BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2017
TRANSITION
Four New Members Join Senate Commerce Committee
Paul Ryan is easily reelected House speaker [links to Washington Post]
Five regulatory fights facing tech in 2017
INTERNET/BROADBAND
NTCA Asks Governors to Urge Trump Team for Rural Broadband Funding
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Telecom ISPs Ask FCC to Reverse Broadband Privacy Rules
Ad Agencies Challenge FCC Broadband Privacy Rules [links to Benton summary]
TELEVISION
Sens McCaskill, Portman Press Cable on Fees, Promotions
JOURNALISM
Megyn Kelly Is Leaving Fox News for NBC
The media’s hypocrisy and hyperventilating in the age of Trump - Joe Scarborough op-ed [links to Benton summary]
The media would have missed the Office of Congressional Ethics [links to Washington Post]
A simple solution to make journalism better in Trump’s America - [links to Benton summary]
What Journalists Can Do When The President Is A Liar [links to Media Matters for America]
CONTENT
Tackle Internet censorship directly — not through antitrust law - The Hill op-ed [links to Benton summary]
TELECOM
Seven Top Telecom Trends for 2017 [links to telecompetitor]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
The Congress.gov Top 16 in 2016 [links to Library of Congress]
OWNERSHIP
Comcast Acquires Watchwith [links to Benton summary]
ADVERTISING
Targeted Media Boosts Share of Political Pie
STORIES FROM ABROAD
India says free data is good for the poor, but regulators reject evidence-based approach - AEI op-ed [links to Benton summary]
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TRANSITION
FOUR NEW MEMBERS JOIN SENATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) has announced the Republican membership of the committee in the 115th Congress. They are, in order of seniority: Sens Thune, Roger Wicker (R-MI), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Dean Heller (R-NV), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Todd Young (R-IN). New to the committee are Sens Young, Inhofe, Lee and Capito. Exiting are Sens Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Steve Daines (R-MT). Sen Rubio, who was instrumental in pushing for bills freeing up more unlicensed spectrum, is moving to the appropriations committee. Subcommittee members have not yet been named.
benton.org/headlines/four-new-members-join-senate-commerce-committee | Broadcasting&Cable
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5 REGULATORY FIGHTS FACING TECH IN 2017
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Ali Breland]
Here are five regulatory fights the tech world will be watching closely in 2017.
1) Apple's record tax penalty in Europe: In August, the European Union’s Commission on Competition handed a record judgment against Apple, ordering the company to pay over $13 billion in back taxes to Ireland.
2) The fight over encryption
3) AT&T-Time Warner merger: AT&T's plans to merge with Time Warner will be under heavy scrutiny.
4) Google's antitrust fight: Google has its own fight with the European Commission.
5) Amazon's EU tax case: Amazon is also awaiting a key tax ruling form the European Union. The decision was expected in 2016 but will be coming in the new year.
benton.org/headlines/five-regulatory-fights-facing-tech-2017 | Hill, The
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
NTCA ASKS GOVERNORS TO URGE TRUMP TEAM FOR RURAL BROADBAND FUNDING
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
Rural stakeholders are hoping state governors can help in obtaining additional federal rural broadband funding. Just before the winter holiday break, Shirley Bloomfield, chief executive officer of NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association, sent a letter to the National Governors Association asking them to highlight broadband as a critical infrastructure initiative in their communications with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team. In the letter, Bloomfield also made two specific recommendations for boosting rural broadband deployment, including closing a budget gap in the Universal Service Fund program and creating a new capital infusion program. NTCA sent the letter when staffers learned that the Trump transition team had asked governors for input on critical infrastructure initiatives and had given the governors just a few days to respond. “Placing a priority on deployment of such networks makes sense when one considers the economic payback of such investments for individual consumers and businesses and for the States more broadly,” wrote Bloomfield in the letter. She cited a recent Hudson Institute study which found that companies investing in and operating rural broadband networks contributed $24.1 billion to the economies of the states in which they operated in 2015. A particularly notable finding was that two-thirds of the economic output actually accrued to urban areas.
