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Benton media news digest – March 2007

March 2007

BERNERS-LEE PUSHES CONGRESS ON 'NONDISCRIMINATORY' WEB
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
World Wide Web father Tim Berners-Lee told politicians on Thursday that it's critical to shield his seminal innovation from control by a single company or country. A top priority for policymakers going forward must be "making sure the Web itself is the blank sheet, the blank canvas, something that does not constrain the innovation that's around the corner," he told the House Telecom Subcommittee. That means ensuring anyone can use the Web regardless of what software or hardware they're running, which Internet service provider supplies their connection, which language they speak, and what disabilities they have, Berners-Lee said. He was the sole witness invited to speak at a hearing here titled "The Future of the World Wide Web," the first of a series of events designed to keep politicians up to speed on communications issues.
http://news.com.com/Berners-Lee+pushes+Congress+on+nondiscriminatory+Web/2100-1034_3-6163616.html?tag=nefd.top

BREAKING THE NEWS
[SOURCE: Mother Jones, AUTHOR: Eric Klinenberg]
While our democratic culture could survive the loss of the daily newspaper as we know it, it would be endangered without the kinds of reporting that it provides, writes Eric Klinenberg. "Even in the online era, more than 60% of Americans say they read a local newspaper daily or several times a week. And with good reason: Few of the cable channels and websites that newspaper chains claim as competitors actually provide original news and information. Cable networks do virtually no local reporting of their own, and while bloggers do a good job exposing journalistic lapses, they generally aren't doing the muckraking, beat reporting, and pavement pounding that generate news." (Much more on journalism -- and the media ownership debate -- at the URL below.)
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/03/breaking_the_news.html
* The Race Robert Kuttner believes newspapers have started down a financially and journalistically viable path of becoming hybrids -- part web, part print. "Assuming that most dailies survive the transition, my guess is that in twenty-five years they will be mostly digital; that even people like me of the pre-Internet generation will be largely won over by ingenious devices like Times Reader, supplemented by news alerts, RSS feeds, and God knows what else."
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2007/2/Kuttner.asp

WHY MEDIA AGENCIES NEED DIVERSITY [SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Lisa Sanders] A Q & A with Eugene Morris -- founder of E. Morris Communications, a Chicago marketing-communications agency -- on the importance of diversity for advertising firms.
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=115248
• Lack of diversity in discussion about media diversity
• http://blogs.mediapost.com/AAAA_2007/?p=19

AWAY FROM HOME, TV ADS ARE INESCAPABLE [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Louise Story] As if Americans do not already watch enough television, there are digital TV networks popping up on screens in groceries, office buildings, retail stores, on gas pumps, and just about every place imaginable. Advertisers increasingly want to reach consumers outside of their homes in places where they cannot avoid ads. TV screens in shops and malls display ads to people when they are closest to their wallets, and some advertising executives think point-of-purchase advertising may yield the highest increase in sales. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/business/media/02adco.html (requires registration)

YOUR WI-FI CAN TELL PEOPLE A LOT ABOUT YOU
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Joris Evers]
Simply booting up a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop can tell people sniffing wireless network traffic a lot about your computer--and about you. Soon after a computer powers up, it starts looking for wireless networks and network services. Even if the wireless hardware is then shut-off, a snoop may already have caught interesting data. Much more information can be plucked out of the air if the computer is connected to an access point, in particular an access point without security.
http://news.com.com/Your+Wi-Fi+can+tell+people+a+lot+about+you/2100-7355_3-6163666.html?tag=nefd.top

BBC PLANS COMMERCIAL PUSH
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Emiko Terazono]
The commercial arm of the BBC is planning a substantial push in its international and digital operations in an attempt to double profits to £200m over the next five years, following a disappointing licence fee settlement in January. The plans are expected to heighten concerns among the corporation’s commercial rivals, but John Smith, chief executive of BBC Worldwide, said 2007 was an “inflection point” for the division, adding that there were rising expectations within the BBC for the commercial arm to bridge the funding gap between what the corporation had been seeking and the actual settlement.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/64210496-ca8d-11db-820b-000b5df10621.html
(requires subscription)
• BBC to show trailers and news clips on YouTube
• http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL0216508120070302
•
• A SCUFFLE OVER PAY TELEVISION IN BRITAIN SPILLS INTO LIVING ROOM
• [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pfanner]
• For 3.3 million cable television viewers in Britain, “Lost” has disappeared. So have several other popular American series, including “24” and “The Simpsons.” The shows vanished from cable last week when British Sky Broadcasting, the satellite television company, withdrew several of its channels, including those that broadcast the United States series, from Virgin Media, the main cable provider in Britain. The companies ostensibly ended their relationship because of a disagreement over the cost of carrying the channels on cable. But analysts say that the companies are fighting a broader battle over the British pay-TV market. This has turned Homer Simpson and the castaways of “Lost” into pawns for some far more powerful media figures: on one side, Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur behind the Virgin brand; on the other, the Murdoch family.
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/business/worldbusiness/05uktv.html
• (requires registration)

WHY THE MEDIA PASSES OFF BUNK AS NEWS
[SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Drew Curtis] [Commentary]
The founder of Fark.com is worried that major news websites have the same content of his site which is mainly a daily collection of silly news, offbeat items, and real news with amusing headlines. Part of the blame lies with the 24-hour news cycle. Sometimes there just isn't anything substantial going on. But the mass media, like nature, abhor a vacuum. Journalists have developed proven techniques to fill it.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0305/p09s01-coop.html

EGYPT'S BLOGGERS TEST STATE MEDIA CONTROL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Alaa Shahine]
Egyptian bloggers have come into the spotlight, on the one hand as an important forum for political debate, on the other as the target of government attempts to limit their freedom of expression.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL2870055620070305

R-RATED MOVIES LURE WHITE TEENS INTO SMOKING: STUDY
[SOURCE: Reuters]
White U.S. teenagers who watch a lot of R-rated movies or have unsupervised access to TV shows appear more likely than similar black youths to start smoking cigarettes, a study found on Monday. Researchers found that white adolescents with the most exposure to R-rated movies were nearly seven times more likely to have started smoking compared to those with less exposure. Even after taking into account such things as having a friend who smoked, lack of parental guidance or doing poorly in school, those who watched more R-rated movies were still three times more likely to start smoking, the study found.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=filmNews&storyID=2007-03-05T215546Z_01_N05278482_RTRIDST_0_FILM-SMOKING-MOVIES-DC.XML

COPYRIGHT MUST BE RESPECTED AS CULTURE GOES ONLINE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Thomas Rubin, Microsoft] [Commentary]
Imagine a world in which every book, song, television programme and movie ever created is instantly available online with just the click of a mouse. Such a world would offer enormous promise not only to consumers but to artists and creators as well, who would finally be able to reach audiences that have long been too distant or expensive to reach before. This amazing new world is almost upon us, thanks to the Internet and new digital technologies for scanning and distributing vast libraries of books, video and music. But sharp debate has broken out over how best to realize the goal of such broad online access to the world’s culture without undermining the financial incentives for creativity that are so essential to the development of these works. We cannot succeed in meeting these challenges by cutting legal corners and ignoring the rights of copyright holders. Rather, the technology and content industries should continue to work together to create consumer-friendly solutions that nurture rather than undermine the incentives for creativity so vital to sustaining our culture. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/40656912-cb31-11db-b436-000b5df10621.html

SCARCITY OF ADS ENDANGERS NEWSPAPERS' BOOK SECTIONS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com]
Sometime this spring, the Los Angeles Times is expected to announce that it is folding its highly esteemed Sunday book review into a new section that will combine books with opinion pieces. That would reduce to five the number of separate book-review sections in major metropolitan newspapers still published nationwide, down from an estimated 10 to 12 a decade ago. The reason: not enough ads. Book publishers in recent years have moved away from buying ads in standalone book-review sections in favor of paying to stack mounds of books in the front of chain bookstores. Some small literary publications, such as the New York Review of Books, are showing growth, but the book review as a separate section is endangered not only at the Los Angeles Times but at other major newspapers like the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and San Diego Union-Tribune. The New York Times Book Review is an exception.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117314450821127664.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
(requires subscription)

