February 2007

The Alliance for Public Technology will honor SeniorNet, Charles
Benton and House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey today. For
this and other upcoming media policy events, see http://www.benton.org

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
The Cyren Call of Interoperability

NEWS FROM THE FCC
FCC Answers House Commerce Committee Oversight Questions
FCC Media Ownership Hearing in Harrisburg Feb 23
Turner: Web Streamers Can't Use Program Law

OWNERSHIP
Cronkite: Quest for media profits hurts
GE's Immelt: NBC Universal Not For Sale

BROADCASTING
How TV Stations Can Win Big in 2008 Elections
MoveOn Launches CPB Budget-Saving Petition
Number of HDTV homes to treble by 2011

NET NEUTRALITY
Could Canada Kill Net Neutrality?
A Call To Let Your Phone Loose

QUICKLY -- Information Overload; EMI mulls unprotected Web song
sales; Colorado Statewide Franchise Bill; ACLU slams final San
Francisco Wi-Fi contract

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

THE CYREN CALL OF INTEROPERABILITY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Senate Commerce Committee heard a pitch Thursday for creating a
public-private trust and putting half of the spectrum being reclaimed
from the switch to DTV into the trust. Pushing back on the idea were
legislators suggesting the proposal could muck up the DTV transition.
Police and fire chiefs testifying before the legislators argued that
the trust would provide enough spectrum and funds to create an
inter-operable nationwide emergency communications system. The
creation of this system is high on the list of Congress post-9/11.
The idea, being pitched by a company called Cyren Call, is that the
30 Mhz that would be put into the fund is enough spectrum to attract
private capital to build the network. Then it could be used for
private purposes when it wasn't being used for emergencies. Arguing
against the proposal was the wireless telephone industry. CTIA
President Steve Largent said that the 24 mHz of spectrum already
allocated for emergency response by the DTV transition bill is
sufficient to create that network. He continued to say that taking an
additional 30 Mhz out of the auction would disrupt the transition to
digital and the roll-out of advanced wireless services by the
companies -- his members -- planning to bid on the spectrum at
auction. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), was particularly skeptical
about the Cyren Call proposal. He said it sounded good in theory, but
in practice could undermine funding for the DTV set-top box converter
program and other programs slated to get money from the auction.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6414838?display=Breaking+News
* Powell Weighs in on the Allocation of Communications Spectrum
Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell sent a letter to Senate Commerce
Committee Vice Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) supporting the DTV
transition bill's plan for first responder communications and taking
aim at an alternative being pushed by Cyren Call. The DTV bill set a
hard date for the transition and put aside $1 billion and 24 mHz of
spectrum for first responders. He said during his tenure he "saw the
need to act urgently and resist the never-ending parade of new ideas
and new plans." Powell has four questions concerning the Cyren Call
proposal: 1) Would it delay existing plans for an interoperable
system? 2) Would it disrupt funding? 3) Is it complex, with too many
moving parts? 4) "Who is going to benefit the most, those in uniform
who are sworn to serve or those in suits who are set to profit?"
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415099.html?display=Breaking...

NEWS FROM THE FCC

FCC ANSWERS HOUSE COMMERCE COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT QUESTIONS
[SOURCE: House Commerce Committee]
FCC Chairman Martin and FCC Commissioners respond to Committee letter
of January 31, 2007, regarding the Subcommittee on Telecommunications
and the Internet Hearing on oversight of the FCC scheduled for
February 15, 2007. The letter asks about and the Commissioners
provide answers on NSA wiretapping, the AT&T-BellSouth merger
decision, broadband deployment, spectrum policy, the digital
television transition, and Commission processes. Commissioners Copps
and Adelstein again called for the Commission to define the public
interest obligations (PIOs) of digital television broadcasters. The
FCC first asked about for public comment on PIOs 12 years ago.
* Committee letter:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-ltr.013107.FCC.pre-hrg%20q...
* FCC Chairman Martin:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Chairman.r...
* Commissioner Copps:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Copps.pdf
* Commissioner Adelstein:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Adelstein.pdf
* Commissioner Tate:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.Tate.pdf
* Commissioner McDowell:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110-resp.FCC.020707.McDowell.pdf
** Also see:
Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters
Timeline 1995-2007 -- More than 4,000 days of inaction
http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=node/4754

