Using Technology and Innovation to Address Our Nation's Critical Challenges
July 14, 2008 (News from the FCC)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY JULY 14, 2008
NEWS FROM FCC
FCC Chief Martin hopes Comcast sanction serves as warning
FCC Chief Martin open to more terms on XM-Sirius deal
FCC Again Denies Chicago, Milwaukee TV License Challenges
Cable Industry and Cable Regulators Lament Power of FCC
Durbin Asks FCC for Information Regarding Digital Television Transition
JOURNALISM
TV, papers crossing paths in future of news
Readers Have Not Left the Building
Spanish-language TV journalists paid less
ADVERTISING
Product Placements Acquire a Life of Their Own on Shows
Technology stokes new Web privacy fears
Yahoo Rejects Plan to Break Up Company
QUICKLY -- Europe and Asia are 'Cleaning Our Clock' on Broadband; Lawmaker Warns Against Web Usage Restrictions; NBCU's Weather Vein; Federal Judge Warren Ferguson
FCC CHIEF MARTIN HOPES COMCAST SANCTION SERVES AS WARNING
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: John Dunbar]
A recommendation to punish Comcast for blocking subscribers' Internet traffic should serve as a warning to other service providers, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said Friday. He hopes his action will make network operators sensitive about putting "arbitrary limits on the way consumers can access information on the Internet." Chairman Martin wants Comcast to stop using its current practice, to tell commissioners where it has used it in the past, and to disclose to the agency and consumers what limitations will be placed on customers under its new traffic management plan, which it hopes to have in place by the end of the year. He said he is not recommending a fine against Comcast because he wants to use the case as a means of laying out FCC policy. "It doesn't make the enforcement action less important," he said. "Oftentimes (what is) most important is to try to clarify what is allowed and what isn't." Chairman Martin circulated an order recommending the enforcement action among his fellow commissioners on Friday. The measure is scheduled for a vote at the agency's next open meeting, scheduled for August 1. "We believe the order, which we think will be favored by an FCC majority, will be negative for Comcast and set some precedents that could trouble other cable and even telecom broadband providers," analysts Blair Levin and Rebecca Arbogast wrote in a report for investment banking firm Stifel Nicolaus.
http://benton.org/node/15181
FCC CHIEF MARTIN OPEN TO MORE TERMS ON XM-SIRIUS DEAL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Peter Kaplan]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said on Friday he would consider imposing further conditions on Sirius Satellite Radio acquisition of XM Satellite Radio if it were needed to win support of other FCC commissioners. He said some of the FCC's other four commissioners had expressed concerns about the deal, but none had yet made a concrete proposal for additional terms to protect consumers. "They need to figure out what it is that they want and propose it," Martin said at a press briefing. Chairman Martin said he hoped the commissioners would be ready to vote on the deal by the time the agency holds its next meeting on August 1. Chairman Martin has proposed that the agency approve the deal so long as the companies make 24 radio channels available for noncommercial and minority programming. In addition, the companies have pledged to cap prices, make interoperable radios available to consumers and offer programming on an "a la carte" basis. In a June 10 letter to Martin, Public Knowledge and Media Access Project said that the merger should include stronger commitments for set-asides for channel capacity for non-commercial broadcasters and for making consumer equipment to receive the combined satellite service more widely available.
