July 2008

FEC: Short Ads Must Still Contain Disclaimer

In its first substantive opinion since seating a full complement of commissioners, the Federal Election Commission unanimously concluded that even 10- and 15-second TV and radio ads for or against federal candidates must include the spoken disclaimer at the end identifying the group responsible for the ad. The Club for Growth PAC sought an exemption from the spoken-disclaimer requirement last fall for the ads, or at least the ability to truncate the so-called stand-by-your-ad disclaimers, but the commissioners said there was no wiggle room in the law. The order was originally drafted last January, but it had to wait for a vote because up until a few weeks ago, the FEC had only two commissioners, while four are needed for a vote. The Campaign Legal Center praised the decision.

In study, evidence of liberal-bias bias

(7/27) The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) than on Sen John McCain (R-AZ) during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign. You read it right: tougher on the Democrat. Although conservatives have been snarling about the grotesque disparity revealed by another study -- by the online Tyndall Report -- which showed Obama receiving more than twice as much television network air time as McCain in the last month and a half, during the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the Center for Media and Public Affairs found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative. Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

Black Radio on Obama Is Left's Answer to Limbaugh

(7/27) Rush Limbaugh, meet your black liberal counterprogramming. Many African-American radio hosts and commentators are aggressively advocating for Sen Barack Obama's election on black-oriented radio stations daily. Since Limbaugh first flexed his tonsils two decades ago, Democrats have publicly worried about their lack of an answer to him and his imitators, who have proven so adept at motivating conservative Republicans to go to the polls, especially for President Bush. Now it is Sen Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, who has a harmonious chorus of broadcast supporters addressing a vital part of his coalition, feeding and reflecting the excitement blacks have for his candidacy in general. Sen Obama is getting support from white liberal talk radio hosts as well, but the backing he is getting from black radio hosts could be especially helpful to his campaign's efforts to increase black turnout and raise historically low voter registration enough to change the math of presidential elections in battlegrounds and traditionally Republican states.

President Bush, the media's forgotten man

Across all forms of mainstream media, news coverage of President Bush has fallen significantly this year. The drop-off has big implications for Bush, whose ability to influence the public debate is weakened by less exposure, and for the country, which ends up with lighter scrutiny of the nation's highest office. And while the trend is not unusual for a lame-duck leader - Bill Clinton was plenty overshadowed in his final months - the declining attention still seems pronounced given the forces working against Bush. The nation is tired, worn down by wars and a weak economy. Much of the country seems ready to move on, even though Bush remains relevant thanks mainly to his veto power and his command over the military. News organizations, making an editorial judgment influenced by tighter budgets, see less point in covering an unpopular president with waning clout and diminishing news value. The presidential beat is expensive; the airfare alone for one of Bush's foreign trips easily can run more than $20,000. For the reporters still following Bush, the big stories still happen, but far less often. TV correspondents find it harder to get on the air, photographers doubt whether their pictures will get any play, and writers often see their work buried in the back of the newspaper. On top of it all, Bush is not part of the story getting all the buzz: the race for his job.

FCC probably can't police Comcast's BitTorrent throttling

[Commentary] Federal regulators are planning to meet on Friday and declare that Comcast violated Net neutrality principles when throttling BitTorrent traffic on its network. This would become the US government's first Network Neutrality-related ruling. There's just one problem with the Federal Communications Commission's plans: They may not be quite, well, legal. In other words, the FCC may not actually have the authority to make its ruling stick. It's true that the FCC adopted a set of principles in August 2005 saying "consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice." But the principles also permit providers' "reasonable network management" and, confusingly, the FCC admitted on the day of their adoption that the guidelines "are not enforceable." If FCC enforcement against Comcast is illegal, why would Chairman Kevin Martin schedule Friday's vote? Only he knows for certain, but one explanation is that if the FCC is embarrassed when slapped down by a federal appeals court two years hence, Martin will have long since departed to a lucrative partnership at a law firm or private equity firm. Friday's ruling may also end up as a cautionary tale for AT&T and Verizon, which as recently as last month seemed to be egging on the FCC to take action against their cable industry rival. But the same activists that have targeted Comcast before the FCC no doubt realize that AT&T's terms of service limit "peer-to-peer applications"; Verizon Wireless flatly prohibits them; Verizon's Fios service blocks incoming port 80. Another term for those network management practices is "Net neutrality violations."

