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February 2009

The Future of Music Policy

While the Internet can often be viewed as an unfriendly place for musicians' pockets, online radio has proven to be one of more lucrative digital channels for artists. Online radio stations are currently required to pay a performance royalty to musicians every time their song is played. Terrestrial radio, on the other hand, still benefits from an exemption that allows them to avoid paying performance royalties to musicians. The U.S. stands out in this regard, as many other parts of the world do not provide this exemption to broadcasters.

Satellite Diss

[Commentary] Sirius XM bet on a losing technology. Here's how the company can save itself. If the company can get its debt in order, it might find that the network can be its savior. Manjoo's advice: Forget the satellites, the special radios, and the huge customer acquisition costs. Instead, focus on content -- and figure out a way to get it to the largest possible audience at very low prices. Sirius XM should make sure that Howard Stern and Oprah and Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour and the NFL and Major League Baseball are available on every Internet-connected device on the market. At the moment, the company charges $13 per month for Web access to non-satellite-radio subscribers. If Sirius XM slashed that price dramatically—which it could afford if it stopped paying off automakers—it would see a huge rise in online subscribers. These people would pay to get Sirius not only on the Web but on their phones.

Feb 14, 2009 (Congress Passes Stimulus Bill)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FEBRUARY 14, 2009 (Happy Valentine's Day)


THE ECONOMY
   Congress Passes Stimulus Package
   A major milestone [Video]
   White House asks up for public comment on stimulus bill
   What's in the final version of the Stimulus Plan?
   FCC Charged With Drafting National Broadband Strategy
   Broadband access created by stimulus must uphold open Internet principles
   All Eyes On NTIA, RUS, and FCC: Who Will Lead US?
   Sprint Official Is Tapped to Shape Telecom Policy

DIGITAL TELEVISION
   FCC Officially Moves DTV Date
   Stalled Switch to Digital TV A Classic Tale of Breakdown

