Feb 24, 2009 (Why Is the Media Lying About Digital TV?)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY FEBRUARY 24, 2009
JOURNALISM
Why Is the Media Lying About Digital TV?
It's Not Newspapers in Peril; It's Their Owners
Wanted: Online Payment Plan for Print
Sharpton, City Council Members Petition for FCC to Pull News Corp.'s Waiver
Economy Drives News Narrative
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Watchdog groups press Obama DOJ on Bush e-mails
The intensifying battle over Internet freedom
1,000 Points of Data
BROADBAND/INTERNET
Surprise: America is No. 1 in Broadband
Asia's High Fiber Diet
Stimulus Broadband Requirements Being Written for Locals
Dear USBBC: Let's Build a Bold National Broadband Strategy Together
Virginia Uses Self-Help Program for Rural Broadband
Rural Broadband: No Job Creation Machine
What the broadband stimulus package means to rural telcos
Telework ranks swell
Internet Penetration and Premium Entertainment Are Linked
Mobile Internet Necessity, Not Luxury
Half of all instruction will take place online within the next 10 years
It's the broadband, stupid
FCC Releases Revised Broadband Data Form
THE TRANSITION
Former Washington Governor Locke for Commerce?
Obama Names Science & Tech Policy Official
President Obama Announces More Key White House Staff
Leibowitz Is Said to Be Choice for Trade Commission
Antitrust Pick Varney Saw Google as Next Microsoft
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
Everyone Loves Google, Until It's Too Big
Peter Chernin to leave Murdoch's News Corp
Publisher speculates about Amazon/Google e-book "duopoly"
TELEVISION
Nielsen: Americans still love their TV, embracing DVRs
FCC Extends Comment Deadline For 2007 Video Competition Report
QUICKLY -- Facebook Averts FTC Privacy Complaint; Consumer groups tell FCC exclusive handset deals limit competition; Subscription rates increasing all over; Cyber Crooks Turning To Internet Telephony
JOURNALISM
WHY IS THE MEDIA LYING ABOUT DIGITAL TV?
[SOURCE: TVPredictions.com, AUTHOR: Phillip Swann]
[Commentary] After roughly 36 percent of local TV stations switched early to all-Digital TV signals last week, the FCC received more than 70,000 complaints in the first two days. 70,000 complaints in just two days. Based on these developments, you would think that the early DTV switch was a major disaster. Despite local stations' insistence on switching early to save money, it would appear that their viewers were not ready, as many people warned. But good luck in finding that story in many of your nation's top trade and consumer publications, particularly if they are owned by companies that also own local TV stations which desperately want the switch to occur now. There were several examples of newspapers owned by companies that own local TV stations printing digital TV stories that seemed more appropriate for a collection of short novellas. But it wasn't just the consumer press that seemed to go into the tank on this story. If you read the nation's leading TV trade publications, you would think the early switch went as smooth as silk. So, what's happening here? Why are so many publications seemingly so eager to portray the early Digital TV switch as a huge success? It's quite simple. In the case of newspapers with ownership connections to local TV stations, many are following orders. Their corporate parents have a vested interest in creating the perception that the switch is a success, so by God, their newspapers will toe the line or else. Don't kid yourselves, folks. Newsrooms do not make decisions based solely on journalistic reasons. And in the case of the trade publications, they have an historic closeness to the National Association of Broadcasters and other industry heavyweights who want the DTV switch to be portrayed as a success.
http://benton.org/node/22397
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IT'S NOT NEWSPAPERS IN PERIL; IT'S THEIR OWNERS
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Nat Ives]
For all the apocalyptic news about newspapers, there's a distinction worth making: Newspaper owners are far more endangered than the medium itself. Even as they take blow after blow from recession and digital media, newspapers themselves still earn decent profits. They do even better outside big cities, which tend to get all the attention. Not a lot of papers are operating at a loss," said John Morton, the veteran industry analyst. "There are roughly 1,400 daily newspapers. We only hear about the top markets. That leaves at least 1,300 papers out there." Publicly owned newspapers averaged an operating profit of 10.8% in the first three quarters of last year, Mr. Morton said. That's not the margin enjoyed by newspapers when they were monopolies, but it's not nothing either. The owners, on the other hand, are variously posting huge losses, at least on paper. Some owners even borrowed that money to double down on newspapers, which aren't engines of growth even when their balance sheets are healthy.
