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STEVENS STILL PUSHING ON FRANCHISE REFORM
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Speaking to a Progress and Freedom Foundation luncheon crowd in Washington, Sen Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said he is still pushing for passage of his franchise reform bill , though he is impeded by the network neutrality lobby, which has made the issue a "fetish." He hopes to have a floor vote scheduled for the lame duck session. "There is no way you can appease the people that say there is a net neutrality problem," he said, "It’s a fetish. It’s really something that doesn't exist. But they want to stop this bill because it might exist. What they want is to make sure that consumers pay for all the additions to this system that are not there to serve consumers but are there to serve the large companies that want access to enormous volumes and higher speed on the Internet. Now that is not the way it has worked in the past. Our bill preserves the situation that has existed till now and those demands have been accommodated. I think they will continue to be accommodated by competition within the system. We do not need a net neutrality provision."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374250?display=Breaking+News
* Stevens Progress and Freedom Foundation Address
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Det...
* Stevens: Communications Bill Good for Consumers
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) gave a statement on the floor of the US Senate Thursday in support of the Communications Bill approved earlier this summer by the Senate Commerce Committee. "The Senate Commerce Committee reported to the Senate a bipartisan bill and it is critical that the Senate considers this bill here on the floor. It is a bill that is good for consumers." Reasons for passage Sen Stevens mentioned include: 1) one billion dollars for first responders and emergency communications equipment that will be located throughout the country; 2) the bill encourages broadband deployment for consumers; 3) the bill reduces consumers’ cable rates which is vital to continuing the expanded use of cable in terms of communications; 4) The bill creates choice for consumers for both video and phone service; 5) The bill broadens the base for Universal Service and exempts the Universal Service Fund from the Anti- Deficiency Act; 6) It permits municipalities to offer broadband service throughout America in both urban and rural communities; 7) "The so called Wi-Fi concept will be expanded"; 8) The bill extends disabilities access requirements for the blind and hearing impaired to Voice Over the Internet Protocol (VOIP). He concluded: "There has been much debate on this issue in the Senate Commerce Committee, in House Committees, on the House floor, in the newspapers and in the blogosphere. But some Senators have prevented full debate on this issue on the Senate floor. It is time now for the Senate to allow the debate on this bill to start. America needs this bill."
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Det...
* Senate telecom bill still short of votes: Stevens
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374250?display=Breaking%20News
MARKEY QUESTIONS CAPTIONING EXEMPTIONS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A troubled Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has asked FCC Chairman Kevin Martin for information and guidance on two recent decisions to exempt shows from closed-captioning requirements. The FCC appeared in the decisions to have turned down two requests for exemption into a policy that the deaf community is concerned may exempt many more faith-based broadcasters and other noncommercial broadcasters from requirements to make their programming accessible to the hearing impaired. As of January 1, 2006, 100% of nonexempt, new English-language video programming had to be provided with captions, with exemptions for captioning that provides undue burdens for a number of reasons. In granting exemptions from captioning for two religious shows whose producers -- Anglers for Christ Ministries and New Beginning Ministries -- argued captioning would make the shows too expensive to produce, the FCC sent a message to producers of similar programming. "[I]n the future," said the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau in granting the exemptions, "when considering an exemption petition filed by a non-profit organization that does not receive compensation from video programming distributors from the airing of its programming, and that, in the absence of an exemption, may terminate or substantially curtail its programming or substantially curtail its programming or curtail other activities important to its mission, we will be inclined favorably to grant such a petition." Rep Markey, a longtime advocate for captioning, said he is concerned that the order "appears to open the door to many more exemptions." He has asked Chairman Martin for "any thoughts," as well as any plans for remedial action to the language he says makes the test for qualifying for an exemption "that any noncommercial educational licensee could qualify by stipulating that any curtailment of 'other activities' warrants an exemption." Rep Markey also complains that some people seeking temporary waivers have been given permanent ones instead.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374068?display=Breaking+News
* See Rep Markey's letter
http://markey.house.gov/docs/telecomm/Letter%20to%20FCC%20Chairman%20Re%...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374068?display=Breaking%20News
DEMS DEMAND PROBE OF 'SUPPRESSED' STUDIES
[SOURCE: TVNewsday]
Thirty-four House Democrats called on FCC Inspector General Kent R. Nilsson to investigate whether the FCC had suppressed two studies that seem to undermine the agency efforts over the past several years to relax restrictions on broadcast ownership. Led by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Congressman David Price (D-NC), Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Congressman Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the House Democrats asked for IG Nilsson to recommend possible disciplinary action against agency officials if he finds that they purposefully withheld the studies from the public. "If one or both of these reports were suppressed because they did not support official FCC policy, such actions could not only constitute fraud, but could also run counter to the FCC's stated goals of transparency and public involvement in its media ownership proceedings," the Democrats said in a letter they sent to IG Nilsson. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who was first to suggest the FCC had suppressed studies contrary to its ownership goals, asked for an IG investigation last week.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2006/09/21/daily.5/
* House Members Call On FCC Inspector General To Investigate Hidden Studies On Media Consolidation
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ny22_hinchey/morenews/092106FCCIG.html
Dems Demand Probe of 'Suppressed' Studies
CPB NOMINEES PRAISE PUBLIC BROADCASTING
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
We come hear to praise public broadcasting, not bury it. At their confirmation hearing in the US Senate Thursday, former Sen David Pryor and magazine publisher Chris Boskin, nominees for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board, praised public broadcasting and voiced commitment to its mission. Pryor said the common themes in public broadcasting are fairness, objectivity, tolerance, knowledge, education, balance, perspective, and entertainment. He called them the hallmarks of a service that is the "great fabric of the American landscape." Pryor said he brings "no agenda," or much broadcast expertise.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374300.html?display=Breaking...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374300.html?display=Breaking%20News
CREATIVE VOICES: FCC INDECENCY CRACKDOWN HARMS CHILDREN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Center for Creative Voices in Media, which includes TV and film executives among its advisers, has weighed in at the FCC on indecency with a report of how the FCC's indecency crackdown has affected Hollywood and the nation by "stifling free expression, threatening quality television, and harming America’s children." The report was submitted as comments in the FCC's review of four profanity rulings it made back in March without allowing for public comment. Calling the FCC's decisions "inconsistent and confusing," the center took issue with profanity findings that were issued, including against the Martin Scorcese documentary on blues musicians and an NYPD Blue episode. The irony, says the Center, is that Blue and Blues are just the type of quality shows that "in their public speeches, many FCC commissioners urge broadcasters to create and air as trustees of publicly owned airwaves." The Center concludes that the FCC's enforcement policy has made Newton Minow's "vast wasteland even vaster," and harms, not serves, the public interest.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374304.html?display=Breaking...
