Starting today at 9:30 a.m. the House will drag FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and his colleagues before the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee to explain their misguided and widely-criticized media consolidation plan that would allow one company to control several radio and television stations in the same city. The hearing comes two days after John Dingell (D-MI,) who will be chairing the hearing, accused Martin of abusing his power and intentionally keeping his fellow Commissioners in the dark. Just yesterday, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to ban the FCC from moving forward with their planned vote until they first complete a comprehensive study of broadcasters’ commitment to local news and ownership opportunities for women and minorities.
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Google Will Bid In The 700Mhz Auction
Google announced today that they will be bidding in the 700mhz auction! For real.
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Following the increasingly integrated and undisclosed use of product placement in TV shows, like a Seventh Heaven episode where a wedding ring was embedded in an Oreo cookie, the busy beavers at the FCC are planning to scrutinize the practice. [Broadcasting and Cable]
Lobbyists 1, Kevin Martin 0: FCC Compromises On New Proposal
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin thought he had the support of the two Democratic commissioners when he went forward with a proposal to invoke powers given to the FCC in the 1984 Cable Communications Act. The 70/70 rule, as it’s called, allows the FCC to adopt any rules necessary to promote a “diversity of information sources,” once 70% of households can receive cable and 70% of them subscribe.
Dialing 911 Could Be Dangerous
Dialing 911 sets off a loud alarm on newer Verizon phones, potentially putting customers in danger. Imagine dashing under your bed at the sound of an intruder breaking through the front door, only to wonder if you should call 911 from your cellphone because it would reveal your location. A Texas woman was forced to make a similar decision when she discovered that the security chain guarding her vacant property was missing.
She grabbed her new Casio G’zOne phone from Verizon Wireless, which to her horror made an audible alarm when she called 911.
"You're Switching My Apartment to Comcast? I'm Moving Out"
Last week the apartment complex I live in near Greenbelt, Maryland, sent a letter stating that starting January 1, 2008, Comcast will be the only Internet service available for residents. That’s reason enough for me to move.
FCC Chairman Takes Aim At Cable Monopolies
Newly emboldened FCC Chairman Kevin Martin plans to wield the Cable Communications Act of 1984 to shatter the cable industry’s anti-competitive practices. The proposed regulations would give consumers flexible, diverse programming at cheaper rates, while capping the cancerous growth of conglomerates like Comcast and Time Warner.
The commission is preparing to take steps to make it less expensive for rivals of the largest cable conglomerates to buy their programs — so that, for instance, a satellite company would find it less expensive to purchase programs by the Turner Broadcasting System, a unit of Time Warner.
Cellphone Jammers Are Effective, Illegal
The power to silence the annoying schmo yabbering away on their cellphone rests within a small black box the size of a cigarette pack. Selling for as little as $50, cellphone jammers can spew radio signals powerful enough to disrupt all nearby cell signals. The downside? It’s illegal.
The Federal Communication Commission says people who use cellphone jammers could be fined up to $11,000 for a first offense. Its enforcement bureau has prosecuted a handful of American companies for distributing the gadgets — and it also pursues their users.
Media Consolidation Is Bad For Everyone
Bill Moyers produced an excellent segment on media consolidation and its disproportionate impact on minorities. African Americans and Hispanics account for over a quarter of the population, but own just 33 of the nation’s 1,350 television stations, and only 6% of radio stations. According to Melody Spann-Cooper, owner of Chicago’s only black-owned radio station:
Radio has moved from being in the business of empowering and educating people to Wall Street, to making money. And that’s not the big corporate conglomerates, you know, that’s not their fault. They were allowed to do this.
Consumer Groups Ask FCC To Ban Comcast From Blocking Any Peer-To-Peer Activity
Advocacy groups and legal scholars filed a network neutrality complaint with the FCC today against Comcast, asking the government to issue a temporary injunction against the cable company that forces it to “stop degrading any applications. Upon deciding the merits, the Commission should issue a permanent injunction ending Comcast’s discrimination.” More importantly, the complaint asks the FCC to classify any blocking of peer-to-peer file sharing as a violation of the agency’s Internet Policy Statement, “four principles issued in 2005 that are supposed to ‘guarantee consumers competition among providers and access to all content, applications and services.'”
Comcast Calls FCC Decision To Ban Apartment Cable Deals "A Blow" To Consumers
The FCC approved a rule banning apartment building cable deals today, and Comcast is all mad about it.
F.C.C. To Strike Down Sole Provider Cable Deals for Apartments
The FCC is slated Wednesday to nullify and bar exclusive agreements between cable companies and apartment buildings. Currently, in cases where such arrangements exist, consumers can only choose the cable provider their landlord inked the deal with. The FCC hopes is to increase competition and lead to lower prices for consumers. Verizon and AT&T, which have started offering their own video services, lobbied heavily for the action.
Should ISPs Be Required To Forward Email?
The government is weighing whether ISPs should be required to forward email after customers switch providers. Freelance writer Gail Mortenson filed a petition with the FCC claiming that she lost business because AOL and Time Warner refused to forward her emails for six months. The FCC doesn’t seem overly interested in the petition, but Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is watching closely to see how the FCC proceeds.
FCC Chairman To Relax Media Ownership Rules
Media conglomerates are preparing to feast on a banquet of local media outlets thanks to a resurrected proposal from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The Chairman wants to relax decades-old rules that bar media companies from owning both a newspaper and TV or radio station in the same local market. A similar proposal was presciently struck down three years ago by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Currently, a company can own two television stations in the larger markets only if at least one is not among the four largest stations and if there are at least eight local stations. The rules also limit the number of radio stations that a company can own to no more than eight in each of the largest markets.
Best Buy Stops Selling Analog TVs
Best Buy has decided to (finally) stop selling soon-to-be-obsolete analog televisions, according to the AP. The FCC has been on the war path, sending secret agents to surf the web and inspect product displays to make sure that consumers are being warned not to buy analog TVs with the expectation that they will work properly without a converter box after 2009.
Congress Asks FCC To Accurately Count U.S. Broadband Homes
Congress has added its voice to the growing number of critics who have noted that the FCC is misreporting broadband penetration in the U.S. According to eWeek, last Wednesday a House subcommittee “approved legislation to change the Federal Communications Commission’s methodology for determining deployment.” The FCC currently counts a single home in a zip code as representative of the full zip code—so one home having broadband access is considered the same as every home in that area having broadband access. By doing this, they inflate the number of homes with broadband access and present a picture of increased “natural” competition in the market, which is then used by telecoms and lobbyists to argue against policy decisions that don’t favor existing corporations.
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FCC has rejected Verizon’s requested changes of the new open-platform wireless auction, set for January 2008. Google has pledged to buy some of the available wireless bandwidth in order to launch an open-source Google phone to compete with the carriers. [Reuters]
We Use Illegal Telemarketing Not To "Change Your Do-Not-Call Status," But To "Give You An Opportunity To Change Your Do-Not-Call Preference"
DirecTV is defending automated sales calls to Do Not Call List subscribers as “informational,” and “not telemarketing.” The satellite TV provider recently called customers to say: “Because you are on our Do Not Call List, we can’t call you with all of our super-awesome special promotions.” This bothered reader Nina, who fired off angry letters to both DirecTV CEO, Chase Carey, and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. Nina received the following pigheaded reply from DirecTV counsel, Rose Foley:
