August 6, 2008 (Olympic ads and coverage)
"We'll spend most of the Olympics cursing NBC for forcing us to watch the Olympics according to their schedule and style, not ours."
-- Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY AUGUST 6, 2008
(Sorry -- web problems on our end this morning.)
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
What About the Curve?
Going for Gold? McCain Makes $6 Million Olympic Ad Buy
In Obama Campaign, Big Donors Are a Major Force
DIGITAL CONTENT
NBC Blows Olympics Coverage
Broadcast Usurps Newspapers, Online Poised To Dominate
E-Mail Hacking Case Could Redefine Online Privacy
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Net access in the wake of FCC vs. Comcast
Chairman Martin: Let's Be Realistic About The Potential Of Free Wireless Broadband
Questioning the coming Internet clog
Task Force to Debate Whether A Gigabit Per Second is Too Fast for Minnesota
WiFi Nearing Takeoff
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
It's official tax certificate bill introduced
Tate's unease with XM-Sirius Satellite Radio Merger
QUICKLY -- TV Finds Married Sex Boring, PTC Says; New Fears Arise on Olympic Press Freedoms; CPB Adds Ten Radio Stations to its Community Service Grant Program; NCAA Coaches Urge Ban on Beer Ads
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
WHAT ABOUT THE CURVE?
[SOURCE: TalkingPointsMemo, AUTHOR: Josh Marshall]
[Commentary] Out of general fondness, the Washington press corps (which is not just a phrase but a definable community of people) has for almost a decade graded John McCain on a curve, especially in the last eighteen months when he's slipped perceptibly. Now, in response to the bludgeoning and campaign of falsehoods his campaign has unleashed over the last ten days, a number of his longtime admirers in the punditocracy have written articles either claiming that they'd misjudged the man or lamenting his betrayal of his better self. So do they and the top editors who with them define the tone of coverage, keep grading McCain on the curve that has so aided him over the last year?
http://benton.org/node/15881
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GOING FOR GOLD? MCCAIN MAKES $6 MILLION OLYMPIC BUY
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Ira Teinowitz]
Not to be outdone by Sen Barack Obama's $5 million advertising buy during NBC Universal's Olympics coverage, Sen John McCain's presidential campaign announced Tuesday a last-minute $6 million ad buy for the games that start on Friday. The McCain campaign's purchase includes network and cable spots. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group at TNS Media Intelligence. "For the same reason the idea was good for Barack, it is good for McCain: It's high traffic for eyeballs in a normally low-traffic time of year." Tracey speculated that the McCain campaign, which is accepting federal funds for the general campaign, made the last-minute buy to use up money it raised for the primary season. That money can't be spent after the Republican National Convention, which is being held the first week in September.
http://benton.org/node/15880
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IN OBAMA CAMPAIGN, BIG DONORS ARE A MAJOR FORCE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Luo, Christopher Drew]
In an effort to cast himself as independent of the influence of money on politics, Senator Barack Obama often highlights the campaign contributions of $200 or less that have amounted to fully half of the $340 million he has collected so far. But records show that one-third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more: a total of $112 million, more than Senator John McCain, Sen Obama's Republican rival, or Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries, raised in contributions of that size. Donations in June, the latest month for which Sen Obama has disclosed his donors to the Federal Election Commission, illustrate the double-barreled nature of the campaign's fund-raising. Mr. Obama brought in nearly $31 million in contributions of less than $200, his best month for small donations. But he also collected more than $12 million in contributions of $1,000 or more, the most since the first half of 2007. The biggest fund-raisers include people like Julius Genachowski, a former senior official at the Federal Communications Commission and a technology executive who is new to political fund-raising. Many fund-raisers sit on the campaign's array of policy working groups, getting a chance to weigh in on policy positions and speeches. Genachowski, a Harvard Law School classmate of Sen Obama, leads the technology working group.
http://benton.org/node/15886
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DIGITAL CONTENT
NBC BLOWS OLYMPIC COVERAGE
[SOURCE: Silicon Valley Insider, AUTHOR: Henry Blodget]
NBC, through its unprecedented Internet coverage, will be broadcasting the Olympics on a larger scale than ever before. Even so, Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget says, the company is still producing the content "for themselves and their legacy TV business, not you." How so? If NBC really cared about providing the best coverage of the Games, Blodget says it would make NBCOlympics.com a comprehensive on-demand directory of all events, searchable by day or event. For those events that the network isn't covering, NBC could link to a partner company's video, giving partners access to their video in return. "As it is," Blodget says, "we suspect we'll spend most of the Olympics cursing NBC for forcing us to watch the Olympics according to their schedule and style, not ours."
