BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2011
Here's a look at next week's agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2011-03-27--P1W/
AT&T|T-MOBILE (see all our coverage http://benton.org/headlines/at-t-t-mobile)
FCC official: no way AT&T T-Mobile deal will go unaltered
AT&T already pitching T-Mobile deal to FCC
AT&T LTE Result on U.S. Coverage: ~ 0%
70-90% of AT&T Spectrum Capacity Unused
Lindner: AT&T's Backhaul +500% in 2011
What's Good for AT&T Is Good for ... AT&T
AT&T's Pitch for Free Mobile
California to Review Proposed AT&T, T-Mobile Merger
Analysis: AT&T mega merger bad sign for spectrum reform
Handset Makers Stay Mum On Or Downplay AT&T/T-Mobile Deal
Understanding the AT&T Takeover of T-Mobile
Five Things Wrong with AT&T's Mega-Merger
Quick Hits on AT&T/T-Mobile
MORE ON WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Spectrum fight: Mobile broadband vs. TV broadcasts
What The Road To 4G Will Look Like
Best Buy to offer 4G mobile broadband
Swiping Is the Easy Part
Carriers disagree over definition, metrics for embedded wireless
Are Mobile Device Makers Finally Ready To Swear Off Carrier Subsidies
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Rural Internet solution found
Interview with Jonathan Adelstein on New $700 Million Broadband Program
Pentagon seeks $3.2 billion for revised cyber budget
The Facts and Fiction of Broadband Caps and Congestion
CONTENT
Kerry Privacy Bill Could Impose 'Major' Obligations On Ad Networks
Paying For Anything On The Internet? No One Is Really Buying -- Or Selling It -- Too Well Yet
No Sharing Allowed
USA Today rewrites strategy to cope with Internet
Italian Ruling on Piracy Puts Websites on Notice
OWNERSHIP
Walgreen to acquire online retailer drugstore.com for about $429 million
Zell Fights to Avoid Legal Claims Over Tribune Buyout
Brill Sells Fledgling Company Journalism Online
TELEVISION
Television: Inflated assets
CBS Proposes New Model for TV Planning and Buying Based on Viewer Behavior and Attitudes Instead Age and Sex
Broadcast Losing Ground, Cable Gains
TV Networks Cry Foul as Time Warner Cable Offers Channels via iPads at Home
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
How China and Others Are Altering Web Traffic
State Department official: Internet freedom work won't be rushed
E-government fund could be cut, group warns
Australian government bans free email services over security concerns
Rep Issa wants details on FCC White House visits
A New Tool For U.S. Intelligence: Google?
COMMUNITY MEDIA
Defunding Public Media: Disaster Or Opportunity?
Defunding Public Media Would Stifle Digital Innovation
Publisher puts new limits on public libraries' e-books
New Agendas for Media Literacy
Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust
MORE ONLINE
Survey: Teachers want more access to technology, collaboration
Google launches Think Quarterly
Attention to Japan's Earthquake Dominates Social Media
A boom for those who cover Congress
Telefónica reveals $14 billion Brazil investment plans
AT&T|T-MOBILE (see all our coverage http://benton.org/headlines/at-t-t-mobile)
FCC: DEAL WILL NOT BE UNALTERED
[SOURCE: electronista, AUTHOR: ]
An anonymous FCC official said that the proposed AT&T buyout of T-Mobile would very likely go through major changes if it were to be approved at all. He was careful to note the deal hadn't yet been under formal investigation but was confident FCC chair Julius Genachowski would either require conditions or ban the deal. The WSJ didn't learn which of the two was the more likely but was told a greenlight was a virtual impossibility. "There's no way the chairman's office rubber-stamps this transaction," the FCC staffer said. "It will be a steep climb to say the least."
benton.org/node/53882 | electronista | Wall Street Journal
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AT&T STARTS THE PITCH AT FCC
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Eliza Krigman]
Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann and AT&T's Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson met with Federal Communications Commission members Robert McDowell, Michael Copps and Meredith Attwell Baker on March 23. The telecom executives made an initial pitch for regulatory approval of the deal, according to a source close to the situation. Apparently, the CEOs came with some of their staff and appeared confident as if they were trying to create an air of inevitably. The US telecom giant plans to file its formal application for merger approval from the agency within roughly 30 days.
