March 2007

For upcoming media policy events, see http://www.benton.org

BROADCASTING
All eligible for TV converter discount
Cable Operator Calls for Tax to Aid TV Stations
FCC Hits Stations With Proposed Kids TV Fines
If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative

INTERNET/BROADBAND
Not so fast, broadband providers tell big users
Internet name system in growing danger: U.N. agency
Tech Firms Push to Use TV Airwaves for Internet
How Search-Engine Rules Cause Sites to Go Missing

TEN YEARS AGO...
Internet Use Doubled in 18 Months

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATION
Failure to Communicate
Feds, AT&T: Eavesdropping trial would reveal state secrets
Are we safer

QUICKLY -- In a Foxhole; Study Says Computers Give Big Boosts to
Productivity; Illinois Municipalities Look to Box In AT&T; Bush Aides
and Business Meet on Shift in Regulation

BROADCASTING

ALL ELIGIBLE FOR TV CONVERTER DISCOUNT
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Rachelle Younglai]
All U.S. households with televisions that use analog technology will
be eligible for $40 discount coupons to buy digital converter boxes,
the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA)
said on Monday. That means less-affluent consumers who have only
analog TVs and rely solely on free over-the-air television will line
up for a coupon alongside households that subscribe to cable or
satellite service, or already own digital televisions. U.S.
television stations are required to switch to only digital broadcasts
by February 17, 2009. An estimated 20 million households now rely
solely on free over-the-air television. Analog televisions could go
dark at that time if owners do not get a converter box, subscribe to
satellite or digital cable, or replace their TV with a digital
television. Some industry sources have estimated the price of a
converter box could range between $50 to $60. The NTIA expects to
have a system in place to process coupons starting on January 1,
2008. John Dingell, the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and
Commerce, criticized the NTIA plan.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1235374420070312
* Feds unveil digital-TV subsidy details
http://news.com.com/Feds+unveil+digital+TV+subsidy+details/2100-1028_3-6...
* All in U.S. eligible for TV box coupons
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20070313/converter_box13.art.htm
* Commerce Department Issues Final Rule To Launch Digital-to-Analog
Converter Box Coupon Program
"The transition from analog to digital television is a historic
change and brings with it considerable benefits for the American
consumer," said Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez. "The
coupon program is designed to help ease the transition to digital
TV. Not only will the transition help expand consumer choices, but
more importantly, the digital transition will enable more efficient
use of the nation's airwaves providing new advanced wireless services
and increased public safety services for all Americans."
"With the Coupon Program and a successful analog-to-digital
transition involving the public, industry and government, the switch
from analog to digital television will be completed as planned," said
Assistant Secretary for Communication and Information John Kneuer.
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/2007/DTVfinalrule_031207.htm
* Dingell Upset with NTIA's DTV Box Rules
House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) criticized key
portions of the NTIA plan. He is upset because the Commerce
Department's rules would disqualify cable- and satellite-TV homes
from seeking financial assistance if the 15-month program spends more
than $990 million. Only homes that rely exclusively on free,
over-the-air-television could seek any of the remaining $510 million.
"After the administration opposed Democratic efforts to secure
sufficient funding in favor of more tax cuts, the administration now
shows newfound concern that not all households will be covered,"
Chairman Dingell said in a prepared statement. "If the administration
believes additional funds are needed to prevent consumers' television
sets from going dark, then it should ask the Congress for such funding."
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6423691.html?display=Breaking+News
* Markey on Bush Plan for Digital TV Consumer Boxes
"The proposed plan... arbitrarily limits consumer eligibility for the
program after the first $990 million is spent. This is likely to
increase consumer confusion about who is eligible for coupons and
when they are eligible. The Administration is evidently limiting the
program in this way because of concern that sufficient funding to
cover all consumers who need boxes may not be available. Last year,
the Administration opposed efforts by Full Committee Chairman John
Dingell (D-MI) and myself that would have removed this concern by
ensuring adequate funding for the program. The Telecommunications
and Internet Subcommittee intends to review this and other aspects of
the Administration's plan in upcoming hearings to ensure that
consumer welfare is adequately protected and that the digital TV
transition remains on track."
http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2675&I...
* Republican Fires Back at Democrat's DTV Rule Criticism
"Nobody is interested in spending an extra half-billion dollars of
taxpayer's money to guarantee that every last television on some
country squire's estate will work," said Larry Neal, a top Republican
staffer on the House Commerce Committee.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6423672.html?display=Breaking...
* Commerce Department issues ill-fated rules to launch the
digital-to-analog converter box coupon program
[Commentary] "What is eminently clear from that press conference is
that the NTIA and Congress have lost their focus on the purpose of
the converter box subsidy program, which was to speed the DTV
transition, not serve as a pork barrel program for the DTV broadcast
and manufacturing industries. My hunch is that this extremely
ill-conceived program is more likely to slow than speed the DTV
transition, as Congress is forced to acknowledge and deal with the
boondoggle it has created by placing inconsistent and impossible
demands on the NTIA."
http://quixote.blogs.com/telecompolicy/