http://benton.org/node/15879
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BROADCASTER USURPS NEWSPAPERS, ONLINE POISED TO DOMINATE
[SOURCE: MediaDailyNews, AUTHOR: Joe Mandese]
Despite broader issues in the overall economy, the media industry continues to be among the fastest growing industrial sectors in America. Long-term secular shifts, however, are altering the role of some major media and forms of advertising and marketing services. Long the dominant U.S. advertising platform, has fallen behind broadcast TV this year, which itself is poised to be usurped by the Internet within the next three years. This year, Veronis Suhler Stevenson estimates that traditional media operators will account for nearly half (49.5%) of the $86 billion Americans will spend advertising and accessing content online. That share is up from less than a third (29.1%) in 2002, and is projected to take a dominant position by 2011 when pure-play Internet operators will account for less than half of all Internet revenues. The migration of media operators mirrors that of major advertisers who have been slashing traditional media budgets and shifting a greater share of their total marketing spending online, and into alternative forms of marketing.
http://benton.org/node/15878
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E-MAIL HACKING CASE COULD REDEFINE ONLINE PRIVACY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
A federal appeals court in California is reviewing a lower court's definition of "interception" in the digital age, in a case that some legal experts say could weaken consumer privacy protections online. The case, Bunnell v. Motion Picture Association of America, involves a hacker who in 2005 broke into a file-sharing company's server and obtained copies of company e-mails as they were being transmitted. He then e-mailed 34 pages of the documents to an MPAA executive, who paid the hacker $15,000 for the job. The issue boils down to the judicial definition of an intercept in the electronic age, in which packets of data move from server to server, alighting for milliseconds before speeding onward. The ruling applies only to the 9th District, which includes California and other Western states, but could influence other courts around the country. In August 2007, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in the Central District of California, ruled that the alleged hacker, Rob Anderson, had not intercepted the e-mails in violation of the 1968 Wiretap Act because they were technically in storage, if only for a few instants, instead of in transmission.
http://benton.org/node/15884
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
NET ACCESS IN THE WAKE OF FCC VS. COMCAST
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Ephraim Schwartz]
[Commentary] In the wake of the Federal Communications Commission's decision that Comcast interfered with "Internet users' right to access the lawful Internet content and to use the applications of their choice," network providers such as Comcast will likely turn to one of two models to manage their networks: metered access or QoS (quality of service). Metered access would give network providers the capability to charge more if you use more. The QoS model would create service tiers from which customers could choose.
http://benton.org/node/15877
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CHAIRMAN MARTIN: LET'S BE REALISTIC ABOUT THE POTENTIAL OF FREE WIRELESS BROADBAND
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] How good is Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin's plan to auction off spectrum that would have to be used to provide free broadband access? 1) Free and ad-supported broadband has not yet proven to be a self-sustaining model. 2) Although it would provide access, potential users still need the right equipment (computer, modem, network card) and expertise to actually use the service. 3) In a world where 1 Gbps broadband may be the norm, how attractive will "broadband" at 768Kbps be in a decade? 4) The goal must be 100% coverage -- not 90-95% of the country. 5) The proposed ban on pornography over the network a) leads to the same problems the FCC always has with indecency enforcement and b) takes away a "killer app" that draws many people to use the Internet in the first place.
http://benton.org/node/15876
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QUESTIONING THE COMING INTERNET CLOG
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Ed Gubbins]
One of the nation's top authorities on global Internet traffic growth says his latest data show no reason to fear network capacity shortages, as traffic growth may even be slightly decelerating. Updating data collected from Internet exchanges around the world, professor Andrew Odlyzko, director of the University of Minnesota's Interdisciplinary Digital Technology Center, reported late last week that Internet traffic rates in the US and globally are continuing to grow at a rate between 50% and 60% (largely unchanged from recent years) -- rapid growth that nonetheless belies dire predictions of an escalation that would clog today's networks. Among the factors limiting Internet traffic growth, Odlyzko said, are the pace of broadband deployment, which he said is "not that fast" in some countries, including the US.
http://benton.org/node/15875
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TASK FORCE TO DEBATE WHETHER A GIGABIT PER SECOND IS TOO FAST FOR MINNESOTA
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
In April 2008, the Minnesota legislature passed a bill to create an Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force. The bill was signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty and, last month, he named 20 of the 26 task force members. One of the key priorities of the bill is to identify a level of broadband service and connection speeds that will be reasonably needed by the year 2015 in order for Minnesota to compete in the global marketplace of the future.
http://benton.org/node/15874
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WIFI NEARING TAKEOFF
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Sholnn Freeman]
Wireless Internet access is about to move out of coffee shops and airport lounges and into airplanes. After years of talking about what customers wanted and waiting for new technology, Delta Air Lines said it will begin offering broadband Internet service on domestic flights as early as October. Delta is trying to outmaneuver rival JetBlue, known for outfitting planes with satellite TV, and American Airlines, which is planning to launch Internet service later this year. Other airlines, including Continental, Southwest and Virgin America, are planning tests or have them underway. Yesterday's announcement makes Delta the first large U.S. airline to commit its main fleet of jets to a technology that lets passengers surf the Net while flying. The service will be available for a $9.95 flat fee on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on longer flights.
