Aug 10, 2009 (NTIA and Broadband Mapping Data)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY AUGUST 10, 2009
Get updates at http://twitter.com/benton_fdn
INTERNET/BROADBAND
NTIA Issues Broadband Mapping Data Correction
Commerce Department Drops Request for Sensitive Broadband Data
NTIA Losing Game of Data Chicken
FCC Starts with a Clean Slate for Next broadband Report to Congress
Rural Telecom Associations Say BIP Rules Are Flawed
Small Cable Operators Balk at Special Conditions In Broadband Stimulus Money
Sen Gillibrand calls for spending on rural health IT
Close Reading: The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009
How Many Broadband Providers Are Enough?
HEALTH AND MEDIA
Time for media to clarify the health care debate
Google, Microsoft executives criticize Obama's e-health records plan
Study places EHRs at core of saving cardiac patients' lives
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
At Fox and MSNBC, Hosts Refire the Insult Machines
The tipping point
Publicis to buy Microsoft's Razorfish in $530M deal
POLICYMAKERS
McDowell Welcomes New Openness at FCC, Calls for Audit and Reform
FCC Commissioner Baker Announces Staff
FCC Commissioner Clyburn Announces Staff
New Endowment Chairman Sees Arts as Economic Engine
Chairman Rockefeller Applauds the Senate's Confirmation of Nominees
WIRELESS
FCC Weighs Need for New Cellphone Handset Rules
Big Media Companies Navigate Free Content and Apps
TELEVISION
TV dealmaking season wraps up; prices, volume down
Broadcast TV: A Ship In Need Of A Captain
Parents TV Council Zeroes In on Joan Rivers Roast, Call For Cable Choice
MORE ONLINE...
Professor Main Target of Assault on Twitter
Lawmakers push to end drug ads targeting consumers
Ad Industry Gears Up for Battles With Washington
Piracy verdicts may violate US Constitution
Article Faults FCC On Handling Of Comcast 'P2P' Complaint
FCC Releases Telephone Penetration report
In a Digital Future, Textbooks Are History
Breakfast Can Wait. The Day's First Stop Is Online.
Seattle Paper Is Resurgent as a Solo Act
News Site Keeps Focus on Town's Recession
With Cable, Laying a Basis for Growth in Africa
Lawsuits Question After-Hours Demands of Email and Cellphones
Is Google playing by the book?
The Payoff of Ads on Search Engines
Facebook joins forces with advertisers
INTERNET/BROADBAND
NTIA ISSUES BROADBAND MAPPING DATA CORRECTION
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
On July 8, 2009, NTIA published a Notice in the Federal Register to announce the availability of funds for the State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program pursuant to the authority provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) and the Broadband Data Improvement Act (BDIA). The Technical Appendix of the Notice directs awardees to provide a timeline for anticipated dates of data delivery, including the provision of a substantially complete set of the following information to NTIA regarding each provider's service area no later than February 1, 2010: broadband service availability by service address and by shapefile for wireless services; residential broadband service pricing based on average revenue per end user and weighted average speed; broadband service infrastructure based, specifically last-mile and middle-mile connection points; and a listing of community anchor institutions. The Technical Appendix also includes a description of the specific technical formats to be used when submitting the data. In addition to the information the Technical Appendix requires to be provided, the Notice requires applicants to provide a comprehensive description of plans to obtain all data required under the Technical Appendix regarding service provided by commercial or public providers as part of the application to be submitted between July 14, 2009 and August 14, 2009. This Notice is intended to clarify the exact level of detail required by the information collection set forth in the following sections of the Technical Appendix. [more at the url below]
http://benton.org/node/27000
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COMMERCE DEPARTMENT DROPS REQUEST FOR SENSITIVE DATA
[SOURCE: Dow Jones, AUTHOR: Fawn Johnson]
The Commerce Department said Friday it agreed to drop a request for sensitive revenue and infrastructure data from telecom carriers as part of an Internet mapping project that will spur President Barack Obama's goal of blanketing the country with high-speed broadband. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration released a clarification Friday of its data requirements. The agreement comes about a week after a wide-ranging group of telecom associations complained that the NTIA was seeking sensitive and irrelevant information. The deal also resolves a potential standoff between the government and carriers that probably would sue rather than turn over revenue numbers about their Internet subscribers. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and several telecom associations like USTelecom, the American Cable Association, and the Wireless Communications Association International agreed to give the government access to their firms' Internet availability based on census blocks. The Commerce Department originally wanted to know about Internet availability on an address-by-address basis. The problem, according to consumer advocates and researchers, is that Internet data compiled state by state would be inferior to a national database that could be put together by the Federal Communications Commission. Without a national standard, the Internet data provided by individual carriers could meld together to be gibberish. "Significant questions remain as to the consistency of data collected across 50 different states, as well as the accuracy and verifiability of the information," the Internet advocacy group Free Press wrote to the FCC last week.
