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THE CYREN CALL OF INTEROPERABILITY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Senate Commerce Committee heard a pitch Thursday for creating a public-private trust and putting half of the spectrum being reclaimed from the switch to DTV into the trust. Pushing back on the idea were legislators suggesting the proposal could muck up the DTV transition. Police and fire chiefs testifying before the legislators argued that the trust would provide enough spectrum and funds to create an inter-operable nationwide emergency communications system. The creation of this system is high on the list of Congress post-9/11. The idea, being pitched by a company called Cyren Call, is that the 30 Mhz that would be put into the fund is enough spectrum to attract private capital to build the network. Then it could be used for private purposes when it wasn't being used for emergencies. Arguing against the proposal was the wireless telephone industry. CTIA President Steve Largent said that the 24 mHz of spectrum already allocated for emergency response by the DTV transition bill is sufficient to create that network. He continued to say that taking an additional 30 Mhz out of the auction would disrupt the transition to digital and the roll-out of advanced wireless services by the companies -- his members -- planning to bid on the spectrum at auction. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), was particularly skeptical about the Cyren Call proposal. He said it sounded good in theory, but in practice could undermine funding for the DTV set-top box converter program and other programs slated to get money from the auction.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6414838?display=Breaking+News
* Powell Weighs in on the Allocation of Communications Spectrum
Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell sent a letter to Senate Commerce Committee Vice Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) supporting the DTV transition bill's plan for first responder communications and taking aim at an alternative being pushed by Cyren Call. The DTV bill set a hard date for the transition and put aside $1 billion and 24 mHz of spectrum for first responders. He said during his tenure he "saw the need to act urgently and resist the never-ending parade of new ideas and new plans." Powell has four questions concerning the Cyren Call proposal: 1) Would it delay existing plans for an interoperable system? 2) Would it disrupt funding? 3) Is it complex, with too many moving parts? 4) "Who is going to benefit the most, those in uniform who are sworn to serve or those in suits who are set to profit?"
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415099.html?display=Breaking...
Sen. Stevens Voices Concerns About Proposed Safety Network
[SOURCE: Technology Daily 2/8, AUTHOR: David Hatch]
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-LWRX1171391938708.html
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6414838?display=Breaking%20News
CRONKITE: QUEST FOR MEDIA PROFITS HURTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
In a keynote address at Columbia University, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite warned that pressures by media companies to generate ever-greater profits are threatening the very freedom the nation was built upon. said today's journalists face greater challenges than those from his generation. No longer could journalists count on their employers to provide the necessary resources, he said, "to expose truths that powerful politicians and special interests often did not want exposed." Instead, he said, "they face rounds and rounds of job cuts and cost cuts that require them to do ever more with ever less.'' "In this information age and the very complicated world in which we live today, the need for high-quality reporting is greater than ever," he said. Cronkite said news accuracy has declined because of consolidations and closures that have left many American towns with only one newspaper. And as broadcasters cut budgets and air time for news, he said, "we're all left with a sound bite culture that turns political campaigns into political theater." The former anchor urged owners of media companies -- newspapers and broadcast alike -- to recognize they have special civil responsibilities. "Consolidation and cost cutting may be good for the bottom line in the short term but that isn't necessarily good for the country or the health of the news business in the long term,'" he said.
