July 7, 2008
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY JULY 7, 2008
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Senate delays vote on surveillance bill until July
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Cashing In on Obama and McCain
Unity Drives Campaign Narrative
Philly radio station refuses to run Democratic ad
The Facebooker Who Friended Obama
INTERNET/BROADBAND
'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights
Study says many dial-up users don't want broadband
BROADCASTING/CABLE
Court upholds new FCC video franchising rules
Some Press for More Notice of Transition in TV
Portable analog TVs may be lost in digital transition
NBCU, Equity Firms Buy The Weather Channel
Gutierrez: Don't Extend Converter-Coupon Expiration Date
FCC Prepares for DTV Complaints
Product Placement On TV Targeted
QUICKLY -- When Fox News Is the Story; Technology reshapes America's classrooms; Nominations for Broadcasting Board of Governors
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
SENATE DELAYS VOTE ON SURVEILLANCE BILL UNTIL JULY
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
(6/27) To the relief of vacationing Headliners everywhere, the Senate delayed a vote on a controversial surveillance bill that would allow a US National Security Agency spying program to continue and would likely result in the dismissal of dozens of lawsuits against telecom carriers that participated in the program. On June 27, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the Senate will take up the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act when it returns from a week-long recess for the Independence Day holiday. The Senate will debate the bill July 8, with three amendments allowed. Several Democrats will likely push for an amendment that would take out the section of the bill that would likely lead to the dismissal of more than 40 lawsuits against telecom carriers that allegedly participated in the NSA program. Sen Barack Obama writes, "I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any president or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I've said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility. The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted."
http://benton.org/node/14983
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
CASHING IN ON OBAMA AND MCCAIN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Hannah Fairfield, Griff Palmer]
(7/6) Verizon is one of the big winners in this year's presidential election: the various candidates have spent more than $4 million to put phones in the hands of employees. Through the end of May, candidates had spent more than $900 million to be the next president and, according to the Federal Election Commission, nearly half of the current spending has been paid to just a few dozen companies. The Obama campaign, for example, paid $85 million to GMMB, a media consulting firm. But $69 million of that was used to buy advertising time, which means that much of the money paid to GMMB ended up at local television and radio stations. Some experts say they think that as campaign spending rises, the candidates benefit much less than the companies.
http://www.benton.org/node/14972
UNITY DRIVES CAMPAIGN NARRATIVE
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
Nearly one month after Barack Obama effectively claimed the Democratic nomination, the theme of divided Democrats -- and efforts to unite them -- accounted for nearly one-quarter (23%) of the campaign newshole for the week of June 23-29, according to PEJ’s Campaign Coverage Index. For the second week in a row, differences between Barack Obama and John McCain over energy policy played a major role in the campaign narrative, accounting for 12% of the newshole.
http://www.benton.org/node/14974
PHILLY RADIO STATION REFUSES TO RUN DEMOCRATIC AD
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: David Matthews]
(7/3) A Philadelphia news radio station has rejected a Democratic ad that features an impersonator of President Bush thanking GOP congressional candidates for supporting the “Big Oil” agenda. Philadelphia KYW-AM Vice President and General Manager David Yadgaroff said his station decided not to run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) ad because it was worried its listeners would be misled. The ad was part of a $100,000 DCCC ad campaign in 13 different congressional districts held by Republicans. In the ad, a Bush impersonator calls the local GOP congressman, thanking him for “continuing to support the Big Oil agenda” as a member of the “Grand Oil Party.” The Philadelphia station is the only one known to have decided against running the ad. The DCCC criticized the station for rejecting the ad.
http://www.benton.org/node/14970
THE FACEBOOKER WHO FRIENDED OBAMA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
A look at Chris Hughes, one of the four founders of Facebook. In early 2007, he left the company to work in Chicago on Senator Barack Obama’s new-media campaign. Leaving behind his company at such a critical time would appear to require some cognitive dissonance: political campaigns, after all, are built on handshakes and persuasion, not computer servers, and Hughes has watched, sometimes ruefully, as Facebook has marketed new products that he helped develop. But in fact, working on the Obama campaign may have moved Hughes closer to the center of the social networking phenomenon, not farther away. The campaign’s new-media strategy, inspired by popular social networks like MySpace and Facebook, has revolutionized the use of the Web as a political tool, helping the candidate raise more than two million donations of less than $200 each and swiftly mobilize hundreds of thousands of supporters before various primaries. The centerpiece of it all is My.BarackObama.com, where supporters can join local groups, create events, sign up for updates and set up personal fund-raising pages.
