Benton RSS Feed

American Community Television (ACT) has called for a commitment to public, educational and government (PEG) channels as part of any AT&T/T-Mobile merger.

The group pointed to Comcast's "willingness" to make PEG access commitments in securing Federal Communications Commission approval of its deal to join up with NBCU, and wants the AT&T/T-Mobile meld to include PEG provisions on AT&T's U-Verse video service. Comcast pledged not to move PEG channels to digital until a community was ready or its system went all-digital, and to "safeguard the continued accessibility and signal quality of PEG channels on its cable television systems and introduce new on demand and online platforms for PEG content." ACT has complained that the channels on U-Verse, which is already digital and so has no migration issues, are hard to find and suffer from bad transmission quality. They also complain that AT&T charges communities for the cost of transmission, pointing to a March 2008 video they said illustrated the problems.

[Commentary] Where have you gone Walter Cronkite?

Time was, the White House would request networks give it a prime-time spot for a Presidential address -- perhaps on a topic as critical as, say, launching missiles in a distant land to fight a dictator versed in terrorism and prevent genocide. Those requests were largely pro forma. ABC, CBS and NBC would say yes, no problem. The trio could use the speech to provide exposure for their news operations. Maybe they also felt that, since they were on the public airwaves, providing the President with a chance to reach the most people was good public service.

No longer. Even a President promising to answer questions about a military initiative with an unclear national interest isn't considered a bankable star. It’s not a sure bet a network will alter its schedule for the Commander in Chief and his commercial-free programming. And the White House seems willing to play along. The latest example came Monday with the President’s Libyan speech. ABC wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of having to preempt “Dancing with the Stars,” while the other networks weren't keen on schedule changes either. The White House apparently understood and negotiations with the networks resulted in the speech airing at 7:30 p.m., according to the New York Times. And as it turned out, networks actually gave up no air time for the address, instead nudging its affiliates to give up the ad revenue.

[Commentary] What to make of LightSquared?

The newest entrant on the mobile broadband scene has a bold plan, but there seems to be so many obstacles preventing it from executing that plan. Ask the financial analysts, they smirk and say “show me the money.” Talk to the GPS folks, who will have a big say in whether LightSquared’s plans become reality, and they claim there’s no way LightSquared can build a long-term evolution (LTE) network that won't bring down the global positioning services that so many industries depend on. But there’s no denying that a lot of people want to buy what LightSquared is selling. Reports are emerging left and right that LightSquared is in discussions with cable operator A, regional wireline operator B or retail brand C. According to LightSquared it’s already landed five contracts, is in final negotiations with 15 entities and in discussions with 60 total. Maybe this is horse or carrot situation: To raise money, LightSquared first has to prove it will make money. Or LightSquared could be taking the same approach to its network build as AT&T is taking with its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile: If you make something seem inevitable then maybe it becomes inevitable.

Amazon's new Cloud Drive enables consumers to store music remotely in the cloud and access it wherever they go.

Here, a look at some of the concerns consumer advocates and analysts have about Amazon's service and the implications for rival services that Apple and Google may have in the works. There's no charge for Amazon's music customers to store up to 5 gigabytes of music in the cloud. Amazon MP3 purchases also won't count against this quota and customers who purchase one MP3 album will receive an additional 20 gigabytes of storage. But for storage beyond this, NPR's analysis found it will cost about $1 per gigabyte. Consumer Reports notes that it still isn't clear whether Amazon will encounter opposition from music labels, which have "traditionally fought new business models that utilize music from their artists without compensation." The downside to using any one company's service is that if you later change your mind later about the devices you want to own, it may be harder than you think to switch gears and you may have to upload your content again.

paidContent.org notes that Amazon has launched its new online music locker and streamer without any licenses from the labels whose material it will store and distribute, the labels’ umbrella group IFPI tells paidContent. Not a problem, replies Amazon -- licenses aren't necessary for its new Cloud Drive. That could open the retailer to legal complaints from those labels, one of which, EMI, has previously sued a similar-sounding service, MP3.com founder Michael Robertson’s web-based music lockers MP3Tunes and Sideload.com. But Amazon resists any suggestion that it needs licenses for storage. The company says: “We do not need a license to store music in Cloud Drive. The functionality of saving MP3s to Cloud Drive is the same as if a customer were to save their music to an external hard drive or even iTunes.”