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Benton media news digest – 2006 29 Sept: 107 MILLION VIEWED ONLINE VIDEO IN JULY
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
More than 100 million Americans, or three out of every five Internet
users, viewed video online in July, a new study finds. ComScore Media
Metrix recorded both streaming, which requires a live Internet
connection, and downloads, in which a user saves a file that can be
viewed later or offline. All told, 107 million people streamed or
downloaded nearly 7.2 billion video clips - an average of 67 apiece.
Yahoo was tops with 38 million unique users, followed by News Corp.'s
MySpace.com at 37 million and YouTube at 31 million, according to comScore. HOLLYWOOD SAYS PIRACY HAS RIPPLE EFFECT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Frank Ahrens]
The Institute for Policy Innovation, founded by former Republican
congressman Richard K. Armey, is to present a study today at a U.S.
Chamber of Commerce conference where NBC Universal chief executive
Bob Wright will speak. The study says the economic impact of illegal
DVD and Internet film distribution may be as much as three times what
was previously estimated. The new estimate is that movie piracy
causes a total lost output for U.S. industries of $20.5 billion per
year, thwarts the creation of about 140,000 jobs and accounts for
more than $800 million in lost tax revenue. The movie industry
continues to vigorously combat both DVD and Internet piracy of its
films domestically and overseas, urging foreign governments to crack
down on illegal DVD factories and toughen laws on Internet file-sharing. 28 Sept: GERMAN LEADER WARNS AGAINST CENSORSHIP
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Melissa Eddy]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned against
"self-censorship out of fear" on Wednesday, a day
after a leading Berlin opera house decided not
stage a production because of concerns it could
provoke Islamic ire. German leaders widely
condemned the Deutsche Opera's decision not to put
on a production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" with a
scene featuring the severed heads of Jesus,
Buddha and the Prophet Muhammad, after Berlin
security officials said they could not guarantee
the opera house's security in the event of
violent protests. "We must be careful that we do
not increasingly shy away out of fear of violent
radicals," Merkel told the Hannover Neue Presse.
"Self-censorship out of fear is not tolerable." THE NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER WHO SAID NO TO MORE CUTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine Seelye]
Less than a year ago, the Tribune Company told
The Los Angeles Times to cut millions of dollars
from the paper’s budget and get rid of hundreds
of jobs. The top editor and the publisher
complied. But when Tribune came calling last
month to seek a new round of cuts, Jeffrey M.
Johnson, the publisher, and Dean Baquet, the
editor, had had enough. They refused to make what
they considered drastic cuts and said so
publicly. In that space of time, Mr. Johnson —
who has worked for Tribune for more than 20 years
— seemed to many Los Angeles Times employees to
transform himself as dramatically as Clark Kent
does when he removes his glasses, steps into a
phone booth and turns into Superman. 27 Sept: REPORT TO CONGRESS: MOBILE AMERICANS LIKE TO TALK... A LOT
[SOURCE: TelecomWeb]
The Federal Communications Commission will send
Congress a report on "effective competition" in
the mobile-telephony business with the probably
well-known but interesting observation that
American users apparently talk much more on their
cellphones than do folks in other parts of the
wireless world. The U.S. mobile base on average
last year accounted for about 740 monthly minutes
of use (MoU), according to the draft of the 11th
annual report on commercial mobile radio services
(CMRS) market conditions unanimously adopted by
the FCC at its open meeting. The U.S. monthly MoU
estimate compares with average MoU rates of 143
in Western Europe, 147 in Japan and 322 in South
Korea, according to report. Further buttressing
the growth of substituting wireless handsets for
landline phones, the report -- often using
industry-provided data -- says the 740-minute
monthly figure reflects Americans on average
adding about 120 minutes of time on a monthly
basis from December 2004 to December 2005.
Although Commissioner Michael Copps tends to
question a somewhat elusive definition of
"effective competition," the Wireless
Telecommunications Bureau-compiled report says
competitive conditions have improved during the
past year by all its measures. This includes
pricing value, technology improvements, product
innovations, subscriber growth, usage patterns,
churn, number of operators, service deployments
and investment. According to the bureau, last
year the mobile business added 28.3 million
subscribers to its base to reach an estimated
213.3 million total (representing some 71 percent
of the U.S. population) from about 185 million at
the end of 2004. During that period, the report
says average per-minute prices fell from 9 cents
to 7 cents. In addition, the bureau report will
tell federal lawmakers that 99 percent of the
U.S. population live in counties with "some form
of next-generation network deployment," while 98
percent have access to three or more wireless
providers and 94 percent have the choice of four
or more rival operators (a drop from five prior
to last year's Sprint Nextel merger). LOCAL NEWS MEANS... MORE LOCAL NEWS
[SOURCE: Seattle Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] Media ownership is too serious a
question to be the subject of political games at
the Federal Communications Commission. But under
former Chairman Michael Powell, the FCC started a
study of media concentration, saw results
critical to industry trends and quietly shelved
the study. Local owners care about local news.
Many people could have told the FCC that, and
some did, but under Powell the majority on the
FCC didn't want to hear it. It was in the midst
of a plan to lift restrictions on media mergers,
allowing them to be ever more elephantine, and it
didn't want any study to trip it up. The current
FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, has been more
cautious than Powell, and he needs to be more
cautious still. There is no need to liberalize
media ownership limits, and much reason to keep them just as they are. 'NEUTRALITY' IS NEW CHALLENGE FOR INTERNET PIONEER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Markoff]
A Q&A with Sir Tim Berners-Lee who is credited
with helping to create the Internet. He is a
vocal proponent of Network Neutrality, a hotly
debated issue as Congress moves to update the
nation's telecommunications laws. One quote: "Net
neutrality is one of those principles, social
principles, certainly now much more than a
technical principle, which is very fundamental.
When you break it, then it really depends how far
you let things go. But certainly I think that the
neutrality of the Net is a medium essential for
democracy, yes — if there is democracy and the
way people inform themselves is to go onto the Web." IS PUBLICLY OWNED INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE A
WISE PUBLIC INVESTMENT FOR SAN FRANCISCO?
[SOURCE: Institute for Local Self-Reliance &
Media Alliance, AUTHOR: Becca Vargo Daggett]
San Francisco has launched an initiative to
provide wireless access everywhere in the city.
Media Alliance invited the Institute for Local Self-Reliance to
investigate the economics of a publicly owned
information infrastructure. Based on conservative
assumptions, a publicly owned wireless network
can repay its original investment within five
years and generate an average net income of over
$2 million per year for ten years. US PUSHES ANTI-CASTRO TV, BUT IS ANYONE WATCHING?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Abby Goodnough]
Soon after Fidel Castro announced his mysterious
illness in July, the Bush administration stepped
up its anti-Castro television broadcasts to Cuba
with a new $10 million system. For the last two
months, a twin-engine plane has beamed the signal
of the American broadcast, called TV Martí,
toward the island from over the Straits of
Florida for four hours a day, six days a week, up
from four hours of transmission from an Air Force
plane on Saturdays. Because the plane flies at
20,000 feet, administration officials say, the
Cuban government cannot jam the signal as easily
as in the past, when a blimp tethered 10,000 feet
over the Florida Keys did the transmitting. But
in interviews in the past two weeks, many Cubans
said they still saw just snowy interference where
the TV Martí broadcasts should be. About a dozen
people in Havana said they still had never
glimpsed the station even after the expanded
airborne broadcasts began, raising questions
about the usefulness of the $10 million
expenditure. Some said they would not watch the
station even if they could, because they assumed that it would be biased. FAMILIES PACK 43 HOURS OF ACTIVITY INTO 1 DAY: STUDY
[SOURCE: Reuters]
While many a parent will lament there are not
enough hours in the day, the simultaneous use of
several technologies is allowing families to cram
in 43 hours worth of activity from one sunrise to
the next, a new study claims. The survey by Yahoo
Inc. and media buyer OMD untangled the
overlapping use of the Internet, telephones, text
messaging, radio and television during work and
recreation hours for more than 4,700 adults in 16
countries, from the United States to Argentina
and Taiwan. "While using the Internet, people are
also doing two or three other things, often
watching TV or talking on the phone," said Mike
Hess, global director of research at OMD, part of
Omnicom Group. On average, families said they
spent 3.6 hours per day using the Internet, 2.5
hours daily watching television and one hour on
instant messaging. Smaller increments of time
were spent playing video games, listening to the
radio and to digital music players, reading
newspapers and Internet blogs, as well as doing
household chores. In the United States, families
on average owned about 12 technology and
media-related devices. Across the survey 70
percent of respondents said technology allowed
them to stay in touch with family members. 26 Sept: TRIBUNE EMPIRE COULD CRUMBLE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Frank Ahrens]
A boardroom fight over the Tribune Company's
limping stock price has caused anxiety in Tribune
newsrooms around the country, from an open revolt
by the top editor in Los Angeles to "fear and
loathing" about potential job cuts among
reporters and editors at some of the company's
Washington bureaus. Dissident board members have
lost confidence in Tribune management and seek to
break up the company to boost stock price. At a
board meeting last week, they forced the rest of
the board to explore restructuring and
divestiture plans, setting a quick Dec. 31
deadline for options. Tribune has 11 newspapers
and 26 television stations; the stations appear
the most vulnerable to sale. For nearly a
century, newspapers were unrivaled in their
ability to deliver news and sell advertising.
