August 2012

Starting August 2, all full-power television broadcasters will begin to upload new public inspection file documents to the Federal Communications Commission’s online public inspection file site, where the public will be able to access them.

The interface for the site has been developed to vastly improve the accessibility of stations’ public files and to minimize the burden on broadcasters in providing them. The new site and interface implement the decision in the FCC’s recent Report & Order requiring television broadcast stations to post their public inspection files online in a central, Commission-hosted database.

Except for the political file, broadcasters will upload public file documents that are generated on and after August 2, but they will have six months after August 2 to upload public file documents that were in their public file prior to August 2. In the case of the political file, only broadcasters affiliated with the top four national TV networks in the top 50 television markets (Designated Market Areas or DMAs) are required to upload their political files, and only public file documents generated on and after August 2 need be uploaded. Those affiliated stations are not required to upload any political file documents generated prior to August 2. All other stations will, for now, maintain their political files at their stations. These stations will begin uploading their political files to the Commission’s online site on July 1, 2014. A list of the elements of the public inspection file may be found in the text at the site, along with brief explanations of each. Please note that there are a few exceptions to the uploading obligation, such as emails and letters from the public and certain documents related to Commission investigations.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced its intention to award a $1.5 million grant to National Public Radio to launch a major on-air and digital journalism initiative to increase the number of journalists from a diverse pool of candidates and help expand public media’s service to increasingly diverse communities.

CPB announced the grant at the UNITY 2012 Convention, a gathering of media professionals from across the country. The two-year grant from CPB will help NPR create a diverse team of journalists that will build a digital service for stories that connect to Americans today – whatever their age, race, economic background or geographic location. The initiative will be guided by a senior online journalist who will oversee the creation and curation of original content each day. The reporting team will provide deep coverage of local communities around the country, the issues that affect them and the people of many backgrounds and opinions who make these communities unique. The new grant builds on the success of the CPB/Knight Foundation-funded Project Argo that helped NPR serve new broadcast and online audiences by focusing on a defined content subject.

The original content created by this new initiative will be optimized for all platforms. It will reach an audience that is younger and more racially and ethnically diverse than traditional radio listeners, through websites, on tablets, and through an array of mobile devices. In addition, the team will work closely with NPR editors to incorporate the stories into NPR’s national news programs, infusing new perspectives and sources throughout the network’s daily coverage.

The Consumer Electronics Association said the cable industry's proposal for the six biggest MSOs to let IP-based devices access encrypted programming via low-cost adapters or licensed technology is fundamentally flawed.

Last month, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association floated a proposal with the Federal Communications Commission to let third-party devices access encrypted basic-tier programming. Cable operators want the agency to lift the 18-year-old ban on encrypting basic cable as they look to cut theft of service by broadband-only subscribers. Under the NCTA proposal, the six largest U.S. operators would provide either an IP-based adapter for decrypting TV signals for no charge to subscribers or would license the relevant content-security technology to manufacturers. The trade group suggested the commitments last for three years and recommended that other cable operators beyond the six biggest MSOs also be permitted to encrypt the basic tier. But the consumer-electronics industry wants much firmer concessions before it's willing to let MSOs fully flip the crypto switch. The complained that the NCTA's proposal does not define the devices or interfaces; that the MSOs' licensing and certification commitments are "lacking or insufficient"; and that the three-year sunset makes the options unworkable for competitive device entry.

IP transit costs are down, which means it costs less to stream bits from Netflix, Google and any other web traffic across the ocean and major land masses.

According to new data from TeleGeography, the prices are not only dropping, but are doing so more rapidly from the second quarter in 2011 to the second quarter in 2012. Telegeography doesn’t explain why this occurring, but a rash of new investment and new transit routes coming online in the last year are probably helping drive down costs. For example the cost of a 10GigE port in London has dropped 57 percent to $3.13 per Mbps while the same ports in New York City have dropped 50 percent year over year to $3.50 per megabit. And Telegeography says that in few places in the world does transit cost more than $100 per megabit.