June 13, 2013 (NSA surveillance; Apple E-book trial)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013
Today’s agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2013-06-13/
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
NSA Director Says Programs Key to Stopping Attacks
Moore’s Law, J. Edgar Hoover and the real roots of the NSA surveillance scandal - analysis
Senators ask NSA to declassify more information [links to web]
About 500,000 private contractors have access to top-secret info [links to web]
Secrecy-focused Web services find a mainstream audience [links to web]
The government should loosen Google’s gag - Washington Post editorial [links to web]
Google details how it hands over data to federal officials
How the NSA Could Get So Smart So Fast
Washington pushed EU to dilute data protection
Lawmakers can ask for intel info, but they still might not get it [links to web]
GOP lawmakers demand classified meeting with leaders on NSA [links to web]
The Dirty Secrets of Washington Elites - analysis [links to web]
Analysis: Government’s Vast Lockers of data Threaten Basic Individual Freedoms - analysis
The NSA could collect far more than your phone records from mobile operators
How Rand Paul Can Take On the NSA [links to web]
NSA leaker: US hacking computer systems in China, Hong Kong [links to web]
No mistaking how NSA story reporter feels [links to web]
NSA chief says U.S. infrastructure highly vulnerable to cyber attack [links to web]
The Snowden effect: Fear in corporate America
Mueller: FBI must stay ‘a step ahead,’ maintain civil liberties [links to web]
European Commission demands answers about Prism data requests [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Farm Bill: Five Rural Communities Could Get Gigabit Networks
Google or Not, Cities Pin Hopes on Gigabit Networks
Coalition forms to oppose Internet sales tax bill [links to web]
Privacy — the online generation wants it [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
Clearwire Committee to Back Dish's Offer, Delay Sprint Vote
Dish-Sprint Talks Said to Falter in Part Over Breakup Fee
House members try again to ban new cellphone taxes [links to web]
AT&T's Stephenson: Favoring Sprint, T-Mobile in 600 MHz auction a 'big gamble' [links to web]
CONTENT
Is Steve Jobs Message a Smoking Gun in Apple E-Book Case?
DOJ Misfires on Jobs Email in Apple E-Book Case — It Was a Discarded Draft
Apple’s Cue Is Key to Defense of E-Book Price-Fixing Case
Throwing the Book at Apple - WSJ editorial [links to web]
Apple: We have 20 percent of the US e-book market
Songwriters, composers hit back against Pandora [links to web]
TELEVISION
House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Continues Examination of Satellite Television Law and Video Marketplace
Gatekeepers of Cable TV Try to Stop Intel
John McCain Writes to FCC Urging a la Carte Cable
Is it time to quit being nice about what 'NewsHour' has become?
Tennis Channel Executive Rants After Losing a Court Ruling [links to web]
Switch to HDTV went quicker than to color TV
Time Warner Cable Content Incentives Thwart New Web TV
More Confirmation That Incumbents Restrict Online Video - analysis
Why Yahoo Could Become the Next Major TV Network - op-ed [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
Kochs and Cross-Ownership: Formula for a Weaker Democracy - op-ed
TELECOM
Senators Introduce Legislation to Stop Cramming on Telephone Bills [links to web]
JOURNALISM
Dollarocracy or Democracy? - op-ed
Media, administration deal with conflicts
Is it time to quit being nice about what 'NewsHour' has become?
