April 2012

The future of media = many small pieces, loosely joined

As traditional media revenues continue to fall off a cliff thanks to the precipitous decline in print advertising, there seems to be a desire on the part of media companies to somehow find a single solution that will magically cure this problem — hence the increasing popularity of paywalls. But as media industry analyst Ken Doctor points out in a recent post at the Nieman Lab, it is far more likely that success for media entities of all kinds will come by making smaller bets on a number of different things.

The big problem for the industry’s traditional players is that they have spent decades getting good at doing one thing — but now not as many people want that thing, and experimentation and rapid innovation is not in their DNA. John Paton, the CEO of Media News Group and a leading advocate of the “digital first” approach for newspapers, has said that the only possible response to the problem of digital dimes not making up for the loss of print dollars is to “stack those digital dimes” as fast as possible. In other words, accumulate as much as possible from as many sources as possible (while also reducing costs to try and stem the bleeding).

Next-Generation 911 Is Finally Poised to Take Off

More than a decade ago, the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) recognized the need for changes to the nation’s 911 systems. The old systems had their jobs for decades, but in a world of wireless calling and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), the country needed more accommodating technology. Enter the concept of next-generation 911 (NG911), a system that would run on a secure Internet protocol-based network and allow texting, data transfer and more. Since then, a generation of youngsters has grown up texting pals not only with words, but with pictures and videos as well. In fact, a 2011 Pew Internet survey found that 73 percent of cellphone users text, and nearly one-third of them would rather text than talk. In addition, many people with hearing and speech disabilities have abandoned TTY in favor of text messaging. Despite this phenomenon, just a small number of the nation’s 911 call centers run on secure emergency services IP-based networks, and just a handful of the centers have piloted technologies that allow the public to text 911.

So what’s taking so long? The rapidly changing technology landscape has created a number of challenges that industry and government leaders are working to address. Planning and coordinating a system that will be interoperable — and the standard — is imperative to avoid confusion for consumers and ensure that systems work together. Early adopters have begun to lay the foundation for NG911 services, but much work remains to achieve fully functioning NG911 nationwide. Among the complications that must be resolved are the need for further standards development, regulatory hurdles and lack of funding.

Broadband Will Be the ‘Great Equalizer’ for Rural Californians

Two consortia — Northeastern California Connect (NECCC) and Upstate California Connect (UCCC) — are coupling efforts to develop a broadband infrastructure plan that could provide Internet access to more than 1 million rural Northern California residents in 11 counties collectively.

“We’re ensuring that rural citizens in Northern California will not be disenfranchised in terms of essential needs for the 21st century,” said Tom West, consortium manager with Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, the group that submitted the grant application on behalf of NECCC and UCCC. The three-year project is supported by two California Advanced Services Fund Rural and Urban Broadband Consortia grants approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Dec. 1, 2011, along with five other consortia across the state. The seven grants total more than $1.5 million. NECCC and UCCC are funded for $449,991 and $448,184, respectively.

Supporters hope bill can save public access TV

As state funding for community access TV operations continues to wither across the USA, supporters are looking hopefully at a bill before Congress that would help to restore their local government, education, cultural and other programming.

As many as 1,800 Public, Educational and Government (PEG) operations have closed and funding has been slashed in 20 states as franchise agreements expire, according to the advocacy group American Community Television in Washington. Supporters see the proposed Community Access Preservation Act, or CAP Act, as a way to salvage their mission. Community access TV can air shows ranging from city council meetings to features on local artists and school productions. In Chicago, for example, program topics include poetry, photography and motorcycle safety, as well as government meetings. The legislation would restore communities' ability to get PEG funding and loosen restrictions in the Cable Communications Act of 1984 on how public access channels can spend money, according to the advocacy group Alliance for Community Media. The bill is pending in the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. No hearing date has been set.

Radio Stations Rising, FM Dominates Trend

While the radio advertising business may be stuck in a prolonged rough patch, that doesn’t seem to be deterring broadcasters from starting new radio stations, judging by the latest figures on station operating licenses from the Federal Communications Commission.

