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WIRELESS CARRIERS SEEK FASTER REPAIRS
[SOURCE: Mobile Tech Today]
A year after Hurricane Katrina, a squabble has broken out among the utilities on the front lines of disasters over whether cellphone service should get priority for repairs. Power and landline phone companies are resisting wireless carriers' requests for preferred treatment. About 1,000 of the 7,000 cell sites along the Gulf Coast were knocked out by Katrina, and cellphones were virtually useless in New Orleans. Noting that wireless service has become a lifeline during disasters, CTIA-The Wireless Association told the Federal Communications Commission this month that most outages stemmed from cell towers that lost power or landline phone service. Phone-company wires carry cell calls once they reach the local tower. Electric and phone companies worked to restore wireless service as quickly as possible after the storm, says CTIA's Christopher Guttman-McCabe. But, he says, cellular networks could be revived more quickly if placed on a priority list that includes hospitals, public safety agencies and water plants.
http://www.mobile-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=45713

ANTI-DRUG ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN A FAILURE, GAO REPORT SAYS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Donna Leinwand]
A $1.4 billion anti-drug advertising campaign conducted by the U.S. government since 1998 does not appear to have helped reduce drug use and instead might have convinced some youths that taking illegal drugs is normal, the Government Accountability Office says. The media campaign, which purchases TV time, radio spots and newspaper ads, changed its advertising theme last year. The old approach said parents and informed teens were “the Anti-Drug.” The latest version encourages teens to be “above the influence.” The report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, confirmed the results of a $43 million, government-funded study that found the campaign did not work. That evaluation, by Westat Inc. and the University of Pennsylvania, said parents and youths remembered the ads and their messages. But the study said exposure to the ads did not change kids' attitudes about drugs and that the reduction in drug use in recent years could be attributed more directly to a range of other factors, such as a decline in high school dropouts. The Westat study also said youths could interpret the ads to suggest that marijuana use is more common than it actually is. The GAO report, released Friday, urges Congress to stop the White House's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign unless drug czar John Walters can come up with a better strategy. President Bush's budget for 2007 asks Congress for $120 million for the campaign, a $20 million increase from this year. Walters' office disputed the study and noted that drug-use rates among youths have declined since 1998. A 2005 survey by the University of Michigan indicated that 30% of 10th-graders reported having used an illicit drug the previous year, down from 35% in 1998. The GAO report is “irrelevant to us,” says Tom Riley, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). “It's based on ads from 2½ years ago, and they were effective, too. Drug use has been going down dramatically. Cutting the program now would imperil (its) progress.”
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060829/a_drugcampaign29.art.htm

AFA PUTS OUT ALERT ON CBS' 9/11
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The American Family Association has sent out an action alert under the heading "CBS To Air Profanity-Laden Program" asking members to complain to the FCC and CBS affiliates and to "share this information with your Sunday School class." The program in question is the CBS documentary "9/11." CBS will air content warnings before and during the documentary's Sept. 10 airing. The show, which has aired twice before unedited, features firemen and other emergency workers swearing in the heat of one of the most cataclysmic events of our time. CBS has said it does not expect to have any problems with the FCC, pointing to the FCC's decision that the FCC found that the swearing in film "Saving Private Ryan" was not indecent in context.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6366305.html?display=Breaking...

TV ARCHIVES PREDICTED TO BOOST BROADCASTERS' REVENUES
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson]
Commercial broadcasters could make a third of their revenues by 2009 from the "long tail" of old programmes sitting unexploited on archive shelves, the BBC's director of new media has predicted. Ashley Highfield, who is in charge of the BBC's future media and technology division, said that broadcasters' back catalogues currently accounted for a negligible share of viewing, compared with the online success of books, music and films. By 2009, he predicted, the "long tail" could account for 25 per cent of television consumption and 33 per cent of the revenues of commercial broadcasters that allowed on-demand viewing of their programs.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/35720f58-36fb-11db-89d6-0000779e2340.html
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