Dear Bloomberg and Microsoft give me a call about 3D-TV

Microsoft to Develop More TV Programs as It Readies Xbox One

By Takashi Amano & Grace Huang - Sep 17, 2013 10:29 PM ET

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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said it will expand its TV programming beyond the show based on its best-selling “Halo” game as it tries to position the new Xbox One console as a portal for games, videos and music.

Phil Spencer, corporate vice president at Microsoft Studios, declined to elaborate in an interview in Tokyo today before the Tokyo Game Show. Microsoft is returning to the show this year as it competes against Sony Corp. (6758)’s new PlayStation 4 console and online games in a $63 billion industry.

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Attendees look at the Microsoft Corp. Xbox One video game console during the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Photographer: Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg

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Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios at Microsoft Corp. Photographer: Junko Kimura/Bloomberg

Xbox One is an attempt to merge TV watching with video game playing as Microsoft teams with partners including the National Football League to offer features such as viewing highlights and game scores. To underscore that broader approach, Microsoft is producing a live-action “Halo” show, in which director Steven Spielberg will be involved, and has a production team in Los Angeles developing concepts.

“They have literally hundreds of ideas that they are incubating right now,” Spencer said. “We will have some new announcement for TV shows coming pretty soon.”

Microsoft and Sony are betting that faster machines allowing for features such as motion capture and immersive graphics will lure consumers whose tastes are shifting toward mobile games played on tablets and smartphones. The Redmond, Washington-based company, which is buying Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)’s handset unit, is strengthening a push into hardware as demand weakens for programs such as Windows that made it the world’s largest software maker.

Improved Kinect

The Xbox One will be released in the U.S. on Nov. 22 with a price of $499. The company’s first new console in almost eight years uses voice commands and motion sensing to recognize users and let them shift between games, live TV and Skype through an improved Kinect device that will come with the machine.

Spencer said sports programming will be an important element of the new console.

“We believe sports is a very interesting category globally,” he said. “We’ll be expanding what we do in sports to bring more international sports into the mix. ”

Microsoft, the top U.S. seller of consoles for more than two years, will debut the Xbox One a week later than the $399 PS4, which hits American stores on Nov. 15. Nintendo Co. (7974) last month cut the price of the Wii U by $50 to $299 after the console, introduced last year, missed company sales targets.

Microsoft will release the Xbox One in 13 countries on the same day, giving it a week’s head start in Europe, where the PS4 starts selling Nov. 29. Sony will reach stores in 32 markets this year.

Smartphone Competition

The PS4, Sony’s first new console in seven years, and Microsoft’s Xbox One are each projected to sell 3 million units worldwide this year, according to the estimate of Michael Olson, an analyst with Piper Jaffray Cos. in Minneapolis. By comparison, smartphone shipments in the second quarter alone totaled 229.6 million, according to researcher Strategy Analytics.

U.S. retail sales of new video-game software fell 15 percent to $2.15 billion in the first half, to make up 33 percent of consumer spending on games, according to researcher NPD Group. Digital-format sales, including online subscriptions and downloads, mobile and social titles, rose 10 percent.

Microsoft, which initially targeted 21 countries for its debut, last month cut the number to 13 to ensure larger markets have sufficient supplies.

The company unveiled the new console in June and within weeks dropped curbs on trading games and the need for regular Internet connections after losing an initial face-off with the PS4.

To contact the reporters on this story: Takashi Amano in Tokyo at tamano6@bloomberg.net; Grace Huang in Tokyo at xhuang66@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net

Fox Execs Embrace Dynamic Ad Insertion

This summer Fox will begin testing technology that can update or swap
ads that people see when they watch shows on demand, the network's
President of Sales Toby Byrne told buyers today. The goal is to have
the service ready for next year. "A consumer can watch Fox on any
device wherever they are, and your ad can be there too," he said at
the network's upfront presentation at New York's Beacon Theater. It
was part of a joint presentation with Fox Broadcasting Chairman Kevin
Reilly to underscore the company's eagerness to work with new
technology to help build ratings. "We will be No. 1 again next
season," Reilly vowed. The execs said that – unlike their broadcast
and cable competitors — the network offers buyers "scale, youth, and
influence." Technology helps, they said: The network benefits from DVR
time shifting, as well as streaming and VOD even though many of those
viewers still aren't fully included in Nielsen's ratings. They added
that Fox shows are especially popular with people on social networks
including Facebook ad Twitter. "We dominate in the social space,"
Reilly said. "It indicates a certain level of engagement and that has
value." The execs said that Fox has the youngest audience of the Big
Four networks, and beat ad-supported cable networks which collectively
offered 1,050 shows last year with only 4 in top 50. "None can deliver
consistency, scale and breadth…the way Fox does," Byrne says.

