Relax ...TV Police Are Not Coming

If you have been watching local TV stations recently you may have seen a spot urging you to contact your federal elected officials and tell them not to take away your “free over-the-air TV channels.”  These slick spots tout the benefits of free broadcast TV, but fail to explain what it is that is really in jeopardy. Even if you visit the special website  featured in the spots, the exact nature of the real issue is not clear. From the tone of the spots the viewer is left wondering if the Federal TV Police will soon be breaking down your front door and confiscating your rabbit ears.  Or perhaps the big wigs in Washington are getting ready to levy a TV tax similar to the one in the UK.  Well, if you dig deeper (and the local stations and the NAB, their lobbying group, know you will not) you will find that the issue is all about money and profits and not at all about taking your TV away.

I have written extensively about the revolution in the TV business and how what we see, how we see it, and how it is all financed are undergoing unprecedented change.  The broadcast industry is not a big fan of change since the status quo serves their business model well.

To help you understand the issue, here is a bit of background.  Local commercial TV stations receive cash payments or other compensation from cable and satellite companies that choose to carry local broadcast signals on their systems.  The technical term is retransmission consent payment.  (Note that noncommercial public stations do not receive these payments.)  Nationwide these payments amount to billions of dollars and have become a very important revenue source for local TV stations.   This revenue stream has been on the increase in recent years as other revenue sources for local stations have been on a downward trajectory.  Periodically, stations negotiate with the cable and satellite carriers to establish the fees.  Recently, these negotiations have become more contentious as stations want more and cable and satellite want to pay less. 

Often these negotiations become public and acrimonious.  Right now for example, WXIXChannel 19 is in negotiation with DIRECTV and is running spots on the air warning that DIRECTV may cease carrying the channel.  Increasingly the cable and satellite carriers are balking at these payments and have been lobbying congress to change the retransmission consent regulations.  Their argument is that these escalating fees force them to increase monthly customer bills at a time when fewer people are watching these stations.  Some have threatened to put the local stations on a more expensive tier of service and, of course, charge more.  This may require some FCC rule changes.

This issue is only a small part of a much larger issue of how we pay for our TV.  For many years, cable and satellite companies have used a bundling system to develop your monthly bill.  Subscribers pay for TV channels even though they may never watch them.    The new internet-based TV program distributors can provide an a la carte service with viewers able to select and pay for only what they watch. 

So contrary to what you might gather from the TV spots, there is no need to lock your doors and hide the remote or rabbit ears.  You are safe for the time being.  

Siri On Steroids May Be Coming To Your New Phone

When Apple rolled out the iPhone 4S back in 2011, one of the new features to garner lots of attention was Siri.  This digital assistant could receive voice commands and accomplish various tasks. It seemed to be right out of a Star Trek movie.   Siri was the source of extraordinary media attention and grist for several stand-up comedians.  Siri has expanded the tasks that it can do and has spawned several other competing applications that allow for voice commands.  You can now ask Google questions by speaking rather than typing in requests.  Microsoft has a new app called Cortana.

There is a new company entering the market that seeks to take Siri and Siri-like apps to a new level.  The company called Viv has set up shop in San Jose, California and has attracted a literal “Who’s Who” in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to join its staff.  The team now has engineers who worked on the original Siri and IBM’s Watson of Ken Jennings and Jeopardy fame.  Their mission is to take Siri-like applications and enable them to do some very complex tasks.

For anyone who has used Siri, once the novelty and fascination of speaking orders to your phone wears off, it becomes very apparent that the complexity of tasks within Siri’s grasp is very limited.  In most cases Siri can only provide actions on existing functions or retrieve information already stored and organized in a form that answers your question.  Tasks that require the acquisition of information and actions based on that information to accomplish another action are well beyond Siri and all of the other similar apps now available. 

For example, you can ask Siri to wake you at 6:00 AM.  This is a simple task since your phone has an alarm program and a clock.  Siri needs only to connect the two to accomplish your request.    Let’s change the request making it more complex.  Let’s say that the reason you needed to be awake by 6:00 AM was to get to the airport for an 8:30 AM flight to Washington, DC, on Delta.  You know that bad weather is predicted overnight.  This could slow your drive.  So you request Siri is to wake you in time to get to the airport for your flight to DC.  Viv hopes to have an app that will break down your request into smaller tasks, gather information and then set the alarm to allow you to make your flight.

This task now requires monitoring the weather for your area.  It must also gather traffic reports for roads you will use.  The app must also retrieve data from your airline to make sure that the flight is indeed on time.  With all this information it will compute the amount of time you need to make the flight and wake you at the appropriate time.    While this task would be a simple one for a human personal assistant, it is now well beyond the reach of any app available for your phone.