WILLNER CALLS FOR TAX TO AID TV STATIONS
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
On Monday, Insight Communications CEO Michael Willner said a federal
tax designed to subsidize local TV stations should replace the
current system that allows TV stations to help their finances by
demanding cash for carriage from cable operators. Willner said his TV
tax proposal would ensure a second revenue stream for broadcasters
while relieving cable operators from having to pay for programming
that is offered to the public free-of-charge. Willner indicated that
the TV tax would fund a federal royalty pool, similar to the one used
to compensate sports leagues and Hollywood studios. Insight is the
ninth-largest U.S-based cable operator, with 1.3 million subscribers,
mostly in the Midwest. National Association of Broadcasters executive
vice president of communications Dennis Wharton called the proposal
"laughable" and said the "NAB isn't interested in raising taxes on
American citizens." ("Cash is nice," he added, "but there's always so
much more to do with that free spectrum and cable bandwidth.")
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6423671.html?display=Breaking+News

FCC HITS STATIONS WITH PROPOSED KIDS TV FINES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The FCC has proposed one of its largest collections of fines for TV
stations violating children's television advertising limits and
reporting requirements. On Monday, the FCC proposed fining six
stations a total of $65,000, and admonishing a seventh station for
violating public filing and commercial limit rules. The decisions
were issued just two days before the FCC commissioners are scheduled
to appear before the House Telecommunications Subcommittee for an
oversight hearing. The biggest fine was for $17,500, levied against
KGWB-TV Burlington, Iowa. The station violated the FCC's limits on
commercials in kids TV shows by showing an image of a Quack Pack
character in a Quack Pack show, and for failing to maintain adequate
public records of its kids programming.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6423657.html?display=Breaking...

IF IT'S SUNDAY, IT'S STILL CONSERVATIVE
[SOURCE: Media Matters for America]
Who are the guests on the Sunday morning public affairs shows where
conventional wisdom is formed and the terms of debate are set? Media
Matters for America followed up on an earlier study and classified
each guest appearing on ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, NBC's
Meet the Press, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday during
2005 and 2006 (over 2,000 appearances) and found: 1) Republicans and
conservatives dramatically outnumbered Democrats and progressives on
the Sunday shows in 2005 and 2006, by a margin of 44 percent to 27
percent (the remainder were neutral or nonpartisan figures). 2)
Counting only elected officials and administration representatives,
Republicans had a stark advantage over Democrats, 62 percent to 37
percent. 3) Fox News Sunday's journalist panels are the most
lopsided, with a typical lineup consisting of two or even three
conservatives, one neutral reporter, and one progressive. But even on
ABC, NBC, and CBS, conservative journalists were nearly twice as
likely as their progressive counterparts to appear on the Sunday
shows. 4) While a majority of guest panels on the ABC, NBC, and CBS
shows were balanced or neutral in their composition, there were
nearly three times as many right-leaning panels as left-leaning ones.
Fox News Sunday was even worse.
http://mediamatters.org/sundayshowreport/online_version/
* Hinchey Says Sunday Shows Still Unbalanced
Rep Maurice Hinchey (D-NY): "The American people are the owners of
the public airwaves and the networks have an obligation and
responsibility to use those airwaves to offer a balanced presentation
of ideas and perspectives from Democrats and Republicans alike."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6423681.html?display=Breaking...

INTERNET/BROADBAND

NOT SO FAST, BROADBAND PROVIDERS TELL BIG USERS
[SOURCE: Boston Globe, AUTHOR: Carolyn Y. Johnson cjohnson( at )globe.com]
For an increasing number of people, a high-speed Internet connection
is a lifeline to everyday entertainment and communication. Television
networks are posting shows online; retailers are lining up to offer
music and movie downloads; thousands of Internet radio stations
stream music; more people are using WiFi phones; and "over the top
TV," in which channels stream over the Internet, is predicted to
grow. That means that more customers may become familiar with
Comcast's little-known acceptable-use policy, which allows the
company to cut off service to customers who use the Internet too
much. Comcast says that only .01 percent of its 11.5 million
residential high-speed Internet customers fall into this category.
Matt Davis, a research director at IDC Corp., said that because of
the way cable high-speed Internet works, a person using a huge amount
of bandwidth will slow service for hundreds of customers. Davis said
that even if only a tiny fraction of customers are downloading enough
to trigger the policy, that will probably change as more
entertainment moves to the Internet. Today, he said, an average
subscriber downloads about one gigabyte per month, but even if
everyone on the network began downloading just one movie a month, it
could have a dramatic effect on the network.
http://www.boston.com/business/personaltech/articles/2007/03/12/not_so_f...