http://benton.org/node/15180
FCC AGAIN DENIES CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE TV LICENSE CHALLENGES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
On July 13, 2007, Chicago Media Action (CMA) and the Milwaukee Public Interest Media Coalition (MPIMC) filed a joint Petition for Reconsideration of a June 13, 2007, staff decision denying petitions to deny filed against the license renewal applications of eight broadcast television stations serving the Chicago area and 11 broadcast television stations serving the Milwaukee metropolitan area. In the petition to deny, CMA and MPIMC had argued that the television stations serving the Chicago and Milwaukee markets failed to present adequate programming relating to state and local elections during the last four weeks of the 2004 election campaign. In denying the petitions, the staff found that the CMA and MPIMC petitions did not raise a prima facie [good and sufficient on its face] issue as to whether the stations served the public interest since they failed to provide evidence that "the named licensees exercised their editorial discretion in bad faith." The staff stated, in particular, that the quantity of one type of programming does not necessarily indicate that the television programming in Chicago and Milwaukee has generally been unresponsive. In their respective Petitions for Reconsideration, CMA and MPIMC assert that the staff, by claiming it did not have the authority to review the broadcasters' programming decisions, applied the wrong legal standard to its allegations, and that the staff failed to consider or evaluate the numerical data contained in the study attached to the petitions. On July 11, the FCC's Media Bureau denied the groups petition for reconsideration.
http://benton.org/node/15179
CABLE INDUSTRY AND CABLE REGULATORS LAMENT POWER OF FCC
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Cassandre Durocher]
The Federal Communications Commission has gone all out in its efforts against cable television operators, two speakers close to the cable industry said at the Alliance for Community Media annual conference. The unprecedented power accumulated by the FCC "should strike fear on all of us," said Libby Beaty, executive director of the National Association of Telecommunication Officers and Advisors. The agency "has gone after local government and cable TV." NATOA represents local officials that supervise cable television franchises, and has been critical of FCC moves to bypass local franchise authorities. "The worst thing in the world is to get the government involved" in the cable television business, said Dan Brenner, senior vice president for law and regulatory policy with the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which represents leading cable operators. "It's micromanaging that we want [to] avoid," he said.
http://benton.org/node/15177
DURBIN ASKS FCC FOR INFORMATION REGARDING DIGITAL TELEVISION TRANSITION
[SOURCE: Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL)]
Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, asking him for regular updates to the FCC's plans on ensuring the American public is prepared for the transition from analog to digital television (DTV) next year. Sen Durbin is the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government -- the subcommittee which oversees the budget of the FCC. Just this week, Durbin approved an FCC request to use $12 million in prior year funds for DTV public education and consumer outreach. In addition, Durbin also recommended $20 million for the Commission in Fiscal Year 2009 to continue these activities.
http://benton.org/node/15172
TV, PAPERS CROSSING PATHS IN FUTURE OF NEWS
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, AUTHOR: Phil Rosenthal]
Two industrywide media business trends crisscrossed last week within Tribune Company. The result Chicagoland will see in about two months is more news on TV, less in print. Tribune Co.-owned WGN-Ch. 9 in Chicago announced it was expanding its news offerings by an hour each weekday beginning in September with the addition of a 30-minute broadcast at 5:30 p.m. and an extra half-hour tacked onto its midday news. A day later the company's Chicago Tribune began informing employees of plans to cut back on both newsroom staff and number of weekly pages, each of which will have shrunk by around 14 percent before Channel 9 adds to its news. The business models are changing, making it increasingly cost efficient to add more newscasts as it is increasingly less cost efficient to print -- and, just as importantly, distribute -- papers. While newsprint prices are up, despite less demand, it doesn't take a Nobel laureate to sense skyrocketing oil prices won't make it cheaper to get printed papers where they have to go.
http://benton.org/node/15174
READERS HAVE NOT LEFT THE BUILDING
[SOURCE: Readership Institute Northwestern University, AUTHOR: Mary Nesbitt]
[Commentary] Results of the 2008 Reader Institute tracking study of newspaper and online readership in 100 US communities: 1) Readership of the local daily newspaper among the general population is down a little from the last reading in 2006, but that result may be due to seasonal variation. 2) Readership among 18-24-year-olds in the general population continues to slowly decline; but the habit is fairly stable for 45-plus. 3) People who read newspapers say they spend, on average, 27 minutes with them on weekdays, and 57 minutes on Sundays. The first figure has stayed stable, but the latter figure has been slowly dropping since we first started tracking in 2002. 4) Readers continue to engage with the newspaper, on average, more than five days a week. 5) On average they complete 60 percent of the paper on weekdays and 62 percent on Sundays again, stable habits. 6) The penetration of newspaper Web sites is still quite low in most communities, though it should be noted that we measured response only to the main site, not to related sites whose ownership consumers might not recognize.
