August 2013

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2013

Find us online at http://benton.org/headlines

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board: Update surveillance guidelines
   NSA paid millions to cover Prism compliance costs for tech companies
   NSA admits analysts purposefully violated citizens' privacy rights
   NSA punished analysts over privacy
   Obama: NSA revelations show 'oversight worked'
   NSA Phone Data Collection Is Illegal, ACLU Says
   Surveillance Revelations Shake U.S.-German Ties
   How the NSA leaks could affect the US cloud computing industry [links to web]
   How the NSA’s boss can believe his agency’s own propaganda - analysis [links to web]
   Smart phone searches by police should raise alarm - editorial [links to web]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Home Broadband 2013 - research
   Facebook and Google Try Self Help
   Facebook For All - analysis
   Why don’t Facebook and Google just embrace that they’re monetizing the third world? - analysis
   Wiring the planet could be a $14 billion opportunity for Facebook - analysis

SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
   Cellphone Unlocking Worth Very Little Without Device Interoperability - analysis
   Mobile Fourth Wave: The Evolution of the Next Trillion Dollars - op-ed
   We need to think about spectrum allocation differently … now - op-ed
   NTIA Awards Additional SLIGP Grants to Assist FirstNet Planning - press release [links to web]
   What Does the Microsoft-Motorola Mobility Patent Case Mean for BlackBerry? [links to web]
   Lobbying and new spectrum: One last shot for LightSquared - op-ed [links to web]
   Appeals court overrules Apple-Samsung judge, allows more document sealing [links to web]
   Amazon explores possible new fast, uncongested wireless service [links to web]
   Cellphone users may opt out of robo-calls, court says in Dell ruling [links to web]

TELECOM
   What We Need to See in a Pilot Program Proposal - editorial

TELEVISION/RADIO
   DOJ Asks for More Information About Gannett's Purchase of Belo
   TV Station Ownership’s 45% Solution - editorial
   FCC: 'Engaged' In Trying to End CBS/TWC Retransmission Fight
   DTV Antenna Sales Rise in CBS Blackout Markets [links to web]
   Free antennas? Not good enough: the FCC should put a stop to TV blackouts - editorial
   NAB: FCC Should Extend Political File Requirement To All Stations
   Aereo Wins Send Networks on Hunt to Stop Streaming TV [links to web]
   Sirius Is Sued Over Music Royalties for Pre-1972 Recordings [links to web]
   Parents Television Council Blasts MTV's VMAs as Serving Sex to Teens
   Right-Wing Anti-MSNBC Campaign Urges Subscribers to Ditch Comcast [links to web]

JOURNALISM
   NFL Pressure Said to Lead ESPN to Quit Film Project
   ESPN’s journalism problem - analysis [links to web]
   Was ESPN sloppy, naive or compromised? - analysis [links to web]

CONTENT
   DOJ Softens Proposed Apple E-Book Injunctions, Slightly
   Google Wants To Be Your Dictionary [links to web]

PRIVACY
   Patients care what their electronic health data is used for, survey shows
   Privacy groups criticize proposed $8.5 million Google settlement [links to web]

LABOR
   NBCU Writers Accuse Steve Burke of Blocking Unionization [links to web]

COMPANY NEWS
   To Protect Its Empire, ESPN Stays on Offense [links to web]
   ESPN’s journalism problem - analysis [links to web]
   Was ESPN sloppy, naive or compromised? - analysis [links to web]
   Inside Comcast's $30 Billion TV Bet [links to web]
   Netflix executive upends Hollywood [links to web]
   Amazon explores possible new fast, uncongested wireless service [links to web]
   As Amazon Stretches, Seattle’s Downtown Is Reshaped [links to web]
   Dodgers owner Mark Walter explores possible purchase of LA Times [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   Chinese Internet Hit by Attack [links to web]
   Chinese Police Detain Online Commentator [links to web]
   Egypt’s Journalists, Still Under Siege - op-ed [links to web]
   KPN, Telefónica Win Support From America Movil for German Deal [links to web]

