October 2008

McCain's Camp Shaves Its Ad Targets

Democrats who monitor advertising spending now put at five the number of states where Sen John McCain (R-AZ) is reducing his advertising - New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maine and Minnesota. In essence, Sen McCain's campaign has decided to spread the advertising time he bought for the upcoming week in those states over the next two final weeks. While station managers in the affected states said they were not ruling out the possibility that Sen McCain would pump money back in before election day, on Nov. 4, the move represents a stark reordering of priorities. Democrats were predicting Sen McCain would use the savings to increase his advertising in Pennsylvania and, possibly, Ohio and Florida, all of which have become that much more vital should McCain have to concede states like Colorado and Wisconsin.

Election exit polls in control

Once again, television networks are looking to Election Night with some apprehension, trying to avoid a repeat of the past two presidential cycles when initial exit polls suggested victories for John Kerry and Al Gore. Network executives say this time around they're deploying a series of measures to prevent the early leak of polling information, as well as to make adjustments for skewed sampling of respondents as they leave the polling booth. With at least a dozen battleground states where votes for the two candidates are expected to be close, networks will have to resist the competitive temptation to project winners based on exit polls, said ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider.

The Future of the Internet on Nov. 4

[Commentary] November 4 will not just be decision day for election 2008. That same day, the Federal Communications Commission will vote to open unused television airwaves to provide affordable, wireless Internet services nationwide. Opening up these vacant airwaves - called white spaces — might be our best opportunity to close the digital divide. White spaces can be used to transmit an Internet signal over mountains and through concrete walls.

States Urge FCC to Call for Public Comments on Intercarrier Compensation, Universal Service Proposal

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission saying the FCC must allow more time for due process and public comments before it acts on a sweeping proposal that will revamp intercarrier compensation and the Universal Service Fund. NARUC said a proposal from agency Chairman Kevin Martin to reform both programs needs to be fully vetted by all stakeholders because it will have a profound impact on the telecommunications industry and consumers in an era of financial uncertainty. "Respectfully, in the wake of the credit crisis still reverberating throughout the U.S. economy, the FCC is rushing to resolve a $13 billion problem based on insufficient information, an inadequate record, and an incredibly compressed deliberative period," the letter said. "There is no need to do so."

Indiana's Larry Landis: Mapping Provides a Guide for Broadband Policy

A Q&A with Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission member Larry Landis who also is the State Chair of the Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Telecommunications Services. He reflects on the value of various efforts to obtain broadband data. "Generally speaking, telecom providers have been more comfortable with an independent, public-private entity which can provide additional contractual guarantees as to the confidentiality of that data," Commissioner Landis said."This approach has the added advantage that the entity which administers the program has a singular, rifle-shot mission, focus and approach. Quite a few successful state programs are built on this independent public-private model."

Reform groups: open access a must for big wireless mergers

[Commentary] The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition -- including Free Press, Public Knowledge, the Consumer Federation of America, the New America Foundation, and the Media Access Project -- oppose two wireless merger deals: Verizon Wireless with Alltel and Sprint Nextel with Clearwire. The groups say that the Federal Communications Commission should demand more from all four parties before blessing their marriages, including a clearer commitment to the open device principle. The Commission will vote on both deals at its next meeting, scheduled for November 4. Specifically, PISC wants a plainer commitment to open-devicedness, and more promises regarding roaming charges, handset availability, and Network Neutrality.

Broadcasters Push White Spaces Alternative

The Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV), the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX television networks reiterated to the Federal Communications Commission that it should hold off on voting on a proposal to approve unlicensed, mobile devices in the DTV spectrum band, then told it what it could do with that extra time. Broadcasters suggested a possible path to DTV citizenship for the devices, but only under a series of conditions that would protect broadcast signals, wireless microphones, and cable reception, conditions more stringent than FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing. Those conditions include limiting power levels on the first adjacent channel to 5 milliwatts rather than the FCC's proposed 40 [Fox opposes any adjacent channel uses], a "safe harbor" for wireless microphones, power limits to guard against direct pick-up interference to cable, mandatory geolocation, and disallowing devices that rely only on sensing when spectrum is unused. The geolocation requirement makes it sort of hybrid mobile and fixed service. Broadcasters do not oppose fixed unlicensed devices.

Representatives Request Quiet Period Data

Reps Nathan Deal (R-GA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) have called on the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and Federal Communications Commission to support a "meaningful" retransmission consent quiet period and are asking for some data from the NTIA they think may support their position. The FCC, not NTIA, is currently considering the formal petition by cable operators for a quiet period, but NTIA recently recorded an uptick in DTV-to-analog converter box coupon requests in markets affected by retransmission consent disputes between LIN TV and Time Warner and Brighthouse. The legislators say they are concerned that those requests could have come from confused viewers who "very likely would not have applied for coupons but for the fact that LIN TV's broadcast signals were dropped."

Cablevision Brass Gets Meeting With Martin

Top officials for Cablevision last Friday met with Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss at least one programming issue that has the cable operator at odds with Verizon. Among the topics discussed was Cablevision's support for current FCC rules which allow cable operators to withhold programming from competitors in instances where the programming isn't distributed via satellite.

PTC Goes to FCC over 'Two and a Half Men' Episode

The Parents Television Council is filing an indecency complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and urging its members and "concerned citizens" to do the same after a three-minute strip club scene featuring a lap dance aired on CBS's Two and a Half Men. "We believe that the patently offensive sexual content in this episode of Two and a Half Men crossed the broadcast indecency line," said PTC President Tim Winter. "Rather than airing the program after 10 p.m., and rather than assigning a content rating that accurately reflects the material contained within the episode, CBS chose to air it when millions of children were in the television viewing audience, and they deemed the material to be suitable for 14-year-olds."

Benton

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