April 2012

CYBERSECURITY

RECAPPING CYBERSECURITY WEEK
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
[Commentary] Late last week, the House Republican leadership declared this Cyber Week – and who are we at Headlines to disagree? Here’s what we know what was decided as we go to press – along with some thoughts about what it all means. We start, perhaps uncharacteristically, at the end of the process. On April 26, in an evening vote, the House approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA or HR 3523) 248-168. On April 26, the House also passed the Federal Information Security Amendments Act (HR 4257). The bill is aimed at updating the federal government's responsibility to manage its information systems so as to best thwart cyber threats. The bill was approved by unanimous consent after being brought up under a suspension of House rules. Suspension bills are usually non-controversial, and must pass by a two-thirds majority vote. The controversy was really about CISPA.
http://benton.org/node/121594
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TWO MORE CYBERSECURITY BILLS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Pete Kasperowicz]
The House approved two, non-controversial cybersecurity bills under a suspension of House rules. The first was the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act (HR 2096). The bill would coordinate federal research and development on cybersecurity, and establish a program for training federal cybersecurity experts. The bill also authorizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology to set security standards for federal computer systems. The second was the Advancing America's Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act (HR 3834). This bill would update and modernize the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991, which established what is now a $4 billion federal research program on computing and networking systems.
benton.org/node/121690 | Hill, The
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NEWS FROM THE FCC MEETING

POLITICAL AD RULES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) updated existing broadcast television disclosure procedures to move stations’ public files from paper to the Internet. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn voted to affirm the entire order, which includes requiring the broadcasters' public files -- including their political files -- be moved online over a two year period. The adopted Report and Order requires television stations to post their public files online in a central, FCC-hosted online database rather than maintaining paper files locally at their main studios. The Order modernizes the filing process, making it easier for consumers to access information about their broadcast services without having to travel to the station’s main studio.
In 2002, Congress directed the Commission to ensure public availability of the political files. The Second Report and Order tailors the uploading of the political portion of the public file to minimize broadcaster burdens. Broadcasters will not be required to upload existing materials in these “political files” to the online website. Rather, stations will need only to upload new political file documents going forward. In addition, for the next two years only stations that are affiliated with the top four national networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) and are licensed to serve communities in the top 50 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) are required to post political file documents online.
benton.org/node/121679 | Federal Communications Commission | LATimes | The Hill | B&C | B&C | TVNewsCheck | MediaPost | WSJ | Politico
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FCC ADOPTS RULES TO HELP CONSUMERS IDENTIFY AND PREVENT CRAMMING
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took steps to protect Americans from difficult-to-detect fraudulent charges on their landline phone bills. The new rules combat “cramming,” the illegal placement of unauthorized charges on a consumer’s monthly phone bill. The FCC also asked for comment on additional ways consumers can protect themselves against this troubling activity. Specifically, the new rules:
Require telephone companies to notify subscribers at the point of sale, on each bill, and on their websites of the option to block third-party charges from their landline telephone bills, if the carrier offers that option;
Strengthen the Commission’s requirement that third-party charges be separated from the landline telephone company’s charges on phone bills; and
Ask whether the FCC should adopt additional protections, such as requiring landline telephone companies to get consumer consent before placing those charges on their telephone bills if the company already offers to block those charges.
benton.org/node/121676 | Federal Communications Commission | Report and Order | USAToday | B&C | AT&T
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CHANNEL SHARING
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took its first step toward making a significant portion of spectrum currently used by the broadcast television service available for new uses. The Report and Order, in anticipation of a future incentive auction to address the nation’s growing demand for wireless broadband, allows multiple broadcast stations to elect to stream individual programming while sharing a single channel. The new rules apply to full power and Class A television stations, including both commercial and noncommercial educational television stations. Specifically, the Report and Order establishes a framework for how two or more television licensees may
voluntarily share a single six MHz channel in conjunction with the auction process:
While stations will need to retain at least one standard definition programming stream to meet the FCC’s requirement of providing an over-the-air video broadcast at no direct charge to viewers, they will have the flexibility of tailoring their channel sharing agreements to meet their individual programming and economic needs.
Stations sharing together will employ a single channel and transmission facility but will each continue to be licensed separately, retain its original call sign, retain all the rights pertaining to an FCC license, and remain subject to all of the FCC’s rules, policies, and obligations.
The rules neither increase nor decrease the cable and satellite carriage rights currently afforded broadcast licensees. Nor does the Report and Order act on the proposals in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to establish fixed and mobile allocations in the U/V bands or to improve TV service on VHF channels. The FCC will address the allocation issue in a future rulemaking, and may address the VHF issues at a later date as well.
benton.org/node/121674 | Federal Communications Commission | | Report and Order |
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FCC REFORMS SEEK EFFICIENT, FAIR USF CONTRIBUTION SYSTEM
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Continuing its overhaul and modernization of the Universal Service Fund (USF), the Federal Communications Commission launched reform of how funding is collected to support universal access to voice and broadband. The overarching goal of reform: ensuring delivery of voice and broadband communications to all Americans and achieving core FCC objectives of promoting broadband innovation, investment and adoption. The Notice seeks comment on the appropriate transition periods for reforms to allow service providers and consumers to adapt.
With reforms in place to contain spending, this Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking examines ways to pay for USF more fairly and efficiently. USF is paid for by an assessment on the interstate and international revenues of carriers, such as long-distance revenues, as well as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP providers). Contributors may bill consumers and business customers for the cost. The Notice builds on the FCC’s efforts to limit the Fund’s burden on consumers and businesses while modernizing USF for the 21st century.
In particular, the Notice asks:
What services and service providers should contribute to the fund
How should contributions should be assessed -- on revenues, the number of connections, by phone numbers, or a hybrid approach
How to reduce the cost, promote transparency and increase clarity of the contribution system
Whether consumers could benefit from increased transparency and limitations on how providers recover their USF costs
benton.org/node/121671 | Federal Communications Commission
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PRIVACY

