CEA President Gary Shapiro’s blog post slamming broadcasters (http://bit.ly/1tpgoIb) for “squatting” on spectrum and opposing innovation is a “silly and misguided missive” akin to a child’s spilling his chocolate milk for attention, said NAB Executive Vice President Strategic Planning Rick Kaplan on the NAB’s blog (http://bit.ly/1jLoA3P). Kaplan rejected Shapiro’s contention that the NAB is fighting the auction and steering broadcasters away from participating in it. “Indeed, he does not, and cannot, point to a single instance where NAB has attempted to delay the auction,” Kaplan said. The broadcast response to the auction, blackouts and the ongoing lawsuit against Aereo are indications that broadcasters aren’t considering the public interest, said Shapiro’s blog post. “Broadcasters have by action and word abandoned their commitment to provide free content to the local public they are supposed to serve,” said Shapiro. Stations applying for license renewal should have to show they operate in the public interest before receiving approval, he said. “If CEA really cared about the public interest, it would lean on its wireless carrier and device members to take the simple step of unlocking the FM chips already in their phones,” Kaplan said. The NAB post is an attempt to “correct the record,” Kaplan said, though he also worried it would encourage further attacks on broadcasters. “NAB has an unofficial internal rule that we only respond to Mr. Shapiro’s comments once for every three or four of his outbursts,” said Kaplan’s post.

TV Everywhere sites and apps supplement TV viewing and add value to pay TV, a Viacom study said. Viacom used digital online journals, focus groups and ethnographies in New York and Chicago, it said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1nvRfIf). There also were online surveys with more than 1,300 Viacom viewers age 13-49 and more than 600 participants age 2-12, it said. Sixty-four percent of respondents reported watching more TV overall since they began using TV Everywhere, Viacom said. This finding is even stronger among millennials, with 72 percent watching more TV, it said. “For those using TV Everywhere, the television is still the go-to source for TV shows and watching live.” Nearly 99 percent of users claimed that TV Everywhere adds value to their pay-TV subscription, it said. Content, the flexibility of watching shows when viewers want to watch them and accessing shows on a range of devices are key drivers of TV Everywhere use, it said. For non-users, lack of perceived need, hidden cost concerns and lack of awareness are the biggest barriers to adoption, Viacom said.

It could be a decade or more before Major League Baseball games are shot and broadcast in 4K, Joe Inzerillo, chief technology officer-MLB Advanced Media, said at the Appnation Cross Platform Summit in New York Tuesday. Ultra HD “economics are dubious right now,” he told us. About 2,500 MLB games are broadcast each year and some games are still broadcast in standard definition, said Inzerillo. It will be at least “10 years down the road” before all MLB games are shot and broadcast in Ultra HD, he predicted. MLB hasn’t made any announcement on Ultra HD rollout plans, he said. One major issue is the lack of broadcast standards, he said. “We'll get there,” Inzerillo said of MLB games in 4K, saying some major markets will get the format before others. MLB has experimented with Ultra HD, shooting a few games in 4K, said Inzerillo. There hasn’t been a way to broadcast them, he said. Many consumers can’t even tell the difference between HD and Ultra HD, he said. The TV is “ultimately not a platform for innovation,” he told the summit. TVs aren’t updated and enhanced as quickly as other devices that consumers can view TV content on, he told us later. TVs also don’t provide as “compelling” a user experience as mobile devices and Xbox consoles, he said. There is also a wide disparity between what different types of viewers consider the “best” screen to watch TV content on, he told the summit. Twelve-year-old kids might consider an iPad to be the best screen, he said.

Comments are due July 7, replies Aug. 4 on the FCC 2014 quadrennial review (QR) of media ownership rules, diversity rules returned to the agency by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a potential disclosure requirement for TV-station shared service agreements (SSA), said an agency notice in Tuesday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1j5QZLV). It said comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act aspects of information collection requirements associated with the proposed rules are due July 21 to the Office of Management and Budget. A party-line FCC voted March 31 on a further NPRM beginning the new QR, incorporating a never-finished 2010 QR and proposing to require disclosure of SSAs (http://1.usa.gov/1j5QZLV) (CD April 1 p4). The FCC separately said Tuesday a rule also adopted at that commissioner meeting, requiring ownership quota attribution of TV-station joint sales agreement, takes effect next month. (See separate report above in this issue.)

