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POLICYMAKERS
McDowell Shows Independence

BROADCASTING
Brave New Broadcasting World
McKinsey Study Predicts Continuing Decline in TV Selling Power
Remand Backers Say FCC Is Inconsistent

KIDS & MEDIA
Far Removed From the Multiplex

INTERNET
The Web Returns to Health
Google Deal Will Give News Corp. Huge Payoff

QUICKLY -- Petition to Amend Table of Frequency Allocations; Reduce
the cost of international Internet connectivity; Viruses, Spyware
Cost Users $7.8 Billion

POLICYMAKERS

MCDOWELL SHOWS INDEPENDENCE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Arshad Mohammed]
Lawyers who follow the Federal Communications Commission closely say
Commissioner Robert M. McDowell's early record has served notice that
he is an independent force at the FCC who is willing to defy the
chairman, Kevin J Martin. His actions have confounded the
conventional wisdom that once he became the third Republican on the
five-member commission, he would give Chairman Martin a reliable
majority at the agency, whose decisions can mean billions of dollars
to communications companies. FCC watchers also said Commissioner
McDowell may now emerge as the swing vote on the commission with
considerable influence as it weighs decisions such as whether AT&T,
the nation's largest phone company, should be allowed to swallow up
the third-ranking player, BellSouth, in a roughly $67 billion deal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/07/AR200608...
(requires registration)

BROADCASTING

BRAVE NEW BROADCASTING WORLD
[SOURCE: Fort Worth Weekly, AUTHOR: Kay Mills]
If you own an analog TV set and don't subscribe to cable or
satellite, your television will go dark on February 18, 2009. Years
in the making, this decision to go digital has far-reaching
ramifications, and not just for your ability to watch your daily
programs. Billions of dollars are at stake -- including an expected
government windfall of at least $10 billion, to come from auctioning
off the excess broadcast spectrum that will be freed by the move to
digital. A power struggle is also going on over who will control what
you see, with those who provide program content -- such as local
broadcasters and networks -- on one side and those who are the
conduits for the shows -- cable and telephone companies -- on the
other. Depending on who wins some epic regulatory battles, you may
have a rich new menu of programs to watch, including reports on
election campaigns and local high school football, and some media
giants may earn bundles of extra money. Everyone from local
newscasters to actors, writers, and producers of TV programs also has
an enormous stake in how this transition turns out. At least as
important is the parallel battle going on to determine whether the
public interest will be any better protected in this brave new
digital world than it is now -- that is, whether TV stations will
have to provide more coverage of local and federal elections, for
instance, as well as giving airtime to nonprofit groups.
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=4114

MCKINSEY STUDY PREDICTS CONTINUING DECLINE IN TV SELLING POWER
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Abbey Klaassen]
A study is about to give Madison Avenue a fresh pummeling: McKinsey &
Co. is telling a host of major marketers that by 2010, traditional TV
advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990. That
shocking statistic, delivered to the company's Fortune 100 clients in
a report on media proliferation, assumes a 15% decrease in buying
power driving by cost-per-thousand rate increases; a 23% decline in
ads viewed due to switching off; a 9% loss of attention to ads due to
increased multitasking and a 37% decrease in message impact due to saturation.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=110899

REMAND BACKERS SAY FCC IS INCONSISTENT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
CBS, Fox, and NBC told the New York State Court of Appeals Monday
that the FCC's desire for a speedy hearing of CBS' challenge to the
Janet Jackson fine in a Philadelphia federal appeals court doesn't
square with its desire to remand its decision in another indecency
case for more review. In a filing with the court, Fox, its TV
stations, CBS and NBC Universal said that "the FCC's recent request
for accelerated briefing in a separate indecency appeal [the Jackson
fine] exposes the FCC's pending motion to remand this case for what
it is: an effort at least to postpone, if not completely evade,
judicial review of its Omnibus Order."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6360287.html?display=Breaking...