GOOGLE WI-SPY REPORT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Streitfeld]
Google’s harvesting of e-mails, passwords and other sensitive personal information from unsuspecting households in the United States and around the world was neither a mistake nor the work of a rogue engineer, as the company long maintained, but a program that supervisors knew about, according to new details from the full text of a regulatory report. The report, prepared by the Federal Communications Commission after a 17-month investigation of Google’s Street View project, was released, heavily redacted, two weeks ago. Although it found that Google had not violated any laws, the agency said Google had obstructed the inquiry and fined the company $25,000. On April 28, Google released a version of the report with only employees’ names redacted. The full version draws a portrait of a company where an engineer can easily embark on a project to gather personal e-mails and Web searches of potentially hundreds of millions of people as part of his or her unscheduled work time, and where privacy concerns are shrugged off. The so-called payload data was secretly collected between 2007 and 2010 as part of Street View, a project to photograph streetscapes over much of the civilized world. When the program was being designed, the report says, it included the following “to do” item: “Discuss privacy considerations with Product Counsel.” “That never occurred,” the report says.
benton.org/node/121669 | New York Times | Los Angeles Times
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BUSINESS AND PRIVACY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
Online businesses should become more proactive on privacy matters to head off “big government” style regulatory efforts. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said. Speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Rep Blackburn called on firms that rely more and more on their customers’ personal information to take better care of that data. The “explosion of data” represents a “new frontier” which Rep Blackburn said requires a reframing of the debate over privacy. Policymakers are still trying to define the rules of the road, she said, asking: “Are we going to explore it, protect it, learn to commercialize it, and respect it, or will we restrict it? “The answer will determine whether our children and grandchildren are able to experience the benefits of the digital economy,” she said. Instead of constantly discussing problems and fears, Rep Blackburn said we need more of a discussion about how data creates jobs and how technology can use data to improve our lives. “The growth potential here is endless and so is consumer demand – but only if we have the right policies to help facilitate and protect this amazing innovation,” she said.
benton.org/node/121628 | Hill, The
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OWNERSHIP