http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=39215199158185
See related story --
* Wake-up call to a.m. news: moms tuning out
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Matea Gold]
This season has seen a significant erosion of the morning shows' demographic sweet spot: 25- to 54-year-old women. Almost 450,000 of these women -- coveted by advertisers because of their household purchasing power -- turned off the three broadcast morning programs so far this season, a decline of 10% compared to the same point last year, according to a Times analysis of Nielsen Media Research data. (Male viewers the same age also fell by 9%, but they make up a much smaller portion of the audience.) It's difficult to trace the exact cause of the drop. It comes after two popular morning hosts, Katie Couric and Charles Gibson, left their shows to be evening news anchors. At the same time, the advent of "mommy blogs," the growing popularity of online news sites and the ever-more-frantic press of daily life appear to have led many women to forgo the morning ritual of watching TV. News executives are sanguine about the ratings dip, calling it a short-term fluctuation. They attribute it in large part to the unseasonably mild winter in much of the country until recently, noting that temperate weather draws people outside, and away from their television sets. But could it have something to do with the content of the shows? "Watching morning television for me is the equivalent of reading People magazine in the dentist's office," said Jenny Lauck, a mother of three who writes for websites from her home in Santa Rosa, Calif. "They don't have anything new or particularly relevant to my life. It seems like a lot of fluff. I feel like I can get information faster and cleaner on the Internet."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-et-women9feb09,1,51398...
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http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=39215199158185
HOW TV STATIONS CAN WIN BIG IN 2008 ELECTIONS
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Mark Effron markeffron@gmail.com]
[Commentary] A billion dollars in advertising is up for grabs in the presidential campaigns now getting underway. That’s on top of all the money that will be spent on TV by Senate, House, gubernatorial and local candidates and advocacy groups. The experts agree: More money than ever before will be spent on media leading up to the 2008 elections. Are broadcasters poised to get their share? Effron offers six steps to make the most money off of the democratic process: 1) television stations should create separate political areas on their web sites, 2) the site should be fed with additional political reporting, 3) the site should include "controversial and entertaining video content that can be e-mailed around by... viewers", 4) the site should be updated often, 5) the site should provide depth of coverage, and 6) the site should be marketed "like crazy." (Yes, right, the broadcaster should do everything it is licensed to do over-the-air on the Internet instead.)
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/02/08/daily.5/
* The 2008 ad blitz begins
Presidential campaign advertising will start hitting the airwaves in the coming months, far earlier in the election cycle than during the 2004 race, and the ads will barrage the American public for much longer, delivering a windfall to television and radio stations, industry experts say.
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/020907/blitz.html
How TV Stations Can Win Big in 2008 Elections
FCC ANSWERS HOUSE COMMERCE COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT QUESTIONS
[SOURCE: House Commerce Committee]
FCC Chairman Martin and FCC Commissioners respond to Committee letter of January 31, 2007, regarding the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Hearing on oversight of the FCC scheduled for February 15, 2007. The letter asks about and the Commissioners provide answers on NSA wiretapping, the AT&T-BellSouth merger decision, broadband deployment, spectrum policy, the digital television transition, and Commission processes. Commissioners Copps and Adelstein again called for the Commission to define the public interest obligations (PIOs) of digital television broadcasters. The FCC first asked about for public comment on PIOs 12 years ago.
* Committee letter: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-ltr.013107.FCC.pre-hrg%20q...
* FCC Chairman Martin: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Chairman.r...
* Commissioner Copps: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Copps.pdf
* Commissioner Adelstein: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Adelstein.pdf
* Commissioner Tate: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Tate.pdf
* Commissioner McDowell: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.McDowell.pdf
** Also see:
Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters Timeline 1995-2007 -- More than 4,000 days of inaction
http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/4754
FCC MEDIA OWNERSHIP HEARING IN HARRISBURG FEB 23
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
The Federal Communications Commission announced that the third public hearing on media ownership issues will be held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Friday, February 23, 2007. This hearing will provide an opportunity for those in the Harrisburg area to discuss media ownership, including specific issues facing that local market. Further details on the public hearing will be released at a later date. (The Commission's monthly open meeting is also currently scheduled for 2/23.)