AT&T Bans Wireless P2P

No more downloading Lost episodes onto your cell phone. AT&T has banned wireless phone subscribers from using file-sharing applications and threatens to terminate service of anyone caught doing so. AT&T let the Federal Communications Commission know in a letter to Commissioner Robert McDowell who had asked about AT&T's policy regarding P2P traffic over its wireless network at an FCC forum in Pittsburgh on July 21. AT&T says it does not use "network management tools to block the use of P2P applications by its mobile wireless broadband customers." Instead, he said the company warns customers in writing that they would jeopardize their relationship with AT&T Wireless if they were caught using banned P2P applications. "A small number of users of P2P file sharing applications served by a particular cell site could severely degrade the service quality enjoyed by all customers," the letter reads.

FCC Releases XM-Sirius Details

Although already widely reported, the Federal Communications released official word that it has approved the purchase of XM Satellite radio by now-former-rival Sirius. The FCC decided it was in the public interest to let the two companies merge even when the relevant competitive market was confined to satellite radio. That left at least one commissioner pondering if the decision reopened the possibility for a merger of satellite-TV companies. Commissioner Michael Copps, who voted against the merger, said the FCC majority made its own case for opposing the merger, starting off with the conclusion that it was a merger to monopoly, as the National Association of Broadcasters consistently argued -- a case of allowing the only two companies in the relevant satellite-radio market to combine. "The inescapable logic of the majority's findings is that by 2011, satellite-radio subscribers will face monopoly price hikes by a company with the incentive and ability to impose them," Commissioner Copps said. "No one has been able to explain to me how this could possibly serve the public interest." In a released statement Commissioner Copps wrote, "In essence, the majority asserts that satellite-radio consumers will be better served by a regulated monopoly than by marketplace competition. I thought that debate was settled, as did a unanimous commission in 2002, when it declined to approve the proposed merger between DirecTV and EchoStar."

NTIA Will Not Seek Additional DTV Coupon Money

National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief Meredith Attwell Baker has told House Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) that its $1.5 billion budget for distributing digital-TV-to-analog converter-box coupons should be sufficient. She added that NTIA already took into account sending out more than the 33.5 million coupons budgeted for. In fact, given the rate at which the coupons are going unredeemed -- more than 50% -- NTIA should be able to have funding for 50 million coupons. The NTIA told IBM to get ready to send out another 6 million coupons above the 33.5 million it estimated it would be able to send out giving the funding. But Baker told Dingell that had only been an estimate and that the NTIA all along took into account that depending on the nonredemption rate, it might be able to fund more coupons. More than 21.3 million coupons have been requested and more than 6.6 million coupons have been redeemed. For all households, the coupon redemption rate is 45.8 percent and for households that rely on an antenna, the coupon redemption rate is 54.6 percent. Visit www.ntiadtv.gov/coupon_stats.cfm for redemption rate details.

MGM links with Weigel Broadcasting for digital subchannel offering

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, impressed with what Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting has done in packaging vintage TV shows under the Me TV and Me Too brands, announced Monday it is partnering with the parent of Chicago-area TV stations WWME-Ch. 23, WMEU-Ch. 48 and WCIU-Ch. 26 on a national offering called This TV Network. A round-the-clock programming service stocked with movies and old shows from MGM's library as well as children's fare from Cookie Jar Entertainment, This TV will be made available for stations to air on their digital subchannels, beginning this fall. MGM describes it as "a turn-key solution for generating revenue for the digital spectrum." Weigel Executive Vice President Neal Sabin, who developed Me TV, Me Too and The U brands locally, will oversee the programming for This TV from Chicago. Ad sales will be managed from MGM's New York office. This TV plans to leverage the MGM library of more than 4,100 films and 10,000 hours of TV programming, as well as that of Cookie Jar Entertainment, home to children's properties such as "Johnny Test," "The Doodlebops" and "Caillou."

Indecency Fight Likely to Linger Past Election

An appellate court's decision overturning the Federal Communications Commission's fines for the Janet Jackson Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" could push the indecency fight to post-Bush versions of the FCC and Congress. Lawyers and former FCC officials said the decision's timing, together with the Supreme Court's plan to hear oral arguments on a different indecency case this fall, suggest the FCC could be forced to temporarily hold off crafting new indecency rules. Even a slight delay could push a vote past the Jan. 20 inaugural. Congressional sources said although some legislators support regulations giving the FCC greater authority to act on indecency—perhaps against cable as well as broadcasters—the ruling arrived just as legislators are ready to depart for the August recess. With the political campaign likely to keep any fall session short, several legislative aides said action isn't likely until next year. Still, there is interest in acting on the issue.

Benton

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