Sept 14, 2009
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
A Hearing on the Health Effects of Cell Phone Use kicks off a busy week -- see http://www.benton.org/calendar/2009-09-13--P1W/
FCC REFORM
House Subcommittee Slates FCC Oversight Hearing
FCC Launches New Media Tools
BROADBAND
Concerned About BTOP
Broadband stimulus applicants abound; who needs big carriers?
Genachowski Meets With CEOs To Discuss Broadband
Broadband Stimulus Applicants: The Dreamers, the Hopefuls and the Planners
Colorado launches website to map broadband patterns
Focus on Broadband Advancement Has Gradually Shifted
New stimulus spending slows; some say speed less urgent
Is the cost to map broadband access off the charts?
Appropriate Roles for FCC and FTC Could Determine Fate of Broadband Consumers
JOURNALISM
Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low
Establishment Media Outlets Missed Van Jones Story
WIRELESS
AT&T likely to keep iPhone exclusive deal
AT&T IPhone Data Woes Depress Perception
TV CONTENT
Will Genachowski Help Obama Find A Heart, Brain and Courage To Face Glenn Beck?
FCC Report Language Troubles Attorneys
What's Really Going on With the Latest Challenge to Nielsen?
TV Networks Should Be Afraid -- Very Afraid -- of Hulu
OWNERSHIP
DoJ decides that Microsoft-Yahoo deal deserves more scrutiny
Microsoft $358 million damage award overturned
Controlling illegal use of copyrighted material on the Web
Google writes its own rules
ADVERTISING
Ad Shift Throws Blogs a Business Lifeline
UK Reconsiders Ban on Product Placements in TV Shows
Billboards Spur a Fight: Free Speech vs. Beauty
MORE ONLINE
GIS the Big Winner in Push for Open Government
USDA will debut new version of online learning platform
A Virtual Revolution Is Brewing for Colleges
Lieberman, Collins To Unveil Cyber Bill
Web Censoring Widens Across Southeast Asia
Border agents limit confiscation of laptops
Google Voice is cool, but it's more work
FCC REFORM
HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE SLATES FCC OVERSIGHT HEARING
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House Communications Subcommittee confirms that it will hold an Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing September 17 at 10 a.m. All five commissioners have been invited and are expected to be in attendance.
http://benton.org/node/27826
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FCC LAUNCHES NEW MEDIA TOOLS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski posted his first video blog on the FCC's Blogband page, outlining his ambitions for the Commission to start using new media tools to communication with the public. In addition, the FCC has launched on the crowd-sourcing platform, Ideascale. Crowd-sourcing allows the online community to discuss, evaluate and rank ideas. The platform will be especially useful as the Commission develops a National Broadband Plan, which will provide a strategy for reaching all Americans with robust broadband. The FCC will also be launching on social media sites Facebook and YouTube. Finally, the FCC is also launching a central repository of RSS data feeds from the agency. Though the FCC launched a general RSS feed in August, the addition of 48 feeds provides more robust access. As part of its commitment to opening government data and furthering transparency, the FCC will continue to grow the catalog of data feeds
http://benton.org/node/27825
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BROADBAND
CONCERNED ABOUT BTOP
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
[Commentary] There's a number of reasons to be concerned about the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, but perhaps the biggest is the vetting process for the volunteer reviewers of BTOP applications. Many have been critical of using an all-volunteer army from the get go as it seems wide open to attempts to game the system, plus it can be a challenge to make sure that not only do the volunteers not have conflicts of interest, but also that they're competent. It also raises questions: How many hours in how short of a window of time are volunteers expected to invest in this process? What support will reviewers have during odd hours like nights and weekends, which is likely when many of the will be working through these applications?
http://benton.org/node/27824
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BROADBAND STIMULUS APPLICANTS ABOUND; WHO NEEDS BIG CARRIERS?