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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

PRIVACY BOARD SEEKS SURVEILLANCE UPDATE
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
A federal privacy watchdog pressed the Obama Administration to update old rules governing how and when it gathers, retains or shares intelligence about US persons. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board expressed its concerns that the surveillance guidelines in place at some agencies “have not comprehensively been updated, in some cases in almost three decades, despite dramatic changes in information use and technology.” David Medine, the board’s chairman, said the review is “a link in the process,” ensuring the government is properly collecting data while it scours the globe for terrorists. He said many of the existing guidelines, some of which are classified, predate text messaging and other technologies.
benton.org/node/157913 | Politico
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NSA PAID MILLIONS TO COVER PRISM COMPLIANCE COSTS FOR TECH COMPANIES
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Ewen MacAskill]
The National Security Agency (NSA) paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major Internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional. The technology companies -- which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook -- incurred the costs to meet new certification demands in the wake of the ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court. While the ruling on October 2011 that the NSA violated the fourth amendment by not separating domestic from foreign communications in its Prism operation, did not concern the Prism program directly, documents passed to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden describe the problems the decision created for the agency and the efforts required to bring operations into compliance. The material provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA.
benton.org/node/157861 | Guardian, The
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NSA ADMITS ANALYSTS PURPOSEFULLY VIOLATED CITIZENS' PRIVACY RIGHTS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brandon Sasso]
National Security Agency officials deliberately overstepped their legal authority multiple times in the past decade, the agency acknowledged. "Over the past decade, very rare instances of willful violations of NSA’s authorities have been found, but none under [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] or the Patriot Act," the agency said in a statement. The admission contradicts previous statements by lawmakers and the Obama administration that any privacy violations were unintentional, based on things like technical glitches. The admission comes days after the government released a 2011 court opinion that concluded that the NSA had unconstitutionally collected about 56,000 emails of Americans over a three-year period.
benton.org/node/157868 | Hill, The
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NSA PUNISHED ANALYSTS OVER PRIVACY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Apparently, the National Security Agency took disciplinary actions against analysts who intentionally overstepped their legal authority, according to a government official familiar with the actions. The agency informed Congress of the privacy violations and subsequent punishments. It is unclear whether any NSA analysts lost their jobs over the incidents. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that there has only been about one case per year of intentional privacy violations. "These incidents were not related to FISA, and in most instances did not involve an American’s information. I have been informed by NSA that disciplinary action has been taken, and I am reviewing each of these incidents in detail," she said.
benton.org/node/157877 | Hill, The
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OBAMA: NSA REVELATIONS SHOW 'OVERSIGHT WORKED'
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Justin Sink]
Recent revelations that the National Security Agency violated its own surveillance rules on thousands of occasions is evidence that "all these safeguards, checks, audits, oversight worked," President Barack Obama said. The President cited technical problems in an interview with CNN, which were duly presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court for review, where, according to President Obama, “what was learned was that NSA had inadvertently, accidentally pulled the e-mails of some Americans in violation of their own rules…” President Obama insisted that there was nobody "out there trying to abuse this program or listen in on people's email," but admitted that the government had not done enough to explain how the program's function. President Obama also acknowledged that "the capabilities of the NSA are scary to people." Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, including top Democrats like Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), expressed outrage last week at the revelations. “I remain concerned that we are still not getting straightforward answers from the NSA," Sen Leahy continued.
benton.org/node/157867 | Hill, The
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NSA PHONE DATA COLLECTION
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Scott Shane]
In a detailed legal attack on the National Security Agency’s collection of Americans’ phone call data, the American Civil Liberties Union argued in court papers that the sweeping data gathering violates the Constitution and should be halted. The ACLU warns of the dangers of large-scale government intrusion into private lives. The new motion, elaborating on the ACLU’s arguments against the data collection, came in a federal lawsuit challenging the NSA program that the group filed in June.
benton.org/node/157912 | New York Times
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SURVEILLANCE REVELATIONS SHAKE U.S.-GERMAN TIES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Alison Smale]
Continuing revelations, based on documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, of sweeping American digital surveillance around the world are rattling the close ties between the United States and Germany. In a country scarred by Nazi and Communist pasts, the issue is prompting not just a debate about privacy and data protection, but also demands from German officials that the Berlin-Washington security partnership be put on a new footing. The latest of the Snowden revelations came when the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel published a report, citing documents Snowden obtained while he worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), that said the agency had succeeded in tapping into videoconferences at the United Nations in New York, into the European Union’s mission to the United Nations, and into other diplomatic missions around the world. Despite a visit by President Barack Obama to Berlin in June, by early July, US-German ties were strained further after Der Spiegel reported that American intelligence agencies regularly examined huge volumes of digital information traveling in and out of Germany. Germany’s privacy laws and public sensitivity to privacy issues have made it an attractive base for hacker activists like Jacob Appelbaum and for Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who helped bring Glenn Greenwald and Snowden together.
benton.org/node/157892 | New York Times
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

