** Participate in Discussion on FCC Policy on Net Neutrality. See http://benton.org/node/16053 for more info. **
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY AUGUST 19, 2008
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
McCain's Tech Policy Silent on his former pro-Internet Initiatives
McCain Adviser/Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman Silent On Campaign's Opposition To Net Neutrality
McCain "Working the Refs" at NBC
FEC Says Political Blogs Exempt From Finance Restrictions
100 Days of Negative Ads, Costing $350 Million
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
WSJ: The FCC Plays Racial Landlord
Webcasters Struggle Under High Song Fees
Music, movie lobbyists push to spy on your Net traffic
SIX MONTHS TO DTV!
Nationwide FCC DTV Outreach Tour
Wilmington TV Broadcasters to Continue Analog Broadcasts after Sept 8
NTIA: "Over-the-Air" Participation in DTV Coupon Program On Track
States want outdated TVs out of landfills
JOURNALISM
War in Georgia, Not Campaign, is big News of the Week
Tracking Coverage of the Economic Slowdown
WIRELESS
Android phone could come in November
Google launches white spaces campaign
INTERNET/BROADBAND
FiOS' Future Depends on New Broadband Applications
POLICYMAKERS
Tate and Adelstein could be out in the cold
Some Nonprofits Push for Increased Federal Involvement
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
MCCAIN'S TECH POLICY
[SOURCE: CircleID, AUTHOR: David Isenberg]
Missing from Sen John McCain's technology plan are two McCain pro-Internet initiatives -- the McCain Lautenberg Community Broadband Act and Spectrum Re-regulation. The time is ripe to develop cognitive radios with the ability to use spectrum a bit more intelligently than 1920s technology would permit, but the plan simply nods to stillborn past efforts on this critical issue; it provides no way forward. The plan lavishes lip service on "innovation," and this masks the fact that the first two things the U.S. Internet needs have nothing to do with innovation. We need (a) fiber-optic access for everybody, and (b) a free and open Internet. In other words we need a "Fat Pipe, Always On" and we need the telcos and cablecos (and their deep packet snooping) and the government citizen-spies, and the content police to "Get Out of the Way." To the McCain plan's credit, there are nine mentions of "citizen" and only five mentions of "consumer." But the Plan's treatment of the Four Freedoms, which guarantee that "consumers" can buy any device or service they want, is more about shopping than citizenship. Deliberately missing from the Four Freedoms is the ability to say whatever you want to say on line. In summary, the McCain plan says, "What's good for AT&T and Comcast and Cisco and the RIAA is good for America." It's about their Internet, nor ours.
http://benton.org/node/16219
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MCCAIN ADVISOR/FORMER EBAY CEO MEG WHITMAN SILENT ON CAMPAIGN'S OPPOSITION TO NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: Center for American Progress, AUTHOR: Amanda Terkel]
[Commentary] Some have suggested that Sen John McCain (R-AZ) could still put forward sound technology policy because he surrounds himself with tech-savvy advisers, such as former Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman. But it's unclear how much he is listening to them. Whitman has stayed silent about McCain's opposition to Network Neutrality, and apparently, Sen McCain is refusing to listen to Whitman as well. In 2006, McCain sided with the telecom industry and voted against legislation sponsored by Rep Ed Markey (D-MA) that would have prevented broadband providers from creating a pay-for-play system. McCain sided with the telecom industry and voted against this bill. On April 5, 2006, technology industry leaders wrote to Congress and asked it to preserve net neutrality. Although these companies would be more than able to pay any fees the telecoms might charge, they recognized that it would hamper future entrepreneurship on the Internet. One of the signers to the letter? Meg Whitman, who was then heading eBay.
http://benton.org/node/16218
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MCCAIN PROTESTS NBC COVERAGE
[SOURCE: Politico.com, AUTHOR: Mike Allen]
Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) campaign manager Rick Davis asked Sunday for a meeting with Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, to protest what the campaign called signs that the network is "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the presidential race." Specifically the campaign is objecting to a statement by NBC's Andrea Mitchell on "Meet the Press" questioning whether Sen McCain might have gotten a heads-up on some of the questions that were asked of Sen Barack Obama (D-IL), who was the first candidate to be interviewed Saturday night by Pastor Rick Warren at a presidential forum on faith. Warren told the audience that Sen McCain was being held in "a cone of silence" so he wouldn't hear the questions, which were similar for both candidates. Mitchell reported that some "Obama people" were suggesting "that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well prepared." A McCain aide said that is not the case: "Senator McCain was in a motorcade led by the United States Secret Service and held in a green room with no broadcast feed." NBC responded saying, "We welcome any opportunity to speak with officials from both campaigns, and many of us at NBC News are in contact with the McCain campaign literally on a daily basis. With all due respect to the campaign leadership, they are viewing our coverage thru a political prism. We stand by our reporting, our journalism and our journalists."
