December 23, 2011 (FCC Proposes Changes to Media Ownership Rules)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2011
As is our tradition, Headlines will be helping Santa’s elves with clean-up next week. We will return TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2012
OWNERSHIP
FCC Proposes Changes to Media Ownership Rules - public notice
FCC Aims to Ease Media Ownership Rule [links to web]
FCC Commissioners’ Statements on Media Ownership Proposals [links to web]
Activist Groups Pan FCC Media Ownership Plan [links to web]
New Sun-Times will ramp up specialized content online
Mayor Emanuel has deep financial ties to new Sun-Times owners - analysis
It's Always Sunny in Silicon Valley
Motorola Mobility Adds SetJam [links to web]
Can 17,000 patents help Android win a legal Cold War?
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC OKs AT&T’s Acquisition of Qualcomm Spectrum - public notice
First Television White Spaces Database and device - press release
The Verizon-cable deal would end competition and incentives to innovate - op-ed
Spectrum Rules Stuck in Holding Pattern
Conferee Walden Pitches Spectrum Incentive Auctions
iPhone is for games, Android is for other apps [links to web]
What a Difference a Year Doesn’t Make - analysis
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Group says Comcast's Internet program for the poor needs work
Eleventh Quarterly Status Report to Congress Regarding BTOP
Online retailing: The mobile allure
CONTENT
White House to respond to petition urging veto of online piracy bill
SOPA Haters Are Already Finding Easy Ways To Circumvent Its Censorship
GoDaddy Faces boycott over SOPA support [links to web]
Anti-Piracy Bill Draws Opposition From Heritage Foundation [links to web]
Online music: Rhapsody reaches 1 million subscribers, finally [links to web]
Steve Jobs to Receive a Grammy [links to web]
Web is media game changer, says music chief [links to web]
Online Sales of Louis C. K. Special Cross $1 Million Mark [links to web]
Take the time to curate Facebook Timeline - analysis [links to web]
Using Google’s Data to Reach Consumers
TELEVISION
Silent Night (or Two) for Attack Ads
Time Warner Cable Chief Fires Back at MSG Sports Network
Broadcast TV: Still the medium of choice [links to web]
Election Year Tightens Ad Inventory, Demands Nimble Strategy by Marketers [links to web]
CYBERSECURITY
Congress gives DoD green light on cyber attacks
Congress Calls for Defense Department Plan for Cloud Computing [links to web]
2011 is the Year of the Hacktivist, Verizon Report Suggests [links to web]
LOOKS AHEAD; LOOKS BEHIND
Looking Back at 2011 - analysis
What a Difference a Year Doesn’t Make - analysis
Looking Ahead at Tech in 2012 - analysis [links to web]
5 Ways The Smartphone Market Evolved In 2011 - analysis [links to web]
The 7 Worst Communications Failures Of 2011 - op-ed [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
ONC to create health IT dashboard [links to web]
‘Cool’ Bus Trips Surge as Wi-Fi Beats Driving, Study Shows [links to web]
The civic and community engagement of religiously active Americans - research [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
FCC PROPOSES CHANGES TO MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission is seeking comment on economic studies analyzing the relationship between local media market structure and the policy goals -- competition, localism, and diversity -- that underlie the FCC’s media ownership rules. In particular, the FCC reaffirms that a major goal of the rules is to encourage the provision of local news, and the invites suggestions about how that goal can be further achieved.
In addition, the FCC seeks comment on the aspects of the FCC’s 2008 Diversity Order that the Third Circuit remanded in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC (Prometheus II). In Prometheus II, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit considered appeals of the FCC’s review of the media ownership rules in the 2006 Quadrennial Review Order. The court:
affirmed the FCC’s decision to retain the local television and radio rules to protect competition in local media markets,
affirmed the FCC’s decision to retain the dual network rule based on potential harm to competition that would result from mergers of the top four networks,
affirmed the FCC’s conclusion to retain the radio/television cross-ownership rule as well as, in part, to retain the local radio rule based on the benefits to the FCC’s diversity goal,
vacated and remanded the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule as modified by the FCC in the 2006 Quadrennial Review Order, concluding that the FCC failed to comply with the notice and comment provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act, and
vacated and remanded a number of measures adopted in the FCC’s 2008 Diversity Order, which the FCC now addresses.