http://benton.org/node/26999
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NTIA LOSING GAME OF DATA CHICKEN
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
[Commentary] A week or so ago we posed this choice: "At the end of the day, somebody is going to be in control of the mapping. It will either be the public, and the public interest, as represented by NTIA, or the industry." It appears that may have been, at least in part, a false choice. The NTIA has already started backing off its data-collection notice, in this Federal Register notice. There was no reason to give away much of anything to start. Certainly, the mapping notice of funds availability (NOFA) had its numerous problems. Fixing it would require a month or so delay to get it right — something some of us requested. NTIA didn't do that. But in the face of the massive industry lobbying, NTIA started making concessions. The biggest one is that it backed off of the detailed speed data. Instead of reporting maximized advertised upstream and download speeds at the address level, NTIA now requires only speeds across service areas or local franchise areas. That change is a monumental mistake, made for no reason. If this mapping exercise is going to be worth even 1/10 of the money Congress appropriated, it's about time for the government to step away from the table with the industry, remind itself of its public interest obligations and quit giving away the store.
http://benton.org/node/26998
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FCC STARTS WITH A CLEAN SLATE FOR NEXT BROADBAND REPORT TO CONGRESS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
The Federal Communications Commission began its sixth inquiry for Congress into the state of broadband in the US -- an inquiry that this year is intertwined with the agency's larger effort to create a National Broadband Plan. In the Notice of Inquiry, the Commission starts with a clean slate against a backdrop of statutory and policy changes. Those changes include Congress's requirement that the FCC develop a comprehensive National Broadband Plan by Feb 17, 2010, that it improve its broadband data collection, and the Commission's own efforts to collect broadband data on a more granular basis. A report based on the inquiry, commonly known as the "706 Report" after the section of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandating it, must be delivered to Congress on Feb. 3, 2010. Comments and other materials received for the National Broadband Plan relevant to the inquiry will be incorporated in the upcoming 706 Report.
http://benton.org/node/26997
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RURAL TELECOM ASSOCIATIONS SAY BIP RULES ARE FLAWED
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Andrew Burger]
Asserting that the current evaluation criteria illegitimately favors larger over smaller broadband carriers, a coalition of industry associations representing small rural telecom providers has written a letter to the administrator of the Dept. of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service urging the agency to change proposed evaluation criteria in the Notice of Funds Availability for the federal government's Broadband Initiatives Program. Part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Congress directed that when appropriating BIP funds "priority...shall be given to projects that provide service to the highest proportion of rural residents that do not have broadband service," the letter states. The August 5, 2009 letter is addressed to Jonathan Adelstein, new administrator of the RUS. "The clear impact of this language is that any application serving fewer than 10,000 unserved households will not receive any points under this criterion, even if all the households are unserved...As expressed in the NoFA, this criterion would unfairly discriminate against small companies serving sparsely populated areas, in contravention of Congress's purpose," according to the letter, which was signed by representatives of General Communication Inc., the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, the Rural Cellular Association, the Rural Independent Competitive Alliance and the Rural Telecommunications Group.
http://benton.org/node/26996
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SMALL CABLE OPERATORS BALK AT SPECIAL CONDITIONS IN BROADBAND STIMULUS MONEY
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Mike Farrell, John Eggerton]
What if the government held a $7.2 billion cash giveaway and nobody came? The deadline for the initial round of funding for the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus program is Aug. 14 and early indications are that small cable operators may sit out the program in fairly large numbers. As one long-time small cable-system operator who requested anonymity put it: "There are a lot of strings on that money." Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, has been advising some potential bidders and has heard her share of grousing over the ground rules. "I think it is a little too soon to tell whether the stimulus package is stimulating because they haven't given out any money yet," Sohn said. "That being said, there is an awful lot of concern, and not just among cable operators, but among institutional providers like libraries and schools, among small municipal Wi-Fi providers and smaller network providers, there is a lot of concern that the guidelines are not helpful for the little guys."
