June 2011

In 1950, with television sets in only 9 per cent of homes, a UK street of 100 houses could be relied on to buy 140 newspapers a day and 220 on Sunday. In 2010, when each of those houses contains an average of 2.6 TVs, the same street bought just 40 papers a day, Monday to Sunday.

Some advertising revenues fled to TV as it developed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but not in such great numbers as to ruin newspapers which could still rely on huge circulation sales income. According to the AA/Warc Expenditure Report, in 1998, the first year it recorded online advertising spend, advertisers spent £2.4bn ($3.8bn) buying space in newspapers, at today’s prices, and £19.4m online. It projects that by 2012, they will spend £4.7bn online and £1.7bn in newspapers.

[Commentary] For sponsoring the Wi-Fi service at the Netroots Nation conference, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) get rights to the first screen that everyone at the event sees when signing on to the network. In past years, the opening message has been fairly innocuous, like a pitch for the union’s “speed matters” campaign for faster Internet service. Who can disagree with the need to invest in high-speed Internet connection, right?

This year was different. This year, without the knowledge of the conference organizers, attendees got something more potent and controversial — a pitch for the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile or, as the union characterized it on the home screen, “Fighting for collective bargaining rights at T-Mobile.” As the site said, “T-Mobile is up for sale, and a merger with AT&T will give more than 20,000 T-Mobile workers a real opportunity to form a union without fear of being fired.” Keep that 20,000 figure in mind. What that number doesn't tell you is that T-Mobile in 2009 was named “one of the 100 best companies to work for” by Fortune magazine, the first telecom company to be so included. Avoiding layoffs and having generous child care subsidies were the reasons they were included. More to the point, T-Mobile now has about 40,000 employees. So CWA took half of them right off the top, assuming that their partner, job-killing but unionized AT&T, wouldn't keep them around.

The bottom line: for a chance – just a chance — to get 20,000 new members, CWA is willing to lead progressive organizations and Democrats into a world in which AT&T and the (nonunion) Verizon Wireless rule the air, creating that almost duopoly, setting up a GSM monopoly, squeezing out smaller players and setting the stage for higher prices, fewer features on phones, and more stringent bandwidth caps. Or just about anything else those two companies want to do as their protectors in Congress (hint: not usually Democrats) will resist regulation to the bitter end claiming the “market” will solve all and that we couldn't possibly have regulation. It’s evident CWA is following an accepted path of enlightened self-interest. It’s not so evident why others who should know better follow them.

Congress may grant the Federal Communications Commission authority to conduct incentive auctions of broadcast television spectrum sooner than expected — possibly this summer — by attaching the authorizing language to the critical debt-ceiling bill that appears headed for passage in the next few weeks.

The National Association of Broadcasters has been closely monitoring the debt-ceiling discussions for months, understanding that it could be the vehicle for the spectrum auctions, says Dennis Wharton, executive vice president for media relations. At the same time, NAB has also been "working hard to ensure that spectrum-related provisions would include replication and interference protections for the vast majority of TV stations that will choose to remain in business," Wharton says. "The 46 million viewers who rely exclusively on free and local television for news, entertainment, sports, and life-saving weather information deserve nothing less,” he adds. Wharton says NAB wants to make sure that if a station is forced to relocate to another channel, that does not result in reduced coverage and hence a loss of potential viewers. "We also don't want our opportunity to do mobile DTV diminished,” he adds.

On stage at Cannes Lions, Eric Schmidt seemed like the kind of man—perhaps the only man, other than Steve Jobs—who could effortlessly convince an international crowd of 20- and 30-somethings to join a suicide cult and ascend with him to the heavens.

Google’s executive chairman has that wealthy California brand of optimism that is as infectious as it is understated. He describes the future of human existence in the same calm way chef Thomas Keller might describe his roast chicken. Yes, it will change your life. But it’s only chicken. What does Schmidt’s future look like? “So I'm in Cannes and I want to buy a T-shirt,” he said. “My phone should be saying, ‘You can turn left here and go get 30 percent off your favorite brand.’ Then I go to the store and pay for it on my handset.” In other words, your phone will know what you want and it will allow you to pay for it without a credit card. “The best thing would be if Google knew what you wanted without you having to type it in,” Schmidt said. “With your permission, with a mobile phone we can trigger search queries about where you are.” But it gets better: In roughly a year, according to Schmidt, a third of all checkout stands in restaurants and retail stores will allow you to “tap and pay” with your mobile phone. “How big a market is that? We're talking trillions of dollars,” he said.