Now the FCC proposes to:
retain the current local television ownership rule with minor modifications,
retain the current local radio ownership rule,
retain the Dual Network rule without modification,
loosen the Newspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule mainly as proposed in the 2006 rule, and
eliminate the radio/television cross-ownership rule in favor of reliance on the local radio rule and local television rule.
The FCC also invites views on how its ownership rules and policies can promote greater minority and women ownership of broadcast stations. The FCC will explore a broad range of potential actions it might take to that end.
benton.org/node/109093 | Federal Communications Commission
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NEW SUN TIMES
[SOURCE: Crain’s Chicago Business, AUTHOR: Shia Kapos]
The new Chicago Sun-Times will focus on delivering specialized content to online readers while keeping a print paper, said its new CEO, Timothy Knight, who will lead an organization with the backing of some of Chicago's most notable behind-the-scenes political and business players. The new CEO of the Chicago Sun-Times said Chicago can still support multiple newspapers and that Wrapports LLC, the company taking over the newspaper, will focus on "portals" or verticals, as they are known in the online world, to deliver specialized content to readers. "We want to use technology to create, disseminate and present content to people," said Knight. "We want the content to be highly relevant to (subscribers). We want it to be extremely customer-focused." That means specially focused online content on specific subjects related to, for example, sports, business or movies. One of the key investors in Wrapports is Joseph Mansueto, the Morningstar Inc. chairman who also owns TimeOut Chicago. The weekly magazine has chipped away in recent years at the entertainment coverage of the Sun-Times and other publications in town. It will be interesting to see if TimeOut coverage becomes part of the portals.
benton.org/node/109048 | Crain’s Chicago Business
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RAHM’S FRIENDS BUY A NEWSPAPER
[SOURCE: Crain’s Chicago Business, AUTHOR: Gregory Hinz]
[Commentary] Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D-Chicago) sure will have a ton of buddies in one key local media outlet, because virtually every one of the Sun-Times' new owners has been a major contributor, business partner or civic ally of his. For instance, at least eight of the 12 board members of the new company, Wrapports LLC, have donated to Mr. Emanuel's campaign fund in the past year, collectively plunking down $241,000 that I found in a quick survey of Board of Elections disclosures. Included: $25,000 from the Sun-Times' new chairman, Michael Ferro Jr., and $105,000 from Mr. Emanuel's frequent visitor at City Hall, Grosvenor Capital Management L.P. chief Michael Sacks. Then there's the at least $20,000 that new S-T owners gave in recent months to New Chicago, the political action committee that Mr. Emanuel uses to help elect political allies. And the more considerable $350,000 that the owners and their companies collectively gave to Stand for Children, a Springfield lobbying group that helped pave the way for recent public school reform legislation that the mayor badly wanted.
benton.org/node/109080 | Crain’s Chicago Business
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SILICON BUBBLE
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Brad Stone]
In Silicon Valley, all the Sturm und Drang of 2011 seemed as relevant as the Cricket World Cup. High unemployment? Crippling debt? Not in Silicon Valley, where the fog burns off by noon and it’s an article of faith that talented, hard-working techies can change the world and reap unimaginable wealth in the process. “We live in a bubble, and I don’t mean a tech bubble or a valuation bubble. I mean a bubble as in our own little world,” says Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. “And what a world it is: Companies can’t hire people fast enough. Young people can work hard and make a fortune. Homes hold their value. Occupy Wall Street isn’t really something that comes up in daily discussion, because their issues are not our daily reality.”