http://benton.org/node/22402
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WANTED: ONLINE PAYMENT PLAN FOR PRINT
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Michael Learmonth]
Every publication now must compete with every other around the globe, many of which are willing to offer their content for free. They also face competition from thousands of aggregators, who take journalists' content, monetize it for their own profit, and, in many cases, give little or nothing back to its originators. That's been true for years now, but the election is over, and we're still staring into an economic abyss that offers little hope that publications -- not to mention TV and radio -- will have time to manage decline while they figure out what's next. What to do? The media grandees weighing in had plenty of solutions (micropayments! Pay walls! ISP taxes! Nonprofit status!), but they can be distilled into two distinct camps: those who believe that consumers can be made to pay -- even a penny -- for content and those who don't.
http://benton.org/node/22401
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SHARPTON, CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS PETITION FOR FCC TO PULL NEWS CORP'S WAIVER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Rev. Al Sharpton and several New York city council members want the Federal Communications Commission to pull News Corp's waiver that allows it to own two TV stations-WNEW and WWOR-serving the New York market. Sharpton's National Action Network is collecting signatures on an online petition in an effort to get the FCC to review the waiver, arguing it gives the company too much control of the media market. News Corp. also owns the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal. The petition drive was prompted in part by a New York Post cartoon.
http://benton.org/node/22404
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ECONOMY DRIVES NEWS NARRATIVE
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
month into the Obama administration, the economic crisis appears to shifting from Job One to the worsening mega story of 2009. There were shifting elements in that crisis narrative last week. But the underlying message may be the frightening breadth and depth of the problem. From February 16-22, coverage of the growing financial turmoil accounted for 40% of the newshole as measured by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism—the fourth week in a row it has reached or exceeded 40%. That represents a modest drop from 47% the week of Feb. 9-15. But those numbers don't tell the whole story.
http://benton.org/node/22423
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
WATCHDOG GROUPS PRESS OBAMA DOJ ON BUSH E-MAILS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Julian Sanchez]
The National Security Archive and the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington were disappointed when, just a day after the inauguration, the government moved for dismissal of long-running litigation over millions of lost Bush-era e-mails. In a response brief filed Friday, the Archive blasted White House claims that recovery was under control as based on "untested scraps of evidence," and urged a federal court to compel archivists to request the intervention of the Attorney General under the Federal Records Act. The watchdog groups filed suit under the FRA after learning that problems with the White House e-mail journaling system had led to the loss of some 5 million messages between 2003 and 2005. The law makes the preservation of all such official communications mandatory. In January, the government argued that suit had been rendered moot thanks to the preservation of backup tapes that will permit the eventual restoration of almost all the lost data. Not good enough, say lawyers for the watchdog groups, because the restoration process is still ungoing, and the risk of the loss of records remains. The law, their brief argues, is clear about the required remedy: the White House and National Archives must call on the Attorney General to step in to ensure compliance with the statute. Moreover, they claim that the evidence provided to establish that the danger of deletion has passed is inadequate—and that the attempt to establish mootness at this late date amounts to little more than a bit of legal slight of hand, because it asks the court to preemptively resolve the very question that would be at issue in any decision on the merits of the case.
http://benton.org/node/22399
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THE INTENSIFYING BATTLE OVER INTERNET FREEDOM
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Joanne Leedom-Ackerman]
[Commentary] The Internet is both the vehicle and the battleground for freedom of expression around the world. The struggle between writers and governments over this free flow of information has escalated this past year and promises to intensify. Those supporting open frontiers for ideas and information need to be on high alert and take steps necessary to protect those silenced and to keep the Internet unencumbered. Last year became the first time that more Web journalists were jailed than those working in any other medium, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. China, Burma, Vietnam, Iran, Syria, and Zimbabwe have led the clampdown. They have arrested writers, blocked websites and Internet access, set strict rules on cyber cafes, and tracked writers' work. In response, some writers have used proxy search engines, encryption, and other methods to try to get around censorship and detection.
