Sept 17, 2008 (DTV hearing re-cap)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2008

Two events of note today: 1) a House hearing on cable PEG channels and 2) the Senate hears testimony from nominees for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board. For these and other upcoming events see http://benton.org/calendar

DIGITAL TELEVISION
   DTV Transition Oversight Hearing
   Inouye: DTV transition could cost next administration
   GAO report on Implementation of the Converter Box Subsidy Program
   3,000 Viewer Calls After Milwaukee Soft DTV Test
   ACA OKs Digital Carriage with Public TV
   The DTV Transition Is Over. Let's Party!

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Inouye Calls for Immediate Passage of the Broadband Data Improvement Act
   Groups call for US national broadband policy

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Wiretap suits press on in the wake of FISA amendments
   Galveston Officials Restrict Media Access After Ike

ELECTIONS & MEDIA
   They've declared war on the media -- so it's time to fight back
   Attack Ads Prove GOP Needs 'Education' in Straight Talk
   E-mail to Obama: dishonest TV ad, wrong audience
   McCain invented BlackBerry

MEDIA OWNERSHIP
   Reporters From Paper Suing Chief of Tribune
   Financial Crisis Trickle-Down To Media, Consumers
   Young Broadcasting, Facing Delisting, Moves To NASDAQ

CONTENT
   TV product placement dips? Sorta
   Health Content in Entertainment Television

QUICKLY -- Skype: Wireless Networks Are Not Opening Up; Consumers Stick to One Medium at Home; Social networking is big driver on web; Cable's Diversity Efforts Still Don't Reach Upper Management Suite; Teens, Video Games and Civics

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DIGITAL TELEVISION

DTV TRANSITION OVERSIGHT HEARING
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a hearing Tuesday on the status of the digital television (DTV) transition which will take place in February 2009. Rep Ed Markey (D-MA) chaired the hearing will the goals of 1) extracting lessons from this month's field test of the transition in Wilmington, North Carolina; 2) assessing ongoing governmental efforts toward a successful transition, 3) examining consumer education initiatives and ways to improve them; and 4) exploring any other policy issues affecting the future of digital television. Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin told the Subcommittee that the FCC was working on ways to help out viewers of the approximately 15% of TV stations with digital-TV signals that will not reach as many viewers as their analog signals did. Meredith Attwell Baker, the acting head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said the NTIA sill does not have the inclination or authority to reissue digital-TV-to-analog converter-box-subsidy coupons to households that did not or could not redeem them before the 90-day expiration date. Baker also outlined the NTIA's proposal last week to ask Congress for the authority to move some more money into the administrative category to cover the additional coupons it will be able to issue given that one-half of the coupons are going unredeemed. The hearing turned into a fight over retransmission-consent negotiations. (More at the URL below)
http://benton.org/node/16974
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INOUYE: DTV TRANSITION COULD COST NEXT ADMINISTRATION
[SOURCE: Politico.com, AUTHOR: Daniel Libit]
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is sounding the alarm that the next president could be a victim of the current administration's handling of the digital TV transition. "I am troubled that a bipartisan and noncontroversial public policy goal, intended to help our emergency first responders better serve and protect the American people, may end up as an albatross around the neck of our next president," Chairman Inouye said. "I must say that if I was the person responsible for ensuring a successful transition for Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain, I would be deeply concerned," Chairman Inouye said.
http://benton.org/node/16973
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GAO REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONVERTOR BOX SUBSIDY PROGRAM
[SOURCE: United States Government Accountability Office, AUTHOR: Mark Goldstein]
In this testimony, which is principally based on a report being issued today, GAO examines 1) what consumer education efforts have been undertaken by private and federal stakeholders and 2) how effective NTIA has been in implementing the converter box subsidy program, and to what extent consumers are participating in the program. To address these issues, GAO analyzed data from NTIA and reviewed legal, agency, and industry documents. Also, GAO interviewed a variety of stakeholders involved with the DTV transition. GAO recommends that the Secretary of Commerce direct NTIA to develop a plan to manage coupon requests in the lead up to the transition. (GAO-08-1161T)
http://benton.org/node/16972
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3,000 VIEWER CALLS AFTER MILWAUKEE SOFT DTV TEST
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
According to the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, 23% of Milwaukee's television viewership is analog-only. On September 15, four stations in the market pulled the plug on their analog signal for one minute at 5:10 p.m., while others ran crawls or graphics at the same time with digital-TV-education information and a referral to a live, three-hour phone bank that was set up to answer viewer questions. The test generated 3,000 viewer calls in less than 3 hours. The 8 stations that did not pull the plug had "certain technical issues" that prevented them from doing so at this time.
http://benton.org/node/16971
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ACA OKs DIGITAL CARRIAGE WITH PUBLIC TV
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: ]
Members of the American Cable Association ratified a major digital carriage agreement with the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that will guarantee more than three million American households will view local public television stations' multicast programming after the February 2009 digital television transition. The agreement was ratified following the FCC's recent adoption of an order exempting small cable operators that are not affiliated with a major cable operator from being required to carry a high-definition version of local broadcast signals. The 10-year agreement applies to participating ACA members' HD cable systems and includes digital television carriage of public television stations after the DTV transition. Under the agreement, cable operators would carry the primary signal of the participating public television station on the lowest-priced tier, while multicast channels would be carried on the tier where other multicast channels are carried.
http://benton.org/node/16970
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THE DTV TRANSITION IS OVER. LET'S PARTY!
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Greg DePrez]
[Commentary] The digital TV transition is basically over. Finished. Done. What's left: taking advantage of it. Functionally, there are three distinct phases to the DTV transition. Phase 1: Full-power stations turn on digital channels. This is the key activity, and it's been going on for so long that some stations have nearly forgotten that they broadcast a digital signal. Phase 2: those stations turn off their analog channels. That is what Feb. 17 is about. Phase 3: LPTV stations and translators catch up, on their own schedules. Phase 1 has progressed enough to be useful. Phase 2 is the analog channel shutoff. Since this date is hard, binding and legal, it has become the centerpiece of the DTV transition messaging, and the government-industry-grassroots coalition effort to promote it has been remarkable. The mission for broadcasters now: embrace DTV as a signature product, available and ready to be "sold" now, and commit to getting your community watching your digital channels on every available platform this year. Here are six steps to success: 1) Be a "marketer" of digital TV. 2) Work together by market. 3) Simplify the timeline. 4) Do a linguistic housecleaning. 5) Start profiting from the digital transition. 6) Ask all your viewers for patience. (Greg DePrez is president of MediaTides, a media marketing firm focused on digital television extensions)
http://benton.org/node/16969
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

