Paul Gluckman

XM can’t give “assurances” on the “timing or outcome” of a government decision on the proposed merger with Sirius, but “we expect and we continue to look forward to a timely and positive resolution of the regulatory approval process,” Chairman Gary Parsons told analysts Thursday in a quarterly earnings call. “In the unlikely event” that the merger is scrapped, XM is “fully funded for a stand-alone business,” Parsons said. For 2007, XM had 3.89 million gross subscriber additions -- flat compared with the 3.87 million gross adds in 2006, CEO Nate Davis said. Gross adds in Q4 jumped to 1.13 million from 1.07 million a year earlier, Davis said. But net adds fell to 1.4 million from 1.7 million, he said. “As you know, the retail satellite radio segment has been declining,” he said. “This softness in retail reflects growing competition from a myriad of audio entertainment sources like iPods and MP3 players, cellphones, Internet radio and other new devices. Competition from satellite radio has even made FM radio better.”

Sirius and XM think “we have made the case” that merging the satellite radio networks “serves the public interest,” Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin told analysts Tuesday in a quarterly earnings call. Sirius and XM weren’t able to achieve their goal of closing the merger in 2007, the companies still “look forward to a fast, positive ruling from the government,” he said. XM and Sirius hoped by now to be discussing implementing their merger, but haven’t gotten FCC or Justice Department approval, Karmazin said. “We are optimistic that we will hear favorable information from them in the near future.” Sirius won’t forecast its 2008 financials or beyond until there’s “regulatory clarity,” he said. In Q-and-A, Karmazin said he has nothing new to say of talks with the DoJ. “We wait by our telephone but we really have not heard anything from them,” he said. “It has been more radio silence than anything else.” Sirius ended 2007 with 8.32 million subscribers, up 38 percent from 2006, the company said. But retail subscribers grew only 15 percent to 4.64 million. In 2006, retail subscriptions jumped 64 percent.

DTV coupon requests shot up 22 percent for the week ended Friday, breaking the 6-million mark, NTIA data showed. Consumers requested 1,088,549 coupons -- the most a week since just after NTIA began accepting applications Jan. 1. Total requests since Jan. 1 reached 6,048,365.

Consumers requested just under 380,000 DTV converter box coupons in the week ended Friday, the NTIA said, raising total requests to 4.96 million since the government began accepting applications Jan. 1. The total is 22.3 percent of the 22.25 million coupons that NTIA has budgeted for the “base” phase of the program, when all households are eligible for coupons. A “contingency” phase, if needed, would allot 11.25 million coupons to households that certify they depend on over-the-air signals alone for TV.

A year ago, Sony executives at the company’s annual line show declared plans to extend the company’s successful Bravia LCD TV subbrand to its line of microdisplay-based rear- projection TV sets. The “Braviazation” of Sony’s rear- projection TVs, as Sony executives called it, would breathe life into a category that fast was losing valuable retail floor space to the more-popular flat-panel LCD TVs and plasma sets.

Consumers requested just over 400,000 DTV converter box coupons in the week ended Friday, NTIA said, raising total requests to 4.58 million since the government began accepting applications Jan. 1. The total is 20.6 percent of the 22.25 million coupons that NTIA has budgeted for the “base” phase of the program, when all households are eligible for coupons. A “contingency” phase, if needed, would allot 11.25 million coupons to households that certify they depend on over-the- air signals alone for TV. The pace of requests has dropped significantly. An average of 1.27 million coupons was requested in each of the first three weeks. Since Jan. 25, weekly requests have averaged just over 382,000, NTIA’s data show.

DTV converter box coupon requests passed the 4 million mark the week ended Feb. 1, according to www.ntiadtv.com, NTIA’s coupon site for retailers. The week’s 365,087 requests made the total 4,176,287, the data show. Texas, California and Michigan led in number of requests, but Illinois, in fifth place the week ended Feb. 25 (CD Feb 4 p9) leapfrogged Pennsylvania to take fourth. Wisconsin, with 128,282 requests, replaced Missouri in 10th-place.

Consumers requested 3,811,200 DTV converter box coupons through midnight Jan. 25, according to NTIA data. The data run by state and “ZIP3,” the first three digits of ZIP codes. Texans requested the most coupons, 336,176, followed by Californians (320,997) and Michiganders (195,695). Other states in the top 10: Pennsylvania (193,782); Illinois (191,652); Ohio (188,996); Florida (184,841); New York (176,087); Indiana (123,911); and Missouri (118,495). The northern suburbs of Dallas in the 750 code requested 50,030 coupons, by far the most of any ZIP3, the data show. Next was Chicago (606), requesting 39,436 coupons. Texas was the only state with three ZIP3 codes in the top 10. Portland, Ore., in the 972 ZIP3, placed fourth nationally, though Oregon as a state ranked 13th. Portland is where IBM subcontractor Epiq Systems bases its coupon request operations. We asked NTIA if Portland’s ranking was coincidence. “No way to tell,” a spokesman said. He speculated that perhaps the Portland media gave the coupon program “bigger play” than in other markets.

Exactly a month after NTIA’s phone and online systems went live to accept the first DTV converter box coupon requests from consumers, demand for the coupons has subsided, as have many of the bugs and peculiarities that abounded when we applied for coupons in the program’s first 40 hours (CD Jan 3 p2), our follow-up canvassing has found. Still, mixed messaging from customer service reps at NTIA’s call center and other problems continue to make for a program that’s less than perfect, we found. As we found when we tried applying the day the program went live on Jan. 1, phoning 888-DTV-2009 from a home phone with a listed number remains the speediest way of completing an application successfully. Phoning from a cellphone or unlisted landline inhibits the system from doing the automatic address lookup it so easily performs when an applicant calls from a listed home phone. There, an applicant, responding to automated voice prompts, must speak an address and name for the system to recognize. As we found a month ago, the system often gets hung up recognizing even common monosyllabic names. After several unsuccessful tries, the system redirects the calls to a live operator at the call center. But in contrast to the long waits we encountered at the program’s inception, response time now seems much quicker. Even phoning at off-peak hours, we waited at most two minutes for a rep to come on the line.

Public DTV awareness is rising, said NAB and Consumers Union survey reports released Wednesday. The NAB touted its results as evidence that voluntary consumer education works. Consumers Union, however, said consumer confusion about the DTV transition is growing with awareness about the analog cutoff.