COMMUNICATIONS POLICY REFORM
New CRS Report on Telecom Reform Legislation
Media Ownership Proceeding Soon, Say Industry Sources
MEDIA
A New Media Order
Fair? Balanced? A Study Finds It Does Not Matter
Captioners Busy as Broadcasters Cope with New FCC Rules
Ready To Learn Grants Announced
Radio Free America
VOD Software To Include Nielsen Codes
TELECOM
State Action on Telecom Mega-Mergers
Sprint Braces for Affiliate Fight
Industry Calls For Slower E911 Sked
Contracts Lock Phone Users in Cell Block
QUICKLY -- E/I Bug Deadline Set for Sept. 19; New N.Y. law targets hidden
Net tolls; California Considers Tax Breaks for Filming
COMMUNICATIONS POLICY REFORM
NEW CRS REPORT ON TELECOM REFORM LEGISLATION
A new report from the Congressional Research Service analyzed options for
telecom reform in Congress and at the FCC, assessing levels of support and
dissent among industry players and political constituencies. The report
cited 2 main public policy issues: 1) Devising the best regulatory
framework for encouraging investment and innovation in the broadband
network and applications riding over the network. 2) Deciding whether the
government should intervene in rural markets by expanding universal service
to include access to broadband networks at affordable rates. Despite
widespread consensus that today's statutory and regulatory framework for
telecom is ill-suited for the market, there's disagreement about how to fix
it, the report said. A key barrier is deciding if an information service is
purely an information service or has a telecom component invoking more
rigorous regulation. The report also identified two challenges to Congress
in tackling a telecom law update: 1) Creating a regulatory framework that
market changes won't render obsolete and 2) Identifying regulatory elements
suitable for handling at the state and local level versus those that should
be centralized, the report said. To enhance broadband competition, the
report said, intramodal competition will continue to be important,
especially for large business markets. On DTV transition, the report said
Congress should leave multicasting to the FCC to "study and construct
recommendations for rules (and, if necessary, statutory changes) to address
the potentially related issues of mandatory carriage of multiple broadcast
signals and better serving the needs and interest of viewers in different
governmental jurisdictions." This is likely to give momentum to political
forces seeking to address the multicasting issue as a "study item" in DTV
legislation.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Anne Veigle]
(Not available online)
MEDIA OWNERSHIP PROCEEDING SOON, SAY INDUSTRY SOURCES
Industry sources are telling Communications Daily that FCC Chairman Kevin
Martin will issue a notice of proposed rule making on media ownership rules
within the next 30-60 days. The aim is to have new rules in place by Spring.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Tania Panczyk-Collins]
(Not available online)
MEDIA
A NEW MEDIA ORDER
The 2005 edition of investment banker Veronis Suhler Stevenson's annual
Communications Industry Forecast was released earlier this week and it
concludes that the industry has effectively reached a "new order" that
shifts power to consumers from advertisers, and to new media from
traditional media. The report estimates that new media accounted for 16.7
percent of all advertising spending last year--up from only 10.3 percent in
the report's baseline year, 1999. Ad spending in the new media -- which VSS
defines as cable and satellite television, satellite radio,
business-to-business e-media, consumer Internet, movie screens, and video
games -- is growing at double-digit rates, while traditional media are
rising only at single-digits. As a result, VSS projects that new media will
account for 26.3 percent of all ad spending by 2009 -- an estimate some new
media pundits might find conservative, given the rapid shifts in digital
technologies. VSS says the forces driving change are clear: the expansion
of digital media technologies, the shift toward consumer control of
media--especially media supported primarily by consumer spending--and a
shift toward greater return on investment in marketing that is driving
advertisers to use greater shares of new media.
[SOURCE: MediaPost, AUTHOR: Joe Mandese]
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=33...
