Postings on media issues from Benton.org (most recent at top)

March 2006

(Mar 30) BATTLE FOR THE WEB [SOURCE: Toronto Star, AUTHOR: Tyler Hamilton] Tim Berners-Lee, chief architect of the World Wide Web, says his world-changing invention would no longer be an "open information space" if broadband providers abandoned the principle of Net neutrality. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Berners-Lee said he's "very concerned" about talk from major North America phone and cable giants about their desire to collect so-called Web tolls from content suppliers and e-commerce companies that want assured access to broadband subscribers. "It stops being the Net if a supplier of downloaded video pays to connect to a particular set of consumers who are connected to a particular cable company. It would no longer be an open information space," Berners-Lee said. "The whole point of the Web is when you arrive it's more or less the same for everybody. That integrity is really essential. ... I'm very concerned." His comments come as a major public-policy debate on net neutrality rages in the United States and, in Canada, is just beginning to heat up. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1143499812060&call_pageid=968350072197&StarSource=RSS

WHY NOT RESTRUCTURE JOURNALISM AS A LOCAL TRUST? [SOURCE: David Bollier's blog] [Commentary] It used to be that journalism was called a public trust. Now it’s mostly considered an under-leveraged market asset. Everywhere you look, the drive to monetize the readership and credibility of journalism is leading to its degradation. It’s demoralizing, it’s bad for our democracy, and it’s destructive of local civic culture. But here’s a fascinating idea: Why not regard journalism as a trust -- literally? That’s what they do at the New London Day (Connecticut), the St. Petersburg Times (Florida), the Manchester Union Leader (New Hampshire) and the Anniston Star (Alabama). Meetup.com, the Daily Kos, MoveOn.org and other Internet venues have shown that, in today’s networked environment, it is actually possible to pursue the collective goals of thousands of ordinary people. Maybe we should be pondering a new future for journalism and local newspapers as citizen-owned trusts. The results could only be beneficial for journalism, for democracy, and for us commoners. http://onthecommons.org/node/850

(Mar 27) THINK THE INTERNET WILL REPLACE TV? THINK AGAIN [SOURCE: Blog Maverick, AUTHOR: Mark Cuban] [Commentary] Cuban quotes Craig Moffet of Bernstein Research to counter anyone who believes that the Internet as alternative to TV is just around the corner, or will happen this decade for that matter. Moffet recently testified before the Senate Commerce Committee saying, "despite a great deal of arm waving from 'visionaries,' our telecommunications infrastructure is woefully unprepared for widespread delivery of advanced services, especially video, over the Internet. Downloading a single half hour TV show on the web consumes more bandwidth than does receiving 200 emails a day for a full year. Downloading a single high definition movie consumes more bandwidth than does the downloading of 35,000 web pages; it’s the equivalent of downloading 2,300 songs over Apple’s iTunes web site. Today’s networks simply aren't scaled for that. In a series of recent research reports, The Dumb pipe Paradox, I tried to address the expectation that the telcos are rapidly rushing in to meet this need and to provide competition for cable incumbents. In fact, by their own best estimates, they'll be able to reach no more than 40% or so of American households with fiber over the next seven years. In 60% of the country, there are simply no new networks on the horizon, and the existing infrastructure from the telcos DSL running at speeds of just 1.5Mbs or so simply won't be adequate to be considered 'broadband' in five years or so." http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000173073592

WHO OWNS THE INTERNET? A MAP THAT SHOWS YOU [SOURCE: CIO Blogs, AUTHOR: Ben Worthen] A graphical look at corporate ownership of Internet routes. http://blogs.cio.com/node/209

SURVEY OFFERS A 'SNEAK PEAK' INTO NET SURFERS' BRAINS [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Edward C. Baig] Nielsen Norman Group is releasing a study today on how people read web pages. As more business shifts to the Internet, the study findings show companies still have much to learn about how best to present an online image. Findings include: 1) Individuals read Web pages in an “F” pattern. They're more inclined to read longer sentences at the top of a page and less and less as they scroll down. That makes the first two words of a sentence very important. “People are extremely good at screening out things and focusing in on a small number of salient page elements,” says Jakob Nielsen, a principal at the firm. 2) Surfers connect well with images of people looking directly at them. It helps if the person in the photo is attractive, but not too good looking. Photos of people who are clearly professional models are a turnoff. “The person has to be approachable,” Pernice Coyne says. 3) Images in the middle of a page can present an obstacle course. 4) People respond to pictures that provide useful information, not just decoration. 5) Consumers will peek at ads in search engines as a “secondary thing,” Nielsen says, since they usually have specific product targets in mind. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20060327/web_use27.art.htm

PUBLISHERS WANTED [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Robert G. Kaiser] [Commentary] Anyone want to buy a paper? Consider the rewards of being a newspaper proprietor. A newspaper with smart reporters and editors and a public-spirited owner can improve its community, raise the quality of its public and private institutions and enhance the lives of its citizens in countless ways. A good newspaper holds powerful people accountable for the way they use their power. The paper can unify a community, helping its residents understand how different segments of the population live, work, entertain themselves and more. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032600877.html (requires registration)

NORWAY PLANS TO TIGHTEN MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES [SOURCE: Reuters] Norway's government said on Friday that it planned to tighten media ownership limits, which would curb growth opportunities at home for Norway's top media group, Schibsted. Culture Minister Trond Giske said that companies could not have more than a third of the total daily circulation of all newspapers, a third of total television viewers or a third of the total radio audience. The current limit is 40 percent. http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=media&storyID=nL24641753&imageid=&cap

KENYA PLANS NEW RULES [SOURCE: journalism.co.za] The Kenyan government will regulate cross-media ownership, training and remuneration of journalists. Information and Communications minister Mutahi Kagwe on Wednesday said cross-ownership would be addressed to ensure that Kenyans got a variety of voices. Kagwe said control of ownership was necessary considering that frequencies were an expensive public resource that should benefit all. He said the public had a right to choose from a multiplicity of voices in a free market of ideas. http://www.journalism.co.za/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3821&CAMSSID=6a1ae8deeaa67c85425e0e9af4343ad2

THE FREEDOM TO DESCRIBE DICTATORSHIP [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jackson Diehl] [Commentary] A look at the importance of the newspaper al-Masri al-Yom, or the Daily Egyptian, a new voice in the country. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032600879.html (requires registration)

(Mar 24) WHOSE INTERNET IS IT, ANYWAY? [SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] [Commentary] The hot debate over "Net neutrality" has spilled beyond Internet chat rooms and into Congress. The concept that those who own the "pipes" can't dictate what goes through them has made the Internet an engine for individual and economic growth. An Internet with gatekeepers threatens the Net's creative soul. "Net neutrality" simply means that data - a phone call, an e-mail, a video - can travel freely over the Internet without the interference of those who own parts of the pipeline. Those transmitting it shouldn't discriminate as long as the content is legal and doesn't damage the system. The phone companies argue that competition between carriers will prevent abuses. If customers feel unfairly treated by one provider, they can switch to another. But no such competition exists. A handful of cable TV and phone companies control the lion's share of US broadband Internet access. Many consumers have no choice among broadband providers. The acquisition of Bell South by AT&T, now under way, shows that competition is shrinking, not expanding. If Congress fails to act, the only hope may be that neutrality advocates can open up a "third pipe" to homes, even if only in some key markets. That might create just enough competition to keep the cable-phone duopoly honest. That third pipe might be a municipal wireless (WiFi) network, another wireless system, or some future technology. Pipeline owners shouldn't choose winners and losers in the online marketplace. Tollbooths and gates are the last thing the Net needs. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/p08s02-comv.html

BROADBAND GIANTS SAY NET NEUTRALITY FEARS MISGUIDED [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon] Executives from AT&T and Verizon have tried to set the record straight on Net neutrality by explaining the kinds of service their companies would like to offer content providers. They that their companies have no intention of degrading or blocking other companies' traffic that rides over the public Internet. Instead AT&T and Verizon would simply like to offer content companies, such as Google and Movielink, virtual pipes directly to consumers over their broadband connections that would allow these content companies to make sure users at home have a good experience accessing their content. http://news.com.com/Broadband+giants+say+Net+neutrality+fears+misguided/2100-1034_3-6052986.html?tag=nefd.lede

 TV EXECS CALL FOR DEREGULATION [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Allison Romano] No, Virginia, the media ownership debate hasn't gone away; it is just heating up. As local broadcasters strive to increase revenues and improve margins, top executives from several major station groups renewed their calls Thursday for deregulation and the revamping of the TV-ownership rules. Under the current guidelines, a company can own stations reaching no more than 39% of the country. Calling the formula "ludicrous," NBC Universal Television Stations President Jay Ireland said, "We are now at 31% [of the country]. New York City is 6%, and that is if every viewer watched WNBC every day. Come on. We know what our ratings are, and we are a sliver. The broadcast industry is getting left in the dust." Former NBC executive Brandon Burgess, now CEO of Ion Media Networks (formerly Paxson Communications), says regulation is stymieing broadcaster innovations. "If some of the artificial and nonsensical limitations are eliminated, then our industry will be less punished," Burgess said. "This is a mature industry, and mature industries consolidate," said Nexstar Broadcasting CEO Perry Sook. "Hence the need for deregulation." http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6318567.html?display=Breaking+News