[SOURCE: TelephonyOnline, AUTHOR: Ed Gubbins]
Government Technology raises an interesting question about the broadband stimulus initiative: Should anyone care if big broadband providers don't like the rules? Early on, there was a lot of talk about major carriers taking a pass on broadband stimulus. Last month, Calix CEO Carl Russo argued that a lot of likely candidates who passed on the first funding round will pounce on the second and third, lobbying for changes to the rules that kept them on the sidelines thus far. "Everybody's going to watch what happens in this round, and then you're going to see a whole lot of gaming in the second round," Russo said. "People are going to watch who won awards, why they won, why they didn't, and you're going to see reinterpretations of the rules. I don't know that the rules will change, but you'll see a lot of lobbying. There's a lot of people that may not choose to be in round one and are public about, 'Well, this is not for us;' if you think for a moment that they're not going to be back in right after round one, you're dreaming. This is not going be three tranches of the same rule set done the same way."
http://benton.org/node/27823
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GENACHOWSKI MEETS CEOS TO DISCUSS BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Microsoft, AUTHOR: Anoop Gupta]
[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Genachowski met with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, John Chambers of Cisco, Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealth Group, and Jeffrey Immelt of GE. The topic: how the national broadband plan being developed by the FCC can provide benefits throughout America in all the critical areas of our economy, such as healthcare, energy and education. Ballmer emphasized that our economic growth can no longer be fueled by debt and that we must return to the traditional stimuli for economic growth: innovation and productivity. Today, broadband is foundational for driving innovation and productivity across all economic sectors, including energy, education, healthcare, and e-government.
http://benton.org/node/27822
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BROADBAND STIMULUS APPLICANTS: THE DREAMERS, THE HOPEFULS AND THE PLANNERS
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] From what Settles has seen and read about so far, broadband stimulus applications fit into three loosely defined categories: The dreamers, the hopefuls and the planners. The dreamers threw proposals out there that have no chance of being funded but figure there's always the wild possibility that lightning might strike and they'll get lucky. The company that put in a proposal for $1.4 billion for sustainable adoption and computer centers when only $450 million has been set aside for the whole country to share. The hopefuls got to the party late, April or May, or they're from urban and other areas that were clearly short-changed by the NOFA rules' wording and late arrival. Philly's a good example of the latter. The hopefuls have viable broadband needs, but the time worked against them preparing a great proposal and the rules backed them into a corner. However, they submitted anyway, on a hope and a prayer. Those in the planners category were well on their way to having all the details in place before the stimulus even came out. They probably have the strongest position among the 2,200. The hopefuls are in the 50/50 position. Whether they win a grant or not depends a lot on how strong their political mojo is and how many proposals have come from their respective states.
http://benton.org/node/27821
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COLORADO LAUNCHES WEBSITE TO MAP BROADBAND PATTERNS
[SOURCE: Denver Business Journal, AUTHOR: Greg Avery]
Colorado will use a website gathering public input to help map where in the state high-speed Internet is available and at what speeds. The www.connectcolorado.org website, a joint effort of the state government and the nonprofit group Connected Nation, has launched to help with the broadband mapping project the state first started organizing two years ago. The website is meant to help verify speeds and augment information about broadband access that the state once hoped to get from telecom and cable TV companies. Colorado wants the information to eventually determine how to get broadband access — and the economic benefits that flow from it — to areas that lack high-speed Internet. Michael Locatis, chief information officer of Colorado, in a written statement urged state residents to log in because wiring more of the state with broadband is a financial boost. Connected Nation features players from some of telecom's biggest companies, lobbying groups and industry associations on its board of directors, and it has raised money from the nonprofit arms of AT&T and power utilities. That has led to questions about the nonprofit's mapping assistance because it's collecting data about broadband access that telecom providers already should know.
http://benton.org/node/27820
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FOCUS ON BROADBAND ADVANCEMENT HAS GRADUALLY SHIFTED
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Christina Kirchner]
The Free State Foundation on Thursday hosted conference to celebrate its new book, "New Directions in Communications Policy," with contributions by members of the think tanks academic board. Speaking at the event, John Mayo, a professor of economics, business and public policy at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and contributing author, said that the focus on broadband advancement is a shift that has happened before. "From 1996 to 2008, there was a focus of deploying broadband," he said. "Now the main focus is on the deploying and adoption of broadband." However, in the collection of essays, author Christopher Yoo, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communications, said that there was much to be learned from previous Internet advances.