http://benton.org/node/16217
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FEC SAYS POLITICAL BLOGS EXEMPT FROM FIANCE RESTRICTIONS
[SOURCE: OnlineMediadaily, AUTHOR: Wendy Davis]
The Federal Election Commission has reaffirmed that online media outlets can advocate on behalf of particular candidates without falling subject to campaign finance restrictions. The agency said last week it dismissed a complaint by a Hillary Clinton supporter alleging that a pro-Barack Obama blog was actually "a direct arm" of the Obama campaign, and therefore subject to campaign finance restrictions. In its ruling, the FEC reiterated that whatever costs are incurred by running a political blog need not be disclosed as a campaign contribution. "Political blogging is exactly the type of Internet activity that the Commission exempted from the definition of 'contribution' and 'expenditure,'" the FEC stated. The complaint was brought last October by Clinton supporter Kirk Tofte, who alleged that the blog Iowa True Blue, operated by former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer, had coordinated with Obama's campaign. Tofte alleged that Fischer endorsed Obama in September, after which he began posting critical items about Clinton.
http://benton.org/node/16216
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CANDIDATES PUT ON THE BRASS KNUCKLES
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Evan Tracey]
[Commentary] Lately, the race for the White House has been an eruption of hard-hitting negative ads. If the current rate of attack ads continues, this election will have more than 100 uninterrupted days of negative ads with a potential cost of more than $350 million (and that is just from the candidates). By running these attack ads Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) could be treading on thin ice. His brand has been built on the idea of being a different kind of politician. Yet, time and time again we are reminded of the lessons learned in the 2004 "swift boat" debacle. The Obama campaign is in a tough spot. It must evaluate the potential cost to its brand of participating in a negative ad war vs. the damage of unanswered attacks. At this point, Sen John McCain has nothing to lose by going negative. However, he will likely need to come up with a second act.
http://benton.org/node/16215
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP
THE FCC PLAYS RACIAL LANDLORD
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Among the conditions extracted by regulators before approving the Sirius XM satellite radio merger earlier this month was the company's promise to set aside a share of channels for minority programmers. Now we're finding out what these racial preferences mean in practice. Sirius XM informed the Federal Communications Commission that while it agreed to reserve the channels, the company doesn't want to choose the actual programmers. Sirius XM may think that this is one giant political headache, and that it's unlikely to be the final arbiter in any case. There will almost certainly be more applicants than available channels, and programmers who aren't chosen will inevitably turn to the courts and the FCC to complain. The government may as well pick the minority programmers directly. Apparently, FCC is developing procedures to determine what constitutes a "minority" programmer and which minorities are worthy of special treatment.
http://benton.org/node/16225
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PANDORA, OTHER WEBCASTERS STRUGGLE UNDER HIGH SONG FEES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Peter Whoriskey]
The transformation of words, songs and movies to digital media has provoked a number of high-stakes fights between the owners of copyrighted works and the companies that can now easily distribute those works via the Internet. The doomsday rhetoric these days around the fledgling medium of Web radio springs from just such tensions. Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies. Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures. As for Pandora, its royalty fees this year will amount to 70 percent of its projected revenue of $25 million. Pandora is one of the nation's most popular Web radio services, with about 1 million listeners daily. Its Music Genome Project allows customers to create stations tailored to their own tastes. It is one of the 10 most popular applications for Apple's iPhone and attracts 40,000 new customers a day. Yet the burgeoning company may be on the verge of collapse, according to its founder, and so may be others like it.
http://benton.org/node/16223
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MUSIC, MOVIE LOBBYISTS PUSH TO SPY ON YOUR NET TRAFFIC
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh]
[Commentary] Recording industry and motion picture lobbyists are renewing their push to convince broadband providers to monitor customers and detect copyright infringements, claiming the concept is working abroad and should be adopted in the United States. A representative of the recording industry said on Monday that her companies would prefer to enter into voluntary "partnerships" with Internet service providers, but pointedly noted that some governments are mandating such surveillance "if you don't work something out." "Despite our best efforts, we can't do this alone," said Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. "We need the help of ISPs."
http://benton.org/node/16221
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SIX MONTHS TO DTV!