http://benton.org/node/22427
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1,000 POINTS OF DATA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Kenneth Duberstein]
[Commentary] The State of the Union address served this purpose for more than 200 years. But given today's challenges and the rapid pace of change, a yearly formal address is no longer sufficient to measure the true state of our Union. To recapture the spirit of the founders — and to fulfill President Obama's own promise to provide greater accountability in Washington — another tool is needed, one that enables all Americans to gauge whether we are making progress as a nation. What we need now is a Web-based system for measuring our changing society with key national indicators — in a free, public, easy-to-use form. Ideally, it would be run by the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences, which would ensure it has the best quality of information and is kept up to date. The system would enable us to offer in one place statistical information that we spend billions of dollars collecting but that is now underused and undervalued. Imagine everyone having at their fingertips answers to questions like: How many quality jobs are we adding to the American economy? How many more students are getting into college? How many more people are gaining access to affordable health insurance? Are we increasing economic growth along with savings and investment? Are we reducing our greenhouse gas emissions? Great steps forward in American history occur at moments when our deeply held values are reaffirmed in the face of changing realities. Such a moment is at hand. We need a shared frame of reference that will enable us to practice collective accountability. If Congress acts soon, by the time President Obama delivers his first formal State of the Union address next year, Americans will be able to continually assess the state of the Union for themselves.
http://benton.org/node/22428
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BROADBAND/INTERNET
SURPRISE: AMERICA IS NO 1 IN BROADBAND
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
According to the "Connectivity Scorecard," the US tops the 25 developed countries on economically productive use of communication technology by consumers, businesses and government. [My gosh this Obama guy is good -- he's solved the problem in, like, 30 days!] The biggest reason is that business in the United States has made extensive use of computers and the Internet and it has a technically skilled work force. Also, as dusty as your local motor vehicle office may seem, government use of communications technology is as good in the United States as anywhere in the world. After the United States, the ranking found that Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway rounded out the five most productive users of connectivity. Japan ranked 10, and Korea, 18. And while wired and wireless broadband networks used by consumers lagged other countries, the United States ranked No. 1 in the world for technology use and skills by consumers.
http://benton.org/node/22422
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ASIA'S HIGH FIBER DIET
[SOURCE: Light Reading, AUTHOR: Michael Hopkins]
Even in a soft economy, a look at the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure scene suggests that Asia's countries will continue to reach the most people with the fastest networks in the years to come. In December, Pyramid Research predicted that FTTB/FTTH operators would pass around 212 million homes by the end of 2013, which is only about 12 percent of all households globally. But Asia stands out because of how aggressively its countries are passing homes with fiber. South Korea's KT Corp. plans to cover 90 percent of its access lines with FTTH by next year. Meanwhile, Japanese regulator Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts, and Telecommunications plans to have 90 percent of all homes covered by fiber networks by the end of next year, too. Pyramid Research estimates that the Asia/Pacific region had more than 68 million homes passed by fiber infrastructure at the end of 2008. Nearly 25 million households throughout Asia/Pacific subscribe to a fiber-based service. So Asia/Pac countries represent about 78 percent of all residential FTTH connections across the planet. South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan have the highest proportion of households connected to fiber networks globally.
