June 2016

State of the News Media 2016

Five Key Takeaways from Pew Research Center's report:

  1. In 2015, the newspaper sector had perhaps the worst year since the recession and its immediate aftermath. Average weekday newspaper circulation, print and digital combined, fell another 7% in 2015, the greatest decline since 2010.
  2. Digital ad spending went up 20% last year, and mobile advertising now tops desktop, but journalism organizations have not been the primary beneficiaries. There was explosive growth in mobile advertising,
  3. In contrast to newspapers’ troubles and digital’s rise, local television news revenue is relatively steady at $18.6 billion – at least for now.
  4. Driven in part by a highly competitive presidential primary season, cable news saw its viewership jump 8%, to an average of 3.1 million viewers in prime time.
  5. Podcasting continues to experience audience growth – though this includes both those podcasts focused on news and those looking at other subjects.

Senate Commerce Committee approves net neutrality exemption bill for small providers

The Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill to exempt small Internet service providers from rules included in sweeping network neutrality regulations approved in 2015. The legislation would exempt providers with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from transparency rules that are part of the regulations, which were approved by the Federal Communications Commission last February. A version of the law passed the House without objection in March.

More broadly, the rules are meant to protect net neutrality — the idea that all traffic on the web should be treated in the same way. The agency banned Internet providers from blocking or slowing certain content or providing better speeds to services that paid them. The legislation approved June 15 doesn't exempt small providers from those rules, but rather transparency measures elsewhere in the regulations.

3 Ways Ohio Cities Overcame Telecommunication Companies to Set Up Broadband Networks

In Ohio, telecommunications firms lobbied the state government and went to the state Chief Information Officer Moez Chaabouni instead of taking the fight to the courts. But it was still conflict that the cities setting up broadband networks did not want. But Columbus (OH) found a way around the problem, and government entities around the state have followed suit. Today Ohio has perhaps the biggest high-speed Internet network in the US, offering speeds up to 100 gigabits per second compared with common household connection speeds in the megabit range. Here are three of the ways Chaabouni and his contemporaries in Ohio set up broadband networks.

1) Build It, Then Hand It Off: Instead of trying to sell connectivity directly to businesses and residents, Chaabouni decided to pursue a new strategy. He went to Connected Nation Exchange, the for-profit arm of the Internet development advocate Connected Nation, and asked them to take the network off the city’s hands.
2) Use It For Government -- As Much As Possible: When Columbus handed off its fiber network, it made sure there was an asterisk in the agreement. “All we [asked] in return is the ability to connect our schools, our libraries, our communities and our [services],” Chaabouni said.
3) Emphasize Economic Development: The ultimate benefit to the city may also be the most roundabout one. Most of the roundtable participants described broadband as an economic development tool: By offering high-speed Internet, the city empowers existing businesses to do more and draws new businesses in. Those companies pay taxes, and they pay employees who also pay taxes. So at the end of the day, if broadband is indeed functioning as an economy booster, the city should see more revenue.

House eyes new chance to reform surveillance

The House is gearing up to take a new stab at reforming US surveillance powers, after overwhelmingly passing similar measures in the past but failing to get them signed into law. The moves, introduced as an amendment to the annual Defense appropriations bill, are expected to be considered on June 15 or 16, and could reinforce the sense of many lawmakers on Capitol Hill that federal surveillance reform remains unfinished. The amendment “enjoys overwhelming, bipartisan support,” 21 advocacy groups wrote in a letter to Capitol Hill urging House lawmakers' support. “It addresses two critical issues necessary for the protection of constitutional principles and the digital economy,” wrote the groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, FreedomWorks and X-Lab.

The amendment would close what critics call the “backdoor search loophole” in current law, which federal intelligence agencies have used to collect information about Americans through a law designed to target foreigners. The law, Section 702 of a 2008 update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, authorizes the National Security Agency’s (NSA) PRISM and Upstream collection activities, and is aimed at foreign spies, terrorists and other targets. But Americans’ information can be “incidentally” caught up in the collection, and intelligence officials have acknowledged that they have used “U.S. person identifiers” to search through that data. The House amendment, from Reps Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), would require the government to obtain a warrant before searching government databases for information about Americans.

FCC Announces Renewal of Consumer Advisory Committee and Solicits Applications

By this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission announces the anticipated renewal of its Consumer Advisory Committee and solicits applications for membership on the Committee, subject to renewal of the Committee’s charter. It is expected that the two-year membership term on the Committee, if renewed, would commence on October 22, 2016. Applications for membership are due by 11:59 P.M., July 25, 2016.

PBS, NPR: FCC Reporting Requirement Is Illegal

A phalanx of noncommercial broadcasting entities is asking the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider and reverse a January order that was billed as improving the data collected from broadcasters to help the commission analyze ownership and diversity issues. The bottom line, said the FCC back in January, is that the moves would improve the reliability and comprehensiveness of its media ownership data, including on diversity and including noncommercial station reporting to more closely square with commercial.

In comments in support of a petition for reconsideration filed by some noncommercial broadcasters, America's Public Television Stations, PBS, CPB, and NPR all said the FCC's decision to require members of noncommercial TV (and radio) governing boards to disclose "highly sensitive personal information is "ill-founded and must be reconsidered." Their main point is that the basic ownership-tracking purposes of the reference numbers tied to that information is not relevant to noncommerical TV and radio stations. "The FCC has no statutory authority to burden noncommercial licensees with disclosure obligations that Congress designed to serve policy goals relevant only to commercial stations," they told the FCC.

Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

At the moment, Netflix has a negative cash flow of almost $1 billion; it regularly needs to go to the debt market to replenish its coffers. Its $6.8 billion in revenue in 2015 pales in comparison to the $28 billion or so at media giants like Time Warner and 21st Century Fox. And for all the original shows Netflix has underwritten, it remains dependent on the very networks that fear its potential to destroy their longtime business model in the way that Internet competitors undermined the newspaper and music industries. Now that so many entertainment companies see it as an existential threat, the question is whether Netflix can continue to thrive in the new TV universe that it has brought into being.