CENSUS
   Statistical Sense

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THE ECONOMY


CONGRESS PASSES STIMULUS PACKAGE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Shailagh Murray, Paul Kane]
With the final vote coming late in the night, Congress yesterday approved a $787 billion stimulus package that aims to spur millions of jobs through massive new investments in energy, transportation, education and health-care projects, while reviving social safety-net programs that have been shrinking for nearly three decades. The bill passed the House 246 to 183 and, in a vote held open for several hours, the Senate 60 to 38, both largely along party lines. President Obama is expected to sign it into law early next week. The legislation represents the start of a new ideological era that places the federal government at the center of the nation's economic recovery. It also provides a down payment on much of President Obama's domestic agenda, including his pledges to upgrade the nation's aging roads, bridges and electricity grid; overhaul health-care record-keeping and invest billions in alternative energy research to reverse climate change and wean the country from foreign oil.
http://benton.org/node/22109
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A MAJOR MILESTONE
[SOURCE: The White House]
President Obama is celebrating the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as a "major milestone on our road to recovery," while still emphasizing that we have many miles yet to go. "This historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but the beginning," he says in his weekly address. To get us there, he invokes President Kennedy, who said, "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks." President Obama acknowledges that some people are skeptical about the plan given how Washington has performed in the past, which is why he's encouraging people to check back at Recovery.gov -- the site where, once the plan is in action, you'll be able to track the funds. "Utlimately, this is your money, and you deserve to know where it's going and how it's spent," he says.
http://benton.org/node/22108
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ARRA UP FOR PUBLIC COMMENT
[SOURCE: The White House]
Now passed, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is posted on the White House website for public comment.
http://benton.org/node/22107
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A SMALLER, FASTER STIMULUS PLAN, BUT STILL WITH A LOT OF MONEY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Herszenhorn]
On its way to becoming law, two crucial things happened to President Obama's economic recovery plan: It got smaller and faster. Smaller in that it was cut to $787 billion from more than $800 billion in early versions in the House and Senate. And faster in that the Congressional Budget Office now projects that 74 percent of the money will be spent by Sept. 30, 2010, compared with 64 percent in the original House bill. Now the test is whether the mix of tax cuts and government spending, including public works projects, will create jobs and spur a recovery. Here's some of the things in the bill: 1) Energy: Programs to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are big winners in the stimulus package, receiving more than $45 billion in new spending and tax breaks. The bill provides more than $10 billion to modernize the electricity grid and install "smart" meters in homes. 2) Science: After being traumatized when Congress suddenly slashed research budgets for science agencies last year, scientists were pleasantly surprised to find that they did not lose out again in the last round of negotiations on the stimulus plan. NIH gets $10 billion; NSF gets $ 3 billion; $1.6 billion for NASA; and the Energy Department's Office of Science gets $1.6 billion. 3) Health: The bill provides more than $19 billion to digitize medical records and link up doctors and hospitals with information technology. It includes new safeguards to protect the privacy of medical records, generally forbidding health care providers to sell individually identifiable health information without permission from the patient. Broadband: The bill includes $7 billion to expand broadband access. $4.7 billion will be administered by the Commerce Department, and $2.5 billion will be administered by the Agriculture Department. $350 million will be spent for broadband mapping.
http://benton.org/node/22106
Recommend this Headline
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FCC CHARGED WITH DRAFTING BROADBAND GRAND PLAN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Federal Communications Commission will be charged with coming up with a plan, within a year, for getting broadband to everyone in the country, including benchmarks for reaching that goal. The Commission must provide an analysis of 1) "the most effective and efficient mechanisms for ensuring broadband access by all people of the United States"; 2) "a detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public"; 3) "an evaluation of the status of deployment of broadband service, including progress of projects supported by the grants made pursuant to this section"; and 4) "a plan for use by homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, worker training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, and other national purposes." The National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) will be charged with handing out billions in grant money, with help from the FCC. The NTIA publish the nondiscrimination and network interconnection obligations, which will be part of the contractual obligation of obtaining the $7.2 billion in grant money for rolling out broadband to un-served and underserved areas. NTIA gets $.7 billion of that, while the Department of Agriculture will dole out the rest. Those broadband conditions, says the bill, must include, at a minimum, adherence to the principles contained in the Commission's broadband policy statement of August 2005.
http://benton.org/node/22105
Recommend this Headline
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BROADBAND ACCESS CREATED BY STIMULUS MUST UPHOLD OPEN INTERNET PRINCIPLES
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Josh Silverman]
[Commentary] Congress has committed billions for building out high-speed Internet connections in rural and underserved areas. Given the outsize impact that Internet innovation has had on job creation, investment and consumer choice over the last decade, dedicating 1 percent of the stimulus to expand broadband availability is a no-brainer. This relatively small investment is critical to the future of Silicon Valley and the overall competitiveness of our nation. However, to be truly effective, the broadband build-out must adhere to openness standards designed to protect the innovation for which Silicon Valley is known. Network neutrality, or openness, requirements must be a condition of these government grants and tax credits. If we fail to require openness, we will see an inevitable trend toward closed networks that will not maximize the economic benefit of our broadband investment. Unfortunately, the proprietary interests of the phone and cable companies who operate the private networks that make up the public Internet can collide with the ethos of openness. Congress would do well to recall that Ma Bell once kept the Mickey Mouse phone off its network for no better reason than that it could. Public money must serve the public interest and promote consumer choice and innovation. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing a network that is friendlier to the needs of public companies. It is imperative that as Congress allocates scarce public resources to these companies to increase broadband availability, the principle of openness is maintained and protected.
http://benton.org/node/22103
Recommend this Headline
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ALL EYES ON NTIA, RUS, AND FCC: WHO WILL LEAD US?
[SOURCE: App-Rising.com, AUTHOR: Geoff Daily]
Of the three agencies charged with implementing the broadband-related provisions of the stimulus bill -- the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, and the Rural Utilities Service at the Department of Agriculture -- none of them have had their leaders officially installed yet. And in fact for the NTIA and RUS, which have been given the most money, we don't even have any good rumors to go on yet. At the FCC Julius Genachowski has been all but confirmed as the new chairman, but even there we still have three seats not yet defined. How can we expect whoever does come into power to be able to make decisions quickly on how to spend all this money when they're still learning where the bathrooms are?
http://benton.org/node/22104
Recommend this Headline
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SPRINT OFFICIAL IS TAPPED TO SHAPE TELECOM POLICY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Brad Haynes]
The Obama administration has tapped a Washington executive of Sprint Nextel Corp. to help run an agency that shapes telecommunications policy and will dole out billions of dollars in federal stimulus money to wireless providers. As a vice president of government affairs for Sprint, Anna Gomez wasn't registered as a lobbyist and thus isn't restricted by President Barack Obama's new ban on hiring lobbyists to oversee the issues they influenced in the private sector. A separate provision in the administration's new ethics rules -- one that restricts appointees' work with recent employers -- will limit Ms. Gomez's official duties, preventing her from reviewing contract bids by Sprint for two years. But she could still play a role shaping policies that affect her former employer. Ms. Gomez was named deputy director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Feb. 3. She is currently acting director of the agency, which shapes the president's telecom policy within the Commerce Department. Under the stimulus bill negotiated by Congress this week, the NTIA will handle as much as $6.65 billion in wireless and broadband grants available to Sprint and its competitors. NTIA spokesman Bart Forbes said in an interview that Ms. Gomez believes the public has "every right to be concerned about her role in a potential broadband grant program," given her background at Sprint. "She is discussing this with the ethics office and will look to remove herself from the decision-making process" for grant applications where appropriate, he said.
http://benton.org/node/22102
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DIGITAL TELEVISION


