September 2009

NTIA's Broadband Mapping Initiative

The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it has received applications representing all 50 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia to participate in NTIA's State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program, which will assist NTIA in creating a national broadband map. This unprecedented initiative will provide consumers with better information on the broadband Internet services available to them and inform policymakers' efforts to increase broadband availability nationwide. In consideration of its charge to both create and maintain the national broadband map, and its responsibility to use funds in a fiscally prudent manner, NTIA has decided to initially fund state mapping and data collection efforts for a two-year period as opposed to a five-year period as originally contemplated. This approach will allow NTIA to assess lessons learned, determine best practices, and investigate opportunities for improved data collection methods prior to awarding funds for subsequent years. Based on the information submitted by the applicants, NTIA estimates funding requests for the first two years to total approximately $100 million. NTIA's grant awards will also include funding for state broadband planning. Planning projects may include, for example, efforts to identify barriers to broadband adoption in a state. As originally contemplated, NTIA intends to fund broadband planning grants for a five-year period. Fifty-two of the applicants requested a total of approximately $26 million to support broadband planning activities.

EchoStar, WildBlue Partner On Broadband Stimulus Bids With NTIA, RUS

Satellite TV operator EchoStar and satellite Internet service provider WildBlue have partnered on applications for broadband stimulus funding.

What We Can Learn from the Broadband GSD Ten

[Commentary] 1) It's time for a strong push for public-owned broadband networks, and networks run by public/private partnerships in which local governments are more than window dressing. Going through the list of broadband stimulus applications, it's uplifting and very telling that so many fall into one of these two categories. 2) When you look at the main stakeholder groups whose needs are being met by these networks on the GSD Ten list, it's pretty clear that these are the end-user organizations that should dictate broadband speeds. 3) People wrapped up in the discussion about how do you increase broadband adoption need to contact these governments with successful networks to understand that institutional customers drive adoption. 4) Local government needs to step up as the anchor tenant. 5) When studying these communities, take note of how you can "leapfrog" technologies to bring broadband to your area. Santa Monica started by using fiber it had at the time to improve the city's communication infrastructure, then sold excess fiber capacity to businesses to finance network expansion, and now they're ready to leapfrog into greater buildout of wireless. 6) When you delve into how these GSD Ten communities made their networks successful, it should be clear to those who haven't caught on yet that you can't - and shouldn't - approach ROI the same way private sector companies do.

Glenn Beck: Stop the Insanity

[Commentary] Why do our media continue to resemble the hate radio of decades past? How did it happen that just a few media pundits can disseminate such vitriol and misinformation into millions of homes, and -- worse -- cast it as real news? In the last month, Beck launched a smear campaign against one of Obama's top environmental advisers and forced his resignation. Van Jones is one of the great, principled leaders of our time, and he was unceremoniously hung out to dry while the White House quietly acquiesced to the agents of fear. That Fox News Channel lets Beck use its media megaphone to stir up hatred and fear of others is repulsive, divisive and beyond all common sense or decency. By giving Beck a nightly platform for witch hunts and smear campaigns, Rupert Murdoch's media empire undermines our democracy.

Time for Beck's Bad-Asses to Back Off of Mark Lloyd

[Commentary] Mark Lloyd is a distinguished member of the telecommunications community. He is a former journalist who turned to law and scholarly pursuits, casting a particularly skeptical eye on media concentration and its effects. He has been affiliated with any number of worthy organizations, most recently with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Center for American Progress. The Federal Communications Commission announced on July 29 that Lloyd had been named associate general counsel and chief diversity officer. As a rule, it's not that big a deal to become an associate general counsel in an independent regulatory agency. It's a nice job with some potentially interesting work, but all things being equal, hardly the equivalent of, say, a presidential chief-of-staff, or even of an FCC commissioner. The FCC release said Lloyd, and others, "will collaborate on the policies and legal framework necessary to expand opportunities for women, minorities, and small businesses to participate in the communications marketplace." In other words, Lloyd and others will make sure that broadband policy, for example, leads to improvements for everyone - from rural areas and urban areas alike. But under Glenn Beck's attack, however, Lloyd joined the elite ranks as a government "czar" who will lead the attack against the radio industry generally, and conservative radio specifically. My goodness. Lloyd would be the most powerful associate general counsel of the FCC in history if Beck were right. Alas, he is not, but that didn't stop Beck from claiming, "Radio is under attack" on his Aug. 14 program.

