Re: Benton's Communications-related Headlines for 12/3/04

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for DECEMBER 3, 2004

Three items for next week: 1) on Wed the FCC will release the agenda for its 12/15 meeting; 2) on the 9th, Commissioners Copps & Adelstein will attend a forum on media ownership in MN (see link to agenda below); and 3) the Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age meets one week from today. For these and other upcoming media policy events, see http://www.benton.org/calendar.htm

OWNERSHIP
       Media Consolidation a Threat, Blethen tells Portland Audience
       FCC's Powell Sees Long Road for Media Rules
       Agenda for Media Concentration Meeting
       Viacom to Buy Sacramento Station from Sinclair
       North Dakota Radio Station to Clear Channel

PUBLIC TELEVISION
       Mitchell Lays Out PBS Funding Initiative

CONTENT
       Since When Does Conflict Turn Off the Networks?
       The Nascar Nightly News: Anchorman Get Your Gun
       Don't Expect the Government to Be a V-Chip
       The Unreal World

CABLE
       Powell: Regs Would Hike Modem Rates
       Comcast Floats New Set-Top Deadline
       Rural Consumers Require Greater Flexibility In
               Choosing Television Programming

QUICKLY -- News about the Internet; TV Time, Unlike Child Care, Ranks High in Mood Study


OWNERSHIP

MEDIA CONSOLIDATION A THREAT, BLETHEN TELLS PORTLAND AUDIENCE
According to Frank Blethen, board chairman of Blethen Maine Newspapers and the Seattle Times, consolidation of media ownership threatens American democracy because it saps investment in local journalism and stifles controversial coverage that conflicts with corporate interests. Citizen involvement policy making both at Congress and the FCC may be the only remedy. Blethen offered his views as the featured speaker Wednesday at the monthly breakfast meeting of the Portland Community Chamber. An outspoken critic of media consolidation, Blethen is publisher and chief executive officer of The Seattle Times and a fourth-generation newspaper owner. He distributed a written list of what he considers principles for reclaiming America's media. His first priority is to maintain current FCC rules, including minority ownership requirements and public service obligations. He also supports new legislation to ban companies from owning both television stations and newspapers in the same market. Radio ownership rules should be rolled back to 1996, when regulations were relaxed.
[SOURCE: Maine Today, AUTHOR: Tux Turkel tturkel@pressherald.com]
http://business.mainetoday.com/news/041202blethen.shtml

FCC'S POWELL SEES LONG ROAD FOR MEDIA RULES
FCC Chairman Michael Powell is predicting that it could take as long as seven years for "reestablishment of both a framework and a national consensus" on media ownership rules. The FCC attempted to loosen media ownership regulation in 2003, but the new rules were challenged and then rejected in court and later reversed by Congress. Andrew Schwartzman, the lead attorney who persuaded the appeals court to put the relaxed media rules on hold, said there already was a political consensus on what the regulations should be. "The chairman's problem is he doesn't like it," he said. "It is clear that the American public and a majority of Congress, if not the leadership in the House, thinks only modest change is needed in media ownership rules."  "We believe there is a pressing need for a quick resolution to broadcast ownership rules that hamstring the ability of local radio and television stations to compete with giant cable and satellite providers," spokesman Dennis Wharton said.
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jeremy Pelofsky]
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6981407
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-media3dec03,1,7403594.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-business

AGENDA FOR MEDIA CONCENTRATION MEETING
Commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein Thursday announced the agenda for the forum on media concentration to be held in St. Paul (MN) on December 9. The hearing will be organized into two panels - "Local News and Information," and "Media Diversity."  After the panels, there will be an opportunity for members of the general public to make comments. The purpose of the hearing is to give citizens outside of Washington, DC, an opportunity to voice their opinions about media consolidation and to offer comments on how the agency can develop protections that provide citizens with viewpoints from a diversity of sources and enhance the marketplace of ideas.
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-254939A1.doc

VIACOM TO BUY SACRAMENTO STATION FROM SINCLAIR
Viacom has agreed to purchase KOVR-TV, the CBS affiliate in Sacramento (CA) from the Sinclair Broadcast Group for $285 million. With UPN-affiliated KMAX-TV, the purchase gives Viacom its 9th duopoly. The station, the only one owned by Sinclair on the West Coast, produces local news programs from early-morning through late-night. It is expected to be a good fit with KMAX, which has five hours of local news on weekdays and four hours on weekends. Sacramento is the 19th-largest TV market in the country.
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Michele Greppi]
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=6846

