November 2012

The UN's Internet Sneak Attack

[Commentary] Who runs the Internet? For now, the answer remains no one, or at least no government. But as of next week, unless the US gets serious, the answer could be the United Nations.

Many of the UN's 193 member states oppose the open, uncontrolled nature of the Internet. Its interconnected global networks ignore national boundaries, making it hard for governments to censor or tax. And so, to send the freewheeling digital world back to the state control of the analog era, China, Russia, Iran and Arab countries are trying to hijack a UN agency that has nothing to do with the Internet. For more than a year, these countries have lobbied an agency called the International Telecommunications Union to take over the rules and workings of the Internet. Created in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, the ITU last drafted a treaty on communications in 1988, before the commercial Internet, when telecommunications meant voice telephone calls via national telephone monopolies. The top job for the U.S. delegation at the ITU conference is to preach the virtues of the open Internet as forcefully as possible. Billions of online users are counting on America to make sure that their Internet is never handed over to authoritarian governments or to the UN.

Pilfered Wi-Fi Is No Shield From Prying Eyes of Police

Internet-service subscribers can't hide from police behind their IP addresses, the numbers assigned to devices connecting online. Now a federal court in Pittsburgh has ruled that people who piggyback on their neighbors' Wi-Fi networks forfeit privacy too.

The ruling, issued this month, was the first to address the Fourth Amendment rights of such people and the latest to shed light on technologies used by police to locate criminal suspects. The amendment protects against unreasonable searches by the government, requiring that police get search warrants when suspects have reasonable expectations of privacy. The case also raises questions about people who connect to the Internet through public wireless-access points. Police have to use special software to identify Wi-Fi interlopers because they squat on the same IP addresses as paying subscribers. The central question in the Pittsburgh case, which is headed to a federal appeals court, is whether police can use such software without obtaining a search warrant.

New software blocks all ads on mobile

Adverts on mobiles could become a thing of the past after the company behind the world’s most downloaded online ad-blocking software announced plans to launch a mobile version of its product.

Eyeo, the owner of AdBlock Plus, will launch a version of its popular software for Android phones in a move that will cause a headache for the fast-growing but still embryonic mobile advertising industry. Till Faida, co-founder of Eyeo, said: “This will be the first app to remove all adverts on your phone. There is a great need for it.” The mobile version of AdBlock Plus will block adverts both on the mobile’s browser and in other apps, whether Facebook or Angry Birds. Its launch will heap further pressure on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, who have struggled to gain revenues as their users shift to mobile.

Issue Ads to Go Into Overdrive

So long, Mitt. Hello, “Got Debt?” Spoofs of landmark ads are part of a new campaign from the Fix the Debt group, and they are the tip of a tsunami of legislative-issue messaging that’s expected to emerge in the coming weeks and months.

For those thinking that the end of the election meant the end of political ads, think again. In fact, issue advertising during nonelection years has been growing at double-digit rates. Spending on issue ads is forecast to hit $2 billion in 2013, topping the $1.63 billion spent in this election year and up 87 percent from the $1.07 billion spent in 2009, per Borrell Associates. A barometer reading from media companies indicates that although there hasn’t been much issue spending since the elections, a groundswell is expected to materialize now that Congress is back in business.

The Final Days of the Media Campaign 2012

In the final week of the 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama enjoyed his most positive run of news coverage in months, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Only during the week of his nominating convention was the treatment in the press more favorable. Much of that surge in positive coverage, the data suggest, was tied to Obama's strategic position, including improving opinion polls and electoral math, rather than directly to positive assessments of Obama's response to Superstorm Sandy.

The storm, however, appeared to reduce the amount of attention focused on Mitt Romney and may well have influenced public attitudes about the president. During this final week, from October 29 to November 5, positive stories about Obama (29%) outnumbered negative ones (19%) by 10 points. A week earlier, negative coverage of Obama had exceeded positive by 13 points. The final week of the campaign marked only the second time in which positive stories about Obama outnumbered negative dating back to late August.

Political ads brought Roanoke region's TV stations $27 million

The unprecedented deluge of campaign commercials on local television left a massive cash windfall in its wake. Political groups spent more than $27 million this year in the Roanoke-Lynchburg television market, more than five times the amount spent in the region four years ago.

Virginia's swing-state status in the presidential election and the Supreme Court's 2010 decision to allow corporations and unions to spend freely on political ads resulted in massive amounts of political spending, according to the public files at the region's top four television stations. Roanoke-Lynchburg, the 66th-largest TV market in the country, was ranked among the top 10 political advertising markets during most of the summer and fall, when the presidential campaigns, political action committees and other groups ratcheted up their spending.

ESPN Wins 2015 College Football Playoffs

There may have been other bidders. But it was going to take some GNP-style amount to beat out ESPN for the new college football playoff system. ESPN has secured rights to the entire college football playoff system coming into effect in January 2015 as part of a deal running through early 2026. The deal includes the national title game and semifinals, plus other bowl games. ESPN had already inked separate arrangements with the Rose, Sugar and Orange Bowls. ESPN has the rights to offer the games across a slew of platforms, from radio to Xbox Live to ESPN Deportes. The championship game will be played on a Monday at least seven days after the semifinals. The semifinals will feature four teams selected by a committee and played in bowl games on a rotating basis. ESPN will carry the selection show, where announcements are made about where teams will be playing.

Fox Closing Deal For Dodgers’ TV Rights

Fox Sports is close to clinching the exclusive television rights for the Los Angeles Dodgers by paying between $6 billion and $7 billion over 25 years to put the team on its regional sports network in Southern California and, of course, its national Fox Broadcasting Company. Fox already shows the games on its Prime Ticket local cable channel but also has Fox Sports West here. The previous agreement expires at the end of next season, and saw Fox Sports paying only about $40 million per season for the Dodgers TV rights. There was speculation the final price would just go north of $150 million per season. This new deal soars to $280 million per season (the average for the life of the contract). The huge outlay by News Corp demonstrates the increasing value of sports to its bottom line, while the huge payday for Guggenheim offsets the record-setting $2.15 billion price paid for the Dodgers.

First Mover: Robert McDowell

A Q&A with Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell.

He’s a news junkie. “I look at trade press, Washington-centric press, in both online and print, maybe 60-40. And a good old-fashioned paper that’s delivered to my driveway. I wanted my kids to see a newspaper and tell their kids.”

He does regulate his kids’ media use. “I’m a free-market kind of guy, with a libertarian drop of blood in my veins for public policy, but at home, it is a true totalitarian regime. We ration screen time. On school nights, there is no screen time unless it’s related to schoolwork. On weekends, we try not to have as many limits.”

An Abrupt End to San Diego’s Signature Newspaper Family

By all accounts, David C. Copley felt liberated three years ago after selling The San Diego Union-Tribune, the newspaper that his family had bought 81 years earlier and had used to champion San Diego’s metamorphosis from a sleepy town to America’s eighth-largest city.

He had served for years as publisher, it seemed to those close to him, out of familial duty. So after the sale, he pursued his passions full time, devoting himself to the arts; taking Mediterranean cruises aboard his yacht, Happy Days; and tinkering with his collection of fast cars, like the emerald green Aston Martin he drove to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Nov 20. Copley presided at a board meeting there, but he left early after complaining that he did not feel well.

Copley, 60, was just a few minutes’ drive from Fox Hill, the family estate where the Copleys once entertained the Nixons, Hollywood stars and visiting royalty. But he suffered a heart attack and crashed into a parked car on a palm-tree-lined street half a block from the museum. The death of Copley, who had no heirs, marked the end of the newspaper family’s involvement in a city that bears the Copley name on its symphony hall and many other institutions.

Benton

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