The Best And Worst Cities for Newspapers [links to web]
Global study shows more journalists embrace social media — Germans, not so much [links to web]
Washington Post Opens Online Opinion Pages to Sponsored Content [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
CDT President Leslie Harris to step down [links to web]
RESEARCH
Traders Pay for an Early Peek at Key Data
Financial worth of data comes in at under a penny a piece
STORIES FROM ABROAD
France Resists U.S. Trade Talks Over TV and Film Concerns [links to web]
News Finds New Ways to Flow as Greek State Broadcaster Is Shut
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
NSA TESTIMONY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Siobhan Hughes]
National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said that he would work to try to declassify secret court opinions that make possible the agency's collection of most Americans' phone records, while also defending the government's controversial surveillance programs as critical to stopping terrorist attacks. Alexander was testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee one day after he met behind closed doors with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and at the White House following an uproar over two surveillance programs. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), a civil-liberties advocate who is pushing legislation to declassify Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decisions that authorize government surveillance, asked whether Alexander would support making those decisions available to the public. "If I can make it happen, I will," Mr. Alexander said. He cautioned that he was not the only one with input over the decision. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wanted to know if the intelligence community had kept track of how many times the records gathered under Section 215 of the Patriot Act were critical to the discovery and disruption of terrorist threats. Referring to both the phone-records program and the program to collect Internet records belonging to foreigners, Alexander answered: "it's dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent."
benton.org/node/153832 | Wall Street Journal | The Verge | The Hill | Reuters | Politico
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
MOORE’S LAW AND NSA
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Neil Irwin]
[Commentary] Fast-forward 30 years. Digital storage and computing speeds are such that it is within the technical capacity of the government to archive every telephone conversation on earth. I have at my fingertips, thanks to my Gmail account, every e-mail I have written since 2005, nearly 26,000 separate conversations — and if Edward Snowden’s accusations about the NSA’s Prism program are accurate, so does the National Security Agency (though there’s a lot we don’t know about what steps the government has to go through to exploit the technology). The Google servers alone contain vast quantities of information, instantly searchable, belonging to their many millions of customers, like me. In proving Moore’s Law, all the world’s information can be stored, cataloged and accessed in ways that would make J. Edgar Hoover leap with delight.
benton.org/node/153830 | Washington Post
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
GOOGLE DETAILS DATA HAND OVER
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Google downplayed its role in a secret government surveillance program, detailing for the first time how it typically hands over data to federal officials. When faced with a court order, the tech giant said, it uses surprisingly simple and low-tech methods, including the delivery of information by hand or by using relatively common techniques to transfer files from one computer to another. “When required to comply with these requests, we deliver that information to the U.S. government — generally through secure FTP transfers and in person,” Google said. That could include putting data onto a memory disk or external hard drive, or printing out the requested information for a federal official, Google said. FTP, or file transfer protocol, is a popular method for exchanging information between servers with an extra layer of security. The company’s disclosure of how it handles National Security Agency requests might skirt its obligations to keep data requests secret, experts said.
benton.org/node/153820 | Washington Post
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
ANALYSIS: GOVERNMENT’S VAST LOCKERS OF DATA THREATEN BASIC INDIVIDUAL FREEDOMS
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Major Garrett]
[Commentary] Privacy is not the only definition of individual freedom. But freedom cannot exist in a world where search and seizure without suspicion or probable cause does. Freedom is merely a word, and its definition a putrid joke in a world where a life’s history—encoded in DNA alleles or via Internet or telephone communications—resides forever in a vast government database. Last week visited upon the country the latest, but by no means the first, examples of ever-expanding government powers to collect data on innocents and keep it for extended periods of time and on the government’s terms. One example was surveillance. The other was in obtaining DNA swabs from arrestees. The first example raised considerable alarms. The second did not. Make no mistake, both are a threat to individual freedom, and both will feed the coming Storage Wars. Those wars will be fought over definitional American legal terrain—what that is uniquely yours belongs to you, and what belongs to the government for how long and why.
benton.org/node/153812 | National Journal
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
NSA AND WIRELESS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
The revelation that the National Security Agency is collecting our phone records has generated considerable outrage, but phone call metadata is just the beginning of what our nation’s spooks could gather from our mobile carriers if they put their minds and resources to the task. The carriers don’t just know whom we are calling, when and where. They have the infrastructure in place that allows them to track the websites we visit and the applications we use on our phones and tablets. They know all of this because it’s their job to know. When our phones connect to the internet they don’t just magically grok with Google or Facebook. That data is routed through carrier network cores, where packet-sniffing, traffic-shaping, and content optimization engines lie in wait. And — at least in the past — they’ve actually put such monitoring software directly onto our phones (more on that in a bit).
