Tech companies and industry groups largely shied away Friday from reacting to Thursday’s decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denying an emergency motion to stay a lower court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) that blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 27 immigration executive order.
Disney CEO Bob Iger won’t commit to a specific date or pricing model for the launch of the ESPN-branded, direct-to-consumer subscription streaming service that it plans with partner BAMTech for live sports (see 1608100024), he said on an earnings call. "The goal is to launch the platform sometime in 2017.” Disney is “very excited about what the potential of this is long term, both for the company and for third parties who can use the product, because the technological side of it is so strong in ways that are value-enhancing for them as well,” Iger said Tuesday. After a visit with BAMTech, he saw "the potential is for them to use data to increase or to generate great revenue from advertising,” Iger said. That’s “something that we don't have today, in part because a lot of our distribution comes through third parties, so we don't get access to that information,” he said. As for the content that will be available on the ESPN-branded service when it launches, BAMTech already licenses “a number of digital rights to sporting events, and we have licensed at ESPN a number of them” as well, Iger said. “We bring to the table a fair amount of rights that can be added to the rights that they have.” Disney spent $1 billion last summer to buy 33 percent of BAMTech, Iger noted: “Our strong sense as partners and as part owners is that we're going to continue to go out on behalf of the entity and license more content to that entity.” The inaugural content slate of the ESPN-branded service will “start off with, I think, a wide array of pretty attractive sports that come from both what they've licensed and what we've licensed,” Iger said.
President Donald Trump’s Jan. 30 executive order requiring federal agencies to kill two regulations for every new one they issue got its first judicial challenge Wednesday when the Natural Resources Defense Council and others sued the administration for a declaratory judgment that the order exceeds Trump’s constitutional authority.
LeEco can't predict when its Vizio acquisition will be completed, LeEco spokesman Greg Belloni emailed us Tuesday. LeEco's position remains the same as it was at CES, Belloni said: "The deal review is still in progress, but we don't have a date to share yet.” When LeEco announced July 26 it would pay $2 billion cash to own Vizio as part of its master plan to bring its “ecosystem” of smart TVs, content and cloud services to North America, it said it expected to close the deal in about six months (see 1607260066).
LG Electronics and its Zenith subsidiary don't support a tuner mandate for the transition to ATSC 3.0, spokesman John Taylor told us. LG and Zenith back the recommendations in the petition for ATSC 3.0 rulemaking that CTA, NAB and others filed April 13 at the FCC (see 1604130065), urging that ATSC 3.0 tuners in receivers not be required because the evolution to the next-generation TV standard should be market-driven and based on voluntary standards, Taylor said. It’s too soon to say whether LG and Zenith will file comments if commissioners approve at their Feb. 23 meeting the NPRM on ATSC 3.0 that the agency released publicly as a draft item last week (see report in the Feb. 3 issue of this publication). In the draft, the FCC said it tentatively agrees with the argument that an ATSC 3.0 tuner requirement won't be needed, but that it would seek comment anyway on whether a market-driven approach would be enough. LG and Zenith in 2002 supported the FCC mandate that DTV tuners be included in analog sets on the grounds that a tuner requirement was the best way “to provide consumers with cost-effective products while achieving the national policy objectives” of the DTV transition. “Times have changed,” Taylor said of LG/Zenith’s endorsement of a market-driven approach for ATSC 3.0.
CTA declined comment on the amici brief signed by dozens of tech companies backing the states of Washington and Minnesota in their fight to keep President Donald Trump’s now-suspended immigration executive order from being reinstated (see 1702060016). “We have not yet reviewed the brief,” CTA President Gary Shapiro emailed us Tuesday. “We stand by our initial statement” two days after the order was first released (see 1701290001) that blocking access en masse of employees of U.S. companies who are lawful visa and green card holders based on religion or national origin raises constitutional issues, Shapiro said. He also testified at last week’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens that he thinks the immigration order isn’t good for business (see report in the Feb. 2 issue of this publication). Eight more companies, for a total of 135, filed letters of joinder Tuesday adding their support to the tech industry's amici brief against the immigration order. They are Akamai, Credo Mobile, Fitbit, Molecule Software, PostMates, QuantCast, SoundCloud and SpotHero. Oral argument on the Trump administration’s emergency motion to stay a lower court’s temporary restraining order that blocked enforcement of the immigration order was scheduled for 3 p.m. PST Tuesday at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order blocking citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days (see 1701290001) “is inflicting substantial harm on U.S. companies.” So said an amici brief (in Pacer) signed by dozens of prominent tech companies filed Sunday at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco backing Washington and Minnesota in their fight to keep Trump’s now suspended order from being reinstated.
In reaching an agreement for Vizio to pay $2.2 million to settle allegations it fashioned its smart TVs to spy on consumers' viewing habits without their knowledge and then sold the data to third parties, the FTC and New Jersey weighed in on the same Vizio Inscape viewer-tracking feature that spurred two dozen video-privacy class-action complaints in federal courts since November 2015 (see 1605020034). Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen in a concurring statement suggested Vizio won’t be the last company to come under the agency’s scrutiny.
New concerns emerged Friday over some details and lack of others on ATSC 3.0 in the first attempt by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to publicly release drafts of entire items before they're voted on at commissioners' meetings. CTA and the New America Foundation said they found bothersome some of the details in the draft ATSC 3.0 rulemaking, issued Thursday along with a draft order on AM revitalization. And a spectrum consultant sought more details. The regulator declined to comment.
Sales and operating profit in Sony’s core consumer electronics sector of home entertainment and sound plunged by double digits in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31, the company announced. Sony Pictures swung to a $920 million operating loss, from a year-earlier profit, as revenue plunged 14.1 percent to $1.9 billion. Sony blamed “significantly lower theatrical revenues” in the current quarter on tough comparisons with Q3 a year earlier, which benefited from the “strong worldwide performances” of Spectre and Hotel Transylvania 2. “Management takes seriously the fact that we have under-achieved the profitability target” in the pictures sector, Sony said. CEO Kazuo Hirai “will keep a second office” in Culver City, California, where the sector is headquartered so “he can involve himself even more deeply in the management of the entertainment businesses,” the company said.