October 2011

President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:

• Jessica Rosenworcel -- Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
• Ajit Varadaraj Pai -- Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
• Rebecca Blank – Deputy Secretary, Department of Commerce

• Jessica Rosenworcel is the Senior Communications Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, working for Senator Jay Rockefeller IV since 2009, and previously for Senator Daniel K. Inouye from 2007 to 2008. Before joining the Committee, she worked at the Federal Communications Commission from 1999 to 2007, serving as Legal Advisor and then Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Michael J. Copps (2003-2007), Legal Counsel to the Bureau Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau (2002-2003), and as an Attorney-Advisor in the Policy Division of the Common Carrier Bureau (1999-2002). From 1997 to 1999, Ms. Rosenworcel was a communications associate at Drinker Biddle and Reath. Ms. Rosenworcel received a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
• Ajit Varadaraj Pai is a Partner in the Litigation Department of Jenner & Block LLP. Immediately prior to joining Jenner & Block, Mr. Pai worked in the Office of the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission, where he served as Deputy General Counsel, Associate General Counsel, and Special Advisor to the General Counsel. Previously, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights and as Senior Counsel at the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Pai also served as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, and as Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications Inc. Mr. Pai began his career as a law clerk to Judge Martin L.C. Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and then as an Honors Program trial attorney in the Telecommunications Task Force at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. Mr. Pai holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago.
• Dr. Rebecca M. Blank is the Acting Deputy Secretary of Commerce. In May 2009, Dr. Blank was appointed Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. As Under Secretary, Dr. Blank runs the Economic and Statistics Administration and is responsible for managing the two top statistical agencies in the United States, the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. She was designated Acting Deputy Secretary on November 18, 2010 and subsequently Acting Secretary on August 1, 2011, a position she held until the confirmation of John Bryson as Secretary of Commerce. Prior to joining the Obama administration, she was dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and co-director of the National Poverty Center. Dr. Blank served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to her service in the Clinton Administration, Dr. Blank taught economics at Northwestern University and Princeton. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Lifetime Associate at the National Academies of Science. Dr. Blank holds a degree in Economics from the University of Minnesota, summa cum laude, and a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT.

The federal judge overseeing the Tribune Company bankruptcy case shot down a reorganization plan submitted by the Chicago-based media company, but also rejected a competing plan from a group of creditors. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 22. The decision was issued Monday by Judge Kevin Carey of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The Chicago-based media company has attempted to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy status after nearly three years of wrangling. It's one of the longest-running cases since bankruptcy rules were revised about six years ago to give creditors more leeway to shape reorganizations.

HarperCollins is acquiring Christian publisher Thomas Nelson—publisher of the mega-bestselling Heaven Is For Real—for an undisclosed sum in a deal that will be finalized by the end of the year.

Thomas Nelson has been on the forefront of experimentation with digital publishing, and HarperCollins is buying not just the company but also that digital experience. Thomas Nelson is a privately held company, based in Nashville, that will now exist under the News Corp. umbrella. HarperCollins already has an existing religious imprint, Zondervan, which will continue to publish its own books. HarperCollins didn’t disclose Thomas Nelson’s sale price.

Thomas Nelson has done a bunch of cool things in the digital space. The company’s chairman and former CEO, Michael Hyatt, is an avid blogger with 104,779 Twitter followers. The company bundles free digital and audio editions with the purchase of any print book, and it has its own digital download store including bestselling books, audio, video and children’s materials. This February, it ran a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-like sweepstakes to get readers into bookstores: Shoppers who found randomly placed “On the House” stickers in Thomas Nelson titles they purchased from booksellers across the country won digital prizes like e-readers, iPads and digital downloads.

According to numbers from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android is the only platform that has grown over the last year in all the key markets surveyed by the research group. The rest saw their market shares either stay flat or decline in at least one geography. The figures, which compile smartphone sales for the last 12 weeks ended October 2, paint a pretty stark picture showing which platform is benefiting most from the growth in smartphone usage by consumers.

Taking the markets of Australia, Brazil, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain and the U.S., the Android platform grew its share of smartphone sales anywhere between 19.3 percent and 50.4 percent (the full table for all countries is embedded below). Spain took the crown for the biggest amount of Android growth at 50.4 percent. The only other platform that didn’t see any decline in any single market was Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7—although it saw zero percent growth in several markets, and its highest-recorded sales share was pretty small. In Germany, it accounted for 3.2 percent of all smartphone sales; a completely different story to Android’s dominance in the period.