News staffs grew fat as hiring decisions were
made on coverage needs rather than bottom lines.
Now, as newspapers lose readers and advertising
to other media and struggle to transition to
Internet and other digital forms of delivery --
while attempting to maintain profit margins of
more than 20 percent and mollify Wall Street's
need for growth -- cuts in jobs and newsroom
budgets are coming fast and deep. All those
factors alone would make things tough enough on
Tribune. But, like an unlucky home buyer, Tribune
purchased a group of newspapers at the height of
the market only to watch the market nose-dive. WEB'S AD REVENUE UP 37 PERCENT IN FIRST HALF 2006: STUDY
[SOURCE: Reuters]
U.S. Internet advertising revenue rose 37 percent
in the first six months of the year, hitting a
record of nearly $8 billion, according to a study
released on Monday. The study, released by the
Interactive Advertising Bureau and
PricewaterhouseCoopers, comes just days after a
revenue warning by Yahoo raised concerns that ad
spending in new media could be slowing. DC HONES IN ON MEDIA & OBESITY
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The FCC and Congress Wednesday will announce the
formation of a joint task force, Media and
Childhood Obesity: Today and Tomorrow, to explore
the media's impact on children's health and
possible legislative and/or regulatory
approaches. The task force, chaired by FCC
Chairman Kevin Martin, commissioner Deborah
Taylor Tate, and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS),
will hold a series of meetings with programmers,
marketers, health professionals and government
officials about what the surgeon general has
warned is a looming national health crisis. RADIO MARTI: "HECKA OF A JOB, KENNY"
[SOURCE: Center for American Progress 9/21, AUTHOR: Eric Alterman]
[Commentary] The revelation that “at least” ten
Florida journalists received money from the U.S.
government to participate in programs broadcast
on the federally-funded Radio and TV Martí feels
like 2004 and 2005 all over again. Back in those
days, stories of journalists secretly collecting
checks signed by the Bush administration were
coming fast and furious. The radio and television
programs broadcast by Marti are beamed into Cuba
with the aim of subverting the Castro regime.
They are run by the Broadcasting Board of
Governors, the federal office that runs the U.S.
government's overseas television and radio
stations. The BBG in turn is headed by none other
than Kenneth Tomlinson, the right-wing Bush
appointee who tried to recast the editorial
content of the Public Broadcasting Service and
Voice of America in the Bush administration’s own
conservative image. The latest Marti scandal
joins a rich and well-funded heritage of
commentators, journalists, talking heads, and
think tank wonks who have proven themselves to be
not only “in the tank” as so many journalists
are, but also “on the take.” The use of taxpayer
dollars to subvert honest American journalism,
while deplorable, seems hardly necessary. After
all, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal’s
editorial page, The Weekly Standard, and Rush
Limbaugh already broadcast anything and
everything the Administration claims to be true,
no matter how outlandish. The traditional
bulwarks against this kind of thing have been
weakened almost beyond recognition, as the work
of, say, The New York Times’ Judy Miller or The
Washington Post’s Bob Woodward quite neatly
illustrates. So why go to all this trouble to
bribe journalists when so many are willing to
work for free? Well, no one ever argued that
competence was this administration’s strong suit. PIRATE RADIO STATIONS CHALLENGE FEDS
[SOURCE: Idaho Statesman, AUTHOR: Martha Mendoza]
Pirate radio is radio without a license, radio
without government regulations. It's "america the
criminal" at midnight on Human Rights Radio in
Springfield, Illinois and pre-dawn erotica on
Freak Radio in Santa Cruz, Calif. It's an
inordinate amount of Frank Zappa at WFZR in West
End, Pa. and the "Voice of the American Patriot"
at NLNR in Butte, Mont. The rapidly proliferating
scofflaws - and there are now hundreds of them
broadcasting at any given moment in this country
- are usually only audible within a few miles of
their "home-brewed" transmitters. They find
unused sections of the FM dial, fire up their
mini-transmitters, raise their antennas and set
up their station. Some opt to broadcast on the
Internet as well, opening up their audience to
the entire globe. Costs typically range from
about $250 to $1,500. Pirates, as they call
themselves, draw loyal audiences in their
communities but complaints from the larger,
licensed public and private radio stations who
say the microbroadcasters interrupt their
signals. And they are a thorn in the side of the
FCC, which is tasked with shutting them down.
25 Sept: THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET II
[SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Janna
Anderson, Lee Rainie]
A survey of technology thinkers and stakeholders shows they believe
the Internet will continue to spread in a "flattening" and improving
world. There are many, though, who think major problems will
accompany technology advances by 2020. Among the predictions: 1)
Humans will remain in charge of technology, even as more activity is
automated and "smart agents" proliferate. However, a significant 42%
of survey respondents were pessimistic about humans' ability to
control the technology in the future. 2) Virtual reality will be
compelling enough to enhance worker productivity and also spawn new
addiction problems. 3) Tech "refuseniks" will emerge as a cultural
group characterized by their choice to live off the network. Some
will do this as a benign way to limit information overload, while
others will commit acts of violence and terror against
technology-inspired change. 4) People will wittingly and unwittingly
disclose more about themselves, gaining some benefits in the process
even as they lose some privacy. A predictions database can be viewed
at THE DIGITAL DEMOCRACY'S EMERGING ELITES
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: John Gapper]
[Commntary] Old media "gatekeepers" (such as the people who edit
this column) are out of fashion and what Jay Adelson, chief executive
of Digg, calls "collective wisdom" is in. As Rupert Murdoch said last
year of young Internet users: "They don't want to rely on a god-like
figure from above to tell them what's important...They want control
over their media, instead of being controlled by it." But such
democratic rhetoric (what one critic has dubbed "digital Maoism")
ignores one awkward fact. While anyone is free to launch a blog,
contribute to Wikipedia or publish photographs on Flickr, a
relatively small number of activists often dominate proceedings on
Web 2.0 sites. Although they are unpaid, they can nonetheless achieve
an elite status reminiscent of the old media's professional
gatekeepers. The fact that there is an "A-list" of bloggers who
garner a large proportion of Internet links and traffic indicates
that just because the web is an open medium it is not necessarily an
egalitarian one. This generation of consumers has learnt to be
skeptical about how information and entertainment is edited and
filtered by groups of professionals. It ought to remain on its guard
in the Web 2.0 world as well. CRIMINALS FLOCK TO THE INTERNET, SURVEY FINDS
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Criminals are increasingly trying to trick citizens into giving them
their bank account details, according to a survey published on Monday
which showed such "phishing" attempts almost doubled in the first six
months. Over 157,000 unique phishing messages were sent out around
the world in the first half of 2006, an increase of 81 percent
compared with the six-month period to end-December 2005. Each message
can go to thousands or hundreds of thousands of consumers, according
to the bi-annual Internet Security Threat Report from security
software vendor Symantec. LIBERAL MEDIA?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
The "mainstream media presents itself as unbiased, when in fact there
are built into it many biases, and they are overwhelmingly to the
left." The man who made that comment is not some rabid right-wing
critic but Thomas Edsall, a Washington Post political reporter for a
quarter-century who recently accepted an early retirement offer. In
an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Edsall said he
is pro-choice on abortion and does not think he has ever voted for a
Republican presidential candidate. He said he believes that reporters
vote Democratic by somewhere between 15 to 1 and 25 to 1. Edsall, who
now writes for the New Republic and has just finished a book called
"Building Red America," also said that journalists have an inherent
"suspicion" of the military, and he agreed "to a certain degree" with
the argument that Fox News and conservative radio became popular
because many people, in Hewitt's words, "got sick and tired of being
spoon-fed liberal dross" by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and
Washington Post. In an interview, Edsall says the main problem is "an
inability to empathize with the way many people in red states think
and feel" but that it is "possible" for journalists to set aside
their views and report fairly. WOMEN TAKE TO AIRWAVES
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Joe Garofoli]
Women are growing tired of listening to men -- at least on talk
radio. Much of the dial, media observers say, is a locker room full
of sports chatter and us-versus-them political banter that leaves no
room for conversation, let alone nuance. So while terrestrial radio
expects to shed listeners of both genders as the iPod generation
matures, women are moving to take back "spoken word" entertainment,
as one longtime producer calls it. From satellite networks to a
program that is teaching low-income women in Oakland how to make
documentaries to new media podcasters in San Francisco, women are
trying to reinvigorate mass audio by conversing -- not shouting --
about topics they're currently not hearing. To describe what they're
trying to create, some use a phrase seldom heard in the
towel-snapping talk radio universe: "Respect radio." 22 Sept: CREATIVE VOICES: FCC INDECENCY CRACKDOWN HARMS CHILDREN
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Center for Creative Voices in Media, which
includes TV and film executives among its
advisers, has weighed in at the FCC on indecency
with a report of how the FCC's indecency
crackdown has affected Hollywood and the nation
by"stifling free expression, threatening quality
television, and harming America’s children." The
report was submitted as comments in the FCC's
review of four profanity rulings it made back in
March without allowing for public comment.