benton.org/node/153810 | GigaOm
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
FEAR IN CORPORATE AMERICA
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Steve Friess]
Edward Snowden isn’t just a nightmare for the National Security Agency. He also epitomizes a little-mentioned but intense ongoing fear of corporate America — that any lone renegade among millions of trustworthy employees could abuse access to private customer data for idealistic or villainous purposes. “At our company, nobody has any idea exactly who has what access,” an information technology specialist for a major bank told POLITICO. “There are safeguards, but by the time anyone knows what someone’s done, the violator could be off to Hong Kong with Brad Pitt’s credit card statements and sell them to TMZ. It’s easier to imagine it than it is to fully prevent it.”
benton.org/node/153799 | Politico
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
HOW NSA BECAME SO SMART SO FAST
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Michael Hickins]
Five years ago it would have been unimaginable for a government agency such as the National Security Agency to efficiently parse millions of phone, text and online conversations for keywords that could have warned of an impending terrorist attack. Today, a set of new technologies make it relatively affordable and manageable for it do so. These technologies can store vastly different types of data in a single database, and can be processed rapidly using inexpensive hardware, without an analyst having to formulate a hypothesis. "They've substantially reduced the cost and greatly increased the [government's] ability to analyze this type of data," says Tom Davenport, an expert on analytics and a visiting professor at Harvard Business School. The technology needed to outfit data centers to perform these tasks has become "orders of magnitude" less expensive than in the past, he said. It is unclear exactly what type of computing the NSA is using in its data-center facilities around the U.S., or in a $1.2 billion facility in Utah that will open this fall. But broadly speaking, the technology can be broken down into three categories: 1) database systems, 2) machine learning, and 3) Hadoop -- an open-source software framework which allows queries to be split up by the program, with different analytic tasks distributed among scads of inexpensive servers, each of which solves a part of the puzzle, before reassembling the queries when the work is completed.
benton.org/node/153862 | Wall Street Journal
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
ANTI-FISA CLAUSE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: James Fontanella-Khan]
The Obama Administration successfully lobbied the European Commission to strip its data-privacy legislation of a measure that would have limited the ability of US intelligence agencies to spy on EU citizens, according to three senior EU officials. The measure – which was known within the EU as the “anti-FISA clause”, after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorizes the US government to eavesdrop on international phone calls and emails – would have nullified any US request for technology and telecoms companies to hand over data on EU citizens. However, the safeguard was abandoned by commission officials in January 2012, despite the assertions of Viviane Reding, the EU’s top justice official, that the exemption would have stopped the kind of surveillance recently disclosed as part of the National Security Agency’s Prism program.
benton.org/node/153859 | Financial Times
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
INTERNET/BROADBAND
INTERNET PROVISIONS OF FARM BILL
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
The farm bill that passed a Senate vote could bring gigabit networks to as many as five rural communities in a pilot program. The plan came in the form of an amendment to the Senate farm bill proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). A spokesman for Senator Leahy said the gigabit networks would not require new funding but would be funded through an existing Rural Utilities Service program. The spokesman said the initial plan was to award funding in the form of loans but that the final version of the amendment includes grants. It would be up to the RUS to determine where the gigabit networks would be built and the selection process would be similar to the one used today in awarding RUS grants and loans, the spokesman said. “Next-generation gigabit networks have the potential to transform rural areas,” said Senator Leahy in an announcement about the amendment. “Rural America has so much to offer, but without the great equalizer of high-speed Internet, rural communities cannot live up to their full potential. Investing in next-generation networks now will help ensure that rural areas do not fall even farther behind.”