FCC ANNOUNCES EXTENSIVE NATIONWIDE INITIATIVE FOR DTV OUTREACH
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin announced a nationwide initiative to increase awareness about the upcoming transition to digital television. The FCC identified target television markets for specific DTV outreach, including all those markets in which more than 100,000 households or at least 15% of the households rely solely on over-the-air signals for television. Chairman Martin announced that the five FCC Commissioners and other Commission staff will fan out to these and other markets to raise awareness and educate consumers in the days leading up to the digital television transition on February 17, 2009. At each stop, there will be a public event, such as a town hall meeting, workshop, or roundtable with an FCC Commissioner to highlight the digital transition, and be available to local press. In coordination with these visits, the FCC will work with local broadcasters and radio stations to increase the broadcasts of Radio and TV DTV PSAs. All combined, this outreach is designed to educate consumers in these DMAs and especially those groups that are most vulnerable in the transition: Seniors, People Living Tribal and Rural Areas, People with Disabilities, Individuals with Low-Incomes, Minorities and Non-English Speakers. The FCC also launched a Speakers Bureau for groups throughout the country to request speakers to discuss the upcoming transition to Digital Television (DTV) at their meetings. To request a speaker, go to the FCC's DTV website, www.dtv.gov, and click on "Request a Speaker," or contact Rosemary Kimball at (202) 418-0511, or rosemary.kimball@fcc.gov
http://benton.org/node/16214
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WILMINGTON TV BROADCASTERS TO CONTINUE ANALOG BROADCASTS AFTER SEPT 8
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
Beginning at 12 noon on September 8, 2008, WWAY (ABC), WSFX-TV (FOX), WECT (NBC), WILM-LP (CBS) and W51CW (Trinity Broadcasting) will transmit their commercial programming only on digital channels. Viewers tuning to the stations' traditional analog channels following September 8th will see graphics informing them of options for receiving digital broadcast signals through the month of September. In the event of an emergency, such as a hurricane, the stations may elect to provide emergency information and announcements on their old analog channel.
http://benton.org/node/16213
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NTIA: PARTICIPATION BY "OVER-THE-AIR" HOUSEHOLDS IN TV CONVERTER BOX COUPON PROGRAM ON TRACK
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced today that nearly 6.4 million "over-the-air" TV households, those that rely on an antenna for broadcast TV, have requested about 12 million coupons from the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. The program helps households switch to digital television when full-power TV broadcasters switch from analog to 100 percent digital broadcasts in six months. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 60 percent of "over-the-air" TV households are potential purchasers of converter boxes. Nielsen estimated that there were 14 million over-the-air TV households, at the beginning of the year. Nearly 75 percent of these potential purchasers of converter boxes have requested coupons. Household participation is 50 percent or higher in 187 of the country's 210 television markets for their participation in the Coupon Program. (See listing of all markets and the participation rates of over-the-air households.) NTIA is sharing this data with its partners and creating special outreach where participation rates are lower than expected.
http://benton.org/node/16212
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STATES WANT OUTDATED TVs OUT OF LANDFILLS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Wendy Koch]
As the switch to digital TV nears, concern about old TVs piling up in landfills has prompted state and local governments to develop recycling programs.
http://benton.org/node/16220
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JOURNALISM
WAR IN GEORGIA GETS MORE COVERAGE THAN CAMPAIGN
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
According to PEJ's weekly News Coverage Index for the week of Aug. 11-17, the fighting between Russia and Georgia was the biggest story last week, marking the first week in nine months when the presidential race did not generate the most coverage. The crisis in Georgia also quickly became a major campaign issue. Stories about the conflict primarily involving the candidates' views were the No. 1 election storyline, accounting for 14% of the campaign coverage studied.