GOOGLE HAS TWO-FRONT FIGHT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Streitfeld, Edward Wyatt]
Google may soon be fighting antitrust battles on two fronts. The European Commission has been looking for two years into whether the search giant abused local competition laws, and it is expected soon to either file formal charges or achieve a significant settlement. Now the Federal Trade Commission, which began examining Google last year, is starting its own antitrust inquiry. The commission hired a former federal prosecutor this week to lead any potential case. “The European Commission and the FTC are investigating the same things,” said Keith N. Hylton, a Boston University law professor. But, he added, Google faces a tougher situation in Europe, where courts have a lower threshold for assessing market dominance. Also, antitrust regulators in Europe are much more powerful than they are in the United States. For instance, they do not need a court order to impose sanctions.
benton.org/node/121667 | New York Times
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SILICON VALLEY AND REGULATORS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jessica Guynn]
The message Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz delivered this week: Google and other big tech firms may operate thousands of miles from the nation's capital but they're not beyond the reach of federal regulators. Silicon Valley likes to hold itself out as a paragon of corporate virtue, but increasingly federal and state authorities are not buying the "don't be evil" slogan. Unlike oil or pharmaceutical companies that have to work hard to gloss their public image, Silicon Valley — filled with energetic young entrepreneurs building the next generation of gadgets and apps — is celebrated for driving the U.S. economy in tough economic times. But that high shine occasionally gets tinged.
benton.org/node/121665 | Los Angeles Times
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APPLE TAXES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charles Duhigg, David Kocieniewski]
Apple, the world’s most profitable technology company, doesn’t design iPhones in Reno, Nevada. It doesn’t run AppleCare customer service from this city. And it doesn’t manufacture MacBooks or iPads anywhere nearby. Yet, with a handful of employees in a small office here in Reno, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states. Apple’s headquarters are in Cupertino, California. By putting an office in Reno, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest the company’s profits, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains. California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada’s? Zero. Setting up an office in Reno is just one of many legal methods Apple uses to reduce its worldwide tax bill by billions of dollars each year.
benton.org/node/121663 | New York Times
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FALCONE AGREES TO STEP ASIDE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Mike Spector, Greg Bensinger]
Apparently, Hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone agreed to step aside eventually as the public face of his LightSquared venture, a concession that may keep the wireless-telecommunications company from defaulting on its debt. Falcone's compromise is expected to prompt LightSquared's lenders to approve a one-week extension on a debt-term violations waiver that expires April 30. If a deal is finalized, Falcone and LightSquared's lenders plan to continue negotiations for a longer extension of somewhere between 18 months and two years.
benton.org/node/121715 | Wall Street Journal | Bloomberg
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LABOR

LIFE AT GOOGLEPLEX
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Caitlin Kelly]
Step onto Google’s campus in Mountain View, California — with its indoor treehouse, volleyball court, apiaries, heated toilet seats — and you might think you’ve just sailed over the rainbow. But all the toys and perks belie the frenetic pace here, and many employees acknowledge that life at Google can be hard on fragile egos. Sure, the amenities are seductive, says Blaise Pabon, an enterprise sales engineer, but “when you get to a place like this, it can tear you apart” if you don’t find a way to handle the hard-driving culture.
benton.org/node/121662 | New York Times
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BIG DATA TALENT
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ben Rooney]
"A significant constraint on realizing value from Big Data will be a shortage of talent, particularly of people with deep expertise in statistics and machine learning, and the managers and analysts who know how to operate companies by using insights from Big Data," according to a report published last year by McKinsey. "We project a need for 1.5 million additional managers and analysts in the United States who can ask the right questions and consume the results of the analysis of Big Data effectively." What the industry needs is a new type of person: the data scientist.
benton.org/node/121661 | Wall Street Journal
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JOURNALISM

BIAS IN MEDIA?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Farhi]
[Commentary] Charges of media bias have been flying like a bloody banner on the campaign trail. Newt Gingrich excoriated the “elite media” in a richly applauded moment during one of the Republican debates. Rick Santorum chewed out a New York Times reporter. Mitt Romney said this month that he faces “an uphill battle” against the press in the general election. Meanwhile, just about every new poll of public sentiment shows that confidence in the news media has hit a new low. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed by the Pew Research Center in the fall said the media “tend to favor one side” compared with 53 percent who said so in 1985. But have the media really become more biased? Or is this a case of perception trumping reality? In fact, there’s little to suggest that over the past few decades news reporting has become more favorable to one party. That’s not to say researchers haven’t found bias in reporting. They have, but they don’t agree that one side is consistently favored or that this favoritism has been growing like a pernicious weed.
benton.org/node/121654 | Washington Post
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