FCC MEDIA OWNERSHIP HEARING IN HARRISBURG FEB 23
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
The Federal Communications Commission announced that the third public
hearing on media ownership issues will be held in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania on Friday, February 23, 2007. This hearing will provide
an opportunity for those in the Harrisburg area to discuss media
ownership, including specific issues facing that local market.
Further details on the public hearing will be released at a later
date. (The Commission's monthly open meeting is also currently
scheduled for 2/23.)
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270408A1.doc

TURNER: WEB STREAMERS CAN'T USE PROGRAM LAW
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
A cable-competition law is off limits to video-streaming Web sites
that want forced access to CNN and other popular cable networks that
populate TV screens in millions of subscription-television homes,
Turner Network Sales said Thursday in a Federal Communications
Commission filing. TNS took a stand in response to an FCC complaint
filed last month by Virtual Digital Cable, a subscription-video Web
site that became the first such entity to test whether it is
protected by federal program-access laws. Those statutes effectively
force satellite-delivered cable networks that are owned by cable
operators to license their content to cable competitors like DirecTV,
EchoStar Communications' Dish Network and Verizon Communications'
FiOS TV. Although VDC has demanded access to TNT, TBS, CNN and CNN
Headline News, TNS argued that VDC can't do so because, among other
things, VDC isn't a "multichannel-video-programming distributor" that
offers "multiple channels of video programming" as those terms are
defined in federal law and have been interpreted by the FCC.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6415130.html?display=Breaking+News

OWNERSHIP

CRONKITE: QUEST FOR MEDIA PROFITS HURTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
In a keynote address at Columbia University, former CBS News anchor
Walter Cronkite warned that pressures by media companies to generate
ever-greater profits are threatening the very freedom the nation was
built upon. said today's journalists face greater challenges than
those from his generation. No longer could journalists count on their
employers to provide the necessary resources, he said, "to expose
truths that powerful politicians and special interests often did not
want exposed." Instead, he said, "they face rounds and rounds of job
cuts and cost cuts that require them to do ever more with ever
less.'' "In this information age and the very complicated world in
which we live today, the need for high-quality reporting is greater
than ever," he said. Cronkite said news accuracy has declined because
of consolidations and closures that have left many American towns
with only one newspaper. And as broadcasters cut budgets and air time
for news, he said, "we're all left with a sound bite culture that
turns political campaigns into political theater." The former anchor
urged owners of media companies -- newspapers and broadcast alike --
to recognize they have special civil responsibilities. "Consolidation
and cost cutting may be good for the bottom line in the short term
but that isn't necessarily good for the country or the health of the
news business in the long term,'" he said.
http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=39215199158185
See related story --
* Wake-up call to a.m. news: moms tuning out
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Matea Gold]
This season has seen a significant erosion of the morning shows'
demographic sweet spot: 25- to 54-year-old women. Almost 450,000 of
these women -- coveted by advertisers because of their household
purchasing power -- turned off the three broadcast morning programs
so far this season, a decline of 10% compared to the same point last
year, according to a Times analysis of Nielsen Media Research data.
(Male viewers the same age also fell by 9%, but they make up a much
smaller portion of the audience.) It's difficult to trace the exact
cause of the drop. It comes after two popular morning hosts, Katie
Couric and Charles Gibson, left their shows to be evening news
anchors. At the same time, the advent of "mommy blogs," the growing
popularity of online news sites and the ever-more-frantic press of
daily life appear to have led many women to forgo the morning ritual
of watching TV. News executives are sanguine about the ratings dip,
calling it a short-term fluctuation. They attribute it in large part
to the unseasonably mild winter in much of the country until
recently, noting that temperate weather draws people outside, and
away from their television sets. But could it have something to do
with the content of the shows? "Watching morning television for me is
the equivalent of reading People magazine in the dentist's office,"
said Jenny Lauck, a mother of three who writes for websites from her
home in Santa Rosa, Calif. "They don't have anything new or
particularly relevant to my life. It seems like a lot of fluff. I
feel like I can get information faster and cleaner on the Internet."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-et-women9feb09,1,51398...
(requires registration)

