August 2012

Scrutiny for Vodafone and Telefónica deal

Vodafone and Telefónica will next week move a step closer to completing a deal to pool their network infrastructure in the UK, although they must convince regulators that combining these assets will not add up to anything like a merger.

The concern for regulators is that fewer separate networks would mean a risk of reducing differentiation in network quality, some analysts warn. The other two mobile operators in the UK – Everything Everywhere and Three – already share masts. This would mean, says one senior telecoms executive, that there could be fewer groups at the infrastructure level in the mobile market than there would be in the fixed-line market in the UK. They are expected to submit their plans to the Office of Fair Trading early next week. Those close to the process say that the OFT interest is routine, and that their submission is a move to guarantee a regulatory timetable. Analysts, however, warned that the deal to merge basic broadcast networks could be scrutinized carefully by the regulators.

Madrid accused of media interference

Spain’s government is facing mounting criticism for political interference in the country’s main state broadcaster after a string of high-profile departures of journalists considered critical of the ruling Popular party in recent months. Several of the broadcaster’s most prominent news journalists have left on acrimonious terms, following a move by the government of Mariano Rajoy earlier this year reversing a law making key appointments at the state Radio y Televisión Española network subject to approval by a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Smashing Silicon Valley’s biases

[Commentary] Blacks and Hispanics constitute only 1.5 percent and 4.7 percent respectively of the Silicon Valley’s computer workers—even lower than the national averages of 7.1 percent and 5.3 percent. The Silicon Valley elite -- like the children at elite prep schools rarely get to interact with minorities, so stereotypes get propagated, which only serves to make the problem worse. Venture capitalists invest in people who fit the “patterns” of successful entrepreneurs that they know, and hiring managers bring in more of the same types of people they have seen achieve success — in other words: people like them.

Mitch Kapor established a program called SMASH—the Summer Math and Science Honors Academy at UC Berkeley. SMASH focused on providing project-based learning and integrating science and math into contemporary issues rather than an intensive curriculum oriented towards standardized tests. SMASH provides full funding for high-achieving, low-income high school students of color to spend time on campus for five weeks during the summers after their 9th, 10th and 11th grade years. They are immersed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), conduct experiments and participate in group discussions. They are taught by leading scholars and provided access to the most advanced research equipment. Then they are provided with year-round academic support including SAT prep, college counseling, and other support to ensure their academic success. The results speak for themselves: 100 percent of SMASH graduates have been accepted to competitive four-year colleges, and the overwhelming majority persist as STEM majors. Kids from under-performing public schools who are eligible for free lunches have often never heard of MIT or Middlebury or Morehouse, but those are campuses now populated with SMASH alumni.

Romney: Campaigns shouldn’t run ads that fact-checkers say are false

Yes, Mitt Romney really said this:
“You know, in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad,” Romney said on the radio. “They were embarrassed. Today, they just blast ahead. You know, the various fact checkers look at some of these charges in the Obama ads and they say that they’re wrong, and inaccurate, and yet he just keeps on running them.”

I sympathize with Romney’s plight. I’ve said that the Priorities USA ad suggesting Bain is to blame for the steelworker’s wife goes too far. I agree that the Obama ad labeling him as an “outsourcer in chief” was false. It was unfair and misleading of Dems to quote Romney this way: “I like being able to fire people.”

And yet it remains puzzling that Romney would go here. After all, fact checkers have called out his ads as wrong, inaccurate, misleading or false again and again and again and again and again and again and again. If Romney pulled any of those ads, I’m not aware of it.

President Obama to blanket Tampa airwaves for convention

President Barack Obama will be at the Republican National Convention in Tampa later this month — on local TV, that is. Obama’s team plunked down more than $181,000 in ad time on Tampa-area network affiliates for the last week of August, to ensure that the President isn't completely out the spotlight when Mitt Romney is crowned as the GOP standard-bearer.

Obama for America will air more than 160 spots on shows as varied as "Dr. Phil," "Undercover Boss" and "Bachelor Pad,” including $73,720 for 49 spots on the Tampa CBS affiliate, $54,500 for 75 spots on the ABC affiliate and $53,750 for 42 spots on the NBC affiliate, according to public disclosures posted this week to the Federal Communications Commission’s website. The Obama ad buys are set all day and into the night, from spending up to $4,500 per ad on "America’s Got Talent" to spots on “Rachael Ray,” a cooking show, and the fantasy show "Grimm" — all in addition to morning and evening news buys. The content of the ads is not known.