http://benton.org/node/22421
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STIMULUS BROADBAND REQUIREMENTS BEING WRITTEN FOR LOCALS
[SOURCE: Government Technology, AUTHOR: Andy Opsahl]
Stimulus broadband eligibility requirements in progress will decide how local governments, nonprofits and vendors get their shares of the $7.2 billion for local broadband stimulus detailed in President Barack Obama's signed stimulus bill. Local governments should participate in the public comment periods the two federal agencies will likely hold before inking their eligibility requirements formally, warned Craig Settles, a municipal broadband analyst. Given that vendors and nonprofits will compete for the dollars alongside governments, municipalities should at least demand requirements forcing vendors and nonprofits to collaborate with cities and counties on any deployments, Settles recommended. With no local government input, vendors and nonprofits could build networks that grow their own bottom lines, but don't serve the goals of the local governments. For example, a municipality might want the network to support job creation, health care, telemedicine and digital inclusion. Different forms of broadband serve different types of goals better than others. Local governments should also insist that the NTIA and RUS keep state bureaucrats and legislators out of the process, Settles cautioned.
http://benton.org/node/22420
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DEAR USBBC: LET'S BUILD A BOLD NATIONAL BROADBAND STRATEGY TOGETHER
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] To the US Broadband Coalition and all the state-level coalitions that are trying to bring together broadband players around the same table: we've come a long way, but we've a long way to go. We can't afford to continue caricaturing those with differing views from our own as being bloodthirsty capitalists or idealistic socialists. We must acknowledge that in order to achieve consensus no one side is going to be able to get everything they want in exactly the way they want it. Instead what's needed is to have everyone involved in this effort examine what it is they really want. What's most important to you, not in terms of specific legislation but instead in terms of the results. So for deployers that could mean getting more capital available to support deployment, more incentives to reward upgrades, and insuring that any new network management rules put in place don't hinder their ability to run and monetize their networks. For public interest groups that could mean getting the most bandwidth and the most competition out of the broadband marketplace and insuring that the public interest is protected from monopolistic providers.
http://benton.org/node/22419
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VIRGINIA USES SELF-HELP PROGRAMS FOR RURAL BROADBAND
[SOURCE: PublicKnowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
While some states have a Connected Nation franchise leading their broadband efforts, the Commonwealth of Virginia has something better. It has Karen Jackson, a one-woman broadband evangelist who leads government effort to bring broadband to rural areas. She, her program, and the local officials who follow it, are a case study in how a high-energy, high-efficiency state program can save millions of taxpayer dollars and produce results in the most rural of areas. The bottom line for their approach to rural broadband is startling. Franklin County, Va., a rural county of 721 square miles, was able to help a local wireless broadband provider bring the cost of building a network down from an estimated $500,000 to around $80,000. And instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for outsiders to come into an area, local officials can instead consult a simple web site as a guide to bringing in broadband. Jackson is the director of the Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance, which was created two years ago by Va. Gov. Tim Kaine, but she has worked since the 1990s to develop a broadband program in Virginia.
http://benton.org/node/22418
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RURAL BROADBAND: NO JOB CREATION MACHINE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
Economists say the ability of broadband to spur economic development in rural areas is difficult to quantify. "Everyone talks about the jobs that are going to be created by this," said Scott Wallsten, a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. "There is no way to measure that." One problem, he said, is there's no way to tell which of these jobs would have been created even without the stimulus bill. Raul Katz, a Columbia Business School professor, admitted the difficulty in counting jobs, but he nonetheless presented a paper that tried to quantify the effect of the broadband stimulus program on employment. "We know construction will generate jobs," Mr. Katz said. By his count, the stimulus bill will create 128, 000 jobs designing, building and administering the broadband networks. That figure also includes a multiplier effect that assumes that every 10 people directly hired by these projects will spend enough money to create 8 more jobs in other sectors. Beyond the construction, things get more than a little fuzzy. There is some research that shows that spending on networks will create new applications — be it "telemedicine" or e-commerce — that will spur more employment. Over the next four years, Mr. Katz allocates 378,000 jobs to these sources. But he also has his doubts.
