January 2012

The Department of Commerce released “The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States.” Part of the report explores the federal role in providing a 21st century infrastructure and highlights Administration efforts already underway, including NTIA’s BTOP program, which is expanding broadband access and adoption in communities across the country.

These projects are already having a positive impact on the lives of Americans: new public computer centers are open, free computer classes and job-trainings are underway, and infrastructure projects are under construction. Already, grantees in NTIA’s BTOP program say that they have deployed or upgraded more than 29,000 miles of broadband infrastructure and installed more than 24,000 workstations in public computer centers. In the last quarter, grantees provided more than 755,000 hours of training to around 220,000 participants. And grantees say that their programs have already led to a total of more than 230,000 new broadband subscribers.

Broadcasting&Cable emphasizes that the report says “techniques such as improvements in spectrum efficiency, increases in network density through cell site construction, and offloading traffic to wired networks will not be sufficient to allow capacity to keep up with demand," though it added that being more efficient with spectrum "can" be part of the solution. In other words, the report said, wireless carriers won't be able to handle demand unless they have access to "additional parts of the spectrum." It called "vital" the Federal Communications Commission's planned reallocation of broadcast spectrum -- currently awaiting congressional approval of the ability to pay broadcasters to exit -- and indicated it would be transferring the spectrum to "more efficient use."

NBC is funding an initiative to create musical theater programs in U.S. schools in need of arts education.

The effort to launch stand-alone musical theater programs will begin this month with a pilot group of 20 schools nationwide. NBC is joined on the Make a Musical project by iTheatrics, which adapts musicals for student productions and provides tools for teacher training. The nonprofit iTheatrics' Junior Theater Project aims to begin another 180 programs this fall, building toward a 2014 goal of 1,000 school programs reaching 1 million students, NBC said. Schools may apply for the fall program at the website makeamusical.org starting Jan 6.

The Make a Musical project has another goal: NBC said it "celebrates" the network's upcoming series "Smash," a Broadway-set drama that premieres Feb. 6 and stars Debra Messing, Katharine McPhee ("American Idol") and Anjelica Huston. Its executive producers include Steven Spielberg.

As of December 31, 2011, there were 30,411 licensed broadcast stations. Here’s a brief breakdown.

• 14,952 full-power, radio licenses
• 838 low power FM radio licenses
• 1,783 full power TV licenses
• 2,047 low power TV licenses

In the last day, I’ve gotten two notes from start-ups that began on the web but have seen their businesses transformed by mobile, as users increasingly shift their consumption to mobile apps and browsers.

This might seem obvious in a world in which services like Twitter and Pandora now get most of their traffic from mobile. But it bears highlighting because the trend is happening across all sorts of apps and websites and that has implications for developers, publishers and businesses, who must now consider what a mobile-first world looks like. There is still an obvious need for a traditional website but the shifting habits of consumption mean you can’t make mobile an afterthought. People notice if you’re not optimizing for mobile and ignoring mobile users and their experiences can cost publishers. Google quoted a study last year that found that 61 percent of mobile users won’t return to a site if they have trouble accessing it from their phone.