http://benton.org/node/27819
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NEW STIMULUS SPENDING SLOWS; SOME SAY SPEED LES URGENT
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Brad Heath]
In the 101 days after President Barack Obama signed the stimulus package in mid-February, the government allocated an average of more than $1.3 billion a day to new grants and projects. Since then, that pace has fallen to an average of about $1 billion a day, a drop of about 25%, according to federal agencies' financial reports, current through Sept. 4. The Obama administration said last week that if tax cuts are included, the amount of stimulus aid reaching the economy increased slightly during the summer. And Obama's Council of Economic Advisers estimated that the stimulus had saved or created more than 1 million jobs, significantly more than the target Obama set in June. White House spokeswoman Liz Oxhorn said examining only spending cannot measure whether the White House met the president's target. Doing so, she said, is "selective accounting" that "fails to measure the actual progress" of the stimulus. The administration, she said, has "met and exceeded every goal set to speed up the Recovery Act." Economists said some spending slowdown was inevitable. Many of the government's first stimulus payments went in huge sums to states to help them pay for schools and medical care for the needy. Increasingly, stimulus efforts have shifted to tens of thousands of grants and building projects.
http://benton.org/node/27841
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IS THE COST TO MAP BROADBAND ACCESS OFF THE CHARTS?
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
The national stimulus package passed by Congress in February may have been too enthusiastic about spending money on one particular project: figuring out where broadband Internet access is available and how fast it is. The $787-billion stimulus bill set aside as much as $350 million to create a national broadband map that could guide policies aimed at expanding high-speed Internet access. That $350-million price tag struck some people in the telecommunications industry as excessive, compared with existing, smaller efforts. The map won't even be done in time to help decide where to spend much of the $7.2 billion in stimulus money earmarked for broadband. Now it appears the final cost won't be as high as $350 million but the total is unclear. To ensure the mapping money is used "in a fiscally prudent manner," the National Telecommunications and Information Administration signaled last week that it would spend more than $100 million and then reassess the program. The agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, said it had received requests for $107 million in funding for projects that would map broadband in individual states over the first two years.
http://benton.org/node/27840
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APPROPRIATE ROLE FOR FCC AND FTC COULD DETERMINE FATE OF BROADBAND CONSUMERS
[SOURCE: BroadbandCensus.com, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
The Internet can serve as a means for enhancing consumer protections, provided that government agencies play their appropriate role in regulating and disclosing the practices of broadband providers, according to a several consumer advocates. Speaking at the September 9 workshop of the Federal Communications Commission, the advocates observed that the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission could each play a significant role in enhancing consumer knowledge about broadband. Mike Nelson, a visiting professor of communications, culture and technology at Georgetown University, and a former Clinton administration Internet official, said that the flowering of the e-commerce in the 1990s owed was "due in large part to the decision [by the government] NOT to regulate."
http://benton.org/node/27839
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JOURNALISM
PRESS ACCURACY RATING HITS TWO DECADE LOW
[SOURCE: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, AUTHOR: Andrew Kohut et al]
The public's assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans' views of media bias and independence now match previous lows. Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media's performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last decade. Similarly, only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased. And the percentages saying that news organizations are independent of powerful people and organizations (20%) or are willing to admit their mistakes (21%) now also match all-time lows. Republicans continue to be highly critical of the news media in nearly all respects. However, much of the growth in negative attitudes toward the news media over the last two years is driven by increasingly unfavorable evaluations by Democrats.