INOUYE CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE PASSAGE OF THE BROADBAND DATA IMPROVEMENT ACT
[SOURCE: US Senate Commerce Committee]
At a hearing titled "Why Broadband Matters," Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) said, "Broadband matters because broadband communications have become the great economic engine of our time. Broadband deployment drives opportunities for business, education, and healthcare. It provides widespread access to information that can change the way we communicate with one another and improve the quality of our lives. This is why our discussion today is not about pipes and providers. It is about people; our citizens stand to gain the most from universal broadband adoption." He called for passage of the Broadband Data Improvement Act (S. 1492), which is designed to enhance our understanding of broadband deployment and adoption in every state. Chairman Inouye said, "This is not about regulation or deregulation. This is about getting the facts, because from good information flows good policy. So I hope, in the remaining days of this Congress, that the members of this Committee can work together to advance this bill in the Senate. Together we can look back and say we understood that broadband matters and that we did something about it." The House has already approved legislation by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), which, like Inouye's bill, would expand the FCC's current ZIP code method. The new data obtained by Markey's proposal would be used to create a national, searchable map of broadband availability. The bill also provides $300 million for grants to help deploy broadband in underserved areas of the country.
http://benton.org/node/16968
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GROUPS CALL FOR US NATIONAL BROADBAND POLICY
[SOURCE: NetworkWorld, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
Congress must set goals for broadband rollout and speed, and increase financial incentives for broadband providers to expand and improve their networks, witnesses at a U.S. Senate hearing said Tuesday. The US trails behind several countries in both average broadband speed and broadband adoption, and the U.S. needs a national policy focused on increasing both those numbers, said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) labor union. Several witnesses offered support for the Broadband Data Improvement Act, a bill that would take several steps to improve data collection about broadband services across the U.S. "We don't even map out in our country where we stand on broadband," Cohen said. "Step one is we need to know where we stand." The full Senate hasn't voted on the act, which was introduced in May 2007. Rey Ramsey, chairman and CEO of One Economy, a nonprofit organization focused on bringing technology to low-income people, called on Congress to set broadband goals for the U.S. that don't exist in policy today. The government needs to also focus on broadband applications, such as telemedicine and distance learning, that will drive broadband adoption and private investment, he said. "We are falling behind," he said. "We're not doing enough in applications." Senators offered little pushback on the witnesses' calls for a national broadband policy. However, some conservatives, broadband providers and free-market think tanks have questioned broadband statistics showing the U.S. is behind several other industrialized nations in broadband adoption.
http://benton.org/node/16967
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