MORE JOURNALISTS EMBRACE AN ADVOCACY ROLE
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Peter Johnson]
The "social journalism" that made Oprah Winfrey an international fairy godmother is the new rage in network and cable news, and it's expanding to other media. Increasingly, journalists and talk-show hosts want to "own" a niche issue or problem, find ways to solve it and be associated with making this world a better place, as Winfrey has done with obesity, literacy and, most recently, education by founding a girls school in South Africa. Experts say the competitive landscape, the need to be different and to keep eyeballs returning, is driving this trend, along with a genuine desire from some anchors and reporters to do good. In the process, some are becoming famous. And they're allowing news organizations to break away from the pack, as old and new media fight for viewers and readers, says Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "News outlets have found they can create more momentum and more identity by creating franchise brands around issues or around a point of view," he says.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20070306/d_jcover06_journalists.art.htm

CHINA BANS NEW INTERNET CAFES FOR A YEAR
[SOURCE: Reuters]
Fearful of soaring Internet addiction and juvenile crime, China has banned the opening of new Internet cafes this year. The notice said Internet cafes that had received planning approval would need to be completed by June 30, 2007. The notice comes as lawmakers at China's annual session of parliament, the National People's Congress, called for stricter regulations to keep teenagers away from Internet cafes, which are often seen in China as hotbeds of juvenile crime. There are currently about 113,000 Internet cafes and bars in China
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSPEK24407720070306

IN THEIR TV TASTES, THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT
[SOURCE: Media Life, AUTHOR: Kevin Downey]
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me... according to a report from Magna Global, using analysis of Nielsen Media Research ratings, the rich have their tastes in TV programming, too. Programs enjoyed by the very rich include ABC's "Saturday Night Football" and "What About Brian" as well as NBC's "Friday Night" and "30 Rock." All four rank in the top 15 among affluent viewers measured on median income, but none ranks higher than 80th among the general household population. While a couple of the shows matched with the general viewing public's favorites, like No. 1 "Desperate Housewives," most were quite different. That skew in preferences is also seen in the networks favored by rich viewers. Though NBC has slid from first to fourth place in 18-49s over the past few years, it ranks No. 2 in median household income behind only ABC, and it has seven of the top 20 shows in median income.
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_10573.asp

THE END OF INTERNET RADIO AS WE KNOW IT
[SOURCE: ConsumerAffairs.Com, AUTHOR: Martin H. Bosworth]
The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has endorsed a plan by SoundExchange, the royalty-collections division of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), to retroactively raise the fees Internet radio broadcasters must pay to broadcast their music. The royalty increases are so high that many Web-based radio stations will have to go out of business or dramatically increase advertising to cover the royalty fees. "It's the end of Internet radio as we know it," one broadcaster fumed. "The RIAA wants to put us all out of business." The CRB's new royalty structure begins at $.0008 per performance, retroactive to January of 2006. While that may not seem like a lot at first, the CRB decision defines "per performance" for Web radio as streaming one song to one listener. Kurt Hanson, writing for his Radio And Internet Newsletter (RAIN), calculated that an average Web radio station that plays 16 songs per hour would owe 1.28 cents per listener per hour. And the more listeners per hour, the more royalty fees the station would have to pay, "in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues," according to Hanson. The rates would continue to increase each year. In 2007, Web broadcasters would owe $.0011, $.0014 in 2008, $.0018 in 2009, and $.0019 in 2010. Those royalty fees only cover the actual broadcast of the songs to listeners -- the station owners would also have to pay royalties to the performers as well.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/03/internet_radio.html

A CASE OF BAD INK: PORTRAIT OF MEDIA IS NOT SO FLATTERING [SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz] The parade of high-profile Washington journalists who took the stand in the Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury case were not on trial. But few would dispute that the proceedings, which ended with Libby's conviction on four of five counts yesterday, gave their profession a black eye. When Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and other top administration officials wanted to neutralize a critic by disclosing his wife's role at the CIA, they turned to some of the capital's most prominent chroniclers, who -- under longstanding local custom -- promised the leakers anonymity. Said Jim Warren, a Chicago Tribune managing editor, "This was a nice little window into the mutual obsession with one another. There's the infatuation with power which we all have and which was vividly underscored, especially those of us at elite institutions." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030602349.html
(requires registration)

MOST FEEL MEDIA SET BAD MORAL EXAMPLE
[SOURCE: USAToday]
A new survey examining America's values and the influence of the media finds that 68%, including majorities of virtually every demographic group, say the media -- entertainment and news alike -- are having a detrimental effect on moral values in America. It's a finding that fits with the sponsor's mission: The Culture and Media Institute, based in Alexandria, Va., says its aim is to "preserve and help restore America's culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the assault of the liberal media elite." The National Cultural Values Survey is based on a survey of 2,000 adults. It finds the nation divided among: The "Orthodox" (31%), who are the most religiously observant people and overwhelmingly want government policies to reflect religious values; "Independents" (46%), who judge by situations rather than seeing moral issues in black and white; and "Progressives" (17%), who have a secular value system.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20070307/bl_line07.art.htm
• For more see http://www.cultureandmediainstitute.org/

A LOOK BACK AT MANY YEARS OF STOPS ALONG THE 'INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY'
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Kevin Maney] [Commentary]
A reflection on changes in information technology since 1991.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20070307/maney_07.art.htm

US INTERNET ADVERTISING CLIMBS 34 PCT IN 2006
[SOURCE: Reuters]
U.S. Internet advertising surged 34 percent last year, reaching a record high, as companies moved more spending on marketing and promotion into new media, according to The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers have tracked online ad spending since 1996. They provide a more detailed breakdown twice yearly, with the next one due in April. But preliminary results showed that revenues for 2006 rose to an estimate $16.8 billion from $12.5 billion in 2005. Fourth-quarter 2006 revenues totaled about $4.8 billion, making it the highest quarter reported, and a 32 percent increase over the same period in 2005.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0723447620070307

GOOGLE, INTEL, SKYPE AND YAHOO SEEK RULES FOR BIDDING ON BROADCAST FREQUENCIES
[SOURCE: Wired in Washington, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
The country's two satellite television companies have joined forces with four major technology companies and a wireless company to promote the auction of frequencies currently used by television broadcasters. In a March 5 meeting at the Federal Communications Commission with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, the tech companies – Google, Intel, Skype and Yahoo! – joined with Access Spectrum to promote their "Coalition for 4G in America." The engagement of Internet giants like Google and Yahoo!, which traditionally have not lobbied the FCC, suggests considerable interest by the technology industry in the upcoming auction, which is set to begin no later than January 28, 2008. In 2006, Congress fixed February 19, 2009, as the end-date for analog television, freeing a wide swath of radio-frequencies for use by new technologies. The frequencies to be made available at auction are in the 700 Megahertz (MHz) range, and are among the most desirable because they easily penetrate buildings and trees. Wireless communications using the WiFi wireless broadband standard currently takes place at 2.4 or 5.8 Gigahertz (GHz), frequencies that are much less desirable. Technology companies like Intel, Microsoft and Motorola played a key role in the lobbying campaign to put a fixed date on the digital television transition. The first priority of the group is to ensure that both the auction date and the digital television switchover date are not altered.
http://www.drewclark.com/2007/03/google-intel-skype-and-yahoo-seek-rules.shtml