FAIR? BALANCED? A STUDY FINDS IT DOES NOT MATTER
A new study by Stefano DellaVigna of the University of California, Berkeley
and Ethan Kaplan of the Institute for International Economic Studies at
Stockholm University finds that the advent of the Fox News Channel, Rupert
Murdoch's cable television network, has had no detectable effect on which
party people voted for, or whether they voted at all. Because Fox News
started just before the presidential election in 1996 and was hardly
available at the time of that election, a major question is whether the
introduction of Fox in a community raised the likelihood that residents
voted for George W. Bush over Al Gore in the 2000 election, as compared
with the share who voted for Bob Dole over Bill Clinton in the (pre-Fox)
1996 election. Disregarding third-party candidates, Professors DellaVigna
and Kaplan found that towns that offered Fox by 2000 increased their vote
share for the Republican presidential candidate by 6 percentage points (to
54 percent, from 48 percent) from 1996 to 2000, while those that did not
offer Fox increased theirs by an even larger 7 percentage points (to 54
percent, from 47 percent). Why was Fox inconsequential to voter behavior?
One possibility is that people search for television shows with a political
orientation that matches their own. In this scenario, Fox would have been
preaching to the converted. This, however, was not the case: Fox's viewers
were about equally likely to identify themselves as Democrats as
Republicans, according to a poll by the Pew in 2000. Professors DellaVigna
and Kaplan offer two more promising explanations. First, watching Fox could
have confirmed both Democratic and Republican viewers' inclinations, an
effect known as confirmatory bias in psychology. The professors' preferred
explanation is that the public manages to "filter" biased media reports.
Fox's format, for example, might alert the audience to take the views
expressed with more than the usual grain of salt. Audiences may also filter
biases from other networks' shows. The tendency for people to regard
television news and political commentary as entertainment probably makes
filtering easier. Fox's influence might also have been diluted because
there were already many other ways to get political information.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Alan B. Krueger]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/business/media/18scene.html
(requires registration)
CAPTIONERS BUSY AS BROADCASTERS COPE WITH NEW FCC RULES
There are 28 million deaf or hard of hearing people in the U.S., according
to the National Assn. of the Deaf, which joined other advocacy groups in
petitioning the FCC to improve closed captioning rules and beef up
enforcement. In July the FCC said it would seek comment on its closed
captioning rules, especially the need for standards on the technical
capability of captioning, such as transcription accuracy. The Commission
also said it would ask about the need for more procedures to prevent or
remedy technical problems. A notice of inquiry hasn't been listed in the
Federal Register yet, so there's no indication of when comments and replies
are due. A Jan. 1, 2006 deadline is nearing for non-exempt new programming
to be captioned in the top 25 markets. As a result, caption providers have
seen their business grow. "Our business has naturally been growing by 50%
to 75%," said Jay Feinberg, dir.- mktg. services at the National Captioning
Institute. But broadcasters said closed captioning rules are burdensome and
confusing. In June alone, the FCC denied at least 12 bids for exemption
from compliance. Petitioners claimed captioning would be an undue financial
burden. Local stations typically pay $100 per hour for closed captioning,
Feinberg said. And real-time captioning has an inherent delay. Typically,
broadcasters send caption providers programs they want captioned, such as
soap operas or daytime shows. But for emergency coverage, there can be a
lag of 15 to 30 min. before captioning begins, Feinberg said.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Tania Panczyk-Collins]
(Not available online)
READY TO LEARN GRANTS ANNOUNCED
On Wednesday, the Department of Education announced $23 million in "ready
to Learn" grants. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS will
co-manage $15.8 million, of which $11.8 million will be used to develop
children's programming. CPB was also awarded $4 million for outreach
efforts. The grants will support existing kids' educational shows like
Sesame Street and Between the Lions. CPB and PBS will also develop new
programs with an eye toward interactive elements, including web content,
teacher and parent materials, and multimedia platforms for handheld
devices. WTTW Chicago, which submitted a proposal separately from that of
CPB and PBS, received $7.4 million. WTTW will use its grant for a new
children's public television series, Word World, to premiere January 2007.
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: ]
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA635866?display=Breaking+News&...
(free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)
* See Department of Education Press Release:
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/08/08172005.html
RADIO FREE AMERICA
Low-power radio stations are the most local form of community radio and are
often run by volunteers producing their own unique shows. Broadcasting at
100 watts or less, stations usually only have a radius of about 3.5 miles.