TV AND TOP MARKETERS DISCUSS STATE OF MEDIUM [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Julie Bosman] The future of television advertising was the main topic of discussion at a conference of the Association of National Advertisers on Wednesday, meant as a prelude to the upfront market in May. That is when television networks introduce new programming and companies reconsider the division of their advertising dollars among print, television, Internet and other media. Among themselves, advertising executives often declare the 30-second spot dead. But to hear television executives tell it, not only does television remain a potent medium, but those little ads are still going strong. The main concern about TV advertising, said Josh Bernoff, the vice president for devices, media and marketing at Forrester Research, is the digital video recorder. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/business/media/24adco.html (requires registration)

THEATERS IN A CELLPHONE JAM [SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Gloria Goodale] This past week the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) pondered blocking cellphone signals as a way to improve the cinema experience. The idea was a hot topic this past week when theater owners from coast to coast met to preview the summer lineups from movie studios and trade tips on combating falling movie theater attendance. The 6,000-strong membership of NATO voted to authorize its board to look into changing federal laws that currently prevent them from using cellphone-jamming equipment in theaters. Not surprisingly, the cellular industry's national trade group, CTIA - The Wireless Association, is against the idea. "We're vehemently opposed for the simple reason that it's no one's right or prerogative to deny emergency communications to go through," says John Walls, CTIA vice president of public affairs. "That's why jamming is illegal. These are the public airwaves - they are for everyone, and everyone has a right to use them." Companies that manufacture jamming equipment are also opposed, on similar grounds. "Jamming equipment should only be used by the government, such as the police and the bomb squads, not the general public," says Howard Melamed of CellAntenna, one such company. "Jamming is a weapon that should only be used against illegal activities." http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0324/p11s01-almo.html

IN A WAR OF WORDS, FAMED ENCYCLOPEDIA DEFENDS ITS TURF [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sarah Ellison sarah.ellison@wsj.com] The venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica is launching an unusual public war to defend itself against a scientific article that argued it's scarcely better than a free-for-all Web upstart. On Dec. 15, the scientific journal Nature ran a two-page "special report" titled "Internet encyclopedias go head to head." It compared the accuracy of science entries for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the online version of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Founded in 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britannica is painstakingly compiled by a collection of scholars and other experts around the world. Wikipedia came to life in California five years ago under a "user-generated" model: That is, anyone who wants to can contribute, or change, an entry. The scrape comes as Encyclopaedia Britannica, once a household staple, has struggled to maintain its relevance in a world of free search engines and online research tools. The company, which stopped selling encyclopedias door to door in 1996 in the U.S. and Canada, is part of Luxembourg-based Encyclopaedia Britannica Holding SA. Today, only a third of its profits come from its print encyclopedias. The rest is made up in online subscriptions and other ventures. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114317139889807191.html?mod=todays_us_page_one (requires subscription)

(Mar 22) NO BUNDLE OF JOY [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Yuki Noguchi] Big telecom and cable TV companies say such "bundles" of service are the way of the future, and the concept is driving huge corporate mergers that are remaking the consumer marketplace. But customers have been slow to pick up on the notion, and those who have, such as Mabry, sometimes find that the reality has yet to match the vision. "The assumption that everybody wants a bundle is flawed," said Maribel Lopez, an analyst with Forrester Research. Surveys show that only 5 percent of subscribers buy bundled services, and only about quarter of consumers are interested in buying all their services from a single provider, she said. Some buyers remember the days of being in the driver's seat as they played long-distance providers off one another for better deals, and they are reluctant to put all their subscriptions in the hands of a single company in an industry whose customer service is notoriously inconsistent. The more services added to the bundle, the fewer people it appeals to, Lopez said. Customers who buy bundles usually buy only two or three services at once, primarily to get a discount on the total bill. Over time, cable and telephone operators say the bigger selling point will come from tying the services together in innovative ways -- making it possible, for example, to record and view television programming on a cellphone. From the companies' standpoint, the more customers buy in bundles, the less likely they are to switch providers. That's why phone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. are spending billions of dollars on fiber-optic lines to deliver Internet and television services -- so they can lure subscribers from cable providers and wrap them up with full-service packages. The pending merger of AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. is also partly about trying to speed the rollout of Internet-based TV. And consumers are beginning to cross boundaries in search of better deals. Five million households get phone service from their cable provider, and 1.5 million customers get satellite television on the same bill as Internet and phone, according to Bruce Leichtman, head of Leichtman Research Group. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/21/AR2006032101734.html (requires registration)

A LA CARTE: GOOD SLOGAN, BAD POLICY [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] "À La Carte is a great bumper sticker because people say, 'Why should you pay for channels you don't watch?" National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow told a crowd of cable marketers Tuesday, but "the business model is one that the channels you don't watch pay for the ones you do watch. À La carte means you pay more for less," he said, adding, "Even in Washington, I don't think that is viewed as an ideal public-policy outcome." http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6317535?display=Breaking+News

NO BREACH SEEN IN WORK IN IRAQ ON PROPAGANDA [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Thom Shanker] An inquiry has found that an American public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles, military officials said Tuesday. The finding leaves to the Defense Department the decision on whether new rules are needed to govern such activities. The inquiry, which has not yet been made public, was ordered by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, after it was disclosed in November that the military had used the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, to plant articles written by American troops in Iraqi newspapers while hiding the source of the articles. The final report was described by officials in Washington and Iraq who have read or been briefed on it and were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it. Pentagon officials said Tuesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was considering new policies for regional commanders to clarify existing doctrine and rules on military communications and information operations. Officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq said the Lincoln Group's contract remained fully in effect. The group's work, under a contract estimated at several million dollars, has included paying friendly Iraqi journalists stipends for favorable treatment. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/politics/22lincoln.html?hp&ex=1143090000&en=30f92914d9603f95&ei=5094&partner=homepage (requires registration)

 REGULATING LIKE IT'S 1969 [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] Networks and their distribution partners in cable and satellite, prodded by the Internet and devices such as TiVo and Slingbox, are slowly ceding control to viewers and making it possible for them to watch shows when and where they want. Nevertheless, the Federal Communications Commission, in regulating indecent content, acts as if over-the-air broadcasting reigns supreme. Granted, television has become increasingly coarse, graphic and titillating. As FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin notes, complaints about unsuitable programs have risen dramatically -- thanks in no small measure to organized e-mail campaigns by groups such as the Parents Television Council. But the FCC is ill-suited to the parental task of protecting impressionable minds from corrupting images. For starters, the commission's ever-shifting membership leads to a lack of clarity about what is and isn't permissible. It also levies fines capriciously. As programs move to new venues and time slots, much of it at viewers' control, it's irrational to think that the feds can shield children by cracking down on what local broadcasters show. The commission should stop trying to censor broadcast programming and focus instead on helping parents understand and use the tools available to police their television sets. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-fcc22mar22,1,2590639.story?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)

AS MARKET SHIFTS, NEWSPAPERS TRY TO LURE NEW, YOUNG READERS [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Julia Angwin julia.angwin@wsj.com & Joe Hagan joe.hagan@wsj.com] Looking for ways to shore up their readership and broaden appeal to advertisers, many U.S. newspapers are adopting a new tactic: targeting narrower and younger audiences. Newspapers are launching youth-oriented publications designed to attract smaller advertisers that can't afford mainstream papers. They're building search engines to compete with Google and Yahoo on a local level. And they are offering "self-serve" classified-ad Web sites, where consumers can create their own ads. In many cases, profits are small, but papers are willing to take the hit in order to break into new markets. "In the past what newspapers did well was reach broad audiences, but that is not where the growth is occurring," says Scott Flanders, chief executive of Freedom Communications Inc., the closely held parent of the Orange County Register in California and other publications. "If we're going to get growth, it will come from capturing new readers, being able to segment them and being able to let advertisers target audiences." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114299723393804903.html?mod=todays_us_page_one (requires subscription)

REATIVE COMMONS LICENSE UPHELD IN COURT [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Ingrid Marson] This is one of the first times that the license--which offers more flexibility than traditional copyright licenses--has been tested in a court of law. Former MTV VJ Adam Curry sued Weekend, a Dutch gossip magazine, for copyright infringement after the magazine published photos of Curry's daughter without his authorization. The photos, which Curry had posted on the Flickr photo-sharing site, were covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license, which states that while the licensed content can be used freely for noncommercial purposes as long as the source is made clear, the content cannot be used for commercial purposes unless the creator of the content agrees to waive the conditions. The court ruled that Weekend must not use Curry's pictures again or it would face fines of 1,000 euros (about $1,200) for each photo used without permission. http://news.com.com/Creative+Commons+license+upheld+by+court/2100-1030_3-6052292.html?tag=html.alert

JAPAN MOBILE OPERATORS SEE KIDS AS NEW MARKET [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Yukari Iwatani Kane] Mobile operators in Japan have created a new category of phones for grade-school children, equipped with a range of anti-crime safety features, educational content and censored mobile Internet access. Faced with shrinking revenues and profits as a result of increasing competition, mobile operators are hoping young users will help drive future growth even as Japan's overall mobile phone market reaches saturation. Nearly 70 percent of Japanese already own mobile phones. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-03-22T101839Z_01_T15654_RTRUKOC_0_US-TELECOMS-JAPAN-KIDSPHONE.xml