http://benton.org/node/14996
INTERNET/BROADBAND
'PUBLIC' ONLINE SPACES DON'T CARRY SPEECH, RIGHTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Anick Jesdanun]
(7/6) Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won't eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative. Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed. Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that's controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors. The governmental role that companies play online is taking on greater importance as their services - from online hangouts to virtual repositories of photos and video - become more central to public discourse around the world. It's a fallout of the Internet's market-driven growth, but possible remedies, including government regulation, can be worse than the symptoms.
http://benton.org/node/14982
STUDY SAYS MANY DIAL-UP USERS DON'T WANT BROADBAND
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Anick Jesdanun]
(7/3) A new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests that attitude rather than availability may be the key reason why more Americans don't have high-speed Internet access. Only 14 percent of dial-up users say they're stuck with the older, slower connection technology because they can't get broadband in their neighborhoods. Thirty-five percent say they're still on dial-up because broadband prices are too high, while another 19 percent say nothing would persuade them to upgrade. The remainder have other reasons or do not know. The study does support concerns that rural Americans have more trouble getting faster Internet connections, which bring greater opportunities to work from home or log into classes at distant universities. Twenty-four percent of rural dial-up users say they would get broadband if it becomes available, compared with 11 percent for suburbanites and 3 percent for city dwellers.
http://benton.org/node/14981
BROADCASTING/CABLE
COURT UPHOLDS NEW FCC VIDEO FRANCHISING RULES
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: ]
(6/27) A US appeals court on Friday upheld new Federal Communications Commission rules designed to make it easier for companies such as AT&T and Verizon to get into the subscription television business. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit turned down a petition by cable operators and municipal officials seeking to overturn the new regulations. The court found each of the four requirements in the FCC ruling was acceptable: the 90-day time frame is similar to other timelines, such as the 120-day period allowed to negotiate franchise adjustments, in federal law. Local rules mandating a quick build-out hinder competitive deployments desired by Congress in the Act, the court opined. The agency was reasonable in determining that local bonds or insurance fit within the 5% franchise fee cap, and that PEG requirements be equal to the current ones for incumbents, the court said. Local governments are expected to appeal the decision.
http://www.benton.org/node/14980
SOME PRESS FOR MORE NOTICE OF TRANSITION IN TV
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Austin Bogues]
Consumer advocates will gather on Capitol Hill this week to lobby for more money to publicize the big change in television next February, when people who have analog TVs will no longer get any picture unless they have cable service or a digital converter box. But would more publicity make any difference to people who steadfastly refuse to make the switch? Washington officials are worried that millions of people will lose access to an important lifeline. “Making the transition to digital is not simply a matter of being able to watch wrestling or ‘American Idol’ or reruns of ‘Friends,’ ” Mark Lloyd of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said. At stake, he said, “is the ability of the nation’s most vulnerable populations to maintain uninterrupted access to their key source of news and information and emergency warnings: free, over-the-air television.”
http://benton.org/node/14995
PORTABLE ANALOG TVs MAY BE LOST IN THE DIGITAL TRANSITION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera]
Come February, hand-held TVs will face a permanent outage. Almost all the battery-powered televisions stashed in drawers, closets and garages in case of emergency will be rendered useless when broadcasters switch to digital-only signals. And right now, there aren't many options for replacing them. No one manufactures a battery-powered converter box. And the few battery-powered digital TV models on the market start at about $200 -- a costly option for replacing portable sets that have become increasingly inexpensive in recent years. The loss of all those analog portable TVs removes an important way to communicate with the public during an emergency, said Keith Harrison, assistant administrator of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management.
http://benton.org/node/14993
NBCU, EQUITY FIRMS BUY THE WEATHER CHANNEL
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Robert Marich]
NBC Universal and two financial partners reached an agreement Sunday to buy The Weather Channel for an undisclosed price around $3.5 billion. The buyers include private-equity outfits Bain Capital and Blackstone Group, which will help to pay for the deal and presumably will be bought out later by lead partner NBCU. The seller is closely held newspaper and broadcasting conglomerate Landmark Communications. The properties being sold are the TWC cable networks, weather.com and Weather Services International, which supplies information to local television stations and will help to beef up the NBC Weather Plus service mounted by broadcast TV stations. Also included are Enterprise Electronics, a manufacturer of meteorological radars, and Landmark's interest in Pelmorex, a Canadian weather company. The deal will give NBCU parent General Electric a fresh story to present to investors in its second-quarter earnings call, which is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Friday. GE disappointed Wall Street with poor first-quarter earnings that led to a sell-off of its stock.
