Jan 25, 2009 (Weekend Update)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for SUNDAY JANUARY 25, 2009
Crafting an Effective Broadband Stimulus Package (http://www.benton.org/node/21140) Monday at noon.
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Obama vs. the Media
The Generals' Second Careers
THE ECONOMY
President Obama Again Highlights Broadband in Recovery/Reinvestment Plan
Highlights of Senate American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan
Group pushes FCC for renewed opportunities for small businesses, minorities
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Internet users worldwide surpass 1 billion in December
Irish Government to Spend $362 Million on Broadband Infrastructure
Why Republicans Should Love The Rural Fiber Fund
America's Most Wired Cities
DIGITAL TV
Compromise on DTV Delay Bill in Senate
Barton Introduces Bill To Unclog Coupons
Saving the digital transition
BROADCASTING/CABLE
Cable Operators Ask Copps to Send Complaints Back to Judge
Independent TV Programmers Find Ways to Stay Alive In Economic Downturn
TV Stations' Mantra for 2009: Ubiquity
POLICYMAKERS
The most powerful FCC chairman ever
Passing the Torch to the New FCC
Google ready to pursue its agenda in Washington
The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The US Media
TELECOM
Study: FCC Should Reset Big Phone Company Rates for Competitors
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
OBAMA VS THE MEDIA
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: John McQuaid]
Barack Obama deserves kudos for his newly-announced policies on the Freedom of Information Act and other transparency-related issues. Of course, it will take some time for presidential directives to work their way down through the vast government bureaucracy, where they will encounter resistance due to habit, laziness, and limited resources. But Obama has clearly broken with the past -- in the only way that makes any sense in the information age. The question now is: what are we, the people, going to do with all this information our government is making available? But it's interesting that, at least on the surface, Obama's approach to the establishment media -- the TV and radio networks, wire services, newspapers and magazines that still cover the White House -- doesn't differ all that much from George W. Bush's. As in, their correspondents are not getting much access. They are tightly managed. The White House press office doesn't say very much, and what it says isn't very revealing. What's more, it's signaling that past press rituals will not necessarily be observed.
http://benton.org/node/21160
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THE GENERALS' SECOND CAREERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Clark Hoyt]
[Commentary] Earlier this month, the Defense Department's inspector general concluded that a Pentagon public relations program intended to win favorable coverage of the Bush administration's war on terror through retired officers working as military analysts on television did not violate Pentagon policies and regulations, and said investigators found no case in which an officer used information or contacts obtained through the program to get a competitive advantage for a contractor. The report was a highly flawed response to an important piece of journalism that his own network is taking into account as it rewrites ethics guidelines.
http://benton.org/node/21159
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THE ECONOMY
PRESIDENT OBAMA AGAIN HIGHLIGHTS BROADBAND IN RECOVERY/REINVESTMENT PLAN
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: President Barack Obama]
In his first weekly address since being sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, President Barack Obama discusses how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will jump-start the economy. He again promised to rebuild and retrofit America to meet the demands of the 21st century. "That means repairing and modernizing thousands of miles of America's roadways and providing new mass transit options for millions of Americans. It means protecting America by securing 90 major ports and creating a better communications network for local law enforcement and public safety officials in the event of an emergency. And it means expanding broadband access to millions of Americans, so business can compete on a level-playing field, wherever they're located."
http://benton.org/node/21158
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HIGHLIGHTS OF SENATE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT PLAN
[SOURCE: Senate Appropriations Committee, AUTHOR: Chairman Daniel Inouye]
The Senate Appropriations Committee late Friday released a list of highlights of its portion of an $825 billion economic stimulus package, including $140 billion for infrastructure and science programs, $125 billion for education and training initiatives and $51 billion for energy programs. About $5 billion would go toward jumpstarting efforts to computerize health records to cut costs and reduce medical errors. Some high-tech components: $9 billion for the National Telecommunications and Information
Administration's (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program to improve access to broadband, $40 billion for Energy Department clean energy programs, $6 billion for federal building energy efficiency; green technology, $14 billion for National Science Foundation research and grants, $1.5 billion for NASA, including $500 million for Earth science, $16 billion for school upgrades, including energy and technology.