http://benton.org/node/27843
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ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA OUTLETS MISSED VAN JONES STORY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
[Commentary] It has become a familiar chain reaction: Talk-show hosts whip up a noisy controversy, which hits higher decibels as it spreads to the establishment media, which costs some unfortunate soul his job. But now the middleman -- the journalistic gatekeepers of yore -- may no longer be necessary. By the time White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned over Labor Day weekend, the New York Times had not run a single story. Neither had USA Today, which also didn't cover the resignation. The Washington Post had done one piece, on the day before he quit. The Los Angeles Times had carried a short article the previous week questioning Glenn Beck's assault on the White House aide. There had been nothing on the network newscasts. "Where is the press on this?" Beck asked in late August during one of several rants against Jones. But it turned out the Fox News host didn't need the big news organizations to claim his scalp. Beck's rhetoric may have been over the top as he denounced Jones as a "black nationalist" and "avowed communist" (Jones embraced communism in the 1990s but said he later changed his views). Yet Beck also trumpeted information that forced Jones to issue two public apologies within days.
http://benton.org/node/27842
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WIRELESS
AT&T LIKELY TO KEEP IPHONE EXCLUSIVE DEAL
[SOURCE: ComputerWorld, AUTHOR: Matt Hamblen]
Despite widespread speculation that Apple will open the iPhone exclusive arrangement with AT&T to include Verizon Wireless after 2010, one analyst firm is predicting AT&T's exclusive deal as the wireless carrier will be extended beyond then. In a report, iSuppli Corp. said that its main reason for expecting an exclusive extension is based on its analysis of a growth in usage of a faster wireless standard at AT&T known as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA). The global growth in HSPA usage will far outstrip growth in usage of EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized), a different standard used by Verizon, iSuppli said.
http://benton.org/node/27818
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AT&T IPHONE DATA WOES DEPRESS PERCEPTION
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Aaron Baar]
For AT&T, the benefit of success that comes as the exclusive carrier of the iPhone may very well also be a burden. Amid press reports that AT&T's network is having trouble keeping up with its customers' data usage (directly related to the iPhone adoption), company perception among adults has dropped steadily over the summer, according to YouGovPolimetrix's BrandIndex, which measures daily consumer perception of brands. "There's been a significant amount of high-profile press in the past couple of weeks about AT&T's data problems," Ted Marzilli, CEO of YouGovPolimetrix, tells Marketing Daily. "There's no question it implies that there are some serious concerns for AT&T and Apple as they consider [extending the exclusivity of] the iPhone."
http://benton.org/node/27817
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TV CONTENT
WILL GENACHOWSKI HELP OBAMA FIND A HEART, BRAIN AND COURAGE TO FACE DOWN GLENN BECK?
[SOURCE: Tales from the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] There are several rather astounding things about the current campaign of Glenn Beck against various Administration appointees. Most astounding, however, has been the Obama Administration reaction to date: quick capitulation in the face of relatively small pressure. Indeed, one of the reasons there was so little initial defense of Van Jones in progressive circles was because most of us were unaware of the attack until the Van Jones' "resignation." As compared to previous campaigns in the Clinton years or Bush years to oust various officials, pressure to fire Van Jones had not even approached noticeable, let alone "scary." The Van Jones firing proved a major strategic blunder. It infuriated the Netroots and younger civil rights constituencies, who felt betrayed, and it emboldened Beck and his following to seek new "kills." It also demonstrated the truth of Feld's Rule of Political Power: "Your political power is directly related to your perceived ability to cause pain." Among the latest targets of Beck and his followers is Mark Lloyd at the Federal Communications Commission. I've known Mark for some years and consider him friend, so I am hardly the most impartial of defenders here. Besides, my Public Knowledge colleague Art Brodsky and others have written strong personal defenses of Mark and debunked the charges against him as well or better than I could. Nor is my purpose here merely to fulfill my Biblical obligation not to suffer "a tale bearer among thy people, nor stand by the blood of thy neighbor" (Lev. 19:16) by re-iterating the defense of Mark Lloyd.