Calling the FCC's decisions "inconsistent and
confusing," the center took issue with profanity
findings that were issued, including against the
Martin Scorcese documentary on blues musicians
and an NYPD Blue episode. The irony, says the
Center, is that Blue and Blues are just the type
of quality shows that "in their public speeches,
many FCC commissioners urge broadcasters to
create and air as trustees of publicly owned
airwaves." The Center concludes that the FCC's
enforcement policy has made Newton Minow's "vast
wasteland even vaster," and harms, not serves, the public interest. STAY "FLEETING EXPLETIVES" ENFORCEMENT, SAYS MEDIA INSTITUTE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The Media Institute has asked the FCC not to
punish broadcasters for "fleeting expletives"
until the courts rule on broadcaster challenges
to that enforcement. It also suggested, while
conceding it was unlikely, that the Commission
agree to a "self-imposed stay on all indecency
actions." The Institute -- a first amendment
think tank backed by media companies including
CBS, News Corp., Time Warner, and NBC -- was
among the filers Thursday as the FCC closed the
comment window on its reconsideration of four
profanity rulings. The institute takes issue with
the FCC's assertion that a "fleeting expletive"
in this case the "*ucking brilliant," which was
the subject of the Golden Globe Awards FCC
indecency ruling, "necessarily invokes sexual
imagery." "Sometimes," it says, evoking the
famous line about Freud and cigars, "an expletive
is just an expletive." The subjectivity of the
FCC's approach, says the Institute, which has
been to apply tougher standards but in a
subjective process that broadcasters say provides
no roadmap to safety, has "exacerbate[d] what has
been the Commission’s long-standing and insoluble
problem: the practical difficulties of trying to
differentiate a category of content unique to the
broadcast medium (“indecent” content), and trying
to regulate that content by applying standards
that inevitably prove too objective or too subjective." TV VIEWERSHIP HITS RECORD HIGH
[SOURCE: TVNewsday]
The total average time a household watched
television during the 2005-2006 TV year was eight
hours and 14 minutes per day, a 3-minute increase
from the 2004-2005 season and a record high,
Nielsen Media Research reported. The average
amount watched by an individual increased 3
minutes per day to 4 hours and 35 minutes, also a
record. Meanwhile, during primetime, households
tuned to an average of 1 hour and 54 minutes per
night, up 1 minute, and the average viewer
watched 1 hour and 11 minutes, which was the same as last year. THE CASE FOR CITIZEN OWNERSHIP OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
[SOURCE: MediaShift, AUTHOR: Mark Glaser]
[Commentary] Corporate ownership of daily
newspapers is reaching the breaking point,
especially now at the Los Angeles Times , which
is owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Company
media conglomerate. The newspaper is facing the
same problem that hundreds of other newspapers
are facing: Owners and stockholders who want
profit growth each year, who want to cut back on
editorial staff, and who could care less about
the communities and people who actually read and
gain insight from the newspaper. And there’s that
massive problem of people reading dead-tree
edition newspapers less and reading electronic
online versions more — leading to smaller profits
at the moment. So if the corporate owners of the
Los Angeles Times are growing impatient with
stagnating profits, why not let the readers take
charge of the destiny of the paper, not just as
citizen journalists but as citizen owners? The
NFL has its “Personal Seat Licenses” for various
stadiums, and the Green Bay Packers have issued
stock four times so their fans can buy a piece of
the team. Local public broadcasting and even
Salon.com have survived for years with the
support of membership drives and pledges from the
community. So why not newspapers? THAILAND CLAMPS DOWN ON MEDIA AFTER COUP
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Thailand's coup leaders barred electronic media
on Thursday from disseminating news and comments
they deemed a threat to national security and the
monarchy. The Information Ministry summoned
radio, television and Internet operators to "seek
cooperation" in enforcing the order "to restrict,
control, stop or destroy information deemed to
affect the constitutional monarchy." 21 Sept: ADMINISTRATION OPPOSES FEDERAL SHIELD LAW FOR JOURNALISTS
[SOURCE: Associated Press]
The No. 2 official at the Justice Department said Wednesday that a
shield law for reporters would encourage leaks of classified
information. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Deputy
Attorney General Paul McNulty also said the proposal to protect
reporters from having to identify their sources would "significantly
weaken" the department's ability to obtain information it needs to
protect national security. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen
Specter (R-PA) rejected McNulty's opposition, saying he wants to push
forward with the bill, inspired in part by last year's jailing of
journalist Judith Miller, then of The New York Times. MEDIA CONSOLIDATION SHUTS OUT WOMEN AND MINORITIES
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: S. Derek Turner & Mark Cooper]
As the Federal Communications Commission considers sweeping changes
to the nation's media landscape, Free Press today released a new
report on female and minority media ownership that shows the
consequences of further consolidation. The new study, Out of the
Picture, is the first complete assessment and analysis of female and
minority ownership of full-power commercial broadcast television
stations. The report argues that the FCC has abandoned its
responsibility to monitor and foster the diversity of media owners,
while ignoring the impact of its own policies. Out of the Picture
finds that pro-consolidation policies enacted by the FCC already have
had a significant impact on minority ownership, indirectly or
directly contributing to the loss of 40 percent of the stations that
were minority-owned in 1998. Among the report's findings: 1) Women
comprise 51 percent of the entire U.S. population, but own only 4.97
percent of all TV stations. 2) Minorities make up 33 percent of the
entire U.S. population, but own only 3.26 percent of all stations. 3)
While the level of female and minority ownership has advanced in
other industries since the late 1990s, it has worsened in the
broadcast sector. 4) Hispanic- or Latino-owned stations reach just
21.8 percent of the Latino TV households in the United States. 5) 91
percent of African-American TV households are not reached by a
black-owned TV station. 6) Markets with minority owners are
significantly less concentrated than markets without them -- even if
the size of the market is held constant. MORE ADULTS TAP INTERNET FOR ELECTION NEWS
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Nearly one-fifth of American adult users of the Internet in August
2006 spent some time reading about politics or the coming U.S.
election, a big increase from November 2004, according to a survey
released on Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
The non-partisan think tank said 26 million Americans -- or 19
percent of adult users -- turned to the Internet in August to read
political news and information, compared to 21 million in November
2004 when a presidential election was held. The latest figure is
noteworthy because August is typically a quiet month in political
campaigns due to summer vacations, said John Horrigan, associate
director of the Pew project. "We think that increase is due to more
and better content about politics than there was a couple of years
ago," Horrigan said. "You have more people reading blogs, some of
which are political, and there is the 'You Tube' phenomenon for
viewing political videos, which add up to a more attractive
environment," he added. MEDIA ADVERTISING SPENDING WILL GROW 23.6%
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Andrew Hampp]
Consumers may have slowed in their media spending habits, but that
hasn't stopped advertisers from aggressively pursuing new ways to
reach potential shoppers. The Advertising Spending data of the 2006
Veronis Suhler Stevenson Communications Industry Forecast indicates
that consumer spending on media increased 2.8% to $185.90 billion in
2005, the lowest growth rate for the communications sector in 30
years. Yet despite the decrease in box office, music and video-game
sales, the amount of money spent on media advertising continues to
grow, with a projected increase of 23.6% to $918.0 million in 2006.