benton.org/node/153766 | telecompetitor | WCAX
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
GIGABIT CITIES
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: Colin Wood]
Google says super high-speed Internet is the future. But the company doesn’t have a crystal ball, nor are all of its projects successful. Part of Google’s business model includes taking risks. But Google isn’t hemming and hawing about gigabit Internet. Its message is clear. The cities that Google chose to be its first fiber cities will be at the forefront of the next generation of Web technology, said Google Communications Associate Jenna Wandres. “We really believe that this is an investment in the future of the Web,” she said. And now it seems gigabit networks are becoming a trend.
benton.org/node/153772 | Government Technology
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
CLEARWIRE COMMITTEE PICKS DISH OVER SPRINT
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sharon Terlep, Thomas Gryta]
A special committee of Clearwire's board is planning to push back a June 13 shareholder vote and recommend the full board endorse a tender offer from Dish Network, according to a person familiar with the situation, a move that would shun an earlier takeover agreement with majority owner Sprint Nextel. Despite the expected endorsement, the struggle for control of the mobile broadband provider is likely to continue amid a clash between Sprint and Dish over whether Clearwire can grant certain governance rights to Dish as part of its tender offer. Given Sprint's stake, Dish is seeking to become a major minority shareholder in Clearwire. It wasn't immediately clear how, or if, the Clearwire committee had interpreted the governance dispute. A Clearwire spokeswoman declined to comment Wednesday beyond an earlier statement that the board and committee are continuing their review.
benton.org/node/153794 | Wall Street Journal
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
DISH-SPRINT
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Serena Saitto, Jeffrey McCracken]
Dish Network’s merger talks with Sprint Nextel collapsed after a series of disagreements, including Sprint demanding a $3 billion reverse-breakup fee, people familiar with the matter said, leaving the satellite-TV company with just a week to regroup and try again. Dish had countered with a $1 billion reverse-breakup fee, which would be paid if the takeover didn’t win regulatory approval, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. Sprint announced that Dish failed to produce an “actionable” bid, leading the carrier to endorse a sweetened $21.6 billion offer from SoftBank, which originally agreed to acquire Sprint in October. Dish, the satellite-TV provider controlled by billionaire Charlie Ergen, now faces a June 18 deadline to submit what Sprint has described as a “best and final” fully financed counteroffer. Dish said this week that it continues to view Sprint as holding “tremendous value” and is considering its strategic options.
benton.org/node/153792 | Bloomberg
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
CONTENT
SMOKING GUN?
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
Since it was first accused of conspiring to raise the prices of e-books, Apple has maintained it didn’t care what sort of deals publishers arranged with other retailers, as long as they honored the terms of their agreement to sell books on its iTunes store. Apple’s lead counsel Orin Snyder claimed as much in his opening arguments in the Department of Justice’s e-book antitrust case against the company last week. “The negotiations make clear that the interests of the publishers and Apple were not aligned,” Snyder said. “Apple wanted lower prices on its own book store, and was indifferent to prices throughout the rest of the industry.” But a new document entered into evidence June 12 by the DOJ suggests that Apple may not have been quite as indifferent to publishers’ deals with Amazon as it professes to be. It’s a Jan. 14, 2010, message from Steve Jobs to Eddy Cue, his point man for e-book negotiations, and in it he says he wants publishers to push Amazon to an agency pricing model where publishers, not retailers, set prices. “I can live with this as long as they move Amazon to the agent model too for new releases for the first year,” Jobs wrote. “If not, I’m not sure we can be competitive …” A smoking gun?