http://benton.org/node/26995
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SEN GILLBRAND CALLS FOR SPENDING ON RURAL HEALTH IT
[SOURCE: GovernemntHealthIT, AUTHOR: John Moore]
Sen Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) would like to see some of the federal stimulus' rural broadband dollars set aside for health IT projects. The Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service will oversee the disbursement of $2.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for rural broadband initiatives. In a July 29 letter to the RUS administrator Jonathan Adelstein, Gillibrand called for healthcare-related projects to be given precedence. "As the agency moves forward in funding broadband infrastructure projects, I ask that proposals that focus on the development of broadband networking healthcare facilities be given special priority," Sen Gillibrand wrote. Such projects, she added, "would assist with expanding high-speed Internet access to rural communities and implementing the administration's [electronic health records] objectives." Sen Gillibrand said hybrid healthcare/broadband initiatives are on track with ARRA's healthcare technology and broadband infrastructure aims.
http://benton.org/node/26994
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HOW MANY BROADBAND PROVIDERS ARE ENOUGH?
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Bernie Arnason]
How many broadband providers can smaller markets support? It's a question that has more relevance these days as programs like the universal service fund and the rural utilities service wrestle with competitive implications. Should small markets have multiple competitors, when the market size may only justify one or two? Should broadband policy promote, and maybe even artificially support, multiple broadband competitors in small and rural markets?
http://benton.org/node/26992
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HEALTH AND MEDIA
TIME FOR MEDIA TO CLARIFY THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE
[SOURCE: Media Matters for America, AUTHOR: Jamison Foser]
[Commentary] Depending on how you look at it, we're roughly six months or 60 years into the debate over whether and how the government should ensure universal health care for all Americans. And yet if there's one thing polling on the public's opinions about health care makes clear, it's that people are confused, holding a disparate mix of often contradictory views and frequently clinging to incorrect beliefs. For reporters, there is a clear lesson in this: Put the polls down. Just walk away. Pay them no attention. Pretend they don't exist. How should news organizations cover health care reform? Simple: Cover health care reform. All those polls showing that people hold contradictory views and false -- or at least highly questionable -- beliefs about health care and efforts to reform it are a pretty good indication of what reporters should be doing: Reporting the truth, and doing it often. Giving people the facts about health care and about proposals to reform it.
http://benton.org/node/26990
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GOOGLE, MICROSOFT EXECUTIVES CRITICIZE OBAMA'S E-HEALTH RECORDS PLAN
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Bob Brewin]
Top executives at Google and Microsoft sharply questioned the structure of the Obama administration's $20 billion health information technology plan at a meeting of a presidential technology council on Thursday. Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer of Google, told top health technology officials at a meeting of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that the current national health IT system planned by the administration will result in hospitals and doctors using an outdated system of databases in what is becoming an increasingly Web-focused world. The approach will stifle innovation, he said, and ensures medical professionals continue to use existing outmoded medical databases, many of which are copyrighted and cannot be duplicated. Google and Microsoft have developed Web-based personal health record software products, called Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault. Schmidt told the council that, like the Google and Microsoft applications, the national health IT system should be based on Web records that patients can control.
http://benton.org/node/26991
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STUDY PLACES EHRs AT CORE OF SAVING CARDIAC PATENTS' LIVES
[SOURCE: HealthcareITNews, AUTHOR: Bernie Monegain]
An electronic health record (EHR) program that cut cardiac deaths by 73 percent has also kept patients healthy two years later, according to a new study. The Kaiser Permanente program in Denver linked coronary artery disease patients and teams of pharmacists, nurses, primary care doctors and cardiologists with an electronic health record to help keep the patients healthy two years after they left the program by keeping them in touch with their caregivers electronically, according to a randomized study. The study, which was funded by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, is published in The American Journal of Managed Care this month. It is the first randomized study to evaluate a follow-up system for patients discharged from a cardiovascular risk reduction service, researchers said.
