June 2009

For Prime Ads, Big Four Nets Balk at Obama

Executives at the Big Four broadcast networks, upset that President Barack Obama has cumulatively cost them more than $30 million in revenue from preempted prime-time programming for three press conferences, say getting advertisers to sponsor future press events as a way to recoup lost revenue isn't a viable option. After Fox balked at airing Obama in prime time on April 29, other nets joined in, saying they would consider the same action going forward depending on the event's relevance. Industry observers wondered why networks couldn't just get advertiser sponsors. Some suggested an ad prior to the conference and one at the end, with an on-screen logo, appearing during the conference.

Univision wants Televisa to keep its telenovelas off the Web

Although viewers are increasingly turning to the Internet to watch popular TV programs, fans of the blockbuster Spanish-language soap operas are out of luck if they want to see the shows legally on the Web. That could soon change. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Los Angeles is scheduled to hear evidence to decide whether Mexico's largest media company, Grupo Televisa, has the right to offer its enormously popular telenovelas to US audiences via the Internet. The trial is the latest legal skirmish between Televisa and Univision Communications, which owns the dominant Spanish-language television networks in the US. The two companies have been feuding for years over the rights to Televisa's telenovelas, which depict stories of love, betrayal and power -- and fuel Univision's smash prime-time TV ratings.

True/Slant: Angling for News Sponsors

True/Slant is a Web site that is mapping a new relationship between journalists, readers and advertisers. Lewis Dvorkin, founder of the site, which officially launches today after a trial run, makes no apologies for throwing out the old model. "It's tailored for the entrepreneurial journalist," he says. "We're enabling and empowering journalists to develop their own brand." While some contributors receive a stipend, others have an equity stake or a share in advertising revenue that they solicit. Dvorkin says such contacts with advertisers would be disclosed and that True/Slant editors would step in if a writer tried to post inappropriate material about an advertiser. "I come from the land of traditional media standards," he says.

Administration plans to expand online government data site

A comprehensive online warehouse of downloadable federal statistics is expected soon to add clickable tags that allow users to search and catalog related content, the White House chief information officer said on Thursday. "We want to be able to get multiple tagging. We've seen in social networking, that's been extremely useful," Vivek Kundra said of the features coming in a few months to the next version of Data.gov. Toward the end of June, Kundra's office also will unveil a publicly accessible Web application that will quantify the progress of federal IT programs, allowing taxpayers to see whether the projects are on schedule and within budget. "We're going to power a lot of that through Data.gov," he said. "The idea is it's better to create platforms that are horizontal in nature, [but] what I don't want to do is give the impression that this is all going to happen overnight." The goal of the government data depot, which launched May 21, is to encourage nongovernment users to mash agency information with other data sets to generate new services and sites and to enhance search engines.

White House transparency effort falls short for some

When the Obama Administration threw open the floodgates in February, inviting all 1.9 million federal employees to stretch their imaginations and propose ideas on how the government could be more transparent, no one was prepared for what came pouring back. A trickle. To be more precise, 91 comments, and about half of those were questions or remarks on other people's ideas. "Among various kinds of people in the government, no one had heard about it," Gary Bass of OMB Watch said of the federal-employees-only bulletin board, which was set up to solicit the suggestions for a few weeks earlier this year. The outreach followed a memo President Barack Obama signed on his first full day in office promising "an unprecedented level of openness in Government." Bass, whose non-profit, open-government advocacy group has been closely monitoring Obama's transparency initiative, said he suspected that new administration officials didn't fully appreciate how reluctant most federal employees are to join such a process without direct authorization or instruction from a supervisor. "What is difficult for civil servants is, unless they get a memo from their boss, they're not going to comment," Bass said.

White House taps social technology to reinforce message to Muslims

President Barack Obama in Egypt told Muslims he wants to engage them and their countries. More than 5,000 miles away, US administration officials sent notes to supporters -- and critics -- via Web sites Twitter, Facebook and text messages to reinforce the point. Obama's speech Thursday was an illustration of the administration's aggressive strategy to work the Web to enhance the White House's message. A flurry of messages flooded the Internet, as the White House's Twitter feed and Facebook page posted highlights while Obama was still speaking and the State Department sent free text messages about the speech. "Our goal is to ensure that the greatest number of people with an interest to see this -- not just through newspapers and television -- but can see this through Web sites. ... The Internet team here is working with a host of others to get this information to as many platforms as humanly possible so that people will get a chance all over the world to see what the president has to say," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Broadcasters lose in court over low-power FM radio