* Big Chill: How the FCC’s Indecency Decisions Stifle Free Expression, Threaten Quality Television, and Harm America’s Children
[SOURCE: Center for Creative Voices in Media]
http://www.creativevoices.us/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=164
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374304.html?display=Breaking%20News
STAY "FLEETING EXPLETIVES" ENFORCEMENT, SAYS MEDIA INSTITUTE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Media Institute has asked the FCC not to punish broadcasters for "fleeting expletives" until the courts rule on broadcaster challenges to that enforcement. It also suggested, while conceding it was unlikely, that the Commission agree to a "self-imposed stay on all indecency actions." The Institute -- a first amendment think tank backed by media companies including CBS, News Corp., Time Warner, and NBC -- was among the filers Thursday as the FCC closed the comment window on its reconsideration of four profanity rulings. The institute takes issue with the FCC's assertion that a "fleeting expletive" in this case the "*ucking brilliant," which was the subject of the Golden Globe Awards FCC indecency ruling, "necessarily invokes sexual imagery." "Sometimes," it says, evoking the famous line about Freud and cigars, "an expletive is just an expletive." The subjectivity of the FCC's approach, says the Institute, which has been to apply tougher standards but in a subjective process that broadcasters say provides no roadmap to safety, has "exacerbate[d] what has been the Commission’s long-standing and insoluble problem: the practical difficulties of trying to differentiate a category of content unique to the broadcast medium (“indecent†content), and trying to regulate that content by applying standards that inevitably prove too objective or too subjective."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374302.html?display=Breaking...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374302.html?display=Breaking%20News
TV WATCH: PARENTS ARE THE BEST REGULATORS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
TV Watch, the broadcasting industry-backed effort to push parental over governmental control of content, asked the FCC to throw out its "constitutionally suspect approach to indecency enforcement." It said that government should not be controlling TV programming and that "parents, not special interest organizations or the government, should decide what is okay for their families to watch."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374237.html?display=Breaking...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6374237.html?display=Breaking%20News
CDT CAUTIONS AGAINST DRAMATIC EXPANSION OF INDECENCY RULES
[SOURCE: Center for Democracy and Technology]
CDT urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to allow a small but vocal minority that is offended by certain content to limit the ability of adults to view material that is perfectly lawful and worthwhile. In comments submitted Thursday, CDT pointed out that the same types of voluntary parental control tools that help to protect kids from inappropriate material online are increasingly available to parents in the broadcast context.
Comments to FCC: http://www.cdt.org/speech/20060921indecency.pdf
CDT Cautions Against Dramatic Expansion of Indecency Rules
STEAMED OVER 'VEGGIETALES' CUTS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Lorenza Muñoz]
The Parents Television Council, an entertainment watchdog group, has a beef with NBC but not about televising curse words. It's about the word "God." The council wants to know why the network edited out some references to God from "VeggieTales," a popular children's series that airs on NBC on Saturday mornings. The conservative group accuses the network of having a double standard when it comes to Christianity. "NBC has stepped in doodoo again," said Parents Television Council President L. Brent Bozell. "Why in the world take out the very essence of what made the 'Veggie' shows successful? It is not a smash hit in spite of its message. It is a hit because of its message." In a statement, NBC said the editing was done to keep the shows under a certain time limit. " 'VeggieTales' was originally created for home entertainment and in most cases each episode is 30 minutes long," according to the statement. " 'VeggieTales' has been edited down for broadcast without losing any of its core messages about positive values." "VeggieTales" is an animated home video series that uses biblical stories as reference points to teach children about morality and values. It has sold more than 50 million DVDs since its launch in 1993.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-veggies22sep22,1,2555...
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Steamed Over 'VeggieTales' Cuts
TV VIEWERSHIP HITS RECORD HIGH
[SOURCE: TVNewsday]
The total average time a household watched television during the 2005-2006 TV year was eight hours and 14 minutes per day, a 3-minute increase from the 2004-2005 season and a record high, Nielsen Media Research reported. The average amount watched by an individual increased 3 minutes per day to 4 hours and 35 minutes, also a record. Meanwhile, during primetime, households tuned to an average of 1 hour and 54 minutes per night, up 1 minute, and the average viewer watched 1 hour and 11 minutes, which was the same as last year.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2006/09/21/daily.2/
* Time Spent Watching Television Increases
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-tv22sep22,1,4813152.s...
TV Viewership Hits record High