benton.org/node/53907 | Politico
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DEAL WILL NOT IMPROVE LTE DEPLOYMENT
[SOURCE: Fast Net News, AUTHOR: Dave Burstein]
[Commentary] AT&T says it will cover 46M more people with LTE by about 2015-2016 if allowed to swallow T-Mobile. That's about 95% of the U.S. population. (They probably would do about 95% anyway to keep up with Verizon, but that's a different story.) The net result in improved U.S. LTE coverage: 0%-2%, probably closer to 0%. The U.S. is on track to have 94% LTE coverage in 2013-2014. Verizon alone is committed to 92%. Since Verizon and other companies plan to continue deploying after that, it's almost certain the US in 2016 will be at 96%-98% without any government subsidy or merger approval. About 98% of the U.S. is covered by towers. LTE is 2x to 4x more efficient and cheaper than what's on the towers today, so it's reasonable to expect nearly all of them to be upgraded. As AT&T President Ralph de la Vega notes, LTE has "the best spectral efficiency at the lowest cost." CEO Stephenson says the schedule will be to cover about 80% by the end of 2013, which he believes is about as fast as practical. That's on track, with thousands of towers upgraded already and service beginning this year. That leaves AT&T about a year behind Verizon, scheduled for 92% in 2013. Randall says they will then work on the next 15% and apparently will reach 95% in 2015-2016. When AT&T reaches 95% in 2016, the country will likely be at 96-98%, with Verizon easily at 95% alone. Carrier coverage will likely be highly overlapped. They all seek population density, tower availability, and road coverage. So nearly all of T's 95% coverage will already be served by others. Burstein's guess is that AT&T will provide less than an additional 1% of coverage, and probably less than 1/2 of 1%, which will round down to 0%.
benton.org/node/53881 | Fast Net News
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AT&T'S UNUSED SPECTRUM CAPACITY
[SOURCE: Fast Net News, AUTHOR: Dave Burstein]
[Commentary] AT&T has enough spectrum today to deliver about 150 megabits from most towers, most of which deliver less than 10-12 because of backhaul. Some of the spectrum is also used for 2G voice, and can easily carry twice as much voice when AT&T switches to voice over LTE/IP. Some goes for 2G/3G data carrying a fraction of what the same spectrum carries with LTE. Across the vast bulk of the country, AT&T has plenty of spectrum not used at all right now. Upgrade inefficient uses and put the fallow spectrum to use, and AT&T can easily handle four times the current demand and probably ten times. More spectrum is a good thing, but engineers at AT&T, Verizon, and almost all the other big carriers are confident they can handle anything likely for years without breaking the budget. FCC sources tell Burstein there's a massive efficiency improvement possible if more carriers shared spectrum, but none were willing. AT&T Wireless & Cingular did a joint build in New York City that saved $100s of millions according to CFO Ron Dykes. AT&T and T-Mobile could do the same and get most of the spectrum advantage of the merger while staying independent.
benton.org/node/53879 | Fast Net News
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AT&T WIRELESS BACKHAUL
[SOURCE: Fast Net News, AUTHOR: Dave Burstein]
[Commentary] AT&T Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said, "We expect 65%, 70% of our traffic to be covered under fiber backhaul as we get towards the end of '11. We're in the low to mid-20s in terms of deployment currently." That kind of improvement could handle most, if not all, of AT&T's network capacity problems. The typical 3G cell site is today served with T-1's, often 4-5 T-1's with 6-8 megabit capacity. AT&T's fiber is based on Gig-E's, with 100 meg a typical provision. That's about a 13x increase for almost half the network, which represents about a 500% increase in total network capacity. That's on top of a 2-4x increase in the last two years, yielding a 2009-2012 increase in tower backhaul of probably 2,000%. The Gig-E's can be upped to 200 and 300 meg without any construction (i.e. very cheaply and quickly).