http://benton.org/node/22417
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WHAT THE BROADBAND STIMULUS PACKAGE MEANS TO RURAL TELCOS
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
Less than a week after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was signed into law, some additional details about the program to award $7.2 billion for broadband have emerged, underscoring the widely held belief that small rural telephone companies--initially at least—may have the most to gain. A bit more than a third of the money will be administered through the Rural Utilities Service, which, like other divisions of the Department of Agriculture, has until Sept. 30 of this year to award that money, a close reading of the act reveals. Although rural telcos are not the only companies eligible to receive RUS money, they may be best positioned to receive it because many of them are already familiar with the process. The $2.5 billion that the RUS will administer—which may be in the form of grants, loans or loan guarantees--is essentially being added to an existing program, with a few additional stipulations.
http://benton.org/node/22416
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TELEWORK RANKS SWELL
[SOURCE: NetworkWorld, AUTHOR: Ann Bednarz]
Working from home is an increasingly popular option for US employees - at least occasionally. The number of U.S. employees, contractors and business owners who worked remotely at least one day per month increased 17% in the past two years, from approximately 28.7 million in 2006 to 33.7 million in 2008, according to global HR association WorldatWork. In the five-year period since 2003, the total number of once-a-month telecommuters in the U.S. has risen 43%. Interestingly, there has been a shift away from full-time telework to occasional telework. The number of employee teleworkers who work remotely at least once a month grew, while the number of those who work remotely almost every day decreased slightly, WorldatWork found in its survey brief, "Telework Trendlines 2009."
http://benton.org/node/22415
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INTERNET PENETRATION AND PREMIUM ENTERTAINMENT ARE LINKED
[SOURCE: Telecompetitor, AUTHOR: ]
It's said that in hard economic times people tend to consume entertainment to an even greater degree than would otherwise be the case. That theory looks like it's holding up, and these days that's benefiting multimedia content delivery via the Internet over other media channels, according to the results of a tracking survey recently released by The NPD Group. Thirty-eight percent of Internet-enabled households in the U.S. subscribe to premium entertainment services for DVD delivery, music and/or gaming downloads, according to the survey. Fifty-five percent subscribe to newspapers or magazines and 80 percent subscribe to premium television services such as cable, satellite or fiber optic.
http://benton.org/node/22414
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MOBILE INTERNET NECESSITY, NOT LUXURY
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Aaron Baar]
Like the cell phones that preceded them, mobile data services--in particular, mobile Internet--are becoming less a luxury and more a necessity among US consumers. And the expanded use of those services (also including mobile email, multimedia messaging and photo uploading) could explode in the next two years. According to a survey by Nielsen Company on behalf of Tellabs, 71% of U.S. consumers plan to use some sort of mobile data service daily (the company did not have current daily usage information). Among current mobile Internet users, 55% planned to increase their usage of mobile data services in the next two years, and 48% planned to increase their use over the next year. Among non-users, 29% planned to start during that same period. "The mobile platform is becoming more and more a part of people's lives," said Jeff Herrmann, vice president of mobile media for Nielsen. "The primary use of these services is communication and convenience."
http://benton.org/node/22413
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HALF OF ALL INSTRUCTION WILL TAKE PLACE ONLINE WITHIN THE NEXT 10 YEARS
[SOURCE: eSchool News, AUTHOR: Dennis Pierce]
If Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen is right, half of all instruction will take place online within the next 10 years--and schools had better get into the online-learning market or risk losing their students to other providers. Disruptive innovation is the business idea that, every so often, a new innovation comes along that completely changes the marketplace, knocking the old market leaders from their perch and giving rise to new ones. Disruptive innovations transform products or services into something so simple that anyone can use them, creating what Christensen called "asymmetric competition." Because they take advantage of these radical innovations, new entrants to the marketplace are essentially competing against "non-consumption" -- that is, they're getting customers who didn't exist in that market before -- while the innovation continues to improve.
http://benton.org/node/22412
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IT'S THE BROADBAND, STUPID
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Carol Wilson]
[Commentary] The growing popularity of Internet video is seen by some as a threat to paid TV services and by others as just one part of the services mix. It may be both. The demand for Internet video is actually a good thing for service providers offering high-quality broadband services. What looms ahead for telecom service providers is an opportunity to earn a permanent place in the entertainment business, provided they don't frustrate their consumer audience in the process. The industry needs to continue to focus on getting the broadband part of its business right, and that will continue to mean network investment, even in tough times.
