January 2009

The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) has chosen long-time media advocate Lawrence R. Sidman as president and CEO. Sidman served as Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee in the late 1980s. Currently, he is a partner and chair of the Government Affairs practise group at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP. As the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress convene, public television faces serious funding challenges because of the broad and deep economic downturn. At the same time, this is a critical opportunity for public television stations to lay the foundation for public service media in the digital age. "Because of the new leadership in Washington and the economic and technological changes affecting all media providers, the 111th Congress is perhaps the most important Congress for us since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created," Sidman said.

When Comcast earlier this week received yet another admonition from the FCC about how it was managing traffic on its network, the groans were heard far and wide. Here we go again - the draconian Comcast taking a heavy hand with its users. The FCC's charge, delivered in a letter to Comcast was this: that Comcast was using the latest version of its congestion management system - the one it had just recently altered in response to an earlier FCC inquiry and demand - to improperly (and perhaps illegally) favor its own voice-over-IP (VoIP) service over competitors. Even at first glance, the charges seemed slightly off. Wasn't it common knowledge in the industry that all facilities-based providers did their best to keep their VoIP traffic on their own pipes and away from the public Internet? If Comcast was forced to take a protocol-agnostic route with its management scheme, why would it suddenly be limiting relatively low-bandwidth VoIP packets? At a time when service providers are experimenting heavily with deep packet inspection (DPI)-driven congestion management approaches, could anyone get it right? Deeper examination leads to more questions: Is the use case that the FCC is questioning really as small as it appears? Did they intend their decision to tweak Comcast on what appears to be a technicality to open up a larger Pandora's box of questions? And is there any level of network management that a service provider can enable that won't draw howls of protest - not only from the FCC but from users as well?

Thousands upon thousands of newspaper journalists have lost their jobs in recent years in endless rounds of layoffs and buyouts. Where do they end up? Just under 36 percent said they found a new job in less than three months. Add those who say they freelance full time, and the total jumps to 53 percent. Less than 10 percent say it took them longer than a year. Only a handful - 6 percent - found other newspaper jobs. The rest are doing everything from public relations to teaching to driving a bus and clerking in a liquor store.

In one of the sleazier ideas in the world of product placement, TNT has come up with a series about a fictional advertising agency in which actual sponsors of the series, like Dove, are clients. The series is called, ironically enough, "Trust Me." If that's the question, the answer is an unequivocal, "No." That trick is about as trustworthy as a reality show where the contestants are actually supposed to get married.