(Mar 21) CHINESE REGULATORS CAUTION TV TALENT SHOWS [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Barboza] One of China's most popular television programs last year, an "American Idol" knockoff called "The Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Supergirl Contest," is apparently about to be reined in by government regulators. The state administration of radio, film and television issued a notice last week that seemed directly aimed at altering the show's format, and possibly keeping it off the air. The slightly rebellious nature of the show, which showed participants in baggy jeans singing with unusual emotion, crying on stage and punching their fists in the air, may have gone too far. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/business/media/21hunan.html (requires registration)

THE TURBULENT WORLD ON NEWS [SOURCE: Economic Principals, AUTHOR: David Warsh] [Commentary] This argument that newspapers are on the ropes misses two key points: the scarcity value of print, and the importance of management. Old advantages die hard. For many of the same reasons that historic cities remain in places for thousands of years -- Paris, London, Rome, Jerusalem and New York are still where they started -- newspapers are likely to remain at the top of the chain that creates and distributes provisional truth and sets the agenda. Because paper and ink are tangible and endure, newspapers are archived, in libraries, on microfilm and in servers; they cannot be changed with a few keystrokes. Because the eye assimilates information much more rapidly than does the ear, newspapers contain much more information than do broadcasts. They hire better people, give them more time to work, offer their readers more durable and satisfying explanations of events than do their electronic brethren. Just as newspapers met the challenges of radio and television, they'll accommodate to the Internet, too, and so remain our most powerful engines of consensus. They'll be smaller, in the future, fewer in number, nimbler, quicker than they were before. Instead of the jumbo jet beloved of city room metaphor, they'll be more like the 737s, 767s and 777s (and, soon enough, the 787s) jets that have replaced the lumbering old behemoths on the forward edge. They'll be more expensive, too, and read by fewer people -- a badge of honor (or an article of conspicuous consumption), a status good, a sign that the reader matters. They'll also be more locally owned, at least in the nation's most vital cities. The problem today is the way the industry has been organized historically, not with newspapers themselves. In their heyday, newspapers were relatively easy to operate. Chains could buy out tired owners of local papers and expect to carry on pretty much as before. Not any more. The selectivity of the McClatchy Company in deciding what to keep and what to sell is a sign of things to come. It seems to me highly unlikely that cities such as Philadelphia and San Jose, or, for that matter, Boston and Los Angeles, are going to remain for long without vigorous independent and locally owned newspapers to cover them. Continuing to wilt under inept management is the alternative. It simply defies the logic of cities that the Chicago Tribune should own the Los Angeles Times, or The New York Times should own The Boston Globe. Newspapers in powerful cities should be locally owned by persons, typically families, involved in their hometown's affairs. Otherwise, they wilt. http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/06.03.19.html

EXPERTS RIP 'SESAME' TV AIMED AT TINIEST TOTS [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Don Oldenburg] How young is too young to park a baby in front of the TV set? The American Academy of Pediatrics's rule has been steadfast: No television under age 2. Now the venerable educational organization that pioneered "Sesame Street" is lowering that age limit with a new DVD series, "Sesame Beginnings," which targets babies and toddlers from 6 months to 2 years. Due in stores April 4, the videos feature baby versions of "Sesame Street's" most beloved characters -- Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Prairie Dawn -- dancing and singing with their Muppet parents and other relatives. The product's launch has frayed some friendships and professional alliances among experts who monitor the impact of media on young minds. "Essentially it is a betrayal of babies and families," says Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan Linn, founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "There is no evidence that media is beneficial for babies, and they are starting to find evidence that it may be harmful. Until we know for sure, we shouldn't risk putting them in front of the television." Research suggests that television viewing by babies could harm language development and sleep patterns. And there's the "instead-of" caveat -- babies and toddlers glued to the tube aren't doing other healthy activities such as creative play and interacting with parents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001801.html(requires registration)

US CITIES WARNED ON LONG-TERM COSTS OF FREE WIRELESS [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Kevin Allison] Municipal wireless experts are urging cities to think twice before rushing to install free wireless networks paid for by advertising amid concerns that they may not be sustainable in the long term. “I think it’s a very dangerous thing for the industry in terms of [cities] jumping on the free bandwagon,” said one consultant involved in wireless projects in San Francisco and other big cities. “These networks need to be financially stable for the long term, and there are still many questions about whether advertising will work.” Experts emphasized that free networks could generate unexpected costs, including the cost of dismantling a network if its business model fails. They also warned that economic development could be thwarted if free networks failed to raise the revenue needed for programmes to provide the poor with computers and other essential tools. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/0336510a-b854-11da-bfc5-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription)

(Mar 17) NO NEWS IS BAD NEWS... [SOURCE: Center for American Progress, AUTHOR: Eric Alterman] [Commentary] The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s third annual “State of the News Media 2006” report couldn't have been released at a more fortuitous time. With the ongoing drama over newspaper chain Knight Ridder’s corporate investors forcing the company to offer itself on the auction block and this week’s news that McClatchy Co. bought it for $6.5 billion, a new round of speculation about the health of the newspaper industry is well underway. Yet another source of journalistic anxiety arose when McClatchy immediately announced that it was selling off 12 of the 32 papers it inherited from Knight Ridder and the little-known fact reported by the San Jose Mercury News (one of the papers to be dumped by McClatchy), that eight of the 12 papers to be sold are union shops. While all this took place after the PEJ study was completed, the congruence of the two events simply added to an increasing sense of foreboding about the industry for nearly everyone who cares about its future. The study itself, which tracked data and a variety of public polls throughout the year (while studying the content of newspapers, magazines and Internet magazines for a single news day, May 11, 2005) is an illuminating look into the bowels of the American media machine. For the day that specific content was tracked, PEJ confirmed something that many close observers certainly suspected: More and more news outlets are crowding themselves around fewer and fewer stories, hitting the public over the head with them until the blood flows from the cranium. Finally, we face the fact of a progressively more confused and fractured public sphere, made up of individuals who have lost the old, binding ties of a shared cultural experience of having trusted news sources in common. Down this road lies a loss of what binds us together as democratic citizens, leaving only consumers in its wake. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1487391

INCREASINGLY, SCOOP IS FOUND ONLINE [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Peter Johnson] Has the home page eclipsed the front page as the go-to place for breaking news and highly touted exclusives? News executives say yes, that on many days and for many stories, their dot-com properties have started to supersede their traditional news products. The shift is being driven by improved broadband and wireless technology, which makes Web video and text more accessible and allows people to get news when and where they want it, whether it's on their home or office computer, on the road via handheld wireless device or by cellphone. The technological revolution is generating fierce competition. As a result, newspaper editors who once saved their best stuff for Page 1, and television producers who held it for the evening news, are increasingly moving quickly to the Web so they don't get scooped. Even local news outlets are erasing decades-old news deadlines and merging online and traditional news teams into 24/7 operations. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20060320/mediamix20.art.htm

WHO WERE THOSE GUYS [SOURCE: Sun Herald (Southern Mississippi), AUTHOR: Karen Nelson] Prior to President Bush's visit to the home of Jerry Akins earlier this month, two government agents posed as Fox journalists and scouted out the location. A spokesman for Secret Service, under Homeland Security, said posing as a journalist is not something the agents typically do. He did suggest they posers might have been with the White House staff or a branch of the military, based on the description of the pins they later used to identify themselves. But Aly Colon, who deals with issues of ethics for the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., said such a scenario undermines the public's trust of the media. "I think when individuals who are not journalists pose as journalists, it creates, at the least, some confusion in the public's minds," Colon said. "The key to journalism is credibility. So what the public wants to be able to do is trust people and organizations who represent themselves as part of the journalistic community." He said such misrepresentations might feed any perception among the public that some news organizations lie about their political ideologies or associations with businesses. http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/14119840.htm

CHINA 'TO BLOCK VOIP CALLS FOR TWO YEARS' [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Justine Lau] China will not allow paid-for calls between computers and conventional telephones for at least two years, according to the head of Tom Online, the Chinese Internet portal which has a joint venture with Skype, the Internet telephony company. In the clearest indication so far of when charged telephone services based on the "voice over Internet protocol" system will be launched in China, Wang Leilei, Tom Online's chief executive said the government "is not going to issue VoIP licences until 2008". http://news.ft.com/cms/s/53360eec-b7bf-11da-b4c2-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription)