http://benton.org/node/21157
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GROUP PUSHES FCC FOR RENEWED OPPORTUNITIES FOR SMALL BUSINESSES, MINORITIES
[SOURCE: RCR Wireless News, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Silva]
An ambitious campaign has begun to press the new Obama administration and Congress to embrace policies promoting diversity in telecom and media sectors. The effort is geared in part to foster improved opportunities for minorities and women in the wireless space by overturning the Federal Communications Commission's small business bidder rules, which are being litigated in a Philadelphia federal appeals court. "We wasted eight years," said David Honig, executive director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, at a legislative briefing on Capitol Hill. "We are behind where we were in 2000 in so many ways." MMTC, Council Tree Communications Inc. and Bethel Native Corp. are challenging FCC small business, or designated entity, bidder guidelines that the Commission — under former Chairman Kevin Martin — approved before the advanced wireless services-1 auction in 2006. The rules were also in effect during last year's 700 MHz auction.
http://benton.org/node/21142
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
INTERNET USERS WORLDWIDE SURPASS 1 BILLION IN DECEMBER
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Dawn Kawamoto]
Global Internet usage reached over 1 billion unique visitors in the month of December, with 41.3 percent coming from the Asia-Pacific region, according to a report released Friday by comScore. The study looked at Internet users over the age of 15, who accessed the net from their home or work computers in the month of December. Europe grabbed the next largest slice, with 28 percent of the global Internet audience, followed by the U.S. with an 18.4 percent slice. But Latin America, while holding a much smaller piece of 7.4 percent of the global Internet audience, is the one to watch, noted Jamie Gavin, a comScore senior analyst. "The U.S. is slowing down in its growth and momentum, but Latin America, with social networking and the mobile Internet, is expected to gain momentum over the next few years," Gavin said.
http://benton.org/node/21147
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IRISH GOVERNMENT TO SPEND $362 MILLION ON BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
The government of Ireland on Thursday announced a "National Broadband Scheme" to deliver broadband throughout the island nation, investing €223 million (U.S. $362 million) on high-speed Internet infrastructure. Ireland currently has over 1.2 million subscribers to broadband, according to the government of Ireland, which provides a detailed map of broadband availability by location, by company and by speed. The National Broadband Scheme will provide broadband to the remaining 10% of Ireland's population — or approximately 33% of the area of the country. Under the plan, Ireland aims to have 100% coverage by September 2010, with half of the area under the scheme will be covered by the end of 2009.
http://benton.org/node/21146
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WHY REPUBLICANS SHOULD LOVE THE RURAL FIBER FUND
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] The Rural Fiber Fund is precisely the kind of broadband stimulus Republicans should be able to behind. Why? Because it aligns with many facets of their core ideals. 1) It's a small government initiative, 2) It's market-driven, 3) It's community-centric, 4) It maximizes government dollars, 5) It will allow America to compete in the global economy, and 6) It secures the future of small town America.
http://benton.org/node/21145
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AMERICA'S MOST WIRED CITIES
[SOURCE: Forbes.com, AUTHOR: Elizabeth Woyke]
Since 2007, Forbes has measured cities' wired quotient by computing the percentage of Internet users with high-speed connections and the number of companies providing high-speed Internet. By this measure, Seattle is the country's most wired city in the US followed by Atlanta and Washington (DC). Rounding out the top five wired cities are Orlando and Boston. As the location of Walt Disney World, the destination of millions of tourists a year, Orlando is packed with broadband providers and wi-fi access points. Boston's strengths include a plethora of universities and urbane population that help keep its broadband and wi-fi usage high. The surprise of the list is Minneapolis, which improved its standing from No. 11 to No. 7, beating New York and Portland (OR) among others. Minneapolis' secret? A particularly broad range of service providers, including a number of neighborhoods with 20 different access options for high-speed Internet. North Carolina suffered the biggest drop, with Raleigh declining to No. 15 from No. 3 and Charlotte dropping to No. 20 from No. 7.
http://benton.org/node/21144
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DIGITAL TV
COMPROMISE ON DTV DELAY BILL IN SENATE
[SOURCE: US Senate Commerce Committee, AUTHOR: Chairman Jay Rockefeller, Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison]
On Friday evening, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) announced a bipartisan compromise to the DTV Delay Act introduced last week. The amended DTV Delay Act will retain the extension of the digital transition date to June 12, 2009. Additionally, the agreement extends the Federal Communication Commission's auction authority to pay for the costs of the delay, reaffirms a broadcasters' right to make the transition before June 12, permits the FCC to award vacant spectrum space to public safety officials, and fixes the converter box coupon program. Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the Commerce Committee, identified four key provisions of the bill: 1) In order to better educate consumers about the transition, and to provide consumers with ample opportunity to utilize the converter-box coupon program, the digital transition will shift from February 17, 2009 to June 12, 2009. 2) Over-the-air broadcast television stations may voluntarily switch from analog to digital service before June 12, 2009. Stations that are fully prepared for the switch can make the transition early through a FCC process. In addition to the several markets that already have made the transition, many additional markets are expected to be prepared to make the transition prior to June 12, 2009 - this bill will permit these stations to transition early and bring consumers the advantages of digital service as quickly as possible. 3) In the event a broadcast station switches early to digital service, public safety services may start using the vacated spectrum. 4) Consumers with expired coupons may apply for new replacement coupons. This provides relief to consumers who, because of natural disasters, retail or mail issues, were unable to redeem their coupons.