And media advertising still has room for growth in untapped markets,
said Chris Russell, managing director, private equity at Veronis
Suhler Stevenson. The report also found the Internet continues to
spike overall advertising spending, which is expected to increase
6.4% to $210.9 billion in 2006. 20 Sept: SPEAK UP ABOUT MEDIA OWNERSHIP, DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Austin (TX) Statesman 9/18, AUTHOR: FCC
Commissioner Jonathaan Adelstein]
[Commentary] Who owns the media profoundly shapes
how we experience news and entertainment. Our
daily lives are affected by what we see on
television, hear on the radio and read in the
newspapers. Americans have a right enshrined in
the law to receive a diversity of viewpoints and
local programs, rather than allowing a handful of
giant companies to dominate our media landscape.
It's the Federal Communications Commission's job
to protect that right. So, I'm coming to Austin
to find out how well we are doing. THE RICH GET RICHER MEDIA: USE MORE INTERNET, MAGAZINES, TOO
[SOURCE: MediaDailyNews, AUTHOR: Erik Sass]
Affluent Americans are reading more consumer
magazines and using the Internet for certain
business transactions much more in 2006 than they
did just a year ago, according to the Mendelsohn
Affluent Survey, an annual study investigating
the habits of Americans with income exceeding
$85,000 a year. The news for print publications
was especially encouraging, according to Mitch
Lurin, the president of Mendelsohn, who led the
study: "This is a year where all you hear is doom
and gloom: ad pages are going down, subscriptions
are going down, newsstand is going down--all
these heavy-hearted things. But among affluent
Americans, magazine readership is as healthy as it's always been." THE NEWEST CHARACTERS ON TV SHOWS: PRODUCT PLUGS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Gary Levin]
NBC has high hopes for Friday Night Lights, a new
drama about a Texas high school football squad
based on a best-selling book and feature film.
Viewers will see some familiar names on the
sidelines -- and not just the actors. It's all
part of a rapidly growing trend called product
integration that marks a sea change in the TiVo
era. For years, movies and some TV shows have
featured real products instead of generic “cola”
bottles. Such placements were often paid for by
sponsors but lingered in the background. Ever
since Survivor began plying famished contestants
with Doritos and American Idol's Simon Cowell was
never far from a big red Coke glass, the script
has changed. Sitcoms and dramas are the new
product showcases as a shrinking ad market,
climbing production costs and ad-skipping
technology lead networks to become more blatant
about dropping product names into their shows.
Rather than exist as mere props, products are
being woven more tightly into story lines as
crucial plot points or subjects of dialogue,
making ad messages impossible to skip. If Friends
aired today, the gang might sip Starbucks
Frappuccinos instead of the daily brew at the fictional Central Perk. KNIGHT FOUNDATION COMPETITION FOR COMMUNITY NEWS EXPERIMENTS
[SOURCE: Knight Foundation press release]
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today
launches the Knight Brothers 21st Century News
Challenge, investing as much as $5 million in its
first year in community news projects that best
use the digital world to connect people to the
real world. The News Challenge is looking to fund
new ideas, prototypes, products and leadership
initiatives that use innovative news methods to
help citizens better connect within their
communities. The competition is open to anyone,
not just the journalism community. The Challenge
web site, with an online application form, is at
www.newschallenge.org. The competition will
accept applications through Dec. 31, and expects
to begin announcing winners in the spring of
2007. The foundation and its special panel of new
media advisors will look for innovative proposals
that contain a unique combination of vision,
courage and know-how in their ability to use
cyberspace to better connect people to the
physical space where they live and work. A WEB OF EXHIBITIONISTS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Robert J. Samuelson]
[Commentary] Call it the ExhibitioNet. It turns
out that the Internet has unleashed the greatest
outburst of mass exhibitionism in human history.
Everyone may not be entitled, as Andy Warhol once
suggested, to 15 minutes of fame. But everyone is
entitled to strive for 15 minutes -- or 30, 90 or
much more. We have blogs, "social networking"
sites (MySpace.com, Facebook), YouTube and all
their rivals. Everything about these sites is a
scream for attention. Look at me. Listen to me.
Laugh with me -- or at me. Today's exhibitionism
may last a lifetime. What goes on the Internet
often stays on the Internet. Something that seems
harmless, silly or merely impetuous today may
seem offensive, stupid or reckless in two weeks,
two years or two decades. Still, we are clearly
at a special moment. Thoreau famously remarked
that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet
desperation." Thanks to technology, that's no
longer necessary. People can now lead lives of
noisy and ostentatious desperation. Or at least they can try. 19 Sept: ONLINE MUSIC BUSINESS MODEL QUESTIONED
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Goldfarb]
Only one in five European iPod owners regularly
buys songs online, new research shows, a signal
that the music industry will need to rely more
heavily on other ways to recover revenue lost to
piracy and illegal downloading. Europe's digital
music market is expected to double to 385 million
euros ($487.1 million) in 2006 from a year ago,
Jupiter Research said on Monday, but iPod owners
on average buy only 20 tracks a year from Apple
Computer Inc.'s market-leading iTunes music
store. About 83 percent of iPod owners throughout
Europe do not regularly buy digital music, the
study found, although they are more apt to do so
than owners of other portable media devices. "The
model isn't broken, there's just lots of room for
improvement," Jupiter analyst Mark Mulligan said.
"Digital music is really underperforming its
potential." The study found that 30 percent of
iPod owners illegally swap songs using
file-sharing networks and another 23 percent
listen to Web-based audio files for free legally. NOW PLAYING ON NEWSPAPER SITES: CAMPAIGN '06 TV SPOTS
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Joe Strupp]
With newspapers expanding political coverage on
their Web sites this year more than ever before,
including wide use of blogs, among the most
effective - and entertaining -- uses of their
Internet editions have been links to political
ads. Although major dailies from The New York
Times to The Washington Post have been analyzing
such ads for effectiveness and factual honesty
for years, only recently have the moving images
themselves been placed online by the papers. At
least three dailies, the Times, the Post and Los
Angeles Times are offering readers a chance to
view the ads, most from candidates nationwide, via their Web pages. MORE TEENS SUPPORT FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION FOR MEDIA
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher]
A large-scale survey by the John S. and James L.
Knight Foundation has found that while high
school students in the U.S. are more
knowledgeable about the First Amendment than they
were two years ago, they are increasingly divided
on whether they think it goes too far in
protecting the right to free speech. In general,
today's high school students are more likely to
take classes that teach about the First Amendment
than they were two years ago, and more students
now support protections for journalists. Students
also increasingly support the right of student
publications to report without oversight from
school officials. The survey also found, however,
that students today also think that the First
Amendment guarantees too many rights, and there
is a growing polarization between students who
support the fundamental principle of the law and those who do not. 18 Sept: TRIBUNE FACES PRESSURE TO SELL LOS ANGELES PAPER [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Sarah Ellison sarah.ellison@wsj.com] Tribune Company, already under pressure from its largest shareholder, the Chandler family, is facing a growing challenge on another front: a push by some rich and powerful citizens in Los Angeles for a sale of the Los Angeles Times to local interests. The clamor over the nation's fourth-largest newspaper comes ahead of a Tribune board meeting Thursday, at which Chief Executive Officer Dennis FitzSimons is expected to deliver on a directive from the board to present a plan for the future of Tribune. Mr. FitzSimons and other executives have been preparing the plan even as they negotiate with the Chandlers, who formerly owned the Los Angeles Times, over the value of two complex partnerships that set off a bitter public battle between the family and Tribune management in June. The loose collection of those interested in a sale of the newspaper includes possible billionaire buyers, Times management and civic leaders. The parties say it is unorchestrated. But all say they are concerned that further cuts could harm a prestigious newspaper, and that if Tribune persists, then local ownership may be a possible savior. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115854892438866031.html?mod=todays_us_page_one (requires subscription) 14 Sept: LOCAL LEADERS URGE OWNER OF THE TIMES TO AVOID CUTS [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: James Rainey] Twenty Los Angeles civic leaders sent a letter of protest to the Chicago-based owners of the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, saying that continued staff reductions threatened to seriously erode the quality of journalism at The Times. Former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was among the prominent citizens who urged Tribune Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Dennis J. FitzSimons and the media company's board of directors "to resist economic pressures to make additional cuts which could remove it from the top ranks of American journalism." "All newspapers serve an important civic role," the letter adds, "but as a community voice in the metropolitan region, the Los Angeles Times is irreplaceable." http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-times14sep14,1,6756315.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business (requires registration) CHILDREN AT RISK ON NETWORKING WEB SITES
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Michael Holden]
Children using hugely popular social networking Web sites such as
MySpace.com and Bebo.com face bullying, unsuitable advertising and
pornography, a report by a UK consumer watchdog magazine said on Thursday. HAS THE FBI EVER HEARD OF GOOGLE?
