June 2008

Obama's Telecom Policies Suggest Open-Internet Push

Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) is seen as likely to push for key changes in telecommunications policies that would expand Internet businesses if he's elected US president. He supports Network Neutrality legislation which prevents Internet providers from interfering with Web content based on its source or ownership. Internet companies that advocate open online access, such as Google, would be the winners under that scenario. Smaller companies like eBay and Amazon.com also would benefit. Traditional phone and cable companies balk at government mandates for Internet nondiscrimination, saying the industry can best handle network management problems on its own. Obama's presidential rival, Sen John McCain (R-AZ), agrees with the phone and cable companies on network neutrality. Sen McCain has repeatedly used the phrase "market-based" in describing his approach to Internet access and competition. He also has said regulators aren't equipped to anticipate fast-moving industry developments. Not surprisingly, top Google officials aligned themselves with the Obama camp early in the campaign before it was clear he would secure the Democratic nomination.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121398992226092571.html
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Free Internet is part of new FCC airwaves auction

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday said it wants to auction a section of wireless airwaves to buyers willing to provide free broadband Internet service without pornography. The agency asked for public comment on its plan to auction an unused portion of the wireless spectrum with the condition that the winning bidder offer free Internet access and filter out obscene content on part of those airwaves. Successful bidders for the spectrum would also be required to provide coverage to at least half of the United States within four years, and to at least 95 percent of the U.S. population by the end of the 10-year license, the FCC said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2026548420080620

FCC sides with cable in Verizon dispute

Apparently, the Federal Communications Commission voted on Friday to bar Verizon Communications from marketing to customers to talk them out of a decision to switch their phone service to cable. A majority of the FCC's five commissioners voted to uphold a complaint by cable operators that Verizon improperly used customer data in its marketing efforts to dissuade customers from switching. The FCC faced a midnight deadline for a ruling on the complaint, which was filed in February by Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc and others.
http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN1937840820080621

House Opens Hearings on White House Manipulation of News Media

With echoes of the Watergate hearings, the House Judiciary Committee Friday opened hearings on whether the White House obstructed justice by impeding the investigation into the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame and manipulated the media in making the case for going to war with Iraq. Scott McClellan, President Bush’s former press secretary, told the House Judiciary Committee on Friday that he had been unfairly vilified by Bush supporters for his recent book criticizing former White House colleagues over the Iraq war and their involvement in leaking the identity of an intelligence officer. McClellan, however, offered little new information in his testimony on those issues beyond what he wrote in the book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.”
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6571945.html?rssid=193

Television Challenges FCC Indecency Authority and Implementation

The ABC Television Affiliates Association told a federal court Friday that the Federal Communications Commission was wrong to levy indecency fines on 45 stations for airing a fleeting scene of a nude actress in a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue. The stations were joined by ABC, Fox and NBC in filing briefs at the court Friday and inside all were arguments that fleeting glimpses of "buttocks" are not indecent and a raft of arguments, constitutional and procedural, for overturning the FCC's decision. As had ABC, Fox and NBC in their filings with the court Friday, the affiliates argued that backsides do not meet the FCC's indecency criteria because they are neither sexual nor excretory organs but part of the muscular system. The brief even includes a picture of the iconic 'Coppertone Girl,' the child whose own briefs are lowered by a puppy "on billboards all over America," to illustrate the historical lack of community shock over behinds. But, "even assuming that buttocks are within the FCC's regulatory grasp," the brief said, the FCC was out of line in numerous other ways. They included: that the broadcast was not patently offensive because it was neither explicit or graphic, that it did not dwell upon or repeat it to titillate or shock. "It is impossible to see how the non-sexualized depiction of buttocks for fewer than seven seconds could ever be patently offensive per FCC requirements as measured by contemporary community standards," the they argued. But there was more. The FCC was inconsistently enforcing its rules.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572207.html?rssid=193

Rep Boucher: DTV Transition Needs Technical Assistance Component

Rep Rick Boucher (D-VA) said that the government's digital television transition plan does not provide any money for new DTV antennas and lacks a technical assistance component, which could prove to be a problem for some viewers still connected to rabbit ears. Rep Boucher said he had lots of rural, elderly, low-income constituents who would have some major challenges with issues like reception via indoor and outdoor antennas. He expects that 10+% of his constituents will need to replace their outdoor antennas. Rep Boucher suggested that the government could take some of the $20 billion in spectrum auction proceeds and "enhance the coupon program, provide technical assistance. He also wants the government to pay for the hardware and labor for replacing antennas.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572000.html?rssid=193

Does Local TV Care About the News?

