Sometimes politicians couch the truth in humor. This typically happens when they converge for one of their pat-on-the-back dinners, where they’re surrounded by like-minded friends. Events like the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner come to mind.
In the world of communications policymaking, the hubris-fest happens during the annual dinner of the Federal Communications Bar Association – the cadre of specialized lawyers who grease the Federal Communications Commission’s wheels to keep their clients happy. Headlining this year’s dinner was FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who, by all reports, was quite a crowd-pleaser.
Check some of his jokes, as reported by Broadcasting & Cable: Continue reading “Kevin Martin, Unfunnyman”
Category: Media Policy
FCC: Market to Decide Fate of HD Radio
On March 22, the Federal Communications Commission removed the final administrative hurdles to allowing the full-scale rollout of in-band, on-channel (IBOC) “HD” digital radio in the United States. It’s a huge win for the industry, though the public benefits remain to be seen.
According to staff testimony at the meeting (which starts at ~1:01:00), the FCC appears unconcerned with HD Radio’s potential pitfalls and more than willing to let the industry set the pace of radio’s analog/digital transition. According to Ann Gallagher, an engineer in the Audio Division of the FCC’s Media Bureau, “substantial additional testing” by iBiquity and the National Association of Broadcasters justifies the expedited deployment of HD Radio. Stations may now commence multicasting and separate their analog and digital antenna systems without formal FCC approval. Continue reading “FCC: Market to Decide Fate of HD Radio”
New Licensing Loophole Involves Influential Senator
“Radio Goldfield,” a pirate station run by seasoned citizen Rod Moses out of his trailer in Goldfield, Nevada (population 440) has received special temporary authority from the FCC to operate a 100-watt FM outlet without an official license until such time as the FCC opens another LPFM filing window.
How did he do it? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid‘s ringing endorsement, in correspondence to the agency, probably sealed the deal: Continue reading “New Licensing Loophole Involves Influential Senator”
The Merger of AT&T and BellSouth: Thanks for (Almost) Nothing
Right before the new year, without the benefit of a public meeting or vote, the FCC approved the corporate marriage of AT&T and BellSouth. With this $85 billion deal, Ma Bell is basically just two mergers away from being fully-reconstructed.
Harold Feld of the Media Access Project has already compiled an excellent summary of reaction to the deal, though his own perspective is much more optimistic than mine. I understand that AT&T’s commitment to the preservation of network neutrality is key concession made for the deal, but their 24-month pledge to the principle is six months shorter than the initial acquiescence it made when the FCC merger negotiation-debate began months earlier. Continue reading “The Merger of AT&T and BellSouth: Thanks for (Almost) Nothing”
Microradio, Today and Tomorrow
FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps were in Seattle on November 30th to take more public testimony on the agency’s ongoing media ownership rules review. Reclaim the Media, packed the main auditorium of the Seattle Public Library and provided the Commissioners with four hours’ worth of testimony.
Just two weeks before the FCC’s visit, RtM also organized the Northwest Community Radio Summit, which featured three days of workshops on a wide range of issues. One of those was on 
“The Case for Free Radio in the 21st Century” (1:00:34, 10.4 MB), hosted by members of the Free Radio Olympia collective. It provided a short overview of the history of unlicensed broadcasting and some of the more popular rationales for why it’s still advantageous to be a radio pirate in a post-LPFM world. Continue reading “Microradio, Today and Tomorrow”
U.S., U.K. Chart Spectrum's Future
Some interesting tidbits have been published recently that provide a nice point-counterpoint to the way countries are handling the use of spectrum in a digital world.
The U.S. Department of Commerce (the Federal Communications Commission’s parent department) has just established a two-year “Spectrum Advisory Committee” to offer “reforms that expedite the American public’s access to broadband services, public safety services, and long-range spectrum planning.” It would seem that this committee is to further the work of the White House’s Spectrum Policy Initiative, created three and a half years ago, which to-date hasn’t seemed to produce anything of substance.
As in the case of the first initiative, this committee will not report to the FCC, but instead to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which primarily oversees spectrum activities restricted to government use and international spectrum issues. Continue reading “U.S., U.K. Chart Spectrum's Future”
FCC Report-Spiking Redux
As if last week’s bombshell did not do enough to tarnish the legitimacy of the FCC, now comes word that a second media ownership study did not see the light of day back during the agency’s last go-round on the subject.
The funny thing is, this newly-unearthed report – 
“Review of the Radio Industry” – doesn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know, which is how consolidation has decimated radio since the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. When regulators find themselves threatened to the point where they go out of their way to cover up the obvious, you know things are f*cked up to an insane degree. Continue reading “FCC Report-Spiking Redux”
Mikey Powell, Document-Shredder
During the FCC’s mostly-failed media ownership revision-quest of 2003, the agency cooked up a bunch of “research” to justify trying to let big media grow even bigger. However, one report with real integrity never made it out the door.
The agency’s Media Bureau studied local television news coverage, and tallied up the amount of actual local news stations produced, and correlated that to station ownership. It turns out that locally-owned stations produce as much as 33 hours more local news per year than stations owned by chains or networks. The study also concluded that cross-ownership – the ownership of a TV station and/or newspaper and/or radio by one company in a single market – did nothing to enhance a TV station’s local news coverage. In fact, cross-owned properties more often than not produce less local news. Continue reading “Mikey Powell, Document-Shredder”
Congressional LPFM Expansion Play Afoot
Ever since Congress bowed to pressure from commercial and public broadcasters six years ago and severely gutted the low-power FM radio service, its advocates have been working the Hill looking for a way to nullify the intervention. Several tries at passing bills to directly reverse the damage died quietly, which has directed attention toward using the amendment process as a vehicle for progress.
The “Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act” only became law because it was attached to a spending measure. This maneuver is one of the most sneakily abused ways of routing corrupt legislation through the system. LPFM advocates, led by the Prometheus Radio Project, are at least working with an existing bill that specifically involves important communications regulation. Continue reading “Congressional LPFM Expansion Play Afoot”
Media Exploitation of Crisis: The Political Dimension
Jim Snider at the New America Foundation has just published “How Mass Media Use Crisis Communications for Political Gain,” an excellent paper on the process by which incumbent commercial broadcasters exploit crises as a way to parry criticism for the rest of the time when they don’t actually provide much public service. He also explores how the National Association of Broadcasters is currently manipulating the legislative process to maintain its questionable hold on the trade in localism, most specifically in the face of satellite-based competition.
I really admire how Snider shouts into the wind. He is consistently the most articulate thorn in the NAB’s side within the Beltway.