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Eric Sinrod]
[Commentary] When it comes to the federal government's rationale for
not producing information to answer inquiries citing the Freedom of
Information Act, the recent case of Davis v. Department of Justice
falls under the "you gotta be kidding" category. 13 Sept: MARTIN SAYS FCC SHOULDN'T REGULATE ONLINE VIDEO
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin says he does not think
the FCC should be regulating Google Video,
YouTube or other online video services. During
his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Chairman
Martin said that he did not think the Internet
should be taxed, or that it should be subject to
payments into the Universal Service Fund for
rural telecommunications, which he said would
discourage broadband rollouts by raising the
price. As to online video, he said that it is
"not necessary to regulate [Internet video
service] at this time." On the broader Internet
regulation issue of network neutrality, Chairman
Martin said he did not oppose Google charging
more to companies for higher-profile placement on
their search engine, and likewise did not opposed
a telephone company like Verizon charging more
for higher-bandwidth services like streaming
video, suggesting that if they could not, the
might not be able to afford to provide those
services. Chairman Martin said he didn't think
the FCC had the authority to regulate online
content, as it does with broadcast, but that
doesn't mean he wouldn't like to. He told Senator
Mark Pryor (D-Ark) that he thought "all
policymakers should try to make the Internet a
more decent place," but said that was a
challenge, pointing out that it had been
challenging enough in the broadcast space, where
the FCC does have authority to regulate decency. CRITICS DISPUTE IMPACT OF CHINA'S REVISED MEDIA RULES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Maureen Fan]
Journalism and human rights groups on Tuesday
blasted China's efforts to further control the
distribution of news and financial information by
foreign news agencies, saying revised regulations
showed that the government was tightening
censorship. But other experts said the impact of
the new rules was limited in a country that
already bans direct delivery of general news to
Chinese media. They said the new rules signaled
an attempt by China's state media to grab a piece
of the lucrative financial information market.
The New China News Agency, mouthpiece for the
Communist Party, announced revisions Sunday to
10-year-old regulations governing foreign news
agencies in China. The new rules explicitly
forbid foreign agencies to distribute news that
undermines China's national unity or sovereignty
or endangers China's national security,
reputation and interests. Under the rules,
agencies cannot include content banned under
Chinese laws, and the New China News Agency has
the right to decide what news and information
will be released in China and can delete anything it deems inappropriate. PROPOSED TREATY ON TV SIGNALS SPURS CRITICISM
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jim Puzzanghera]
The proposal sounds modest enough: Broadcasters
want to stop international pirates from hijacking
American TV signals and re-transmitting them over
the Internet. But the high-tech industry and
digital rights advocates see something more
sinister in the fine print of a proposed
international treaty being negotiated this week
in Geneva. They fear it will end up restricting
how people can use legally recorded shows stashed
on their TiVos or computer hard drives. Pushed by
U.S. and European TV networks, the treaty being
considered by a World Intellectual Property
Organization committee would prohibit the theft
of their signals, as well as those from cable and
satellite broadcasters. TV broadcasters said they
were not targeting average viewers recording
their favorite shows, just large-scale thieves
stealing their business. "If you send our signal
… to 100,000 people so it ruins our ability to
market our signals, we ought to be able to
prohibit that," said Ben Ivins, senior associate
general counsel for the National Association of
Broadcasters, which has been pressing for the
treaty for several years. But in what is shaping
up as the next major battle in the fight over
digital content, a coalition of phone companies,
information technology firms and digital rights
advocates warn the proposed treaty could do much
more and is working to derail it. MAINSTREAM MEDIA OUTPACING EVERYONE ON WEB
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher]
"Traditional" media companies that in 2000 won
just 16% of total advertising and marketing
spending on Internet and mobile services are on
pace to grab 45% of the spending by the end of
this year, according to the Communications
Industry Forecast 2006-2010 released Tuesday by
Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS). The New York
City-based private equity and mezzanine capital
fund management company that concentrates on
media and related information industries predicts
that Internet and mobile services will grow at a
rate of 14.7% over the next five years -- and
that the fastest growth will come from traditional media companies. 12 Sept: BOUCHER: NET NEUTRALITY STALLS BROADBAND MEASURE
[SOURCE: FCW.com, AUTHOR: John Monroe]
The debate over network neutrality could be resolved if the United
States were to follow the lead of Japan, Korea and other countries in
ensuring that high-speed Internet access is widely available to the
general population, said Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA). The net neutrality
debate threatens to sink a telecommunications reform bill that would
make it easier for state and local governments to extend broadband
services to rural areas, said Rep Boucher, speaking Monday at the
Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium in Roanoke,
Va. But this need not be the case, he said. The issue of net
neutrality is really an issue of high-speed communications over "the
last mile," Rep Boucher said. Although high-speed fiber-optic
networks crisscross many regions of the country, a lot of people
still have slower links for accessing those backbone networks. HOW 9-11 CHANGED THE EVENING NEWS
[SOURCE: Journalism.org]
Looking back five years later, how did 9-11 change the news? If the
network evening news is any proxy, the attacks of September 11th 2001
in Washington and New York and the wars that resulted have led to
increased coverage of foreign policy and global conflict on the
network evening news, but less coverage of domestic issues, according
to data from ADT Research's Tyndall Report, which monitors those
newscasts. The mix of traditional hard news and feature of lifestyle
coverage, meanwhile, has remained virtually the same on the evening
newscasts. Those are the findings drawn from examining the four years
of network newscasts prior to 2001 (1997 to 2000) and the four years
since (2002 through 2005) according to data generated for the Project
for Excellence in Journalism by ADT Research, which publishes the
Tyndall Report. The number of minutes devoted to coverage of foreign
policy was up 102%, according to ADT's data. Coverage of armed
conflict rose 69%. Coverage of terrorism rose 135%. At the same time,
there has been a serious decline in reporting about domestic issues.
Coverage of crime and law enforcement dropped by half (47%). Science
and technology coverage fell by half (50%). Coverage of issues
involving alcohol, tobacco and drugs dropped 66%. A rise in foreign
coverage may not surprise anyone. U.S. troops are currently fighting
and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. The issue of global terrorism is
the new question of our times. It may dictate the outcome of the 2006
midterm elections and define the Bush presidency. What is less
obvious is the effect of the shift in coverage on the overall tone of
the newscast. For instance, the balance between reporting-driven
"hard news" and softer features, interviews, and commentaries
remained virtually unchanged after 9-11. The newscast minutes devoted
to hard news increased by a mere 2 % in the years after the attacks
while the airtime given to softer coverage decreased by only 5%. ABC FOLLOWS A PATH TO SHAME
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times 9/9, AUTHOR: Tim Rutten]
[Commentary] Surveying the smoking ruin that is ABC's reputation
after the "The Path to 9/11" debacle, it's hard to know whether
you're looking at the consequence of unadulterated folly or of a
calculated strategy that turned out to be too clever by half. At the
end of the day, it probably doesn't make much difference because,
either way, the lacerating controversy surrounding the network's
docu-dramatic re-creation of events leading to Sept. 11 is an
entirely self-inflicted wound. For most of the week, ABC rather
haughtily attempted to characterize itself as the victim of
philistines, or self-righteously as a champion of free speech or,
more pathetically, as just plain misunderstood by people who just
don't understand how television is done. It is none of those things.