http://benton.org/node/15173
SPANISH-LANGUAGE TV JOURNALISTS PAID LESS
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Joe Garofoli]
When it comes to Spanish-language television news, high ratings don't translate into high salaries. Many reporters and producers at Spanish-language stations across the country earn roughly one-fourth less in base pay than their competitors at English-language stations. While the foreign-born Hispanic population in the United States grew 25 percent between 2000 and 2006 to 17.6 million, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, analysts say the advertising world has been slow to adapt to the demographic changes in Spanish-language media -- and the effects have trickled down through the media food chain. So while the Spanish-language news audience may be growing, many advertisers don't perceive Hispanics to be the "right audience," according to bilingual television advertising expert Roxane Garzon. Advertising rates for Spanish-language programming are one-third to one-half of what they are for English-language programming.
http://benton.org/node/15182
PRODUCT PLACEMENTS ACQUIRE LIFE OF THEIR OWN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stephanie Clifford]
Product placements woven into the plot of popular television shows are a growing concern for the Federal Communications Commission and consumer groups. Product placements are "a huge, out-of-control issue," said Robert Weissman, the managing director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit group that aims to limit commercial marketing. He said that the involvement of advertisers in the shaping of scripts and plots represented "fundamental encroachments on the independence of the programming." Last month, the FCC opened an inquiry into whether there ought to be frank disclosure of such deals. Among the suggestions are that the networks be required to display on-screen crawls whenever a paid-for placement is seen on television. "We're not saying they can't do it — we're just saying they have to let the audience know what they're doing," said Jonathan S. Adelstein, an FCC commissioner. For now, it is not clear whether the FCC will take action; it is soliciting comments for the next few months, and may or may not issue a ruling after that. But in Hollywood and on Madison Avenue, the FCC's concerns appear archaic and intrusive. The type of pop-up warnings that the FCC is considering would "completely disrupt the entertainment experience," said Tom Meyer, the president of Davie Brown, a leading brand management agency in Los Angeles. "If their ultimate goal is, can they do something that kills integration, advertisers' ability to integrate into a show, that would do it," he said.
http://benton.org/node/15185
TECHNOLOGY STOKES NEW WEB PRIVACY FEARS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Peter Whoriskey]
Consumers worry about their Internet privacy. Politicians vow to investigate. And two of the nation's biggest tech companies, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., support federal legislation for data collection. So why isn't much happening? One reason is that legislators find the subject kind of confusing. For years, websites have assembled profiles of users consisting of personal preferences and activities. But as websites have increasingly been united in vast ad networks, the various profiles maintained by separate sites have combined to create more detailed and far-ranging portraits of users. Over the last year, moreover, some Internet service providers have begun experimenting with a practice that would offer even more detailed portraits of individuals. The technology, known as "deep packet inspection," allows ISPs to peer into the stream of data coming from a person's Internet line, a practice critics liken to wiretapping.
http://benton.org/node/15183
YAHOO REJECTS PLAN TO BREAK UP COMPANY
[SOURCE: Bloomberg News, AUTHOR: Nancy Kercheval, Kyung Bok Cho]
Yahoo rejected a proposal from Microsoft and billionaire investor Carl Icahn that would have broken up the Internet company, saying they were trying to "coerce" officials into selling assets. Under the plan, Yahoo's board and top management would have been replaced. Microsoft would have bought Yahoo's search business and left Icahn with the rest of the company, an "odd and opportunistic alliance" that didn't have the best interests of shareholders in mind, Yahoo said. The decision steps up pressure on Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang to prove that his alternative deal, a partnership with Google, can deliver better returns. Icahn is challenging Yang for control of the board at an August 1 meeting.