http://benton.org/node/22411
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FCC RELEASES REVISED BROADBAND DATA FORM
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission released its revised form for collecting data about broadband connections and phone service, and extended its deadline for filing the forms from March 2 to March 16. The data will help the FCC map broadband deployment. It is has been under pressure both in-house and from Congress to collect better data on broadband deployment and speeds. That pressure will likely be ramped up due to the economic stimulus package, which requires the FCC within a year to come up with a master plan for connecting everyone in the country to the Internet. The American Cable Association, which had asked for an extension, was pleased with the additional time. ACA, which represents mid-sized and smaller operators, had wanted a 120-day extension, but the FCC said it did not think the revised form represented a hardship for smaller files, or that they needed several weeks after they saw the form to file accurate data (though it has given them three-and-a-half weeks.) The FCC also invoked the need for speed on gauging broadband buildouts, saying, "the public interest is better served by adhering as closely as possible to the March 2 deadline. Data collected by this agency will enable policymakers and industry to better understand where broadband is deployed so that they may make timely decisions as to how to promote further deployment," the FCC said.
http://benton.org/node/22425
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THE TRANSITION
FORMER WASHINGTON GOVERNOR LOCKE FOR COMMERCE?
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Jennifer Loven, Gene Johnson ]
Nothing official yet, but apparently President Barack Obama is considering naming former Gov Gary Locke (D-WA) to be Secretary of Commerce. Locke was the nation's first Chinese-American governor when he served two terms in the Washington statehouse from 1997 to 2005. Locke, 59, was born into an immigrant family and lived in a Seattle public housing project until he was 6. He graduated from Yale University, which he attended with a combination of scholarships and financial aid, and Boston University Law School. He lists among his accomplishments as governor a package of tax breaks that persuaded The Boeing Co. to assemble its new 787 jetliner in Everett, north of Seattle, and expanded transportation and construction budgets. Since leaving office he's been working for the Seattle-based law firm Davis Wright Tremaine on issues involving China, energy and governmental relations. He argues that global engagement is a way to improve China's human rights record and deal with piracy of intellectual property. Locke is married to Mona Lee Locke, a former television news reporter who is now executive director of the regional affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, a breast cancer research and advocacy organization. They have three children.
http://benton.org/node/22410
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OBAMA NAMES SCIENCE & TECH POLICY OFFICIAL
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
Kei Koizumi has been appointed assistant director for federal research and development at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he will be working on federal R&D budget issues and tracking funding. Koizumi served on the Obama transition team as part of the Technology, Innovation & Government Reform Policy Working Group. He said the group talked a lot about science funding in the stimulus bill and brainstormed ways to implement the Obama campaign agenda within the first 100 days of office. Koizumi last served as the longtime director of the R&D budget and policy program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an international nonprofit organization.
http://benton.org/node/22424
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PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCES MORE KEY WHITE HOUSE STAFF
[SOURCE: The White House]
President Barack Obama announced a number of appointments on Monday including: 1) Macon Phillips, Director of New Media, 2) Christina Reynolds, Director of Media Affairs, 3) Dag Vega, Director of Broadcast Media, and 4) Jesse Lee, Online Programs Director. [much more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/22409
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LEIBOWITZ IS SAID TO BE CHOICE FOR TRADE COMMISSION
[SOURCE: Bloomberg news, AUTHOR: James Rowley, Roger Runningen]
Nothing official yet, but President Barack Obama may appoint Federal Trade Commission member Jon Leibowitz to be the next chairman of the regulatory agency that reviews mergers and enforces consumer protection laws. Leibowitz, 50, appointed a member of the FTC in 2004, will succeed Chairman William Kovacic, who has told colleagues he will remain on the five- member commission, which has one vacancy. Before joining the FTC, Leibowitz was a lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America, the movie industry trade group formerly headed by the late Jack Valenti. He was also the Democratic counsel to the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee during a 14-year stint as a Senate aide. The Center for Digital Democracy's Jeff Chester believes FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz is poised to "help transform what has been a largely anemic regulatory watchdog during the Bush years into an agency that sees its first priority as consumer protection." "We expect significant FTC action on financial and health-related consumer issues. There will also be a more critical eye cast with mergers," Chester said in an e-mail. "Public interest groups such as mine appreciate that Leibowitz has called for tougher online privacy safeguards, and that his door has always been open."