T-MOBILE FIRES BACK
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
T-Mobile says Verizon and its SpectrumCo cable partners are “throwing up a smokescreen” in the face of opposition to a proposed spectrum agreement. A T-Mobile spokesman said that “SpectrumCo has not raised anything new that has not already been addressed by T-Mobile in this proceeding." He called a recent letter Verizon et al sent to the Federal Communications Commission a "hodgepodge of complaints" and said it was a "smokescreen to try to hide the serious anticompetitive impacts that would result from this highly problematic transaction." "The FCC’s focus must be on whether vigorous competition will continue following this spectrum transaction between Verizon and the cable companies," he said. "T-Mobile USA and many other parties have demonstrated that the long-term result would be less competition if Verizon is allowed to warehouse the last swath of spectrum likely to be available in the near term to provide meaningful nationwide competition in mobile broadband,” the spokesman said.
benton.org/node/121627 | Hill, The
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BAN ON CELL PHONES WHILE DRIVING
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jim Forsyth]
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called for a federal law to ban talking on a cell phone or texting while driving any type of vehicle on any road in the country. Tough federal legislation is the only way to deal with what he called a "national epidemic," he said at a distracted-driving summit in San Antonio, Texas, that drew doctors, advocates and government officials. Sec LaHood said it is important for the police to have "the opportunity to write tickets when people are foolishly thinking they can drive safely or use a cell phone and text and drive." Sec LaHood said his department was researching the effect that hands-free devices and new systems like Ford Motor Company's Sync have on distracting drivers. He said he has called the CEOs of major car companies and encouraged them to "think twice" before placing too many Internet-based systems into new cars.
benton.org/node/121653 | Reuters
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

CABLE-IZATION OF ONLINE LIFE
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] Just imagine trying to run a business that is utterly dependent on a single delivery network — a gatekeeper — that can make up the rules on the fly and knows you have nowhere else to go. To get the predictability you need to stay solvent, you’ll be told to pay a “first class” premium to reach your customers. From your perspective, the whole situation will feel like you’re being shaken down: It’s arbitrary, unfair, and coercive. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is feeling just this way. He’s trying to get Americans to care about Comcast’s power to exempt “first class” streaming video delivered to Xboxes from its monthly internet usage caps. Comcast here is playing the role of the gate agent: Video that Comcast directs down particular channels to particular devices won’t trigger the cap. So customers who watch Comcast’s stuff won’t have to worry about losing internet access — something they need to send e-mail and otherwise participate in 21st-century life — by blowing by the cap. Same pipe, same function, same physical connection to your home, different treatment. Although Comcast is doing its best to drag this conflict down into the weeds of network architecture technicalities, the big picture is clear: This is the leading edge of the cable-ization of online life.
benton.org/node/121634 | Wired
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INVESTORS AND NETWORK NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
AT&T’s shareholders didn’t require the telecommunications giant to implement network neutrality on its wireline and wireless networks. The proposal lost with a mere 5.9 percent of the vote. But based on an interview I had two weeks ago with Jonas Kron, Vice President of Trillium Asset Management, the goal of the shareholder proposal was to get 3 percent of the vote so they could bring it back next year. So in that case, Trillium and other shareholders in favor of the proposal (including Mike D of the Beastie Boys) won. In fact Kron told me that anything over 5 percent would be a substantial victory because it means that the company would have to pay attention to the issue. Regardless of change coming from this particular vote, in our talk Kron offered me something far more interesting, an economic justification for broadband companies to embrace network neutrality. So despite Wall Street analysts who argue that such rules would turn the nation’s largest wireline and wireless phone companies into commodity utilities with the profit margins to match, Kron explains why American’s capitalists should be fine with network neutrality.
benton.org/node/121652 | GigaOm
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NET NEUTRALITY COURT DECISION
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
Cablevision was sued by two consumers -- Alyce Serrano and Andrea Londono. They accused the company of violating a federal anti-hacking statute by accessing their computers without authorization in order to throttle peer-to-peer traffic. Serrano and Londono, who sought class-action status, also alleged that Cablevision violated consumer protection laws by using phrases like "blazing fast speed" in its ads. The company insisted that the lawsuit against it should be dismissed. Late last month, U.S. District Court Judge Dora Irizarry in Brooklyn (NY) agreed with Cablevision. Judge Irizarry granted the ISP summary judgment, ruling that its terms of service gave it the right to take action to prevent consumers from using "excessive" bandwidth. "Plaintiffs cannot now claim that Cablevision acted 'without authorization' when it restricted their bandwidth," Judge Irizarry wrote. The judge also dismissed the consumer protection claims, ruling that Cablevision's statements about its fast speeds were "mere puffery," as opposed to legally binding terms. Now the consumers filed an appeal. It could take the appellate court more than a year to issue a decision. Meanwhile, the case shows that consumer lawsuits against individual ISPs are anything but a surefire way of enforcing neutrality principles.
benton.org/node/121649 | MediaPost
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EDUCATION