INTERNET NAME SYSTEM IN GROWING DANGER: UN AGENCY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Robert Evans]
The Internet's key site identity system is in mounting danger from
new techniques that could cause havoc by turning it into a
free-for-all market, the World Intellectual Property Organization
WIPO warned on Monday. And the United Nations' agency said the latest
trends in registering top-level domain names (TLDs) -- like
www.reuters.com -- could undermine dispute procedures under which
patent holders can pursue "cybersquatters." "Domain names used to be
primarily specific identifiers of businesses and other Internet
users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities for speculative
gain," senior WIPO official Francis Gurry said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL1235617720070312

TECH FIRMS PUSH TO USE TV AIRWAVES FOR INTERNET
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Charles Babington]
A coalition of big technology companies wants to bring high-speed
Internet access to consumers in a new way: over television airwaves.
Key to the project is whether a device scheduled to be delivered to
federal labs today lives up to its promise. The coalition, which
includes Microsoft and Google, wants regulators to allow idle TV
channels, known as white space, to be used to beam the Internet into
homes and offices. But the Federal Communications Commission first
must be convinced that such traffic would not bleed outside its
designated channels and interfere with existing broadcasts. The six
partners -- Microsoft, Google, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and
Philips -- say they can meet that challenge. Today, they plan to give
FCC officials a prototype device, built by Microsoft, that will
undergo months of testing. If the device passes muster, the coalition
says, it could have versions in stores by early 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR200703...
(requires registration)
See also --
* J.H. Snider on Microsoft's Wireless Prototype
http://www.newamerica.net/pressroom/2007/jh_snider_on_microsofts_wireles...

HOW SEARCH-ENGINE RULES CAUSE SITES TO GO MISSING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Kevin J. Delaney kevin.delaney( at )wsj.com]
The influence of search engines has only grown in recent years, as
they have become the de facto gateways for many of the more than 180
million American Internet users to anything they might do online.They
also have become a crucial tool for businesses that depend on those
users finding them. But as a way to lure customers to a site, search
rankings often aren't dependable. Overnight, sites can disappear from
top results for any given search term -- say, "Miami hotels" -- and
cause the sites' revenues plummet as potential customers go
elsewhere. Among the most common reasons for unpredictable changes in
rankings are frequent updates to search engines' algorithms. These
mathematical formulas analyze billions of Web pages for dozens of
factors, such as the most prominent words on the pages and what other
sites link to the pages, in order to determine how to rank them for
relevance to a query. Search companies change algorithms partly to
frustrate people who try to inappropriately boost their sites in the
results, but legitimate businesses sometimes feel they're caught in
the crossfire.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117375265591935029.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
(requires subscription)

TEN YEARS AGO...

INTERNET USE HAS MORE THAN DOUBLED IN LAST 18 MONTHS, SURVEY FINDS
[SOURCE: Washington Post 3/13/1997, AUTHOR: Rajiv Chandrasekaran]
Ten years ago, Nielsen Media Research and CommerceNet found that
almost 25% of people over the age of 16 in the US and Canada were
using the Internet -- more than twice the number using the Net just
18 months before that. 17% were using the World Wide Web -- wow, do
we even make a distinction between the Internet and the World Wide
Web anymore? -- compared with 8 percent 18 months earlier. Internet
usage had increased from 10 percent to 23 percent, the survey found.
50.6 million people in both countries were using the Internet, while
about 37.4 million were using the Web. As of December 2006, Pew
Internet & American Life Project finds that 70% of US adults are now
Internet users.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/11242115.html?dids=112...
(requires registration)

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATION

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jerry Brito, George Mason University]
[Commentary] For more than two decades, the nation's first
responders to emergencies have had to contend with radio
communications that were not up to the task. Each time a major
calamity such as the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina
throws a spotlight on the problem, a blue-ribbon panel is convened.
And each time the panel invariably offers the same prescription: more
funding and more radio spectrum for public safety agencies. But this
kind of treatment has never solved the problem. It targets the
symptoms, not the disease. First, responders often cannot communicate
with each other because the federal government assigns to each of the
50,000 public safety agencies in the country -- that's every hometown
fire and police department -- their own radio license and piece of
the spectrum with which to build out a communications system. This is
undoubtedly beneficial in so far as it affords localities great
flexibility to build a system that best suits their needs. But it
comes at a cost: More often than not the custom systems can't "talk"
to each other. Here is a better idea: Offer Cyren Call, Frontline and
others the opportunity to bid on spectrum already restricted to
public safety use. That would allow firms to build national
interoperable networks without affecting how much spectrum will be
available for commercial use. At the very least, if spectrum now
slated for commercial auction must be used, the government should
identify an equal amount of existing public safety spectrum that can
be auctioned commercially once the new public safety networks are built.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117375296121535034.html?mod=todays_us_op...
(requires subscription)

