Ownership

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker is delivering her annual rapid-fire internet trends report. Here’s a first look at the most highly anticipated slide deck in Silicon Valley:
Global smartphone growth is slowing: Smartphone shipments grew 3 percent year over year last year, versus 10 percent the year before. This is in addition to continued slowing internet growth, which Meeker discussed last year.
Voice is beginning to replace typing in online queries. Twenty percent of mobile queries were made via voice in 2016, while accuracy is now about 95 percent.
In 10 years, Netflix went from 0 to more than 30 percent of home entertainment revenue in the U.S. This is happening while TV viewership continues to decline.

Data, data, data. Who’s got it? Tech giants like Google and Facebook, who provide a service directly to their users, and then use that data for ad targeting. It’s why they are dominating online advertising today. Who doesn’t? A traditional media giant like Time Warner, which owns brands like HBO and CNN, but which doesn’t have a direct connection with viewers because it sells its channels through a cable provider. That, in essence, is why Time Warner has agreed to sell itself to AT&T — a company that has a direct link with consumers — Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said.

Internet service providers have been among the fiercest critics of the Federal Communications Commission’s two-year-old network neutrality rules aimed at preventing companies like Verizon and Comcast from dictating how fast — or slow — online content can be accessed. That doesn’t mean ISPs oppose network neutrality — they just have a different definition for it, Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen said during a panel discussion in Washington.

Cohen endorsed the recent FCC move that begins reversing Obama-era rules that classified the internet as a “utility” under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. “Getting rid of Title II does not mean getting rid of net neutrality,” Cohen said at Free State Foundation’s telecommunications policy conference. “You can support net neutrality rules, but you don’t have to do that under all of the baggage that comes with Title II.”

Licensed spectrum remains perhaps the most important building block in the wireless industry. As a result, nationwide carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint are eager to both obtain suitable spectrum holdings across the country, and to use those spectrum licenses in the most effective way possible. But where exactly do these nationwide carriers own spectrum? And what type of spectrum do they own? And how much?

To answer these questions, FierceWireless has once again partnered with Allnet Insights & Analytics, a wireless spectrum research and analysis firm, to map out exactly how much spectrum each of the four Tier 1 nationwide US wireless carriers currently owns. Also included in this list is Dish Network, which for the past several years has been quietly accumulating a war chest of spectrum that today almost rivals that of T-Mobile. These maps and charts include all pending spectrum transactions filed before April 30, 2017 (the FCC reviews all license spectrum transactions). Importantly, these maps and charts also include the results of the FCC’s recently completed incentive auction of TV broadcasters’ unwanted 600 MHz licenses. For complete details on the results of that auction, click here. Allnet Insights' data also includes the spectrum AT&T is getting access to through its partnership with FirstNet.

The New York Times offered buyouts to its newsroom employees, aiming to reduce layers of editing and requiring more of the editors who remain. In a memo to the newsroom, Dean Baquet, the executive editor, and Joseph Kahn, the managing editor, said the current system of “backfielders” and copy editors — two separate groups who have different tasks before a story is published — would be replaced with a single group of editors who would be responsible for all aspects of a story. Another editor would be “looking over their shoulders before publication.”

In a separate memo, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, said The Times would be eliminating the position of public editor. Liz Spayd, the current public editor, will leave The Times on June 2. The buyouts are aimed primarily at editors, but reporters and others in the newsroom would be free to apply as well, the memo said. Baquet and Kahn said that the savings would be used to hire as many as 100 more journalists.

Makan Delrahim, who's expected to be confirmed this week as head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, believes some so-called vertical mergers (such as the proposed AT&T-Time Warner deal) could pose anticompetitive concerns. He also said he will "vigorously enforce antitrust laws with respect to online platforms." "Just because a transaction or particular types of transactions have been approved in the past does not mean that they could not raise competitive concerns in the future," he said in written responses to questions submitted by Senators after Delrahim's short confirmation hearing.

Several advocacy groups have asked the United States Court of Appeals in Washington to stay the Federal Communications Commission’s April 20 decision to relax the national TV ownership cap by restoring the UHF discount in calculating station group coverage.

The effect of the FCC action is to lift the allowable coverage from 39% of TV homes to 78% assuming that all groups in a market are served by UHF stations. The immediate effect of the stay would be to derail Sinclair's proposed $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media that would balloon Sinclair's coverage from just below 39% to 72%. The motion for emergency stay pending a full review of the FCC action was filed by the Institute for Public Representations at Georgetown University Law Center on behalf of Free Press, Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Prometheus Radio Project, Media Mobilizing Project, Media Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, and Common Cause. The court has given the FCC until June 1 to respond to the motion.