BRAVE NEWS WORLD [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Gary Pruitt, Chairman and CEO of the McClatchy Company] [Commentary] Last year, the world celebrated the 400th birthday of the newspaper. Those of us in the business also recognized it as the 399th anniversary of the first prediction of our demise. Speaking as someone whose company is writing a $6.5 billion check to triple its newspaper holdings, I beg to differ. To many, ink spread across newsprint pages seems old-fashioned and destined to disappear. This conventional wisdom has become so pervasive that you can buy the nation's second-largest newspaper group, Knight-Ridder, for a price that would have seemed an unimaginable bargain only a few years ago. But while that kind of thinking might be good for our company -- we were the buyer, after all -- it's wrong. The fact is, newspapers are still among the best media businesses -- and the most important. Even the biggest bears among newspaper analysts acknowledge that the companies still make good money. Their rap is that we're losing readers so fast that the good times can't last. But are we in a precipitous decline? The answer is no. Certainly, we've seen a gradual decline in the number of newspapers sold over a 40- or 50-year time-frame. More recently, circulation began dropping at a rate of 1% every year from 1990 to 2002. Certainly as a percentage of households, newspaper readership has fallen considerably. Meantime, total newspaper advertising volume peaked in 2000 and has slipped 4%, according to the Newspaper Association of America. However, no competitor in local markets has held onto audience as well as newspapers have. Others proliferate -- more TV channels, more radio stations, infinitely more Web sites -- but the number of daily papers stays steady. While we rarely face direct competition, our competitors see more all the time. When the Steelers faced off against the Seahawks in SuperBowl XL last month, 90.7 million people turned in, television's best day of the year. But on that Sunday -- indeed, on an average Sunday in 2004-2005 -- about 124 million people read the Sunday newspaper. Look at it this way: We won Super Sunday, 12-9. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114248254088599844.html?mod=todays_us_opinion (requires subscription) * Don't stop the presses yet [Commentary] The sale of Knight Ridder to a respected newspaper chain shows the industry still has legs - for now. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0316/p08s02-comv.html

TO BLUNT THE WEB'S IMPACT, TV TRIES BUILDING ONLINE FENCES [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz Amy.Schatz@wsj.com and Brooks Barnes brooks.barnes@wsj.com] The TV business depends upon a network of invisible fences and geographic limitations. Now the Web is obliterating them. As broadcasters start to fear the consequences, some are trying new technical and legal tricks to fight back. In some cases, they are even re-creating online the same kinds of geographic boundaries that supported their business before the digital age. The TV industry has long been alarmed about the problem of digital piracy, on the rise now that more viewers watch shows via the Web, iPods and cellphones. The concerns about the industry's geographic structure are a newer and more complex issue. TV studios, for example, make most of their profits through syndication, or selling reruns to local stations in the U.S. and abroad. The business model is based on simple geographic boundaries, and although there is some overlap, stations generally limit their reach to the local market. That gives syndicators 210 different markets in the U.S. alone. International stations add hundreds more. If viewers don't need a local station to watch "Friends" reruns, the show might not fetch as much in syndication. "Nobody is going to pay a very high price for a show that is all over cyberspace," says Don Lundy, general manager of McGraw-Hill Cos.' WRTV station in Indianapolis, an ABC affiliate. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114247750570299759.html?mod=todays_us_page_one (requires subscription)

NEW MANDATE FOR THE BBC: PUT ENTERTAINMENT FIRST [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sarah Lyall] The last few years have been rough for the British Broadcasting Corporation. It lost a bitter fight with the government and suffered the resignation of its top two officials in 2004 over its news coverage of British intelligence leading to the Iraq war. It has reorganized itself up and down, begun to lay off thousands of workers and worried endlessly about its viability at a time when the broadcasting landscape is changing at a dizzying pace. But this week the government threw a crucial lifeline to the Beeb, as it is familiarly called, pledging that it could continue to be financed by the license fee — an annual charge levied on all British television owners — at least through the next decade. Presenting a so-called white paper setting out the government's plans for the corporation, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said on Tuesday that "we are optimists about the BBC" but warned that "it cannot take its position for granted." In a major reorganization of the way the 84-year-old corporation is run, the government also said that it would scrap the BBC board of governors, which serves as both the BBC's champion and its regulator. Under the new system, the board's responsibilities are to be split between an executive board, which will run the corporation, and a separate group, known as the BBC Trust, that will represent the license-fee payers and to which the executive will have to answer. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/arts/television/16bbc.html (requires registration)

IN RISKY MOVE, NEWSCASTS ADOPT PRODUCT PLACEMENTS [SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter, AUTHOR: Gail Schiller] While just about every television genre has jumped on the lucrative product-placement bandwagon, news programs generally have been considered off-limits to preserve editorial integrity. But with TV stations facing increased competition and pressure on advertising revenue, the barriers that shielded news programing from such deals are falling. Product placement, media and branded entertainment agencies say they are increasingly being pitched opportunities from local stations to integrate their clients' products into news programing in exchange for buying commercial time or paying integration fees. "There are more local news stations that are incorporating brands into news in innovative, cutting-edge ways," said Aaron Gordon, president of entertainment marketing firm Set Resources Inc. "The line, which has always been black and white in terms of what's news and what's commercials, is now being blurred." Radio-Television News Directors Association president Barbara Cochran warned that integrating advertisers into news programing could backfire, costing local stations viewers instead of having the intended effect of increasing ad sales. "You're selling the credibility of the news, and if viewers start thinking your news is for sale, then the credibility of your news is lost and your audience is lost," she said. According to RTNDA's ethics guidelines, "news reporting and decision-making should be free of inappropriate commercial influences" and "should not show favoritism to advertisers," and "news organizations should protect the integrity of coverage against any potential conflict of interest." http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/tv_nm/newscasts_dc_1

(Mar 15) BBC MUST REACH 'CONSENSUAL RELATIONSHIP' WITH RIVALS [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Emiko Terazono] The BBC must reach “a more consensual relationship” with its commercial rivals and reconnect with the citizens who fund it, the British government said yesterday as it outlined plans to renew the royal charter of the world’s best-known public sector broadcaster for the next 10 years. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/93a9dd1a-b386-11da-89c7-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription)

YOU'VE GOT (PAID) MAIL [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] [Commentary] America Online may be the country's best-known, and most widely mocked, mass mailer. Every few months the company sends out thousands of promotional CDs, and shortly thereafter most of the shiny plastic discs make their way to nearby landfills -- unless they're converted to beer coasters. So it's kind of funny that AOL is coming under fire these days for the way it plans to handle mass mailings online. At issue is the Time Warner subsidiary's plan to create a priority lane for commercial e-mail. Starting later this month, companies can pay to be added to a certified e-mail delivery system run by an AOL contractor, Goodmail Systems. If they abide by Goodmail's rules for e-mail etiquette, their messages will be delivered straight to AOL users' inboxes, bypassing AOL's spam filters. The freedom and openness of the Net are already under assault from spammers, virus writers and phishers — con artists who try to trick people into revealing Social Security numbers, passwords and other personal information. Most of these offenses are carried out through e-mail because it's free, anonymous and tricky to authenticate. The main drawback to AOL's plan is that it offers mass marketers an easy way to evade spam filters. A better approach is Yahoo's plan to use Goodmail only for "transactional" e-mails, such as messages confirming an online purchase. Even AOL's system, though, will have to answer to the company's subscribers. And if the Goodmail system turns out to be a font of unwanted sales pitches and fundraising pleas, those customers have plenty of other places to take their business. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-aol15mar15,1,3896778.story?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)

TOLLS MAY SLOW WEB TRAFFIC [SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Gregory M. Lamb] For now, the Internet is a superhighway open to all. Information is delivered quickly via phone lines and cable to homes and businesses worldwide. But for online businesses, the express-lane ride may be over. As the Internet matures, new bandwidth-gobbling online television channels and phone services may soon be charged to access the superhighway. That could turn the Internet of tomorrow into a toll road, with those who can't pay a premium shunted into the slow lane. In one online forum, Vonage customers shared suspicions that cable company Comcast is degrading the quality of their Vonage phone calls. (Comcast is rolling out a digital phone service.) Comcast and Vonage Holding Corp. have denied that any such problem exists. "You can imagine all kinds of scenarios," says David Isenberg, an independent telecommunications analyst (www.isen.com/blog) and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "Once you establish the principle, you can see where it leads.... Maybe they'll charge a lower price for publications the carrier deems politically acceptable and a higher price - maybe a prohibitively high price - for publications the carrier considers unacceptable. Or maybe you won't be able to get them at all." Mr. Isenberg is helping to sponsor the Freedom to Connect conference April 3-4 in Washington, D.C. He hopes to spur "an in-depth conversation" about what's at stake in the "net neutrality" debate. "You're not looking at a free marketplace of competitors," says Wendy Seltzer, a former staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer rights group, who now teaches Internet law at Brooklyn Law School. Without forcing some commitment to net neutrality from Internet providers, small startups may never get a chance to see where their ideas could lead, advocates say. The very vitality of the Internet will be threatened. "That's certainly something that the net neutrality forces will be trying to argue," says Ms. Seltzer. "Network neutrality might be a little bit of regulation, but it's regulation that's good for [promoting] a lot more free market." http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0315/p14s01-stct.html

DEBATE HEATS UP OVER NET NEUTRALITY [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon ] At the Voice over the Net (VON) conference at the San Jose Convention Center on Tuesday, companies on both sides of the bandwidth isle debated how much Net regulation is needed. But the broader discussion was what exactly Net neutrality means and whether legislators are discussing a solution to a problem that doesn't yet exist. "I am hopelessly confused about Net neutrality," said Blair Levin, a managing director and regulatory analyst for Stifel, Nicolaus and Co., a financial research company. "I know what the Bells are saying, but it's unclear what they mean." http://news.com.com/Debate+heats+up+over+Net+neutrality/2100-1037_3-6049863.html?tag=html.alert * USIIA calls Network Neutrality 'A solution in search of a problem' http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-14-2006/0004319991&EDATE= * Stop using Broadband http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2006/03/15/stop-using-broadband/