benton.org/node/153790 | Wall Street Journal
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
DOJ MISFIRES
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
So that seemingly smoking gun e-mail from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to SVP Eddy Cue in the Department of Justice’s e-book price fixing case against Apple? The one that appeared to undermine the company’s argument that it was indifferent to the pricing model publishers used with other retailers like Amazon? According to new evidence submitted by Apple, it’s hardly warm, let alone smoking. The document cited by the government is simply a draft message that was never sent. What Apple entered into evidence is the final version of that message, the one that was actually sent to Cue, and it differs significantly from that apparently damning draft. Crucially, it does not contain any language suggesting publishers need to push Amazon to the agency model Apple wanted for its own e-book store. Indeed, it expressly acknowledges that publishers might continue their wholesale pricing arrangements with Amazon.
benton.org/node/153848 | Wall Street Journal
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
APPLE TESTIMONY
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Bob Van Voris, Adam Satariano]
The government’s antitrust case over e-book pricing reaches a crucial stage as a key Apple executive takes the stand to try to convince a federal judge he didn’t lead an illegal scheme with publishers to fix prices. Eddie Cue, called “the chief ringleader of the conspiracy” by a Justice Department lawyer, is scheduled to testify in the Manhattan civil trial of the government’s case against Apple. Cue, 48, is Apple’s central negotiator in dealing with the owners of music, magazines, books, movies and television shows. His role will be highlighted as he testifies about leading talks with the six biggest U.S. publishers in late 2009 and early 2010. “His testimony is going to be the single most important piece of testimony in this case,” said Ankur Kapoor of Constantine Cannon LLP in New York, an antitrust lawyer who isn’t involved in the case. “He’s alleged to be right in the center of the conspiracy between Apple and the publishers.” The government claims Cue prodded five of the six publishers to raise e-book prices and put pressure on Amazon, the No. 1 e-book seller, to abandon its pricing model, in the weeks before Apple entered the electronic book market with the introduction of the iPad.
benton.org/node/153846 | Bloomberg
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
APPLE AND E-BOOK MARKET
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Laura Hazard Owen]
Apple now holds about 20 percent of the U.S. e-book market, director Keith Moerer said in court. Moerer was a government witness in U.S. vs. Apple, in which the Department of Justice accuses Apple of illegally colluding with book publishers to set e-book prices at the launch of the iBookstore in 2010. Most estimates had placed Apple’s U.S. e-book market share at around 10 percent, with Amazon’s Kindle at 50 to 60 percent and Barnes & Noble’s Nook at 25 percent. But Moerer said the iBookstore’s market share was 20 percent in the first few months after the iBookstore’s launch, Publishers Weekly reports, and is about 20 percent now.
benton.org/node/153768 | paidContent.org
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
TELEVISION
HEARING ON SATELLITE TELEVISION LAW
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee]
The House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), held the second in its ongoing hearing series this Congress on the satellite television law, portions of which are set to sunset on December 31, 2014. Members examined whether the law still serves an important function or if it is out of step with today’s video marketplace. Additionally, members discussed whether Congress should reauthorize the law as is, allow it to lapse, or revise it, possibly even tackling non-satellite specific video issues arising from increased competition and evolving technology.
Democrats signaled they would prefer to reauthorize the act rather than bog it down with other issues. As it is, the Judiciary committee has to be involved in the legislation because of the interlocking copyright provision in the law. "We should pursue a clean reauthorization," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Commerce committee. At the same time, members on both sides of the aisle saw the hearing as an opportunity to examine whether or not all of the nation's communications laws governing pay TV services and the content they carry have turned into an outdated Rube Goldberg contraption. Or into, in the words of Geoffrey Manne, TechFreedom’s senior fellow and executive director of the International Center for Law and Economics, a house of cards.