AFTER LIBBY TRIAL, NEW ERA FOR GOVERNMENT AND PRESS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Adam Liptak]
The investigation and trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, will have many legacies and lessons — for government officials, for supporters and critics of special prosecutors and for historians of the events leading to the war in Iraq. But the institution most transformed by the prosecution, and the one that took the most collateral damage from Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s relentless pursuit of obstruction and perjury charges against Mr. Libby, may have been the press, forced in the end to play a major role in his trial. After Mr. Libby’s conviction Tuesday, it is possible to start assessing that damage to the legal protections available to the news organizations, to relationships between journalists and their sources and to the informal but longstanding understanding in Washington, now shattered, that leak investigations should be pressed only so hard. Ten out of 19 of the witnesses in Mr. Libby’s trial were journalists, a spectacle that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/washington/08fitzgerald.html
(requires registration)

BIG PROFITS IN SMALL PACKAGES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Frank Ahrens]
If there's any good news about the businesses of newspapering these days, it can be found at the industry's littlest papers, which are doing well even as their bigger brothers founder. The average daily circulation of all U.S. newspapers has declined since 1987. The smallest papers, however -- community weeklies and dailies with circulation of less than 50,000 -- have been a bright spot in a darkened industry. As the Internet dramatically transforms the largest papers in the business -- siphoning classified advertising and commoditizing national news -- many small papers are weathering the decline with relative ease, and some are even prospering. Why? Small papers face less competition from other media outlets, are insulated from ad slumps that have hammered big papers, employ smaller staffs of lower-salaried journalists and have a zealous devotion to local news, both in print and online, industry experts agree. Also, there is less competition on the Web for local news.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/07/AR2007030702408.html
(requires registration)

BLOGGING FOR DOLLARS RAISES QUESTIONS OF ONLINE ETHICS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Josh Friedman]
Thousands of bloggers are writing sponsored posts touting such diverse topics as diamonds, digital cameras and drug clinics. The bloggers are spurred by new marketing middlemen such as PayPerPost Inc. that connect advertisers with mom-and-pop webmasters. Some of their fellow bloggers are critical, saying the industry is polluting the blog world and misleading consumers by blurring the line between advertising and unbiased opinion. "The problem is the advertisers are trying to buy a blogger's voice, and once they've bought it they own it," said Jeff Jarvis, a City University of New York journalism professor who writes about technology at BuzzMachine.com. "PayPerPost versus authentic blogging is like comparing prostitution with making love to someone you care for deeply. No one with any level of ethics would get involved with these clowns," said Jason McCabe Calacanis, an entrepreneur who co-founded Weblogs Inc., a network of blogs that includes popular technology site Engadget. The bloggers who take assignments from the likes of PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Loud Launch and SponsoredReviews.com call the hubbub overblown. They say the services provide a way to make a profit or keep their blogs going. Technorati, a search engine that tracks 71 million blogs, says 175,000 are created daily. Posties, as PayPerPost calls its crew of 15,500 bloggers, say their posts are sincere, sponsored or not, and that financial incentives are disclosed.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-bloggers9mar09,1,6472329.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
(requires registration)

WHO CARES ABOUT OWNERSHIP RULES?
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Do broadcast media ownership rules matter anymore? With many media giants -- think CBS, Clear Channel and, possibly, Tribune -- selling stations, is the issue worth the big fight at the Federal Communications Commission? Two FCC commissioners -- Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein -- believe it is because most Americans say their local media is still their primary source of news and information. But even some public interest veterans, like Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, believe there needs to be a two-prong strategy that considers new media in tandem with broadcasting. “The corporate media interests—Silicon Valley, Hollywood, advertising—are defining our media future,” says Chester. “They have created a business model based on social networks [à la News Corp.’s MySpace] to evolve a series of key platforms in every community across the country that will be powerful forces in people’s lives. All content, programming and media use is being bundled together. You won't separate your video from where you get your [instant messaging] from where you get cellphones from where you post your photos from where you meet your friends. As a result, he says, the new dominant players are not going to be broadcasters but “phone, cable, a few technology companies and the advertising industry, including Google and Yahoo!, who are going to end up dominating.”
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6423292.html?display=News

MEDIA'S FOCUS NARROWING, REPORT WARNS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: James Rainey]
News organizations confronted with declining revenue and increased competition are entering an era of more limited ambition in which they will drop a broad worldview for more narrowly focused reporting. The Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that the struggle to create sustainable media brands is driving "hyper-local" coverage in newspapers; encouraging citizen journalism on the Internet; and giving rise to opinion-driven television personalities like CNN's Lou Dobbs and Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. "The consequences of this narrowing of focus involve more risk than we sense the business has considered," said the report from the project, an arm of the Washington-based Pew Research Center. "Concepts like hyper-localism, pursued in the most literal sense, can be marketing speak for simply doing less." The review describes print, radio and television news operations as weathering "epochal" changes — with audiences splintering so radically that is has become difficult to accurately measure new viewing and reading habits. Daily newspaper circulation declined 3% in 2006, for instance, but the increase in online readership is more difficult to quantify. The three television networks collectively lost an additional 1 million viewers -- about the average in each of the last 25 years -- but YouTube and other online services created a new delivery vehicle for the networks' content.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-journalism12mar12,1,954691.story?coll=la-news-a_section
(requires registration)
• PEJ’s State of the News Media 2007
• http://www.journalism.org/node/4487
• * Web revolution leaving newsgathering in a lurch
• http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20070312/d_mediamix12.art.htm
• * Annual PEJ Report Charts Losses -- and New Ideas
• http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003556827

RISKS OF 'NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: Kansas City Star, AUTHOR: Paul Williams, NextInning.com] [Commentary]
John Rutledge thinks the biggest threat to US economic growth is network neutrality legislation. The issue blocked a well-written piece of legislation -- the COPE Act -- from being passed, Williams says. Part of COPE was the Consumer Internet Bill of Rights which would have guaranteed consumers that they can access and post any lawful Internet content (no blocking of any service); run any voice, video or e-mail application; run any software, service or search engine; and connect any legal device of their choosing to the Internet. In addition, it also said that customers shall be provided, “in plain language, the estimated speeds, capabilities, limitations, and pricing of any Internet service offered to the public without interference from Internet service providers or federal, state, or local governments.” Williams concludes: "So the next time someone pushing Net neutrality requests your support, ask the person to explain, in simple terms, exactly what he or she wants that the COPE Act doesn't provide."
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/technology/16873108.htm?source=rss&channel=kansascity_technology

EU TAKES AIM AT APPLE OVER ITUNES
[SOURCE: Reuters]
"Do you think it's fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod? I don't. Something has to change," European Union Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva said. Norway, a European country that is not in the EU, is battling Apple for the same reason. In January, it said the computer and software giant must liberalize its music download system by October 1 or face legal action.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL1126917220070311

INTERNET NAME SYSTEM IN GROWING DANGER: UN AGENCY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Robert Evans]
The Internet's key site identity system is in mounting danger from new techniques that could cause havoc by turning it into a free-for-all market, the World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO warned on Monday. And the United Nations' agency said the latest trends in registering top-level domain names (TLDs) -- like www.reuters.com -- could undermine dispute procedures under which patent holders can pursue "cybersquatters." "Domain names used to be primarily specific identifiers of businesses and other Internet users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities for speculative gain," senior WIPO official Francis Gurry said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL1235617720070312

TECH FIRMS PUSH TO USE TV AIRWAVES FOR INTERNET
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Charles Babington]
A coalition of big technology companies wants to bring high-speed Internet access to consumers in a new way: over television airwaves. Key to the project is whether a device scheduled to be delivered to federal labs today lives up to its promise. The coalition, which includes Microsoft and Google, wants regulators to allow idle TV channels, known as white space, to be used to beam the Internet into homes and offices. But the Federal Communications Commission first must be convinced that such traffic would not bleed outside its designated channels and interfere with existing broadcasts. The six partners -- Microsoft, Google, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips -- say they can meet that challenge. Today, they plan to give FCC officials a prototype device, built by Microsoft, that will undergo months of testing. If the device passes muster, the coalition says, it could have versions in stores by early 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/12/AR2007031201395.html
(requires registration)