It was never clearer than in 2011 that Silicon Valley exists in an alternate reality—a bubble of prosperity. Restaurants are booked, freeways are packed, and companies are flush with cash. The prosperity bubble isn’t just a state of mind: Times are as good as they’ve been in recent memory. The region gets 40 percent of the country’s venture capital haul, up from 31 percent a decade ago, according to the National Venture Capital Assn. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that growth of the area’s job market led the nation, jumping 3.2 percent, triple the national rate. Even real estate, a cesspool of despair in the rest of the country, is humming along. It’s next to impossible to get a table on a weekend night at the Rosewood in Menlo Park, a watering hole for Sand Hill Road’s technology financiers where the olive-oil-poached steelhead goes for $36. The closest we got to “Occupy: Cupertino” was the line outside Apple stores in October for the iPhone 4S.
benton.org/node/109096 | Bloomberg
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ANDROID’S LEGAL WAR
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
"Patent lawsuit filed against Android" has become a distressingly familiar headline for Google and its hardware partners. With Microsoft signing license agreements covering more than 50 percent of Android phones, Apple working the courts to block sales of HTC and Samsung devices, and various lawsuits launched by rivals from Oracle to BT, the Android mobile operating system is stumbling through a legal minefield. It's fair to complain that the patent system itself is broken, as we've done on numerous occasions. Google has publicly bemoaned what it calls "a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents." But expecting the patent system to change overnight is a "pipe dream," says Michael Carrier, an antitrust scholar at Rutgers-Camden. This stark reality requires each company entering the mobile market to prepare for all-out war, and legal experts we've interviewed agree that Google failed to adequately protect Android from legal attack.
benton.org/node/109063 | Ars Technica
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC OKS SPECTRUM SALE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission has concluded its review of AT&T’s acquisition of all 11 of Qualcomm’s D and E Block licenses in the Lower 700 MHz band for $1.925 billion. AT&T is acquiring six megahertz of unpaired 700 MHz spectrum nationwide and an additional six megahertz of unpaired 700 MHz spectrum in five major metropolitan markets (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) with population totaling 70 million. The Applicants asserted that this transaction is in the public interest because it will enable AT&T to repurpose Qualcomm’s underutilized Lower 700 MHz D and E Block spectrum for the deployment of mobile broadband services by using supplemental downlink technology to couple it with paired spectrum that AT&T already holds.
The FCC’s analysis suggests that AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Qualcomm’s Lower 700 MHz D and E Block licenses has the potential to cause some competitive and other public interest harms. The FCC concludes, however, that these potential harms from AT&T’s acquisition of this unpaired spectrum can be mitigated with certain targeted conditions to prevent or limit any potential anticompetitive behavior. In particular, we conclude that our competitive concerns can be mitigated by ensuring that AT&T’s use of the newly acquired spectrum does not impede actual and potential competitors’ operation on neighboring spectrum in the provision of broadband services, and that AT&T cannot use the Qualcomm spectrum in a way that deprives other providers of the benefits of the Commission’s roaming rules.
So, in light of the FCC’s targeted conditions to address the potential for competitive harm and the likely public interest benefits flowing from the use of the spectrum at issue, the FCC approved the proposed transaction, subject to the conditions.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps voted against the Order saying, “I could be persuaded, with the right set of pro-consumer conditions, to concur in the transaction. While much of the competitive analysis in today’s order is strong, the conditions the Commission does attach strike me as falling short of advancing the public interest demand.”
Commissioner Clyburn said, “I would have preferred that the Order found that the lack of interoperability is a merger specific issue that should be remedied by an interoperability condition similar to the one that the A Block licensees and other parties requested. But today, the policy priority for me is the most efficient path possible for interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band. In order to accomplish this, compromise among all stakeholders will be necessary.”
benton.org/node/109094 | Federal Communications Commission | Commissioner Copps | Commissioner Clyburn
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FIRST TELEVISION WHITE SPACES DATABASE AND DEVICE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission issued a Public Notice announcing that the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) has approved Spectrum Bridge’s television white spaces database system, which may provide service to devices beginning January 26, 2012. OET has also approved a device by Koos Technical Services (KTS) as the first product allowed to operate on an unlicensed basis on unused frequencies in the TV bands. The KTS device will operate in conjunction with the Spectrum Bridge TV band database. The new KTS TV bands device is designed and approved for fixed operations that serve any broadband data applications. The device will contact the Spectrum Bridge database to identify channels that are available for operation at its location and can provide high-speed Internet connectivity.