WIRETAP SUITS PRESS ON IN WAKE OF FISA AMENDMENTS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Julian Sanchez]
The class-action lawsuits against telecoms accused of unlawfully participating in NSA surveillance without a court order were back before a federal judge Friday, for the first time since Congress voted to offer retroactive amnesty to the complicit firms. Long stalled before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the consolidated suits against the telecoms were finally punted back to district judge Vaughn Walker last month, following passage of the FISA Amendments Act. The legislation requires that any civil action against a telecom be thrown out if the Attorney General certifies that the firm received a written directive authorizing their cooperation with the National Security Agency's secretive surveillance program. That would appear to put an end to the long legal battle, but as Friday's hearing before Walker made clear, attorneys for both sides have a few moves left to play. Attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation had hoped to immediately challenge the constitutionality of the immunity provision of the FISA Amendments Act. While it remains to be seen what approach EFF will take, some legal scholars have argued that retroactively voiding a vested legal claim runs afoul of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause, which bars the government from depriving people of property without just compensation.
http://benton.org/node/16966
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GALVESTON OFFICIALS RESTRICT MEDIA ACCESS AFTER IKE
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Joe Strupp]
The Galveston County (Texas) Daily News, which has seen delivery delays, Web site disruptions, and even the loss of its roof from Hurricane Ike, reports that city officials have now directed city employees not to speak to the press. In a story late Monday, the paper reports that Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas "ordered all city employees not to talk to news reporters. She did not say when that order would be lifted." Thomas and City Manager Steve LeBlanc, the paper added, would be the only city officials authorized to speak with reporters. "City spokeswoman Mary Jo Naschke vehemently denied the city was trying to clamp down on news coverage," the paper said.
http://benton.org/node/16951
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ELECTIONS & MEDIA

THEY'VE DECLARED WAR ON THE MEDIA -- SO IT'S TIME TO FIGHT BACK
[SOURCE: Philadelphia Daily News, AUTHOR: Will Bunch]
[Commentary] The next 49 days will be critical...for John McCain, Barack Obama, and for America, to be sure. But it's also going to be do-or-die for an integral part of what once made America special -- a free and independent news media that can make a difference in a functioning democracy. Because there is a war for the soul of this nation going right now, and we the media are involved -- not as some would like to think, as some kind of passive UN peacekeeping force -- but as a party that is in the acrid smoke of combat, under attack in a manner that's little different from the way that parts of Georgia were overrun by the Russian Army a few weeks ago. And frankly, American newsrooms face a situation that could be described in similar terms to that former Soviet Republic -- nearly defeated, and demoralized, with few if any allies that are willing to come to our aid. And despite the dire situation, most journalists are cruising along toward Nov. 4 as if it's business as usual, and that is what I personally find most alarming. That we're in a war -- and we're barely fighting back. here's the number 1 rule: From now through Nov. 4, let's not make fact-checking a secondary task, but our No. 1 duty -- the thing that belongs on Page One, not on A17.
http://benton.org/node/16965
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ATTACK ADS PROVE GOP NEEDS 'EDUCATION' IN STRAIGHT TALK
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Bob Garfield]
Two ads from the McCain camp and one from the Republican National Committee represent the worst in presidential politics: lies, distortions and Rovian distractions of the most despicable kind. Maybe these tactics will work; they surely did the candidates Bush no harm. But McCain, who has campaigned as rejecting politics as usual, invokes them at his own peril. For one thing, the video-juxtaposition war is one McCain-Palin will lose; they don't want a battle of flip-flops. More to the point, though, there are flip-flops on policy, and then there are flip-flops on principle. You will recall, in his acceptance speech, Sen. McCain told of his humiliation and self-loathing, when after years of heroic defiance against his Vietnamese jailers, he finally signed a phony, coerced confession. Isolation and torture had broken his resolve, and he was blameless. Now, it appears that nothing more is required to break him than presidential ambition. And this time, the confession is not coerced: "I'm John McCain, and I approve this message."
http://benton.org/node/16964
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E-MAIL TO OBAMA: DISHONEST TV AD, WRONG AUDIENCE
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jonah Goldberg]
[Commentary] A new ad from the Obama campaign charges that John McCain is a computer illiterate. Goldberg says that's dishonest. McCain has been one of the Senate's leading authorities on telecom and the Internet. In 2000, Forbes magazine called him the "Senate's savviest technologist." That same year, Slate's Jacob Weisberg gushed that McCain was the most "cybersavvy" of all the presidential candidates that year, a crop that included none other than Al Gore. Being chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Weisberg explained, "forced him to learn about the Internet early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos fascinate him." Weisberg, an Obama booster, now disingenuously mocks McCain as "flummoxed by that newfangled doodad, the personal computer." Goldberg defends McCain saying he can't use a computer because of injuries inflicted during his POW experience.
http://benton.org/node/16963
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MCCAIN INVENTED BLACKBERRY
[SOURCE: Politico.com, AUTHOR: Jonathan Martin]
Asked what work John McCain did as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate's top economic adviser wielded visual evidence: his BlackBerry. "He did this," Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters. "Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that's what he did." Although he doesn't e-mail, McCain told the New York Times in July that he does "use the Blackberry." Campaign aide Mark Salter added, "He uses a BlackBerry, just ours." Holtz-Eakin also pointed to McCain's service leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee, which "put him at the intersection of a number of economic interests, including the telecommunications industry." Similarly, McCain yesterday told scienceblogs.com: "Under my guiding hand, Congress developed a wireless spectrum policy that spurred the rapid rise of mobile phones and Wi-Fi technology that enables Americans to surf the web while sitting at a coffee shop, airport lounge, or public park." (Note: The Blackberry was invented in Canada.)
http://benton.org/node/16962
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP

REPORTERS FROM PAPER SUING CHIEF OF TRIBUNE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Richard Perez-Pena]
A group of current and former reporters at The Los Angeles Times sued the owner, Samuel Zell, on Tuesday, accusing him of recklessness in the takeover and management of the newspaper's parent, the Tribune Company. The unusual takeover turned Tribune's stock over to an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, so the employees technically became the owners. But those employees were given no say on the deal, no seats on the board and no ability to sell shares for years to come. "By orchestrating what was clearly an imprudent transaction," the lawsuit states, Mr. Zell and the former Tribune management "breached their fiduciary duties to the employee-owners." It adds that Mr. Zell and his aides have compounded that breach in the way they have run the company, and by using money from the employees' pension fund to pay for buyouts and severance. The complaint seeks unspecific monetary damages and the removal of Mr. Zell and other board members. The complaint was filed in Federal District Court in Los Angeles and seeks class-action status to represent employees across the company. The plaintiffs include some of the best-known Times writers of the last generation, including Dan Neil, a Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive writer; Jack Nelson, a former Washington bureau chief; and Henry Weinstein, a longtime legal affairs reporter. In addition to Mr. Zell, the suit named as defendants the company as well as current and former board members. It accused the former management of profiting from a deal that it knew would cripple the company.
http://benton.org/node/16976
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FINANCIAL CRISIS TRICKLE-DOWN TO MEDIA, CONSUMERS
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Diane Mermigas]
[Commentary] The historic restructuring of debt and financial players on Wall Street will continue to have an arresting impact on Main Street, as well as on media-related companies dependent on advertiser and consumer spending in a troubled economy. Players of all sizes and sectors are hunkering down for more pounding. The impact varies, from severe disruption of ad-dependent core revenues for companies such as CBS to debt repayment issues for Tribune and Univision. A growing number of small to-mid-size broadcasters­including Young Broadcasting, Gray Television and ION Media Networks­are wrestling with liquidity pressures, according to Standard & Poor's. Still others will have trouble meeting loan covenants in a weak economy. Many new media upstarts have no stock-market exit strategy, or once-regular cash infusions. Media, entertainment, telecommunications and tech industries are also wrestling with their own vulnerable and broken business models. Recessionary and digital-driven revenue shift will clip earnings or cause some to default. On other levels, the purge of financial, transportation, auto and other major industry players will have a dramatic impact on all media advertising. Widespread consolidation means fewer companies to spend ad dollars and invest capital in technology software and hardware. It also can mean unmanageable scale. There will be less money all-around to fund the intelligent risks and creativity needed for long-term growth. Survival and stabilization are short-order goals, although opportunities will eventually emerge from the chaos. Once things settle down, everything will depend on integrating and executing new business models that need to be crafted now. The transition from static to interactive advertising is no small task. All of these adverse factors collectively will serve one good end. Companies along the broad media, entertainment and Internet spectrum will be forced to find ways to generate new income from new interactive trappings, such as social networks. They will be forced to create real value instead of relying on a continuous flood of unqualified capital to pave the way to prosperity.
http://benton.org/node/16961
How Wall Street's Black Sunday Will Affect Ad Spending
http://benton.org/node/16959
Media Stocks Continue to Fall
http://benton.org/node/16958
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YOUNG BROADCASTING, FACING DELISTING, MOVES TO NASDAQ
[SOURCE: MediaDailyNews, AUTHOR: David Goetzl]
Young Broadcasting, whose stock price has plummeted to below 8 cents and has been threatened with delisting, said last week that it has shifted to another NASDAQ trading market that gives it more time to raise its share price above $1. A principal reason that Young's stock price has fallen so precipitously appears to be many investors' frustration with its inability to sell San Francisco station KRON, a MyNetworkTV affiliate. But the troubled credit markets seem to have hampered a potential divestiture. A KRON sale almost certainly would lead to an increased stock price, and Young may be banking on that instead of opting to go private.
http://benton.org/node/16956
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CONTENT