STUDY SAYS COMPUTERS GIVE BIG BOOSTS TO PRODUCTIVITY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
Money spent on computing technology delivers gains in worker productivity that are three to five times those of other investments, according to a study being published today. But the study also concluded that the information technology industry itself was unlikely to be a big source of new jobs. The report is a wide-ranging look at the role that information technology plays in the economy, based on an assessment of existing research and the authors' analysis. The study was done by a year-old research organization, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, whose work is supported by companies like I.B.M., Cisco Systems and eBay, as well as by the Communications Workers of America and foundation grants. It will be available at www.itif.org. The study concludes that the economic significance of information technology is less in the technology itself than in the capacity of computer hardware, software and services to transform other sectors of the economy. Policy, according to the study, should focus less on incentives to use certain technology products or help particular companies than on encouraging market forces to hasten the pace of technology-aided change in industries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/technology/13tech.html
(requires registration)

VIACOM IN $1 BILLION COPYRIGHT SUIT VERSUS GOOGLE, YOUTUBE
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Kenneth Li and Michele Gershberg]
Viacom sued Google and its Internet video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion on Tuesday in the biggest challenge yet to the Web search leader's strategy to dominate the online video market. The lawsuit accuses Google and its popular online video unit of "massive intentional copyright infringement" for allowing users to upload popular shows, threatening ambitions to make YouTube a major entertainment and advertising outlet. The legal challenge from Viacom, home to the MTV and Comedy Central channels, also suggested a wider battle between traditional and Internet media companies that now compete for audiences and advertising dollars.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSWEN535120070313

YOUTUBE'S FATE RESTS ON DECADE-OLD COPYRIGHT LAW
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh]
Whether YouTube suffers the same fate as Napster may depend on the wording of a nearly antique law written long before video-sharing Web sites were envisioned. The law is, of course, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, which made its appearance in the U.S. Congress in July 1997. Central to the question of Google's legal liability is the phrasing of a densely worded portion -- Section 512 -- of the DMCA. Section 512's so-called safe harbor generally lets hosting companies off the hook for legal liability, as long as they don't turn a blind eye to copyright infringement and if they remove infringing material when notified. YouTube does the second part through a formal posted policy, and it prohibits uploads of unauthorized videos more than 10 minutes in length. But what about the safe harbor's first requirement of not ignoring massive infringement? Viacom's complaint says, "YouTube has failed to employ reasonable measures that could substantially reduce, or eliminate, the massive amount of copyright infringement on the YouTube site from which YouTube directly profits." (For its part, Google says it's confident that YouTube has respected the legal rights of copyright holders and predicts that the courts will agree.)
http://news.com.com/YouTubes+fate+rests+on+decade-old+copyright+law/2100-1028_3-6166862.html?tag=html.alert

LINKING ANCIENT AND MODERN, A WORLDWIDE WEB OF WORSHIP
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kevin Sullivan]
The Internet has become a hub of religious worship for millions of people around the world. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs and people of other faiths turn regularly to Web sites to pray, meditate and gather in "virtual" houses of worship graphically designed to look like the real thing. Some sites offer rites from baptism to confession to conversion to Judaism. For many cyber-worshipers, online religious life conducted at home or in an Internet cafe has replaced attendance at traditional churches, temples, mosques and synagogues. Some are coming to religion for the first time, in a setting they find as comfortable as their grandparents found a church pew, while millions of people reared on churchgoing are discovering new ways to worship.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/13/AR2007031301840.html
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STUDY: MORE SONGS DOWNLOADED, LEGALLY OR NOT [SOURCE: Bloomberg News]
About 5 billion songs were downloaded illegally last year, far outnumbering the more than 500 million purchased legally, market researcher NPD Group said Tuesday. The number of U.S. households participating in illegal file swapping rose 8% to 15 million, Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD said. The growth in the number of households involved slowed from 2005. At the same time, legal online purchases of music jumped 56% and the number of U.S. households buying legally rose to 13 million, NPD said. The average user of LimeWire, a major source of unauthorized sharing, downloaded 309 files last year, a 49% rise from 2005, the research firm said. About 70% of households that bought songs online used Apple Inc.'s iTunes, NPD said. The average number of songs bought by each iTunes user fell 11%.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-music14mar14,1,5183442.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
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IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TOUTED
[SOURCE: MediaNews, AUTHOR: Frank Davies]
Leaders in information technology, touting IT's major boost to U.S. economic growth, called on the federal government Tuesday to support innovation and investment but avoid programs that compete with businesses. The use of information technology was "the major driver" of economic growth over the past decade, adding $2 trillion a year to the economy, according to a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Fueled by "the phenomenal growth of computer power" since 2000, the use of IT has given new tools to businesses and improved productivity while controlling costs, said Rob Atkinson, a researcher and government adviser who heads the IT Foundation. But the full impact of the "IT revolution" has not been recognized by government officials because of lingering skepticism from the dot-com boom the late 1990s and the bust that followed, he added.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/16900025.htm

DIGITAL TV WAR LEAVES BLOOD ON THE CARPET
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson]
A look at the digital TV transition in England where analog TV signals will be switched off in 18 months.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3af3fd8e-d1d2-11db-b921-000b5df10621.html
(requires subscription)

BRINGING BACK THE MUSIC
[SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff] [Commentary]
After the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed for mass consolidation in the radio industry, it seemed to bring about mass consolidation of music playlists, too. Once, a local radio station reflected the quirky character of its place with local bands. Now, whether you're in Des Moines or Miami, all the stations are playing the same tunes. So, the news that four of the nation's largest broadcast radio companies are being fined $12.5 million for "pay-for-play" practices didn't come as much of a surprise. What's surprising is how their monetary settlement with the Federal Communications Commission and their parallel agreement with the American Association of Independent Music on the rules of engagement may affect the future of radio -- and the Internet. More intriguing is what the settlement says about the FCC. Though oversight of the broadcasters is the FCC's job, it didn't launch this investigation -- Eliot Spitzer, the then-state attorney general for New York, did, when he started looking at the radio groups for consumer fraud. The FCC has been too busy with partisan infighting to do adequate policing, and that doesn't look good for those of us who are concerned about the Internet -- another industry where a few private players (in the telecommunications industry) may, short of Network Neutrality laws, soon exact undue influence over what's available for public consumption. That music you're hearing on the radio is the FCC's wake-up call.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/14/EDGC7N7B521.DTL

YOUTUBE SUIT IS FIGHT FOR CONTROL OF CONTENT
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Meg James and Dawn C. Chmielewski]
So why is Viacom Inc. bothering to sue YouTube? It's all about control, and money. Networks won't give YouTube much of their most-popular material because they believe that Google Inc., which owns YouTube, isn't protecting their copyrighted content. What's more, Google isn't offering to pay them what they think is enough. And even if the networks could sort out the financial issues, they still want to dictate which ads would be placed around their clips — and not have their shows thrown into the mishmash of fistfights, karaoke performances or ladybugs having sex. Most advertisers "want to be in the VIP section, the section that requires a higher price for admission," said Tim Hanlon, an executive with French advertising giant Publicis Groupe. "YouTube's audience is a polyglot and random. It's one gigantic lowest common denominator." Emily Riley, a Jupiter Research analyst, said the amount of money advertisers spend on social networking sites such as YouTube amounts to pocket change. The majority spent less than $250,000 in the last 12 months, Riley said, and only a tiny percentage of advertisers spent more than $1 million. By contrast, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC collected $1.7 million for each 30-second spot during the Academy Awards telecast. YouTube is still trying to figure out how to make big money on its massive audience. It has relied on banner advertisements, drawing an estimated $15 million in ad revenue last year.