The approval granted by OET allows Spectrum Bridge to commence operational service to new devices that can take advantage of the TV spectrum to provide service over greater ranges than those of Wi-Fi devices operating on higher frequencies.
Initial operation under this approval will be limited to Wilmington, NC and the surrounding area and will expand nationwide pending completion and activation of the Commission’s facilities for processing requests for protection of unlicensed wireless microphone at event venues. Parties in the Wilmington area that wish to register wireless microphones for event venues during this period of limited operation must send a request to OET by e-mail.
benton.org/node/109065 | Federal Communications Commission | read the Public Notice | read letter to Spectrum Bridge
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VERIZON-CABLE
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Matt Wood]
[Commentary] There is a growing divide in the United States between the people who can afford top-notch Internet access and those who cannot. The best way to close that gap is with more competition. But we're moving in the opposite direction. Unless federal regulators scuttle the anti-competitive pacts just struck between the nation's largest phone and cable companies, we are witnessing the end of broadband competition. Verizon Wireless recently announced major deals to acquire valuable chunks of the public airwaves now held by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Bright House Networks. The most stunning part of these deals is a side agreement between the erstwhile competitors to resell each other's products. You'd be able to buy Verizon Wireless service from your friendly neighborhood cable company, or get cable modem and cable TV service from the Verizon Wireless retailer around the corner. That would put an end to any hope for nationwide competition between truly high-speed Internet service providers, while dousing any chance of next-generation wireless services competing against cable and telco broadband. That means higher prices, fewer choices and less innovation.
Things weren't supposed to turn out this way. The last time Congress overhauled the law, in 1996, it decided that competition was the best way "to secure lower prices and higher quality services." But the Federal Communications Commission has generally favored deregulation over rules that would promote competition. Competition was supposed to make broadband more affordable. Having the largest wireless provider and the largest cable companies repackage each other's products simply won't do that. [Wood is the policy director for Free Press and, overall, a pretty great guy]
benton.org/node/109076 | San Jose Mercury News
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SPECTRUM RULES ON HOLD
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Stakeholders in the year-long debate over spectrum legislation find themselves in a bit of a holding pattern while lawmakers try to figure out how to break a congressional logjam over how to extend a payroll-tax holiday.
House GOP leaders included a version of spectrum legislation approved earlier this month by the Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee in legislation the House passed last week providing a one-year extension of the payroll-tax cut. But the package passed by the Senate on Dec 17 providing a two-month payroll-tax holiday did not include spectrum legislation. On Dec 20, House GOP leaders balked at calls to pass the Senate’s payroll bill before leaving town for its holiday break, and instead say they want to negotiate with the Senate over the differences between the two bills.
The spectrum legislation seeks to free up more spectrum for wireless broadband technologies by enticing broadcasters to give up some of their airwaves in exchange for some of the money from auctioning that spectrum, while also producing funds for the Treasury. It also would provide spectrum and authorize funding to help public-safety officials build a national broadband network to improve communications at the scene of emergencies. Public safety officials, House Democrats, and supporters of a Senate Commerce spectrum bill have concerns with several provisions in the House bill. The impasse over the payroll legislation may at the very least give lawmakers more time to work through some of the remaining differences between the House and Senate versions.
benton.org/node/109062 | National Journal
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WALDEN PITCHES SPECTRUM INCENTIVES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) pitched spectrum incentive auctions in a press conference featuring the Republican conferees named by House Speaker John Boehner. Chairman Walden pointed to the spectrum auctions as one of the job-creating elements of the House bill that he suggested deserved to be on the table if they did go to conference. He said freeing up spectrum would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and would also create the interoperable broadband public safety network both sides of the aisle support.