FEDS, AT&T: EAVESDROPPING TRIAL WOULD REVEAL STATE SECRETS
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
The federal government is urging an appeals court to dismiss a
lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic eavesdropping program,
warning that disclosure of such activities could compromise national
security. "The suit's very subject matter -- including the
relationship, if any, between AT&T and the government in connection
with the secret intelligence activities alleged by plaintiffs -- is a
state secret," the Justice Department argued in court papers. The
documents were filed late Friday and released Monday by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the suit. It accuses
AT&T Inc. of illegally making communications on its networks
available to the National Security Agency without warrants, and
challenges Bush's assertion that he could use his wartime powers to
eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/16892490.htm

ARE WE SAFER
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Tom Blanton, National Security Archive]
Information belongs to the American people, despite our government's
insistence that it does not. In this age of terrorism, knee-jerk
secrecy aims to protect us from the evils of the world. In practice,
though, it might do just the opposite. We face a choice today. Many
officials, especially in Washington, have the retro Cold War
mind-set, urging us to adopt the methods and the secrecy of our
enemies. In the Internet age, we should know better. Computer
security experts tell us that if the software bug is secret, only the
vendor and the hacker know, and the rest of us can neither protect
our own computers nor contribute to a solution. We can either hide
our vulnerabilities, or we can expose and fix them. We will never be
safer in the dark.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070313/oplede13.art.htm

QUICKLY

IN A FOXHOLE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] The last election showed voters are open to listening
to Democrats again, and they've got a chance to take control of the
entire government next year. But Democrats won't succeed if they
kowtow to every demand from the maximalist left -- whether on policy
issues or which journalists they are allowed to take questions from.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117375122497534986.html?mod=todays_us_op...
(requires subscription)

STUDY SAYS COMPUTERS GIVE BIG BOOSTS TO PRODUCTIVITY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
Money spent on computing technology delivers gains in worker
productivity that are three to five times those of other investments,
according to a study being published today. But the study also
concluded that the information technology industry itself was
unlikely to be a big source of new jobs. The report is a wide-ranging
look at the role that information technology plays in the economy,
based on an assessment of existing research and the authors'
analysis. The study was done by a year-old research organization, the
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, whose work is
supported by companies like I.B.M., Cisco Systems and eBay, as well
as by the Communications Workers of America and foundation grants. It
will be available at www.itif.org. The study concludes that the
economic significance of information technology is less in the
technology itself than in the capacity of computer hardware, software
and services to transform other sectors of the economy. Policy,
according to the study, should focus less on incentives to use
certain technology products or help particular companies than on
encouraging market forces to hasten the pace of technology-aided
change in industries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/technology/13tech.html
(requires registration)

ILLINOIS MUNICIPALITIES LOOK TO BOX IN AT&T
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Linda Haugsted]
Local advocates in DuPage County, Illinois have placed large, ugly
boxes in two cities to draw attention to a bill, HB 1500, that would
move video franchising to the state Commerce Commission.
Representatives of both communities said they welcome competition,
but they want to retain some of the authority they now have over
incumbent operators.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6423669.html?display=Breaking+News

BUSH AIDES AN BUSINESS MEET ON SHIFT IN REGULATION
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stephen Labaton]
Senior Bush administration officials began a series of high-level
discussions on Monday with top executives from Wall Street,
corporations and the major accounting firms. Many of the executives
have urged the rollback of laws passed in the wake of the Enron and
WorldCom scandals as well as limits to liability from government and
shareholder lawsuits. Vice President Dick Cheney opened the
conference by speaking to the group at a private dinner on Monday
evening sponsored by the Treasury Department. The group, which
invited senior Republican and Democratic lawmakers, was also
addressed by Warren E. Buffett, the investor and chairman of
Berkshire Hathaway. The meetings present a rare opportunity for
leading executives to meet behind closed doors with members of
Congress and senior officials before the White House begins to lose
political power in the final months of a lame-duck administration.
The participants will include the chief executives of J. P. Morgan
Chase, General Electric, Charles Schwab and the New York Stock
Exchange; Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York; Ann Yerger,
executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors; and a
number of former top officials including Robert E. Rubin, Treasury
secretary in the Clinton administration; Alan Greenspan, the former
Federal Reserve chairman; and Arthur Levitt Jr., Mr. Clinton's S.E.C.
chairman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/business/13regulate.html
(requires registration)
* Paulson, Cox Gather Business Thinkers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117375650751535177.html?mod=todays_us_pa...
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Communications-related Headlines is a free online news summary
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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
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Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang headlines( at )benton.org -- we
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