It's an opportunistic and self-interested organization that somehow
thought it could approach the most wrenching American tragedy since
Pearl Harbor with the values that prevail among network television
executives -- the sort of ad hoc ethics that would make a
streetwalker blush -- and that nobody would mind. did the people who
run ABC Entertainment -- the network division directly responsible
for this mess -- really believe that Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright
and Sandy Berger would watch themselves on television doing and
saying thing they never did or said and not object? One of the most
unfortunate consequences of all this was that most of the news media
completely overlook a stunning affront to 1st Amendment freedoms that
occurred when the Democratic leadership of the U.S. Senate sent Iger
a letter Thursday appearing to threaten the network's licenses unless
"The Path to 9/11" was altered or killed. NBC SEES $1 BILLION DIGITAL REVENUES BY '09
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Media conglomerate NBC Universal aims to more than double revenue
from its digital businesses to about $1 billion by 2009 from an
estimated $400 million this year. NBC purchased women's lifestyle Web
network iVillage this year for about $600 million. The owner of the
NBC television network and Universal film studios plans to make
iVillage the centerpiece of its Internet strategy, according to a
report in the Financial Times based on an interview with NBC
Universal Chief Executive Bob Wright. That strategy would be similar
to how MySpace.com is now the cornerstone of News Corp.'s digital
plans, according to the FT. It also reported NBC is readying an
online video subscription service for its CNBC financial news cable TV network. STUDY: PROMISING FUTURE FOR POWER-LINE BROADBAND [SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Caroline McCarthy]
The demand for using traditional electrical lines as a medium for
broadband technology in the residential sector is rising worldwide
and will continue to grow, according to a study by market research
firm In-Stat. Broadband service over power lines (BPL), which allows
an Internet connection to be established through a standard
electrical outlet, is seen as a potential rival to coaxial (coax) and
twisted-pair wiring, the fixed-line technologies most commonly used
for cable and telephone service, respectively. Incorporating BPL into
a residence or business requires no additional wire installation. It
may sound too good to be true, and indeed BPL has had a rocky history
because of technical limitations, high development costs and its
potential for interference with ham radio and emergency radio
signals. But according to In-Stat's research, it's catching on. The
number of broadband power-line equipment units sold passed the 2
million mark in 2005, and the research firm expects that the number
will increase by 200 percent this year. 11 Sept: 'BLOGOSPHERE' SPURS GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Richard Wolf]
When watchdog groups that monitor federal spending wanted more
information on 1,800 "pork barrel" projects buried in a House
appropriations bill, they listed them on the Internet and asked
readers to dig deeper. Within days, details began pouring in. The
same thing happened when Porkbusters.org enlisted readers of its
website to find out which senator had blocked legislation that would
create an online database of federal grants and contracts. One by
one, senators were eliminated until Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Robert
Byrd, D-W.Va., were uncovered. The two episodes illustrate the latest
trend in government oversight: More light is being thrown on
Congress, not just by the media and public interest groups, but in
the "blogosphere" where Internet users meet. "It's probably the
biggest expansion of government oversight that we'll ever have," says
Thomas Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste, one of the groups
pioneering the effort. "It will turn every American into a watchdog."
Their involvement is getting action: House Majority Leader John
Boehner, R-Ohio, has promised a vote this week on a rules change that
would ensure the sponsors of individual projects are identified. And
Republicans in the House and Senate say they will approve the
national database this year. CELLULAR CONNECTIONS HIT 2.5 BILLION MARK
[SOURCE: Telecommunications Online, AUTHOR: Iain Morris]
Worldwide cellular connections hit 2.5 billion last week according to
a new report from research group Wireless Intelligence. A quarter of
the 484 million new cellular connections established since September
2005 are in China and India, according to the report. Expansion in
both markets is expected to continue in the future: in China an
estimated five million new connections are activated each month,
while the monthly rate of new Indian connections has quadrupled in
the last 18 months to reach a level similar to China's. Overall, the
Asia Pacific region accounted for 41 percent of the new connections.
Growth spurts were also observed in Eastern Europe and Latin America,
which together claimed 30 percent of new connections. PORTABLE CONTENT NOT CONNECTING WITH CONSUMERS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Antony Bruno]
Despite all the dramatic advancements that the mobile entertainment
industry has made, there is a still one important ingredient it has
not obtained: customers. There has been a flurry of content-related
deal-making and partnership activity in the past year between those
who create content and those who distribute it. Granted, this was a
necessary step in the development of the mobile entertainment
industry, but the focus is shifting to how to sell this newly
acquired content properly. "The content is there, and there's plenty
to choose from," says Richard Siber, an industry consultant who
formerly led Accenture's mobile media division. "It's just not
intuitive to discover or actually purchase (the content). It's about
making the discovery easier and making the transaction seamless." AUTHORS STRIKE DEALS TO SQUEEZE IN A FEW BRAND NAMES
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Laura Petrecca]
Marketers have discovered a novel way to get their word out:
embedding products in books. Corporate-sponsored book commercials are
part of the overall blurring of lines between advertising and
entertainment. Movies, TV shows, music videos and video games have
gone well beyond simply having a product appear in a scene to
inclusion of brands as part of the story. Worldwide spending for paid
product placement swelled 42.2% in 2005 to $2.2 billion, according to
PQ Media. With non-cash promotion and barter deals included, the
value of global placement in 2005 was up was 27.9% to $6 billion. CHINA PUTS STRICTER LIMITS ON DISTRIBUTION OF FOREIGN NEWS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Joseph Kahn]
China imposed broad new restrictions Sunday on the distribution of
foreign news in the country, beefing up state regulations on the news
media. Under new rules that were said to take effect immediately, the
state-run New China News Agency said it would become the de facto
gatekeeper for foreign news reports, photographs and graphics
entering China. The agency announced in its own dispatch that it
would censor content that endangers "national security." If enforced
as drafted, the regulations could have a major impact on news
agencies like The Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg News that
sell news-related products to a wide range of Chinese clients. More
generally, the step appears intended to further restrict the
information that news media in China, including news-oriented Web
sites and financial, cultural and sports publications, can receive
and convey to viewers or subscribers. Many such media outlets have
skirted censorship procedures that old-line media must follow in
China, a one-party state. 8 Sept: STUDY AIMS TO IMPROVE INTERNET LITERACY
[SOURCE: eSchool News, AUTHOR: Laura Ascione]
Researchers at the University of Connecticut and Clemson University
are in the middle of a three-year project to find a proven method of
boosting the Internet literacy skills of disadvantaged students. As
part of the study, they're testing a new way to teach students how to
read, understand, and critically evaluate the information they find
online, through a "reciprocal" model that has been proven to work
well in teaching traditional literacy skills. The $1.8 million
project, called "Developing Internet Comprehension Strategies among
Poor, Adolescent Students at Risk to Become Dropouts," is funded by
the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Educational Sciences. RATED R, FOR OBSCURE REASONS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Sraff]
[Commentary] Given the large role they play in shaping the culture,
it is remarkable how little is known about movie ratings. Who decides
whether a movie is rated PG or NC-17? What criteria do they use? How
does the appeals process work? Those are some of the questions posed
by an illuminating new documentary, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated,"
directed by Kirby Dick. Mr. Dick's film makes a compelling case that
there needs to be greater transparency in the ratings process, and
significant reforms. The ratings system is operated by two industry
groups, the Motion Picture Association of America and the National
Association of Theater Owners. The system is private, but the public
has a strong interest in it, since the ratings play a large role in
shaping movie content. Films rated NC-17 can have a hard time
attracting audiences. Producers are often willing to make substantial
cuts or changes in movies to get a more commercially viable rating.
It is questionable whether the movie industry should be in the
business of rating movies at all. It might make more sense to simply
make information about content available, and let parents make their
own assessments. If there are going to be movie ratings, they should
be done through a fair and open process. After the revelations of
"This Film Is Not Yet Rated," the burden is now on the M.P.A.A. to
give its ratings system a serious upgrade. 7 Sept: IN ONLINE SOCIAL CLUB, SHARING IS THE POINT UNTIL IT GOES TOO FAR
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Susan Kinzie and Yuki Noguchi]
Denizens of one of the Web's most popular student hangouts are in an
uproar over changes to the site that they say make their online
musings much too public, turning their personal lives into a flashing
billboard. Facebook.com, a site used by more than 9 million students
and some professionals, is an Internet lounge where people share
photos, read one another's postings and make connections -- a kind of
digital yearbook through which people find out about goings-on with
their friends and on campus. But this week the site's immense
popularity backfired after it started a feature that culls fresh
information users post about themselves and delivers it in
headline-news format to their network of buddies. Facebook, of Palo
Alto, Calif., unveiled the feature at midnight Monday, saying it
would make new information easier to find. Within hours, online
protest groups were formed and thousands of people had joined.
