Sirius reported net proceeds of $145 million as it closed its common stock offering at $1.80 per share Tues. Morgan Stanley and UBS Warburg purchased 11.25 million shares, in addition to the 75 million offered originally, Sirius said.
Country of origin cases
CHICAGO -- By the time the FCC legal advisers were through with their panel at the NCTA convention here Tues. afternoon, 2 things were clear: (1) The agency’s ruling last week on media ownership rules (CD June 3 p1) had left a deep rift between Republicans and Democrats. (2) Healing could be a long time in coming. The tension, particularly between Chmn. Powell’s aide, Susan Eid, and Comr. Adelstein’s Johanna Mikes, was palpable.
The Ohio PUC approved a $5 late payment penalty for SBC, despite objections by the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC). The PUC approved the late payment for past due balances of $25 or more. SBC originally had proposed a $6 fee, but the PUC wouldn’t accept that much. The OCC had objected to the late fee on the ground that it represented a local exchange rate increase outside of SBC’s price cap regulation plan.
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chmn. of the Senate Communications Subcommittee, said in a National Show speech that he thought there was a chance his broadband tax credit bill would be revived before the end of the session. The original didn’t make it out of conference. “I think before the end of the year, we may get that,” Burns said, adding that govt. should be giving incentives to provide infrastructure, especially in rural places like his home state of Mont. House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R- Mich.) told 60 cable industry executives at the same event that he was working to pass a bill that would accelerate depreciation on equipment bought for business. Burns said his subcommittee would mark up an antispam bill next week and he expected “very fast” action on the floor, where he predicted it had a good chance of passing. Upton said he expected a similar measure would come up in his House subcommittee next month. On the DTV transition, Upton said he expected another industry meeting in July, as well as possibly a hearing on the subject. Asked afterward about the chance of moving a bill that would lower the broadcast ownership cap back to 35%, Burns said he thought that would make it out of committee, but after that he couldn’t predict what would happen to it.
SES Americom’s AMC-9 was launched early Fri. from Kazakhstan, SES said. The launch originally was scheduled for April 29 and was delayed due to a launcher anomaly (CD May 20 p10). An SES spokeswoman said that, pending FCC approval, AMC-9 would replace AMC-2 at 85 degrees W. The C- /Ku-band hybrid will be ready for operation in July, SES said.
CHICAGO -- Although broadband growth remains strong, cable operators and content providers already are debating how to foster future growth. At the NCTA convention here Sun., MSO executives and content officials squared off over whether speed or content would spur expansion of high-speed data networks. They also differed over the roles that IP telephony, electronic games and other broadband-related services and features would play.
Motorola said it lowered its 2nd-quarter cellular handset sales forecast in Asia for 2003 due to the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak and continuing excess levels of inventory from locally based handset manufacturers. It said it now expected its 2nd-quarter sales to be $6-$6.2 billion, vs. its prior guidance of $6.4-$6.6 billion, and its earnings, excluding special items, to be about breakeven. The company said Asian issues also affected its semiconductor product sales to the wireless market. It said SARS “had a more pronounced impact on consumer purchases of cellular handsets than the company had assumed in its previous guidance.” However, it said it was “confident” once SARS was brought under control, consumers in Asia would “resume their purchases of cellular handsets at levels similar to those prior to the SARS outbreak,” but said the timing of a return to normal conditions was “uncertain.” The company said its cellular handset results in N. America, Latin America and Europe were meeting original expectations for the quarter.
For the 2nd time, information consultant CCMI has rescheduled its “UNE Summit” audio conference, this time to June 25 from June 11, because the FCC UNE order hasn’t been released yet. The audio conference, intended to explain the order, originally was set for May 7. The 2 p.m. conference will feature CompTel Pres. Russell Frisby and ALTS Pres. John Windhausen among others -- www.ccmi.com/conferences/A245.
Allbritton Communications and EchoStar said they reached a settlement of their retransmission consent dispute late Wed., terms not disclosed. An EchoStar spokesman confirmed that the company would seek dismissal of the court case and FCC complaint filed Mon. (CD June 5 p5). “We're pleased that we were able to reach an agreement with Allbritton that allows us to restore local ABC television programming to thousands of Dish Network customers,” EchoStar CEO Charles Ergen said. Allbritton agreed in a separate statement and said EchoStar also would transmit WSET-TV Lynchburg-Roanoke, Va., in addition to the 4 stations originally at issue in the discussions -- WJLA-TV Washington, WBMA Birmingham, Ala., WHTM-TV Harrisburg and KTUL Tulsa. An Allbritton official close to the negotiations said the company was in a “substantially better” position than under the previous agreement: “We retained the exclusivity principles embodied in the law, but we can’t discuss any contractual limits on exclusivity or distant signal importation.” Allbritton Senior Vp-Legal & Strategic Affairs Jerald Fritz said the company also remained involved in EchoStar’s litigation over distant network signals in Miami: “Despite great pressure from EchoStar to force us to settle the Miami litigation, we did not.”
Verizon and the N.Y. PSC reached an agreement to settle complaints that the carrier had omitted thousands of business and residential listings from its printed telephone directories for the Albany area and 2 other communities. Verizon agreed to print and distribute supplemental phone books for the Capital District, which covers Albany and portions of Troy and Schenectady, plus the books for Wayne County and the town of Hoosick in Rensselaer County. All told, 3,800 listings were left out in the affected communities. Verizon also will issue a $5 bill credit to the customers whose listings were omitted and won’t charge those who use directory assistance to find a listing that was omitted from the original phone book printings, until the next directories are published in 2004. Verizon will notify customers about the new directories and the billing changes. It attributed the problem to a computer glitch when the listings were being prepared for printing. The electronic databases used for Verizon’s directory assistance services weren’t affected.