GE'S IMMELT: NBC UNIVERSAL NOT FOR SALE
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Nat Ives]
General Electric Co. Chairman-CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt was quick to
dispel the notion that NBC Universal was for sale. NBC is far from
leading its category -- a quality GE prefers in its business units --
but it has a good business and some building momentum, Mr. Immelt
said. "Every now and then, companies need to fix things," he said.
"The business is going to overachieve within the next few years."
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=114869

BROADCASTING

HOW TV STATIONS CAN WIN BIG IN 2008 ELECTIONS
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Mark Effron markeffron( at )gmail.com]
[Commentary] A billion dollars in advertising is up for grabs in the
presidential campaigns now getting underway. That's on top of all the
money that will be spent on TV by Senate, House, gubernatorial and
local candidates and advocacy groups. The experts agree: More money
than ever before will be spent on media leading up to the 2008
elections. Are broadcasters poised to get their share? Effron offers
six steps to make the most money off of the democratic process: 1)
television stations should create separate political areas on their
web sites, 2) the site should be fed with additional political
reporting, 3) the site should include "controversial and entertaining
video content that can be e-mailed around by... viewers", 4) the site
should be updated often, 5) the site should provide depth of
coverage, and 6) the site should be marketed "like crazy." (Yes,
right, the broadcaster should do everything it is licensed to do
over-the-air on the Internet instead.)
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/02/08/daily.5/
* The 2008 ad blitz begins
Presidential campaign advertising will start hitting the airwaves in
the coming months, far earlier in the election cycle than during the
2004 race, and the ads will barrage the American public for much
longer, delivering a windfall to television and radio stations,
industry experts say.
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/020907/blitz.html

MOVEON LAUNCHES CPB BUDGET-SAVING PETITION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Moveon.org has launched an online petition drive opposing the latest
budget cuts to public broadcasting and sees the new Democratic
Congress as an opportunity to "make sure this never happens again."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6415105.html?display=Breaking...
* See the petition: http://civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/

NUMBER OF HDTV HOMES TO TREBLE BY 2011: REPORT
[SOURCE: Reuters]
According to Informa Telecoms and Media, the number of households
around the world with high-definition television (HDTV) will treble
over the next five years as viewers switch to its clearer, more vivid
picture. The number of homes taking the product will jump to 151
million worldwide by 2011 from 48 million at the end of 2006 when an
estimated 1.2 billion households had a television. The report said
some 58 percent of HD homes were currently found in the United States
and 20 percent in Japan, with Britain, Canada, China and Germany also
high on the list.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&story...

NET NEUTRALITY

COULD CANADA KILL NET NEUTRALITY?
[SOURCE: InformationWeek, AUTHOR: KC Jones]
It's hard to imagine those cute, cuddly Canadians hurting anything
(OK, maybe with a hockey stick)... The Canadian Press reported
Tuesday that it obtained documents showing advisers to Minister of
Industry Maxime Bernier seem to favor telecommunications companies'
arguments against regulation. While the minister has yet to make up
his mind on the subject, Bernier has said before that he supports a
"consumer first" approach. The papers obtained suggest his staff is
siding with Canadian telecommunications companies like Videotron and
Telus when it comes to creating a two-tier system for high-speed
bandwidth and allowing Internet providers to charge consumers more
for preferred service. Network neutrality refers to a counter
initiative to that two-tiered design. Major search engines such as
Google and Yahoo support network neutrality because of the massive
amounts of traffic they deliver compared with other sites. It also
became an issue because some carriers that offered subscription-based
voice-over-IP services were also transporting their competitors' VoIP
traffic. The Canadian debate mirrors one that has been raging in the
United States for about a year. The U.S. 109th Congress did not pass
any laws on network neutrality last year, but proponents managed to
tie up a communications package by making the network neutrality
debate part of it. Now Canadians are considering whether market
forces should guide the Internet's future. That would allow
telecommunications and cable companies to move bits faster for those
paying higher fees.
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197004617&cid...

A CALL TO LET YOUR PHONE LOOSE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Charles Babington]
Until federal regulators issued a landmark ruling in 1968, Americans
could not own the telephones in their homes, nor attach answering
machines or other devices to them. Now, a growing number of academics
and consumer activists say it's time to deliver a similar
groundbreaking jolt to the cellphone industry, possibly triggering a
new round of customer options and technical innovations to rival the
one that produced faxes, modems and the Internet. Wireless carriers,
which limit what customers may do with their phones, say the move is
unnecessary and potentially harmful. But in articles, blogs and
speeches, a number of researchers are asking why the companies are
allowed to force consumers to buy new handsets when they change
carriers, pay a specified carrier to transfer photos from a camera
phone, or download ring tones or music from one provider only. The
wireless carriers, however, say that forcing them to open their
networks to unfettered use is not needed, because consumers have
several options for carriers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR200702...
(requires registration)
* see examples of restrictions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR200702...