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the Senate would not return to try to conference on the House and Senate versions of payroll tax cut extension bill. The House version contained the incentive auction legislation language, essentially rolling Walden's version of that bill into the package verbatim. That package passed the House, but the incentive auction was stripped from the bill before the Senate passed its version and sent it back to the House, where Republicans blocked a vote.
benton.org/node/109072 | Broadcasting&Cable
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
GROUP QUESTIONS INTERNET ESSENTIALS PROGRAM
[SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer, AUTHOR: Bob Fernandez]
Action United, an activist group of low- and moderate-income residents, says Comcast's discounted Internet program for poor children needs to be improved and more heavily advertised. Comcast launched the $9.95-a-month Internet service this school year to help close the gap in Internet access between low-income and wealthier families. The nation's largest provider of residential Internet service agreed to the program during negotiations with the Federal Communications Commission over its purchase of NBC Universal. Based on an informal survey of 107 families, Action United said 62 percent of respondents had not heard of Comcast's $9.95-a-month service, while almost three-quarters of the respondents said they would have considered applying for it if they had been aware of it. Action United also says that people seem to have a hard time qualifying for the service. A family can participate if its children are enrolled in the federal school-lunch program. Action United said that of the 107 families who qualified for the school-lunch program, only eight had applied for Internet Essentials. Two of the families were approved and Comcast was sending them paperwork, said Elly Porter-Webb, Action United parent organizer. Comcast told the other families they were not eligible because of past unpaid cable bills or because they had an existing Internet service, even though the families had children in the federal school-lunch program. "There are too many obstacles," Porter-Webb said.
benton.org/node/109086 | Philadelphia Inquirer | Action United
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BTOP REPORT
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) provided its Quarterly Report on the status of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) to Congress, focusing on the Program’s activities from July 1 to September 30, 2011, as well as overall accomplishments from Fiscal Year 2011.
One year after NTIA met the congressionally mandated deadline to award all BTOP funds by September 30, 2010, grant recipients collectively exceeded goals set for FY11, delivering significant progress this quarter in areas, such as new fiber-optic infrastructure construction, the opening of new public computer centers, and thousands of new broadband adopters now experiencing the benefits of the high-speed Internet. Through September 2011, 31 BTOP recipients reported that their training and adoption projects led 229,178 households and 1,577 businesses to subscribe to broadband services. The Program exceeded its goal of 100,000 new households or business subscribers for FY11. New subscribers for this quarter totaled almost 115,400, an increase of nearly 100 percent from the previous quarter. BTOP recipients reported spending more than $281 million of outlayed Federal grant funds this quarter, matched by recipient funds of more than $150 million. Cumulatively, Federal outlays for the Program total $765 million, while total recipient matching contributions exceeded $391 million. Federal outlays increased more than 58 percent from last quarter, and matching funds contributed increased by more than 62 percent. NTIA anticipates that outlays will occur faster in FY 2012 as the BTOP program works toward the completion of all projects by the end of FY 2013.
benton.org/node/109085 | National Telecommunications and Information Administration
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ONLINE RETAILING
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Barney Jopson]
PayPal operates among an array of online price trawlers, product review sites, discount coupon hawkers and social networks. This cacophony of internet shopping options has all but replaced the mall. The transparency and convenience of “mobile commerce” have given Americans the upper hand over retailers, according to PayPal President Scott Thompson, who echoes the connect-and-inspire ideology of Silicon Valley when he says: “The consumer ultimately holds all the power.” Indeed, for many traditional retailers, rising competition from the internet has capped sales growth, squeezed profit margins and forced them to re-evaluate how they use their store space. But a closer look at the world’s largest e-commerce market suggests a more complex picture, in which some iPhone-toting shoppers – whether they want fair prices, greater choice or no hassle – are sacrificing as much to the internet as they gain from it. Online life has evolved to the point where many consumers this Christmas have implicitly signed up to a new but often unrecognized trade-off between the benefits and costs of America’s fastest-growing way to buy. Christopher Elliott, a consumer advocate and author of forthcoming book Scammed, says: “Companies benefit from the perception that if you’re a good consumer and you do your homework, everything will be fine. But what they don’t tell you is that in a digital age they can quietly manipulate the information we get to such an extent that being an informed consumer is an illusion.”