ROSS OFFERS POLICY PRINCIPLES FOR MEDIA REGULATION
[SOURCE: Progress and Freedom Foundation]
Policymakers should consider regulation's effect on consumers,
innovation and free expression when proposing restrictions and
regulations on media platforms, states Patrick Ross in "Do's and
Don'ts for Global Media Regulation: Empowering Expression, Consumers
and Innovation," a Progress on Point released Wednesday by The
Progress & Freedom Foundation. With debate over the "Television
without Frontiers Directive" continuing this fall in the European
Union, the author hopes to guide regulators in their policymaking for
new media platforms by offering simple principles. "Under these
rules," writes Ross, "all new technologies and services could enter
the market and compete for customers, and freedom of expression would
be ensured." This paper is being published as part of PFF's Center
for Digital Media Freedom, directed by Senior Fellow Adam Thierer.
The Progress & Freedom Foundation is a market-oriented think tank
that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. 6 Sept: UBLIC EXPRESSES FRUSTRATION OVER BROADCAST MEDIA
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times 9/4, AUTHOR: Meg James meg.james@latimes.com]
Deep frustration over the media's often frivolous
and occasionally insensitive broadcasts bubbled
over late last week in Los Angeles as a parade of
speakers spent 4 1/2 hours imploring two federal
regulators to enforce higher standards and halt
any further consolidation of radio and television
station ownership. Nearly 250 people showed up
for a hearing at the University of Southern
California, one of several across the country
that will be held as the Federal Communications
Commission embarks, yet again, on an overhaul of
media ownership rules. FCC Commissioners Michael
Copps and Jonathan Adelstein received an earful
from dozens of speakers, who asserted that the
consolidation of station ownership had led to a
pronounced decline in in-depth news reporting,
diversity of viewpoints and quality children's
programming. The hearing was the first of four
that Copps and Adelstein are planning to
specifically address the concerns of Latinos. Los
Angeles is home to the nation's largest Latino
population -- 1.8 million households, according
to Nielsen Media Research. The two FCC members
plan other such hearings this year in New York,
Chicago and Austin, Texas. The full FCC is
expected to vote on the media ownership rules
next year. The issue is considered a test for FCC
Chairman Kevin J. Martin, who took the helm last year THE FIRST YOUTUBE ELECTION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] YouTube.com has become a magnet for
budding filmmakers, marketers and entertainment
industry executives looking for new ways to reach
viewers. Now, with the campaign season upon us,
political hatchet men are discovering the site
too. YouTube offers partisans a nearly
irresistible combination: It lets them post
videos under pseudonyms, and it stores and plays
them for free. In May, a video skewering Al
Gore's global warming movie, "An Inconvenient
Truth," provided a sample of political things to
come. More slick than the typical homemade video,
the two-minute bit was posted by someone claiming
to be a 29-year-old from Beverly Hills. But the
Wall Street Journal traced it to an employee at a
Washington lobbying firm whose clients include
ExxonMobil Corp. YouTube is also a tempting
launch pad for political mischief because it is
effectively unregulated by the Federal Election
Commission, whose Internet rules apply only to
paid political advertising. Videos on YouTube
don't have to disclose their source or include an
on-air approval from a candidate -- two
requirements for political TV and radio spots.
But YouTube, like the Internet in general, has a
self-correcting quality not found in the
broadcast media, where the high price of airtime
crimps the public's ability to participate in the
debate. Online, everyone's a critic -- and in
many cases, an investigator too. The Internet can
serve as an important memory bank for gaffes and
public lapses that candidates and officials would
rather citizens forget. But because it's hard to
tell real memories on the site from fake ones,
it's important for voters to take what they see
there with a grain of salt -- just like
everything else they see or hear during the campaign season. BROADBAND BOOM IN CHINA
[SOURCE: TelecommunicationsOnline, AUTHOR: Ken Wieland]
Buoyed by higher income levels in China’s main
cities, the country’s broadband market is on
course to be the largest in the world -- in terms
of subscribers -- in less than a year. According
to figures released by the Ovum consultancy firm,
there were 45 million broadband subscribers in
China by the end of June 2006, which represents a
CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 79 percent
over the last three years. The US, currently the
world’s largest broadband market with 46 million
subscribers, is now within touching distance and
will soon be toppled from top spot. With a
broadband penetration of only 3.4 percent of the
population, fast-paced growth is set to continue
in China. Ovum calculates that China’s broadband
market will grow by a CAGR of 75 percent through
to 2010 to reach 139 million subscribers (93 million using DSL connections). GOOGLE TO OFFER NEWS ARCHIVE
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Michael Liedtke]
Google is expanding its online news index to
include stories published years ago, continuing
its efforts to create new sales channels for
long-established media and make its Web site more
useful. The archive, to be unveiled today,
includes articles from media outlets including
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time
magazine and The Washington Post. Information
storehouses such as LexisNexis, Factiva and
HighBeam Research also have opened up sections of
their databases to Google's expanded index. Until
now, Google's four-year-old news-search service
has focused primarily on stories posted on the
Web in the past 30 days. The new feature will
share only excerpts from stories related to
users' requests. To see the full stories, users
will be sent to the Web sites that own the
content, which gives media outlets a chance to
charge for access to the full stories -- a common
practice in distributing historical information.
Google will not collect any commission for the
sales referrals, hoping instead to make money
indirectly from increased usage of its site. The
arrangement marks Google's latest attempt to
demonstrate the value of its search engine to the traditional media. I WAS JUST THINKING OF YOU
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Many people have experienced the phenomenon of
receiving a telephone call from someone shortly
after thinking about them -- now a scientist says
he has proof of what he calls telephone
telepathy. Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is
funded by the respected Trinity College,
Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted
experiments that proved that such precognition
existed for telephone calls and even e-mails.
Sheldrake -- who believes in the
interconnectedness of all minds within a social
grouping -- said that he was extending his
experiments to see if the phenomenon also worked
for mobile phone text messages. SILICON VALLEY TO RECEIVE FREE WI-FI
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
A consortium of technology companies, including
I.B.M. and Cisco Systems, announced plans Tuesday
for a vast wireless network that would provide
free Internet access to big portions of Silicon
Valley and the surrounding region as early as
next year. The project is the largest of a new
breed of wireless networks being built across the
country. They are taking advantage of the falling
cost of providing high-speed Internet access over
radio waves as opposed to cable or telephone
lines. The project will cover 1,500 square miles
in 38 cities in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda
and Santa Cruz Counties, an area of 2.4 million
residents. Its builders, going by the name
Silicon Valley Metro Connect, said the service
would provide free basic wireless access at
speeds up to 1 megabit a second -- which is
roughly comparable to broadband speeds by
telephone -- in outdoor areas. Special equipment,
costing $80 to $120, will be needed to bolster
the signal enough to bring it inside homes or
offices. The consortium will also offer a
fee-based service, with higher speeds and
technical support, and will allow other companies
to sell premium services over the network as well. 5 Sept: A BITTER 'FLAVOR': REALITY SHOW SHOULD MAKE US ALL CRINGE
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: DeWayne Wickham]
[Commentary] There's more proof that Neil Postman
knew what he was talking about. In his 1985 book,
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in
the Age of Show Business, the media critic and
educator suggested that futurist Aldous Huxley,
not George Orwell, had a better vision of where
life on this planet is headed. “What Orwell
feared were those who would ban books,” Postman
wrote in the foreword to his book. “What Huxley
feared was that there would be no reason to ban a
book, for there would be no one who wanted to
read one. … Orwell feared that the truth would be
concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth
would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell
feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley
feared we would become a trivial culture.” The
success of Flavor of Love 2, a VH1 reality show
whose second-season premiere last month brought
the cable network its highest rating for any
opening show, is a crass and tasteless descent
into the abyss that Huxley saw the world hurtling
toward. And it is proof positive that this nation
is at risk of amusing ourselves to death.
TEXTBOOKS ARE FREE, BUT THEY CARRY ADS
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Justin Pope]
Textbook prices are soaring into the hundreds,
but in some courses this fall, students won't pay
a dime. The catch: Their textbooks will have ads
for companies including FedEx Kinko's and Pura Vida Coffee. WINNING ONLINE' -- A MANIFESTO
[SOURCE: Editor&Publisher, AUTHOR: Tom Mohr]
Newspapers must win online, or face a future of
painful contraction. To win, industry leaders
must adopt a Marshall Plan embodying two key
objectives: the migration to common platforms,
and the acquisition of the ability to sell
top-quality online product to our advertisers. To
fulfill these objectives, the independent
companies of a proud industry must aggregate into
an industry-wide network. In this network, each
company must cede some control over its digital
future into a “Switzerland” organization that
manages the network. This will require a degree
of cooperation and trust rarely seen before in
the newspaper business, and therefore will only
be achieved through the active, visionary
leadership of the industry’s captains. But, if
they pursue this path and plug into the power of
network economics, they will tap into $4 billion
of revenue upside for the industry by 2010. MYSPACE: MEET THE BAND, BUY THE SONG
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Yuki Noguchi]
Technology is taking the middleman out of the
music business, giving artists a bigger array of
tools to get their songs in the MP3 players of
potential fans around the world. That trend is
hurting the classic record store chains, such as
Tower Records, and thousands of independent
stores, but it's also opening doors to digital
music sales direct from the artist to the fan.