HOME BROADBAND 2013
[SOURCE: Pew Internet and American Life Project, AUTHOR: Kathryn Zickuhr, Aaron Smith]
As of May 2013, 70% of American adults ages 18 and older have a high-speed broadband connection at home, according to a nationally representative survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. This is a small but statistically significant rise from the 66% of adults who said they had home broadband in April 2012. The demographic factors most correlated with home broadband adoption continue to be educational attainment, age, and household income. Almost nine in ten college graduates have high-speed internet at home, compared with just 37% of adults who have not completed high school. Similarly, adults under age 50 are more likely than older adults to have broadband at home, and those living in households earning at least $50,000 per year are more likely to have home broadband than those at lower income levels.
benton.org/node/157894 | Pew Internet and American Life Project
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FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE TRY SELF HELP
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Rolfe Winkler]
It turns out you need lots and lots of cement when building Internet super-highways. Now web heavyweights like Google and Facebook want to mix their own. That threatens to eat into the profits of large Internet construction companies such as Intel and Cisco Systems. Smartly, the latter aren't just going to let the market drive off without them. Google and Facebook buy so much tech equipment that it makes sense for them to design their own. This enables them to save money and run their websites more efficiently. Both design their own servers, for instance, of which Google has over a million worldwide, IDC estimates. Besides servers, Facebook designs much of its own storage hardware while Google also designs its own network switches, says IDC. Now both these firms are pursuing projects that could help them sidestep Intel and Cisco, two hardware manufacturers that dominate their respective markets, making gross profit margins of roughly 60% in the process.
benton.org/node/157903 | Wall Street Journal
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FACEBOOK FOR ALL
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Increasing Internet access around the world was one of the hot stories of the week. Observers wondered, however, if all the smoke really indicates there's a fire to connect everyone to the Internet. On August 21, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Internet.org, a partnership with the goal of making Internet access available to the next 5 billion people. Today, just over one-third of the world’s population (2.7 billion people) have access to the Internet and Internet adoption is growing by less than 9% each year. Internet.org aims to make access available to the two-thirds of the world population who are not yet connected. Internet.org members include Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung. They’ve pledged to develop joint projects, share knowledge, and mobilize industry and governments to bring the world online. Down the line, the partnership is expected to expand to include nonprofit organizations, academics and other experts. They will focus on three challenges: Making access affordable, using data more efficiently, and helping business drive access. The proof of Internet.org, and other efforts of course, will be if they can address Internet adoption from soup to nuts: technical and financial challenges that limit access to the Internet, yes, but helping motivate new consumers to adopt services they never thought they needed. Is a free Facebook account enough to motivate someone to take on a mobile data plan? We’ll be waiting to see.
http://benton.org/node/157824
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FACEBOOK, GOOGLE AND THE THIRD WORLD
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Caleb Garling]
[Commentary] You’d be hard pressed to find many fooled that Internet.org is anything but a Trojan horse for some big tech companies to access new customers. We get how this works: First world firms go into third world nations under the banner of humanitarianism when the real point is to get their products to new sources of revenue. Been happening for years. But Mark Zuckerberg worked to spin it the other way. “Everything Facebook has done has been about giving all people around the world the power to connect,” he wrote. “There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy. Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it.” He even kicked off the press barrage with the faux-intellectual question “Is connectivity a human right?” But what if Zuckerberg had just said, “Facebook has partnered with Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung to bring Internet access to the third world. There are 5 billion people without the Internet and we believe that these new markets will be critical to our growth and bottom line. If successful, all of you that bought stock during our IPO will finally get your money back. As an added benefit, more people will get the Internet. And yeah ‘knowledge economy’ is a pretty preposterous buzzphrase.” Straight honesty (maybe lose the last part). We know none of these companies would embark on this partnership if it wasn’t better for business. So let’s call a spade a spade and move on.
benton.org/node/157902 | San Francisco Chronicle | Wired
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WIRING THE PLANET COULD BE A $14 BILLION OPPORTUNITY FOR FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Caitlin Dewey]
[Commentary] Mark Zuckerberg recently embarked on a laudable, altruistic mission to bring Internet access to the 5 billion people in the world who don’t have it. But here’s what the Facebook CEO’s white paper didn’t tell you: If 5 billion new people got online, Facebook could make in the ballpark of $3.5 billion in the first quarter. That won’t surprise cynics who smelled a lucrative business opportunity in Zuckerberg’s talk of “connectivity” and “human rights.” That business opportunity will lie largely in mobile, since most people in developing countries get Internet through their phones. While Facebook’s “next 5 billion” campaign could mean more ad revenue for Facebook, the target may fall short. It’s unlikely that 5 billion people will actually get online, cautions Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester who focuses on social media. Even in developed markets, total online adoption is around “80ish percent.” And plenty of people are on Facebook in emerging markets already, 100 million on feature phones alone.
benton.org/node/157878 | Washington Post
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS

CELLPHONE UNLOCKING WORTH VERY LITTLE WITHOUT DEVICE INTEROPERABILITY
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
[Commentary] Acting Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn will likely have a few months to leave her mark – and one of the issues she has chosen to champion is cellphone unlocking. In response to her recent statement in support of cellphone unlocking, CTIA- The Wireless Association Vice President Scott Bergmann responded with a statement of his own saying that the CTIA “looks forward to working with the commission” but also noting that the industry already offers a wide range of cellphone unlocking options. He noted, for example, that there are already more than 240 unlocked devices available for purchase from a wireless carrier, retail store or directly from the manufacturer. He suggested that the matter might be addressed through education, stating that CTIA would like to work with the FCC to “ensure that consumers are aware of the wide variety of unlocked devices that are available.” What neither Chairwoman Clyburn nor Bergmann mentioned is that cellphone unlocking increasingly will be irrelevant unless more is done to make handsets interoperable. The reason is that as the major carriers roll out 4G networks based on LTE, each one is using a different spectrum band or combination of spectrum bands – and handsets are designed to work only in the bands that an individual carrier needs. If one of their devices were to be unlocked, there would be few, if any, other networks to take it to.
benton.org/node/157865 | telecompetitor
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MOBILE FOURTH WAVE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Chetan Sharma]
[Commentary] The global mobile market will reach $1.65 trillion in revenue this year. Over the next decade, that revenue number will more than double. If we segment the sources of this revenue, there will be a drastic shift over the course of the next 10 years. During the last decade, voice accounted for over 55 percent of the total revenue, data access 17 percent, and the over-the-top and digital services a mere three percent. Over the next decade, we expect mobile digital services to be the leading revenue-generating category for the industry, with approximately 30 percent of the total revenue. Voice will represent less than 21 percent. So, what is the mobile fourth wave, and who are the dominant players today? The fourth wave is not a single entity or a functional block like voice, messaging or data access, but is made up of dozens of new application areas, some of which have not even been dreamt up yet. As such, this portfolio of services requires a different skill set for both development and monetization. Another key difference in the competitive landscape is that the biggest competitors for these services (depending on the region) might not be another operator but the Internet players who are well funded, nimble and very ambitious.
benton.org/node/157910 | Wall Street Journal
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WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT SPECTRUM ALLOCATION DIFFERENTLY … NOW
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stefan Weitz]
[Commentary] The wireless spectrum has physical limits. The mobile data deluge isn’t a problem today, but we will need smarter apps and different networks to keep those digital bits traveling the airwaves. The day is coming when the existing spectrum will be unable to keep pace with the ever-increasing number of internet-connected devices and the data the move. So what happens? Yes, the FCC could potentially shuffle some things around but in the long run, the limits of the spectrum will still be saturated. The need for innovation is clearly on the mobile side. Today’s devices are ‘locked’ to particular frequencies but what if we were to build mobile apps and devices that were “frequency intelligent?” New work in Software Defined Radios (and not relying solely on hardware and crystals) could enable future devices to hop across frequencies as environment dictates and are still being defined for widespread use. The team at Commotion, an interactive mobile radio app, is one developer project that is working on bringing something similar to market. Additional trials are happening to see if devices can be made smart enough to ‘share’ federal spectrum beyond 700 MHz when those agencies aren’t using it while still giving them priority when they need it. Other organizations like Serval, a telephone software developing project, are working to use frequencies like those used by cordless phones to create mini-networks among many devices that can work even without any infrastructure in place.
[Stefan Weitz is Director of Search at Microsoft]
benton.org/node/157883 | GigaOm
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TELECOM