KIDS & MEDIA

FAR REMOVED FROM THE MULTIPLEX
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: John Horn]
More on the LA Times Entertainment Poll. For decades, the movie
business has followed an inflexible formula: Produce features, show
them first in theaters, release them on video, then broadcast them on
television. But what a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll of teens
and young adults has found is that Hollywood's rickety model is
poised to be torn apart. With an array of devices competing to fill
their leisure time, today's teens and young adults show diminishing
interest in adhering to Hollywood tradition. They're willing to watch
brand-new movies at home rather than in theaters, are starting to use
their PCs as their entertainment gateway and are slowly turning to
their iPods and cellphones for video programming. They still crave to
be entertained, but not necessarily inside a movie theater. For
years, theater owners and movie studios have argued about the timing
of home video releases. The people running the multiplexes want to
keep the wait period between theatrical debut and the DVD's first day
on sale as long as possible. The studios have been pushing to shrink
that gap (it now averages about 20 weeks) to minimize the need for
two separate advertising campaigns. The poll found that many teens
and young adults would be happy if that window were eliminated
altogether. Asked where they'd prefer to watch a new movie if it were
simultaneously available at home and in theaters, about a third said
they would choose to stay at home, and another third said it depended
on the movie. Going to movies at theaters still has appeal,
particularly for younger teens, but among respondents ages 21 to 24,
56% said they wanted to see the new movie at home, and only 9% said
they would rather travel to a theater. Based on the box-office
popularity of many critically savaged films, it should come as no
surprise that teens and young adults care little about what reviewers
think. In deciding what to see, their friends' judgments are the ones
that matter. Those opinions are sometimes spread instantly, with
almost a quarter of teenagers and young adults sharing their opinions
during or right after the movie.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-et-pollmovies8aug08,1,...
(requires registration)

INTERNET

THE WEB RETURNS TO HEALTH
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Annys Shin]
Ninety-five million Americans -- about 80 percent of online adults --
have searched the Web for health information in the past year, and
the overwhelming majority have been disappointed. More than 70
percent of those searchers either did not find what they were looking
for or had a hard time knowing what to believe, according to market
research studies by Jupiter Research and Yankelovich Inc. That
frustration has attracted some famous deep pockets, including America
Online co-founder Steve Case, his former employer Time Warner Inc.,
the Carlyle Group and Allen & Co. Together, they have put more than
$100 million into building virtual destinations that offer consumers
something beyond disease encyclopedias. Some want to make it as easy
to choose a doctor as a restaurant. Others eventually hope to offer
"virtual assisted living" by monitoring medicines or pacemakers
remotely, so the elderly can stay in their homes longer. Harnessing
the Web to make health care more user-friendly has been a holy grail
for entrepreneurs since the earliest days of the dot-com boom. But
like many online content businesses, they failed because they could
not figure out how to make money.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/07/AR200608...
(requires registration)
** See Networking for Better Care: Health Care in the Information Age
http://www.benton.org/publibrary/health/home.html

GOOGLE DEAL WILL GIVE NEWS CORP HUGE PAYOFF
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
"In one fell swoop, we have paid for two-thirds of our Internet
acquisitions," Peter Chernin, News Corp's President, said yesterday
in reference to a deal with Google that promises to pay the News
Corporation a minimum of $900 million over three and half years.
Google has won a bidding war to provide search services and
advertising to MySpace.com, the social networking phenomenon, and
other Web sites owned by the News Corporation which paid $649 million
last year to buy the parent company of MySpace. It has now spent a
total of $1.3 billion to buy Internet companies that also include
IGN.com, a game site, and Scout, a series of local sports sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/08/technology/08google.html
(requires registration)

QUICKLY

PETITION TO AMEND TABLE FREQUENCY ALLOCATIONS
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
NTIA submitted a petition to the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) for rulemaking to amend the national table of frequency
allocations to provide an allocation status for U.S. Government
(Federal) earth stations communicating with non-federal satellites.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fccfilings/2006/satellite_080706.htm

REDUCE THE COST OF INTERNATIONAL INTERNET CONNECTIVITY
[SOURCE: Association for Progressive Communications]
In Argentina, Internet access averages 13 dollars a month and almost
a fifth of the population are online whereas in Sudan Internet access
costs 160 USD a month and only 9 people in a thousand are online.
Africa, the poorest continent in the world, has the highest costs for
Internet access. In the run-up to the first-ever meeting of the
Internet Governance Forum in Athens starting October 30, APC releases
a set of recommendations that encourage the IGF to tackle the
availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing
world and especially Africa as a matter of urgency.
http://rights.apc.org/documents/apc_igf_icc.pdf

VIRUSES, SPYWARE COST USERS $7.8 BILLION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
Consumers paid as much $7.8 billion over two years to repair or
replace computers that got infected with viruses and spyware, a
Consumer Reports survey found. That figure was down from a similar
survey a year ago. Still, it suggests that people are paying large
sums to cope with the flood of malicious viruses and other programs
that can slow computers or render them inoperable. (So, Peter, I
guess the Sox tix are on me tonight?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/07/AR200608...
(requires registration)
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Communications-related Headlines is a free online news summary
service provided by the Benton Foundation (www.benton.org). Posted
Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important
industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events.
While the summaries are factually accurate, their often informal tone
does not always represent the tone of the original articles.
Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang headlines( at )benton.org -- we
welcome your comments.
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