The American Cable Association and NAB said AT&T’s proposed buy of DirecTV should be examined closely. The deal “demands a hard look in an increasingly consolidated broadband and pay television marketplace,” NAB said in a statement Monday (http://bit.ly/1kmiUMe). “It is hard to see how decreasing competitors in the pay TV marketplace -- while increasing regulatory restraints on local TV stations -- truly benefits consumers.” AT&T agreed to net neutrality commitments, expanding broadband to rural communities and other conditions if its acquisition of DirecTV is approved (CD May 20 p1). ACA is troubled “by the consolidation wave within the video subscription marketplace,” highlighted by Comcast agreeing to buy Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV, said President Matt Polka. The latter “merits the closest scrutiny” by the Department of Justice and FCC, he said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1k36ucP). Congress and the FCC need to take a comprehensive look at the market that will exist if the deals are approved, and “decide whether existing rules that govern the current market are sufficient for the new industry order,” he said.

Nielsen started measuring “demographic data” on age and gender for its Twitter TV ratings, said a company news release (http://bit.ly/1o7LotO) Monday. Initial demographic data showed a “broad age and gender distribution across programming” and “highlights significant differences in age and gender profiles across programming types,” it said. The new data illustrate “how Twitter enables TV networks and advertisers to reach audiences beyond their core demos,” it said. The data advances “our ability to evaluate and measure the impact of those opportunities and complement our clients’ TV investments with social activation that can improve overall marketing performance,” said David Shiffman, MediaVest executive vice president-research, in the release.

A media-brokers group wants the FCC to nix newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership limits on radio and TV, without changing broadcast-only ownership caps. “Allowing newspaper/broadcast combinations in today’s marketplace, where there are so many choices for reading, viewing and listening, can only strengthen local content and public service,” said a filing Friday in docket 14-50 by the National Association of Media Brokers (http://bit.ly/1j3kuOs). It said ending cross-ownership rules wouldn’t “generate a significant wave” of deals, and may lead to stations investing in papers in smaller markets. The association successfully backed waivers of foreign ownership caps of 25 percent on U.S. stations (CD May 2/13 p5).

Some 42 million U.S. households had a TV connected to the Internet in Q1 via a video game console, Blu-ray disc player, streaming media player or through TV software, said the NPD Connected Intelligence report. From 2013 to 2014, the number of homes connected to the Internet via TV grew by 6 million, driven by growth in sales of connected TVs and streaming media players, NPD said. For the first time, in Q1 the number of streaming media players connected to the Internet outpaced the number of connected Blu-ray players, it said. “Consumers want devices that can deliver high-quality content to their TVs,” said John Buffone, executive director, Connected Intelligence, NPD. The increased penetration in connected TV and streaming media players indicates consumers are looking for “app-related content in the simplest, most effective way,” Buffone said. NPD data show 67 percent of connected TV users said connectivity via Wi-Fi was key to their purchase decision. Other purchase factors related to ease of use with devices or the interfaces for home screens or apps, NPD said. The TV viewing experience consumers want “has not changed, although how they receive it continues to, and an app experience is no different,” said Buffone. “Consumers want easy to find, entertaining programming and a quality picture that does not buffer.” The survey was conducted with more than 5,000 U.S. consumers, age 18 and older, during Q1.

The comment period on the Copyright Office’s music licensing inquiry was extended to May 23, it said in a news release (http://1.usa.gov/STs3Cr) Friday. Responses to the office’s public roundtables on orphan works and mass digitization are due May 21, it said. The office plans a series of public roundtables on music licensing (http://1.usa.gov/Rox0S9) (CD May 7 p5).

Nielsen and NBCUniversal completed a pilot program that used TV, online and mobile platforms as part of Nielsen’s effort to expand its advertising measurement and programs. The solution combines Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings reporting with TV ratings “to deliver unduplicated and incremental reach, frequency and gross rating point (GRP) measures by age and gender for TV and digital advertising,” Nielsen said in a news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1ggsUle). The pilot measured how consumers watched the 2014 Winter Games and looked at five national ad campaigns that ran heavily across platforms, it said.