BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2014
Today’s events http://benton.org/calendar/2014-10-30/
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Verizon’s Response to Senator Patrick Leahy - press release
OWNERSHIP
Why Some Comcast/TWC Deal Concerns Don't Matter: Analysts
TELEVISION
Unpacking the FCC’s Online Video Proposal - analysis [links to web]
Let the Internet Take On Cable - editorial
HBO Explores the ‘How’ of Streaming Option [links to web]
CONTENT
You are what you Facebook ‘like’
Why Netflix sends 'Orange is the New Black' to the Library of Congress on videotape (And why the library hopes that's going to change) [links to web]
CYBERSECURITY
Cyber Attacks Likely to Increase, Pew Finds - research [links to web]
DIVERSITY
US CTO Megan Smith: Tech has a diversity problem, and it’s up to us to fix it [links to web]
TELECOM
Could Time Warner Cable’s Phone 2 Go App Stem Landline Cord Cutting? [links to web]
European telecom consolidation: hold the line please - analysis [links to web]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Highly-wired millennials remain wary of taking their politics offline [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
What’s in a ‘scoop’? The White House has a strategy for that.
Unfinished Business on Press Freedom - NYTimes editorial
Can Authorities Cut Off Utilities And Pose As Repairmen To Search A Home? [links to web]
COMPANY NEWS
Verizon will pay $64 million to settle claims over Family Plan over-billing [links to web]
Comcast agrees to $50 million settlement in 11-year-old class action antitrust suit [links to web]
Almost as many people use Facebook as live in the entire country of China [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
VERIZON ON PAID PRIORITIZATION
[SOURCE: Verizon, AUTHOR: Press release]
In a letter to Sen Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam says the company has not and is not using “paid prioritization,” does not hinder or slow consumers’ Internet traffic to the advantage of others’, and is on record numerous times as saying that it has no plans to undertake the hypothetical “paid prioritization” business model. In fact, no major broadband provider has ever implemented paid prioritization, most have disavowed any interest in doing so, and no one has even offered a clear business case for paid prioritization. The debate over this hypothetical business model really is just a political bait and switch by interest groups intended to divert attention from the fact that they are calling on the FCC to change the rules under which the Internet has operated successfully for twenty years.
benton.org/headlines/verizons-response-senator-patrick-leahy | Verizon
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OWNERSHIP
COMCAST/TWC
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In a note to investors, BernsteinResearch says it still expects the Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger to be approved by the Federal Communications Commission -- with conditions -- and close by the end of first quarter 2015 or the beginning of the second quarter. While it notes that sentiment has become more negative on the deal following the FCC's stopping of the shot clock on the transaction, it suggests that and other concerns of investors are overstated. The BernsteinResearch team, led by senior analyst Paul de Sa, points out that procedural disputes like those that stopped the clock -- access to contracts, incomplete filings -- are typical in large and controversial mergers. They point out that the clock was stopped once for the Comcast/NBCU merger and twice for the Verizon/SpectrumCo deal (both of which were approved). They also downplay the concerns that the FCC may establish a speed threshold for the Internet access marketplace, arguing that the competitive marketplace is local, not national, and offered speeds are not relevant. They say proving market power in interconnection would be tough.
benton.org/headlines/why-some-comcasttwc-deal-concerns-dont-matter-analysts | Multichannel News
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TELEVISION
LET INTERNET TAKE ON CABLE TV
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Vikas Bajaj]
[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler wants to allow businesses like Aereo and Sony to register as cable companies. This would allow those companies to strike deals to carry the TV stations owned by media businesses like Viacom, NBC and Time Warner. This is a good step and should provide consumers more choices. But even if the FCC were to adopt Wheeler’s proposal, it would be naïve to expect big changes right away. Still, giving more companies access to TV channels will shake up the cable and media businesses.
benton.org/headlines/let-internet-take-cable | New York Times
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CONTENT
YOU ARE WHAT YOU LIKE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Caitlin Dewey]
To Facebook -- the 1.35-billion-user behemoth where we increasingly record our daily choices -- no person, comment or casual thumbs-up is isolated: Everything is part of a larger pattern. Facebook is inferring millions correlations, based on billions of disparate data points, predicting any number of user behaviors. In many cases, it’s also selling those data points back to advertisers, political campaigns and other people who are interested in manipulating all the tiny daily choices you make. In an update made to Facebook’s ad platform in May, the site released a trove of new, anonymized data to advertisers, showing them -- among other things -- the demographics and “liked” pages of potential customers, the better to help companies learn their “interests and behaviors.”
benton.org/headlines/you-are-what-you-facebook | Washington Post
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
WHAT’S A SCOOP?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Farhi]
US Presidents, of course, have long manipulated select members of the news media with “exclusives” designed to maximize an announcement’s impact and enhance the administration’s standing. The Obama White House is no different, but it has played the game a little differently. It doles out scoops irregularly, White House reporters say, and does so primarily to news outlets with a perceived expertise or special authority on a topic. In effect, it follows a strategy of market segmentation, steering leaks to a very short list of strategically valuable publications and journalists. Meanwhile, the rest of the media, including journalists the White House deems especially tough or ideologically hostile, are left to chase the day’s official leak.
benton.org/headlines/whats-scoop-white-house-has-strategy | Washington Post
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PRESS FREEDOM
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., who announced his planned resignation in September, bears responsibility for undermining robust journalism by his overzealous leak investigations and his opposition to recognizing a reporter’s constitutional or common law privilege to protect sources. Perhaps seeking to improve on that dismal record, AG Holder issued new guidelines in February concerning prosecutors’ use of subpoenas and search warrants to obtain information from reporters. Those guidelines include some valuable changes, but they also contain a central flaw that requires prompt correction, as a group of media representatives will be urging at a meeting with Justice Department officials. Instead of retaining straightforward language telling prosecutors not to “impair the news-gathering function” from the previous set of guidelines, new wording unveiled with release of the overhauled guidelines in February calls for avoiding the issuance of subpoenas that “might unreasonably impair ordinary news gathering.” The change could invite prosecutors in the future to claim that news gathering that entails the disclosure of classified information (as national security reporting typically does) is out of the “ordinary” and, therefore, exempted from the guidelines.
benton.org/headlines/unfinished-business-press-freedom | New York Times
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