July 2013

LPTV Deserves Opportunity to be Heard

[Commentary] The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing on spectrum incentive auctions had one glaring oversight. Not one representative from the low-power television industry was invited. Why is this so egregious? Simply put, no other group has more to lose in the incentive auction and related repacking than does LPTV. It is the only group that has nothing to gain and everything to lose, especially if the repack is as aggressive as some would like it to be. Consider these four facts:

LPTV stations cannot enter the auction.
If no spectrum remains in their market after the repack, LPTV stations will be involuntarily wiped out with no compensation.
LPTV stations get no reimbursement if their spectrum is taken away and they are forced to move to another channel to exist.
Millions of TV viewers may lose their only source of free information and free entertainment.

[Payne is a low-power TV operator and chairman of the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance, a group dedicated to preserving spectrum for TV broadcasting]

FCC Releases New Incentive Auction Repacking Information

The Federal Communications Commission’s Incentive Auction Task Force released a Public Notice that seeks input on certain data and updated computer software relevant to the repacking component of the upcoming incentive auction.

Repacking is one of three major components of the FCC’s incentive auction, along with the reverse and forward auctions. It refers to the process of reassigning broadcast TV channels to free up contiguous blocks of spectrum for mobile broadband use. The notice and accompanying materials released includes the results of a preliminary analysis of whether any particular television station could be assigned or reassigned to particular channels in the incentive auction repacking process, consistent with statutory and other requirements. This information and analysis will permit broadcasters to validate the accuracy of the information regarding their stations or facilities contained in the FCC’s databases, to ensure that the staff has correctly identified all relevant constraints on repacking. It also provides an opportunity for broadcasters to evaluate the range of channels to which they could be repacked consistent with the requirements of the Spectrum Act and the Commission’s rules if they are not a “winning bidder” in the incentive auction.

FCC’s Semiannual Regulatory Agenda

To help keep the public informed of significant rulemaking proceedings, the Federal Communications Commission has prepared a list of important proceedings now in progress. The General Services Administration publishes the Unified Agenda in the Federal Register in the spring and fall of each year.

MMTC: Diversity Doesn't Justify Retaining Cross-Ownership Rule

The Minority Media & Telecommunications Council told the Federal Communications Commission that the FCC should use MMTC’s diversity study as one piece of evidence — though not a dispositive one — that rules banning newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership, or other forms of cross-ownership, are not "sufficiently material" to justify tightening or retaining them.

The study did identify one market in which the three respondents said cross-media interests had a competitive impact, so the MMTC’s July 23 filing provided a caveat about "singleton" stations, which are more likely to be minority- or women-owned than other stations. "We recommend that the commission be alert to the possibility that a cross-media combination, with strong newspaper, television and radio outlets in a medium (or small) market, can have sufficient market power to operate as a material detriment to minority and women ownership," the advocacy group said.

Google Fiber, Provo Seal the Deal

Google Fiber has closed its deal to acquire iProvo, an existing fiber network owned by the city of Provo, Utah, thus setting up a battle with incumbent carriers Comcast and CenturyLink.

"I'm happy to announce today that pencils are down and we've closed the deal on the network with Google," Provo Mayor John Curtis announced in a statement posted Monday. "Similar to purchasing a home, after both parties agreed to the details of the offer, it took a little while to iron out the last few things that needed to be addressed or clarified. That was all taken care of today and we're off and running." "Over the next few months, we’ll be working to upgrade our network in Provo to Google Fiber speeds that are up to 100x faster than basic broadband. We’ll have more information about how to get Google Fiber this fall," a Google Fiber spokeswoman said.

A Growing Share of Latinos Get Their News in English

The language of news media consumption is changing for Hispanics: a growing share of Latino adults are consuming news in English from television, print, radio and internet outlets, and a declining share are doing so in Spanish, according to survey findings from the Pew Research Center.

In 2012, 82% of Hispanic adults said they got at least some of their news in English, up from 78% who said the same in 2006. By contrast, the share who get at least some of their news in Spanish has declined, to 68% in 2012 from 78% in 2006. Half (50%) of Latino adults say they get their news in both languages, down from 57% in 2010. The rise in use of English news sources has been driven by an increase in the share of Hispanics who say they get their news exclusively in English. According to the survey, one-third (32%) of Hispanic adults in 2012 did this, up from 22% in 2006. By contrast, the share of Hispanic adults who get their news exclusively in Spanish has decreased to 18% in 2012 from 22% in 2006. These changes in news consumption patterns reflect several ongoing demographic trends within the Hispanic community.

There Is a 99.45% Chance That Nate Silver Is Changing Journalism

Nate Silver and ESPN made official that the baseball-stats analyst turned election data-cruncher, whose aggregation of polls predicted the last two presidential elections more accurately than politicians and pundits alike, will leave the New York Times and join the sports network and its sister outlet, ABC News. As part of the deal, Silver will have a TV role on ESPN (including, reportedly, on Keith Olbermann’s new show) and on ABC, will get to return to his first love of sports while expanding into many fields beyond politics, and get to build a mini-empire in the form of an ESPN sub site modeled on Bill Simmons’ Grantland.

What does the story mean beyond the fortunes of one media guy? A few (admittedly gut-based) thoughts:

Media people like Silver don’t have jobs; they have alliances.
Silver embarrassed pundits; he didn’t kill political journalism.
What Nate Silver does is journalism.
The most interesting part of the story may be neither sports nor politics.
But it’s about much more than Nate Silver.

The biggest opportunity in mobile right now isn’t on smartphones

Facebook has noticed something that other companies would do well to heed: The biggest opportunity right now isn’t in smartphones, where users are bombarded by the fruits of an ever-more-competitive market for apps and mobile services. Rather, the big play for some companies, especially any that wish to expand into emerging markets, is on the “dumbphones”—aka non-smartphones, or in industry parlance, feature phones—that most people in rich countries have now left behind.

Creating Internet Accountability

“I tend to be described as a journalist/advocate,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked. “We’re at a point in history that whether the Internet is going to evolve in a way that’s compatible with democracy and human rights is really kind of up in the air. However you want to pigeonhole me, with whatever label, I’d like to make a contribution to it going in the right direction. Call me what you want.” But she does have a strong view of where her strengths lie.

She wasn’t, for instance, going to be the one to implement her own suggestion that citizens of the Internet from across the world band together to demand civil rights. “I’m not a rabble-rousing movement leader,” she says. A fact-based research project that would increase accountability and transparency of powerful companies seemed like a better way to expand on the ideas she had developed. To create criteria on which to rank these companies, MacKinnon has been drawing on the United Nation’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and consulting with human rights groups, academics, technologists, and socially responsible investors. The ranking system she comes up with needs to be meaningful to stakeholders like these and to reflect what’s reasonable to expect from companies and how they deal with the demands of governments across the world.

Benton

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