September 2009

Broadcast Station Totals

Just how many radio and TV broadcasters are there? 14,355 full power radio stations; 858 low power radio stations; 1785 full-power TV stations; 553 "Class A" TV stations... over 30,000 in total.

BROADCAST STATION TOTALS AS OF JUNE 30, 2009

The Commission has announced the following totals for broadcast stations licensed as of
June 30, 2009:

AM STATIONS 4789
FM COMMERCIAL 6460
FM EDUCATIONAL 3106
TOTAL 14,355

UHF COMMERCIAL TV 1017
VHF COMMERCIAL TV 378
UHF EDUCATIONAL TV 283
VHF EDUCATIONAL TV 107
TOTAL 1,785

CLASS A UHF STATIONS 462
CLASS A VHF STATIONS 91
TOTAL 553

FM TRANSLATORS & BOOSTERS 6145
UHF TRANSLATORS 2885
VHF TRANSLATORS 1506
TOTAL 10,536

UHF LOW POWER TV 1849
VHF LOW POWER TV 537
TOTAL 2,386

LOW POWER FM 858

TOTAL BROADCAST STATIONS 30,473

Want to Change the Media? Be a Lobbyist

[Commentary] Last week, Aaron spoke at the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture conference in Boston. This organization of media and arts leaders represents hundreds of thousands of community media centers, arts educators, artists and filmmakers. He addressed the importance of artists and media makers getting involved in politics and policymaking

Nielsen Charts Increase In Hispanic TV Homes

The Nielsen Co. says Hispanic TV homes showed a 2.3% increase for the 2009-2010 TV season, to 12.95 million. Nielsen's overall projections are that the entire U.S. TV home population will grow 0.3% to 114.9 million, up from 114.5 million in the previous year. African-American TV homes will be 14.0 million, a 0.3% rise over the season before. Asian TV homes will be at 4.78 million, a 0.8% gain. In terms of total viewers, there will be a similar rise among all TV homes. Hispanic TV viewers will climb 2.4% to 44.3 million; African-American viewers will be at 37.5 million, a 1.3% gain; and Asian TV viewers will stay the same versus a year ago, at 14.5 million. The two biggest Hispanic markets continue to be Los Angeles and New York: Los Angeles now with 1.87 million Hispanic homes and New York with 1.25 million. LA grew about 14,000 homes and New York about 9,000 homes year-to-year. The next-biggest market -- Miami-Fort Lauderdale -- is around half of New York's numbers, at 666,230 homes. Overall, Nielsen projects that total TV viewers in the U.S. will increase slightly to 292 million for the 2009-2010 season.

Innovating Around Privacy

What a difference a summer makes in the arena of digital privacy. After years of hand-wringing, heel digging, and denials that a problem existed at all, the online advertising industry is now starting to work through tangible proposals for handling consumer and regulators' concerns about data. In July, a coalition of associations, from the AAAs to the IAB, issued "Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising" and promised implementation of standardized site labeling and user notification in 2010. The Future of Privacy Forum started researching and testing more effective messaging about privacy and online tracking. . And just this week a coalition of privacy and consumer protection groups petitioned the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce with a long list of specific recommendations for future regulation and legislation, including the creation of a "Behavioral Tracker Registry" of companies that track consumer use online. As we addressed in our own panel on privacy at the OMMA Behavioral show in July, the industry now has some realistic policy prospects to ponder.

Global Wireless Growth Is Slowing

Wireless subscription growth slowed to 3 percent in the most recent quarter, down from about 5 percent during the same period a year ago, according to research firm TeleGeography. The analyst firm found that just 130 million people became new subscribers around the world in the second quarter of 2009. When compared with the decrease in the amount of money a subscriber pays each month, a figure that's also been declining, such growth was barely enough to sustain carriers' revenue. However, there are 4.3 billion wireless subscribers in the world and a few bright spots, notably in China, India, Brazil and Russia, where 15 of 17 the top fastest-growing carriers are located. Of the national service providers with the highest quarterly growth in wireless subscribers, three of the top 10 are in China and five are in India. China Mobile is on top followed by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Reliance.