The latest development in that direction comes
from MySpace, a social networking site that has
brought new audiences to many bands. Now MySpace
is adding a music-store feature that will allow
artists, labels and the site itself to cash in on
the popularity of those songs. The new feature,
expected to be announced today, will allow
musicians -- whether they are backed by a record
label or not -- to sell songs directly from their
MySpace profile pages. Assuming that the songs
for sale do not violate a copyright, the artist
or label can set a price and allow Web users to
buy songs the way they might with services such
as iTunes and Yahoo Music. The service is in
trial and will be available broadly by the end of the year. BRAZIL JUDGE ORDERS GOOGLE TO DISCLOSE USERS' DATA [SOURCE: Reuters] A Brazilian judge has ordered the local office of Web search company Google to disclose the data of users of Google's social networking site Orkut accused of crimes like racism or child pornography. Federal judge Jose Lunardelli ruled late on Thursday that Google be given 15 days to disclose the information, including the Internet Protocol addresses that can uniquely identify a specific computer on a network. The judge set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($23,255) for each individual case if Google refuses to reveal the data. Brazilians account for 65 percent of Orkut's nearly 27 million users and public prosecutors have recently been investigating Orkut communities set up by Brazilians and dedicated to such subjects as racism, homophobia and pedophilia. Google officials in Brazil have said all clients' data is stored on a server in the United States and is subject to U.S. laws, which makes it impossible for them to reveal the data in Brazil. They also said the local affiliate only deals in marketing and sales and has nothing to do with Orkut. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-09-01T154938Z_01_N01443799_RTRUKOC_0_US-BRAZIL-GOOGLE.xml&archived=False ONLINE GAME, MADE IN US, SEIZES THE GLOBE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Seth Schiesel]
Less than two years after its introduction, World
of Warcraft, made by Blizzard Entertainment,
based in Irvine, Calif., is on pace to generate
more than $1 billion in revenue this year with
almost seven million paying subscribers, who can
log into the game and interact with other
players. That makes it one of the most lucrative
entertainment media properties of any kind.
Almost every other subscription online game,
including EverQuest II and Star Wars: Galaxies,
measures its customers in hundreds of thousands
or even just tens of thousands. And while games
stamped “Made in the U.S.A.” have often struggled
abroad, especially in Asia, World of Warcraft has
become the first truly global video-game hit since Pac-Man in the early 1980s. 1 September: CITIZEN MEDIA BEATS BIG MEDIA, YOUTUBE BLOWS THE WHISTLE [SOURCE: MediaDailyNews, AUTHOR: Tom Siebert] The whistle-blower who aired allegations on YouTube that Lockheed Martin sold the U.S. Coast Guard $24 billion worth of refurbished Coast Guard patrol boats with significant security flaws and other deficiencies says it was a decision of "last resort." He turned to YouTube when the mainstream media dismissed his claims as "outlandish." "I contacted every single mass media outlet on television and probably 75 separate reporters at different newspapers," says Michael De Kort, the 41-year-old former engineer for Lockheed Martin. De Kort was laid off by the military contractor days after he posted his 10-minute video on August 3, soberly detailing shortcomings in the boats' security cameras, communications abilities, and cold weather capabilities. "They wouldn't do the story." Following De Kort's YouTube airing, however, his allegations were subsequently reported in the Navy Times, and then picked up by The Washington Post, NPR and other news organizations. The video has become the latest example of new media driving the old, cited by ABC News as "further evidence that the Internet has given the average person a way to be heard." http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=47533&Nid=22945&p=368626 VIETNAM WEB CONTROLS REMAIN AS DISSENT RELEASED [SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Grant McCool] Vietnam, which released a prominent jailed cyber-dissident this week, imposes tight legal and technical measures to control access to writings and people who challenge one-party rule, researchers and observers say. The Communist government says it monitors Web sites and Internet cafes to block pornographic content. But a report published in early August by a western academic group, OpenNet Initiative, said its researchers easily gained access to sexually-explicit sites in Vietnamese. "The state filters a significant fraction -- in some cases, the great majority -- of sites with politically or religiously sensitive material that could undermine Vietnam's one-party system," said the group, a partnership of centers at the University of Toronto, Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-08-31T205726Z_01_HAN20820_RTRUKOC_0_US-VIETNAM-INTERNET.xml&archived=False MEDIA MONEY WILL FLOW TO CONTENT MANAGERS [SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Graham Elton and Harris Morris] [Commentary] During the past two decades, broadcasters, station groups, cable television operators and other distributors garnered most of the profits in media because they controlled access to the consumer. Now, thanks to an explosion of content and new delivery platforms, control has shifted to consumers of media. As a result, the money made by managing content will grow faster than profits in any other part of the media value chain. Profits from content management, boosted by the "aggregation" of content and communities by popular Internet portals and cable network brands, are rising about 12 per cent a year. That is roughly twice the rate of growth in profits from distribution. Traditional industry players are spending billions on content management. But it will take more than the right investments to win these sweepstakes. To succeed as content managers, media companies need to know more about their customers than the customers know about themselves. They must anticipate customers' changing preferences and rapidly turn those insights into new offerings. Skillful content management requires making the right calls about what content gets targeted at which audiences, which platforms to use in transmitting that content and how best to support it through advertising, subscriptions or a combination of the two. What will it take to win? First, media companies need to be disciplined about where not to invest. Second, media companies should identify which audiences to pursue first and develop strategies to "own" those segments wherever the audience tunes in. Third, companies need to determine where they have significant gaps. Finally, companies must build a strong consumer focus. The key is capturing the right customer information and quickly incorporating these insights into product development and content management. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/833fded2-3916-11db-a21d-0000779e2340.html (requires subscription) SURVEY: ADVERTISERS FLOCK TO 'UNTRUSTWORTHY' MEDIA [SOURCE: Brandweek, AUTHOR: Todd Wasserman] Though more marketers plan to advertise on blogs and public forums next year, only a small amount of consumers consider those formats to be trustworthy, according to a new report from Jupiter Research. Only 21 percent of consumers trust product information within such social media when mulling a product purchase. Consumers are twice as likely to trust information on a corporate Web site or on a professional review site. Nevertheless, the survey, which was released Aug. 29 by the New York-based Jupiter, found about 20% of advertisers surveyed planned to use viral marketing next year, mostly for branding purposes. http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003085988 COMING TO VIDEO GAMES: LIVE ADS [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Mike Musgrove] Game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. announced yesterday that it has inked deals with two ad companies that will stream live advertising into its games. Players of the latest version of EA's Need for Speed see the same billboard ads on the side of the virtual roads whenever they play the street-racing game. But with live ads streamed via the Internet in the next version of the game, players could see different ads every time they turn the game on. Some players find such advertising objectionable -- after all, many games for the Xbox 360 cost $60 apiece. But many game fans say they like the ads because they contribute to the illusion of a realistic urban or sports-arena environment. Generally, publishers have avoided putting advertising in fantasy titles or other types of games where a billboard advertisement would seem out of place. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101475.html (requires registration) MEDIA ADVOCATES SEE JOURNALIST'S SENTENCE AS WARNING FROM CHINA [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Ching-Ching Ni] The sentencing of a Hong Kong reporter Thursday to five years in prison on espionage charges sends a chilling message to the journalism community in China to not cross the party line, analysts watching the case said. The case brought widespread outcry from international advocates of press freedom. They fear a further tightening of media control in China that might intimidate foreign as well as domestic journalists. China is believed to have put more journalists behind bars than any other country, often under vague charges of violating national security laws. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-reporter1sep01,1,7178338.story?coll=la-news-a_section (requires registration) BASEBALL GONE BATTY [SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Chris Gaither] A minor league team lets fans help manage as part of a Web reality show. Some say the interactivity runs afoul of the sport's tradition. The Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs are mulling going with a 'Web of coaches' next year if the experiment turns a profit. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-baseball1sep01,1,6122783.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage (requires registration) Click here for earler Benton files. (c)
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