October 1, 2012 (Incentive Auction to Repurpose Broadcast Television Spectrum)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2012
Freedom and Connectivity: Advancing the Freedom to Communicate in the Americas http://benton.org/calendar/2012-09-30--P1W/
NEWS FROM FCC MEETING
FCC Launches First-in-the-World Incentive Auction to Repurpose Broadcast Television Spectrum - press release
FCC Launches Learn Everything About Reverse-Auctions Now Program - press release
DC Reacts to FCC Incentive Auction Proposal [links to web]
Is FCC’s Incentive Action Smart Business? [links to web]
FCC Spectrum Auctions: Big Deal Or No Deal? [links to web]
Competitive carriers warn FCC to learn from auction mistakes [links to web]
FCC Initiates Review of Mobile Spectrum Holdings Policies to Enable a Healthy and Competitive Wireless Marketplace with Clear and Predictable Rules of the Road - press release
FCC Launches Comprehensive Review of Licensing and Operating Rules for Satellite Services - press release
FCC Won't Close Proceeding on Joint Sales Agreements Attribution [links to web]
LightSquared Proposes Vacating Disputed Spectrum [links to web]
MORE ON WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Crown Castle and T-Mobile USA Announce $2.4 Billion Tower Transaction - press release [links to web]
India to ban roaming pacts on 3G services [links to web]
Start-Up Skirts Cellphone Data Plans [links to web]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Tired Cries of Bias Don’t Help Romney - analysis
With more control over campaign cash, Obama gets more discounts on advertising
FCC Political Ad Rules Call for Balancing Act - analysis [links to web]
Political Ads Now Filling the Air in Roanoke [links to web]
Movie Mogul's Starring Role in Raising Funds for Obama [links to web]
How Social and Traditional Media Differ in Treatment of Conventions and Beyond - research
AP editor cites Bachmann fact-checking ‘quota’ [links to web]
Election 2012 Dollars Stream In to Hulu [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
So, How Are We Doing? - analysis
Cybersecurity could be casualty of sequester ax
White House confirms cyberattack [links to web]
Executives overestimate cybersecurity levels [links to web]
Sec Napolitano: Cyber Exec Order Under review [links to web]
Lofgren’s Task Force on the Global Internet - analysis [links to web]
Maine's 1,100 Mile Three Ring Binder high-speed Internet Network is Complete [links to web]
Comcast Gives FTTH a Shot [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
Universal Closes on EMI Deal, Becoming, by Far, Biggest of Remaining Big Three [links to web]
The Murdochs’ scandal-plagued media company has proved surprisingly resilient [links to web]
Apple's Cook handling of 'mapgate' better than Jobs' 'antennagate'? [links to web]
PRIVACY
Facebook: Federal online privacy rules would violate free speech rights
UK Privacy watchdog starts cookie crackdown [links to web]
FTC Defends W3C's Do-Not-Track Initiative To Congress [links to web]
Private eyes: Lessons from the rent-to-own webcam cases - press release [links to web]
EDUCATION
California universities to produce 50 open-source textbooks [links to web]
JOURNALISM
The Explosion in Mobile Audiences and a Close Look at What it means for News - research
For New Orleans, a Daily That’s No Longer Daily [links to web]
In Vermont, a Venerable Paper Fights for Readers [links to web]
Shoddy TV science coverage [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Obama Cabinet Flunks Disclosure Test With 19 in 20 Ignoring Law - research
Department of Defense Reviewing Release of Sensitive Info to Media [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
Fostering Tech Talent in Schools [links to web]
Gov. Brown Signs California TV, Film Tax Credit Extension [links to web]
NEWS FROM FCC MEETING
FCC LAUNCHES INCENTIVE AUCTION PROCEEDING
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission voted to officially launch the incentive auction process, making the United States the first nation in the world to implement this major policy innovation, which aims to repurpose broadcast television spectrum for mobile broadband use. The concept was first introduced in the National Broadband Plan as part of the FCC’s multi-pronged strategy to meet skyrocketing demand for mobile Internet in the United States, and became the foundation for legislation that was signed into law in February 2012. As mobile device adoption continues to grow around the world, this incentive auction will be a model for many countries facing similar spectrum challenges. The adopted Public Notice seeks comment on the following issues: Auction design, Participation in the Reverse Auction, Repacking, 600 MHz Band Plan, Channel 37, Unlicensed Use of Spectrum, and Transition.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski promised the work in this proceeding will be guided by a set of core goals and principles:
Maximizing the amount of spectrum freed up for flexible use, both licensed and unlicensed.
Maximizing broadcaster participation in the auction, including by making the auction process as transparent and easy-to-understand as possible.
We’ll keep a firm focus on engineering and economics. This will be a fact-based, data-driven proceeding, drawing on the expertise of the world’s leading economists, auction design experts, and engineers, both inside and outside the agency.
We’ll recognize the need for humility. This is an incredibly fast-moving space and an extremely complex policy initiative. We are committed to engaging with all stakeholders, learning from the public record we’ll be building, aiming for simplicity, and adjusting our proposals as necessary to ensure the auction succeeds.
And we’ll remain committed to U.S. leadership in mobile infrastructure and innovation.
benton.org/node/135850 | Federal Communications Commission | Washington Post | B&C | TVNewsCheck | ars technica | GigaOM | CNet | The Hill
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LEARN PROGRAM
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission launched
the Broadcaster LEARN (Learn Everything About Reverse-Auctions Now) Program. The LEARN Program is designed to offer broadcasters valuable information about the unique financial opportunities of incentive auctions and engage the broadcaster community throughout the entire incentive auction planning, design and execution processes. The first LEARN Program workshop is scheduled for Friday, October 26, 2012. A webpage will serve as a central resource for a collection of auction-related material, including:
• Dates and time for onsite and online FCC and third-party education sessions
• Links to live, interactive webinars
• Incentive Auction FAQs
• Archived FCC presentations & webcasts
• A summary of proposed auction designs
• Rule-makings and related FCC proceedings
• Links to helpful third-party material
• A dedicated email box for questions (learn@fcc.gov)
benton.org/node/135847 | Federal Communications Commission | LEARN webpage
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FCC INITIATES REVIEW OF MOBILE SPECTRUM HOLDINGS POLICIES TO ENABLE A HEALTHY AND COMPETITIVE WIRELESS MARKETPLACE WITH CLEAR AND PREDICTABLE RULES OF THE ROAD
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), initiating a fresh look at its mobile spectrum holding policies given the changes in technology, spectrum availability, and the mobile marketplace since the last comprehensive review of these rules more than a decade ago. In recent years, large and small wireless providers, as well as trade associations and public interest groups, have requested that the FCC review its current policies regarding mobile spectrum holdings to keep pace with market changes. With this NPRM, the FCC seeks comment on ensuring that its policies provide the certainty and predictability needed to make informed investment decisions, including participation in upcoming incentive auctions and secondary market transactions, while also promoting the competition needed to sustain a healthy wireless marketplace.
The NPRM seeks comment on a number of issues, including:
Continuing the current approach to evaluating mobile spectrum holdings in the context of transactions and auctions—a case-by-case analysis, or moving to a different approach such as bright-line limits;
Including additional spectrum bands in evaluating spectrum holdings;
Updating the Commission’s geographic market analysis, including to consider the impacts of mobile spectrum holdings at the national as well as local levels;
Whether the Commission should make distinctions among bands in assessing spectrum holdings; and
Updating the Commission’s attribution rules.
benton.org/node/135837 | Federal Communications Commission | See the NPRM | B&C | The Hill
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FCC LAUNCHES COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF LICENSING AND OPERATING RULES FOR SATELLITE SERVICES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission initiated a wholesale review of its rules, also known as Part 25, governing licensing and operation of space stations and earth stations, which transmit radio frequency signals between the ground and satellites. This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) would eliminate unnecessary technical and information filing requirements, update rules to better accommodate evolving technology, and simplify existing requirements. In proposing extensive changes to over 100 rule sections and subsections in Part 25, the Commission aims to give satellite licensees the flexibility to provide innovative services while ensuring an operating environment free from harmful interference. The NPRM includes proposals that would:
Shift from a “tell us how you built it” approach to a “tell us how you avoid interference with your neighbors” approach;
Eliminate filing requirements that are no longer needed;
Increase the number of earth station applications eligible for routine and streamlined processing;
Amend the information requirements for space and earth station applications to reflect evolving technology;
Provide greater flexibility to earth station applicants in verifying antenna performance;
Reinforce emergency contact reporting requirements while consolidating requirements for annual reporting and removing unnecessary reporting rules; and
Consolidate, clarify, and request comment on milestone requirements for space stations.
benton.org/node/135835 | Federal Communications Commission | see the NPRM
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
MEDIA BIAS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] In the last few days, conservatives have become agitated about Mitt Romney’s drop-off in the polls. In their view, the mysterious drop can only be explained by the fact that the mainstream media have their collective liberal thumb on the scale, in terms of coverage and, more oddly, polling. But even if legacy media still maintained some kind of death grip on American consciousness, it would be hard to claim that the biggest players in those industries are peddling liberal theology. Think about it. What is the No. 1 newspaper in America by circulation? Why, that would be The Wall Street Journal, a bastion of conservative values on its editorial pages and hardly a suspect when it comes to lefty news coverage. What about radio? Three of the top five radio broadcasters — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the recently departed Michael Savage — have outdrawn NPR’s morning and evening programs by a wide margin. In cable television, Fox News continues to pummel the competition. Many Republicans see bias lurking in every live shot, but the growing hegemony of conservative voices makes manufacturing a partisan conspiracy a practical impossibility.
benton.org/node/135878 | New York Times
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POLITICAL ADS RULES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Dan Eggen]
As the presidential campaigns step up the pace of their multimillion-dollar spending sprees, President Barack Obama has a little-noticed strategic advantage that gives him more control over the money he has raised. While Mitt Romney relies heavily on massive amounts of cash held by the Republican Party and interest groups, President Obama has more funds in his own campaign coffers. That allows him to make decisions about where and how to spend the money and to take better advantage of discounted ad rates, which candidates receive under federal law. In one Ohio ad buy slated to run just before the election, for example, President Obama is paying $125 for a spot that is costing a conservative super PAC $900. The imbalance could prove crucial over the next six weeks, when the candidates and their allies are expected to burn through about $1 billion worth of advertising in battleground states and deploy thousands of staffers and volunteers to drum up votes. With $1.5 billion already spent on the White House race, the final barrage will help determine whether Romney can turn around his fortunes and defeat the incumbent.
benton.org/node/135822 | Washington Post
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HOW SOCIAL AND TRADITIONAL MEDIA DIFFER IN TREATMENT OF THE CONVENTIONS AND BEYOND
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
As the candidates for president reintroduced themselves at their conventions and began the last phase of the campaign, they received markedly different treatment in social media than in the mainstream press, a new study finds. The conversation on Twitter, blogs and Facebook about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama during this key period changed little with events -- even during the two candidates' own nominating conventions. The conversation in all of these platforms was also consistently negative, according to the study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the mainstream media, by contrast, both Romney and Obama received a version of the traditional convention bounce, with coverage about them becoming more positive during the week of their party's nationally televised gathering. The media portrait of this key month in the campaign is consistent with what PEJ has seen in social media throughout the campaign. Whether it would prove true in other campaigns cannot be known. But the differences raise a question about whether social media may make what Americans hear about politics more negative and may make it harder for political actors, particularly those trailing in the polls, to alter the media narrative.
benton.org/node/135798 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
SO, HOW ARE WE DOING?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] What with Yom Kippur, some major addresses at the United Nations and, oh yeah, a presidential election in full bloom this week, you’re excused if you missed a major address on U.S. broadband policy. On September 25, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski visited the Washington (DC) headquarters of VOX Media to both recognize, once again, that broadband – high-speed Internet, wired and wireless – is transforming our economy and the way we live for the better – and to warn that significant challenges lie ahead in the global bandwidth race.
http://benton.org/node/135766
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SEQUESTER AX FOR CYBERSECURITY?
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
The looming threat of sequestration could short-circuit one of the few cybersecurity agreements between lawmakers and the White House: the need for a bigger budget to protect government and private computer systems. At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in cyberaid, the loss of which could jeopardize efforts to detect digital spies, fight off foreign hackers, research new technologies and hire smart cybersecurity experts — the sort of commitments made in the Obama administration’s budget, and echoed by congressional leaders all year. There’s no single entity in the federal government that handles cybersecurity: Responsibilities for protecting federal networks, staving off foreign cyberattacks and researching new technologies are spread across multiple departments and programs. Many of those initiatives would be hit hard by deep cuts beginning in 2013 unless Congress pushes back the target date for its legally mandated cuts, exempts some categories of spending or does away entirely with its fallback, deficit-reduction plans.
benton.org/node/135864 | Politico
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PRIVACY
FACEBOOK AND PRIVACY FOR KIDS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Facebook is warning the Federal Trade Commission that its proposed update to children's online privacy rules would infringe constitutionally protected free speech rights. The company said that because the proposal would restrict the ability of children to "like," comment on or recommend websites, it would violate the First Amendment. "The Supreme Court has recognized on numerous occasions that teens are entitled to First Amendment protection," Facebook wrote in a filing with the FTC. "A government regulation that restricts teens’ ability to engage in protected speech—as the proposed COPPA Rule would do—raises issues under the First Amendment."
benton.org/node/135868 | Hill, The
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JOURNALISM
THE EXPLOSION IN MOBILE AUDIENCES AND A CLOSE LOOK AT WHAT IT MEANS FOR NEWS
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel, Laura Houston Santhanam, Leah Christian]
The era of mobile digital technology has crossed a new threshold. Half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet, significantly more than a year ago, and this has major implications for how news will be consumed and paid for, according to a detailed new survey of news use on mobile devices by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) in collaboration with The Economist Group. At the center of the recent growth in mobile is the rapid embrace by Americans of the tablet computer. Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults, 22%, now own a tablet device-double the number from a year earlier. Another 3% of adults regularly use a tablet owned by someone else in their home. And nearly a quarter of those who don't have a tablet, 23%, plan to get one in the next six months. Even more U.S. adults (44%) have smartphones, according to the survey, up from 35% in May 2011. News remains an important part of what people do on their mobile devices-64% of tablet owners and 62% of smartphone owners say they use the devices for news at least weekly, tying news statistically with other popular activities such email and playing games on tablets and behind only email on smartphones (not including talking on the phone). This means fully a third of all U.S. adults now get news on a mobile device at least once a week.
benton.org/node/135858 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
ADMINISTRATION AND FOIA
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Jim Snyder, Danielle Ivory]
On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama ordered federal officials to “usher in a new era of open government” and “act promptly” to make information public. As Obama nears the end of his term, his administration hasn’t met those goals, failing to follow the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. Nineteen of 20 cabinet-level agencies disobeyed the law requiring the disclosure of public information: The cost of travel by top officials. In all, just eight of the 57 federal agencies met Bloomberg’s request for those documents within the 20-day window required by the Act. The Bloomberg survey was designed in part to gauge the timeliness of responses, which Attorney General Eric Holder called “an essential component of transparency” in a March 2009 memo. About half of the 57 agencies eventually disclosed the out-of-town travel expenses generated by their top official by Sept. 14, most of them well past the legal deadline.
benton.org/node/135807 | Bloomberg
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