These tiny stations will never be able to compete with giants like Clear
Channel, but that's precisely the point. By positioning itself as a local
media supplement rather than a full-blown competitor, Low-Power FM, or
LPFM, has been able to gain support from grass-roots organizers and
legislators alike.
[SOURCE: American Prospect, AUTHOR: Alyson Zureick]
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=...
VOD SOFTWARE TO INCLUDE NIELSEN CODES
Nielsen took a technological step forward Wednesday in its march to measure
video-on-demand viewership, announcing a collaboration with software
company Anystream. Nielsen "watermarking" technology will be built in to
Anystream's Agility software, allowing cable operators, content providers
and distributors to encode audio cues into VOD programming. The programming
can then be tracked by the ratings company's "active/passive" meters, which
detect the audio codes. Nielsen will measure the viewership of VOD
programming in a seven-day window after the programming airs on traditional
television. By the end of next year, Nielsen plans to measure VOD
viewership of movies, pay-per-view events and older TV shows.
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Joel Meyer]
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA635703?display=Breaking+News&...
(free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)
TELECOM
SBC-AT&T GETS NJ OKAY, BUT VERIZON-MCI SEES STAFF OPPOSITION IN VA
On Wednesday, The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved the
AT&T-SBC merger provided the merged company keeps the AT&T Labs, AT&T
Network Operations Center and AT&T Enterprise Operations in the state. SBC
committed to doing so. Meanwhile, the Virginia Corporation Commission staff
advised against approving the Verizon-MCI merger because the application
"provides little, if any, Virginia-specific information or economic studies
on which the Commission can make a determination" about whether the deal
will jeopardize adequate service at reasonable rates for the public. The
staff said the companies haven't met the burden of proof that the merger
will specifically benefit Virginia citizens. The staff recommended either
denial without prejudice so the companies can refile with the additional
information, or imposition of four major conditions: 1) Subject Verizon's
intrastate long distance services to the same monitoring and reporting
requirements imposed on interexchange carriers. (2) Require Verizon to
resolve service complaints within 10 business days, when possible. (3)
Require that Verizon treat MCI as a nonaffiliated competitor for purposes
of making local interconnection agreements and for conducting the
high-capacity UNE wire center impairment analysis required by the FCC
Triennial Review Remand Order. (4) Require that Verizon track and report
the Va.-specific merger cost savings for 3 years.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Herb Kirchhoff]
(Not available online)
SPRINT BRACES FOR AFFILIATE FIGHT
Nextel Partners, a so-called affiliate operator of Nextel, provides
wireless service to 1.8 million customers in smaller cities and towns using
Nextel's brand name and airwaves. It has a market capitalization of $7.1
billion and, under an agreement originally signed with Nextel, Nextel
Partners has an option that gives it the right to force the newly merged
Sprint Nextel to buy it out. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange
Commission yesterday Sprint Nextel began building a case for paying far
less than the current stock price for the nearly 69% of Nextel Partners
that it doesn't already own. Sprint contends that the stock price has been
inflated by takeover speculation. Nextel Partners is the only affiliate
that has the right to make Sprint Nextel buy it out. But people familiar
with the matter said some smaller affiliates, some of which are closely
held, may end up being acquired by Sprint Nextel through negotiation. One
former Sprint affiliate, U.S. Unwired Inc., already has parlayed a suit
against the nation's third-largest wireless carrier into a $1.3 billion
buyout deal. The remaining publicly traded affiliates are: Alamosa Holdings
Inc., iPCS Inc., IWO Holdings Inc., and UbiquiTel Inc.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Shawn Young shawn.young( at )wsj.com]
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112429808949315728,00.html?mod=todays...
