August 2013

[Commentary] Project Loon has gotten a fair amount of attention. The few advertisements Google has released emphasize an idealist bent and the humanitarian potential of bringing a connection to the farthest reaches of the developing world. Criticism, from the likes of Bill Gates and others, has focused on whether the world's poor need social networking and streaming video as much as medicine and food. The proposed delivery system has thus far escaped similar scrutiny, which is too bad, because the very mechanics of Project Loon highlight serious legal, diplomatic, and government tensions, which Google is either ignoring, unaware of, or operating in spite of.

And yet, that said, it's not Google's job to enforce regulatory oversight; breaking ground means new rules have to be invented, too. The project's name makes it seem inoffensive, unobjectionable. But the longer you look at the Loon craft, the less they look like balloons. If Google's claims about the Loon balloons' navigability are true, it is in fact an 'unmanned aircraft,' sometimes more pejoratively referred to as a drone. And what's worrisome is not so much Google's stated goal, but that with unprecedented proprietary technology, scant law on the books, and a few key government connections, Project Loon may only be a harbinger of a new era in our relationship to the skies overhead, one that our laws are dramatically unprepared for.

There is no time to waste in building a broadband Internet structure that will keep the Roanoke Valley competitive. Without it, the region will wither and watch futilely while others whiz by. They already are. Necessity in catching up with other areas with super speeds and capabilities is evident the haste that public officials in Roanoke, Salem, Roanoke County and Botetourt County have come to agree: They must join forces so that all can thrive. They plan now to not just catch up, but to build a better, quicker network than all others.

Roanoke City Council agreed to join with its neighbors to form the Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority that will be charged with building a broadband infrastructure capable of supporting the needs of business, industry, education and health care. The other localities are expected soon to join in the formation of the authority with a five-person board — the city managers and county administrators holding four seats and a citizen the fifth — that will guide the development of the infrastructure. The authority is structured so that its board can work with Virginia Tech and other colleges, Vinton and the Western Virginia Water Authority in designing the network and billing structure, but it cannot extend service into other political jurisdictions without approval by the four localities.

Fox News Executive Vice President Brian Lewis, the communications chief and a top strategist for the cable channel, was terminated after an internal investigation raised questions about his conduct.

“After an extensive internal investigation of Brian Lewis' conduct by Fox News, it was determined that he should be terminated for cause, specifically for issues relating to financial irregularities, as well as for multiple, material and significant breaches of his employment contract," a spokesman for Fox News parent company 21st Century Fox said. Fox News and 21st Century Fox declined to elaborate on Lewis' transgressions. He was let go on July 25, but the firing only came to light on August 20 after a story about it appeared in the Hollywood Reporter. Lewis could not be reached for comment. A member of Fox News Chairman and Chief Executive Roger Ailes' inner circle for almost two decades, Lewis was one of the most powerful executives at the network. Not only did Lewis oversee the take-no-prisoners approach Fox News brought to dealing with the press and rival news outlets, he was also something of a consigliere to Ailes.

With the Federal Communications Commission making clear that it is likely to shut down a long-time loophole in its national ownership cap, some broadcasters are scrambling to ensure that they don’t get caught in the regulatory squeeze.

The loophole, known as the UHF discount, allows station groups to exceed the nominal cap that limits them to coverage of no more than 39% of US TV homes by discounting the reach of stations operating in the UHF band (ch. 14 and above) by half. While eliminating the discount, the FCC is expected to grandfather the portfolios of groups that long ago blew past the 39% cap thanks to the discount, notably Ion Media (64.8% coverage), Trinity Broadcasting (40.1%) and Univision (44.1%). But without expansion of the grandfathering provisions, jettisoning the UHF discount could force Tribune to unravel all or part of its pending $2.7 billion deal to acquire Local TV LLC and block the growth ambitions of Fox and Sinclair Broadcast Group. In their effort to secure these provisions, affected broadcasters should not expect much help from the National Association of Broadcasters. With so few broadcasters affected, the industry's principal lobby looks like it will be sitting this one out.