benton.org/node/53877 | Fast Net News
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WHAT'S GOOD FOR AT&T
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Brendan Greeley]
[Commentary] A talking point is a carefully constructed edifice, and no one builds an edifice without placing something behind it. On Mar. 21, the day after AT&T announced its intent to buy T-Mobile, three AT&T executives spoke to analysts on a conference call and converged on a set of terms. "Infrastructure," they said, and "investment," and "the President's wireless broadband goals." And they all agreed: A merger would bring high-speed LTE, or 4G, wireless access to 95 percent of the U.S. population. AT&T's purchase would offer unambiguous benefits to its shareholders and to those of Deutsche Telekom, the German former state monopoly that had been unable to fix T-Mobile, its underperforming U.S. wireless subsidiary. T-Mobile and AT&T use compatible technology, and the latter can more efficiently use the spectrum that would have soon proved inadequate for T-Mobile alone. It's a good fit, which means the real sport in this merger has never been in AT&T's hometown of Dallas or in Bonn, where Deutsche Telekom is based, but in Washington, where the Justice Dept. and the Federal Communications Commission must approve the merger. When the FCC looked at Comcast's purchase of NBCUniversal, the negotiations swung on network neutrality and conflicts of interest. This time around, look for one word: infrastructure. Before agreeing to anything, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski should ask some pointed questions about this 95 percent. Where will it be rolled out? When? What average speed can users expect in each market? And he should get the answers in writing.
benton.org/node/53948 | Bloomberg
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AT&T'S PITCH
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Martin Peers, Liam Denning]
Deflation has truly arrived: Big, profitable companies are going for free. That is, at least, what AT&T is claiming in relation to its T-Mobile USA acquisition from Deutsche Telekom. AT&T says the $39 billion cost of the deal is more than offset by the present-day value of synergies. What are those synergies? AT&T has estimated:
An annual improvement in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $3 billion, starting in the third year after the deal is completed. That comes from cost savings in areas like the companies' retail stores, advertising budgets, staffing and other administrative expenses.
Improvements in average revenue per user. (T-Mobile contract users now generate $52 a month, well below AT&T's level of $62.57.)
AT&T says its synergies are achievable, but there have to be questions about revenue synergies. Many people are on T-Mobile because it offers lower prices—its price for an unlimited voice family package with two phones is $99.99 a month, compared with AT&T's $119.99. AT&T will try to persuade T-Mobile customers'to upgrade to pricier plans by offering them better phones. For some, that might be attractive. But there is likely to be a good chunk of T-Mobile's 26.3 million customers on contract who defect, either before the deal closes or in the year or two afterward, to other cheap providers.
Even if AT&T hits targets, the net present value of $3 billion in annual synergies, after deducting $7 billion of up-front integration costs and using an 8% discount rate, is only $16.3 billion. AT&T, in its $39 billion-plus synergy calculation, is including capital expenditures that won't have to be made as a result of the integration of the two companies' cell networks. In addition, it is counting wireless spectrum that won't have to be acquired by either company. Unquestionably, the value of the deal is T-Mobile's spectrum, which will be particularly useful for AT&T as it rolls out the next generation of wireless technology, called LTE. So the deal has brought forward spending that would be necessary in the future. But whether AT&T really gets T-Mobile's existing cash flows for "free" is debatable. It depends on getting the deal through regulators without crippling concessions. And on holding on to T-Mobile's cost-conscious customers, while persuading some to pay more.
benton.org/node/53945 | Wall Street Journal
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AT&T DEAL WILL SLOW SPECTRUM REFORM
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jasmin Melvin]
AT&T's $39 billion bid to buy Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile casts doubt on the US government's ability to swiftly deliver policy to meet the booming demand for wireless services. Wireless companies have long lobbied for help to deal with what they see as a looming "spectrum crunch" as more consumers turn to mobile devices. AT&T -- the No. 2 U.S. mobile carrier often criticized for dropped calls and slow connection speeds -- is not waiting for government remedies intended to free up airwaves for mobile broadband to help it meet ever-growing demands for video and data. But the move could slow legislation needed to free up spectrum for auction to wireless carriers, a potential thorn in the Federal Communications Commission's agenda. "The way things work in Congress, there's competition for what issues get the lawmakers' time and resources," Medley Global Advisors analyst Jeffrey Silva said. Top lawmakers have already signaled an interest in scrutinizing the large-scale transaction. Paul Gallant, an analyst with MF Global, said AT&T's bid for T-Mobile puts a dimmer outlook on the likelihood of lawmakers moving spectrum legislation this year. But the "win-win-win outcomes" of incentive auctions freeing up airwaves, funding a public safety network and reducing the deficit will prompt lawmakers to act by 2013, Gallant predicted. A senior FCC official, who spoke on condition of not being named, said any potential shifting of existing spectrum among wireless companies does nothing to solve the fundamental problem of making more spectrum available to ease the crunch the wireless industry faces.
benton.org/node/53905 | Reuters
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QUICK HITS
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: John Bergmayer]
Interesting tidbits about the proposed purchase of T-Mobile by AT&T:
1) When Cingular bought AT&T Wireless, they were required to divest spectrum as a condition of having the deal approved. T-Mobile bought a lot of it. So AT&T will have to re-divest spectrum it had already divested -- or it will get to keep spectrum the Federal Communications Commission already found would give it too much market power.