The Mobile Payments Committee: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile unite for the future of payments

The mobile payments industry is still very much like the Wild West — there’s little law and order, and plenty of gunslingers itching to strike gold. But a new committee could finally civilize the mobile payments wild lands. The trade group Electronic Transactions Association announced the Mobile Payments Committee, a task force that includes representatives from all four of the major U.S. carriers, as well as others developing mobile payments solutions.

Chaired by Jackie Moran, Verizon’s executive director of federal relations, the committee will serve as a way to develop policy and business strategy for the mobile payments industry. Among the issues the committee is tackling, it will help participants figure out the complex business relationships necessary to make mobile payment options interoperable; help legislators and regulators understand how to develop mobile payments public policy; and educate consumers and merchants about the benefits of mobile payments.

A public-private partnership

Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, where contributors earn rewards in kind, are often likened to fundraisers for public broadcasting. "99% Invisible" flips this logic on its head. The quirky, design-oriented public-radio show has raised $160,000 through Kickstarter to produce the next season. Other public-radio types are taking notice.

Roman Mars, who produces and hosts "99% Invisible", turned to crowdfunding as an experiment to gauge the audience's interest in a third series of the program, which runs 4.5 minutes on broadcast radio (with a separately edited longer podcast version available) and considers topics such as audio poetry of sounds made by escalators, the origins of the use of cavemen in GEICO ads and reasons for the limited supply of Trappist beer. Mars, who runs the show on top of his part-time involvement with the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), a non-profit that helps stations share programs, wondered if it had enough of a following to bypass the footwork necessary to secure regular underwriters (firms and individuals who receive short sponsor messages during broadcasts) and to raise extra revenue to hire additional help. Should the Kickstarter drive have flopped, Mars says he would have been winding the show down. Its roaring success means Mars is able not only to make more episodes, but think beyond the third season and into new related projects, such as a book. He is not, however, planning to tap Kickstarter again. Since the show will have proved its viability and popularity, underwriters should be knocking on Mars's door.

Cable And Telephone Companies Distort Reality

[Commentary] The incumbent telecom providers are acting like a bunch of irrational adolescents who won't let go after it's clear that the game is over and the stadium has cleared out. Their convoluted, customer-hostile, and reality-distorting arguments are starting to get old. I'm tired of seeing them spend money on lobbyists and spin instead of innovative business services.

For example, AT&T, Comcast, and a state lobbying group in Georgia are requesting that the state's public service commission require rural telcos to raise their rates. Apparently, little Chickamauga Telephone Co. doesn't charge enough. Next thing you know, they'll be begging regulators to require non-incumbents to make data speeds slower. Instead of continuing their adolescent attempts to bend reality, the incumbent telecoms should start joining the innovators and the folks who actually own the assets that broadband travels upon to create something new and great. Because if they don't, someone else will.

Weekly Digest

This Political Ad Brought To You By…

With our history so closely tied to advertising and broadcasting and our mission focused on enhancing democracy, the Benton Foundation has always had an eye on the impact of media on elections. So we take a moment this week to reflect on advertising and the 2012 elections.

Google Will Pay $22.5 Million to Settle FTC Charges it Misrepresented Privacy Assurances to Users of Apple's Safari Internet Browser

Google has agreed to pay a record $22.5 million civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misrepresented to users of Apple’s Safari Internet browser that it would not place tracking “cookies” or serve targeted ads to those users, violating an earlier privacy settlement between the company and the FTC. In addition to the civil penalty, the order also requires Google to disable all the tracking cookies it had said it would not place on consumers’ computers.

Google did not admit to violating the law. The FTC said Google broke the terms of a 2011 settlement over privacy missteps related to the now-defunct Buzz, a social networking tool. FTC Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch filed a dissenting statement because he said the FTC should not have accepted Google’s denial of liability, which he called “inexplicable.” Google has said its actions were unintentional and had resulted from a change in Safari of which Google was unaware. When the issue was brought to the company’s attention, it said, it stopped using the cookies and showing personalized ads on Safari browsers. David Vladeck, the director of the commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said he had little patience for Google’s explanation, and referred to other privacy violations about which Google has also said it was unaware, like collecting personal data with its Street View cars.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the penalty is meant to send a message that “No matter how big or small, all companies must abide by FTC orders against them and keep their privacy promises to consumers, or they will end up paying many times what it would have cost to comply in the first place.”

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