http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-youtube15mar15,1,4829298.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
(requires registration)
• Copyright still matters [LA Times Editorial] Some Internet romantics view this kind of litigation as typical of lumbering, old-economy behemoths. Incapable of innovation and suspicious of technology, content conglomerates such as Viacom respond by filing lawsuits. But like the "useful arts" mentioned in the Constitution, the programs owned by Viacom and other entertainment companies cost money to produce. Companies have the right to protect that investment — even in the age of YouTube.
• http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-ed-google15mar15,1,536110.story?coll=la-news-a_section
• (requires registration)
• * Viacom's billion-dollar suit against Google sounds laughable. [WSJ op-ed by Paul Kedrosky] "whether Viacom wins or loses, the future of digital media won't be anything like the past, and the sooner Mr. Redstone gets that through his head, and the sooner he stops thinking he can control the media world, the better for him and for shareholders."
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117392637770937728.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

STOP THE PRESSES, BOYS! WOMEN CLAIM SPACE ON OP-ED PAGES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Patricia Cohen]
Whatever other reasons may explain the lack of women’s voices on the nation’s op-ed pages, the lack of women asking to be there is clearly part of the problem. Many opinion page editors at major newspapers across the country say that 65 or 75 percent of unsolicited manuscripts, or more, come from men. The obvious solution, at least to Catherine Orenstein, an author, activist and occasional op-ed page contributor herself, was to get more women to submit essays. To that end Ms. Orenstein has been training women at universities, foundations and corporations to write essays and get them published.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/arts/15oped.html
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AMERICANS RECEIVE MORE CHANNELS, WATCH LESS OF THEM
[SOURCE: MediaDailyLife, AUTHOR: Joe Mandese]
For the first time, the number of channels "receivable" by the average TV household shot up past 100, jumping to 104.2 in 2006, up from 96.4 in 2005. But the number actually tuned by the average household remained about the same, moving to 15.7 in 2006 from 15.4 in 2005 and 15.0 in 2004. That pattern isn't surprising to television researchers who have long known that people will only watch a limited number of channels regardless of how many options are available to them.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/link/?id=11276

GOOGLE GRAPPLES WITH INCREASINGLY POLITICAL WEB
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Anne Broache]
With the Internet poised to be the "epicenter" of the 2008 elections, Google is contemplating how best to keep candidate information readily accessible without allowing the Web to transform into a giant tabloid. One major question the company faces is how to "provide a platform for free expression without exacerbating the ugliness," Elliot Schrage, the company's vice president of global communications. Schrage was also quick to point out the unprecedented democratizing benefits he believes the Web has brought to candidates and voters. He said the Internet has led to easier interaction between politicians and constituents, greater accountability for politicians who make missteps and a broader fundraising base. Google hopes to promote that exchange by creating a special sales team to handle ad requests from political campaigns. It has also invited all of the 2008 presidential candidates to journey to the Googleplex to "talk tech and policy and maybe even grab lunch," Schrage said.
http://news.com.com/Google+grapples+with+increasingly+political+Web/2100-1028_3-6167703.html?tag=html.alert
• Authenticity issues cloud prospects for online politics
• http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/16915608.htm

IN '08 RACE, WEB TACTICS ARE EVEN MORE INTEGRAL
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Schatz]
As the role of the Internet expands -- and diversifies -- in the 2008 cycle, all campaigns are trying to develop Web strategies, but often with different short-term goals. Web is about buzz as much as it is a tool. An ability to convey early online success of some kind has an importance all its own. With at least 13 candidates actively in the running so far, and the New Hampshire primary still 10 months away, it is a way for campaigns now to show concrete momentum and garner crucial early attention. "You had the money primary. The endorsement primary. Now, you have a Web 2.0 primary going on concurrently with the traditional money and consultant chase and stuff like that," says Howard Mortman, a former MSNBC producer, blogger and now head of the public-affairs practice at New Media Strategies, an Arlington, Va., Internet market-research firm. Some analysts say such attention is overblown. After all, Mr. Dean, after cleaning up the informal netroots primary, didn't win a single physical primary or caucus. "There ain't no winning or losing except on Election Day," says Phil Noble, a political consultant who specializes in Internet strategy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117426203668540945.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
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NEWS MEDIA AND POLITICS: AN UNEASY UNION
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: James Rainey]
Some of America's most prominent political journalists are, quite literally, wedded to the 2008 presidential race: Their spouses work for one of the candidates. Relationships that cross the media-political divide raise ethical questions for the journalists and their employers. Should the potential conflict of interest merely be disclosed to readers or viewers? Or should the journalists be shifted to new assignments to lessen the appearance their motives might be divided? Heading into the presidential election year, the answers to those questions have been markedly different for at least four journalists. Journalism critics say the public's skepticism toward the media has been heightened by recent events, particularly the Libby trial, which revealed a cozy relationship between Washington journalists and their sources.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-prezmedia19mar19,1,6694249.story?coll=la-news-a_section
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THE DEATH OF THE 30-SECOND TV COMMERCIAL
[SOURCE: CNN|Money 3/14, AUTHOR: Paul R. La Monica]
It has already revolutionized the music business with its iPod device and iTunes music store. Now will Apple help kill the television's industry historic reliance on the 30-second TV commercial to help pay the bills? Apple is expected to begin shipping its new Apple TV device sometime this week. The product, in theory, should make advertisers nervous since it will allow consumers to easily transmit TV shows purchased on iTunes (which do not include commercials) from the iTunes library on their computer to their TV set for viewing there. "There's no question that one of the problems with the traditional 30-second TV ad is digital video recorders. The whole market is under threat from TiVo-like functions. And it's going to get easier to avoid commercials with Apple TV," said Tim Wilson, a general partner with Partech International, a venture capital firm that is looking to invest more heavily in online video and other forms of new media.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/13/news/companies/tv_commercials/index.htm?section=money_technology

ALL THE WORLD'S A STORY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
A new experiment wants to broaden the network of journalism's sources to include readers and their sources. Assignment Zero (zero.newassignment.net/), a collaboration between Wired magazine and NewAssignment.Net, the experimental journalism site established by Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, intends to use not only the wisdom of the crowd, but their combined reporting efforts -- an approach that has come to be called “crowdsourcing.” The idea is to apply to journalism the same open-source model of Web-enabled collaboration that produced the operating system Linux, the Web browser Mozilla and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. “Can large groups of widely scattered people, working together voluntarily on the net, report on something happening in their world right now, and by dividing the work wisely tell the story more completely, while hitting high standards in truth, accuracy and free expression?” Professor Rosen asked last week on Wired.com. That may not seem like much of a revolution at a time when millions are staring at user-generated video on YouTube, but journalism is generally left in the hands of professionals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/business/media/19carr.html
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A QUESTION OF DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
Fifteen percent of stories on the network evening news in each of the last two years were reported by minorities, an all-time high that is more than double the level of 1990. CBS's Byron Pitts led the 2006 field with 76 stories, followed by ABC's Pierre Thomas, NBC's Jim Maceda, and CBS's Randall Pinkston and Joie Chen, says a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs. Women reported 28 percent of the pieces, just under the high-water mark of 29 percent set in 2002. ABC's Martha Raddatz was the most frequent female face, with 137 stories; CBS anchor Katie Couric had 103, and NBC's Andrea Mitchell, 85. Couric nearly lapped the field with reported or narrated pieces, even though the survey includes only four months of her "CBS Evening News" tenure.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/18/AR2007031801722_2.html
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* Gender and Minority Representation in Network News
http://www.cmpa.com/documents/07.03.19.Diversity.pdf