[Commentary] June 3 was a historic moment in our nation's history. But if you were watching broadcast television that night, chances are you never would have known it. After a seemingly endless, exorbitantly expensive, hard-fought primary in the first truly "open seat" presidential election in decades, the presidential candidates for the two major parties were decided. The Democrat Party chose the first African-American to become a presidential candidate for a major party. Only ABC cut away from regularly scheduled programming to cover for 14 minutes the speech by Sen. Barack Obama. CBS showed Obama's speech only on the West Coast where it was not yet primetime. Meanwhile, NBC, according to The New York Times, "offered brief cut-ins, encouraging viewers to watch continuing coverage on MSNBC." Instead of seeing Obama give his victory speech, or the speeches by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain or Sen. Hillary Clinton, the public was served the following: 48 Hours Mystery and reruns of NCIS and Without a Trace (CBS), two reruns of Law & Order: SVU and two episodes of Most Outrageous Moments (NBC), reruns of According to Jim, Samantha Who? and Boston Legal (ABC), and Hell's Kitchen and Moment of Truth (Fox). Most Americans spend most of their time watching the local affiliates of the major networks. Americans look to their local broadcasters to define what is important for them to know about. Broadcast television remains where our national conversation takes place. The broadcasters and the national networks should have recognized the importance of June 3. This moment when the broadcasters were AWOL should be Exhibit 1 of why the rules for broadcasters need to be rewritten.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6572129.html

CEA Opposes Waiver For DTA Devices

The Consumer Electronics Association said Evolution Broadband’s digital-to-analog cable converters should not be granted an exception to the Federal Communication Commission’s separable-security mandate, alleging in a filing with the agency that such a waiver would “harm the public interest.” Evolution Broadband in May asked the FCC for a three-year waiver to the agency’s separable security mandate. The company said a waiver would allow its customers to deploy digital-to-analog (DTA) adapters and convert their systems to all-digital operation. For example, Massillon Cable TV in northeast Ohio is in the middle of phasing out analog service—to unlock as much as 500 Megahertz of spectrum—using some 100,000 DTA devices from Evolution. In its June 16 filing, the CEA said: “This is not the time to be introducing new security technologies that are not disclosed or available to competitive entrants, and that cannot be implemented competitively on a nationally portable basis.”
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6571949.html?nid=4262

OECD Discord To The Tune of 'Martin Seoul'

Fifty-five years of peace on the Korean peninsula suffered a minor setback last week after Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin landed in Seoul for a two-day ministerial session of the 30-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. According to a published report, Martin held a press conference that U.S. Embassy officials limited to U.S. media outlets, angering an excluded journalist with the Korean Times. Reporter Cho Jin-seo described Martin's press conference as “a back-door meeting” planned by the FCC, and “officials from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul blocked access to reporters from other countries.” Cho anonymously quoted an OECD official on the press management ways of U.S. government officials in other parts of the world. “They are Americans,'' the OECD official said. “They do that in Paris, too.” OECD is based in Paris. Cho wrapped up his dispatch by saying an unnamed U.S. Embassy official apologized for any “impoliteness” shown to excluded reporters.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6572214.html?nid=4262

Net-Affil Peace Raises Troubling Reality

[Commentary] Representatives and the major broadcast networks and their affiliates last week hand-delivered to key Federal Communications Commission officials what amounts to a treaty formally ending seven years of hostilities between them. But Jessell is not sure that this happy state has arrived because the network and affiliates were able to work out their differences over program preemptions. That was never the real issue. He thinks it had far more to do with the networks' changing strategies. Networks are no longer interested in owning more TV stations and are thus no longer a threat to the affiliates. Seven years ago, the networks wanted to raise the FCC cap on station ownership and buy more stations, figuring that that was the best means of capturing a better return on their hefty investment in primetime programming. The affiliates of that day rightly feared that the networks would take away their businesses or their jobs. The affiliates' FCC complaint against the networks was always a small part of the larger battle being waged at the FCC, in Congress and before the federal courts over the station ownership cap. But sometime over the past two or three years, the network decided that owning more TV stations wasn't such a good idea anymore. As if one, they turned their sights to the Internet and to trying to figure out how to exploit it as an alternative outlet for their programming. Ironically, after all the spilt blood in Washington, the networks have been shedding stations. Seven years ago, the affiliates may have feared a network takeover, but at least they could take comfort in knowing they had a business that the networks coveted. They no longer can.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2008/06/20/daily.6/

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