benton.org/node/153776 | House of Representatives Commerce Committee | AdWeek
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
CABLE TRYING TO STOP INTEL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
As Intel tries something audacious — the creation of a virtual cable service that would sell a bundle of television channels to subscribers over the Internet — it is running up against a multibillion-dollar barricade. That barricade is guarded by Time Warner Cable and other cable and satellite distributors, which are trying to make it difficult — if not impossible — for Intel to go through with its plan. The distributors are using a variety of methods to pressure the owners of cable channels, with whom they have lucrative long-term contracts, not to sign contracts with upstarts like Intel, that way preserving the status quo. Intel, however, is undeterred, and its executives intend to begin its TV service by the end of the year. They are ready and willing to pay more than existing distributors do for channels. But to date the company has not announced any deals with channel owners. To Intel, and to some analysts, the behavior by the existing distributors — in some cases giving financial incentives to friendly channel owners, in other cases including punitive measures in contracts — has an anticompetitive whiff. The antitrust division of the Justice Department is looking into the issue as part of a broad investigation into cable and satellite company practices, according to people contacted by the department, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
benton.org/node/153868 | New York Times
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
MCCAIN PAY TV BILL
[SOURCE: The Wrap, AUTHOR: Tim Kenneally]
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) continued his campaign against pay-channel bundling, penning a letter to acting Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn pushing for the option to purchase individual pay channels. Sen McCain, who last month introduced legislation on the matter, said forcing consumers to buy channels they're not interested in is wrong and that "action should be taken." The legislation, dubbed the Television Consumer Freedom Act, would incentivize distributors to offer individual channel purchasing options and would still allow for programming tiers, Sen McCain said in the letter, published on his government web site. "If the MVPDs [multichannel video programming distributors, aka, cable and satellite providers] are right, and the current tiered programming model is the best value for consumers, then the programmers who bundle their television channels and the MVPDs that offer tiers to consumers should not be afraid of an a la carte option for consumers."
benton.org/node/153840 | Wrap, The | The Hill
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
NEWSHOUR
[SOURCE: Baltimore Sun, AUTHOR: David Zurawik]
[Commentary] With the word that "NewsHour" was shutting down offices and laying off employees, it's time to ask the question: Just how much of the this one-time PBS bedrock is actually left? In fact, let's go a step further and ask if it is even accurate to call it a nightly newscast anymore -- and if what's left is worth trying to save? I know I've been avoiding asking those questions for at least four years even though they begged to be asked. Now they demand answers. What the "NewsHour" has become is a one-hour broadcast that relies mostly on original reporting done by other people, who the producers then try to bring on the show to talk about their stories. I'm sorry, Jeffrey Brown interviewing a New York Times reporter about a story she or he broke is not a nightly newscast -- not in any sense of what they do on CBS with Scott Pelley or ABC with Diane Sawyer every night. It's more like a cable talk show -- or a radio talk show with a camera showing the interviewer and interviewee sitting across from each other.
benton.org/node/153842 | Baltimore Sun
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
DIGITAL TELEVISION TRANSITION
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Michael Antonoff]
In the 60 years that television watching has dominated Americans' leisurely pursuits, the picture has twice been transformed: first from black and white to color; then from dull resolution to high definition. Significantly, the change from conventional to HD resolution was accompanied by the switch from analog to digital delivery. On the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the demise of analog TV broadcasting, it's fitting to compare how we responded to these key transitions. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, the first year that household penetration rates reached more than 50% was 1973 for color television and 2009 for HDTV. If you consider that color standards were agreed to and limited color broadcasting began in the mid-1950s and HDTV standards and limited broadcasts began in the late 1990s, it appears that Americans' embrace of color was a slow dance that took roughly two decades vs. just one for HDTV. The major difference between the two transitions is that the shift to HDTV was mandated by the government and backed by a deadline, which though twice postponed, culminated in most television stations turning off their analog transmitters on June 12, 2009. Color broadcasting, on the other hand, was downwardly compatible. There was no need to get rid of your black and white TV or, as in the case decades later of owners of analog TV sets who wanted to receive over-the-air programs, buy a converter box.
