November 2010

Creditors Unclear on Tribune Plans

Trade creditors say "incomprehensible" Chapter 11 proposals from financial backers of Tribune Company have left them wondering about their prospects of getting paid when the media company exits bankruptcy protection.

In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, an informal group of trade creditors said it isn't happy with any of the four competing Chapter 11 plans for Tribune but would at least like a plain statement of how much they will get, and when, under each of the plans. The "when" could be the deciding point for Tribune suppliers, who have waited nearly two years to be paid. Tribune's quartet of Chapter 11 proposals all call for lawsuits to be filed after the company officially exits bankruptcy-court protection. In an effort to raise cash for creditors, the suits focus on the 2007 leveraged buyout that piled more than $8 billion in debt on Tribune. Depending on which of four plans is approved, the lawsuits could target company executives, lenders and advisers on the deal, and even major shareholders who cashed out.

Tribune's trade suppliers want their money up front before the lawsuit machinery gets into gear. They can't tell if anyone is promising to give it to them, according to papers filed Thursday by the informal trade creditors' panel. The protest from the trade creditors comes in advance of a Nov. 29 court session in which a judge will review the explanations that the four Tribune Chapter 11 plan proponents want to send out to creditors.

The battle for NPR's public funding

[Commentary] "Dignified" is not a word often associated with the wretches populating today's spluttering, hollering media. But it's a word that came to mind this week watching National Public Radio cope with the first in what will be a series of attacks on its government funding. Newly energized conservatives moved Thursday in the House of Representatives to limit payments to the public radio network, which they insist is a hotbed of left-wing political orthodoxy. They failed but will without question try again, as a Republican majority takes power next year.

To what end? Apparently to satisfy an itch to lash out at menacing Eastern elites, to vanquish Big Government and to vindicate the righteousness of Juan Williams, sent packing last month by NPR for speaking intemperately about Muslims. Never mind that grants to public radio from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $94 million a year, amount to a rounding error, a tiny fraction of a fraction of the federal government's budget. Never mind that this week's action would have disproportionately harmed rural, small-town stations, not big-city powerhouses. Never mind that Williams (though terminated for no good reason, in my view) made an insignificant imprint on NPR's total news package.

Moving NPR to the very top of the GOP cut list has much more to do with symbolism and bowing to an emboldened political base than with good government, impartial media or serving the average citizen. After all, the audience for public radio has grown 60% over the last decade. Forty million listeners now tune in each week.

A Figure at Troubled Companies Has Big Plans for PBS Program

In the three months since Mykalai Kontilai and his backers bought one of public broadcasting's crown jewels, the PBS-distributed "Nightly Business Report," he has moved with an urgency not usually seen within public television.

The first major change came Nov. 12, when he laid off eight people, or about 20 percent of the staff. His other plans, explained in a recent interview, are more ambitious. He said that there were "late-stage negotiations with a prominent 24-hour worldwide television network" to take the daily half-hour business report to nearly 200 countries, and also negotiations for a national daily radio program. A spokesman said that a pilot program to create educational materials to teach personal finances to returning veterans was in "the final review stage" at the Pentagon. A closer look at those efforts, however, yields a more complicated picture, both of the plans and the man behind them. In particular, more than a dozen people who have done business with Mr. Kontilai questioned whether his new endeavors would end with the same sort of problems that plagued his previous public television efforts.

FCC Google "Spy-Fi" Investigation To Establish Network Neutrality Authority? Thanks Scott!

[Commentary] Scott Cleland is mad at Google. This is not much of a surprise. Scott Cleland spends much of his time mad at Google and wishing terrible things would happen to the company. This time, Cleland wants the Federal Communications Commission to investigate and punish Google for their collecting user data while sending their truck fleet to find open hot spots as part of their "street view" project. The FCC has confirmed it is investigating Google's conduct. Cleland hopes the FCC will throw the book at Google. Feld is also hoping the FCC will act. But having pondered this for awhile, he's not sure Cleland understands precisely what an FCC action against Google would mean for issues like network neutrality and regulation of wireless broadband access. Briefly, it would require the FCC to either assert authority over all unlicensed spectrum and passive reception or authority over wireless broadband. While this does not trouble Feld, evil pro-regulatory big-government free-market hating Socialist that he is, he is rather surprised to see those (like Cleland) who usually want the FCC kept at arms length begging the FCC to charge into the fray and extend its authority over Google, especially when such an expansion of authority would extend to network neutrality regulation as well.

With Kinect Controller, Hackers Take Liberties

Programmers, roboticists and tinkerers are getting the Microsoft's Kinect to do things it was not really meant to do.

