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Bundling Bashers Buoyed

WASHINGTON — The
class-action suit
attempting to force
cable and satellite to
offer a la carte programming
is not dead
yet.

The 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals,
which covers 15 federal
judicial districts
in the West, last week
withdrew a three-judge panel decision last June affirming a lower court’s ruling that a group of cable
and satellite subscribers did not have a case when
they alleged that bundled cable programming was
an antitrust violation.

The suit had been filed against NBCUniversal, Viacom,
The Walt Disney Co., Fox, Time Warner Inc.,
Time Warner Cable, Comcast, DirecTV, EchoStar
and Cablevision Systems, among others.

The subscribers claimed that bundling high-value
channels with lower-valued ones reduces consumer
choice and raises prices, precluding distributors
from offering a la carte channels and constituting
a restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Antitrust
Act.

In June, the three-judge panel had upheld a
district court ruling throwing out the antitrust suit,
saying that it was “a consumer-protection class action
masquerading as an antitrust suit.”

But in a one-paragraph order Oct. 31, the court
withdrew the decision and said it was going to
reconstitute a panel, making moot requests to rehear
the case.

No explanation was given for the about-face,
although the court had been fielding petitions to
reconsider the decision, though obviously not from
media companies.

A new third judge will be selected following the
death last month of Judge Pamela Ann Rymer, 70,
who was one of the three on the June panel affirming
the lower court’s decision.

FCC Reform Bill Unveiled

WASHINGTON — A pair of Republican legislators introduced
Federal Communications Commission
process-reform bills last week that would require
the agecny to justify regulations according to costs
and benefi ts, survey the state of the marketplace
before initiating any new rulemakings, and take
other steps to make sure the public is getting bang
for its regulatory buck.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the
Energy and Commerce Communications subcommittee,
joined with Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) last
Wednesday to unveil the bills, which Walden suggested
were the product of a collaborative process
with the FCC and his colleagues across the aisle
and talked about it in terms of improving transparency
and efficiency.

Walden held an FCC oversight hearing in June
that made it clear House Republicans wanted to
move on a discussion draft of an FCC reform bill
that was circulated at that time.

House Democrats at the hearing countered
that too strict a regimen could actually impede
the regulatory process while gutting the publicinterest
standard that they argue should be the
FCC’s North Star.

While the bill has a chance to pass the Republican-
controlled House, it would likely be a tough
climb in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

DirecTV’s Riordan Retiring as Head of Sales

EL SEGUNDO, CALIF. — Bob Riordan, after heading
DirecTV’s ad sales group
as senior vice president
for five years, will step
down from the post for
personal reasons, the
company said.

DirecTV said it will
conduct an internal and
external search to find a
replacement for Riordan.

In 2006, DirecTV
brought all of its adsales
operations inhouse,
hiring Riordan
to head the group.
Previously, the satellite-
TV operator had used
Twentieth Television as
its advertising-sales rep, where Riordan had been
responsible for annual gross ad sales revenues.

Prior to DirecTV and Twentieth Television, Riordan
was executive vice president at Havas’ MPG, head
of sales for the short-lived XFL football league, and
a sales representative for USA Networks.

On Riordan’s watch, DirecTV has expanded
interactive TV advertising and initiated a targetedadvertising
project with Starcom MediaVest Group
to deliver local ads to nearly 10 million subscribers
with DVRs. The company is using the targeted-ad
system from Invidi Technologies, which replaces
national spots with ads stored on the DVR based on
different criteria.

DirecTV also struck a deal with NCC Media, the
ad-sales company owned by Comcast, Time Warner
Cable and Cox Communications, bringing the satellite-
TV operator into the spot-advertising market for
the first time and giving NCC the ability to expand
coverage in 25 select markets.

Last year, the company entered into a pact with
Google, under which the Internet giant would sell
some inventory across a handful of networks.

—Todd Spangler

Cable Hall of Fame Taps Carlsen,
Hindery, Lee, Lenfest, King, Lind

DENVER — Six industry leaders have been elected
to The Cable Hall of Fame’s class of 2012, The
Cable Center announced.

The inductees are: Ann Carlsen, founder and
CEO, Carlsen Resources; Leo Hindery Jr., managing
partner, InterMedia Partners; Larry King,
former host of CNN’s Larry King Live; Debra Lee,
chairman and CEO, BET Networks; H.F. “Gerry”
Lenfest, president and CEO, The Lenfest Group;
and Phil Lind, vice chairman, Rogers Communications.

The honorees were chosen “based on their
outstanding achievements and contributions to
the cable industry,” The Cable Center said. The
2012 Cable Hall of Fame selection committee
was chaired by A&E Networks president and CEO
Abbe Raven, who is a 2010 Cable Hall of Fame
inductee.

The six honorees for 2012 will be inducted during
the annual Cable Hall of Fame Celebration,
held in conjunction with Cable Connection-Spring
— centered around the NCTA Cable Show — in
Boston May 21-23, 2012. The 15th annual Cable
Hall of Fame Celebration will be held Monday, May
21, 2012, at the Marriott at Copley Plaza in Boston.

Since 1998, 90 men and women have been inducted
into the Cable Hall of Fame.

This Is Only a (Shorter) Test…

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission
is shortening its national Emergency Alert
System test from three minutes to 30 seconds, an
FCC source confirmed last week.

The unstated reasoning: so nobody will mistake
it for an actual emergency, something some industry
players had suggested might happen such an
extended warning.
The FCC is
conducting the
test at 2 p.m. on
Nov. 9, in conjunction
with the
Federal Emergency
Management
Agency and the
National Weather Service. The test requires broadcasters,
cable operators, satellite digital audio radio
service (SDARS) providers and direct-broadcast
satellite operators to deliver a presidential message
or other info during a national emergency.

While the EAS system has been tested on a
monthly and weekly basis at the state and local
level — that annoying “this is only a test” tone —
this will be the first national, end-to-end test of the
alert, which is used for national emergencies.