FCC OFFICIALLY MOVES DTV DATE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission released an order officially moving the deadline for the discontinuation of analog television broadcasts from Feb. 17 to June 12. In doing so, it said it was waiving the Administrative Procedures Act's requirement of notice, public comment and a 30-day delay period on commission actions, pointing to its tight deadlines and a reading of the date-move bill it says justifies the call. The Commission decided that stations do not have to provide emergency information in Spanish on their analog nightlight signals and it will allow stations that previously said they wanted to cut off analog on Feb. 17 but now have changed
their minds, to do so.
http://benton.org/node/22101
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STALLED SWITCH TO DIGITAL TV A CLASSIC TALE OF BREAKDOWN
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kim Hart, Peter Whoriskey]
The nation's switch to all-digital broadcasts has been more than a decade in the making. The federal government has spent nearly $2 billion to help people prepare. Broadcasters spent another $1.2 billion to run warning ads and millions more to upgrade equipment. Until last week, the United States seemed ready to follow the half-dozen European countries that have made the switch. But with two federal agencies in charge, no clear idea of how many people would be affected and constant partisan disagreements over money, the program foundered just before its long-standing Feb. 17 deadline. It has now been pushed back four months. The result is confusion for the millions of Americans for whom the television is not simply another electronic device in the home but a crucial source of news and information. The idea that the government might deprive people of television reception strikes some as unjust and, in the event of emergencies, possibly dangerous. Exactly how that happened is in many ways a classic Washington story.
http://benton.org/node/22100
Recommend this Headline
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CENSUS


STATISTICAL SENSE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The once-in-a-decade federal census became a sticking point in the nomination of Sen Judd Gregg (R-NH) to be Secretary of Commerce. The population count determines not only the distribution of congressional seats among the states but also the distribution of legislative seats within them and the allocation of billions of federal dollars. And, for most of the past two decades, Republicans and Democrats have been accusing each other of trying to cheat on it. The important thing now is to prevent the Gregg flap from growing into a wider partisan dispute that could undermine the credibility of the census when the survey should be gathering momentum for 2010. The fact is that the Census Bureau is staffed by experts with a well-earned reputation for integrity and political independence. Mr. Obama has reportedly been considering former Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt, who has enjoyed the respect of both parties, for a return to that job. In considering a replacement for Mr. Gregg, the president would do well to seek a similar figure. It doesn't matter that much whether the next commerce secretary is a Republican or a Democrat. But after the events of the past few days, it matters more than ever that he can command the confidence of both.
http://benton.org/node/22099
Recommend this Headline
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Congress Passes Stimulus Package

With the final vote coming late in the night, Congress yesterday approved a $787 billion stimulus package that aims to spur millions of jobs through massive new investments in energy, transportation, education and health-care projects, while reviving social safety-net programs that have been shrinking for nearly three decades. The bill passed the House 246 to 183 and, in a vote held open for several hours, the Senate 60 to 38, both largely along party lines. President Obama is expected to sign it into law early next week. The legislation represents the start of a new ideological era that places the federal government at the center of the nation's economic recovery. It also provides a down payment on much of President Obama's domestic agenda, including his pledges to upgrade the nation's aging roads, bridges and electricity grid; overhaul health-care record-keeping and invest billions in alternative energy research to reverse climate change and wean the country from foreign oil.

A major milestone

President Obama is celebrating the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as a "major milestone on our road to recovery," while still emphasizing that we have many miles yet to go. "This historic step won't be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but the beginning," he says in his weekly address. To get us there, he invokes President Kennedy, who said, "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks." President Obama acknowledges that some people are skeptical about the plan given how Washington has performed in the past, which is why he's encouraging people to check back at Recovery.gov -- the site where, once the plan is in action, you'll be able to track the funds. "Utlimately, this is your money, and you deserve to know where it's going and how it's spent," he says.