The number of licensed radio stations in operation has increased steadily in recent years -- at least on the FM side. From 6,279 commercial FM stations in 2007, the number grew to 6,404 in September 2008, 6,479 at the end of 2009, 6,512 in September 2010, 6,533 in June 2011, and 6,555 as of March 31, 2012. Educational FM stations continue to proliferate as well, jumping from 2,880 in 2007 to 3,712 today. The number of AM stations has mostly held steady, with a modest decline to 4,762. Overall, the number of licensed radio stations operating in the U.S. increased from 13,938 five years ago to 15,029 today. The uptick is interesting, especially since radio ad revenues have declined steeply over the same period. From $21.3 billion in 2007, total radio ad revenues fell to $16 billion in 2009 before rebounding somewhat to $17.4 billion in 2011.

Feds to drop $3 billion on new radios

The Homeland Security Department has inked a potential $3 billion contract for tactical communications to support the entire department, along with the White House and the Interior, Justice and State departments, DHS officials announced this week.

Thirty large and small businesses, including Motorola Solutions, Affigent, AT&T, Eyak Technology, Thales Communications, Patriot Towers and Unisys Corp., will divvy up the award during the five-year work period. The vendors will fulfill orders for radio upgrades, support the agencies' existing technologies and offer ways of making communications systems more compatible, according to an October 2011 contractor solicitation.

We Know What You Did During Spring Break

[Commentary] Although Headlines staff were away April 2-6, we still collected and summarized the major news from that week. So this week’s round up is really a quick look at the news of the past two weeks. In perhaps the biggest news in weeks – or, at least, the most headlines-grabbing news – the Department of Justice announced that it has reached a settlement with three of the largest book publishers in the United States -- Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers and Simon & Schuster -- and will continue to litigate against Apple and two other publishers -- Holtzbrinck Publishers, which does business as Macmillan, and Penguin Group (USA) -- for conspiring to end e-book retailers’ freedom to compete on price, take control of pricing from e-book retailers and substantially increase the prices that consumers pay for e-books. The department said that the publishers prevented retail price competition resulting in consumers paying millions of dollars more for their e-books.

Measuring the Internet – The Data Challenge

This working paper reviews a number of the challenges and opportunities confronting analysts interested in measuring the Internet and its economic and social impacts.

It identifies several additional challenges to the measurement issue, in addition to all of the normal problems one expects when measuring information and communication technologies (ICTs). These challenges are related to: the rapidly changing nature of the Internet, the need for more granular data in order to understand the complex nature of the Internet, and the phenomenon of big data and the resulting ability to measure almost anything.

Digital differences

Differences in internet access still exist among different demographic groups, especially when it comes to access to high-speed broadband at home.

Among the main findings about the state of digital access:

One in five American adults does not use the internet. Senior citizens, those who prefer to take our interviews in Spanish rather than English, adults with less than a high school education, and those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year are the least likely adults to have internet access.
Among adults who do not use the internet, almost half have told us that the main reason they don’t go online is because they don’t think the internet is relevant to them. Most have never used the internet before, and don’t have anyone in their household who does. About one in five say that they do know enough about technology to start using the internet on their own, and only one in ten told us that they were interested in using the internet or email in the future.
The 27% of adults living with disability in the U.S. today are significantly less likely than adults without a disability to go online (54% vs. 81%). Furthermore, 2% of adults have a disability or illness that makes it more difficult or impossible for them to use the internet at all.
Though overall internet adoption rates have leveled off, adults who are already online are doing more. And even for many of the “core” internet activities we studied, significant differences in use remain, generally related to age, household income, and educational attainment.

Getting the News

A Q&A with Microsoft’s danah boyd.

She says: “General news is not relevant to young people because they don’t have context. It’s a lot of abstract storytelling and arguing among adults that makes no sense. So most young people end up consuming celebrity news. To top it off, news agencies, for obvious reasons, are trying to limit access to their content by making you pay for it. Well, guess what: Young people aren’t going out of their way to try to find this news, so you put up one little wall, and poof, done. They’re not even going to bother. That dynamic ends up really affecting those who already are ill-informed. I’m passionate about news. I pay attention to it obsessively. So of course I pay for it. But if you’re not passionate about news — if you don’t care about it — you’re not going to pay a cent for it. When I hear news agencies talk about wanting to get young people, they don’t want to figure out how to actually inform them — they want to hear how to monetize them. And that pisses me off. My interest is in making sure they’re informed, but it’s often not through monetizable options. With young people, the thing that gets them fastest and easiest is the thing that can spread the most easily.”

Benton

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