This isn't going to end well for consumers and choice, IMHO

John McCain introduces TV Consumer Freedom Act
By Steve Donohue

Lobbying groups representing big and small cable operators offered conflicting views on the Television Consumer Freedom Act proposed by Sen. John McCain (R.- Ariz.) Thursday.

 

The National Cable Television Association, whose biggest member is Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), called the bill a "lose-lose proposition." But the American Cable Association, which represents small and mid-sized cable operators, said it supported everything in the bill except a provision that would require cable operators to offer consumers a-la-carte programming options.

ACA has been lobbying Congress and the FCC to make it illegal for programmers that own both TV stations and broadcast networks--including Comcast, Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) and News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA)--to tie retransmission-consent deals for TV stations with carriage deals for cable networks. McCain's bill would ban that practice, and could also prevent programmers such as Viacom (NYSE: VIA) from requiring operators that want to carry popular networks such as Comedy Central and MTV to strike broader deals that include distribution of ancillary networks such as VH1 Classic and Paladia.

ACA also opposes that practice. "In today's pay-TV world, programmers prefer that consumers have less choice, and we agree that this sorry situation needs to change," ACA CEO Matt Polka said in a prepared statement. But both ACA and NCTA said they opposed the idea of offering consumers pure a-la-carte programming choices, with NCTA noting that consumers can already get a-la-carte choices by watching online video on connected TVs and mobile devices. "In the face of such innovation and expansion, attempting to force retail models on private providers is unnecessary and counterproductive," NCTA said in its statement.

McCain introduced the bill one month before NCTA is scheduled to kick off The Cable Show in D.C., a convention that it has been planning to use as a venue to woo legislators and regulators, and lobby against new regulations that could thwart cable operators from rolling out usage-based broadband pricing and data caps for their high-speed Internet services. The McCain bill will now take center stage at the industry's largest annual convention.

The proposed legislation will likely ignite a huge lobbying effort from Comcast, Disney, Viacom and News Corp. McCain appeared to welcome the battle in a speech he gave Thursday while introducing the bill on the floor of the Senate. "Today we're putting up a stop sign, and we're going to find out how powerful these companies are," McCain said. McCain noted FCC data that has found that the average monthly price for expanded basic cable packages jumped 5.4 percent for the 12 months ending Jan. 1, 2011, to $54.45, while the Consumer Price Index increased 1.6 percent during the same period. He noted that the average price for expanded basic has jumped from $25 monthly in 1995 to $54 today. 

The proposed legislation would also prevent broadcasters such as CBS and Fox from converting to cable networks to thwart technology firms such as Aereo that distribute over-the-air programming to viewers on the Web and through mobile devices. Broadcasters would lose their spectrum licenses if they attempted to move programming to cable-only distribution, McCain said.

Sports blackouts would also be prohibited, under the bill, which would impact the National Football League and Fox, NBC and CBS stations. For more: - here's video of McCain introducing the bill - see statement from McCain - see the NCTA statement - see the ACA statement

"How Music Works" by David Byrne

Arcade Fire's Win Butler and David Byrne to Discuss Byrne's New Book at POP Montreal

• Pitchfork 
• about 23 hours ago

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On September 22, during the POP Montrealfestival, David Byrne and Arcade Fire's Win Butler will come together to discuss Byrne's forthcoming book "How Music Works" (asArcadeFireTube points out). The conversation will take place at the Ukranian Federation, co-presented by POP Montreal's Symposium and Librairie Drawn & Quarterly.

Byrne and Butler will discuss "How Music Works""in the context of their own personal and professional experiences as musicians and music lovers," according to Drawn & Quarterly. The book is to bepublished in September byMcSweeney's. The official description of the book says:

Acting as historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist, he searches for patternsand shows how those patterns have affected his own work over the years with Talking... [via Pitchfork]

Pepsi's future is bright

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