http://benton.org/node/27816
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FCC REPORT LANGUAGE TROUBLES ATTORNEYS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Even as the Federal Communications Commission released its media management report to Congress two weeks ago, it was already agreeing with a congressional call for more than the requisite survey of the landscape the report provided. While acknowledging the report failed to answer some key questions, the FCC signaled an additional inquiry. And both the report and the further review are buttressed by language that could lay the groundwork for applying indecency regulations to cable and satellite. In the report, which was approved unanimously by the five commissioners, the FCC described television as a "uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans," attributing the quote to the 1978 Pacifica decision involving airing of George Carlin's "filthy words" routine. It went on to talk about TV as the medium of choice, supporting the claim with statistics that do not separate out broadcasting from cable or satellite, as a preamble to discussing what content control tools are available on both pay and free TV. The rub in all this is that the FCC put "television" in front of the Pacifica quote in the report, when Pacifica dealt generally with "broadcasting," and with only over-the-air broadcasting. The Pacifica case, in fact, was about radio. But by applying the "uniquely pervasive" moniker to all of TV, free and pay, the FCC echoed the longstanding justification for content regulation that has not applied to pay TV media.
http://benton.org/node/27815
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WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON WITH THE LATEST CHALLENGE TO NIELSEN?
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Chuck Ross]
As has been reported everywhere, dissatisfaction with Nielsen is nothing new. And past efforts to fund a true challenger to Nielsen have failed. Is this time different? Maybe. First things first. There are myriad issues with set-top box data. First, it's interesting that the folks who have the data—the cable operators, satellite providers, and the telcos who provide video—are not members of the coalition. Secondly, there aren't any standards thus far for gathering data from the boxes. And what about the fact that the boxes are not in the homes of many minorities? There are issues of getting enough information on a national basis, issues about privacy, and issues about getting demographic data. So clearly, in its initial stages, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM ) is an attempt to stimulate research at the set top box level, to create a common platform for analyzing that kind of census level data and to find constructive ways to stimulate discussion. Moving forward, if the many challenges can be met, perhaps CIMM can develop a currency with which to base the buying of ad time across myriad platforms. And that's a prospect that should keep Nielsen executives up at night.
http://benton.org/node/27812
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TV NETWORKS SHOULD FEAR HULU
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Mark Walsh]
If analyst Laura Martin is right, Hulu is the demon seed that will wipe out the network television business as we know it. In a new report, the Soleil Securities analyst estimates that the online video hub will cost TV networks $920 per viewer in advertising if their audiences are cannibalized by Hulu. And she believes the bulk of viewing on Hulu is indeed taking eyeballs from TV. It's not the first time Martin has sounded the alarm on the rise of online TV. In a May report she warned that the entire $300 billion market valuation of the television industry is threatened by the shift of programming from TV to the Web. Spearheading the overthrow of TV-as-we-know-it is Hulu, the premium video site backed by NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney Co. that offers content from 120 partners from the Food Network to Paramount Pictures. As of July, Hulu had grown to 38 million monthly viewers who watched 457 million streamed videos, making it the sixth-most-visited video site, ahead of competitors like AOL, CBS Interactive and the Turner Network, according to comScore.
http://benton.org/node/27834
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OWNERSHIP
DOJ DECIDES THAT MICROSOFT-YAHOO DEAL DESERVES MORE SCRUTINY
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Emil Protalinski]
As expected, the Justice Department has demanded more information about the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal. Yahoo has less reason to worry than it did when it was courting Google, but at the very least, it will be a while before the deal is approved. Over the course of the review, the companies expect to be asked about their search engine investments to ensure that Microsoft's search engine Bing is a viable product, how the companies' online ad auctions operate, and what might happen to prices as a result of the combination. The DoJ is also interested in seeing search engine product plans from both companies to see if competition will become more vigorous or not.
http://benton.org/node/27814
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MICROSOFT DAMAGE AWARD OVERTURNED
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Bill Rigby, Jonathan Stempel]
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles many patent and trademark cases, on Friday overturned a $358 million damages award against software maker Microsoft Corp in a long-running patent dispute with French telecoms equipment firm Alcatel-Lucent. The court held that Microsoft did indirectly infringe Alcatel's patents, but said the damages awarded against the firm were not justified and must be retried.