US COURT LIKELY WILL FORCE GOOGLE TO TURN OVER DATA [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Mark Boslet mark.boslet@dowjones.com] Google likely will have to turn over search data to government lawyers making a case for a child-pornography law, but a much smaller amount than originally requested, a federal judge said. U.S. District Judge James Ware said he is inclined to require the company to respond to a Justice Department subpoena seeking the text of search queries and randomly selected Web addresses from Google's index of Internet sites. During a hearing in San Jose, the judge said he was persuaded partly by the government's willingness to seek only 50,000 randomly selected addresses and 5,000 search queries instead of the one million addresses and millions of search queries initially sought. The government filed suit in January seeking the information after Google resisted complying with an August subpoena. "What I've been trying to balance is the interest society has in the litigation with the interest of a private company," Judge Ware said. The government hopes to use the information to defend its Child Online Protection Act, a law designed to shield minors from sexually explicit materials on the Internet. The Supreme Court blocked implementation of the act and returned the case to district court in Pennsylvania, where the Bush administration is battling claims from the American Civil Liberties Union that it violates the Constitution's First Amendment right to free speech. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114235949450997932.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription) * U.S. Limits Demands on Google http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/technology/15google.html * Judge Orders Google To Give Up Some Data http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031400430.html

OPTIONS FOR AND BARRIERS TO SPECTRUM REFORM [SOURCE: Government Accountability Office] With demand for spectrum exploding, and most useable spectrum allocated to existing users, there is growing concern that the current spectrum management framework might not be able to respond adequately to future demands. This testimony, which is based on previous GAO reports, provides information on 1) the extent to which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted market-based mechanisms for commercial use, 2) the extent to which market-based mechanisms have been adopted for federal government users of spectrum, 3) options for improving spectrum management, and 4) potential barriers to spectrum reform. In previous reports, GAO recommended that 1) the Secretary of Commerce and FCC should jointly develop a national spectrum plan to guide decision making, and 2) the relevant administrative agencies and congressional committees work together to develop and implement a plan for the establishment of an independent commission that would conduct a comprehensive examination of current spectrum management. To date, these recommendations have not been implemented. (GAO-06-526T) http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-526T Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06526thigh.pdf

(Mar 14) BBC TOLD LICENSE FEE TARGET IS UNREALISTIC [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Ben Hall and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson] The BBC has been told by the government that its plans for an up to 40% increase in the licence fee over the next 10 years are “unrealistic.” Negotiations between the broadcaster and the government will begin in earnest after Tuesday’s publication of a white paper with proposals to overhaul the BBC’s governance and subject its operations to an independent “market impact assessment." Ministers will announce the new licence fee in June or July. But the opening discussions have not gone well for the BBC. The government has already concluded that the corporation will have to settle for an increase in the annual licence fee significantly below the BBC’s proposal of rate of inflation plus 2.3%. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ac144d3e-b2d4-11da-ab3e-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription)

TV NEWS GETS POUNDED IN PEJ STUDY [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] "At many old-media companies, though not all, the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and accountants is now over. The idealists have lost." That is one of the sobering conclusions of the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual report, The State of the News Media 2006. The study looked at a range of media, including network, local station, and cable news, and found much wanting. Of, cable, the report generalized: "It is thinly reported, suffers from a focus on the immediate, especially during the day, is prone to opinion mongering and is easily controlled by sources who want to filibuster." As for network news: "the underlying problems...continue without apparent interruption," the study says. Viewership continued to decline, the nightly newscasts "skew old" while advertisers are going the other direction. While the talk in the industry was about the absence of the three long-time anchors, the study suggested that one of the more significant hires was billionaire Larry Kramer taking over CBS digital. "Five years from now, we may look back and think the most important changes of the year in network news were about other things," the study suggests. "Did the three news divisions really begin to innovate television news on the Internet? Did they start to see broadcasting as no longer their core delivery platform for news? To what extent did they start to see their TV channels as a way to drive traffic to the next generation of television news, online?" In the local TV news race, the study found declining early evening news ratings, and possible trouble brewing in early morning, the explosive growth area for local news in the past few years. The upside is that late local news "may be improving its audience appeal." Pointing out that the local TV business is still a license to print money -- 40% or 50% profit margins in many cases--the study warned that there was a risk to continuing to demand "such huge profit margins and year-to-year growth in earnings when the audience is stagnant," particularly if the casualty is investment in the product even as the competition heats up. The study found that " roughly half of all the news hole on local TV news that was not given over to weather, traffic and sports was devoted to crime and accidents. Stories about local institutions, government, infrastructure, education and more were generally relegated to brief anchor reads in the middle of the newscast," and war news got less time than lifestyle stories. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6315346?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers) In a related story... * Local TV News Covers Health a Lot, But Not Always Well Local television newscasts, where most Americans get most of their news, are packed with medical stories and health information. But the first-ever national study of that coverage finds many problems with it, and sees room for improvement by both TV stations and the health experts whose work fills the news. In the March issue of the American Journal of Managed Care, researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison report results from an in-depth analysis of health coverage on local TV newscasts from across the country. In all, health and medical stories comprised 11 percent of the news portion of late-evening newscasts in the one-month period studied, with 1,799 such stories carried on 2,795 broadcasts captured from the representative sample of 122 stations in the nation's top 50 media markets. The average story was 33 seconds long, and most did not give specifics about the source of the information presented. Items about specific diseases tended not to contain recommendations for viewers, or information about how common the disease was -- which could help put the news into perspective with other health issues. But most disturbing, the study's authors say, were the egregious errors contained in a small minority of studies -- errors that could have led to serious consequences. http://media.prnewswire.com/en/jsp/main.jsp?resourceid=3160886

(Mar 11) POLITICAL BLOGGERS MAY GET FEDERAL PROTECTION [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh] Bloggers would be largely immunized from hundreds of pages of confusing federal regulations dealing with election laws, according to a bill approved by the House Administration Committee on Thursday. The bill would amend federal campaign finance laws to give Internet publishers many of the same freedoms that newspapers and magazines currently enjoy. http://news.com.com/Political+bloggers+may+get+federal+protection/2100-1028_3-6047902.html?tag=html.alert

DIGITAL ANTS WRECK THE MUSIC INDUSTRY'S PICNIC [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Adam Singer, MCPS-PRS Alliance] [Commentary] There is a fear in the music industry that while digital distribution in the guise of broadband, digital radio, third-generation phones and more than 1bn iTunes downloads will not diminish the demand for music, it might erode those big institutions that supply it. While music continues to release natural opioids in the brain and to bring pleasure there will always be a demand for it. It is just that the institutions that once delivered it have no analog-given right to longevity. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/8d57ef4c-af9e-11da-b417-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription)

HOLLYWOOD SEX SCENES ATTRACT LAWMAKERS' ATTENTION [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Brooks Boliek] The House of Representatives has approved child-safety legislation that includes a provision bringing some legitimate film and TV productions under the same federal-reporting requirements as X-rated films. Under a provision inserted in the Children's Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act, the legislation would require "any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape or other matter" that contains a simulated sex scene to come under the same government-filing requirements that adult films have to meet. Currently, any filmed sexual activity requires an affidavit that lists the names and ages of the actors who engage in the act. The film is required to have a video label that claims compliance with the law and lists where the custodian of the records can be found. The record-keeping requirement is known as Section 2257, for its citation in federal law. Violators could spend five years in jail. Under the provision authored by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) the definition of sexual activity is expanded to include simulated sex acts like those that appear in many movies and TV shows. While the overall bill is designed to give law enforcement officials more power to prosecute violent sexual predators and sets up a comprehensive national sex-offender registration system, it includes the language targeting motion pictures, TV shows and other material. http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=filmNews&storyID=2006-03-09T035909Z_01_N08531350_RTRIDST_0_FILM-SEX-DC.XML

CHANGING US AUDIENCE POSES TEST FOR A GIANT OF SPANISH TV [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Mireya Navarro] Catering to the country's growing Latino population — 40 million and counting — Univision now challenges ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, especially in big coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles and Miami, occasionally beating them in the ratings with its sexy, soapy prime-time shows. But as would-be buyers prepare bids for Univision Communications, a consortium including Grupo Televisa of Mexico, which supplies many of the network's shows, emerged Thursday as a potential bidder. Any new owner would have to wrestle with the shifting dynamics of the company's audience. More Latinos are American-born and English-speaking, and their tastes in television are changing more quickly than Univision's shows. That poses challenges not only for Univision but for other Spanish- and English-language networks. For the first time, networks on each side of the language divide could significantly expand their audiences by pursuing the same demographic group: second- and third-generation Latinos who are bilingual or speak mostly English and are as likely to watch "Fear Factor" on NBC as "El Gordo y la Flaca" ("The Scoop and the Skinny") on Univision, and who are largely underserved in either language. "This audience wants to be validated," said Jeff Valdez, founder of SiTV, a two-year-old English-language cable network that caters to young Latinos and multicultural urban youth. "They want to see themselves on screen. They want to hear their stories." The guidebook on how to appeal to this acculturated yet ethnically proud audience is still a work in progress. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/business/media/10visi.html?hp&ex=1142053200&en=867f33b0560765e3&ei=5094&partner=homepage (requires registration)

