BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY FEB 9, 2009
Check out Headlines on the web at http://benton.org/headlines
THE ECONOMY
In Congress, Aides Start to Map Talks on Stimulus
After Stimulus Comes Next Bailout Effort
Pay TV providers fret over penny-pinching viewers
DIGITAL TV
Time to get ready for digital TV
Tracking the Path to Digital Transition Delay
With DTV Delay a Done Deal, Stations Debate When to Switch
DIGITAL CONTENT
Berners-Lee and the Raw Data Movement
Web 2.0 defamation lawsuits multiply
Parents Joining Facebook
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
Big Music vs. Fans and Artists
Sirius XM Got, and Rebuffed, Bid from EchoStar/Dish
Syndicators Put Price on Tribune Bankruptcy
QUICKLY -- iS Google's Phone watching you?; Obama Meets The Press, But Cautiously
THE ECONOMY
IN CONGRESS, AIDES START TO MAP TALKS ON STIMULUS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Carl Hulse]
Congressional aides worked Sunday to identify differences between the House and Senate economic stimulus packages in advance of final negotiations scheduled to begin after the Senate's anticipated approval of its measure on Tuesday. Formal talks will not begin before the Senate passes its $827 billion version of the plan; the House bill costs about $819 billion. Once the Senate votes, aides said, the first order of business in the bicameral talks will be to set an overall dollar figure and then begin to sort out the differences in spending and tax changes in the two measures. " The Senate compromise version of the bill allocates $6.65 billion to broadband investments, $350 million to broadband mapping, and $100 million to distance learning and telemedicine grants and loans. Almost all of the $7.1 billion in broadband will be channeled through the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, apparently thwarting an effort by some rural-focused senators to split broadband funds with the Agriculture Department, as the House-passed version had done. This Senate version deletes $2.85 billion that the House-passed version had allocated to broadband grants that met certain minimum specific speed requirements. It also deleted the $2.85 billion that the House-passed version had allocated to the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service. The new Senate agreement preserves original language that "up to $350 million may be expended" pursuant to the Broadband Data Improvement Act. The new Senate stimulus legislation also calls for NTIA to create "a comprehensive nationwide inventory map of existing broadband service capability and availability in the United States." President Obama is to travel to Indiana and Florida this week to rally public support for the plan, and the White House has begun emphasizing the endorsement of the proposal by business and industry groups. [more at the URL below]
http://benton.org/node/21803
Recommend this Headline
back to top
SPENDING MORE THAN $800 BILLION IS THE EASY PART
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Sanger]
The easy part is coming to an end. Ask just about anyone in Washington involved in the $800-billion-plus economic stimulus legislation churning its way through Congress and they will tell you it is a milestone — but without question the less expensive, and politically and technically less chancy, part of the Great National Bailout of 2009. This week, President Obama and his Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, will prepare the country for the next, and far more difficult, step: another attempt to fill the huge hole blown in the center of the nation's financial system. No one has yet put a price tag on that effort. But the administration's diagnosis of what went wrong with the first attempt to right the financial system — that it was too small, and that the problem has ballooned in recent months — suggests that the next effort will almost certainly entail a far bigger commitment of taxpayer dollars than the $350 billion left from last year's $700 billion effort to right the system, and probably far more than the stimulus package.
http://benton.org/node/21802
Recommend this Headline
back to top
PAY TV PROVIDERS FRET OVER PENNY-PINCHING VIEWERS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
While a weak economy invariably makes people pinch pennies, this is the first time that viewing shows online has become a viable competitor to pay TV, making cutting the cord easier. Cable operators are starting to notice. Glenn Britt, chief executive of Time Warner Cable Inc., voiced his concern Wednesday in a quarterly earnings discussion with analysts. "We are starting to see the beginning of cord cutting," he said. "People will choose not to buy subscription video if they can get the same stuff for free." It's tough to pin down how many people actually have given up cable — most of the evidence remains anecdotal — and which customers moved to a competitor. Still, Time Warner Cable, the nation's second-largest cable operator, lost 119,000 basic video customers in the fourth quarter, even after excluding subscribers it gave up from the sale of some cable systems. The company also posted slower growth in new digital cable TV, Internet and phone subscribers. More details will emerge as other cable and satellite TV operators report earnings in the coming weeks.
http://benton.org/node/21801
Recommend this Headline
back to top
DIGITAL TV
TIME TO GET READY FOR DIGITAL TV
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Troy Wolverton]
The digital television transition may have been delayed, but there's no better time than the present to prepare for it. That's because despite the deadline's postponement, some local stations plan to switch off their analog transmissions later this month anyway. Meanwhile, consumers who need converter boxes to receive the new signals could face holdups in getting them. And even once they have them, they may face setup issues. Connecting the boxes to an analog television is relatively straightforward. But tuning in the digital channels may prove troublesome, particularly for consumers who get weak analog signals now. With weak analog signals, consumers typically can still get a picture, albeit a fuzzy one. With digital signals, however, a weak signal can mean either a picture that cuts in and out — or no picture at all.