NORTH DAKOTA RADIO STATION TO CLEAR CHANNEL
Commissioners Copps and Adelstein respond to Clear Channel's acquisition of KDAM(FM),  Hope, North Dakota: The FCC approved Clear Channel's acquisition of a radio station in a market in which Clear Channel already controls over 50% of the market and Clear Channel and the next largest owner together control over 90%.  Given this extreme level of market concentration, we cannot support grant of this transfer absent additional information on the public interest benefits of the transaction.  Yet, here, the majority has not even considered the public interest benefits or harms.  We are troubled by the trend toward greater and greater consolidation of the media, particularly in smaller radio markets, and this Commission's acceptance of such levels of concentration with hardly any analysis.  For a robust marketplace of ideas to survive, every community deserves to have a diversity of sources of information available to its members - not just those who live in the largest cities.  We find that the amount of concentration at issue here is potentially very harmful to competition, to the listening public and to America's deeply held values of localism and diversity.
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission]
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-232A2.doc
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-232A1.doc


PUBLIC TELEVISION

MITCHELL LAYS OUT PBS FUNDING INITIATIVE
Speaking at The Future of Public Television conference in Chicago, Pat Mitchell, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service, said Thursday her organization is launching the Enhanced Funding Initiative  to help develop new sources of funding and increase revenues in a diverse media market. Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt and former Netscape CEO James Barksdale will lead the effort with the National Policy Committee of PBS's board overseeing the effort. It will include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Association of Public Television Stations and National Public Radio and seek input from public interest groups and other interested parties. Participants will review research and gather information on various approaches to enhancing funding for public television, including the feasibility of building a federal trust fund based on the proceeds of early-returned analog spectrum from public television stations to add to the current federal funding mix. The results of the meetings will be compiled into a report to PBS's National Policy Committee that will analyze current funding models, examine potential solutions for bolstering funding and describe how such a proposal would be executed. The process will start this month and run for three to six months.
John Lawson, president and CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) also spoke at the conference. In his address, titled "DTV: Public Television's Second Chance," Lawson laid out his vision of the unique role that digital technology must play in the future of all public television stations. Whether it is through the provision of greater programming services to communities through multicasting, or the potential to generate new streams of revenue through datacasting, Lawson encouraged public television stations to embrace digital technology. Lawson stressed the importance of the local public television station, working with their producers at the local level and PBS nationally, to develop digital content, particularly in education, to renew public television stations' missions after the digital conversion. After his remarks, Lawson was joined in a panel discussion by Joe Bruns (WETA), Sherri Hope Culver (WYBE), James Pagliarini (TPT), Sandra Session-Robertson (WCEU) and Dan Schmidt (Network Chicago). The station leaders discussed the innovative ways their stations are meeting the needs of their local communities.
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Christopher Lisotta]
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=6844
For more information on the Future of Public Television conference which continues today see:
http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/pbs/


CONTENT

SINCE WHEN DOES CONFLICT TURN OFF THE NETWORKS?
[Commentary] A UCC minister responds to the decision by television networks not to run a church ad welcoming homosexuals and other minorities. If advocacy is truly the objection, then ads from the armed services should also be banned because recruitment of soldiers is clearly advocacy for war, she writes. Shockley believes the networks should either let the church buy the time to welcome people who feel excluded from some Christian churches or send news crews to UCC's 6,000 churches that openly accept gays and lesbians. "To neither cover us as news nor allow us to buy time because we're too controversial is to deny us our freedom of speech and our freedom of religion." Right-wing/fundamentalist Christianity has so dominated the media that many Americans don't believe liberal/progressive Christianity even exists. The fundamentalist message is the de facto Christian message because such groups have the money to not only buy airtime but to have their own shows. And every time Jerry Falwell blames gays or feminists for society's ills, he shows up on the news.
[SOURCE:  Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR:Madison Shockley, United Church of Christ]
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-shockley3dec03,1,6729899.story?coll=la-news-comment
(requires registration)