DOCUMENTARIES OR PROPAGANDA?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Meghan Daum]
Documentaries are hot -- and cheap to make. Al Gore (and friends) accepted the Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth," which waltzed into the winner's circle as a box office phenomenon and obvious shoo-in, even though it wasn't much more than a riveting PowerPoint presentation with good lighting. Recently, there have been rumblings from the scientific community about Gore's grasp of the details. Few doubt his premise, yet scientists (on both sides of the debate) have suggested that some of his arguments -- such as suggesting a direct cause-effect between global warming and hurricanes -- were exaggerated for the purposes of getting people's attention. But who can blame him? Now that the documentary game is taking on many of the high-stakes qualities of Hollywood, it seems that only the sexiest (or most alarmist) will survive. Yet the pleasures of documentaries come from the triumph of grit and substance over flashy theatrics. And though it's naive to assume that any form of documentation other than, say, the phone book, is purely objective, the best nonfiction filmmakers have had a stake in letting their subjects speak for themselves and allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions -- even when they weren't sure what those conclusions were.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-daum19mar19,1,6315900.column?coll=la-news-comment
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MORE VIDEO GAMES, FEWER BOOKS AT SCHOOL?
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Debra Sherman]
Of all of the proposals aimed at improving America's failing schools, there's one idea kids will really like: More video games and fewer books. At least a number of educators hope so, arguing that children would get more excited about school and that video games can present real-life problems to solve. Nobody is talking about putting violent video games such as "Doom" or "Mortal Kombat" into classrooms, particularly given concerns they may encourage aggressive behavior. Instead, educators such as Indiana University associate professor Sasha Barab are developing alternative video games that can teach as well as entertain.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1642567920070316

WEB 2.0 GIVES BIRTH TO POLITICS 2.0
[SOURCE: GigaOM, AUTHOR: Drew Clark]
When it comes to adapting information technology, Washington is always about two years behind the rest of the country. So it makes sense that, finally, Web 2.0 is catching hold and gathering momentum here, in early 2007. Washington's political operative and consulting class has been energized by the early start to the 2008 election. And no one is ignoring the Web this campaign cycle. Call it Politics 2.0, and watch how it changes the media power balance when it comes to political discourse. There is an energy about electoral politics and the Internet that is different this time around. Almost all of it has to do with maturation of software and social networking models that could upset the pre-ordained dance between candidates, media and voters. Can Web 2.0 in 2008 truly displace the "MSM" as the premier medium of political discourse? Can the blogosphere bring down the mass-market media stage?
http://www.drewclark.com/2007/03/web-20-gives-birth-to-politics-20.shtml

IN SEARCH OF THE CREATOR OF THE FIRST BLOG
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache]
Who created the first Web log? It may not be one of the Internet's grandest accomplishments, but with the number of active bloggers hovering somewhere around 100 million, according to one estimate, there are some serious bragging rights to be claimed by the first person who provably laid fingers to keyboard in the traditional bloggy way. Was the first blogger the irascible Dave Winer? Or was it the iconoclastic Jorn Barger? Or was the first blogger really Justin Hall, a Web diarist and online gaming expert whom The New York Times Magazine once called the "founding father of personal blogging"? Or did all three merely make incremental improvements on earlier proto-blogs? The answer is most likely "yes" to all of the above. In truth, awarding the title "first blogger" is more than a little tricky because the definitions of blog and blogger are slippery.
http://news.com.com/In+search+of+the+creator+of+the+first+blog/2100-1025_3-6168681.html?tag=nefd.lede

CPB SEEKS HELP IN DEFINING BALANCE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
At a Media Institute lunch in Washington on Monday, Patricia Harrison, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, says the CPB has sought outside help --including from the Carnegie Corp. and the deans of several journalism schools -- to "define journalistic objectivity and balance on public broadcasting." She also says she is concerned that the FCC's crackdown on content could chill the kind of creative programming CPB is chartered to encourage. Harrison made it clear that it was not her job to define balance and reiterated the importance of the firewall between the government and PBS programmers. "I'm not coming up with a definition," she said. "That's not my job. That is why one of the ways to go is to have this discussion [with journalism schools and others]." She said her opinion of what is balanced and objective is worthless, saying that where "you get in trouble" is thinking of that call as an individual approach. She said she did not know what the outcome would be, but that "sitting down and having the conversation" about whether "in the aggregate, over 40 years, are these programs balanced and objective," is a conversation worth having. She also said studies show that "public media consumers already believe noncommercial TV is nonpartisan and unbiased. Pointing to CPB's statutorily mandated goal of balance on controversial issues, she suggested one of the gray areas was blogging. She pointed to Minnesota Public Radio which is encouraging citizen journalists. "Are they under the same requirements for fairness and balance? Do they count as journalists?"
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6426079?title=Article&spacedesc=news

PUBLIC RADIO SEEKS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
[SOURCE: The Boston Globe, AUTHOR: Alex Beam]
Like newspapers and television news, public radio has a graying audience. "We have learned in focus groups with younger listeners that they are interested in many of the topics that NPR covers, but often find the programming boring or staid," a perhaps too candid confidential NPR document states. This same NPR memo calls the network "a national institution of weight, merit and immeasurable value to our democracy" -- a heady self-assessment to be sure. Enter "NPR Zack: A New Space for Younger Listeners." "We thought Zack is exactly the kind of name NPR staffers would give their male children," one NPR-nik explained to me. Its radio namesake is slowly taking shape at NPR headquarters in Washington, and in New York. Originally envisaged as a full-blown, 7 a.m.-to-10 p.m. alternative public radio channel, Zack now has more modest ambitions. The first shows, which had been scheduled for next month, will go on air in the fall. Zack is one of several interesting initiatives on the public radio horizon. Minnesota-based Public Radio International may try to duplicate the success of its WGBH-BBC coproduction, "The World," by teaming up with The New York Times and the BBC to produce a new morning news hour out of WNYC in New York. This was not a subject that spokespeople for the Times, PRI, or WNYC were willing to discuss. Starting in May, Chicago Public Radio plans to launch a brand-new alternative station, emphasizing audience involvement, user content, and , of course , the Internet, which is becoming a powerful distribution system for radio.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/03/19/public_radio_seeks_a_breath_of_fresh_air/

AND NOW, A COMMERCIAL BREAK THAT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE ONE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Stuart Elliott]
A viewer who skips the advertising is the moral equivalent of a shoplifter. [Come on, you've read that before.] ABC is considering changes in the decades-old way it interrupts programs for commercial breaks. The goal is to encourage viewers to stick around rather than reaching for the remote or racing to the refrigerator. “We want to bring the audiences right to the commercial so they don't feel they've gone into the commercial,” said Michael Shaw, president for sales and marketing at the ABC Television Network. “The more commercials are being seen,” he added, “the more value you are to advertisers." If ABC changes how it presents commercial breaks during programs like “Desperate Housewives,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Lost,” it would be the biggest broadcast network to do so. A smaller broadcaster, the CW network, owned by CBS and Time Warner, introduced what it calls content wraps for the 2006-7 season.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/business/media/21adco.html
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TVs OUTNUMBER PEOPLE IN US HOMES
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Michele Greppi]
According to data released Monday by Nielsen Media Research, the average television home in the United States houses slightly more TV sets (2.8) than people (2.5). And there are now there are 111.4 million TV homes in the U.S.
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11732
(requires free registration)

REPORT: NOTEBOOKS TO TAKE LEAD OVER DESKTOPS BY 2011
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Dawn Kawamoto]
As worldwide desktop shipments continue to slow, notebooks are expected to represent more than half of all client PCs by 2011, according to an IDC report released Tuesday. PC shipments worldwide rose only 7.3 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with a 15 percent growth rate for the same period last year. IDC attributes the declining growth to corporate buyers purchasing fewer desktops, especially in the more mature markets. Desktop shipments grew an anemic 2 percent to 138.3 million in 2006, while portables -- a category that doesn't include handhelds -- jumped 26.3 percent to 82.4 million, according to the report. Meanwhile, in the U.S. retail sales of notebooks surpassed desktops in 2005.
http://news.com.com/Report+Notebooks+to+take+lead+over+desktops+by+2011/2100-1044_3-6168938.html?tag=nefd.top

SALES OF MUSIC, LONG IN DECLINE, PLUNGE SHARPLY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ethan Smith ethan.smith@wsj.com]
In a dramatic acceleration of the seven-year sales decline that has battered the music industry, compact-disc sales for the first three months of this year plunged 20% from a year earlier, the latest sign of the seismic shift in the way consumers acquire music. The sharp slide in sales of CDs, which still account for more than 85% of music sold, has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads, which were supposed to have been the industry's salvation. The slide stems from the confluence of long-simmering factors that are now feeding off each other, including the demise of specialty music retailers like longtime music mecca Tower Records. About 800 music stores, including Tower's 89 locations, closed in 2006 alone.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117444575607043728.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
(requires subscription)

CBS BUYS HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS ONLINE NETWORK
[SOURCE: Reuters]
CBS Corp. said on Tuesday it has purchased high school sports online network MaxPreps to expand its local sports coverage. MaxPreps, which offers information to nearly 80,000 high school football and 500,000 boys and girls basketball games played each year, will become a part of CBS-owned College Sports Television (CSTV).
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN2033765720070320

CONGRESS MUST MAKE CLEAR COPYRIGHT LAWS TO PROTECT CONSUMERS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Walter Mossberg] [Commentary]
Consumers won't be a party to the Viacom-YouTube case any more than they were in the room when the latest major copyright law was passed by Congress. That law, the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, was enacted at the behest of record labels and movie studios. Their purpose was to stop people from using computers and the Internet to distribute digital copies of material to which they didn't hold either the copyright or a distribution license. We need a new digital copyright law that would draw a line between modest sharing of a few songs or video clips and the real piracy of mass distribution. We need a new law that would define fair use for the digital era and lay out clearly the rights of consumers who pay for digital content, as well as the rights and responsibilities of Internet companies. If you don't like all of the restrictions on the use of digital content, the solution isn't to steal the stuff. A better course is to pressure Congress to pass a new copyright law, one that protects the little guy and the Internet itself.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117452094467244796.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
(requires subscription)

CRASHING THE CHARTS FOR INDEPENDENT MUSIC
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Mike Musgrove]
Today might be a bigger day than usual for an unsigned California band called Black Lab, whose song "Mine Again" has become an anthem of sorts for podcasters hoping to make a point. The goal is to get enough music fans to buy copies of "Mine Again" to land the song on Apple's iTunes bestseller list -- and in doing so prove that bloggers and podcast hosts have market-moving power.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032101971.html

FAMILIES KEEP IN TOUCH, BY VIDEO
[SOURCE: Reuters]
A growing number of immigrants in the United States are staying in touch through videoconferencing technology developed for use in the corporate world. Entrepreneurs from California to New Jersey are connecting relatives using high-quality cameras and fast broadband Internet links, helping them to maintain family ties at a cost of $40 for half an hour. The service connects offices placed near consulates or wire transfer agencies in Latino neighborhoods in the United States with an ever-expanding network of offices across Mexico, Central America and South America. Growth is driven by strong demand among Latin American immigrants, some 15 million of whom live in the United States both legally and illegally, coupled with falling costs for broadband and videoconferencing technologies.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-video22mar22,1,5384639.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business
(requires registration)

MARKETERS HAVE EYES ON THE 'THIRD SCREEN'
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Pfanner]
Last week in London, the Online Publishers Association released a study showing that mobile Internet use was on the rise, as was acceptance of mobile advertising. So publishers and other content providers are trying to avoid coming in late on a possible advertising bonanza.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/business/media/22adco.html
(requires registration)

NET PORN BAN FACES ANOTHER LEGAL SETBACK
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Declan McCullagh]
Congress' efforts to muzzle pornography on the Web were dealt another serious setback on Thursday, when a federal judge ruled a 1998 law was unconstitutional and violated Americans' First Amendment rights. U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed in Philadelphia permanently barred prosecutors from enforcing the Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, saying it was overly broad and would undoubtedly "chill a substantial amount of constitutionally protected speech for adults." The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
http://news.com.com/Judge+rules+COPA+unconstitutional/2100-1030_3-6169621.html?tag=html.alert

A BRAVE NEW WORLD OR POLITICAL SKULDUGGERY?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz and Jose Antonio Vargas]
The instant popularity of an attack video that mocked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) prompted plenty of talk this week about how an ordinary citizen can influence political discourse by tapping into the power of the YouTube culture. But the unmasking of the filmmaker as an employee of a company on the payroll of Clinton's Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), raises questions about whether the more old-fashioned art of political chicanery was at play. Phil de Vellis, who worked for the firm that designed Obama's Web site, Blue State Digital, says no one at the company or in Obama's camp knew he had made the video depicting Clinton as the droning voice of a totalitarian establishment. Obama and his aides say they had no idea who was behind the 74-second ad, which has been viewed online more than 2 million times, and which closes by flashing Obama's Web address. The uncovering of de Vellis, who used the screen name "ParkRidge47," a reference to Clinton's 1947 birth in Park Ridge, Ill., was a digital-age detective story. Liberal blogger Arianna Huffington said she had 30 staffers contributing to a message board of tips and technical sleuthing that eventually led to a source who confirmed de Vellis's involvement. She then called de Vellis and persuaded him to confess on the Huffington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032201995.html
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TANGLED WEB
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Steven Cook & Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations]
The Internet has been hailed as a technology that empowers average citizens to make their voices heard. Its dispersed nature, most assume, makes it difficult to control. Yet countries generally route Internet traffic through a small number of checkpoints, allowing governments to efficiently monitor and control what happens on the Web. Many have placed responsibility for promoting Internet freedom squarely on the companies that provide Internet services. When corporate leverage is limited, governments must step in. U.S. efforts have, so far, been anemic. The Global Internet Freedom Task Force, the highest profile effort launched so far, has been little more than a talk shop. Congress has attempted to step in, but its foreign-policy tools are blunt, and leave too little room for creative diplomacy. Real action has to come from the top. Washington should not go so far as to bar U.S. companies from operating in states like Turkey, but it should make clear that its diplomats will not actively facilitate IT investment from U.S. firms in countries that are repressing bloggers and restricting freedom of speech on the Web. Making investment in information technology dependent on good Web citizenship has the potential to encourage meaningful change in emerging economies. The U.S. should also exert global leadership. A first step would be to sponsor a United Nations Declaration of Internet and Electronic Freedom. To be sure, the U.N.'s enforcement mechanisms are hopelessly weak, but the declaration can serve as a standard against which countries can be judged. Using universal standards set forth in the new U.N. Declaration, the State Department should include a status report on Internet freedom in its annual report on human rights around the world. The transformative nature of the Internet is well-documented, but it is not impervious to authoritarian leaders intent on limiting debate. Global Internet companies like Google, Yahoo! and others should not be left alone at the messy junction of ethics, business, corporate citizenship, and technology. Washington must lead the way both in establishing global standards for Internet freedom and implementing a policy to encourage compliance with those principles.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117461374329246343.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
(requires subscription)

