S. 1032 Rural Broadband Initiative Act of 2007
Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/12/2007 - 10:04Summary
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April 13, 2007
CBS IN WEB DISTRIBUTION DEALS FOR ITS TV SHOWS
[SOURCE: Reuters]
CBS Corp. said on Thursday it has created a broad Internet distribution channel for its popular television programs through deals with 10 partners, including Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Comcast Corp. With the deals, CBS will be able to will deliver such shows as crime drama "CSI," "Late Show with David Letterman," "Survivor" and "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" to a broader Web audience. The CBS Interactive Audience Network is the latest effort by a leading media company to add Internet audiences for their programs and sell advertising for the shows online. Viewers can watch the programs for free, with advertising revenue split between CBS and its partners. Details of the split were not immediately known.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1234065020070412
* Web Firms to Distribute CBS Shows on Internet
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR200704...
CBS in Web distribution deals for its TV shows
April 13, 2007
IS CABLE IN VERIZON'S CROSSHAIRS?
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon]
A judge's broad interpretation of patents in Verizon's lawsuit against Internet telephony provider Vonage could give the phone company enough firepower to go after cable operators and other voice over Internet Protocol providers. It's clear that Verizon may soon file suits against other stand-alone VoIP service providers, such as 8x8 and SunRocket, as it defends its VoIP patents. But some experts say it might also take on Internet companies like Skype, EarthLink and Yahoo, which offer VoIP services, or cable companies, which also sell telephony services using VoIP technology. "I believe that anyone offering a VoIP service could be a potential Verizon target," said Joel Rosenblatt, a Florida-based patent attorney who has reviewed the patents in question. "These patents appear to be so broad that an argument could be made against just about any service that allows people to make calls from the Internet to a regular phone network."
http://news.com.com/Is+cable+in+Verizons+crosshairs/2100-7352_3-6175725....
VONAGE CEO SNYDER QUITS, FIRM TO CUT JOBS
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Todd Spangler]
Vonage Holdings announced Thursday that CEO Michael Snyder resigned and that it plans to lay off 10% of employees and to reduce marketing expenses by $110 million on the eve of a federal appeals court hearing in its legal fight with Verizon Communications. Founder and chairman Jeffrey A. Citron was named interim CEO.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6433239.html?rssid=108
* Vonage’s Chief Executive Steps Down
Vonage’s Chief Executive Steps Down
* Vonage Replaces CEO, Plans Cost Cuts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR200704...
April 13, 2007
AT&T VS THE FARM TEAM
[SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Lorraine Woellert]
Making money has never been easy for small-town phone companies, most of which rely on federal subsidies to survive. But two years ago, Ronald Laudner, chief executive of Farmers' Telephone, in rural Iowa, hit on a lucrative new source of profit, thanks to a convoluted federal mandate that requires long-distance carriers to pay rural phone companies. By the end of 2006 his call volume was up twelvefold and annual net revenues had doubled, to $2 million. That's when AT&T's lawyers came calling. Now Farmers', which serves about 1,600 local customers near Riceville, Iowa, is among a handful of rural telcos under assault from big telecommunications companies. The giants complain that the little guys have latched onto a lively industry of free conference-call, chat-room, and sex-line services that make economic sense only because of federal regulation. The so-called Universal Service Fund was set up to ensure that sparsely populated areas of the country could still get affordable phone service following the 1984 breakup of the Ma Bell monopoly. But the big boys say smaller carriers are exploiting loopholes in the program and raking in cash from larger players. "This was not created to give people access to free porn or other seemingly legitimate services," says Qwest spokesman Robert Toevs. "From our standpoint it's a pure scam."
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070412_657317...