STANFORD AND SILICON VALLEY
[SOURCE: New Yorker, AUTHOR: Ken Auletta]
If the Ivy League was the breeding ground for the élites of the American Century, Stanford is the farm system for Silicon Valley. When looking for engineers, Google starts at Stanford. Five per cent of Google employees are Stanford graduates. The president of Stanford, John L. Hennessy, is a director of Google; he is also a director of Cisco Systems and a successful former entrepreneur. Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing has licensed eight thousand campus-inspired inventions, and has generated $1.3 billion in royalties for the university. Stanford’s public-relations arm proclaims that five thousand companies “trace their origins to Stanford ideas or to Stanford faculty and students.” They include Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Netflix, Electronic Arts, Intuit, Fairchild Semiconductor, Agilent Technologies, Silicon Graphics, LinkedIn, and E*Trade. John Doerr, a partner at the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which bankrolled such companies as Google and Amazon, regularly visits campus to scout for ideas. He describes Stanford as “the germplasm for innovation. I can’t imagine Silicon Valley without Stanford University.”
benton.org/node/121647 | New Yorker | Bloomberg – defense
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MEDIA AND ELECTIONS

CREEPINESS FACTOR
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Sasha Issenberg]
For a generation now, a campaign manager has been able to select a list of, say, 100,000 names to receive a pre-election get-out-the-vote reminder and feel confident that the reminder will reach only those 100,000 voters—and not their neighbors. The voters’ addresses can be delivered to a mail vendor (who merges them onto glossy leaflets) or placed on a walk list (which a field director hands to canvassers), or the voters’ telephone numbers can be given to a phone vendor (whose call centers will reach them with live operators or by robocall). This year, for the first time, campaign managers in races of all sizes will have a new option: individual-level targeting of Web ads. In this scenario, there is a crucial intermediate step. The 100,000 names selected for targeted communication are then matched to Internet cookies, which allows a campaign to buy ads on only those pages visited by its targeted voters. This represents one dimension of the most important innovation of the 2012 election cycle: the ability to match an individual’s online and offline identities. It means that campaigns can now target voters wherever they are, even if they’re at their vacation home for the summer or spend most of their online time in corners of the Internet where people do not typically seek out political content. As a result, individual targeting marks a crucial step in the maturing of the Web from a media platform and forum for fundraising and activist organizing to a corridor for direct voter contact. But even if campaigns have finally acquired the technical capacity to target Web ads with the precision of mail or a door-do-door canvass, they are not using it that way.
benton.org/node/121633 | Slate
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HOLLYWOOD AND OBAMA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Erica Orden, Peter Nicholas]
President Barack Obama is starting to lure Hollywood donors back into the fold after his decision earlier this year to side with Internet companies over an antipiracy measure angered the entertainment industry and left many of them slow to open their checkbooks. Actor George Clooney said that a fundraising dinner at his Los Angeles home on May 10 would raise $10 million for the president's re-election, the largest amount ever for a single Obama campaign event. If true, that would exceed the sum the Obama campaign raised from the entertainment industry in the 2008 presidential race. The Clooney event may signal that President Obama successfully mollified dismayed Hollywood executives when he personally called them in the wake of the January antipiracy decision. President Obama rankled Hollywood donors, a mainstay of Democratic fundraising, by opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act, a measure entertainment executives believed to be crucial to the industry's financial health.
benton.org/node/121716 | Wall Street Journal
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POLICYMAKERS