http://benton.org/node/22408
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ANTITRUST PICK VARNEY SAW GOOGLE AS NEXT MICROSOFT
[SOURCE: Bloomberg news, AUTHOR: James Rowley]
Christine A. Varney, nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S.'s next antitrust chief, has described Google Inc. as a monopolist that will dominate online computing services the way Microsoft Corp. ruled software. "For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem," Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute. The U.S. economy will "continually see a problem -- potentially with Google" because it already "has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising," she said. While the remarks were made months before Obama picked her to head the Justice Department's antitrust division, the comments signal her approach to the job if confirmed by the Senate. The Microsoft case, brought in 1998 by the Clinton administration, could have led to the breakup of the software giant and was a landmark in antitrust law.
http://benton.org/node/22407
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
EVERYONE LOVES GOOGLE, UNTIL IT'S TOO BIG
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Randall Stross]
[Commentary] The popularity of Google's search engine in the United States just grows and grows. In the past three years, its market share gains have even been accelerating, making some people wonder whether the company will eventually obliterate what remains of its competition in search. Consider this: As recently as July 2005, Google was ahead of Yahoo in market share by just six percentage points, at 36.5 percent to 30.5 percent, according to comScore, the market research company. Today, however, that advantage is much wider, at 63 percent to 21 percent. Many Web site owners who track where their visitors come from report that Google's search engine now refers 80 to 90 percent of their visitors. "You almost feel sorry for Google," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land. "They're doing a good job and people are turning to them. But when they pass 70 percent share, people are going to be uncomfortable about Google becoming a monopoly." [Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University.]
http://benton.org/node/22406
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PETER CHERNIN TO LEAVE MURDOCH'S NEWS CORP
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Dawn Chmielewski, Meg James, Claudia Eller]
Apparently, Peter Chernin, the president of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is leaving the company. There's much speculation internally that although Murdoch wanted Chernin to stay for at least another few years, his departure now clears the way for his son James Murdoch to eventually come in as his No. 2 -- not immediately, but within a year or two. James Murdoch, who now serves as CEO of News Corp.'s Europe and Asia operations, has seen his turf expand steadily within the company during the past decade. [more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/22405
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PUBLISHER SPECULATES ABOUT AMAZON/GOOGLE E-BOOK "DUOPOLY"
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers, speculated last week that the landmark Google Book Search settlement could create a duopoly in the electronic books market. Speaking at Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy, Sarnoff noted that Amazon currently dominates the market for downloadable e-books. He said that the settlement "forces Google to become a provider of electronic books with a different business model" in direct competition with Amazon. And he said that some aspects of the massive settlement would be "difficult to replicate" for Google's competitors. Sarnoff said the publishers he represents didn't set out to create a monopoly in the markets for book search engines or online book sales. But he didn't deny that the settlement could have that effect. After all, he noted, "copyright itself is a monopoly."
http://benton.org/node/22400
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TELEVISION
NIELSEN: AMERICANS STILL LOVE THEIR TV, EMBRACING DVRs
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: David Chartier]
Americans watched an all-time high of 151 hours of TV per month last quarter, according to a new Nielsen study. Our TV habits are on the rise across the "three screens"—TV, Internet, and mobile devices—but the most growth is coming from DVRs, Internet video, and mobile phones. In the fourth quarter of 2008, 285 million Americans watched TV in their living rooms each month, which was up 1.1 percent from the previous quarter. Internet video users were up just 2.3 percent in the same period to 123 million per month, though, while DVRs (8.5 percent) and mobile phones (8.4 percent) took the lion's share of user growth, respectively rising to 74 million and 11 million users per month. Unsurprisingly, Nielsen's study found that the majority of DVR usage comes from a slightly older audience in the 25-64 year-old range, while 12-17 year-olds are watching the most video on mobile phones. Internet video is most popular among 25-54 year-olds. Growth is quite different, however, in terms of the amount of time that users watch video on each of these devices.