TOO MUCH BARNUM IN BROADCAST NEWS [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] Bill Wheatley, executive VP of NBC news before retiring nine months ago, accepted a First Amendment Service award at a Washington banquet Thursday night, but with a caveat. Wheatley, who Meet the Press host Tim Russert described as the heart, soul and compass of NBC News, said that celebrating the First Amendment is not only about protecting journalist's rights, but also about "encouraging the kind of journalism that shows that we understand that with those rights come responsibilities." Wheatley criticized the increasing government crackdown on the free flow of information, a theme sounded throughout a night of salutes to journalists at the Radio-Television News Director's Foundation First Amendment Awards. But Wheatley says he as met the biggest enemy, and it is us, arguing that most of the credibility wound is self-inflicted. "With the exception of public broadcasters," he said, "we have always been a business as well as a public service. But lately in news organizations, there seems to be more emphasis on the business than on the service." "Important subjects aren't covered because they aren't considered to be audience-friendly. Poverty and race are good examples," he said. And in the choosing the subjects that are covered, he said, "there is an undue concentration on heat rather than light. Stories are promoted in breathless tones more appropriate to Barnum than to broadcasting." http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6314838.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

COMMUNITIES FEAR EFFECT OF A KNIGHT RIDDER SALE [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Joseph Menn] As newspaper giant Knight Ridder Inc. began mulling over buyout bids after a 5 p.m. deadline Thursday, investors and employees weren't the only ones worrying about the future. Readers and community leaders around the country also are concerned that new owners of the nation's No. 2 newspaper chain will scale back coverage, install unfamiliar leaders or cut charity and other civic efforts. Cost cutting is likely to pay acquisition costs. Sooner or later, those cuts would translate into reduced coverage and a diminished civic dialogue, said John McManus, director of a journalism watchdog project at San Jose State University, near Knight Ridder's corporate headquarters and flagship newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News. "If newsrooms lose 25% of the people and are paid less, which I think will happen, then the quality of news will damage the civic vitality of these communities," McManus said. Even people who don't read a paper will suffer, he said, because "a lot of what local TV, local radio and bloggers do is based on what they learn from the newspaper." He said the changes might be more profound in places like Aberdeen, population 25,000. "People in smaller and medium markets are more dependent on the monopoly papers than in larger markets," he said. http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-knight10mar10,1,997197.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business (requires registration)

NET NEUTRALITY AS CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM [SOURCE: Tales from the Sausage Factory, AUTHOR: Harold Feld] [Commentary] It is quite possible that the most important piece of campaign finance reform to pass in 2006 will be Senator Wyden's “Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006.” Until now the Internet did not require candidates to raise huge amounts of money to pay for the ability to reach voters. Without Net Neutrality, all that changes. The Internet will increasingly come to resemble radio, television and cable, where the well-funded buy their way onto your screen and the rest get crowded out. Not because of any evil corporate conspiracy or antidemocracy cabal, but because of the iron rules of economics. If companies can make money charging political speakers for premium access, they will. If that's bad for democracy and free speech, too bad. Companies aren't in business to promote democracy, but to maximize value for shareholders. If that means that well-funded candidates and talk radio hosts can buy “premium” access while independent bloggers and pod casters can't, that's what will happen. Too bad about that democracy and free speech thing. Nothing against it you understand but, y'know, it's just business. Publicly traded companies exist for one purpose — to maximize shareholder value. According to free market boosters, that's what makes them so incredibly efficient and wonderful. As a result, they will maximize revenue wherever permitted. They are not about promoting free speech or democracy. While that may be fine when two appliance companies try to sell you different brands of toasters, it can cause all kinds of “unintended consequences” in the “marketplace of ideas.” http://www.wetmachine.com/item/453 See also -- * Building Momentum from the Internet Communications Industry for "Net Neutrality" [SOURCE: Jeff Pulver Blog] [Commentary] As I have been blogging for so many months/years now, the Net Neutrality issue will be the seminal issue to determine the rules shaping the future of the Internet. It is now clear that Net Neutrality will be at the heart of Congressional debate in the US Congress this year. To that end, we are trying to build a groundswell of support from Internet innovators, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts who might not normally participate in the political process. http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/003862.html

THINK TANK FORUM: NET NEUTRALITY EQUALS PROPERTY THEFT [SOURCE: InfoWorld, AUTHOR: Grant Gross, IDG News Service] Speakers affiliated with Progress and Freedom Foundation , promoting its own bill to deregulate broadband providers, criticized net neutrality bills, which would prohibit broadband providers such as AT&T and Comcast from blocking or slowing services to competing services such as VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol). "There's nothing neutral about net neutrality," said Jeffrey Eisenach, chairman of the consulting firm CapAnalysis Group and co-founder of PFF. "Net neutrality is, in fact, the theft of property rights from [broadband] infrastructure providers. It's simple regulatory theft -- the transfer of ownership from one group of people to another group of people." http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/03/09/76291_HNnetneutrality_1.html * Internet Non-Discrimination Act: Friend or Foe? http://www.adotas.com/2006/03/internet-non-discrimination-act-friend-or-foe/

GOOGLE IN CHINA: NEW MEDIA STILL NEEDS OLD WEST [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Danial Henninger] [Commentary] Defending his company's presence in China before a House committee recently, Yahoo Senior Vice President Michael Callahan articulated the ethos of the Internet on behalf of the whole wide world of Web believers -- from inventor Al Gore down to the lowliest bedroom blogger and back up to Google zillionaire founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Speaketh Mr. Callahan: "We believe the Internet can positively transform lives, societies and economies. We believe the Internet is built on openness." Despite its claims to special status as the guardian angel of unfettered expression, the Internet industry's commercial success -- and indeed that of the Internet itself -- depends crucially on including in its mantras a commitment to protecting the ideas of private markets and free trade, ideas equally responsible for the long-running success of the Western tradition, which gave us the Internet. It would be naive to think it is going to be possible to fence off Internet speech from attempts by governments and activists to impair markets and trade. Maybe the Google Foundation could pitch a penny or two into that fight. The Internet in its relative infancy is like a child exercising new freedom primarily through challenges to orderly systems -- old retailing models, old media, old privacy rights, old libel standards, even old notions of parental control. Some of the pushed, notably governments with statutory power, are going to push back. Part of this process of challenge and progress, then, will have to include rediscovering and redefending some very old Western ideas and values. Free speech is one, but it is not the only one. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114195870307294450.html?mod=todays_us_opinion (requires subscription) * Rock 'n' Rolling Into China Rolling Stone's China launch illustrates the possibilities -- and difficulties -- of journalism in one of the world's most censored media markets, where readers looking for edgy content and the Communist Party must both be satisfied. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114195658678494390.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (requires subscription)

(Mar 10) AT&T DEAL RAISES ISSUE OF INTERNET CONTROL [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Yuki Noguchi] Consumer groups and big online brands say mega-deals such as the proposed AT&T purchase of BellSouth are creating a growing threat to the openness of the Internet by consolidating power in the hands of companies that provide access to the Web. To date, cable and telephone companies have had limited ability to act as gatekeepers or toll collectors for the content passing through their networks. But AT&T Inc. Chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr. and executives at BellSouth Corp. -- companies that together serve nearly half the country -- have been outspoken about their desire to exert greater control over their lines. The proposed $67 billion purchase of BellSouth gives the issue new urgency among opponents. Jeff Chester, executive director for consumer-advocacy group Center for Digital Democracy, said questions over the freedom of the Internet will figure heavily into the AT&T-BellSouth deal. "[Regulators] are sadly mistaken if they believe there won't be intense opposition to this deal from all those who care for the Internet's democratic and competitive future," he said. "AT&T's ambition knows no bounds and places the future of the broadband Internet at risk." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/08/AR2006030802326.html (requires registration) * The New Media Monopoly [SOURCE: AlterNet, AUTHOR: Timothy Karr] [Commentary] AT&T's $67 billion merger with BellSouth could enable those who control the information pipes to also control the information. http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/33289/

NETWORK DIVERSITY -- A MISGUIDED POLICY [SOURCE: Trevor R. Roycroft, Ph.D.] A Response to Christopher S. Yoo’s cable industry-funded “Promoting Broadband Through Network Diversity.” Yoo, a Vanderbilt University law professor, argues in a recent white paper that the regime of open access on which the Internet was founded is actually harmful to innovation, investment, and technology deployment. Professor Yoo supports an alternative to an open Internet, encouraging policymakers to embrace "network diversity." A policy of network diversity would enable last mile-broadband network providers to introduce proprietary network protocols, enter into exclusive agreements with content providers, and discriminate against non-affiliated providers of Internet content, applications, and services. Professor Yoo argues that network diversity will inspire true competition for Internet services, and that this competition can only emerge when multiple last-mile broadband networks are in place. Professor Yoo’s counsel to policy makers that they should offer “humility” and deference to market forces, when those market forces are associated with market power, is bad advice. http://www.roycroftconsulting.org/response_to_Yoo.pdf

