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SENATE PANEL WON'T CONFIRM BUSH BROADCAST CHIEF
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jeremy Pelofsky]
A White House nominee may lose his job overseeing U.S.-backed international TV and radio services after a Senate committee said on Wednesday it would not vote this year on another term for Kenneth Tomlinson, following a government report that said he used the office for personal gain. President George W. Bush in 2005 nominated Tomlinson to a second term as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees government international programming like Voice of America as well as Radio and TV Marti, which air Spanish-language broadcasts to Cuba. However, the Republican-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee will not take up his nomination this year, panel spokesman Andy Fisher told Reuters. Democrats in Congress have demanded President Bush fire Tomlinson. "We're not going to schedule it for the remainder of the year, and at that point it (the nomination) expires," he said. His term expired in 2004, but he is able to remain in office until Congress adjourns sometime later this year. President Bush could bypass Congress and install Tomlinson to another term using a so-called recess appointment. A White House spokeswoman and State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the committee's plans.
http://www.political-news.org/breaking/28170/senate-panel-wont-confirm-b...

THE LION LIES DOWN WITH THE LAMB
[SOURCE: Tales from the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] Increasingly, incumbent telephone companies have realized that fighting municipal broadband networks is a losing issue for them and have decided to figure out how to make money out of it. I have said for awhile that corporations confronted by a serious challenge to their business model undergo their own version of the famous five stages of grief. Denial (“There's no way this can seriously challenge us!”), anger (“How dare they challenge us like this! To the regulators to squash this at once!”), bargaining (“O.K., instead of banning it, lets regulate it to create a 'level playing field'”), acceptance (“We are no longer going to lobby on this”), and profit seeking (“Hey, if we think about it for a minute, we can figure out how to make money on this!”) The pro-muni broadband provision in the otherwise pro-Telco Barton Bill and the revision of the anti-muni broadband provision in the Stevens Bill to a pro-muni broadband version indicates that Congress has no intention of squashing muni broadband at this point. But Feld offers four cautions: 1) Incumbents providing muni broadband means less chance for competition. 2) In dealing with incumbents, local governments need to take every effort to make sure they insulate themselves from this kind of “capture.” 3) Once the incumbent gets around to building its competing private system in the area, local governments will need to be alert for any sign that the incumbent is using its control of the muni network to try to shift customers to the private network. 4) Finally, it is important to recognize the difference between municipal networks of whatever flavor and non-commercial community-based networks.
http://www.wetmachine.com/totsf/item/579

FCC WANTS TO RECONSIDER INDECENCY RULING
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Larry Neumeister]
The Federal Communications Commission rushed to judgment in concluding that "NYPD Blue" and three other television programs violated rules governing the broadcast of indecent and profane material, an FCC lawyer said Tuesday. The lawyer, Eric D. Miller, asked an appeals court to delay hearing a challenge to the FCC's findings for two months so its board can hear the opinions of the owners of the programs and reconsider its rulings, which carried no fines. In court papers, the FCC said it skipped its usual process of soliciting responses from the broadcasters because it believed the orders responded to requests from broadcasters for guidance on what violates the FCC's new indecency and profanity rules. The FCC said it acted faster than usual and did not propose fines for any of the programs, concluding only that the programs "apparently" violated the statutory and regulatory prohibitions on indecency and profanity. Lawyers for several broadcasting companies told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals they ultimately want to challenge the rules, which they say have spoiled their First Amendment rights, exposing them to hefty fines for accidental broadcasts of isolated and fleeting expletives.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/1401AP_FCC_TV_Indecency.html?source=rss

STUDY: PRODUCT PLACEMENT TO SURGE 25% IN '06
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Marc Graser and T.L. Stanley]
The global product-placement market will soar 25% to $7.5 billion this year and hit $14 billion by 2010, a study finds. But the explosion is causing product-placement agencies to rethink their business models and leading some to wonder how effective placement can be amid all the noise. "Product placement has evolved from a novel marketing tactic to a key marketing strategy on a global scale, as brand marketers seek more effective methods to make important emotional connections with consumers," said Patrick Quinn, president of PQ Media, which conducted the study. "Fear of ad-skipping technology, doubts about traditional advertising's effectiveness and declining government media subsidies have fueled a dramatic increase in the value of seamless brand integration."
http://adage.com/article?article_id=111526