»
Three senators have sent a letter to FCC chair Kevin Martin, saying they believe the merger conditions set forth by Martin, that Martin is ready to accept to allow Sirius and XM to join, don’t go far enough.
Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) say the proposals “fall short of what is necessary to permit the commission to conclude that the proposed merger meets the public interest test, as required by the Communications Act.”
The senators say that the 12 channels the two companies have agreed to set aside for minority programming is nothing but a token offer. They would like the FCC to require a combined company to lease as much as 50 percent of its satellite system capacity, “thus preserving the essence of the current FCC rules [which block the two satcasters from merging, and certainly no less than 20 percent of its capacity,” according to the letter (via Radio Ink).
The senators also suggest that device manufacturers be required to integrate HD Radio into all satellite radio receivers, which iBiquity, creator of HD Radio, suggested in January.
In May, Pioneer North America sent a letter to the FCC arguing against such a condition, saying that forcing manufacturers to include HD technology would “interfere with the useful and healthy free market mechanisms extant in radio electronics purchases” and result in a host of technical difficulties, including “decreasing AM/FM tuning performance,” writes MediaPost.
The Spanish Radio Association says Arbitron still has not addressed its concerns and research questions regarding the PPM and how “Hispanics are recruited and represented, and how the PPM panel is maintained.”
The SRA has been working with Arbitron in…
The Chicago Tribune’s new design will launch on Sept. 29, Tribune Co. chief operating officer Randy Michaels says. No details on the redesign have been released; the paper has already been decreasing its editorial pages to create a more even split…
Teens are not the best demo to target with cell phone advertising, according to a new study from comScore. Though they are cell phone-savvy, most of them - 70 percent - have their phones paid for by parents, which means…
CNN won its second night of coverage of the Democratic National Convention Tuesday. The network averaged 3.41 million viewers in the 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. time slot, despite the fact that Fox drew nearly even for the night.
Fox…
Generation Y is the most self-indulgent, Generation X is the most innovative, and Boomers are the most productive, while the “Silent Generation” and the “Greatest Generation” are the most admired, according to a recent survey by Harris Interactive, writes MarketingCharts.
Conducted for…
To encourage shoppers to buy more back-to-school items, retailers often implement “loss leader” strategies: that is, selling items at a loss or even giving them away in hopes that the reductions will attract shoppers who will then buy other, more…
