Today’s Apple event was all about the iPod, with a little iPhone thrown in for good measure. (Nothing on Apple TV) Engadget and Ars Technica live-blogged the show. Here are the basics: New ringtone maker – pay another $.99 to make ringtones out of your iTunes songs New iPod Shuffle colors – pretty (P)hat new … Read more