QUICKLY

A DRAWBACK OF THE INFORMATION AGE
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Jeffery Shaffer]
[Commentary] It is hard for me to keep up with every detail of modern
culture, and obviously I'm not alone in battling this information
gap. The old saying that knowledge is power still holds true, but how
does anyone with a thirst for knowledge avoid being drowned by the
tsunami of information that crashes over us each day? My fear is that
many Americans are sliding into a narrow groove that includes a few
topics of personal interest, and everything outside the groove is
simply ignored. (Well, you could read an online news summary, but
that's my answer to everything.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0209/p09s03-cojs.html

EMI MULLS UNPROTECTED WEB SONG SALES: SOURCES
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Sue Zeidler]
Music label EMI Group is in talks to release a large portion of its
music catalog for Web sales without technological protections against
piracy that are included in most music bought over the Internet now,
sources said on Thursday. One source familiar with the matter said
that EMI was in talks to release a large amount of its music in an
unprotected MP3 format to various online retailers. Another industry
source said EMI was seeking large advance payments from retailers in
return for the right to sell its music in this format.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID...
See also --
* Digital music rights furor deepens
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Joshua Chaffin]
Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music's chief executive, on Thursday slapped
down Steve Jobs's suggestion that record companies do away with
copyright protections for digital music in order to spur the market's
growth. He said Job's argument is "completely without logic or
merit" and said his company was committed to the continued use of
copyright protections, known as digital rights management, in the
same way that software makers and film studios safeguard their
intellectual property.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0c874346-b794-11db-bfb3-0000779e2340.html
(requires subscription)

COLORADO STATEWIDE-FRANCHISE BILL ON HOLD
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Haugsted]
A cable franchise reform bill backed by Qwest Communications
International in Colorado was postponed indefinitely by an 8-4 vote
Thursday of the state House transportation and energy committee. The
bill sought to assign responsibility for franchising to the state
Public Utilities Commission, which would have had 30 days upon
application to approve a statewide franchise for a new provider. The
bill would hold current video providers to the terms of their current
local franchises until their contractual expiration dates. But the
bill came up against strong opposition from lobbyists for cities and
counties, in addition to the incumbent cable providers.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6415096.html?display=Breaking+News

ACLU SLAMS FINAL SAN FRANCISCO WI-FI CONTRACT
[SOURCE: InfoWorld 2/7, AUTHOR: Stephen Lawson]
The ACLU has turned up the political heat on EarthLink and Google's
plan for Wi-Fi in San Francisco, telling the city's Board of
Supervisors that the proposed contract doesn't have enough privacy or
free speech protections. The ACLU of Northern California said in a
letter to the supervisors on Tuesday that both EarthLink's paid
service and Google's free offering would fall short of most of the
group's recommendations on collection and sharing of personal data
and possible tracking of users. Among other things, there are no
limits on what kind of information EarthLink can or will collect, and
terms for the Google service call for requiring "minimal" information
on login without defining "minimal," the letter said. In addition to
privacy concerns, the group is worried that knowing information is
being collected will cause users to limit what they say and do on the
Internet. The ACLU said a municipal Wi-Fi network should let users
opt in or out of any service that collects data on what they look at
or search for on the Internet, or their e-mail messages. There are no
provisions for that in the paid or free service terms, it said.
EarthLink can only save location information for 60 days, but there's
no limit to how long it can store personal protected information and
no limit to how long Google can store any information, the ACLU said.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/07/Hnaclusfwifi_1.html?source=rss...
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...and we are outta here. Have a great weekend. 4 days 'til Spring Training.
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Communications-related Headlines is a free online news summary
service provided by the Benton Foundation (www.benton.org). Posted
Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important
industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events.
While the summaries are factually accurate, their often informal tone
does not always represent the tone of the original articles.
Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang headlines( at )benton.org -- we
welcome your comments.
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