http://benton.org/node/16211
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TRACKING THE ECONOMIC SHOWDOWN
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
The media's coverage of the troubled economy has shifted repeatedly in the last year from a narrative about mortgages to one about recession, a banking crisis and now largely gas prices -- a changing storyline and one that differs from medium to medium. Moreover, the connection between media coverage and economic events has often been uneven. Sometimes, coverage has lagged months behind economic activity, when the storyline was dependent on government data. Other times, coverage has tracked events erratically, as with housing and inflation. But when the story is easier to tell, as in the case of gas prices, coverage has been closely tied to what is actually occurring in the marketplace. These are some of the findings of a new detailed examination of how the American news media have covered the economic slowdown over the last two years, produced by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.
http://benton.org/node/16210
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WIRELESS
ANDROID PHONE COULD COME IN NOVEMBER
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Nancy Gohring]
The Federal Communications Commission released documents on Monday that may indicate that the first Android phone will hit the US market in November. The documents show that the FCC has approved the sale of HTC's Dream phone, a device widely rumored to become the first to run Google's Linux-based Android software. HTC asked the FCC to keep some of the details of its filings, including photographs and the user manual, confidential until Nov.10. That may mean that the phone will come out around that date.
http://benton.org/node/16209
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GOOGLE LAUNCHES WHITE SPACES CAMPAIGN
[SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Grant Gross]
Google hopes a new Web site will help convince the Federal Communications Commission to allow a new generation of wireless broadband devices to connect via unused television spectrum. Google on Monday launched the Free the Airwaves campaign, in an effort to drum up public support for new wireless devices to use the so-called white spaces, empty wireless spectrum in bands controlled by US television stations.
http://www.benton.org/node/16208
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
A SMART BET OR A BIG MISTAKE?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Saul Hansell]
In many ways, the long-term success of FiOS will depend on what new services are developed that will take advantage of the vast bandwidth of the fiber and how much customers will pay for them. Despite prices that average well above $130 for a bundle of Internet, TV and voice services, 20 percent of the homes where FiOS is available have signed up for its video service, and 24 percent buy the Internet service, which offers speeds up to five times faster than cable competitors. Still, it might be a decade before anyone really knows whether Verizon's bet on FiOS is a smart investment in the future or a multibillion-dollar black hole. The company has had to spend more than it would like on advertising and expensive giveaways, like flat-screen TVs, to get new customers. Comcast and other cable companies are preparing to bolster their own Internet speeds and digital offerings. FiOS has been particularly popular among the more sophisticated customers attracted by higher Internet speeds, said Karl Bode, the editor of BroadbandReports.com. "Deliver quality technology and cutting-edge speed, and customers respond," he said. "I'm preparing to move into a new home, and FiOS availability actually played a part in where I was willing to move. And I've probably been one of Verizon's most outspoken critics over the years."
http://benton.org/node/16224
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POLICYMAKERS
TATE AND ADELSTEIN COULD BE OUT IN THE COLD
[SOURCE: SNL Capitol Connection, AUTHOR: Tim Doyle]
Democratic leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee have not acted on the nominations of Federal Communications Commission members Jonathan Adelstein and Deborah Taylor Tate and are unlikely to do so before the election. Sen Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) could become the next chairman of the Commerce Committee and would probably want his own commissioner, or even a chairman, in place, in an effort to have some influence on the commission's agenda. At a December 2007 oversight hearing of the FCC, Sen Rockefeller vowed to block the nominations, as he objected to the FCC's management of late. Sen Rockefeller specifically called for legislation to overhaul the commission's structure, the terms of the commissioners and the agency's mission.
http://benton.org/node/16207
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SOME NONPROFITS PUSH INCREASED FEDERAL INVOLVEMENT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Philip Rucker]
In the world of philanthropy, where independence from government has long been sacred, a revolution is underway. Social entrepreneurs are clamoring for a realignment of the way the federal government and nonprofit groups work together to maximize the impact of American generosity. With the presidential campaign in full swing, nonprofit leaders are organizing what some call an unprecedented effort to boost the presence of philanthropy and community service in a new administration. They are calling for a White House office or an agency similar to the Small Business Administration to match nonprofit programs with government priorities, help successful community-based initiatives grow and organize a corps of service volunteers. Although nonprofits are relied on to fix many of society's problems, nonprofit groups often work in isolation and have virtually no strategic coordination with government.
http://benton.org/node/16222
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