2) House Republicans have gone on the record calling for strong antitrust oversight of the telecommunications market, as an approach they prefer to regulation. Will they continue to press for enforcement of the antitrust laws when it comes to this merger? Mergers like this one “potentially raise significant competitive concerns and often warrant scrutiny.” This is magnified when you consider how difficult it is to enter the wireless market, since you need to wait for the FCC to free up spectrum. There’s little chance that some wireless upstart will come out of nowhere and steal AT&T’s lunch money.
3) Pointing to regional carriers to prove the wireless market is competitive is laughable. Companies like Cellular South serve their customers very well. But T-Mobile by itself is bigger than every other small or regional carrier combined.
benton.org/node/53902 | Public Knowledge | AT&T/Cingular Opinion and Order
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MORE ON WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
SPECTRUM FIGHT TO HEAT UP
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: David Lieberman]
It’s hard to imagine a debate that might stupefy more people than the one that’s brewing over government policies for airwave spectrum. But hang in there: The subject’s important. It’s also about to become hot. Everyone’s starting to realize that the 547 megahertz of spectrum that can be used for mobile broadband isn't enough to accommodate the burgeoning number of consumers and businesses falling in love with smartphones, tablet computers such as Apple’s iPad, and other wireless communications devices. “If we don't act, the (wireless) consumer experience will be very frustrating,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski said. “The congestion will be very significant.” That means more dropped calls, slower transmission speeds, dead zones — and potentially high prices, with the heaviest mobile service users paying the most. AT&T said this week that it agreed to pay $39 billion for T-Mobile to avoid getting caught in a spectrum crunch. And you'll probably hear a lot more about airwave policy as the federal government prepares to coax some spectrum from one of the most potent forces in politics: television broadcasters. They collectively control some of the biggest blocks of airwaves but don't want to lose their ability to transmit video over the air and for free.
benton.org/node/53943 | USAToday
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THE ROAD TO 4G
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Tom Krazit]
There are four major wireless carriers in the U.S. (for now) and they each have a slightly different definition of what it means to be 4G. Most of the confusion stems from the fact that there is no true recognized standard for the use of the 4G term, only an initial recommendation from the International Telecommunications Union that such networks be capable of providing 1Gbps (gigabits per second) download speeds to a person standing still holding a phone and 100Mbps to someone traveling on a train or in a car. An awful lot of hot air was spilled this week about the wireless industry’s role in creating innovation, but it’s true to a certain extent. Better, faster tools allow talented people to create things that have never been attempted and make existing things with promise but challenges finally make sense. The only word spoken more than 4G at CTIA was spectrum. It’s one thing to build out a network of fast cell towers, but it’s another to actually make sure they can transmit their signals. It’s one of the primary drivers behind the AT&T/T-Mobile deal and was a key talking point from both industry representatives like the CTIA’s Steve Largent and FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski: more spectrum needs to be opened up to the wireless industry to continue this growth.
Ask the people at your carrier two or three times to show you exactly where their 4G coverage extends, and how fast their average—not peak—download and upload speeds are at the moment. There’s perhaps something to be said for future-proofing your phone or tablet, but it might be easier to wait until you know 4G coverage is strong in your area before taking the plunge. And start thinking about things you can't do on your mobile phone but can do on your PC because of the network connection, then figure out how to make them possible on a smaller screen with constrained battery life.
benton.org/node/53872 | paidContent.org
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CARRIER SUBSIDIES
[SOURCE: mocoNews.net, AUTHOR: Tom Krazit]
We’re beginning to see hints that mobile-device makers may be prepared to start weaning themselves off carriers handouts and pricing their products based on what they actually cost. What’s less clear is whether everyone -- not just Apple -- can be truly competitive and make enough money in the market without those juicy subsidies. So now, as challengers get ready to try and dent Apple’s runaway lead, do they need to accept heavy subsidies on 3G and 4G products in order to compete? The real question is what type of gross margin are those competitors willing to accept as they acknowledge that the amazing mobile growth of the past several years simply would not have happened without generous carrier subsidies that reduced the opening price of their wares, not to mention the heavy promotion as those carriers went about recouping their investment.