http://benton.org/node/27813
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CONTROLLING ILLEGAL USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL ON THE WEB
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: David Lazarus]
[Commentary] Fines for the misuse of a copyrighted photo are too high, critics say. Though agencies deserve a fair fee, negotiating with users is preferable to big penalties.
http://benton.org/node/27836
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GOOGLE WRITES ITS OWN RULES
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Christopher Caldwell]
[Commentary] Sceptics often ask of new government programmes: if it is so worthwhile, why is the private sector not doing it already? A similar question can be asked of companies claiming to be acting for the general good: if the public needs it, why is the government not doing it already? Google's plan to digitize all of the world's 168m books needs to be examined in this light. Since 2004, the search-engine corporation has scanned about 5m titles, many of them under copyright. A comprehensive digital library could obviously generate a lot of revenue (although it is not yet fully obvious how). Last year, Google negotiated a long and complicated "settlement" with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, which had been suing it. Google would keep just over a third of revenues generated by these online books, with the remainder going to a non-profit book-rights registry run by publishers' and authors' representatives. The registry would seek out the authors of "orphaned" books - those under copyright but out of print - and distribute royalties to them. Google agreed to pay $125m to fund the registry. Neither privacy nor competition is the main reason for skepticism about the Google books settlement. The problem is that the arrangement is a usurpation. It is a false analogy to compare Google Books, as some defenders of the settlement do, to Amazon's Kindle system of e-books. Authors and publishers participate in Kindle by granting Amazon permission to publish in that format. Google's system would dispense with such permission. It is thus a change in the regime of property rights. The settlement authorizes a large corporation to manage the rights of authors it cannot locate, and to justify itself with vague invocations of our cultural heritage. Maybe our society is evolving in that direction anyway. The past century was an era in which people ceded rights to government in exchange for what they saw as a more efficient allocation of resources. Maybe publics are now willing to make the same trade with the private sector. Maybe we are headed back to the era of government-created monopolies such as the British East India Company and the Dutch VOC. But, if such a monopoly is to be created, government must create it explicitly and not permit interested parties in a private lawsuit just to divvy up the spoils.
http://benton.org/node/27835
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ADVERTISING
AD SHIFT THROWS BLOGS A BUSINESS LIFELINE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Claire Cain Miller]
A look at blog networks. Such networks put blogs on various topics under some form of central control, like a digital-era Condé Nast. Though they do not command nearly the same ad rates that glossy magazines do, they are attracting ad dollars while magazines are losing them. The blog networks that have survived the downturn in advertising and the explosion of competing content on the Web credit their obsessive coverage of narrow topics, along with business models that reach beyond advertising.
http://benton.org/node/27838
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UK RECONSIDERS BAN ON PRODUCT PLACEMENTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Paul Sonne]
Apparently, the British government is moving toward lifting a longstanding ban on product placements in TV shows on commercial networks, in a move that would aid the country's struggling commercial broadcasters. Ben Bradshaw, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, is expected to explain why he thinks the ban should be lifted in a speech to the Royal Television Society this week. The British Broadcasting Corp., whose TV networks in the U.K. don't air advertisements, will continue to ban product placements, or deals in which companies pay for a product to be included in a TV show. The product-placement market in Britain could be worth as much as £100 million ($166.7 million) a year, according to an estimate by ITV PLC and the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television in a December 2008 paper submitted to the culture ministry.
http://benton.org/node/27837
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BILLBOARDS SPUR FIGHT: FREE SPEECH VS BEAUTY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Dominick Tao]
Since the 1940s, at least on paper, New York City has restricted, or banned outright, the placement of billboards along its highways. But because of haphazard enforcement and what a federal judge described as "subterfuge" and willful lawbreaking by sign companies, the rise of the billboards — some even on city property — went on unchecked. By the time the judge, Paul A. Crotty of Federal District Court in Manhattan, issued a decision in the spring that upheld the city's right to regulate the billboards and excoriated it for not doing so sooner, no one could even say for sure which of the more than 600 highway billboards had the right to be there. Billboard companies, which have earned far more from advertisers over the years than they have paid in fines, have appealed the ruling.
http://benton.org/node/27829
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