Supporters of low-power FM (LPFM) radio won a victory on Friday when a federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit to stop the Federal Communications Commissions from protecting LPFM stations from full power station signal interference. "This is terrific news for the low power radio community," declared Sakura Saunders of the Prometheus Radio Project, which helps LPFMs. "Now, these stations can focus on serving their local communities, rather than live in fear of displacement due to the whims of their full-powered neighbors." On the other hand, the advocacy group that defended the LPFM service was circumspect about the win. "The decision in the courts merely protects the status quo," noted the Media Access Project. "Congress still must pass legislation to allow more low-power FM station to operate nationwide." FCC Chairman Copps said, "We must continue to look for ways to promote and expand this most local radio service which holds such great promise in expanding radio ownership to under-represented stakeholders and in meeting the needs of under-served communities. In this regard, I look forward to working with my fellow Commissioners in finishing work on the pending LPFM Second Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making. I also respectfully renew my recommendation to Congress that it eliminate existing statutory LPFM third-adjacent channel spacing requirements."

DTV Shift: Industry leaders expect success, but acknowledge there will be bumps

With only a few days remaining until June 12 and the end of analog television broadcasts, most predictions are for a manageable shift. But there will be bumps; some inevitable, some perhaps not. The expected bumps include dealing with procrastinators who have not yet taken the steps to be digital-ready, viewers who have had trouble making the switch for reasons of language or finances, and myriad reception problems that will undoubtedly fall upon people who have done everything the government asked them to do. Federal Communications Commission members and industry players alike are cautioning that the transition is not so much an ending, as a beginning of dealing with yet-unforeseen issues, along with knowns carrying an impact yet to be determined. On that list is how the first blizzard in Detroit—or unlicensed wireless devices, for that matter—might affect a digital signal more prone to interference than its analog predecessor. The FCC says more stations than it previously thought would lose at last 2% of their analog viewers when they make the switch to digital. The FCC initially concluded that 319 stations would lose more than 2% of their analog viewers (stations are also picking up new viewers with digital) as their coverage areas change slightly. That loss triggers an FCC requirement to inform viewers on-air with "geographically specific" information on impending signal losses. But the FCC Friday said that after recalculation based on new maps and data, 19 of those stations actually didn't have to run the on-air info, while an additional 55 will have to, for a net 355 stations now losing more than 2% of their former analog audience. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) sent letters to the major government DTV stakeholders "urging" them to help consumers make the transition to digital.

Stations: Stop Ignoring OTA's Advantages

Why aren't television broadcasters selling the main advantage to their service -- no monthly subscription fees? Broadcasters' digital TV awareness efforts have been led by the National Association of Broadcasters and its modesty in promoting broadcasting during the transition is puzzling. Maybe the broadcasters on the NAB board now see every loss of an OTA home to cable or satellite as a gain of another $3 per year in retransmission consent fees from cable. That would make sense. Maybe the NAB simply didn't want to antagonize policymakers in Washington by turning the transition into a self-serving exercise. Or, maybe, as some broadcasters believe, the NAB is not really representing the best interests of the TV broadcasting industry these days. The TV board, the critics say, is studded with executives of companies that have significant cable interests — Disney, NBC, Cox, Post-Newsweek, Hearst-Argyle. Whatever the reason, broadcasting is diminished by the loss of each and every OTA home. The never-say-cable OTA faithful are what distinguishes broadcasting from cable. They are what distinguish NBC from USA.

Kohlenberger Decries US Networks as 'Inadequate'

Because today's broadband networks are inadequate, the government needs to play a role in helping bridge the high-speed Internet divide, Jim Kohlenberger, Chief of Staff in the White House's Office of Science and Technology said Thursday. He highlighted the efforts of the Obama administration in increasing broadband access in the United States. "We all do better when we are connected together, and broadband is now this critical infrastructure challenge for our generation," Kohlenberger said. "It's about our future, and we're lucky to have a president who's focused on the future and really gets it on broadband." Kohlenberger said that the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) at the NTIA represented a critical domestic infrastructure investment. The U.S. has "fallen behind in our ability to harness our potential" in Internet development. Further investment in broadband technology will create opportunities for education, data, and communications development, he said. "Today's broadband networks are far from ubiquitous." "Only 57% of Americans have broadband at home, and even that isn't homogenous," Kohlenberger said. "We're at thus juncture where we can and must do more to bridge this opportunity gap." President Obama's reliance on technology, Kohlenberger noted, indicated his dedication to increasing broadband accessibility.

Benton

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