http://benton.org/node/21800
Recommend this Headline
back to top
TRACKING THE PATH TO DIGITAL TRANSITION DELAY
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Ira Teinowitz]
In the end, a bad brew of poor planning and politics led Congress to delay the nation's transition to all-digital television signals by three months to June 12. In the poor planning column: An underfunded coupon program to help pay for analog converter boxes; public outreach in some markets that raised concerns about whether the switch could be accomplished without a big disruption; and too little effort, too late by government agencies to deal with consumer confusion. On the political side, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats had little to gain by going forward with the February switchover. They would have taken the heat had the Feb. 17 switch been a disaster. The delay at least gives them time to assess the political risks and attempt remediation. With television station groups now deciding whether they'll switch over before June (and incur the costs of maintaining dual signals), TelevisionWeek analyzes what went wrong.
http://benton.org/node/21799
Recommend this Headline
back to top
WITH DTV DELAY A DONE DEAL, STATIONS DEBATE WHEN TO SWITCH
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Andrew Krukowski]
The congressional decision to postpone to June the switch to digital television has placed a crucial decision in the hands of stations: Delay or proceed? If stations go forward and switch to digital broadcast signals on the original Feb. 17 date, they may leave unprepared viewers in the dark. But waiting until June 12 could cost stations hundreds of thousands of dollars, without any guarantee that audiences will be much better prepared for the DTV switch. Stations need to decide quickly whether they'll go ahead with the switch or wait, as the Federal Communications Commission has put a Feb. 9 deadline on broadcasters seeking to transition early. That has station managers balancing three options: Switch to digital-only signals early; run dual digital and analog broadcasts until June; or wait until the June date. Most stations are running dual signals, and few, if any, plan to run analog-only until the new deadline. All the options carry downside potential, particularly on the cost side.
http://benton.org/node/21798
Recommend this Headline
back to top
DIGITAL CONTENT
TIME TO REINVENT THE WEB (AND SAVE WALL STREET)
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: L. Gordon Crovitz]
[Commntary] At the TED Conference, Tim Berners-Lee told the audience that it's already time to reimagine the Web. He now advocates what he calls "linked data," to go beyond today's hypertext and make readily accessible digital information stored in any format from any source. There's a huge amount of data now in various digital formats, but it's hard to find new relationships or correlations. He said the Web could be reorganized so that well-tagged tables of structured information can easily be linked to others. For example, scientists could link data about proteins and genomics to tackle Alzheimer's. Asked about the benefits of what's called the semantic Web, compared with today's less sophisticated Web, Mr. Berners-Lee told me "It's . . . as hard to explain as my original idea for the Web." The raw-data revolution would be "a paradigm shift as important as the Web was at its time. . . . imagine if you could access all the data from previously unconnected sources and ask any question of the data that you like." People in different disciplines could access the same information from different vantage points. "We'd quickly find new relationships among data and new answers to problems in ways we haven't been able to imagine." Mr. Berners-Lee said his new approach could revolutionize financial markets, which are in dire need of better access to information. The continued lack of transparency about which banks own how much bad debt still paralyzes the system. A challenge worthy even of the inventor of the Web is to reorganize information more creatively to help Wall Street better understand the data that drive markets up and down. The fastest way to economic recovery just might be a financial system rebuilt along the innovative lines of today's digital technology.
http://benton.org/node/21797
Recommend this Headline
back to top
WEB 2.0 DEFAMATION LAWSUITS MULTIPLY
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Deborah Gage]
The Web 2.0 movement, which ushered in an interactive Internet, sought to put power in the hands of the people by tapping the so-called wisdom of the crowds to change the world - and to keep such a digital democracy in check. A decade later, as defamation lawsuits have begun to mount, some are questioning the wisdom of the crowds, and wondering if it hasn't turned into mob rule. "I don't know why this has taken so long," said Andrew Keen, author of a controversial book, "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture." "The Internet is a culture of rights rather than responsibilities. We have no coherent theory of digital responsibility. The issue has broken through, broken out of Silicon Valley - now it affects real people with real reputations to defend."
http://benton.org/node/21795
Recommend this Headline
back to top
DON'T WORRY, KIDS, STANFORD WILL TEACH MOM, DAD ABOUT FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Lisa Krieger]
A new "Facebook for Parents" course, taught at Stanford University, starts this month and is already full. The four-part lecture series even comes with a lab where Stanford students provide one-on-one Facebook tutoring. "Responsible parenting means being aware of what your children are doing," said Linda Phillips, who is teaching the class with her brother, Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg. Phillips is the mother of eight children — seven of whom are also her Facebook "friends." Adults older than 35 accounted for 3.6 million — or 9 percent — of Facebook's 2007 demographics, and are the fast-growing segment of users. Many say they enjoy keeping track of their high school crush, that friend from book club or the neighbor's kitchen remodel.