AT&T vs. the Farm Team
April 13, 2007
POLITICAL SPENDING POISED TO SET RECORDS
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Jean Grillo]
Analysts project even more record-breaking sums of political spending as the presidential races begin. According to Victor Miller, senior managing director, Bear Stearns, there is 20% more political money in all TV in the 2007-08 cycle then existed in the 2005-06 campaigns. "We're seeing about $2.5 billion for all TV political versus $2.1 billion," Miller remarked during today's TVB "Political: Probing the Mother Lode" panel. "2007 state and local political spending is driving first- and second-quarter earnings in local broadcast," added Evan Tracey, COO, Campaign Media Analysis Group, TNS Media Intelligence. "Political continues to be a growing part of the pie for local TV," Tracy added. "We just had a State Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that generated over $2 million in TV ad spending." According to Tracey, broadcast is still the biggest megaphone, but cable is making deeper in-roads, “especially since politicians like to advertise on news shows and cable has 24/7 news." The calendar, not the candidates, looms as a larger threat, however, to growing political revenues. A growing number of states are moving their primaries to the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday date, with only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina earlier (in January).
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/04/12/daily.17/
* Political Ads During the Super Bowl? (Associated Press)
As states line up to hold presidential primaries on the first Tuesday in February, the Feb. 3 Super Bowl could look super inviting and super expensive to presidential campaigns eager to deliver a knockout punch.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/04/12/daily.16/
Political Spending Poised to Set Records
April 13, 2007
WILL MISSING WHITE HOUSE E-MAILS BE MODERN VERSION OF NIXON TAPES?
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up. He and other Democrats want to know if White House officials such as political adviser Karl Rove are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law requiring preservation -- and eventual disclosure -- of presidential records.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...
* Missing E-Mail May Be Related to Prosecutors
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/washington/13emails.html?hp
* Rove E-Mail Sought by Congress May Be Missing
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR200704...
* Controversy escalates over missing e-mails
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-emails13apr13,1,...
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=…
April 13, 2007
SAYING NO TO FOX
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: E. J. Dionne Jr.]
[Commentary] I have this mischievous suspicion that Roger Ailes, the creator and chairman of Fox News, secretly admires the bloggers and other activists working to keep Democratic presidential candidates from debating on his cable network. To be sure, Ailes will never say this. On the contrary, he is furious that MoveOn.org and others have struck a chord in arguing that Democrats have no business creating any formal link with a network that so openly favors conservative and Republican causes. What Ailes knows is that the campaign to block Fox from sponsoring Democratic debates is the most effective liberal push-back against the network since its debut on Oct. 7, 1996. My hunch is that Ailes, one of the toughest and smartest in a generation of Republican political consultants, sees his adversaries as playing the kind of political hardball he respects. It's why he's angry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR200704...
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Saying No to Fox News
April 13, 2007
ACLU SAYS HATE CRIMES BILL PROTECTS FREE SPEECH
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Under a bill introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, bigoted comments would still be considered protected speech. But the bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, would allow federal law enforcement officers to more easily investigate and prosecute hate crimes. The bill punishes only the conduct of targeting someone for violence because of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It allows bigoted speech or association with hate groups as evidence, but only if it is directly related to the crime. The FCC has received complaints about the racist comments of radio shock jock Don Imus , but its regulatory authority does not extend to bigoted comments short of hate speech that incites violence, similar to the limitation in the new bill.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6433544.html
ACLU Says Hate Crimes Bill Protects Free Speech
April 12, 2007
"Congress values the existence of separate sources of newspaper content in a community, and that loss of separate sources injures consumers."
-- U.S. District Judge Susan Illston
http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/5432
April 12, 2007
JUDGE PERMITS TRIAL OVER NEWSPAPER DEALS
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Bob Egelko]
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled that readers have the right to challenge media mergers under antitrust laws. The decision allows a lawsuit opposing MediaNews Group's acquisitions of the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times to move forward. MediaNews bought the papers for $736.8 million last year in a complex transaction that resulted in the Hearst Corp., parent company of The San Francisco Chronicle, owning a stake in MediaNews operations outside the Bay Area. MediaNews and Hearst had sought to dismiss the suit, arguing that individual readers have no stake in antitrust laws because they suffer no harm from any alleged reduction in newspaper competition. Judge Illston said federal law recognizes the public's concern in maintaining competition and diversity in the news media.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/11/BAGCUP6E331.DTL
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/11/BAGCUP6E331.DTL