WHAT WE NEED TO SEE IN A PILOT PROGRAM PROPOSAL
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Jodie Griffin]
[Commentary] Carriers proposing phone network transition pilot programs must explain to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the public how they'd like to run a trial in meaningful detail before we can even begin to consider their ideas. The FCC’s Public Notice request for proposals for transition trial programs from carriers and other stakeholders seemed like a response to AT&T, which has been asking the FCC to let it run trials since last November but has yet to give any meaningful details about what these trials would actually look like, what information they would give us, and how they would be conducted. AT&T continues to promise that at some point it will submit an actual trial proposal to the FCC, but since we've yet to see that proposal it could be useful now to go through what kind of information needs be included in any forthcoming pilot program proposal so the FCC and the public can evaluate the merits of the proposed trial. First of all, a trial proposal needs to specify in detail what technical data the trial would collect and how this data would be useful in setting policy in the phone network transition. Very similar to detailing what information the trial would glean, a pilot program proposal must explain--in detail--what participating carriers would actually be doing during the trial. A trial proposal must also include a plan for identifying and notifying customers who would be impacted. And of course, a trial proposal must establish the mechanisms by which the FCC could identify serious unforeseen problems during the trial and shut it down to protect consumers.
[Griffin is a Senior Staff Attorney at Public Knowledge]
benton.org/node/157890 | Public Knowledge
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TELEVISION/RADIO