http://benton.org/node/15885
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
IT'S OFFICIAL -- TAX CERTIFICATE BILL INTRODUCED
[SOURCE: Radio Business Report, AUTHOR: ]
Sen Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and a bipartisan slate of co-sponsors have put a bill before Congress which would restore the late lamented minority tax certificate. The mechanism was killed in 1995 due to alleged abuses, but is still widely seen as one of the best tools for promoting socially-disadvantaged business (SDB) broadcast ownership in the government's arsenal. The Menendez bill would provide for $350M over six years in tax credits that would go to companies selling communications properties to socially-disadvantaged businesses. Co-sponsors include Sens Ken Salazar (D-CO), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
http://benton.org/node/15883
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TATE'S UNEASE
[SOURCE: SNL, AUTHOR: Tim Doyle]
Federal Communications Commission member Deborah Taylor Tate, the swing vote for the FCC's approval of the Sirius Satellite Radio-XM Satellite Radio merger, issued a nearly 3,000 word justification of her vote on the deal two days later than other Commissioners. She said that the decision to back the merger was one of the most difficult in her two years on the FCC. While she justified the affirmative vote with the conditions set by the FCC, Commissioner Tate revealed her preference throughout the process for more stringent merger terms. Commissioner Tate said she would not even consider the deal until the companies agreed to pay $19.6 million in a consent decree to terminate the agency's inquiries into certain satellite radios with FM transmitters and the compliance of some terrestrial repeaters. Commissioner Tate, who met with state attorneys general and broadcasters in early July about their opposition to the deal, sought for the combined XM-Sirius to divest some of its 25 MHz of spectrum but came to the conclusion it would disrupt service to millions of satellite listeners. She found the companies' agreement to set aside 8% of their spectrum, or 24 channels, for minority and public interest programming to be an acceptable compromise. The former chairwoman of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority also said XM and Sirius agreed to not air local programming and advertisements, a vital part of satellite radio's business model. But that is not all. She expressed fears about the company's three-year price cap. As a Nashville (TN) native, she sought assurances the merged company would not reduce royalty payments to artists "through gamesmanship of these new programming tiers."
http://benton.org/node/15873
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QUICKLY -- TV Finds Married Sex Boring, PTC Says; New Fears Arise on Olympic Press Freedoms; CPB Adds Ten Radio Stations to its Community Service Grant Program
TV FINDS MARRIED SEX BORING, PTC SAYS
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Ira Teinowitz]
The Parents Television Council is accusing broadcast networks of promoting extra-marital sex while portraying sex between married couples as boring, burdensome or non-existent. PTC research found that during one prime-time period last fall, verbal references to non-marital sex outnumbered references to sex in marriage by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. Scenes implying sex between unmarried partners outnumbered similar scenes between married couples 4 to 1.
http://benton.org/node/15872
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NEW FEARS ARISE ON OLYMPIC PRESS FREEDOMS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Dikki Sinn]
The beating of two Japanese journalists by police in western China drew an official apology Tuesday, but Beijing also set new obstacles for news outlets wanting to report from Tiananmen Square in the latest sign of trouble for reporters covering the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee, which last week only partially succeeded in getting China to unblock some Internet sites after journalists raised a furor, said it would look into the new rules that require reporters to make appointments to do reports at Tiananmen.
http://benton.org/node/15871
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CPB ADDS TEN RADIO STATIONS TO ITS COMMUNITY SERVICE GRANT PROGRAM
[SOURCE: Corporation for Public Broadcasting]
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced the addition of ten stations which qualify for funding in FY 2009 through the Community Service Grant program (CSG). Earlier this year, CPB released applications to the radio CSG program for FY 2009. Contingent on Congressional approval of CPB's budget, it is expected these stations will collectively receive approximately $685,731 in FY 2009. Stations can use these grants for operational expenses, the production or acquisition of local and national programming or to strengthen community outreach activities.
http://benton.org/node/15870
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NCAA COACHES URGE BAN ON BEER ADS
[SOURCE: Advertising Age, AUTHOR: Ira Teinowitz]
More than 100 college coaches are making a new appeal to NCAA President Myles Brand to eliminate alcohol advertising in telecasts of college sports as the NCAA's Division 1 executive committee readies to meet Aug. 7 in Indianapolis. In a letter dated August 4, the coaches said they are "troubled by the prominence of alcohol advertising in televised college sports" and offer a new proposal to phase out the alcohol ads over three years. Currently the NCAA limits alcohol advertising to products that don't exceed alcohol levels of 6%, meaning beer and some wine coolers. It also allows only one minute per hour of any telecast to be devoted to alcohol ads.
http://benton.org/node/15882
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