benton.org/node/153786 | USAToday
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
TWC CONTENT INCENTIVES
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Andy Fixmer, Alex Sherman]
Time Warner Cable and other pay-TV operators are offering incentives to media companies that agree to withhold content from Web-based entertainment services such as those pursued by Intel and Apple, people with knowledge of the matter said. The incentives can take the form of higher payments, or they can include threats to drop programming, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Time Warner Cable has more than 300 contracts, and some of them may bar media outlets from providing content to online pay-TV services, Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt said yesterday in a meeting with analysts at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association show. “We may well have ones that have that prohibition,” Britt said at the conference in Washington. “This is not a cookie-cutter kind of business.” Some agreements require media companies that license content to Web-based systems to offer the same online rights to Time Warner Cable, Britt said.
benton.org/node/153780 | Bloomberg | GigaOm
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
INCUMBENTS RESTRICT ONLINE VIDEO
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: John Bergmayer]
[Commentary] It's puzzling to many observers why so many programmers don't make their content more widely available online. It seems like programmers are leaving money on the table. Shows that are available online are talked about more, watched more, and pirated less. Viewers are demanding easier access to shows that is not tethered to their home and does not require a cable subscription, yet the market is not delivering it. Why is this? There are two big reasons. The giant content companies have a symbiotic relationship with cable. They sell programming exclusively to cable (and satellite) and charge a lot for it. This forces cable companies to raise their bills but, since they're the only source of programming people want, they're able to. There's nowhere to switch to. Only now, as cable bills are reaching unsustainable levels and cable companies are seeing that online video has the technological potential to become a competitor to cable, are some cable companies finally objecting publicly. The second reason is more subtle. Smaller programmers don't have the ability to dictate terms to cable companies the way some large ones do. But cable is their largest customer. If a large cable company tells an independent programmer that it can't distribute its content online, then the programmer has little choice but to comply. These issues highlight how concentrated markets prevent companies from responding to customer's needs. Concentration in the programming market leads to absurd situations like every cable subscriber, even non-sports fans, paying about $5 per month for ESPN. Concentration in the distribution market allows existing distributors to use threats and incentives to hold back the development of alternative distribution channels.
benton.org/node/153778 | Public Knowledge
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
OWNERSHIP
MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: Michael Copps]
[Commentary] I was disappointed to see that former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt has joined forces with opponents of the Commission's longstanding cross-ownership rules. Hundt argues that greater media consolidation, including common ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market, should be permitted "in celebration of our commitment to freedom." Our commitment to freedom rests on informed citizens and a vibrant media. The "freedom to own the means of speech" that Hundt celebrates misses the entire point and purpose of the First Amendment. In my experience, freedom flourishes best when citizens have ready access to multiple sources of news and information, something they'd lose in many areas if Hundt gets his way on the cross-ownership rule. Allowing ever-more monopolization of our media ecosystem will not celebrate "our commitment to freedom" - it will undermine liberty's staunchest sentinel, a vibrant press. Hundt may want to debate whether it is better to have the Koch Brothers or Rupert Murdoch owning the Tribune newspaper chain. I say neither.
benton.org/node/153782 | Huffington Post, The
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
JOURNALISM
DOLLAROCRACY OR DEMOCRACY?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Michael Copps]
[Commentary] “Dollarocracy”—rule by the dollar—what a great and telling name for a shrinking American democracy that every day loses ground to the command-and-control of unchecked money. Somebody ought to write a book based on the idea. Just in: somebody has! Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America is the title of a just-released “must-read” by prodigious historian/scholar Robert McChesney and force-of-nature journalist John Nichols. Their book gets at what’s ailing America better than any diagnosis I have encountered. Plus it prescribes some cures. What more could a reader—or a citizen—ask? To me, it’s the book of the year.