http://benton.org/node/14979
GUTIERREZ: DON'T EXTENT CONVERTER-COUPON EXPIRATION DATE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
(6/27) Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the expiration date on the $40 DTV-to-analog converter box coupons Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration is handing out should not be extended beyond 90 days, as some in Congress have asked for, likening it to the coupon on, say, a box of Frosted Flakes.
http://www.benton.org/node/14978
FCC PREPARES FOR DTV COMPLAINTS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
(6/25) The Federal Communications Commission is planning for rising complaints related to the digital television transition, including possible lawsuits against the Commission, as well as for further media consolidation related to the costs of the switch-over to digital delivery. The FCC isn't saying that all those things are a given -- just that it needs to be prepared if and when they happen. That's according to a congressionally mandated strategic five-year plan the commission put out for comment in late June. Public comments are due July 24. The FCC said that among the factors that could impact its strategic goal of "the timely deployment of digital services" is further consolidation spurred by "ongoing changes in the methods of delivering news and entertainment" from the transition to digital delivery. The FCC pointed to increased upfront investments that won't see a return until the full rollout of digital. And on the legal front, the commission pointed out that its latest media-ownership rules have been challenged in court. Given that Congress mandated "continued review" of those rules, there could be more challenges.
http://www.benton.org/node/14977
PRODUCT PLACEMENT ON TV TARGETED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
(6/27) Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said the FCC will review new rules on how television programmers alert viewers about product placements in programming. He said product placements and integration into story lines have increased as television viewers increasingly use recording devices like TiVo and DVRs to fast forward through commercials. Currently, the FCC's rules require television programmers to disclose sponsors who have embedded products into shows. Those disclosures typically are done during the credits at the end of the show, which fly by viewers in small script. The FCC plans to study whether sponsorship notices should be written in bigger print and displayed for a defined period. They are looking at adopting rules similar to those for political ads, which require sponsorship messages to be in a print at least four percent the height of a screen and displayed for at least 4 seconds. The agency also will look into stronger rules for advertisement disclosures in children's and cable programming.
http://www.benton.org/node/14975
QUICKLY
WHEN FOX NEWS IS THE STORY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
[Commentary] Fox News. That's it; my In Box will be full later today. Once the public relations apparatus at Fox News is engaged, there will be the calls to editors, keening (and sometimes threatening) e-mail messages, and requests for interviews will quickly turn into depositions about intent. And if all that stuff doesn’t slow Carr down and he actually ends up writing something, there might be a large hangover: Phone calls full of rebuke for a dependent clause in the third to the last paragraph, a ritual spanking in the blogs with anonymous quotes that sound very familiar, and -- if I really hit the jackpot -- the specter of his ungainly headshot appearing on one of Fox News’s shows along with some stern copy about what an idiot he is. Part of Carr admires Fox News’s ferocious defense of its guys.
http://benton.org/node/14994
TECHNOLOGY RESHAPES AMERICA'S CLASSROOMS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jason Szep]
From online courses to kid-friendly laptops and virtual teachers, technology is spreading in America's classrooms, reducing the need for textbooks, notepads, paper and in some cases even the schools themselves. Lilla G Frederick Pilot Middle School in Boston offers a glimpse into the future. It has no textbooks. Students receive laptops at the start of each day, returning them at the end. Teachers and students maintain blogs. Staff and parents chat on instant messaging software. Assignments are submitted through electronic "drop boxes" on the school's Web site. Unlike traditional schools, Frederick's students work at vastly different levels in the same classroom. Children with special needs rub shoulders with high performers. Computers track a range of aptitude levels, allowing teachers to tailor their teaching to their students' weakest areas.
http://benton.org/node/14992
NOMINATIONS FOR BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS
[SOURCE: The White House]
(6/26) President George Bush (R) has nominated Peter Robert Kann, of New Jersey, to be a Member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors for a term expiring August 13, 2010 (vice James K. Glassman, resigned) and Michael Meehan, of Virginia, for a term expiring August 13, 2010 (vice D. Jeffrey Hirschberg, term expired). On January 9, 2007, President Bush had renominated Jeffrey Hirschberg, but that nomination has been withdrawn. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency which supervises all US government-supported, non-military international broadcasting, including the Voice of America (VOA); Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL); the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa); Radio Free Asia (RFA); and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Martí).
http://www.benton.org/node/14969