benton.org/node/109254 | Financial Times
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CONTENT
WHITE HOUSE AND SOPA
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
An online petition urging President Obama to veto a controversial anti-online piracy bill has passed the number of signatures required to receive an official response. The petition, which is on the White House's official "We the People" page, urges the president to veto the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and "any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information." The petition now has more than 34,000 signatures. It needed 25,000 before Jan. 17 for the White House to issue an official response. The White House petition, which gained popularity on the discussion site Reddit, includes a link to an image of a person behind bars and the headline, "This is a copyrighted image." The link is meant to demonstrate that websites should not be blocked just because their users post copyrighted material. "It would be ridiculous for an [Internet service provider] to block the entire whitehouse.gov domain on court order because a single user posted a link," the petition author wrote. "It is difficult for any web administrator to know which links to copyrighted material are done with permission."
benton.org/node/109074 | Hill, The
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SOPA OPPONENTS
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Andy Greenberg]
“The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it,” goes the saying coined by Sun Microsystems coder and Electronic Frontier Foundation founder John Gilmore. Now the Internet’s communities of coders and free speech advocates have interpreted the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) as intolerable digital damage before it has even come to a vote, and are already working on tools anyone can use to route around its roadblocks to foreign, copyright-infringing sites. While Congress has postponed the third half of its hearing on SOPA until next year, a developer named Tamer Rizk has been busy building an add-on for Firefox called DeSopa, which aims to give any Firefox user access to sites that SOPA’s copyright protection measures have blocked. “This program is a proof of concept that SOPA will not help prevent piracy,” reads a note including on DeSopa’s download page. “If SOPA is implemented, thousands of similar and more innovative programs and services will sprout up to provide access to the websites that people frequent. SOPA is a mistake. It does not even technically help solve the underlying problem, as this software illustrates.” DeSopa takes advantage of an blatant weakness in how SOPA’s controversial filtering mandate would function under the current version of the bill. The new copyright infringement regime would allow editing of the Domain Name System, the registry that converts websites’ domains (like Google.com or Yahoo.com) into an Internet Protocol address (like 74.125.157.99 or 98.137.149.56). When you type “Google.com” into your browser, your computer communicates with DNS servers that convert that name into an IP address. But type the IP address directly into your browser, and it works just as well. Since SOPA would lead to editing American DNS servers’ IP lists to insert errors for sites deemed illegal, DeSopa simply checks with foreign DNS servers to find the correct IP address and navigates directly to whatever blocked site the user enters.
benton.org/node/109049 | Forbes
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USING GOOGLE DATA TO REACH CONSUMERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Adam Newman]
Google correlated billions of flu-related Web searches from 2003 to 2008 with actual Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data over the same period. Then, because Web searchers’ Internet addresses indicated location, Google devised a formula to estimate regional flu activity based solely on searches, with a reporting lag of only about a day, outdoing C.D.C. flu reports, which typically are published a week or two after outbreaks. In 2009, researchers from Google and the C.D.C. wrote an article summarizing their findings in the journal Nature, and stated that the new predictive model — now called Google Flu Trends and accessible in an interactive format online — could be a boon to public health. “Up-to-date influenza estimates may enable public health officials and health professionals to better respond to seasonal epidemics,” they wrote. What the researchers probably did not predict was that the Google flu data would end up being the cornerstone of an advertising campaign.
benton.org/node/109260 | New York Times
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TELEVISION
SILENT NIGHT FOR ATTACK ADS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Shear]
Santa Claus is bringing a very special present for Newt Gingrich this weekend: a bit of relief. The independent “super PAC” supporting Mitt Romney’s campaign, which has run some of the most brutal attack ads against Gingrich, has said it will stop broadcasting them on Dec 24 and 25, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But the reprieve will be short-lived for Gingrich, whose campaign of “ideas” has been largely sidetracked for days as he attempts to push back against the relentless barrage of attacks against him. The ads are expected to return in force on Dec 26. For Gingrich, the ads have all but consumed his campaign. Rather than talk about the economy, the President or any of his ideas, Gingrich has spent days urging Romney and his other rivals to mount a positive campaign.