THE NASCAR NIGHTLY NEWS: ANCHORMAN GET YOUR GUN
When TV news organizations start repositioning themselves to pander to Nascar dads and "moral values" voters, it's a problem for everyone. There's a war on. TV remains by far the most prevalent source of news for Americans. We need honest information to help us navigate, not bunkum skewed to flatter one segment of the country, whatever that segment might be.
[SOURCE: New York Times 12/5, AUTHOR: Frank Rich]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/arts/05rich.html?oref=login&oref=login
(requires registration)

DON'T EXPECT THE GOVERNMENT TO BE A V-CHIP
[Commentary] As one deeply suspicious of government involvement in the regulation of content, I understand and often agree with those who stand up for the cherished value of free speech. But as a parent, I respect the desire of the American people for a minimum level of decency on the public airwaves - particularly where their children are concerned. The often unenviable task of striking a balance between these two competing values falls to the Federal Communications Commission. Context remains the critical factor in determining if content is legally indecent. That context and the specific facts of each program are reasons the government can't devise a book of rules listing all the bad stuff. Further the Communications Act expressly forbids the FCC from banning a program before broadcast, and any such effort might very well run afoul of the First Amendment. If one slices through the rhetoric, you'll find that most opponents of the agency's strong enforcement efforts believe that the government simply should not impose any decency standard at all. Berating citizens who believe in values and reasonable limits is insulting and polarizing and distracts from the legitimate issues of this policy debate. Critics of the law should instead focus their efforts on changing the law, if that's what they want. Until then, the American people have a right to expect that the FCC will continue to fulfill its duty of upholding the law, while being fully cognizant of the delicate First Amendment balance that must be struck.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: FCC Chairman Michael Powell]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/03/opinion/03powell.html
(requires registration)

THE UNREAL WORLD
The formula for every successful reality show is an easily understandable premise steeped in some social belief that provokes an audience reaction of Â?Oh, my god! Â?WhatÂ?s wrong with you?Â? Viewers may be drawn to reality TV by a sort of cinematic schadenfreude, but they continue to tune in because these shows frame their narratives in ways that both reflect and reinforce deeply ingrained societal biases about women, men, love, beauty, class and race. The genre teaches us that women categorically Â?areÂ? certain things Â? for example, no matter their age, theyÂ?re Â?hot girls,Â? not self- aware or intelligent adults.
[SOURCE: Ms. Magazine, AUTHOR: Jennifer Pozner ]
http://www.msmagazine.com/fall2004/unrealworld.asp


CABLE

POWELL: REGS WOULD HIKE MODEM RATES
Applying traditional phone-industry rules to cable-modem service would raise consumer rates by about 10% or $1 billion, predicts FCC Chairman Michael Powell. His comments came one day before the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to decide whether to hear Brand X Internet Services vs. FCC, a case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that threatens cable-modem service with traditional telecommunications obligations such as open access to Internet-service providers, universal-service payments and interconnection with other telecommunications carriers. Consumer groups and various ISPs support the Brand X ruling, saying that it would expose cable-modem service to greater competition and make broadband access more affordable.
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: ]
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA484860.html?display=Breaking+News
(requires subscription)

COMCAST FLOATS NEW SET-TOP DEADLINE
The Federal Communications Commission is planning to ban cable-operator distribution of new integrated digital and hybrid boxes after July 2006, but cable giant Comcast has a proposal that would give cable operators until at least 2008 to discontinue the deployment of set-tops. An integration ban would mean that all new cable boxes except analog-only units would need to support CableCards -- devices inserted into set-tops that store the conditional-access codes to guard against signal theft. Comcast and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association claimed that the integration ban would raise the price of set-tops. They also argued that the ban is unnecessary because the market offers CableCard-enabled digital-TV sets that receive one-way cable programming without set-tops.
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Ted Hearn]
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA484803.html?display=Breaking+News
(requires subscription)