http://benton.org/node/21156
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BARTON INTRODUCES BILL TO UNCLOG COUPONS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Senate compromise or no, Rep Joe Barton (R-TX) is rallying House Commerce Committee Republicans to offer their own solutions for the digital television transition. He introduced a bill (HR 661) that would unclog the processing and delivery of DTV-to-analog converter box coupons without changing the DTV date. The bill would provide $250 million more for the converter box program, which is what the National Telecommunications & Information Administration has said it would need to immediately resume sending the coupons. The Republican Reps think the DTV transition date should not move, saying it would be confusing, continue to tie up first responder spectrum, and "not move a single consumer off of the waiting list for analog-to digital converter box coupons." Rep Barton says that only 200,000 households will lose all TV service if the transition is not delayed, "such a small number of households with the potential to lose service is not reason enough to delay the transition," the bill asserts.
http://benton.org/node/21155
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SAVING THE DIGITAL TRANSITION
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Gregory Rosston, Scott Wallsten]
[Commentary] The problem with the digital television transition is the digital-to-analog converter box program. It is ineffective. The problem is that it is ineffective. In recent research, one of us found that the coupons increased the price of the boxes by almost the amount of the coupon. The coupon program therefore primarily subsidizes retailers, not consumers. The Federal Communications Commission should require stations to continue their analog transmissions for two weeks in order to continuously broadcast a simple full-screen message that reads and also says aloud, "Your television needs a digital converter box. For more information..." This plan would not be free. Not all analog signals have to shut down to accommodate other uses, and those station owners could be subsidized a small amount to maintain the broadcast. A larger expense would involve compensating the wireless providers who paid $19 billion for this spectrum to wait for two weeks before beginning their transmissions. A two-week delay probably would not be a big burden on the providers as they have yet to deploy systems fully and have not sold any relevant devices to consumers. Had the Commission and Congress better thought through the problems earlier, they could have mandated such broadcasts for at least one week prior to the analog shutdown. They could also have had monthly test markets like Wilmington, N.C. We would then have had at least 10 fully functioning digital markets and would have learned many more lessons about the transition. (Rosston is the deputy director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Public Policy program at Stanford University and served as the deputy chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission from 1994 to 1997. Wallsten is vice president for research and a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute.)
http://benton.org/node/21154
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BROADCASTING/CABLE
CABLE OPERATORS ASK COPPS TO SEND COMPLAINTS BACK TO JUDGE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Cable operators targeted in a half-dozen program access complaints have asked acting Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps to return the complaints to an administrative law judge for hearings on the merits, and to call off a deadline, set by the Media Bureau, that would require them to make sizable filings by next week.
http://benton.org/node/21150
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INDEPENDENT TV PROGRAMMERS FIND WAYS TO STAY ALIVE IN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Haugsted]
The economic downturn has hit every media-industry giant, with layoffs, write-downs and anemic stock prices all testifying to the barren reality before them. But another group of TV companies say the storm has hit them just as hard — if not harder. In addition to the economic downturn, so-called indies claim several reasons for the current stonewalling: Big media companies still favor programming they own and there's a lack of bandwidth for standard-definition programming. Perhaps more than anything, distributors are focused more than ever on newer products, including telephone and Internet services, rather than video.
http://benton.org/node/21149
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TV STATIONS' MANTRA FOR 2009: UBIQUITY
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
[Commentary] The word for 2009 is "ubiquity." There was a time when broadcasting and ubiquity were, in the world of mass media, synonymous. But those were the days before the Web and cell phones and other hand-held gizmos had emerged as honest-to-goodness TV outlets. Now that they have, TV stations can't be said to be everywhere. They may offer news and weather clips on their Web sites and various mobile platforms, but they don't yet make their fundamental service -- the 24-hour-a-day channel of news and entertainment that has defined them for the past 60 years -- available to those proliferating second and third screens. And I think they must if they intend to be major media players in the 21st century. The good news is that they are close to halfway there.
