June 2012

This summer, public media stations nationwide will offer a variety of internship programs that give students an opportunity to explore and experience careers in broadcasting, communications, journalism and media production as a way to keep youth interested and engaged in education outside the classroom.

Research shows that more than 80 percent of high school dropouts say they might have stayed in school if they had more real-world learning opportunities and they understood how their class work related to their future goals. Over the next few months, nearly 20 public radio and television stations will host internships and youth media workshops to introduce students to potential career opportunities and provide valuable work experience, as part of American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen – a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to identify and implement solutions to the high school dropout crisis. American Graduate summer internships will enable students to learn about media production, journalism and broadcast engineering as they write, shoot and edit short documentaries, public service announcements and interstitials about the dropout crisis in their communities. These experiences are beneficial in helping students enhance their 21st century skills—problem solving, storytelling, creative thinking, information and technology skills, and interpersonal skills—which are essential for success in today’s job market.

Don't look for any game-changing decisions on retrans out of this Federal Communications Commission, says National Cable and Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell.

Powell was answering audience questions after a Paley Center luncheon conversation, during which he weighed in on the prospects for FCC action. A number of cable operators have been pushing the commission to step into retrans disputes to mandate carriage or arbitration, but the FCC has taken no action. Powell was hardly surprised. Asked how much action he expected from the government on retrans given that cable operator push, he said that when FCC chairmen leave office, they hand their successor a list of things "to stay the hell out of." Retrans, he said, would be one of those. Powell suggested it was a no-win issue for regulators because the FCC does not have a lot of jurisdictional authority, so that if the commission makes the public think it can solve it when it can't, it has to answer for not doing so. He pointed out that neither he nor his predecessors Bill Kennard or Reed Hundt had tackled the issue, and he did not expect current Chairman Julius Genachowski to break with that tradition. He suggested the exception would be if it got new direction from Congress as part of a more comprehensive rewrite of TV regulation.

LinkedIn will get to connect with a federal judge after an embarrassing security breach in early June.

The social network for professionals has been hit with a class action seeking at least $5 million over an incident that exposed millions of user passwords. A complaint filed in San Jose cites a “troubling lack of security measures” and accuses LinkedIn of negligence and breach of contract for failing to encrypt its user database with industry standard security measures. The incident resulted in hackers posting users’ information online but it is not yet clear how much data they obtained. The lead plaintiff in the case is Katie Szpryka who paid for an upgraded account with the social network. The lawsuit, which also covers a separate class of users with free accounts, adds that LinkedIn breached California consumer protection laws. It cites a FTC complaint from 2003 in which the federal regulator accused the Guess! clothing company of unfair trade practices for storing customer information in an unencrypted database with poor security.

Businesses spent $132.8 billion in the U.S. last year on local ads and about $68.4 billion -- or 46.5% -- aimed to drive telephone leads, according to a BIA/Kelsey report that highlights the trend toward call-based ads.

Fueled by mobile devices, U.S. small businesses spent $41.1 billion on local advertising. Of that, $24.7 billion -- or 60.1% -- of all SMBs earmarked budgets for generating telephone leads, said BIA/Kelsey analyst Matt Booth. About 11% of companies now use call tracking to follow leads from the Web, up 5% in one year. "Call conversion from a local search on a desktop local is 7%, once the landing page is viewed, compared with 57% from a mobile device," Booth said. "Mobile applications can drive up to 62% of telephone calls." By 2015, the number of local search queries on desktop and mobile devices will "equal each other." Booth forecasts call volumes from search -- organic and paid traffic --will pale in comparison to calls generated from mobile devices by 2016. BIA/Kelsey forecasts 70 billion calls from the Internet and mobile to all U.S. businesses that year, with most of them coming from mobile devices. The report, titled "Call-Based Ads: Eliminating the Unknown From Advertising," provides a historical context, explains the foundation for growth and provides market forecasts. It also highlights data from BIA/Kelsey's ongoing "Local Commerce Monitor" study, highlighting that small-business advertisers report a phone call, even more than a personal visit to their store, can become the most valuable new business lead.