The attraction of the device is that it is outfitted with cameras, sensors and software that let it detect movement, depth, and the shape and position of the human body. Companies respond to this kind of experimentation with their products in different ways — and Microsoft has had two very different responses since the Kinect was released on Nov. 4. It initially made vague threats about working with law enforcement to stop "product tampering." But by last week, it was embracing the benevolent hackers. "Anytime there is engagement and excitement around our technology, we see that as a good thing," said Craig Davidson, senior director for Xbox Live at Microsoft. "It's naïve to think that any new technology that comes out won't have a group that tinkers with it."

Microsoft and other companies would be wise to keep an eye on this kind of outside innovation and consider wrapping some of the creative advances into future products, said Loren Johnson, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan who follows digital media and consumer electronics.

Unlikely Person at the Heart of India's Scandal

He was a small-town lawyer from a regional political party in a southern Indian state. By almost any measure, Andimuthu Raja, who had no background in telecommunications or in business, seemed an unlikely candidate to be the government minister presiding over the fastest-growing cellphone market in the world. But he had the only qualification that mattered: the ironclad backing of the political chieftain of his party, a crucial ally of the governing Congress Party. Without his party's 16 members of the lower house of Parliament, the government cobbled together from squabbling allies would collapse. Raja is now at the center of what may turn out to be the biggest political corruption scandal in Indian history. He is accused of using his post to sell off valuable mobile telephone spectrum licenses in 2008 at rock-bottom prices. His decisions may have cost the Indian treasury as much as $40 billion, according to a government investigative report released last week.

EU Chews on Web Cookies

Europe's effort to regulate online "cookies" is crumbling, exposing how tough it is to curb the practice of tracking Internet users' movements on the Web.

Seeking to be a leader in protecting online privacy, the European Union last year passed a law requiring companies to obtain consent from Web users when tracking files such as cookies are placed on users' computers. Enactment awaits action by member countries. Now, Internet companies, advertisers, lawmakers, privacy advocates and EU member nations can't agree on the law's meaning. Is it sufficient if users agree to cookies when setting up Web browsers? Is an industry-backed plan acceptable that would let users see -- and opt out of -- data collected about them? Must placing cookies on a machine depend on the user checking a box each time? The answers are mired in bickering.

Upton: Under GOP, Genachowski to be 'familiar face' on Capitol Hill

If he becomes the top Republican on the House Commerce Committee, Rep Fred Upton (R-MI) has vowed to make Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski a regular in Congress as the committee makes FCC oversight a central piece of its agenda.

"After two years of inaction, the Energy and Commerce Committee will be quite active in fulfilling the oversight responsibilities our Founding Fathers expected. The FCC will be prominently featured and Chairman Genachowski will soon be a familiar face on Capitol Hill," Rep Upton said. "I hope that the only turkey cooking next week will be in our kitchens on Thanksgiving and not at the FCC," he said. Rep Upton said he is "alarmed and disappointed" by the possibility that the FCC might "blatantly seek to circumvent Congress and seize authority that they do not have." He urged the agency not to "poison the well before the new Congress is sworn in," and to instead "stand down on any movement toward net neutrality."

Reps Doyle and Markey: FCC Should Move on Net Neutrality In December

Countering Republican opposition to the Federal Communications Commission possibly moving forward with a network neutrality order during its December meeting, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) put out the following statement: "Net neutrality is essential for continuing the rapid pace of innovative Internet technology and content, and I look forward to hearing [FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's] plans to protect the Internet, and to working with him to ensure that the Internet is open to all voices."

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) added: "It is my hope that the Commission will act this year to ensure that the Internet retains the features of openness and non-discrimination that have made it the most successful communications and commercial medium in history. The Commission should resist attempts to permit paid prioritization on the Internet, which would undermine its success, favoring certain content providers to the detriment of other content creators unable or unwilling to pay. Likewise, exclusion of wireless services from open Internet requirements could widen the digital divide by establishing a substandard, less open experience for traditionally underserved regions and demographic groups that may need to access the Internet on a mobile device."

Rep Dingell tells FCC to give up data roaming rule, questions broadband authority

Rep John Dingell (D-MI) slammed a proposal by the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to force national wireless carriers to provide roaming services for customers of regional service providers.

Rep Dingell said the proposal, introduced last spring, would face legal challenges because of the FCC's questionable authority to impose rules on broadband services. The FCC is expected to vote on data roaming rules as early as next month. "I remain concerned that you continue to over-interpret the statutory authority granted to the commission by the Congress," Rep Dingell wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "Further consultation with the Congress on this and other matters is desperately needed to avoid a glorious mess of litigation." Rep Dingell said he disagrees with Genachowski's proposal to reassert its oversight of broadband service providers, a measure that has attracted criticism from Republicans and some Democrats.

Benton

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