ARRA up for public comment

Now passed, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is posted on the White House website for public comment.

What's in the final version of the Stimulus Plan?

On its way to becoming law, two crucial things happened to President Obama's economic recovery plan: It got smaller and faster. Smaller in that it was cut to $787 billion from more than $800 billion in early versions in the House and Senate. And faster in that the Congressional Budget Office now projects that 74 percent of the money will be spent by Sept. 30, 2010, compared with 64 percent in the original House bill. Now the test is whether the mix of tax cuts and government spending, including public works projects, will create jobs and spur a recovery.

Here's some of the things in the bill:

1) Energy: Programs to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are big winners in the stimulus package, receiving more than $45 billion in new spending and tax breaks. The bill provides more than $10 billion to modernize the electricity grid and install "smart" meters in homes.

2) Science: After being traumatized when Congress suddenly slashed research budgets for science agencies last year, scientists were pleasantly surprised to find that they did not lose out again in the last round of negotiations on the stimulus plan. NIH gets $10 billion; NSF gets $ 3 billion; $1.6 billion for NASA; and the Energy Department's Office of Science gets $1.6 billion.

3) Health: The bill provides more than $19 billion to digitize medical records and link up doctors and hospitals with information technology. It includes new safeguards to protect the privacy of medical records, generally forbidding health care providers to sell individually identifiable health information without permission from the patient.

4)Broadband: The bill includes $7 billion to expand broadband access. $4.7 billion will be administered by the Commerce Department, and $2.5 billion will be administered by the Agriculture Department. $350 million will be spent for broadband mapping.

FCC Charged With Drafting National Broadband Strategy

The Federal Communications Commission will be charged with coming up with a plan, within a year, for getting broadband to everyone in the country, including benchmarks for reaching that goal. The Commission must provide an analysis of

1) "the most effective and efficient mechanisms for ensuring broadband access by all people of the United States";

2) "a detailed strategy for achieving affordability of such service and maximum utilization of broadband infrastructure and service by the public";

3) "an evaluation of the status of deployment of broadband service, including progress of projects supported by the grants made pursuant to this section"; and

4) "a plan for use by homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, worker training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, and other national purposes."

The National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) will be charged with handing out billions in grant money, with help from the FCC. The NTIA publish the nondiscrimination and network interconnection obligations, which will be part of the contractual obligation of obtaining the $7.2 billion in grant money for rolling out broadband to un-served and underserved areas. NTIA gets $.7 billion of that, while the Department of Agriculture will dole out the rest. Those broadband conditions, says the bill, must include, at a minimum, adherence to the principles contained in the Commission's broadband policy statement of August 2005.

All Eyes On NTIA, RUS, and FCC: Who Will Lead US?

Of the three agencies charged with implementing the broadband-related provisions of the stimulus bill -- the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, and the Rural Utilities Service at the Department of Agriculture -- none of them have had their leaders officially installed yet. And in fact for the NTIA and RUS, which have been given the most money, we don't even have any good rumors to go on yet. At the FCC Julius Genachowski has been all but confirmed as the new chairman, but even there we still have three seats not yet defined. How can we expect whoever does come into power to be able to make decisions quickly on how to spend all this money when they're still learning where the bathrooms are?

Broadband access created by stimulus must uphold open Internet principles

[Commentary] Congress has committed billions for building out high-speed Internet connections in rural and underserved areas. Given the outsize impact that Internet innovation has had on job creation, investment and consumer choice over the last decade, dedicating 1 percent of the stimulus to expand broadband availability is a no-brainer. This relatively small investment is critical to the future of Silicon Valley and the overall competitiveness of our nation. However, to be truly effective, the broadband build-out must adhere to openness standards designed to protect the innovation for which Silicon Valley is known. Network neutrality, or openness, requirements must be a condition of these government grants and tax credits. If we fail to require openness, we will see an inevitable trend toward closed networks that will not maximize the economic benefit of our broadband investment. Unfortunately, the proprietary interests of the phone and cable companies who operate the private networks that make up the public Internet can collide with the ethos of openness. Congress would do well to recall that Ma Bell once kept the Mickey Mouse phone off its network for no better reason than that it could. Public money must serve the public interest and promote consumer choice and innovation. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing a network that is friendlier to the needs of public companies. It is imperative that as Congress allocates scarce public resources to these companies to increase broadband availability, the principle of openness is maintained and protected.

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