benton.org/node/109262 | New York Times
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TWC VS MSG
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Stewart, Sam Schechner]
Facing a heated battle with MSG sports network over rising rates, Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt said sports channels should be sold separately from the main cable-TV package of channels. "What was a minor problem is turning into an astronomical problem," Britt said, referring to the cost of sports programming generally. "The ultimate solution is to get that programming on some sort of smaller packaging scheme." Britt spoke as rhetoric between Time Warner Cable and MSG network owner Madison Square Garden Co. has been escalating ahead of a New Year's Eve deadline for resolution of a dispute between the two companies. If unresolved, the sports network could be blacked out in roughly two million New York-area homes on New Year's Eve. The network carries games of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, also owned by Madison Square Garden Company.
benton.org/node/109079 | Wall Street Journal
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CYBERSECURITY
DEFENSE OK’ED FOR CYBERATTACKS
[SOURCE: Federal Times, AUTHOR: Nicole Blake Johnson]
Congress has given the Defense Department explicit authority to launch offensive operations in cyberspace. The provision included in the National Defense Authorization Act passed by lawmakers affirms that DoD has offensive cyber capabilities and that the department "may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace" when directed to do so by the President. The legislation calls on DoD to select at least one official to coordinate, oversee and carry out collaborative cyber activities with the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is likewise required to assign a director of cybersecurity coordination to work with DoD.
benton.org/node/109071 | Federal Times
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LOOKS AHEAD; LOOKS BEHIND
LOOKING BACK AT 2011
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Charles Benton]
As the Benton Foundation closes out our 30th year as an organization dedicated to the ideal of media and telecommunications serving the public interest and enhancing our democracy, here are some thoughts on our major activities during these past twelve months.
Benton believes that everyone in this nation should be able to participate in the digital age. For that reason we have devoted staff resources to Universal Service Fund (USF) reform and modernization, specifically in the Lifeline and Link Up programs. Benton Policy Counsel Amina Fazlullah has worked with our colleagues in the public interest sector to preserve and strengthen these low-income support programs and enable a smooth transition from plain-old-telephone service to broadband. Her leadership has resulted in the engagement of organizations not previously active in this arena but whose constituencies stand to benefit from modernizing these essential programs.
http://benton.org/node/108888
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WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR DOES’T MAKE
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
The calendar has Headlines thinking back not just at 2011, but to our beginnings. Benton launched this service in 1996 as a way to keep people informed about the pressing communications policy debates of the day. We were watching implementation of the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996 and figured other people would like to know about it, too. Not so much on purpose, but aligned with the foundation’s priorities, we covered lots of issues surrounding broadcasting “back in the day.” We certainly had an eye on telecommunications and universal service reform – and that wacky Internet thing – but we found more stories on broadcasting than any other issue. In recent years, especially since editor Kevin Taglang’s return in 2004, we’ve focused more on broadband – extending its reach to all Americans, seeking policies that make it more affordable, and encouraging people to make effective use of it to improve their lives and community. As you probably know, we've tracked implementation of the National Broadband Plan. 2011 has been different, however. 2011, from Headlines’ perceptive, has really been the year of wireless. So we devote this week’s round-up – our last of 2011 – to the state of the wireless industry.
Stacey Higginbotham – one of our favorite writers – wrote a nice piece on wireless that got us thinking about all this. She noted -- What a difference a year doesn’t make: “Between the collapse of AT&T’s proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile and the death throes of a proposed wholesale 4G network created by a satellite company and now-broke hedge fund, the wireless industry has generated a lot of stories but no real change in the past year. We still have the same top four providers, and Clearwire is still struggling. The hoped-for entrance of LightSquared as a wholesale LTE-provider hasn’t materialized, and while Dish says it plans to enter the market, that news is balanced out by Cox’s deciding to leave it.”
http://benton.org/node/108849
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