SPITZER HITS ENTERCOM WITH PAYOLA SUIT [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has filed suit against radio company Entercom Communications, alleging it traded airtime for pay. Spitzer alleges that Entercom: 1) Traded air time for gifts and other payments; 2) Traded air time for promotional items and personal trips; 3) Solicited and accepted payments from record labels for air time; 4) Instituted corporate programs, supported and directed by senior management, that sold air time to record labels in order to manipulate the music charts. Spitzer also asked the FCC to act on its current payola investigation. "Almost a year after payola was exposed in significant detail, the FCC has yet to respond in any meaningful way," he said. "The agency’s inaction is especially disappointing given the pervasive nature of this problem and its corrosive impact on the entertainment industry." http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6314061?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers) * Statement of FCC Commissioner Adelstein: "The New York Attorney General investigation is piling evidence on top of evidence of the widespread abuse of the public trust. Given the voluminous documents pointing to major, systematic violations of FCC rules, the penalties should be commensurate with the crime. We can't let any violators get away with a slap on the wrist." http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-264230A1.doc * FCC Already Investigating Entercom for Payola http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6314322?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers) * Spitzer Sues Radio Chain as Part of Music Inquiry http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/business/09music.html?pagewanted=all (requires registration) * Spitzer Sues Radio-Station Operator As Payola Probe Expands http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114184658344492816.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

ARE PAPERS ABOUT TO LAND OR TAKE OFF? [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine Seelye & Andrew Ross Sorkin] The fate of Knight Ridder newspapers, the nation's second-largest newspaper chain, could be determined any day — and with it, the future of what has come to be known as the mainstream media could become clearer. Knight Ridder owns 32 daily newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, The San Jose Mercury News and The Kansas City Star. Analysts said any bid over $65 a share would probably be accepted; anything less would put the company in a quandary. If Knight Ridder were unhappy with the offers, it might drop the sale and buy back more of its own stock in an attempt to revive its share price and provide its shareholders with a special dividend. Knight Ridder is attractive largely because, despite the current environment, its newspapers remain profitable — its overall profit margin in 2004 was 19.3 percent, which is robust. Moreover, Knight Ridder, which has several strong newspaper Web sites and various online ventures, could serve as a gateway to a substantial presence on the Internet, from which analysts expect strong revenue in the future. Its assets include CareerBuilder.com, a popular Web site that it owns jointly with Gannett and the Tribune Company. The downside is that its newspapers are just that -- newspapers, the emblem of the old media, with big costs for printing and distribution at a time when readers and advertisers are turning to multiple other sources of news and entertainment. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/business/media/09paper.html (requires registration)

GRUPO TELEVISA PLAYS POLITICAL HARDBALL [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: David Luhnow david.luhnow@wsj.com] Grupo Televisa SA, the world's largest Spanish-language media company, is strong-arming Mexico's lawmakers in a bid to maintain its grip on the country's airwaves no matter who is elected president in July. Televisa dominates the media market here with ownership of four of Mexico's six national networks, its biggest cable-television company and its only satellite-to-home TV provider. Now, the company is trying to protect itself against competitive threats that may come through new technologies such as digital TV and through the rising political power of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, a leftist who is the presidential front-runner. Run by billionaire Emilio Azcarraga, Televisa is pushing a bill in Congress that critics say would limit the ability of Mr. Lopez Obrador -- or anyone else -- to set communications policy and would give the media company a leg up on potential rivals in the growing digital arena. Companies inside and outside of Mexico have long wanted to break into its television market, including General Electric Co.'s NBC unit, which runs U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo. Televisa's push to shape communications rules to its liking is a worrisome sign in a country where most industries are dominated by one or two big companies, a situation that stifles competition, investment, job creation and economic growth. The lobbying campaign has also raised questions about whether the country's young democracy is being trampled by its corporate mandarins. "What is at stake here is simple: Is Mexico run by private companies or by the state?" says Denise Dresser, a prominent political analyst. So far, the answer isn't encouraging. Carlos Slim, the billionaire owner of Mexico's virtual telephone monopoly, Telefonos de Mexico SA, or Telmex, has repeatedly quashed congressional efforts to strengthen competition in the telephone market. Mexico's two big brewing companies, which control 99% of the beer market, recently engineered a tax-law change that disadvantaged a Peruvian company planning to enter the local market. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114186827269993241.html?mod=todays_us_page_one (requires subscription)

(Mar 9) EXPORTING CENSORSHIP [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Xeni Jardin] [Commentary] If American companies are already obligated to disclose the sale of bombs and guns to repressive regimes, why not censorware? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/opinion/09jardin.html (requires registration) See also -- * Internet Freedoms Come of Age [SOURCE: AlterNet, AUTHOR: Becky Hogge, openDemocracy.net] [Commentary] As government entities around the world discuss what limits to put on the Internet, it's time to call freedom of information what it is: a basic human right. http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/32967/

STUDY: WATCHING SHOWS BEFORE AIRDATE A HIT [SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Mike Reynolds] According to new research from Points North Group and Horowitz Associates, 47% of adults 18-34 said they would pay to watch a show before it was scheduled to air on a linear network. Moreover, research based on an independent online survey of 500 Internet users showed that 34% of all respondents would pay 99 cents to see an episode the week before. http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6314270.html?display=Breaking+News (requires subscription)

SENATE PANEL OKs VIDEO GAME STUDY [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache ] The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has approved the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, a bill to study of the "impact of electronic media use" to be organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://news.com.com/Senate+panel+OKs+video+game+study/2100-1047_3-6047750.html?tag=nefd.top

(Mar 8) BEWARE OF A TWO-LANE INTERNET [SOURCE: BusinessWeek, AUTHOR: Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA)] [Commentary] In the decade since Congress last rewrote the nation's telecommunications laws, our open and accessible Internet has become a wellspring for innovation, producing the likes of Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and thousands of smaller successful e-commerce enterprises. Collectively, the services they sell at home and abroad, and the jobs they have created, are driving forces of the 21st-century economy. Yet storm clouds are gathering, threatening to inhibit further progress. And as we prepare this year to refine our telecommunications rules once again, a measure to assure continued Internet openness and accessibility is now required. A firm principle of network neutrality is essential. With two simple new rules, and without hurting consumers or limiting innovation, telephone companies could launch an array of new services, including high-quality multichannel television. Under the first requirement, broadband providers would be prohibited from blocking, interfering with, or impairing the ability of Internet users to access lawful content, applications, and services on the Internet. Under the second principle, the broadband operators would be prohibited from favoring themselves or their affiliates in the allocation, use, or quality of Internet access services. Consistent with these rules, a broadband provider could prioritize a category of its own bits, such as video, if it also prioritized all video bits traveling over its pipes at no cost to other service providers. Internet providers could also take reasonable and nondiscriminatory steps to manage their networks for technical efficiency, to protect network security, and to prevent illegal activity. This simple, straightforward approach would preserve consumer choice and the openness and accessibility that have been the hallmark of the Internet. Under this approach, the incubation of new Internet-based products and services will continue to thrive. With the proposed merger of AT&T (T) and BellSouth (BLS), "last-mile" Internet links will be controlled by an even smaller number of companies whose reach will span the nation. A clear rule to assure Internet openness and accessibility is, therefore, even more urgently required. Simply put, to foster the conditions that have contributed so much to our economy and our way of life, we need to avoid a two-lane Internet, controlled by incumbents manning toll booths. That's the net on net neutrality. http://yahoo.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060307_164289.htm

OLD MEDIA MUST EMBRACE THE AMATEUR [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR:Tom Glocer, Reuters] [Commentary] While media companies are catching up with the demand for “personalisation”-- receiving the news they want when and where they want it -- our audiences have moved on dramatically. Now they are consuming, creating, sharing and publishing their own content online. It is important to understand what has changed. Bloggers, after all, have always been a part of history ­ read Daniel Defoe, Samuel Pepys or James Boswell. The same is true for citizen journalists: just check out first-hand accounts of any big historical event. The difference now is the scale of distribution and the ability to search. Because of this, we in the media industry face a profound challenge, as significant and transformational as Internet 1.0. So how should we respond to and control content fragmentation in this era of two-way flow? First, media companies need to be “seeders of clouds”. To have access to high-value new content, we need to attract a community around us. To achieve that we have to produce high-quality content ourselves, then display it and let people interact with it. If you attract an audience to your content and build a brand, people will want to join your community. This is as true for traditional “letters to the editor” as for MySpace.com. Second, we need to be “the provider of tools”. This means promoting open standards and interoperability, which will allow a diverse set of consumer-creators to combine disparate types of content. Third, we must improve on our skills as the “filter and editor”. Media have always had these functions. The world will always need editing: consumers place value in others making decisions about what is good and what is not. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e2bba176-ae0a-11da-8ffb-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription)