GRASSLEY LIFTS HOLDS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released holds he had placed on two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission. Sen Grassley had placed the holds on Republican Ajit Pai and Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel months ago and had demanded FCC documents on the agency's decision to grant a waiver to LightSquared, the politically connected telecommunications firm that wanted to set up a new 4G wireless network. Though he agreed to release the holds, Sen Grassley issued a statement lambasting the FCC for a lack of transparency. The statement accused the agency of stonewalling Grassley for months, though the senator said documents eventually became more useful. Sen Grassley said the documents he's seen so far raise more questions, but he expressed satisfaction with the process now in place to obtain relevant FCC documents. As a result, he said, he intended to lift his holds on the two nominees. "But my inquiry is not over. I'm told there are 11,000 more pages of documents from the FCC on LightSquared that will be forthcoming to the House Commerce Committee," he said. "I look forward to receiving access to those documents."
benton.org/node/121625 | Hill, The
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TELEVISION/RADIO

NEA FUNDING
[SOURCE: Current, AUTHOR: Dru Stefton]
The Arts on Radio and Television fund of the National Endowment for the Arts, a source of millions of programming dollars for public media, is distributing matching grants to a wider range of recipients this year — from a smaller pool of money. Pubcasters are anxious about the plunge in funding to flagship programs and independent projects now that the Endowment’s revamped Arts in Media fund also supplies cash to digital-game designers, app designers and artists working on web-based interactive platforms. In 2011, almost all of the grants went to public TV and radio programs. This year about half did. The number of grantees was up from 64 to 78 and the total amount committed was down from $4 million to $3.55 million. Alyce Myatt, a former PBS programming VP who now directs the media-arts program, is spearheading the change. Myatt told Current that after she arrived at the agency in early 2011, the staff decided to examine “how artists were using media to create art and how the public was consuming art through different media platforms.” They concluded that NEA’s grants should go beyond broadcast, supporting media artists and developers working on digital and interactive platforms.
benton.org/node/121623 | Current
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RADIO MERGER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Ben Sisario]
On its surface, the merger last week of WRKS and WBLS, longtime rivals in the R&B radio format in New York, was business as usual for the broadcast industry. Two struggling competitors combined operations, and a deep-pocketed third party — Disney — came along to lease the leftover frequency. But radio executives and analysts said the deal also reflected a broader trend in the business that has taken a toll on black and other minority stations. Since the introduction five years ago of a new technology for tracking audiences, many such broadcasters have experienced shrinking numbers, forcing radio companies to consolidate stations or switch to general-audience formats. Many black stations have suffered under a new ratings scheme, including WRKS, known as Kiss-FM, (98.7 FM) and WBLS (107.5 FM). While both were once ranked near the top of their desired demographic — adults ages 25 to 54 — since Arbitron’s Portable People Meter’s arrival, they have slipped to between sixth and 11th place, said Jeff Smulyan, chief executive of WRKS’s parent, Emmis Communications.
benton.org/node/121708 | New York Times
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THE END FOR WKRS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: CJ Hughes]
On April 26, Emmis Communications announced that its 98.7-FM frequency had been leased to ESPN, which would begin broadcasting at midnight on April 29. That left just a few days to collectively mourn the passing of one of the city’s most prominent African-American radio stations, WKRS or KISS-FM. The late-1970s block party atmosphere of the April 27 gathering could not obscure the worries that many employees had about the future. Some had already been told that they were losing their jobs. The KISS brand has been bought by YMF Media, the owner of its rival, WBLS, 107.5-FM. The KISS D.J.’s Shaila Scott and Lenny Green have been offered jobs at WBLS; two syndicated D.J.’s, Tom Joyner and Michael Baisden, have not, according to station executives. Many of the younger employees on hand, and many listeners, too, said that they had grown up with KISS, which made its debut on Aug. 1, 1981, on the same day as MTV, though with a playlist that emphasized disco, R&B and rap, rather than rock. The first song played, from KISS’s original studios at 1440 Broadway, was Shalamar’s “Make That Move.” But in 1994, after Emmis bought KISS, it began to change its sound. Rap was relegated to WQHT, or 97.1-FM, which is known as Hot 97. KISS was reinvented as a classic soul and R&B station for an older audience, with playlists that included Marvin Gaye, the Jacksons, Prince and Luther Vandross. Around the same time, well-known performers like Isaac Hayes, Ashford and Simpson and Roberta Flack took to the microphones with their own shows. The station, which long held the No. 1 spot in its market but has struggled in recent years, also helped start the career of Wendy Williams, now a television talk show host.
benton.org/node/121707 | New York Times
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