http://benton.org/node/21148
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POLICYMAKERS
THE MOST POWERFUL FCC CHAIRMAN EVER
[SOURCE: RCR Wireless News, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Silva]
[Commentary] Julius Genachowski is unofficially the official pick of the president to chair the Federal Communications Commission. Perhaps no FCC chairman has ever had the kind of close, personal ties to a U.S. president as Genachowski has with Obama. What might such a close relationship between Obama and the head of an independent regulatory agency mean? For starters, one industry insider suggested well-heeled telecom companies could find it harder to get relief from the White House when they run into roadblocks at the FCC. He predicted lobbyists simply won't be able to get to first base if they attempt a work-around strategy. That could create problems for industry titans like Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., parent firms of the nation's two largest mobile-phone carriers, cable TV giants and media moguls if Genachowski pursues policies fostering open, omnipresent broadband throughout the land. But telecom policy does not exist in a vacuum. As such, the most pronounced and tangible changes at the FCC are apt to be manifested in the process of policymaking itself. Whether Genachowski can loosen lobbyists' grip on the FCC is uncertain. It hasn't been done before, seeing that influence-wielding is so ingrained in and endemic to the organic political culture of official Washington. Good luck.
http://benton.org/node/21153
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PASSING THE TORCH TO THE NEW FCC
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Michael Berg]
[Commentary] The laws and regulations governing TV will not be immune to sweeping overhaul under the new Obama Administration. In fact, change is already underway at the Federal Communications Commission and in Congress, the two main regulators of television and related industries, in the form of new leadership. The change in policy will play out over the next four or more years, issue by issue. Some will be new Obama initiatives. Others are unfinished business from the Kevin Martin (and earlier) FCCs. Berg highlights nine unfinished issues: 1) Postponing the Feb. 17, 2009 DTV transition date. 2) Digital translator and "nightlight" extended analog service FCC rulemakings/initiatives. 3) Must carry for TV digital multicast video signals. 4) LPTV transition to DTV. 5) Reform of the retransmission consent complaint process/enforcement. 6) Indecency regulation. 7) Regulatory status of AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS. 8) Product placements. 9) Media ownership issues.
http://benton.org/node/21152
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GOOGLE READY TO PURSUE ITS AGENDA IN WASHINGTON
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera and Jessica Guynn]
Another inauguration took place in Washington this week -- Google Inc. officially became a political power player. In October, Google was only hours from being sued by the Justice Department as a Web-search monopolist. Today, less than three years after it made its first Washington hire, the Internet giant is poised to capitalize on its backing of President Obama and pursue its agenda in the nation's capital. At the top of the company's policy priorities are two that consumer advocates largely champion. First, it wants to expand high-speed Internet access so people can use its Web services more often. It also is pushing for so-called network neutrality: prohibitions on telecommunications companies charging websites for faster delivery of their content. But Google's newfound political ties heighten concerns about its grip on the online advertising market. The company could play better defense against strong competitors trying to curb its influence.
http://benton.org/node/21151
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THE 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL LIBERALS IN THE US MEDIA
[SOURCE: Forbes.com, AUTHOR: Tunku Varadarajan, Elisabeth Eaves, Hana Alberts]
Listen for their voices during the Obama era. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, David Shipley, Josh Marshall, Rachael Maddow, Oprah Winfrey, Jon Stewart, Thomas Friedman, Fred Hiatt, Arianna Huffington, and Paul Krugman.
http://benton.org/node/21143
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TELECOM
STUDY: FCC SHOULD RESET BIG PHONE COMPANY RATES FOR COMPETITORS
[SOURCE: Dow Jones, AUTHOR: Fawn Johnson]
The National Regulatory Research Institute recommends that the Federal Communications Commission reset the rates that AT&T, Qwest, and Verizon charge to competitors for access to their physical infrastructure. AT&T and Qwest are making three times the earnings on so-called "special access" charges than they did under previous cost-pricing regulations that set an 11.25% return. The study was commissioned by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and conducted by the NRRI, a research group created by NARUC. NARUC didn't endorse the report, but its members will discuss the findings at its next meeting. Special access pricing, worth billions in the telecom sector, has been a sleeper issue over the last several years at the FCC.
http://benton.org/node/21141
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