The folks at Viv see extraordinary applications.  This level of AI might assist with medical diagnoses using information gleaned from millions of research papers, information that the attending physician doesn’t even know exists.   It might open opportunities for those with sight or auditory impairments.  For sure it will speed the development of driverless cars.  Although my morning commute on I-275 often seems like I am among many “driverless” cars.  Not sure even a new Siri will solve that issue!

GoPro Captures Life on the Move

I recently returned from a week of bicycle riding.  This was my eleventh RAGBRAI ride, one of the most popular group rides in the world.  Over the years it has been interesting to see how digital technology has found its way into an event that is based on the bicycle, a device that requires neither bits nor bytes.  When I first participated in this ride, our team used hand-held walkie-talkies to stay in touch with one another. Over the years, mobile phones have made keeping tabs on fellow team members, dispersed among the 15,000 other riders, much easier. And of course the smartphone, Facebook and Twitter have made sharing the experience with family and friends easy.

This year a new device found its way into this event and into other similar events. It allows participants to share their experiences in a way never before possible.  The new device is the GoPro.  The GoPro is a wearable compact digital video camera which has become one of the most successful new electronic gadgets ever.  Developed by a small startup only a few years ago, the company is now valued at more than $3.5 billion.  Sales revenue doubled for 2013 from the previous year.  You may have seen one attached to a head band, helmet, handlebars or a surf board. 

The basic GoPro retails for about 200 bucks and can record, store and playback exceptional quality high definition video and stereo sound.  Since the camera is smaller than a pack of cigarettes it can go anywhere.  With several different mounting brackets available, the GoPro can be attached to the user’s body or bike and capture, up close and personal, all the action.  

YouTube  is replete with extraordinary videos shot using the GoPro.  You can vicariously participate in climbing a mountain, skydive over the Grand Canyon and of course ride a bike through the heartland of America.   There is available a waterproof case that allows the user to take GoPro underwater.  

GoPro has changed forever the “wish you were here” vacation mantra on postcards of years gone by.  It allows you to “be there.” The images are clear and crisp and rival a quality once only possible with cameras costing thousands of dollars. 

As the GoPro and other small cameras become commonplace, they, along with the smartphone cameras, chronicle most every aspect of our lives no matter how mundane.  While sharing extraordinary experiences with those unable to be with you is laudable, the proliferation of these cameras will make it more difficult to maintain privacy. Also, there are some times when using our mind’s eye may be a better way to remember some of life’s journeys.  Too often I have seen people miss the moment by trying to capture it for posterity. 

Models of the GoPro start at $199 for the entry version.  Top of the line models with fancy waterproof cases, special mounting brackets and lenses can cost upwards to $500.  For the money there is no better way to capture the excitement and action of sports and other outdoor activities.

Cincinnati Area Again Broadcast Leader

The Cincinnati area was once considered a major force in broadcasting. The city was home to Avco (nee Crosley) Broadcasting, Scripps Howard and Taft Broadcasting making it a major national and international player in the TV and radio broadcast industry.  It was the home of the first non-commercial public TV station, WCET. North in West Chester the Voice of America operated for more than 50 ears a major transmission facility with the world’s most powerful short wave facility.  The area was also home to several broadcasting companies with extensive radio holdings.  The broadcasting business was once considered to be in Cincinnati’s DNA and it seems that it still is.

Cincinnati is once again making national headlines with the E.W. Scripps Company’s announcement last week.  The locally based Scripps, and Journal Communications Inc. of Milwaukee, have agreed to merge broadcasting operations.  This will make Scripps one of the largest broadcast station group owners in the country with more than 30 TV stations in markets spread throughout the nation.

At a time when the lines between broadcasting and online video services were becoming blurred, Scripps was able to make some significant mid-course corrections in the way they did business.  In the 1990s, the company, which was then invested heavily in daily and weekly newspapers, embarked on a plan to reinvent itself and to include the development of several targeted cable TV program services.  These services now include some of the most watched.  DIY, The Food Network, HGTV and others continue to have robust programming delivered both on cable and online.

About five years ago, Scripps split the company into two new companies.  The cable TV programming holdings were spun off to a new company based in Knoxville leaving the Cincinnati based E. W, Scripps to operate traditional TV stations and newspapers.  Both companies have performed well for audiences and shareholders.  This most recent merger will spin off the Scripps daily and weekly newspapers into a new separate company and allow Scripps to concentrate solely on radio and TV broadcasting.

Scripps has demonstrated innovations within what some feel is old media.  They have incorporated highly visible web content to support their news and entertainment programming which they broadcast on their stations.  By doing so they have merged extraordinary audience reach and easy access to programming made possible by broadcast technology. Using the web they are able to target the rich content and offer interactivity and participation to audiences.  Programs like Let’s Ask America, a production of Scripps stations, incorporate both broadcast and web.

It is good to see a locally based company back in a leadership position within the broadcast industry.