http://benton.org/node/22398
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FCC EXTENDS COMMENT DEADLINE FOR 2007 VIDEO COMPETITION REPORT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission has given cable operators and others an extension of their deadline for commenting on the 2007 video competition report because the FCC has decided to play catch-up by combining the 2007, 2008 and 2009 "annual" reports into a single document. The Commission just issued the 2006 report last month. That report got caught up in the controversy over the FCC's tentative conclusion that cable had reached a competitive threshhold (70% penetration, 70% subscribership) that could justify new regulation. The Commission said it needed to extend the deadline given the additional information it would be requesting about 2008. The commission is considering a raft of new reporting requirements to help it better determine cable's penetration of the multichannel video market, an effort that has met with some resistance from cable operators. The Commission said Monday that the comments on its notice of inquiry on the 2007 report were no longer due Feb. 27 and that it would set a new deadline to sync with the one for 2008 information. The FCC did not say when the new comment deadlines would be, but did say it would do so as soon as possible.
http://benton.org/node/22426
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QUICKLY
FACEBOOK AVERTS FTC PRIVACY COMPLAINT
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Andrew Noyes]
An about-face by social networking site Facebook last week regarding its terms of service headed off a complaint to federal regulators prepared by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The Wednesday decision to restore Facebook's original policy and its commitment to a more transparent, participatory process regarding future changes to its operating procedure came hours before the watchdog group planned to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. The EPIC filing was supported by more than a dozen consumer and privacy organizations, officials said.
http://benton.org/node/22403
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CONSUMER GROUPS TELL FCC EXCLUSIVE HANDSET DEALS LIMIT COMPETITION
[SOURCE: RCRWireless, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Silva]
Late last week, a group of public-interest groups reiterated how they believe the Federal Communications Commission should address handset exclusivity arrangements. "Handset exclusivity arrangements are harmful to consumers," the Ad Hoc Public Interest Spectrum Coalition told the agency. "These anticompetitive practices limit consumer choice, raise consumer prices and limit innovation in the device market. The arrangements tie together the markets for devices and services, allowing the market power of wireless carriers to invade a competitive market for devices and to use successful devices as hooks to reduce competition in the wireless services market — they function as artificial restrictions on competition in both wireless service and wireless devices markets." As such, the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Free Press, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, Public Knowledge and U.S. PIRG urged the FCC to initiate a rulemaking with an eye to prohibiting such handset exclusivity arrangements. Last year, the Rural Cellular Association petitioned the FCC to investigate exclusive contracts between top wireless providers and handset manufacturers.
http://benton.org/node/22396
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SUBSCRIPTION RATES INCREASING ALL OVER
[SOURCE: CedMagazine.com, AUTHOR: Brian Santo]
There's been a notable surge in reports of communications service providers raising rates and fees. Companies who have implemented or announced hikes in the past few days include Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Rogers Cable. Earlier this month, DirecTV announced it would raise rates effective in March.
http://benton.org/node/22395
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CYBER CROOKS TURNING TO INTERNET TELEPHONY
[SOURCE: CongressDaily, AUTHOR: Winter Casey]
Criminals are increasing using the Internet to make phone calls in order to avoid the possibility of their mobile phone calls getting intercepted by law enforcement authorities, according to a European Union body established in 2002 to enhance the effectiveness of organized crime investigations in member states. Carmen Manfredda, acting national member of Eurojust plans to lead an EU investigation on issues related to phone calls that take place through the Internet by way of the popular service Skype and others.
http://benton.org/node/22394
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