RURAL CONSUMERS REQUIRE GREATER FLEXIBILITY IN CHOOSING TELEVISION PROGRAMMING
The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) is concerned that a study conducted by the FCCÂ?s Media Bureau on the sale of video programming services discounts the possibility of customers being able to choose a la carte video programming. NTCA believes that certain consumers could benefit from having the option to subscribe to a la carte services. NTCAÂ?s members provide cable TV and other video programming services to customers in rural areas. However, small providers lack negotiating leverage and are forced to buy packages that do not reflect their customersÂ? preferences. In addition, as smaller providers have limited capacity on their networks, having to purchase bundled packages that may include unwanted programming restricts their flexibility in other program offerings. According to the Media BureauÂ?s "Report on the Packaging and Sale of Video Programming Services to the Public," consumers who subscribe to more than nine channels likely would face an increase in their monthly bills under an a la carte regime. As such, the price increase would be felt by the average consumer, who watches approximately 17 different channels, including broadcast stations, the study concludes. But NTCA contends that these results, in fact, may indicate that those whose viewing preferences are more focused actually could see a decrease in expenditures, if allowed to subscribe to video programming on an a la carte basis.
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications Cooperative Association Press Release]
http://www.ntca.org/ka/ka-3.cfm?content_item_id=2768&folder_id=298


QUICKLY

Domain Names Body Meets with Full Agenda
The Internet Corporation on Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, with a full agenda framed by ICANN's newly released strategic plan and the recent formation of a UN working group on Internet governance with potential implications for ICANN.
[SOURCE: Center for Democracy and Technology]
(http://www.cdt.org)

US netizens: white, wealthy and full of it - shock!
A survey by the US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration shows that the Internet has entrenched the divide between rich and poor, and the races. Statistics reveal an Internet that's overwhelmingly white, wealthy and urban. The pace of Internet adoption has tapered off to a trickle, with a substantial part of the population not interested in the Internet at any price.
[SOURCE: The Registar, AUTHOR: Andrew Orlowski]
http://www.theregister.com/2004/12/01/us_doc_internet_survey/

Nielsen/NetRatings estimates that there are now over 100 million Internet users in Europe and more than half connect using broadband.
[SOURCE: Reuters]
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ZTAEC0O3XXAVICRBAEKSFEY?type=technologyNews&storyID=6979104

Telecom Experts Suggest Pace of Technological Change & Competition Makes Existing Laws Passe
A report released Wednesday by the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC) reveals that some regulators believe that a new paradigm for Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks and applications providers is best left to market forces with minimal regulation at the federal and state levels. Officials note that important social policies such as E-911, universal service, and access for law enforcement and people with disabilities should be ongoing topics of interest for regulators.
[SOURCE: New Millennium Research Council Press Release]
http://www.newmillenniumresearch.org/news/mr12-1-04.pdf

TV Time, Unlike Child Care, Ranks High in Mood Study
A team of psychologists and economists is reporting today what many Americans know but do not always admit, especially to social scientists: that watching television by oneself is a very enjoyable way to pass the time, and that taking care of children - bless their little hearts - is often about as much fun as housework.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: ]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/03/health/03mood.html
(requires registration)
--------------------------------------------------------------
...and we are outta here (to watch TV and kids!). Thanks for reading this far -- have a great weekend.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Communications-related Headlines is a free online news summary service provided by the Benton Foundation (www.benton.org). Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their often informal tone does not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines@benton.org) -- we welcome your comments.
--------------------------------------------------------------
(c)Benton Foundation 2004. Redistribution of this email publication -- both internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message. For subscribe/unsubscribe info email: headlines@benton.org
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Benton Foundation (www.benton.org) works to realize the social benefits made possible by the public interest use of communications. Bridging the worlds of philanthropy, public policy, and community action, Benton seeks to shape the emerging communications environment and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Free Press also collects media and media policy related headlines that complement well the work we are doing. Media Headlines is a free, daily news service by Free Press. It includes links to articles found on the Free Press News Center.  For more information or to sign up, visit http://www.freepress.net


Kevin Taglang
Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Foundation
Communications in the Public Interest
1625 K Street, NW 11th Floor
Washington, DC 20006
headlines@benton.org


Ra Energy Fdn.
Raleigh Myers
Worksheet bio
http://www.igc.apc.org/raenergy/bio.html
Blog
http://raenergy.blogspot.com/

Call to Action blog a virtual seminar for change
http://www.google.com/search?q=Global+Vote+raenergy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=02Eigc%2Eorg%2Faction%2Ehtml

Newsgroups beginning in the eighties click on date and web
http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Ra+Energy+Fdn%2E%22

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - - Margaret Mead