http://benton.org/node/21796
Recommend this Headline
back to top
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
BIG MUSIC VS FANS AND ARTISTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
It appears that Live Nation and Ticketmaster Entertainment are about to attempt a merger. Gee, what a great idea: Let's take two behemoths with an overwhelming footprint in the live music business, smush them together, and see how that works out for the consumer. Fans moan that rock music is not what it used to be, but the business landscape behind all the amplifiers has changed even more drastically. The corporate version of the live music business is becoming a land of giants, which at Live Nation is built on so-called 360 deals with the likes of Madonna, U2 and Jay-Z, in which contracts give the promoter a percentage of revenue generated by live performance, merchandise and, sometimes, recorded music. Ticketmaster, through its Front Line division, has ties with Aerosmith, the Eagles and Guns N' Roses.
http://benton.org/node/21794
Recommend this Headline
back to top
SIRIUS XM GOT, AND REBUFFED, BID FROM ECHOSTAR/DISH
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Matthew Karnitschnig]
Satellite mogul Charles Ergen made an unsolicited offer late last year to take control of Sirius XM Radio and was rebuffed. Ergen proposed for one of his satellite companies -- EchoStar Corp. or Dish Network Corp. -- to inject enough capital into Sirius for it to meet its debt obligations and avoid a bankruptcy filing. Despite the rejection, Ergen has recently reiterated his interest in taking control of Sirius. Ergen isn't seeking to force Sirius into bankruptcy proceedings in order to acquire its assets more cheaply. He believes that satellite radio would complement his television operation. Both are subscriber-based programming businesses that rely on similar technology. Even if Mr. Ergen succeeds in acquiring control of Sirius, however, it is far from certain that federal regulators, whose approval would be required, would welcome the union of satellite television and radio. A deal would likely face close scrutiny and a lengthy review.
http://benton.org/node/21793
Recommend this Headline
back to top
SYNDICATORS PUT PRICE ON TRIBUNE BANKRUPTCY
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Andrew Krukowski]
The collateral damage from Tribune's bankruptcy filing in December is rippling through the syndication industry, with Disney-ABC Domestic Television taking a $60 million writedown on deals with the TV station owner and News Corp. setting aside $10 million to deal with the problem. On top of those charges, Time Warner, which owns Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, set aside $30 million to account for bankruptcies from several companies it does business with. Tribune gets shows including "Two and a Half Men" from Warner Bros. Tribune's bankruptcy occurred at a crucial time in syndication, as distributors struggle to preserve the economic model that supports first-run programming. Cash-strapped stations, fighting advertising declines, have less money to pay for shows with higher production values. The recession could amplify that dynamic, creating a vicious cycle of stations being able to afford only lower-quality shows that get lower ratings, which in turn generate less advertising revenue to pay for better first-run fare. The full dimensions of Tribune's bankruptcy are not yet clear.
http://benton.org/node/21792
Recommend this Headline
back to top
QUICKLY
FEEL LIKE SOMEONE'S WATCHING YOU?
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Leslie Cauley]
The new Google phone, dubbed the G1, has been touted as a working man's smartphone — a cheap, Web-friendly wireless device that can make life easier for millions of consumers. The G1, as it turns out, also stands to make life a whole lot easier for Google — by making it a snap to track your movements on the mobile Web and send you ads as it does on the desktop. The device, sold exclusively by T-Mobile, gives Google access to your e-mail, instant messages, contact lists, Web-search history and geographic location. By keeping tabs on your mobile life, Google can quickly figure out what sort of ads to send your way, and when. "It's like a walking surveillance device," says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer watchdog group.
http://benton.org/node/21791
Recommend this Headline
back to top
OBAMA MEETS THE PRESS, BUT CAUTIOUSLY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
Despite early speculation that the new administration would use newfangled technology to bypass the mainstream media, the president has been strikingly accessible, sitting for interviews or fielding reporters' questions virtually every weekday. But Obama has picked his spots, minimizing his media exposure when the hot Washington topic is one he would rather avoid. But even a president can be overtaken by the news cycle. In the last week of January, communications staffers suggested to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and then to Obama, that the president try to sell his increasingly controversial stimulus package by talking to network anchors. Wary of picking one favored network and alienating the others, the White House arranged sit-downs with NBC's Brian Williams, CBS's Katie Couric, ABC's Charlie Gibson, CNN's Anderson Cooper and Fox's Chris Wallace.
http://benton.org/node/21790
Recommend this Headline
back to top