(requires subscription)
INDUSTRY CALLS FOR SLOWER E911 SKED
The FCC needs to slow what it has called an "aggressively short" timetable
for mandating emergency dialing capabilities for Internet telephones, most
communications companies argue. Further, industry and nonprofit groups that
submitted comments to the agency by this past Monday's deadline said the
FCC should be cautious about requiring location tracking technology within
computing devices, for reasons affecting both technological innovation and
privacy. The comments focused primarily on the agency's tentative proposals
to go further than its June order giving providers of voice-over-Internet
protocol 120 days to connect to traditional telephones -- in order to offer
"enhanced 911" service, or E911. Such services direct public safety
officials to the locations of people placing emergency calls via both
traditional lines, as well as Internet or cellular telephones. The deadline
is Nov. 28, 120 days from the regulation's effective date, as determined by
its publication in the Federal Register.
[SOURCE: Technology Daily, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-XCPZ1124309336605.html
See also --
For community stations, group signals a beginning
A look at the work of the Prometheus Radio Project creating low power radio
stations.
[SOURCE: The Boston Globe, AUTHOR: Clea Simon]
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2005/08/18/for_community_stations_g...
CONTRACTS LOCK PHONE USERS IN CELL BLOCKS
[Commentary] Would you switch your cell phone provider if you didn't have
to pay that nasty early-termination fee the companies charge customers to
get out of their contracts? Nearly half (47 percent) of cell phone users
polled said they would switch or consider switching cell phone service
carriers to get a lower rate and better service if they didn't have to pay
an average penalty of $170 to cancel their service contract, according to a
new survey by U.S. PIRG, the national lobbying office for state Public
Interest Research Groups, which are nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy
organizations. "Early-termination penalties prevent consumers from voting
with their feet when their cell phone company treats them wrong," said Ed
Mierzwinski, the consumer program director for U.S. PIRG. "Since the cell
phone companies know the penalties make switching unaffordable for many
consumers, the carriers can get away with shoddy, overpriced service.
Eliminating these unfair penalties will let consumers out of the cells they
are locked into." In a petition to the FCC, the wireless industry says,
"The ETF thus provides a measure of predictability to the revenue stream
reasonably expected by wireless carriers, enabling carriers to offer
attractive initial discounts and monthly pricing to customers willing to
make a minimum service commitment and also ensuring carriers some measure
of compensation for lost revenue and otherwise unrecoverable upfront costs
caused by early terminations." U.S. PIRG as well as 15 members of Congress
are urging the FCC to reject the cell phone industry's petition and let
state courts determine whether these early-termination fees are reasonable.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Michelle Singletary]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/17/AR200508...
(requires registration)
QUICKLY
E/I BUG DEADLINE SET FOR SEPT 19
The FCC Wednesday announced Monday, Sept. 19, as the deadline for
commercial and noncommercial TV broadcasters to begin displaying an
on-screen "educational/informational," or E/I, bug throughout children's
programs. The bug must air on-screen through the entirety of a show for
broadcasters to get credit toward the FCC's mandated three-hour weekly
minimum of educational children's programming.
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Joel Meyer]
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA635850?display=Breaking+News&...
(free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)
NEW NY LAW TARGETS HIDDEN NET TOLLS
A new law that's apparently the first in the nation threatens to penalize
Internet service providers that fail to warn users that some dial-up
numbers can ring up enormous long-distance phone bills even though they
appear local. A long distance call even within the same area code can cost
8 to 12 cents a minute, adding up to hundreds, even thousands of dollars a
month. Consumers, however, must act on the warning that Internet providers
must soon post by contacting their phone companies to find out whether a
number is truly local.
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR:Michael Gormley]
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/technology/12408654.htm
CALIFORNIA CONSIDERS TAX BREAKS FOR FILMING
For the first time since a handful of immigrant New Yorkers moved west to
Hollywood seeking cheap land for their movie studios, so many motion
pictures are being made outside California that state leaders are poised to
enact subsidies to keep productions from leaving.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Halbfinger]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/18/movies/18runa.html
(requires registration)
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Communications-related Headlines is a free online news summary service
provided by the Benton Foundation (www.benton.org). Posted Monday through
Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments,
policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are
factually accurate, their often informal tone does not always represent the
tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang
(headlines( at )benton.org) -- we welcome your comments.
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