SCANDAL HEMS IN MURDOCH’S EMPIRE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Amy Chozick]
For months, News Corporation’s buoyant stock price and solid financial performance, driven by the strength of its United States television assets, had allowed executives based in New York to paint the scandal in the UK as an unfortunate but isolated series of events at the British tabloids, a tiny part of the overall business. But the events in Britain and the resulting scrutiny have begun to take a toll on the broader empire, according to at least a dozen people familiar with the company, including several former News Corporation executives. On May 1, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the British Parliament is expected to release a report that could further damage the company’s reputation. Inside the company, one of the biggest concerns is that News Corporation now sits under a magnifying glass, making any potentially suspect business dealings, even from years ago, vulnerable to scrutiny by the United States government.
benton.org/node/121705 | New York Times
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CAMERON DENIES NEWS CORP COLLABORATION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Nicholas Winning]
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said there was no agreement between him and Rupert Murdoch, or his son James Murdoch, to support News Corp.'s business interests in return for the media company's support of Cameron's Conservative Party. "The idea there was some grand bargain between me and Rupert Murdoch -- that is not true," he said in an interview with BBC television, in which he also defended the government's austerity measures after economic data last week showed the U.K. slipped back into a recession in the previous two quarters. The government's links with media groups, in particular News Corp., have come under renewed scrutiny this week after the special adviser to the culture minister resigned over his close contacts with the Murdoch-run company during its efforts to take full control of pay-television operator British Sky Broadcasting Group last year. Opposition lawmakers have called for Jeremy Hunt, the minister for culture, media and sport, to also resign over the allegations he was too close to News Corp. while he handled the regulatory process over the BSkyB bid.
benton.org/node/121703 | Wall Street Journal
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CHINA FILM GROUP
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Cieply, David Barboza]
Any foreign movie knocking on China’s door must pass through powerful gatekeepers — the China Film Group and its chief executive, Han Sanping. The China Film Group functions as the Chinese government’s guardian of a film market that recently shot past Japan’s to become the world’s second-largest in box-office receipts behind the United States. On a broad array of business dealings — censorship, distribution and co-productions, among others — it is the conduit for foreign moviemakers hoping to make or distribute films in China. But Han and his group are also supervising a trade route that is suddenly under close watch by regulators in Washington, after reports last week that officials in the United States are examining whether American film companies have violated domestic law by making illegal payments to officials in China.
benton.org/node/121702 | New York Times
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MOBILE PAYMENTS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Alex Barker, Daniel Thomas]
Google and PayPal have sounded the alarm in Brussels over a proposed joint venture between Britain’s biggest mobile phone operators, warning it could choke the fast-developing mobile payments market. The “Project Oscar” tie-up involves Vodafone, Telefónica’s O2 and Everything Everywhere, the merged UK businesses of Deutsche Telekom and France Télécom. According to conclusions from the initial investigation, Europe’s top competition watchdog is worried the venture could stunt innovation and shut out rivals. US tech groups such as Google Wallet, PayPal and IBM are concerned about the market power that could potentially be gained by rivals controlling the use of a key microchip. These commercial fears were expressed in confidence to the Brussels team that will recommend whether to approve the joint venture. A detailed breakdown of the competition problems identified, shared with the Financial Times, sheds new light on the industry battle to influence Europe’s standards and technologies for mobile payments – the most promising frontier in the telecoms industry’s hunt for new revenue streams.
benton.org/node/121713 | Financial Times
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April 2012

April 30, 2012 (Cybersecurity; FCC Meeting Recap)

Hollywood Returning to Obama Fold

Falcone Agrees To Step Aside

Google warns over mobile payments

Mobile Spam Texts Hit 4.5 Billion Raising Consumer Ire

Newspapers battle to cut costs

A Radio Merger in New York Reflects a Shifting Industry

Final Farewells at a Legendary Radio Station

Scandal and Scrutiny Hem In Murdoch’s Empire