http://benton.org/node/15184
EUROPE AND ASIA ARE 'CLEANING OUR CLOCK' ON BROADBAND
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: William Korver]
The lack of a cohesive national broadband policy in the United States is hampering the nation's ability to deploy high-speed broadband, attorney James Baller said at the Alliance for Community Media conference. Nations in Europe and Asia our "cleaning our clock" on broadband deployment, competition, speeds and prices, said Baller, of the Baller Herbst law firm. Baller, who represents municipalities seeking to deploy broadband systems, recently authored a 100-page report, "Broadband Revolution: Developing a National Broadband Strategy to Keep the U.S. Prosperous in the 21st Century," which was released by the e-NC Authority of North Carolina. If these trends are not reversed, the report argues, the U.S. will lose more and more low-cost manufacturing to Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called "BRIC" countries, and to other developing nations. Baller also noted the many politicians and organizations supporting a national broadband strategy. The list includes Sens Barack Obama (D-IL), John McCain (R-AZ), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and John Kerry (D-MA), Federal Communication Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, as well as non-profit organizations including the Benton Foundation, Free Press, the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge.
http://benton.org/node/15176
LAWMAKER WARNS AGAINST WEB USAGE RESTRICTIONS
[SOURCE: TechDailyDose]
Rep John Culberson (R-TX) sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a letter on Friday slamming an effort that he believes would hamper lawmakers' freedom to communicate with the public in the Internet age. Under the proposed changes, video posts would be restricted to "approved" Web sites that do not contain political or commercial advertising or commentary and might also require a disclaimer stating that the transmission is an official communication from an official federal representative. The revision would directly affect Qik video because it contains political opinions and speech. He fears Twitter, Facebook and other social networks "are the next targets of regulation."
http://benton.org/node/15175
NBCU'S WEATHER VEIN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Robert Marich]
NBC Universal has two jobs once it completes its buyout of The Weather Channel: raising anemic carriage fees received by TWC's flagship basic-cable network and untangling a web of conflicting corporate allegiances. TWC averages just 11 cents per subscriber, per month in carriage fees from multichannel-TV platforms, while 25 cents is more typical for other basic-cable networks with its circulation. With TWC's carriage in 97 million subscription-TV households, each penny increase works out to nearly a $1 million gain in revenue. NBCU already has a half stake in the NBC Weather Plus multicast channel, a joint venture with its NBC-affiliated stations that is one of TWC's biggest rivals. Although even competitors suppose principals will find a way to combine the two operations, any cooperation is speculative. That's because NBCU owns just one-third of TWC, although it is the managing partner. Private-equity outfits Bain Capital and Blackstone Group own the rest.
http://benton.org/node/15178
FEDERAL JUDGE WARREN FERGUSON
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bruce Weber]
Do you take that "record" button on your VCR for granted? On June 25, former federal judge Warren Ferguson passed away at 87. In 1979, Judge Ferguson decided a three-year-old case in which Universal Studios and Walt Disney Productions sued the Sony Corporation to keep it from marketing and selling the Betamax, an early home recording device that the movie companies contended would curtail the value of television reruns and facilitate copyright infringement. In a decision that portended the explosion of home entertainment choices, Judge Ferguson said that recording television programs was lawful under existing copyright law and that it constituted fair use of the recorded material so long as it was confined to private homes and not exploited commercially. He made other significant decisions as well: In 1971 he defied the attorney general, John Mitchell, ruling that wiretapping without a warrant, even for reasons of national security, was unlawful. In 1976, he chastised the Federal Communications Commission and its chairman, Richard Wiley, in deciding that the agency's urging of the broadcast networks to restrict programs with sexual or violent content to certain hours was tantamount to government censorship.
http://benton.org/node/15170