DOJ ASKS FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT GANNETT'S PURCHASE OF BELO
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Katy Bachman]
The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked Gannett and Belo for more information about Gannett's $1.5 billion purchase of Belo, the companies said. Announced in June, the merger would double Gannett's TV station portfolio and create the nation's fourth largest owner of "big four" network affiliates. In addition to the DOJ's antitrust clearance, the deal must also be approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Belo's shareholders. The FCC has received a number of petitions either opposing the deal or requesting that the agency impose conditions on the merger over Gannett's intent to get around ownership rules by operating some stations via shared service agreements. Companies like Time Warner Cable and DirecTV have filed petitions because they are concerned that the deal will drive up retransmission fees and lead to more blackouts. Gannett said everything the company proposed is legal and "consistent with all FCC rules, policies and precedent."
benton.org/node/157866 | AdWeek | Gannett press release
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TV STATION OWNERSHIP’S 45% SOLUTION
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] Getting rid of the outdated UHF discount is fine if Congress would simultaneously raise the ownership cap to 45% so groups can contend with new marketplace challenges. Broadcast viewership continues to be eroded not only by cable, but also by the Internet. The latter has evolved into a full-blown TV medium. What it lacks in picture quality, it more than makes up for in its interactivity. So the cable stations are in a running battle for survival. None should be held back from accumulating more stations and benefitting from the economies and negotiating clout that come from size. It may be a coincidence that a Democratic FCC chairwoman (Mignon Clyburn) has decided that it's "appropriate" to go after the UHF discount at the same time it becomes critical to Sinclair's business strategy. Or maybe it isn't.
benton.org/node/157876 | TVNewsCheck
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FCC ENGAGED IN CBS/TWC FIGHT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
An Federal Communications Commission spokesman suggested that the FCC is now actively working with both CBS and Time Warner Cable to help them resolve their retrans dispute. FCC Acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said two weeks ago that she was ready to consider "appropriate action" if the dispute continues. At the time, she said the FCC was continuing to monitor the situation. But in a new statement, an FCC spokesman said that the FCC is "engaged at the highest levels with the respective parties and working to bring the impasse to an end for consumers and viewers in the affected markets." "We urge all parties to resolve this matter as quickly as possible so consumers can access the programming they rely on and are paying for," the spokesman added. According to a source, one of the parties must file a complaint -- neither had at press time -- before the FCC can weigh in on whether either side is violating FCC rules mandating good faith negotiations, which is the regulatory muscle the FCC can flex under its current rules.
benton.org/node/157906 | Broadcasting&Cable
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FREE ANTENNAS? NOT GOOD ENOUGH: THE FCC SHOULD PUT A STOP TO TV BLACKOUTS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
[Commentary] Giving frustrated subscribers free antennas at BestBuy is not enough. As the CBS blackout goes into its fourth week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will have to realize that Band-Aid solutions won’t work: instead, the FCC should force CBS and Time Warner to negotiate. Doing so would not only let the good folks of New York, Dallas and Los Angeles get their “Under the Dome” and “60 Minutes” fix. It would also send a message to the TV industry to shop these blackout shenanigans which, in recent years, have become more and more common. It’s not unreasonable, then, for government regulators to step into the private market, in this case. The FCC needs to step up, intervene and fix a regulated model that is clearly broken: the breakdown is evident not only in the growing number of blackouts, but in a system that force feeds customers unwanted bundles of channels at ever-higher prices. The head of the FCC told CBS and Time Warner Cable that she would “consider appropriate action” if they didn’t end a fee dispute that has caused the popular channel to vanish from 3 million households. The FCC still possesses vast regulatory power and it’s the one that makes the rules for how cable companies and broadcasters negotiate in the first place.
benton.org/node/157882 | GigaOm
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POLITICAL FILE REQUIREMENTS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The National Association of Broadcasters, which has taken the Federal Communications Commission to court over its online political file posting requirement, now tells the FCC that it should hold off on the organization's petition to reconsider the requirement until after it had extended the requirement, as planned, to all TV stations starting July 1, 2014. The NAB said it still believes that "the FCC lacks statutory authority to require online political files [big stations or small] and that the Order's asymmetric, broadcast-only public and political file requirements are arbitrary and capricious," but said it thought the FCC needed to see how the requirement applied to smaller stations with fewer resources so it can get a better idea of its impact.
benton.org/node/157905 | Broadcasting&Cable
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PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL BLASTS MTV'S VMAS AS SERVING SEX TO TEENS
[SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter, AUTHOR: Lesley Goldberg]
"This much is absolutely clear: MTV marketed adults-only material to children while falsely manipulating the content rating to make parents think the content was safe for their children," said Dan Isett, public policy director of the Parents Television Council. The conservative watchdog group blasted the Viacom-owned cable network for the often raunchy telecast that included Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga essentially performing in formal undergarments. This marks the latest MTV entry to earn harsh words from the PTC, which also has taken issue with the network for its Skins adaptation as well as its unscripted programming including Jersey Shore, Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant, among others. The conservative watchdog group uses the awards telecast as an opportunity to push for a la carte networks.
benton.org/node/157888 | Hollywood Reporter, The | New York Times
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JOURNALISM