http://benton.org/node/153750
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
CONFLICTS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Farhi]
It’s all but a journalistic commandment: Thou shalt not have a vested interest in the story you’re covering. Otherwise, a personal entanglement could color a reporter’s neutrality or cloud public perceptions of fairness. An obvious area of concern: when a journalist’s relatives or spouse is part of the news. So what to make of all the family ties between the news media and the Obama Administration? According to the news media, nothing much at all. News organizations say they’ve worked out the conflicts — real or potential — involving their journalists. But that hasn’t stopped a few eyebrows from being raised. The list of prominent news people with close White House relations includes ABC News President Ben Sherwood, who is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a top national-security adviser to President Obama. His counterpart at CBS, news division president David Rhodes, is the brother of Benjamin Rhodes, a key foreign-policy specialist. CNN’s deputy Washington bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Tom Nides, who until earlier this year was deputy secretary of state under Hillary Rodham Clinton. Further, White House press secretary Jay Carney’s wife is Claire Shipman, a veteran reporter for ABC. And NPR’s White House correspondent, Ari Shapiro, is married to a lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, who joined the White House counsel’s office in April. Conservatives have suggested that these relationships may play a role in how the media cover President Obama.
benton.org/node/153866 | Washington Post
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
RESEARCH
EARLY PEAK AT DATA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brody Mullins, Michael Rothfeld, Tom McGinty, Jenny Strasburg]
Economic reports from public universities, trade groups and other nongovernmental organizations can move markets as surely as official data from the U.S. government. But unlike government reports, where pains are taken to make certain no one gets them ahead of time, few rules control release of nongovernmental economic reports. Unknown to many investors, selling early access is routine. This is a "blind spot" in U.S. law, said Richard Painter, a former Republican White House ethics lawyer. Groups, he said, should "not be allowed to selectively disclose market-moving data to people who pay more money—that is not right." But it is legal, and so is trading on the advance peeks.
benton.org/node/153864 | Wall Street Journal
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
WHAT’S YOUR DATA WORTH?
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Emily Steel]
How much are a person’s data worth? Not much. While the multibillion-dollar data broker industry profits on the trade of thousands of details about individuals, those bits of information often are sold for a fraction of a penny apiece, according to industry pricing data viewed by the Financial Times. General information about a person, such as their age, gender and location is worth a mere $0.0005 per person, or $0.50 per 1,000 people. A person who is shopping for a car, a financial product or a vacation is more valuable to companies eager to pitch those goods. Auto buyers, for instance, are worth about $0.0021 a pop, or $2.11 per 1,000 people. Certain milestones in a person’s life prompt major changes in buying patterns, whether that’s becoming a new parent, moving homes, getting engaged, buying a car, or going through a divorce. Marketers are willing to pay more to reach consumers at those major life events. Knowing that a woman is expecting a baby and is in her second trimester of pregnancy, for instance, sends the price to tag for that information about her to $0.11.
The more intimate the information, the more valuable it is. Some of the most personal and secretive troves of data rank as the most expensive. For $0.26 per person, buyers can access lists of people with specific health conditions or taking certain prescriptions. However, even adding those details up, the sum total for most individuals often is less than a dollar.
benton.org/node/153854 | Financial Times
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top
STORIES FROM ABROAD
GREEK BROADCASTER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Liz Alderman, Niki Kitsantonis]
Private television channels in Greece suspended their news coverage as of 6 a.m. June 12 in solidarity with employees of the state broadcaster, ERT, which was shut down by the government, while newspaper headlines conveyed the shock felt by many Greeks at the closing of a 75-year-old institution that had employed 2,900 people. “An Execution to Please the Troika,” read one in the center-left newspaper Eleftherotypia, a reference to the trio of creditors — the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank — whose representatives are back in Athens this week to audit Greece’s progress in sticking to conditions attached to the country’s multibillion-euro bailout. Thomas Dedes, 67, a Greek retiree, said that a day spent chasing underground news reports and racing across online video channels and digital platforms like Twitter and Facebook reminded him of the unsavory days when Greece was ruled by a military dictatorship.
benton.org/node/153834 | New York Times | WSJ
Share: Twitter | Facebook
back to top