Federal CIO Drives Transparency With USAspending.gov

[Commentary] Federal CIO Vivek Kundra generated a tidal wave of headlines this summer when he unveiled, USAspending.gov, a new public Web site for tracking technology spending. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post, the nation's most prominent daily newspapers, covered his announcement, not to mention every technology-related publication and Web site, including www.govtech.com. When the national media starts focusing on the government CIO's role, you know the public perception of government and technology is about to change. This is a unique moment for the public-sector CIO community. For too long, CIOs have labored in government's boiler room, toiling away to connect the digital pipes, launching applications, and stitching together the bits and pieces of what we call e-government. Some CIOs have even managed to become influential IT strategists, sitting beside their elected CEO, and helping align policy, business and IT to make government more compatible with 21st-century America. But the CIO's role as utility player has been too common in government. Until now.

Technology Innovation Program Seeks White Papers

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Technology Innovation Program (TIP) announces that it is seeking white papers from any interested party, including academia; federal, state, and local governments; industry; national laboratories; and professional organizations/societies. White papers will be used to identify and select areas of critical national need and the associated technical challenges to be addressed in future TIP competitions. The suggested dates for submission of white papers are November 9, 2009, February 15, 2010, May 10, 2010, and July 12, 2010. However, TIP will accept white papers at any time during the period November 9, 2009 through September 30, 2010. TIP holds competitions for funding based on addressing areas of critical national need. TIP identifies and selects topics for areas of critical national need based on input from within NIST, the TIP Advisory Board, the science and technology communities, and from the public. TIP is interested in receiving input on the identification and definition of problems that are sufficiently large in magnitude that they have the potential to inhibit the growth and well-being of our nation today. This announcement explains the requirements and process for submitting white papers to TIP by interested parties. White papers from experts in other federal agencies are valued and welcome, and will enable TIP to complement the efforts of other mission agencies and avoid duplication of their efforts, thereby leveraging resources to benefit the nation. White papers may discuss any critical national need area of interest to the submitter, or may address any of the following topic areas: Civil Infrastructure, Complex networks and complex systems, Energy, Ensuring Future Water Supply, Healthcare, and Manufacturing.

Comcast Wishes You A Happy Rate Hike Season

It's once again cable rate hike season for Comcast customers, who'll be seeing higher bills depending on where you live, and depending on what competition Comcast sees in your market. Washington state residents will be the first lucky winners, given that Qwest is the primary phone company and telcoTV is a non-issue. In Washington, Comcast will be issuing a flurry of higher rates starting October 6. The hikes will cover not only TV service (traditionally blamed on higher broadcaster fees), but also assorted other hardware fees. Limited Basic customers will see an average increase of $1.17 per month, while Comcast's entry level digital cable tier will jump $1.70 from $55.75 to $57.45. Comcast's digital additional outlet fee, used for customers with additional modems or set top boxes, will increase $1 from $5.10 to $6.10. Customers who rent modems or eMTAs for digital voice will also see their $3 monthly rental fee bumped to $5.

Has the recession killed off the Silicon Valley's venture capitalists?

Having just celebrated its fifth year as a public company, Google has managed in half a decade to mushroom from an initial public offering valuation of $27 billion to a recent market capitalization of $140 billion. Over this time, the company's ubiquitous Internet search technology has become popular enough to become a verb, and it has managed to crush competition from stalwarts such as Microsoft and Yahoo. The question often arises: Who will become the next Google? If conditions persist as they have been throughout this Silicon Valley downturn, the answer might just be, "No one."

How Offshoring May Be Hurting U.S. Technology Employees

Rochester Institute of Technology Professor Ron Hira argues for the preservation of American technology jobs. The professor also discusses the major trends in moving highly paid jobs in technology across the globe. "The narrative is offshoring doesn't affect the total number of jobs in the U.S., what happens is the change in the mix," said Hira, who wrote a chapter about the offshoring of research and development for Manufacturing a Better Future for America, published in July by the Alliance for American Manufacturing. "The problem with that is it's not clear it's only low-level jobs moving offshore. What it doesn't talk about is the fact trade can be win/lose. When China gets better at the things the U.S. is good at, the U.S. can get poorer."

Benton

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