TV PRODUCT PLACEMENT DIPS
[SOURCE: Variety, AUTHOR: Mike Flaherty]
According to a report by Nielsen, product placement on primetime programming for the first six months of 2008 was down nearly 15%. But even taking into account that double-digit drop, January-June viewers still experienced 204,919 "brand occurrences." And that decrease represents a mathematical average between broadcast placements, which actually jumped 12% over those six months, and a 20% decline in onscreen cable shout-outs. The report largely attributes the over-the-air increases to just two scheduling tweaks: NBC's "The Biggest Loser," broadcast's second most product-populated skein, premiered its fifth season in January rather than in its usual fall perch, while Fox's "Hell's Kitchen," which bowed in June 2007, premiered this year in April, placing more of its episodes in the spring.
http://benton.org/node/16957
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HEALTH CONTENT IN ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION
[SOURCE: Kaiser Family Foundation, AUTHOR: Victoria Rideout]
Most viewers who tune in each night to television's top-rated sitcoms and dramas do so because they want to be entertained, but according to two new studies released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation, many of them are being educated about important health issues at the same time. In order to document how well viewers learn health information from entertainment television, the Foundation worked with writers at Grey's Anatomy to embed a health message in an episode, and then surveyed viewers on the topic before and after the episode aired. The study found that the audience's awareness of this information increased by 46 percentage points (from 15% to 61%), a four-fold increase among all viewers. Another study released today by the Foundation and the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center's Hollywood, Health & Society indicates that health content is prevalent on popular prime time television. An analysis of three seasons (2004-2006) of top-ten-rated prime time scripted shows reveals that six out of ten episodes (59%) had at least one health storyline, and that most of those storylines provided a strong (32%) or moderate (29%) level of educational content. The typical episode in the analysis averaged about one and one half health storylines, indicating that millions of television viewers are regularly exposed to health content.
http://benton.org/node/16955
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QUICKLY

SKYPE: WIRELESS NETWORKS ARE NOT OPENING UP
[SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Olga Kharif]
In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission dated Sept. 12, Chris Libertelli of Web-calling service Skype reported that he believes that U.S. wireless carriers have had a change of heart about opening up their networks to applications.
http://benton.org/node/16954
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CONSUMERS STICK TO ONE MEDIUM AT HOME
[SOURCE: MediaWeek, AUTHOR: Lucia Moses]
Reports of multitasking many be exaggerated. According to Mediamark Research & Intelligence data, more than half of people's time spent consuming media at home is often done exclusively with one medium.
http://benton.org/node/16953
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PORN PASSED OVER AS WEB USERS BECOME SOCIAL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Belinda Goldsmith]
Social networking sites are the hottest attraction on the Internet, dethroning pornography and highlighting a major change in how people communicate, according to Bill Tancer, a self-described "data geek."
http://benton.org/node/16952
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CABLE'S DIVERSITY EFFORTS STILL DON'T REACH UPPER MANAGEMENT SUITE
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: R Thomas Umstead]
With the biannual NAMIC diversity employment survey as a backdrop, several cable executives said the industry is improving its hiring of people of color, but still has a long way to go to fully reach its goals.
http://benton.org/node/16950
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TEENS, VIDEO GAMES AND CIVICS
[SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Amanda Lenhart]
The first national survey of its kind finds that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.
http://benton.org/node/16949
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