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270408A1.doc
FCC Media Ownership Hearing in Harrisburg Feb 23
A CALL TO LET YOUR PHONE LOOSE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Charles Babington]
Until federal regulators issued a landmark ruling in 1968, Americans could not own the telephones in their homes, nor attach answering machines or other devices to them. Now, a growing number of academics and consumer activists say it's time to deliver a similar groundbreaking jolt to the cellphone industry, possibly triggering a new round of customer options and technical innovations to rival the one that produced faxes, modems and the Internet. Wireless carriers, which limit what customers may do with their phones, say the move is unnecessary and potentially harmful. But in articles, blogs and speeches, a number of researchers are asking why the companies are allowed to force consumers to buy new handsets when they change carriers, pay a specified carrier to transfer photos from a camera phone, or download ring tones or music from one provider only. The wireless carriers, however, say that forcing them to open their networks to unfettered use is not needed, because consumers have several options for carriers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR200702...
(requires registration)
* see examples of restrictions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR200702...
A Call To Let Your Phone Loose
COULD CANADA KILL NET NEUTRALITY?
[SOURCE: InformationWeek, AUTHOR: KC Jones]
It's hard to imagine those cute, cuddly Canadians hurting anything (OK, maybe with a hockey stick)... The Canadian Press reported Tuesday that it obtained documents showing advisers to Minister of Industry Maxime Bernier seem to favor telecommunications companies' arguments against regulation. While the minister has yet to make up his mind on the subject, Bernier has said before that he supports a "consumer first" approach. The papers obtained suggest his staff is siding with Canadian telecommunications companies like Videotron and Telus when it comes to creating a two-tier system for high-speed bandwidth and allowing Internet providers to charge consumers more for preferred service. Network neutrality refers to a counter initiative to that two-tiered design. Major search engines such as Google and Yahoo support network neutrality because of the massive amounts of traffic they deliver compared with other sites. It also became an issue because some carriers that offered subscription-based voice-over-IP services were also transporting their competitors' VoIP traffic. The Canadian debate mirrors one that has been raging in the United States for about a year. The U.S. 109th Congress did not pass any laws on network neutrality last year, but proponents managed to tie up a communications package by making the network neutrality debate part of it. Now Canadians are considering whether market forces should guide the Internet's future. That would allow telecommunications and cable companies to move bits faster for those paying higher fees.
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197004617&cid...
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197004617&cid=RSSfeed…
TURNER: WEB STREAMERS CAN'T USE PROGRAM LAW
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
A cable-competition law is off limits to video-streaming Web sites that want forced access to CNN and other popular cable networks that populate TV screens in millions of subscription-television homes, Turner Network Sales said Thursday in a Federal Communications Commission filing. TNS took a stand in response to an FCC complaint filed last month by Virtual Digital Cable, a subscription-video Web site that became the first such entity to test whether it is protected by federal program-access laws. Those statutes effectively force satellite-delivered cable networks that are owned by cable operators to license their content to cable competitors like DirecTV, EchoStar Communications’ Dish Network and Verizon Communications’ FiOS TV. Although VDC has demanded access to TNT, TBS, CNN and CNN Headline News, TNS argued that VDC can't do so because, among other things, VDC isn't a “multichannel-video-programming distributor†that offers “multiple channels of video programming†as those terms are defined in federal law and have been interpreted by the FCC.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6415130.html?display=Breaking+News
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6415130.html?display=Breaking%20News
MOVEON LAUNCHES CPB BUDGET-SAVING PETITION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Moveon.org has launched an online petition drive opposing the latest budget cuts to public broadcasting and sees the new Democratic Congress as an opportunity to "make sure this never happens again."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415105.html?display=Breaking...
* See the petition: http://civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415105.html?display=Breaking%20News
NUMBER OF HDTV HOMES TO TREBLE BY 2011: REPORT
[SOURCE: Reuters]
According to Informa Telecoms and Media, the number of households around the world with high-definition television (HDTV) will treble over the next five years as viewers switch to its clearer, more vivid picture. The number of homes taking the product will jump to 151 million worldwide by 2011 from 48 million at the end of 2006 when an estimated 1.2 billion households had a television. The report said some 58 percent of HD homes were currently found in the United States and 20 percent in Japan, with Britain, Canada, China and Germany also high on the list.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...