Coda
by Staff -- Multichannel News, 8/24/2008 8:00:00 PM
Peer Pressure on Comcast
Washington — The Federal Communications Commission last week released a formal order demanding that Comcast stop its “unreasonable network management practices” of interfering with peer-to-peer Internet applications, after the operator already committed to moving to a “protocol-agnostic” approach.
The 67-page order, adopted in a 3-2 vote by FCC commissioners Aug. 1, requires Comcast within 30 days to disclose details of how it has targeted P2P applications and submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop the practice by the end of the year.
The order does not impose any fines or damages on Comcast.
Asked to comment, Comcast senior director of corporate communications and government affairs Sena Fitzmaurice said the operator is “examining the order and evaluating our options.”
Comcast in March announced that it will migrate to a “protocol-agnostic” approach to managing its Internet bandwidth by the end of 2008, which will limit the bandwidth available to only the most excessive users. Comcast has also said it is working with BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer providers to make their applications run optimally on its network.
Comcast has been accused of selectively — and secretly — “blocking” peer-to-peer uploads.
FCC chairman Kevin Martin compared Comcast’s P2P management techniques to the U.S. Postal Service stamping “return to sender” on mail it didn’t want to deliver.
“Today, the commission tells Comcast to stop, and to disclose to its subscribers how it is going to manage traffic on a going-forward basis,” Martin said in a statement accompanying the order.
In a dissenting statement, Republican commissioner Robert McDowell said the FCC doesn’t have any rules governing Internet-network management to enforce. “This matter would have had a better chance on appeal if we had put the horse before the cart and conducted a rulemaking, issued rules and then enforced them,” McDowell said.
— Todd Spangler
ESPN to Make Olympic Play
New York — ESPN wants to be in the game for the 2014 and 2016 Games. That’s according to ESPN chief George Bodenheimer, who said ESPN/ABC will be in on the bidding process for the 2014 Winter Games and 2016 Summer Games when the International Olympic Committee begins the auction process over the next year.
Speaking at a kickoff media event here for the Monday Night Football franchise, Bodenheimer said ESPN/ABC was “very interested” in the future Olympics rights, although he cautioned that it “still has to make business sense” for the sports giant to make a bid.
Bodenheimer — who noted that ESPN already has a relationship with the IOC through the company’s coverage of the Games on its Brazilian networks and through its failed revenue-sharing bid on the last round of U.S. TV rights — gave thumbs up to NBC’s multiplatform presentation of the Beijing Olympics, as it mirrors the multiplatform tack ESPN embarked on more than a decade ago.
“It validates the belief we had 10 years ago or more that sports fans are not just enjoying sports on television,” Bodenheimer said.
If ESPN/ABC were to secure the rights to the future Games, it would proceed differently than NBCU has in at least one regard: West Coast residents would not be held back from viewing top events like NBC did with Michael Phelps’s record-breaking swims until primetime arrived in the Pacific time zone.
“We would never put an event on tape delay. When we put 'live’ on the screen, we mean 'live right now.’ We don’t mean 'live three hours ago,’ ” said Skipper.
Bidding for the 2014 Games from Sochi, Russia, and the not-yet-awarded 2016 Summer Olympics will likely unfold over the next six to nine months, according to ESPN officials.
Given NBC Universal’s ratings and digital-media success with the current Beijing Olympics, which held an $894 million rights fee, the bidding will likely surpass the $1 billion mark, a floor ESPN is bracing for.
“If I was holding the auction, I would definitely want to hold it after this Olympics,” said ESPN vice president of content John Skipper.
— Mike Reynolds
Lifetime Series Prefers Blondes
Washington — Lifetime and PB&J Television will put the cameras on some of the power players in the nation’s capital, who just happen to be blonde.
The women’s-targeted service has ordered six installments of Blonde Charity Mafia, a docuseries that will follow the lives of social power players Katherine Kennedy and Krista Johnson.
Also featured is Sophie Pyle, an acquaintance who is always in attendance at the charity functions thrown by Kennedy and Johnson at some of Washington D.C.’s top clubs and restaurants.
Production is slated to begin on location in Washington next month.
In a statement, Jessica Samet, senior vice president of reality programming at Lifetime, said the series “will pull the curtain back on the fragility of friendship among the beautiful, wealthy and powerful.”
HSN Leads Pack In IAC Split
New York — IAC/InterActiveCorp, the web of Internet and cable TV properties led by media mogul Barry Diller, officially split into five separate entities last Thursday, with its cable shopping unit HSN leading the way.
IAC announced in October its plan to split into five separate entities — IAC, Interval, HSN, Lending Tree and TicketMaster — in an effort to unlock the value of the individual businesses. The spin was delayed earlier this year after IAC shareholder Liberty Media disputed the structure of the split. In May, IAC and Liberty announced that they had settled their dispute.
In their first day of trading, HSN experienced the biggest gain, mainly because it is the most likely takeover target, probably by Liberty, which owns No. 1 cable shopping channel QVC. HSN shares rose 21.25% ($2.68 per share) for the day to $15.29 each.
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