HOLLYWOOD'S BIG ONLINE RIVAL: THE LITTLE GUY
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Rick Wartzman] [Commentary]
The latest brouhaha over alleged copyright infringement on the Internet has pitted some of the biggest names in corporate America against each other: Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone versus Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. But you'd be wise to keep your eyes on two other guys who, in a small way, are helping to transform the media landscape: Christopher Allan Smith and Ryan Neisz. They're the creators and co-stars of an online comedy series called "Snowmen Hunters," which was nominated this week by Google's YouTube website for one of its inaugural video awards, which seek to honor user-generated content. For Big Media, the real threat will emerge as more and more advertisers, attracted by the millions of viewers who genuinely enjoy this homespun programming, gravitate toward the sites hosting these productions and, in turn, more and more money starts finding its way to the talent behind them.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-calco23mar23,1,5197214.column?coll=la-headlines-pe-business

JET PASSENGERS MAY NOT GET TO CHAT ON CELLPHONES AFTER ALL
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Paul Davidson]
The once-highflying idea of letting passengers use their wireless phones on airplanes is about to be grounded. Apparently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is recommending the FCC drop its tentative plan to lift its ban on in-flight cellphone use. The FCC has long worried that wireless calls at 35,000 feet would clog hundreds of on-ground towers at once. That hurdle was expected to be remedied by a plan to send passengers' cellphone signals to a small airplane antenna, known as a pico cell. The antenna would then relay calls to earthbound towers over spectrum — earmarked just for air-to-ground use — won by AirCell in an FCC auction last year. But tests conducted last year by CTIA, a wireless association, showed that in-flight calls still cause interference, especially if the pico cell couldn't recognize the passenger's cellphone signal, says CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe. AirCell CEO Jack Blumstein says the interference issues can be fixed. The larger obstacle, he says, is a lack of enthusiasm by both consumers and wireless industry players for in-flight cellphone use.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2007-03-21-fcc-usat_N.htm
(requires registration)

FEDS AGREE TO RETHINK INTERNET RADIO ROYALTIES
[SOURCE: ConsumerAffairs.Com 3/22, AUTHOR: Martin H. Bosworth]
In response to protests against expensive new royalties for Internet radio broadcasts, the U.S. Copyright Review Board (CRB) has agreed to hear requests for a new hearing on the issue. The new payment structure was recently implemented by the CRB and created by SoundExchange, the royalty collections arm of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Under the new royalty structure, Internet-based radio stations and public radio channels would face hefty new payments that would increase each year, as well as mandatory minimum payments of $500. Critics of the plan have said the new royalty system would put independent Internet broadcasters out of business, as their royalty costs would far outpace any revenue they earn from their stations.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/03/crb_internet_radio.html

FCC MEDIA OWNERSHIP DEBATE GETTING SNARLY
[SOURCE: Lasar's Letter on the FCC, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar] [Commentary]
It has been over five years since the FCC issued its Third Biennial Review of its broadcast ownership rules, limits on how many radio, TV stations, and newspapers a single entity can own in the United States. After a long, tumultuous debate, the FCC in 2003 issued an Order relaxing many of those rules, only to see the decision struck down by the courts a year later. Now a new proceeding on the same issue has passed its seventh month. Hearings have been held across the country, with more in the offing. New studies on the problem have been promised, with controversies over suppressed studies still raging. Not surprisingly, public patience has worn a bit thin.
http://www.lasarletter.net/drupal/node/383

MANY AMERICANS SEE LITTLE POINT TO WEB
[SOURCE: Reuters]
A little under one-third of U.S. households have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a survey released on Friday. Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, said 29 percent of U.S. households, or 31 million homes, do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe to an Internet service over the next 12 months. The second annual National Technology Scan conducted by Park found the main reason potential customers say they do not subscribe to the Internet is because of the low value to their daily lives they perceive rather than concerns over cost. Forty-four percent of these households say they are not interested in anything on the Internet. The study found U.S. broadband adoption grew to 52 percent over 2006, up from 42 percent in 2005. Roughly half of new subscribers converted from slower-speed, dial-up Internet access while the other half of households had no prior access.
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2323460320070323

TV SUBSCRIBER GROWTH TO SLOW IN 2007
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Yinka Adegoke]
Troubles in the U.S. housing sector are likely to spill over into the pay-television market, where analysts are forecasting a drop in subscriber growth this year. Experts expect satellite TV operators DirecTV Group Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp. to see the most marked cool-off. These companies have traditionally taken the lion's share of new customers because they can service areas outside big cities, where there is little or no cable coverage. But analysts say these regions are also among the hardest hit by the slowdown in the housing market, which has recently been exacerbated by the recent crisis in the subprime loan market that serves borrowers with weak credit histories.
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=televisionNews&storyID=2007-03-24T003718Z_01_N23394709_RTRIDST_0_TELEVISION-SUBSCRIBERS-DC.XML

WEB BECOMES SOURCE -- NOT OUTLET -- FOR NEWS
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Peter Johnson]
Media experts say that the way "Hillary 1984" made its way into the national discussion serves as a cautionary tale for traditional news outlets, which risk spreading material that may be damaging or untrue to wider audiences -- all for the sake of staying current with the Web. On the Web, "you essentially have a public wall where anybody can put up a billboard and say anything," says Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "And if the wall attracts a crowd, mainstream media write about it." That presents challenges for the media, he says: "If something is out there and having an impact, you probably have a responsibility to report it. But you have no less a responsibility to tell me if it's believable or not."
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20070326/mediamix26.art.htm

RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT? QUICK, BUILD AN ONLINE NETWORK
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Scott Martelle]
The handful of people who have gathered on the patio of a Pasadena coffeehouse are either the answer, or the big question mark, in the upcoming presidential election. They have come at the behest of Mike Barako, a Los Angeles special-ed teacher who has been following Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Last month, Barako launched a website through Obama's online campaign to build a local committee of active supporters. More than two dozen people promised to come out for this night's organizational meeting. But only eight people have shown up, pointing up one of the challenges of the 2008 presidential campaigns' rush to the Internet. Building an online database of supporters and the curious is one thing. Spurring them to action is another. "That's going to be the test … whether you can capture the lightning in the bottle and turn that into people who will go door to door for you," said Michael Turk, who ran the Internet operation for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. "How are you going to turn those people into true supporters and do the kind of things that win campaigns?"
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-myspace26mar26,1,6737917.story?coll=la-news-a_section
(requires registration)

DROP IN AD REVENUE RAISES TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR NEWSPAPERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Katharine Seelye]
Revenue from advertising was in striking decline last month, compared with February a year ago, and were generally weaker than analysts had expected. And while there was one piece of good news for the industry -- ad spending on newspaper Web sites rose -- many industry watchers were wondering whether the February declines were part of a short-term slump or whether they signal a deepening systemic problem.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26paper.html
(requires registration)

GIVING AWAY THE AIRWAVES
[SOURCE: New York Times 3/27/1997, AUTHOR: Bob Dole] [Commentary]
Ten years ago, then former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS) decried the giveaway of valuable spectrum in order to help broadcast TV stations transition to digital technology. He valued the giveaway at $12-70 billion and noted the lack of coverage of the issue in the mainstream press. "The broadcasters insist that they need these airwaves -- on which they will duplicate their programming in digital -- to make the transition to high-definition television. O.K., but why not pay a fair price?" Dole wrote. As it is, this mandated transition to digital television is going to cost taxpayers plenty. Consumers will find their current televisions rendered obsolete by digital broadcasts. Replacing all 222 million TV sets in the country could cost upward of $200 billion. That's pretty serious sticker shock for ''free'' broadcast television. He concluded: "Taxpayers should demand better from the President, Congress, the F.C.C. and the broadcasters. After all, we're talking about billions of dollars -- and that's your money."
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F00E13F93D5E0C748EDDAA0894DF494D81
(requires registration)

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Communications-Related Headlines are compiled, summarized and edited by Rachel Anderson (rachel@benton.org), Andy Carvin (andy@benton.org) and Charles Meisch (charlie@benton.org) of the Benton Foundation -- we welcome your feedback. Based in Washington DC, the Benton Foundation's mission is to articulate a public interest vision for the digital age and demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems. Other projects at Benton include:
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