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  2. January 2017

January 2017

A leaked report shows how much money publishers make from platforms like Facebook, Google, and Snapchat

Publishers are receiving far less money than might have been expected from placing their content on the third-party distribution platforms owned by companies including Facebook, Google, and Snapchat, according to a new report.

The report, from premium publisher trade body Digital Content Next (DCN), claims that the (mean) average premium publisher generated $7.7 million in revenue from distributing their content on third-party platforms in the first half of 2016 — equivalent to around 14% of their overall revenues in the period. On average, premium publishing companies generated $773,567 in the first half of 2016 by distributing their content on YouTube. Content published to Facebook earned an average of $560,144 in the period, Twitter generated an average of $482,788, and Snapchat generated $192,819 for each publisher in the sample.

Analysis: Bills in VA and MO Would Double Down on Banning Municipal Broadband

Legislation proposed in Virginia and Missouri would tighten the noose that restricts local governments from creating broadband options.

In Virginia, the bill comes from a state delegate with strong ties to the telecommunications industry and with ALEC, the national advocacy group that wrote similar laws for other states. Virginia’s State House Bill 2108 effectively stops cold all of the efforts the state has taken to get broadband in communities through seemingly benign definition. The bill allows municipal networks only in areas that don’t already have broadband – defined as 10 Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload.

In Missouri, meanwhile, the state’s current anti-municipal network law, written in 1997, bans public entities from owning and providing telecom services. But it’s always been an implied or assumed ban, even though an exception for broadband was written into the bill. One Missouri city built a network without challenge, and Columbia two years ago planned to play the same “Get Out of Jail Free” card. The Missouri Legislature has been making annual efforts since 2014 to ban muni broadband. This year’s entry is SB 186, which would prohibit retail or wholesale competitive service. By banning wholesale efforts, the bill would prevent a municipality from working with private-sector companies to supply broadband.

Virginia Being Scammed With Industry-Ghostwritten Broadband Ban Bill

What is one of the most effective ways to stop competition in its tracks before it can even get off the ground? Reward a state legislator with generous campaign contributions who introduces a bill banning your would-be competitor and get back to business as usual.

Virginia State Delegate Kathy Byron (R-Campbell County) has broadband, but many of the people who live and work in central and western Virginia near her district don’t. Despite the broadband challenges in her district and the failure of private providers to correct them, Byron went ahead and introduced the ironically-named “Virginia Broadband Deployment Act,” another bought-and-paid-for industry-ghostwritten municipal broadband ban bill that would grant near-monopoly control to the same providers that have steadfastly refused to improve rural broadband in Virginia. Politicians willing to introduce these lovingly hand-crafted turf protection bills ask themselves only one question: are the generous corporate campaign contributions that usually accompany these “model bills” still worth it if the voters find out? Even if they do, a well-funded propaganda campaign sponsored by Big Telecom companies slamming municipal broadband as a government internet takeover or a guaranteed economic failure can help give politicians enough cover to avoid being exposed for selling constituents down the river.

White House Echoes Beijing in Treatment of US Press

Americans now find themselves in day four of a real-world experiment: What happens when an elected official with an authoritarian bent and a long-nurtured hatred of media criticism collides with a free press backed by strong democratic institutions?

I have spent years covering the media landscape in China, an illiberal one-party state with notorious and worsening censorship. In White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s hostile remarks, I immediately recognized what I have come to know very well — an explicit government demand for media censorship. I was far from alone in my alarm. The New York Times reported that the “news media world found itself in a state of shock” after the day’s remarks. Social media teemed with jokes at Spicer’s expense, juxtaposing his photo with outlandish claims like “the world is flat.” To some degree, clashing with the press is par for the course for governments and leaders around the world. But the authoritarian government in Beijing has shown how to delegitimize those outlets it doesn’t control, by presenting them as biased, unreliable, or unfair.

An Open Letter to FCC Chairman-Nominee Ajit Pai

[Commentary] Dear Commissioner Pai:
Congratulations on your likely nomination to become Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

I hope you will take every effort to achieve consensus which used to be the usual outcome of matters before the FCC. Issues did not have a Republican position and an opposite Democratic one. Most votes were unanimous, because fair minded Commissioners—led by a fair-minded Chairman—could achieve a just and proper outcome, even if it disappointed a major incumbent. No one had to overreach, or grandstand. No one had to write 50 page dissents. No one dared resort to smugness, righteous indignation and arrogance. I share your excitement about the promise of telecommunications and information technology to enhance national welfare and make life better for all. Such potential makes it that much more important that you strive to lead by example and refrain from using your considerable power to settle all the grudges you bear.

[Rob Frieden serves as Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law at Penn State University.]

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