Today's Quote 04.23.08
"I do not believe any additional regulations are needed at this time. But I also believe that the Commission has a responsibility to enforce the (Network neutrality) principles that it has already adopted."
April 2008
Would News Corp. Need FCC Help To Keep Stations, Newsday?
There seems to be some question as to whether News Corp. would have to either apply for a Federal Communications Commission waiver or divest its New York TV stations if it decides to buy Newsday. The company already owns two TV stations in the New York market and one local newspaper, the New York Post, as well as national paper The Wall Street Journal, also based in New York City. Old FCC rules prevented News Corp. from owning the stations and paper, but it got a financial-distress waiver because of the ill health of the Post. It is allowed to own the Journal because that is considered a national paper rather than a local one. Even though there are FCC limits on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership, the company could buy Newsday without the FCC having to approve the deal because no TV or radio license is involved. The FCC does review deals involving newspapers buying stations because those licenses change hands. In addition, owning both would become an issue at license-renewal time no matter whether it was a newspaper buying a broadcast outlet or the other way around. News Corp.'s licenses in New York -- WWOR and WNEW -- are currently up for renewal. If the FCC applies the new cross-ownership rule it adopted in December, News Corp. would likely need either a waiver or would have to divest, since the rule specifically said it allows the ownership of one station and one newspaper, not two stations. Of course, News Corp. could wait until its licenses were renewed -- it filed for renewal in February of last year, but there were various challenges to that renewal from activist groups. If so, the issue would not come up again for another eight years -- the term of a license. The new cross-ownership rule went into effect March 20, but it has been challenged in court by broadcasters as too little deregulation and by anti-consolidation activists as too much.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6554117.html?rssid=193
Murdoch Taking on FCC Media Rule
As he nears completion of a deal to acquire Newsday from the Tribune Company, Rupert Murdoch appears likely to pose the first significant challenge to the media ownership rule that the Federal Communications Commission recently adopted. Even without Newsday, Mr. Murdoch was in the process of seeking waivers to continue to control two newspapers (The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post) and two television stations (WNYW and WWOR) in the New York area. With those waiver requests pending at the FCC, the Newsday deal means that Mr. Murdoch must now apply for a waiver to own the two television stations and three newspapers in the same market. The Newsday deal also becomes public as Congress takes up a measure that would restore the old ownership rule, which generally restricted a company from owning both a newspaper and a television station in the same city, unless the FCC granted a waiver. On Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee is expected to approve the bill, which is sponsored by Senator Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND). Industry lobbyists say that the measure has a good chance of passing the House and the Senate this year, although President Bush has threatened to veto it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/business/media/23ownership.html?ref=to...
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Murdoch Moving to Buy Newsday for $580 Million
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/business/media/23paper.html?ref=todays...
Obama’s Winning in Video Views
Sen. Barack Obama is No. 1 in the Web video race. According to a study released today by Nielsen Online, Sen. Obama’s Web site had the most unique viewers of video content for the month of March, at 518,000. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s site followed with 351,000, with Sen. John McCain trailing far behind at 38,000 uniques. The findings were released as part of a study that reports overall growth in Web video consumption. Only 1% of viewers viewed both of the Democratic candidates’ sites, prompting Nielsen to suggest there is minimal overlap in viewing between the two, and that a candidate’s site is more likely to attract a supporter than a curious undecided voter.
http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/04/obamas_winning_in_video_views.php
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Obama Out-Streams Clinton, McCain
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6554123.html?rssid=193
Political coverage is more noise than news
[Commentary] After months spent consuming endless cable TV news coverage of this endless presidential campaign, I've got a theory: The more attention they pay to a subject, the less viewers actually learn. Trying to capitalize on the contentious, percolating viewer magnet that the campaign has become, each big cable news channel has its own evening show focused on the election: Fox's America's Election HQ, MSNBC's Race to the White House and CNN's Election Center. I recorded each show on April 9 and watched closely, eager to test my hypothesis. The timing was good: Deep into the six-week break between primary elections, these shows offered a look at what cable might cover when actual news is in short supply. Unfortunately, I found news programs chewing over morsels of information like grazing cows, taking a sliver of reported fact and massaging it with analysis and supposition until viewers had a tough time separating fact from assumption and opinion. It's the high "signal-to-noise ratio" of cable news, the way punditry and strategy often overwhelm the meat of reportage. Not surprisingly, the show with the highest ratio this day was on Fox News.
http://www.tampabay.com/features/media/article466590.ece
The Latest Proof that the Karl Rove Playbook Has Become the MSM's Bible
[Commentary] Huffington's new book discusses the role the media have played in allowing the lunatic fringe now in control of the Republican Party -- the people who believe in torture but don't believe in evolution -- to hijack our democracy. The mainstream media has so internalized the Right's framing and messages they have now become a part of its DNA. The first of the latest round of exhibits proving that the Karl Rove playbook has become the MSM's bible was offered into evidence during last week's ABC debate. The uproar that followed made it seem as if this kind of behavior was an aberration but, in fact, this has been going on for years -- only in a less concentrated form. Next came a double-whammy in Sunday's New York Times. First up was David Barstow's epic revelation of the unseemly complicity between the Pentagon and the mainstream media in delivering the Bush administration's talking points on Iraq via "a kind of Trojan media horse" -- Pentagon-approved, prepped, and financially-enriched "military analysts" dutifully parroting the Bush party line, with nary a raised eyebrow from the TV stations and newspapers offering these highly-decorated sock puppets their prestigious platforms. It was -- and, indeed, continues to be -- a propagandists' field day.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-latest-proof-that-t...
Clear Channel suitors reject offer by banks
The latest skirmishes between the banks and potential buyers of Clear Channel are raising expectations that the lenders will have to come up with $22bn in debt financing for the buy-out. There are two parallel legal cases stemming from the November 2006 deal under which Bain Capital and Thomas H Lee & Partners agreed to buy the Texas company, which owns radio stations and outdoor advertising sites. One, filed in New York by the private equity firms, would compel the banks to make good on their agreements to fund the deal. Clear Channel filed the other in its home state, alleging that the banks acted improperly and asking for damages of $26bn. The banks offered to settle their legal disputes with the buyers on Tuesday through binding arbitration an offer that the buy-out firms spurned. Wall Street and hedge fund traders betting on whether a deal gets done interpreted the banks’ offer as a sign of weakness.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fe01bd14-10c1-11dd-b8d6-0000779fd2ac.html
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Fox Asks FCC to Reconsider Indecency Petition Rejection
Fox asked the Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau to rethink its decision not to consider Fox's challenge to indecency fines against 13 stations for an April 7, 2003, airing of Married by America that showed some pixilated body parts of bachelor-party revelers. Fox said the petition rejection was an abuse of its discretion and a ploy to avoid the substance of the petition.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6554131.html?rssid=193
You Won't Get Fined for Saying 'Frak'
You can't say that word on TV -- or can you? No one on broadcast TV is supposed to be able to use the four-letter profanity that starts with the letter F and signifies sexual intercourse. Even on basic cable, the word is often edited out of movies and usually not inserted into original scripts. In short, when it comes to that word and TV companies who wish to court mainstream advertisers and audiences, healthy distance is usually helpful. Some networks, however, are cleverly dodging the issue.
qubo Creates Nutritional Guidelines for Kids’ Food Advertising
Bilingual TV and online kids’ service qubo said Tuesday that it created nutritional guidelines to help its sales staff decide which food advertisers are acceptable for children’s television.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6554133.html?rssid=193