http://benton.org/node/26989
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
AT FOX AND MSNBC, HOSTS REFIRE THE INSULT MACHINES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
Executives at two of the country's largest media companies are still trying to salvage what was essentially a cease-fire between MSNBC and the Fox News Channel. The two cable news channels temporarily resumed their long-running feud this week after The New York Times reported that their parent companies, General Electric and the News Corporation, had struck a deal to stop each other's televised personal attacks. Fox News executives felt that MSNBC had broken the deal when Keith Olbermann, in an apparent show of independence, insulted his 8 p.m. rival, Bill O'Reilly, and the News Corporation's chairman, Rupert Murdoch, on Monday. On his show, "Countdown," Olbermann called O'Reilly a "racist clown." O'Reilly responded with his own attack two days later on his program, "The O'Reilly Factor," where he claimed that GE, through MSNBC, was "promoting the election of Barack Obama and then seeking to profit from his policies." The chief executives at General Electric, whose NBC News division operates MSNBC, and News Corporation, which owns Fox News, reached an unusual agreement last spring to halt the regular personal assaults on each other's channels.
http://benton.org/node/26988
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THE TIPPING POINT
[SOURCE: TheDeal.com, AUTHOR: Richard Morgan]
It's rare when a nuanced and complicated story gets distilled into a single sentence. But 67 minutes into a July 14 conference call, one arranged by Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. to address its exposure to a possible default by Cunningham Broadcasting Corp., call participant Peter Reuss nailed it. "Just so I understand this correctly," the financial adviser for Scott & Stringfellow LLC said by way of clearing his throat. "We have a privately held company, Cunningham, with a majority shareholder being the Sinclair family, whose potential pending bankruptcy could send a publicly held company, Sinclair, majority-owned by the Sinclair family, into bankruptcy as well." David Amy, the CFO speaking for Sinclair during the call despite being flanked by chairman, chief executive officer and president David Smith, waited a beat or two before grasping the entirety of Reuss' premise. He then signed off with a well-considered, "Yeah." But his response overlooks that the premise may also have a punch line -- that Sinclair may not be as vulnerable to bankruptcy as it and its reigning Smith family want people to think. As Wells Fargo Securities LLC analyst Marci Ryvicker puts it in her post-call update: "To be blunt, we think management is 'posturing.' We believe that management is painting the most dire scenario in a public forum as part of its negotiations with convert holders."
http://benton.org/node/26973
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PUBLICS TO BUY MICROSOFT'S RAZORFISH IN $530M DEAL
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
French ad giant Publicis Groupe will buy Microsoft's digital ad firm Razorfish to boost its share of advertising on the Web. The cash and stock deal is valued at $530 million. The two companies also signed a five-year deal that allows Publicis to buy display and search advertising on favorable terms across Microsoft's digital properties in exchange for minimum guaranteed purchases. Razorfish will continue to be a preferred provider to Microsoft for digital strategy, creative and marketing services, and guarantee minimum spending. In addition to Microsoft, Razorfish's major clients include Ford Motor, Best Buy and McDonald's.
http://benton.org/node/27001
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POLICYMAKERS
MCDOWELL WELCOME NEW OPENNESS AT FCC, CALLS FOR AUDIT AND REFORM
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Tina Nguyen]
In addition to the forthcoming National Broadband Strategy, The Federal Communications Commission must reorganize fundamentally to tackle a laundry list of 21st-century issues, Commissioner Robert McDowell said in an interview with C-SPAN's "The Communicators" series. Issues that the FCC will likely tackle include network management, wireless handset exclusivity, and possibly forays into cybersecurity, he said. But the broadband plan reigns supreme on the agenda, he said. "This is the biggest plan the FCC has worked on since the 1996 Communications Act," he said. And the commission should take care to recognize that technology should be regulated in a way that adapts to innovation that occurs in "Internet time," he said. And any national strategy should foster "an environment that's attractive to private capital investment," McDowell said, reiterating his well-known pro-competitive position. He expressed optimism that the broadband plan could boost the country out of its' economic funk. Commissioner McDowell says the debate over network neutrality should be reframed as one about "anticompetitive" conduct rather than "discrimination." He points out that there are already laws against the former.
http://benton.org/node/26981
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FCC COMMISSIONER MEREDITH ATTWELL BAKER ANNOUNCES STAFF
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker]
FCC Commissioner Baker announced William D. Freedman, Erin A. McGrath, and Christi Shewman as her Acting Legal Advisors. [more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/26980
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FCC COMMISSIONER CLYBURN ANNOUNCES STAFF
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn]
Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn announced that Michele Ellison will lead the Commissioner's transition efforts and that Renée Roland Crittendon has been named Chief of Staff and Senior Legal Advisor. Commissioner Clyburn also announced the appointment of Rick Kaplan as acting Legal Advisor and Chief of External Affairs, Carol Simpson as acting Legal Advisor and Almira Kennedy as interim Confidential Assistant. Crystal Rice will join the office as interim Staff Assistant.