benton.org/headlines/ntca-asks-governors-urge-trump-team-rural-broadband-funding | telecompetitor | NTCA
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SECURITY/PRIVACY
TELECOM ISPS ASK FCC TO REVERSE BROADBAND PRIVACY RULES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
USTelecom has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its broadband privacy framework order. The FCC Democrats voted Oct 27 to require Internet service providers to get their subscribers' permission (notice and choice) before sharing web browsing and app use histories with third parties for marketing and other purposes. As USTelecom and cable operators argued before the vote, they want the FCC to "harmonize" its approach with that of the FTC. At the moment, it argues, there are at least a couple of discordant notes in the FCC's approach, which it also argues is arbitrary and capricious. First, it says, was the lack of a cost/benefit analysis of the cost of "foreclosing productive uses of information." For example, it says, the cost of requiring an opt-in regime for marketing of all web browsing info, in contrast to the FTC approach to the edge providers privacy it oversees, which allows more "flexibility" for marketing of nonsensitive information—i.e. not opt-in requirement. Second, USTelecom argues, the FCC treats ISPs as "nearly omniscient," with greater visibility into consumer data than others, a premise USTelecom calls false.
benton.org/headlines/telecom-isps-ask-fcc-reverse-broadband-privacy-rules | Broadcasting&Cable
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TELEVISION
MCCASKILL, PORTMAN PRESS CABLE ON FEES, PROMOTIONS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Veteran cable critics Sens Rob Portman (R-OH) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) have started out the new Congress by pressing Charter and Comcast on fees and promotions. That came in joint letters to Charter president Thomas Rutledge and Comcast president Brian Roberts dated Dec 23. Sens Portman and McCaskill head up the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held a hearing on cable fees and customer service last year in conjunction with a report it issued at the same time. Both the report and the hearing were rough on pay-TV providers, who pledged to do better. In a joint release Jan 3, Sens McCaskill and Portman said they were pressing Charter and Comcast over what they characterized as "the misleading placement of fees on customers’ bills, and inadequate advertising disclosure for service promotions." They want more information on both from the companies. Citing the hearing in the last Congress, they said in letters to the two companies, as they signaled in the hearing, they thought that using separate line items like the "broadcast TV surcharge" for retrans fees or "Regional Sports Network Fees" charge for the cost of that programming "obscured" the real cost of programming when it was grouped with regulatory fee line items and charges.
benton.org/headlines/sens-mccaskill-portman-press-cable-fees-promotions | Broadcasting&Cable
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JOURNALISM
Megyn Kelly Is Leaving Fox News for NBC
MEGYN KELLY LEAVING FOX NEWS FOR NBC
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg]
Megyn Kelly, who arrived at Fox News 12 years ago as a television news neophyte but rose to become one of its two biggest stars, has decided to leave the network to take on a broad new role at NBC News for an undisclosed salary, NBC announced. The NBC News chairman, Andrew Lack, wooed Kelly away from Fox News by offering her a triple role in which she will host her own daytime news and discussion program, anchor an in-depth Sunday night news show and take regular part in the network’s special political programming and other big-event coverage. The move will herald a seismic shift in the cable news landscape, where Kelly had become the second-most watched host — after Bill O’Reilly of Fox News — and often helped define the national political debate, especially over the last year as Donald J. Trump regularly attacked her, at times in viciously personal terms. Kelly’s exit will upend Fox News’s vaunted prime-time lineup and inject a new dose of tumult just a few months after the departure of the network’s powerful founding chairman, Roger Ailes, who was ousted after several women made allegations that he sexually harassed them.
benton.org/headlines/megyn-kelly-leaving-fox-news-nbc | New York Times
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ADVERTISING
TARGETED MEDIA BOOSTS SHARE OF POLITICAL PIE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
It was a record year for political ad spending, according to ad trackers at Borrell Associates, up 4.6% from the 2012 presidential election to $9.8 billion, but money is shifting toward more targeted ads, with cable in on the new bounty. Broadcast TV remained the big dog at $4.4 billion, more than three times any other outlet. Borrell pointed out that represented a 44.7% share, down from 57.9% in 2012, a $1 billion decline when many were predicting a $1 billion increase. Part of that was President-elect Donald Trump's heavy reliance on earned media and digital media, but it was also because of the general shift to more targeted media. Cable, digital and direct mail gained a total $1.7 billion over 2012. Cable jumped from $891.78 million in 2012 (9.5% of the total pie) to $1,355.28 billion (13.8%), Borrell pointed out. Online and digital exploded from $159.21 million in 2012 to 1,415.38 billion in 2016.
benton.org/headlines/targeted-media-boosts-share-political-pie | Broadcasting&Cable
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