THE WILD WEB OF CHINA: SEX, DRUGS, NOT REFORM [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Barboza] By some estimates, there are more than 30,000 people patrolling the Web in China, helping to form one of the world's far-reaching Internet filtering systems. But while China's huge Internet police force is busy deleting annoying phrases like "free speech" and "human rights" from online bulletin boards, specialists say that Wild West capitalism has moved from the real economy in China to the virtual one. Indeed, the unchecked freedoms that exist on the Web, analysts say, are perhaps unwittingly ushering in an age of startling social change. The Web in China is a thriving marketplace for everyone, including scam artists, snake oil salesmen and hard-core criminals who are only too eager to turn consumers into victims. Chinese entrepreneurs who started out brazenly selling downloadable pirated music and movies from online storefronts have extended their product lines — peddling drugs and sex, stolen cars, firearms and even organs for transplanting. Much of this is happening because Internet use has grown so fast, with 110 million Web surfers in China, second only to the United States. Last year, online revenue — which the government defines more broadly than it is in the United States — was valued at $69 billion, up around 58 percent from the year before, according to a survey by the China Internet Development Research Center. By 2010, Wall Street analysts say China could have the world's leading online commerce, with revenue coming from advertising, e-commerce and subscription fees, as well as illicit services. The authorities have vowed to crack down on illegal Web sites and say that more than 2,000 sex and gambling sites have been shut down in recent years. But new sites are eluding them every day. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/business/worldbusiness/08chinanet.html (requires registration) See also -- * U.S. Web giants cower at great firewall of China [SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] [Commentary] When lawmakers dragged Microsoft, Google and Yahoo executives before a congressional committee last month, the grilling seemed fitting. The three U.S. corporate giants are helping the totalitarian regime in China muzzle free expression. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060308/edit08.art.htm * We're transforming China [Commentary] Rebuttal based on recent comments from Microsoft, Google and Yahoo. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060308/oppose08.art.htm

(Mar 7) WYDEN OFFERS 'NET NEUTRALITY' BILL [SOURCE: Technology Daily 3/2, AUTHOR: Drew Clark] Communications companies could not create a "priority lane" allowing some content owners to have faster Internet connections to consumers under legislation unveiled by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). The measure would require Internet service providers to treat content equally by not blocking, degrading, altering or modifying data traffic. Refraining from blocking Internet content is a core aspect of the non-discriminatory "network neutrality" principles that are widely endorsed within the technology and communications industries. The FCC last August issued a policy statement in support of Internet neutrality. Besides encoding the principles in law, Sen Wyden's bill would take a significant step by barring carriers from creating a high-speed lane for some Web site owners at the expense of others. Sen Wyden's bill also would enforce other aspects of network neutrality, including provisions allowing consumers to choose Internet connection devices. The measure also further seeks to ensure transparency in the rates, terms and conditions for Internet services. http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-XSNO1141420510008.html See also: * Senate Bill to Address Fears of Blocked Access to Net http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/technology/02online.html * The High-Speed Money Line One way or another, consumers are going to pay more in the future for Web content, experts say. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/06/technology/06broadband.html?n=Top/

PTC SLAMS KIDS SHOWS [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] Last Thursday, the Parent's television Council released a study on children's TV, "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: A Content Analysis of Children's Television," purporting to show that kids TV is more violent than adult fare. It is the group's first look at TV targeted to children, and its conclusion is that there is a "staggering" amount of violence and sexual innuendo. Sensitive to the criticism that "cartoony" violence is hardly a threat to the social fabric, the group also provided figures for violent incident totals that excluded anvils falling on Wile E. Coyote's head, for example. With anvils included, PTC's study of programming on ABC, Fox, NBC, WB, ABC Family, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon before and after school and Saturday morning, found an average of 7.86 violent incidents per hour, or 6.30 incidents without anvils. PTC contrasted that with the 4.71 instances of violence per hour they found across the six broadcast networks in a 2002 study. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6312378?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

CHILDREN & MEDIA CENTER SLAMS PTC STUDY [SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton] The American Center for Children and Media, a group representing commercial and noncommercial producers/distributors, is highly critical of the Parents Television Council study, released Thursday, that purported to show that kids TV was awash in violence, cussing, and sexuality. "The Parents Television Council report on children’s TV is truly stunning," ACCM says. "Its methodology might best be analogized to an episode from the sitcom Third Rock from the Sun, in which the character Harry runs a video store. Asked by confused customers about his cataloging system, he points and says, “Things I liked, things I didn't like, things I haven't seen. The PTC created a review system that isolates ­ totally out of context ­ any word or behavior that falls outside its narrow boundaries of good taste. Their laundry list of “problematic behaviors” and taboos involving “social institutions” (friendship?) is so constricting that any show meeting their Puritan standards would be devoid of drama or humor." Board members of ACCM include Disney, Cartoon Network (both of which were singled out in the PTC survey), Nickelodeon, Discovery Kids, PBS, and Sesame Workshop http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6312545?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP (free access for Benton's Headlines subscribers)

AOL TO ROLL OUT FREE E-MAIL TO NON-PROFITS [SOURCE: Reuters 3/3/06] AOL, the Internet service provider unit of Time Warner, on Friday said it will not charge legitimate not-for-profit organizations and advocacy groups to have their e-mails authenticated and delivered to consumers. The decision addresses an outcry from political and civic activist groups, which said AOL's plans to charge mass senders of e-mail a fee to reduce junk mail amounted to an "attack" on the "free existence of online civic participation." The company said that it is seeking to make it "crystal clear" that nonprofit groups would have all their e-mails delivered, including enabled Web-links and images, contrary to recent criticism in the media by advocacy groups. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-03-03T211725Z_01_N03394922_RTRUKOC_0_US-AOL-TIMEWARNER.xml&archived=False

US, UN SHOULD CONFRONT CHINA ON WEB POLICY: SCHOLAR [SOURCE: Reuters 3/3/06] Jiao Guobiao, a Chinese journalism professor who was pressured out of his job in March 2005 after denouncing China's propaganda controls in an article circulated on the Internet, is calling on the US, the United Nations and international media to confront China over its efforts to impose Internet controls. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-03-03T205315Z_01_T290671_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-CHINA.xml&archived=False See also -- * Censuring China's censors [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Seth Faison] [Commentary] http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-faison7mar07,1,7541608.story?coll=la-news-comment (requires registration)

HEAVY SENDING BECOMES A FACT OF LIFE FOR MANY WEB COMPANIES [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Mylene Mangalindan mylene.mangalindan@wsj.com] As the big survivors among Internet companies mature, they are learning a painful -- and unexpected -- lesson: Staying in the online game requires heavy, constant spending -- for workers and customers, as well as for the technology that keeps their businesses humming: computers, servers, networking equipment, data-storage equipment and the like. That's especially true as Web companies challenge one another's turf in areas like retail and search engines. Meanwhile, telecommunications companies, consolidating and rethinking their business models, are considering ways to charge online businesses for the traffic they send over phone networks, which could add to Web companies' costs. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114170450561091194.html?mod=todays_us_page_one (requires subscription)

Mar 1: BUSH: MEDIA HAD MORE DETAILS ON KATRINA THAN GOVERNMENT [SOURCE: Reuters] President George W. Bush, who has acknowledged failings in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, said on Tuesday that the media had better details about the catastrophe than the government did. "There was no situational awareness, and that means that we weren't getting good, solid information from people who were on the ground, and we need to do a better job," Bush told ABC News. "In many cases we were relying upon the media," he said. "And when you have the media have better situational awareness than the government, the American people are saying, 'Wait a minute. What is happening?'" Bush said that during the Gulf Coast disaster that killed about 1,300 people and left tens of thousands homeless, the information flow within the government was hampered by difficulties in getting communications equipment to work. He said federal agencies have been working to improve that. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-02-28T214916Z_01_N28171764_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-KATRINA.xml&archived=False * Bush Cheers Decline of Mainstream Media [SOURCE: Drudge Report] President Bush, for the first time, is hailing the rise of the alternative media and the decline of the mainstream media, which he now says “conspired” to harm him with forged documents. http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3wsb.htm

'48 HOURS' -- A PEEK AT SHOW-BIZ 'JOURNALISM' [SOURCE: Columbia Daily Tribune, AUTHOR: Henry J. Waters III, Publisher] [Commentary] A look at how show business masquerading as journalism is practiced on television. http://www.columbiatribune.com/2006/Feb/20060227Comm001.asp

TV MAY BE FREE BUT NOT THAT FREE [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Dawn C. Chmielewski and Meg James] Although still far behind music, television shows represent the fastest-growing type of files downloaded online. As Internet speeds increase and software improves, almost anyone can get high-quality bootlegs of such popular shows as "Desperate Housewives," "24" and "The O.C." -- minus the commercials that make "free" TV free. In fact, some people now use file sharing as a source of on-demand programming, outpacing the industry's efforts to set up their own pay-for-view services. Instead of programming a VCR or digital video recorder to record the latest episode of FX's "Nip/Tuck," these users simply download it the next day. Clicking the mouse instead of the remote has dramatic implications for the TV industry. Producers of popular programs often take in as much as a third of their revenue from foreign sales — a pot of money that would presumably evaporate if overseas downloading catches on. As downloads increase, executives have to figure out how to convince peter it's stealing. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-tvpirate1mar01,1,1900922.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage (requires registration)

THINK YOUR LAWMAKERS DON'T READ BILLS? DO IT YOURSELF. [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Zachary A. Goldfarb] Rafael DeGennaro has launched the nonprofit ReadtheBill.org to pressure Congress to post bills online 72 hours before they can be called up on the floor. He hopes citizens will search through proposed legislation for questionable items. Bills -- hundreds of pages long and full of legal and bureaucratic jargon -- are usually drafted in public. But lawmakers are able to slide in questionable provisions when public attention is not focused on legislation, especially during the conference sessions between House and Senate committees that negotiate differences in legislation -- behind closed doors. Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution said lawmakers have increasingly abused the earmarking practice. Still, he said he doubts ordinary citizens would read through the bills. Rather, "it would be available for people with an interest one way or another to see what got put in." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801471.html (requires registration)

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