[more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/26979
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NEW ENDOWMENT CHAIRMAN SEES ARTS AS ECONOMIC ENGINE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Robin Pogrebin]
Confirmed on August 7, Broadway producer Rocco Landesman is officially chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts bringing with him his straight-talking style, Missouri roots and affinity for baseball and country music. He he has little patience for the disdain with which some politicians still seem to view the endowment, more than a decade after the culture wars that nearly destroyed it. He was particularly angered, he said, by parts of the debate over whether to include $50 million for the agency in the federal stimulus bill, citing the comment by Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, on CNBC's "Squawk Box" in February, that arts money did not belong in the bill. That kind of thinking suggests that "artists don't have kids to send to college," Mr. Landesman said, "or food to put on the table, or medical bills to pay." In American politics generally, he added: "The arts are a little bit of a target. The subtext is that it is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay." And while he praised the way recent endowment chairmen have carefully rebuilt the agency's political standing, Mr. Landesman — who is known more as an independent entrepreneur than as a diplomatic company man — said he was not planning to follow too closely in their footsteps. While Dana Gioia, his immediate predecessor, made a point of spreading endowment funds to every Congressional district, for example, Mr. Landesman said he expected to focus on financing the best art, regardless of location.
http://benton.org/node/26978
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CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER APPLAUDS THE SENATE'S CONFIRMATION OF NOMINEES
[SOURCE: US Senate Commerce Committee, AUTHOR: Chairman Jay Rockefeller]
On Friday the Senate confirmed 1) Patricia D. Cahill to be a Member of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and 2) Dennis F. Hightower to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said he is "very pleased to see these nominees confirmed by the United States Senate. Each and every one of these dedicated public servants will bring the experience and knowledge needed for progress in their respective fields. I am confident they will do so and look forward to hearing about their accomplishments."
http://benton.org/node/26977
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WIRELESS
FCC WEIGHS NEED FOR NEW CELLPHONE HANDSET RULES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, encouraged by some members of Congress, is weighing whether new rules are needed to govern cellphone handsets. The federal government has always been involved in wireless networks, notably with auctioning off the public airwaves that cellular companies use. But until now it has rarely been involved in oversight of the devices themselves. Now the commission is asking whether wireless carriers should be able to sign deals that allow them to offer certain cellular handsets exclusively. The FCC, partly because of Apple's control over the iPhone, is also considering whether carriers should be able to control which applications are available on certain phones. The commission sent letters last month asking why Apple had banned an application for the Google Voice calling service from the iPhone. Commission officials say the agency may decide whether to expand the existing proceedings into a broader inquiry after Labor Day. Colin Crowell, the senior counselor to Chairman Genachowski, said the commission was examining two separate questions: whether the exclusive handset deals hurt people in rural areas who are not served by big carriers, and whether people in more populated regions have their fewer choices because of the deals. He said the commission would naturally focus on cellphone applications that involve communications features. The FCC could also step into the debate by applying its rules that require traditional landline phone companies to permit rivals to connect to their networks. Such a rule for wireless networks could require cellular carriers to lift restrictions on voice services like Skype.
http://benton.org/node/27012
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BIG MEDIA COMPANIES NAVIGATE FREE CONTENT AND APPS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stephanie Clifford]
Media brands are jumping onto the iPhone. USA Today? There's an app for that. "The Rachel Maddow Show"? "Entertainment Tonight"? Public radio? Yes, yes and yes, there are apps for those. Now, if only there were an app that showed media companies how to make money on the iPhone. For them, the early days of iPhone applications resemble the early days of the Internet. They know they need to have an app for the iPhone, and so they are creating appealing ones that are loaded with features. Yet, as with the Web, it is far from clear how much revenue media apps for the iPhone can produce. Executives at some major media companies say they hope to gain exposure for their brand by developing apps, rather than relying on them to be big revenue producers.
http://benton.org/node/27010
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