benton.org/node/53868 | mocoNews.net
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
RURAL INTERNET SOLUTION FOUND
[SOURCE: Reedsburg Times Press, AUTHOR: Ken Leiviska]
A little thinking outside the box will make it possible for the Reedsburg Utility to install fiber-optic Internet cable outside the city. A $5.2 million federal grant awarded to the utility in July was in jeopardy when bids to expand high-speed Internet to the rural northern third of Sauk County came in at more than $10 million. The project originally had been expected to cost $7.5 million, and the utility already had taken out a $2.3 million loan in August to supplement the grant. The Reedsburg Utility Commission approved moving forward with a plan to bid out rental contracts worth approximately $4 million to install the underground cables that provide wireless Internet. Superintendent Dave Mikonowicz said this measure will allow the utility to move forward on the project, which already has been delayed. The federal grant is part of the Department of Agriculture's Broadband Initiatives Program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
benton.org/node/53911 | Reedsburg Times Press
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ADELSTEIN INTERVIEW
[SOURCE: Fighting the Next Good Fight, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
A Q&A with the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Services Administrator Jonathan Adelstein. RUS recently announced they’re hoping to make $700 million available for broadband projects through the agency’s Farm Bill Broadband Program. While not as substantial as the BIP program, nevertheless this is a sizeable enough payload to make a big difference in a fair number of communities. However, the actual money hasn't been appropriated yet, so RUS is doing a Notice of Solicitations of Applications (NOSA). NOSA = send us an application to hold your place in the queue so you get money when we get money. This is strictly a loan program, no grants involved. Big plus – it’s open to everyone including communities and public private partnerships. Other good news is that the baseline for what constitutes broadband is 5 Mbps symmetrical for wireline networks, and 3 Mbps symmetrical for wireless.
benton.org/node/53864 | Fighting the Next Good Fight
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BROADBAND CONGESTION
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Eric Klinker]
[Commentary] AT&T recently announced the elimination of one of broadband Internet’s most prized features: unlimited use at a flat rate. While the trend toward metered bandwidth is not inherently pro-consumer, ISPs have staked out a singular public rationale: data caps are necessary to limit the consumption of “bandwidth hogs” in order to protect the network experience for everyone else. Such concepts are simplistic and easy to imagine. They are also completely wrong. In the fixed-cost network model (used by most ISPs here in the U.S.), there’s very little connection between raw consumption levels and the relative cost of serving consumers. The heaviest of users may often be the most profitable customers, depending on when they consume network resources. Wait. What? Heavy users are the most profitable? Yes. Because overall congestion, not individual consumption, is the single driver of network costs. It’s not the “how much” but the “when” that really matters. [Klinker is CEO of BitTorrent]
benton.org/node/53919 | GigaOm
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OWNERSHIP
WALGREEN BUYING DRUGSTORE.COM
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
Drugstore operator Walgreen said it will spend about $429 million to buy online retailer drugstore.com in a deal that gives it access to 3 million online customers. The largest U.S. drugstore operator will give drugstore.com shareholders $3.80 in cash for each share of stock — more than double the $1.79 closing price of drugstore.com’s stock on Wednesday. In early trading Thursday, the stock jumped $2 to $3.79. The acquisition will add about 60,000 products to Walgreen’s online offerings, and the Deerfield (IL) company said it will significantly speed up its online strategy. Drugstore.com’s websites include Beauty.com, SkinStore.com and VisionDirect.com. Walgreen, like most retailers, is trying to develop an online presence, something that is imperative going forward, said Scotia Capital analyst Patricia A. Baker.
benton.org/node/53866 | Associated Press
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TELEVISION/RADIO
TELEVISION ECONOMICS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: David Gelles, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson]
From France to Mexico, televised sporting events are drawing unprecedented audiences, transforming the fortunes of networks that have sports rights. In the US, where the economic downturn and growing digital competition were weighing on viewing figures and advertising revenues just a year ago, this drove double-digit growth in networks’ profits in the fourth quarter. “Broadcasting right now . . . is about event television, live television, sports events,” Jeff Zucker, former chief executive of NBC Universal, the US network owner, told the Financial Times digital media conference this month. “That’s what is really attracting . . .the real eyeballs and the real advertising dollars.” Zucker warns that, for networks, sports rights could be growing too costly. Media revenues now account for 35 per cent, or €16bn ($23bn), of a €45bn global sports market that has averaged 6 per cent annual growth since 2005, according to Lagardère, the French media group. “The biggest fear I have is that those new fees [paid by cable and satellite operators to networks] will be taken in and just given to the sports leagues, and that kind of defeats the purpose,” he says. Yet, even as sports boost networks in an increasingly competitive media marketplace, the rising cost of securing rights to broadcast live events is threatening the basic economics of the industry.