NFL PRESSURE SAID TO LEAD ESPN TO QUIT FILM PROJECT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: James Andrew Miller]
Pressure from the National Football League led to ESPN’s decision to pull out of an investigative project with “Frontline” regarding head injuries in the NFL, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. ESPN, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, pays the NFL more than $1 billion a year to broadcast “Monday Night Football,” a ratings juggernaut and cherished source of revenue for Disney. “Frontline,” the PBS public affairs series, and ESPN had been working for 15 months on a two-part documentary, to be televised in October. But ESPN’s editorial and production partnership with “Frontline” began to take a turn after a trailer for the documentary was released Aug. 6. According to observers who wished to remain anonymous because they were prohibited by superiors from discussing the matter publicly, several high-ranking officials convened a meeting. The meeting was apparently combative, where league officials conveyed their displeasure with the direction of the documentary, reflecting the NFL’s lack of support for the documentary project. According to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, the league declined to make NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell available for interviews. “Frontline” has interviewed several NFL doctors, but Aronson-Rath said three members of the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee canceled on-camera interviews after originally agreeing to them. Raney Aronson-Rath, the deputy executive producer of “Frontline,” said that until Aug 16, there had been no hint of trouble between “Frontline” and ESPN. She said that “Frontline” had worked “in lock step” with Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news, and Dwayne Bray, senior coordinating producer in ESPN’s news-gathering unit. But in recent conversations with Doria and Dwayne Bray, senior coordinating producer in ESPN’s news-gathering unit, she was first told that ESPN did not want its logo to be connected to the films. “It didn’t appear that it was their decision,” she said.
benton.org/node/157872 | New York Times
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CONTENT

DOJ SOFTENS PROPOSED APPLE E-BOOK INJUNCTIONS, SLIGHTLY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is willing to temper the proposed remedies in its e-book price-fixing case against Apple, but not all that much. The DOJ submitted a revision of its proposed injunction, dialing it back slightly in order to limit the possibility that changes in the publishing and technology industries might cause it to “outlive its usefulness and unnecessarily harm Apple.” Under the terms of the revised proposal, the length of the injunction will be shortened to five years from 10, and the restrictions placed on deals Apple can strike with publishers will stand for two to four years, rather than five. Hardly the significant adjustments for which Apple has been angling, slagging the remedies variously as “draconian,” “intrusive,” and “wildly out of proportion to any adjudicated wrongdoing or potential harm.” But the DOJ is clearly unwilling to back down from what it feels are necessary and justified sanctions against a player it feels can’t be trusted.
benton.org/node/157880 | Wall Street Journal | Los Angeles Times | paidContent.org
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PRIVACY

PATIENTS CARE WHAT THEIR ELECTRONIC HEALTH DATA IS USED FOR, SURVEY SHOWS
[SOURCE: Modern Healthcare, AUTHOR: Joseph Conn]
Patients do care about what becomes of their health information after it's used for their treatment, and they care more about what it's used for than who's using it. That's according to a survey report published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association summarizing research aimed to measure patient preferences about sharing their electronic health information for so-called “secondary uses.” Generally speaking, the comfort level dropped for public health organizations' use of the data and fell even further for marketers. University hospitals were viewed more favorably and out-ranked public health departments, which typically fared better than drug makers.
benton.org/node/157873 | Modern Healthcare
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