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Speaking to the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications, National Cable and Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow said the cable lobby is making progress in its fight to oppose broadcasters' push for "multicast must carry" (under which local cable operators would be forced to cover all of digital TV broadcasters signals, not just a primary one). But he wouldn't say whether cable operators will reach a compromise with broadcasters on congressional legislation that would give broadcasters carriage of a primary stream and two additional digital channels after the digital transition. "I have heard everything under the sun, but I haven't heard an official proposal," he said. He also appeared unsure when Congress will take up the issue. It could be next week or Oct. 19, when the Senate Commerce Committee is expected to mark up a DTV bill that includes a hard digital transition date, renewal of spectrum authority and a subsidy provision. The bill will be part of the budget reconciliation package that must be delivered to the Senate Budget Committee. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has said he plans a 2nd DTV bill that would deal with other provisions, including multicast mustcarry, but no timing is set for that bill. The House Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) opposes including a multicast provision in a DTV bill. McSlarrow said cable operators are making an argument based on diversity: "If the broadcasters are going to get a claim on the cable pipe broader than we think they have a right to," it will hinder diversity of viewpoints. "The one place we know in the TV industry that has provided the source of diversity that we now take for granted is the cable industry. It hasn't been the broadcasters."
(Not available online)
See also:
* McSlarrow: Multicast an Uphill Fight
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6262208.html?display=Breaking+News

Twenty representatives, including many members of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, have written Subcommittee Chairmen Fred Upton (R-MI) and Ed Markey (D-MA) backing reinstatement of the broadcast flag. They argue that the flag is necessary to spur the transition to digital and to preserve free TV by making it competitive with other media. "The timely preservation of free, over-the-air television is essential to a smooth and timely transition to digital television, and the implementation of the broadcast flag plays a vital role in this undertaking," the lawmakers wrote. Public Knowledge responded Friday: “We agree with the letter in its view of the importance of local broadcasting as a provider of local news, events and information to consumers. However, we see no link between the continued provision of that valuable service and the broadcast flag. There is no evidence even to suggest that any programming would be withheld without a broadcast flag regime."
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Walter Cronkite, who retired from the anchor chair in 1981, has had a quarter-century to watch broadcast news from the sidelines, and he doesn't think the current generation of TV journalists is doing a bad job. Corporate broadcast owners, though, are another story, says Cronkite. He believes they are paying more attention to Wall Street than to the health of the democracy at a time when the nation's dedication to education has wavered. "We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders," Cronkite, 88, said during a day of speeches and interviews Tuesday at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, where he helped present the biannual Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism. Cronkite issued a call-to-arms for fellow journalists — primarily broadcast -- to pressure "our employers, those who are more concerned with profits than they are with performance," to replace the current roundups of celebrity profiles and personal health and finance pieces with "the news of the day." "If we fail at that," Cronkite said, "our democracy, our republic, I think, is in serious danger."
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Be afraid of the big, bad wolf no more. The FCC has decided there's effective competition in the Commercial Mobile Radio Service market. In a report to Congress, the FCC said that 97% of the total U.S. population lives in counties with at least 3 mobile service operators, the same as a year earlier, and up from 88% in 2000, the first year for which statistics were kept. It said 93% lives in counties with at least 4 operators and 87% with 5 or more; both figures are roughly the same as in the previous year. The report will probably come under some scrutiny; in the year since the last report, Cingular has merged with AT&T Wireless, Sprint with Nextel and Alltel with Western Wireless. The FCC said the most telling signs of competitive pressure is carriers' innovative pricing plans and new service offerings. Consumer behavior is another competition indicator, the FCC said. Churn rates averaged at 1.5%-3% per month in 2004, a slight decline from the previous year. Introduction of local number portability in Nov. 2003 “put added pressure on carriers to improve service quality” to keep customers. The FCC also said the number of mobile telephone subscribers in the U.S. in 2004 grew to 184.7 million from 160.6 million, increasing penetration to about 62%. The average monthly minutes of use per subscriber rose to more than 580 in the 2nd half of 2004 from 507 in 2003 and 427 in 2002, it said. Revenue per minute fell 12% during 2004 and the cellular consumer price index (CPI) declined 1%, while the CPI rose 2.7% overall, the FCC said. It said the volume of text messaging traffic grew to 4.7 billion messages per month in Dec. 2004, more than double the 2 billion a year earlier.
[SOURCE: Communications Daily, AUTHOR: Susan Polyakova]
(Not available online)

* FCC Press Release: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-261444A1.doc

* Full report: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-173A1.doc

* Statement from Commissioner Copps:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-05-173A2.doc