President Obama Picks Gallagher to Direct National Institute of Standards and Technology

President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Patrick Gallagher to be Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology at the Department of Commerce. Dr. Patrick Gallagher is currently the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In his present position, Dr. Gallagher provides high-level oversight and direction for NIST. Dr. Gallagher received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1991 and joined NIST in 1993 as an instrument scientist at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). Dr. Gallagher became Director of the NCNR in 2004, where he served until assuming his current duties as NIST Deputy Director in September 2008. From 1999 to 2001, Gallagher was a NIST agency representative at the National Science and Technology Council. He remains active in the area of U.S. policy for scientific user facilities and has chaired the Interagency Working Groups on neutron and light source facilities under the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). In 2006, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded Dr. Gallagher a Gold Medal for his leadership in interagency coordination of policy for scientific user facilities in the United States. Dr. Gallagher has been a member of numerous advisory, study and review committees including the Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation; the Committee of Visitors for Basic Energy Science in the Department of Energy for the Division of Materials Science and Engineering and the Division of Scientific User Facilities; the Solid State Sciences Committee, the Neutrino Advisory Committee and the New Materials Growth and Synthesis Committee of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Research Council; the Neutron Sciences Advisory Board of Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Advanced Photon Source for Argonne National Laboratory.

Cass Sunstein Confirmed by Full Senate

The Senate, by a 57-40 vote, confirmed the nomination of Cass Sunstein to lead the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Sunstein previously taught at Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago Law School.

Citigroup Analyst Has 7 Good Reasons for Comcast and Time Warner Cable to Merge

Despite claims that the removal of the 30% ownership cap will have no effect on mergers and acquisitions in the cable space in the short term, Citigroup media analyst Jason Bazinet called for the mother of all cable deals -- the merging of Comcast and Time Warner Cable -- in a research note Thursday. Even though the removal of the 30% ownership cap on cable companies appears to have opened the door for mega mergers, many analysts have said that the economic climate, all-time low cable valuations and the paucity of systems available for sale would dampen any major M&A activity in the cable space for quite some time. And even those who believe Comcast could buy a smaller operator -- like Charter Communications or Cablevision Systems -- have said that a Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger would be blocked by federal anti-trust regulators. In his research note, Bazinet made the case for a combination of the No. 1 and No. 2 cable operators, claiming that a deal would create $2.7 billion in cost synergies - $1.6 billion in lower programming costs and $1.1 billion in other cost savings. Bazinet also claimed that the regulatory hurdles may be low -- even with 37 million subscribers (Comcast has 24 million and TWC 13 million) a combined entity would control only 37% of the pay television market. Currently, Comcast controls about 24% of the pay TV universe. Aside from the cost synergies, Bazinet cited six other benefits to a deal -- both companies would maintain their investment grade credit ratings; a deal would counter escalating content costs; it would simplify both companies' wireless strategy; would limit the bidding war for further cable consolidation; and extend the cost advantage over satellite TV and the telcos.

Coalition Of 14 Companies Launches Nielsen Rival

A group of major cable and broadcasting programmers, advertisers and ad agencies -- calling themselves the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement -- has officially unveiled its bid to challenge Nielsen Media Research's stronghold in television ratings. The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, or CIMM, will "promote innovation in audience measurement for television and cross-platform media," including identifying new methodologies and approaches to audience measurement through a series of pilot studies with independent measurement companies, the companies said in a joint announcement Thursday. The group's founding members and current participating companies are: AT&T, CBS, Discovery Communications, GroupM, Interpublic Group's Mediabrands, NBC Universal, News Corp., Omnicom Media Group, P&G, Starcom MediaVest Group Worldwide, Time Warner, Unilever, Viacom and The Walt Disney Co. CIMM will focus on two key areas: the current and future potential of TV measurement through set-top-box data, and new methods for cross-platform media measurement.

Political Ads Could Top $1 Billion This Year

While nothing short of a "political Armageddon" is on tap for next year, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG President Evan Tracey, 2009 is turning out to be a hot year for political spending too. Between governor races in New Jersey and Virginia, candidates getting a headstart on advertising in next year's elections, and a long list of hot-button issues, political ads are making a stronger than expected showing in 2009. "We have issues," Tracey said of healthcare reform, Cap and Trade, and other divisive matters. "We have big issues."

Benton

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