benton.org/node/53936 | Financial Times
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CBS PROPOSES NEW TV AD MODEL
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Jack Neff]
Age and sex don't matter when it comes to TV ad effectiveness, said CBS Corp. Chief Research Officer David Poltrack, who has teamed with Nielsen to create what he called a historic move to replace demographics with a new model for TV planning and buying, based on viewer behavior and attitudes. The proposed model is a better predictor of what people buy and what makes them buy than demographics ever were, Poltrack said in a speech to the Advertising Research Foundation's Re:Think 2011 conference in New York. A growing amount of data that matches audience measurement with purchase information shows that using demographics to target commercials is "essentially invalid," he said, "resulting in a misallocation of television advertising investments." Although CBS paid for the extensive research and analysis used to create the new model, the data and analytics surrounding it will be available to all Nielsen clients, including CBS rivals, Poltrack said, "in the spirit of open source." Various parts of Nielsen pitched in, including recently acquired consulting firm Cambridge Group and Nielsen Catalina Solutions, a joint venture that combines data from Nielsen's TV, set-top box, consumer and online panels with Catalina Marketing's shopper loyalty-card purchase data. CBS is also running a series of experiments with advertisers to fine-tune the system, Poltrack said. CBS purchased Nielsen Catalina data for 20 categories in health and beauty, household, pet and food products and has studied 15 of them in depth so far. The data confirmed what other smaller studies have shown in the past, according to Mr. Poltrack: "There is no link, none, between the age of the specified demographic delivery of the campaign and the sales generated by that campaign."
benton.org/node/53860 | AdAge
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
NEW ISSA LETTER
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) wants to know if top Federal Communications Commission officials were discussing network neutrality with the White House while formulating their rules, and how much the White House may have been directing the conversation. Chairman Issa wrote to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski asking as much. In the letter, Chairman Issa informs Chairman Genachowski that his previous response to inquiries on the topic were incomplete, and asks for full records and logs of all meetings. "In the fourteen months since my initial request, the FCC has done little to demonstrate its independence from the White House," Chairman Issa wrote, noting Chairman Genachowski made 81 visits to the White House in less than two years — between January 2009 and November 2010 — according to White House records. "The large volume and timing of the meetings gives the appearance that they are more than coincidental. As such, the Committee requires more information about the nature and substance of these discussions," Chairman Issa said. In addition to a list of all participants and topics discussed at the meetings, Chairman Issa requested all e-mails between White House staffers and the FCC regarding the controversial network neutrality rules, which House Republicans recently voted to repeal. Chairman Issa's requested a reply by Wednesday, April 6.
benton.org/node/53923 | Hill, The | B&C
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COMMUNITY MEDIA
These headlines presented in partnership with:
DEFUNDING PUBLIC MEDIA
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Jim Zarroli]
Over the years, conservatives have often tried to eliminate money for public broadcasting — without succeeding. In 1995, for instance, congressional Republicans tried to zero out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Within a few years, its budget was bigger than ever. This year Congress gave $430 million to CPB, most of which was funneled to public TV and radio stations. And Republicans are once again calling for funding to be eliminated. Pat Butler of the Public Media Association, which lobbies for PBS and public radio, says the odds against public broadcasting are greater this time. "There is a $1.6 trillion federal budget deficit that there wasn't in 1995. There is a much larger and more diverse media universe than there was in 1995," he says. With the proliferation of new media outlets in television and online it's tougher for public broadcasting to argue that it's indispensable. In this climate, the defunding effort is gaining steam, and Butler says people need to understand what's at stake if CPB money is gone. "The first thing that would happen is that hundreds of local public television and radio stations would go dark almost immediately," he says. "Many of the 21,000 jobs that are represented in public broadcasting would just disappear." The stations most at risk are small rural outlets.
benton.org/node/53909 | National Public Radio
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