February 2009 | Page 59 | Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

February 2009

Broadband Money in Fiscal Plan: Wise or Waste?

At first glance, perhaps no line item in the nearly $900 billion stimulus program under consideration on Capitol Hill would seem to offer a more perfect way to jump-start the economy than the billions pegged to expand broadband Internet service to rural and underserved areas. Proponents say it will create jobs, build crucial infrastructure and begin to fulfill one of President Obama's major campaign promises: to expand the information superhighway to every corner of the land, giving local businesses an electronic edge and offering residents a dazzling array of services like online health care and virtual college courses. But experts warn that the rural broadband effort could just as easily become a $9 billion cyberbridge to nowhere, representing the worst kind of mistakes that lawmakers could make in rushing to approve one of the largest spending bills in history without considering unintended results. "The first rule of technology investment is you spend time understanding the end user, what they need and the conditions under which they will use the technology," said Craig Settles, an industry analyst and consultant who has studied broadband applications in rural and urban areas. "If you don't do this well, you end up throwing millions or, in this case, potentially billions down a rat hole. You will spend money for things that people don't need or can't use."

A third of adults without Internet don't want it

About one in four American adults don't use the Internet. And many of them couldn't care less about getting online. A report last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that although price is a barrier for dial-up users in switching to broadband, one-third of those without a Net connection simply aren't interested in e-mailing or exploring the Web. The findings come amid the settling-in of an Internet-focused White House, one that pushed an $819 billion economic stimulus package that contains billions for broadband expansion. (It passed last week in the House.) Still, the new Pew numbers suggest that a noteworthy digital divide lingers in the USA. "There certainly are those people who have no interest in getting connected to the Internet," says Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, which runs the Internet for Everyone initiative in Washington. "That does not mean that they won't one day." About 35% of dial-up customers — whose connection speeds are typically a fraction of broadband users' — said cost was a problem. About one in five dial-up customers said nothing could get them to upgrade.

Public broadcasting stations cut staff, budget

Northern California Public Broadcasting will cut 13 percent of its budget and lay off 30 employees because the recession has reduced the corporate giving that funds much of the organization. The stations' 291 employees were told Monday of the move, which officials expect will save $8 million. No reporters will leave San Francisco's KQED-FM, and no TV staff will depart, officials said. Employees with enough seniority were offered a buyout package; others were dismissed immediately. Much like their commercial counterparts, public broadcasting stations across the nation are cutting back in response to the recession. Nationally, public television is forecast to undergo a 16 percent drop in revenues this fiscal year and public radio a 13 percent drop, according to a preliminary assessment in January by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Revenues from corporate underwriting, state and local funding, and university sources are projected to drop 15 percent each for public radio this year compared with last, according to the study. Potential public TV revenue is forecast to dip 16 percent.

Waxman, Boucher Push DTV Date-Change Bill To Colleagues

House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) sent a "dear colleague" letter Monday in support of the digital television transition delay legislation which the House will vote on Wednesday. They pointed out that the waiting list for $40 coupons subsidizing the purchase of the boxes is now 3.3 million requests long from over 1.8 million households. But they went even farther, spelling out for each House member what that translated to in terms of constituents in their respective districts. "We have received data from the Commerce Department on the number of households in your district that are on the waiting list for digital converter box coupons. In order to assist you in evaluating the need for the DTV Delay Act, we have attached a table that contains this information for each member of Congress."

When government fouls up, TV viewers shouldn't suffer

[Commentary] Two weeks from today, an estimated 7 million households that rely on analog television sets — ones that work off antennas — could see their screens go blank. The temptation is to say, too bad. People had plenty of warning about the impending nationwide switch to digital TV, and an opportunity to apply for $40 coupons toward the cost of converter boxes. Unfortunately, the federal government has so fouled up the changeover that a delay in the Feb. 17 deadline is the least bad alternative. The House could vote on a four-month extension, already passed by the Senate, as soon as Wednesday. Delay is the best option. Seven million households shouldn't have to pay for their government's ineptitude.

Delay hurts first responders

[Commentary] The scheduled Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television (DTV) broadcasting will give first responders the functioning equipment and broadcast frequencies they need. In fact, help was on the way for three years before the Obama transition team panicked and told Congress to delay. Last week, Congress tried to accommodate the White House, but the Senate's DTV-delay bill failed to gain sufficient support to skirt normal rules in the House. Now, all of us have work to do. Contrary to what you have heard, the digital television transition program is neither stuck nor broke, and there's no need for further delay. The waiting list for the $40 converter-box coupons can be cleared out with just a dollop of bipartisanship.

(Rep. Joe Barton of Texas is the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.)

Ex-Journalists' New Jobs Fuel Debate on Favoritism

Republicans have long accused mainstream journalists of being on the payroll of President Obama and the Democratic Party, a common refrain of favoritism especially from those on the losing end of an election (see Bush vs. Gore, Clinton vs. Bush and Bush vs. Dukakis). But this year the accusation has a new twist: In some notable cases it has become true, with several prominent journalists now on the payrolls of President Obama and the Democratic Congressional leadership. An unusual number of journalists from prominent, mainstream organizations started new government jobs in January, providing new kindling to the debate over whether President Obama is receiving unusually favorable treatment in the news media.

Study links TV and depression

Television may increase teenagers' risk of becoming depressed as adults. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard Medical School looked at the media habits of 4,142 healthy adolescents and calculated that each additional hour of TV watched per day boosted the odds of becoming depressed by 8%. Other forms of media, such as playing computer games and watching videos, didn't affect the risk of depression, according to the study published today in the Archives of General Psychology. The results don't prove that TV viewing itself causes depression, said Dr. Brian Primack of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Research on Health Care, who led the study. "It could be argued that people with the predilection for later development of depression also happen to have a predilection for watching lots of TV," he said. But the circumstantial evidence pointing to TV as the culprit is strong, the study found.

The kindness of strangers can be harmful

[Commentary] Carlos Slim, the Mexican multibillionaire who Fortune magazine figures is the richest person on Earth, could become the largest shareholder of the New York Times. True, he wouldn't sit on The Times board and would have no voting power; only members of the Sulzberger family own voting shares. Maybe that's why other media have treated this largely as a footnote to the widening crisis that is swallowing the newspaper industry. It's more than that, it's a profoundly troubling action that raises serious doubt not just about whether the Sulzbergers will keep control of The Times, but whether they should. Should The Times really be deepening its dependency on this man? Not to get too moralistic, but at some level a great newspaper stands for something -- principles of social justice, popular sovereignty, open government, fair competition. Slim is a predatory capitalist who built a $67 billion empire -- worth a stunning 7 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product -- through political cronyism, cunning and the relentless use of monopoly power, which means charging much, delivering less and crippling competitors, real and potential.

'Foul play' suspected in Super Bowl porn feed

And you thought Janet Jackson was bad? Pornographic content interrupted thousands of Tucson Comcast subscribers' Super Bowl broadcast, apparently an intentional malicious act. Only Comcast subscribers who received a standard definition signal could see the clip, while those who watched the game on high-definition televisions were not affected. The US Attorney's office in Phoenix said it is looking into the interruption, which lasted about 30 seconds, and featured full male nudity. The Federal Communications Commission was not aware of any formal complaints made regarding the porn clip. Comcast has contacted the Federal Communications Commission as well as local authorities to investigate the matter. But an initial review showed that the company's technical systems functioned properly at the time of the incident, suggesting someone deliberately seeking to interrupt the broadcast rather than a technical glitch.