These are the news headlines as read on the mediageek radio show on Friday, Dec. 6, 2002.
Stories include: FCC Chair Sets Public Hearing on Media Ownership Regs; New FCC Commissioner; Patents May Threaten Open Web Standards; FCC Reduces Pirate Fine; Don Imus Ranch Gets Visit From FCC; Speedway fined for 1 watt station.
Mediageek headline news features stories about our communications environment that typically get relegated to the business pages of our newspapers and often don’t get reported at all in the electronic media. News on the media and communications industries is not just of interest to investors and stockholders – it’s important to all of us, especially if we want to have a role in changing our media environment to serve a more democratic and just society.
Here’s what’s happened in our media environment this week:
FCC Chair Sets Public Hearing on Media Ownership Regs
Buckling under pressure, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell agreed Wednesday to hold at least one public hearing on the agency’s plan to loosen key media ownership rules.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Powell said the hearing would be convened in Richmond, Va., sometime in February.
Powell has come under increased criticism for refusing to hold public hearings, considering the unprecedented number of ownership regulations in the offing. In his statement, Powell said, “I agree that a local public hearing can provide value to our proceedings. Severe budget constraints and a commitment not to further delay completion of this critical proceeding are also paramount considerations in conducting such a hearing and the choice of venue. Conducting a hearing in Richmond appropriately balances those concerns.”
Powell had defended his position not to hold hearings by reminding his critics that anyone could file written comments that would be considered a part of the record.
Late last month, Democratic FCC commissioner Michael Copps said he would take part in unofficial public hearings being organized by consumer advocates and several Hollywood guilds.
In a separate statement, commissioner Copps said he welcomes Powell’s announcement of the Richmond hearing, but that he also encourages having public hearings in other areas of the country in order to hear a diversity of viewpoints.
Just as Powell was releasing his statement, a coalition of media advocates and public health experts warned that the FCC could jeopardize children’s programming by loosening ownership rules barring companies from further expansion.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Action Coalition for Media, the National PTA and the American Psychological Assn. were among those signing a letter to Powell asking for a face-to-face session, saying he has thus far ignored what’s best for kids.
Powell has argued that ownership rules may not be as necessary when there are so many media outlets, like broadcast, cable, satellite and the Internet. He has shown less willingness to recognize the significance of the fact that the same cabal of coporations have significant holdings in or dominate all these media.
The ownership rules up for review at the FCC include a national cap blocking broadcasters from reaching more than 35% of the national audience; a national cap blocking cable companies from reaching more than 30% of the national audience; a rule barring broadcasters from owning a TV station and newspaper in the same major market; a duopoly rule blocking a broadcaster and cable compnay from owning multiple outlets in the same market; and a cable-broadcast cross-ownership rule.
For further info:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20021205/media_nm/fcc_3
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-229209A1.pdf
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-229233A1.pdf
http://www.childrennow.org/newsroom/news-02/pr-12-4-02.htm
New FCC Commissioner
Perhaps not coincidentally, Chairman Powell’s announcement of the public hearing on ownership rules came just one day after Johnathan Adelstein was sworn in as the fifth commissioner on the FCC. Adelstein, who becomes the second Democrat on the Commission, had his confrimation held up for months by Senate Republicans in retaliation for Senate Democrats rejecting several of the president’s judicial nominees. A former aid to outgoing Senate Majority Leader Tom Dascle, Adelstein joins fellow Democrat Michael Copps who recently has been the sole dissenting voice amongst FCC commissioners on issues like media ownership and the public interest. It is likely that Adelstein’s presence at the FCC will strengthen the opposition to drastically relaxing media ownership rules, even though Republicans have a majority of the five comissioner seats at the FCC.
FCC Commissioners are appointed by the president, and by law, commissioners must come from both the Reuplican and Democratic parties. The majority of commissioners and the chair almost always come from the party holding the executive. As a regulatory commission, strong dissent and strict party-line votes on rule-making procedures are typically disfavored by the FCC because such decisions send mixed messages to both the media industry and Congress. FCC Commissioners tend to have fairly cozy relationships with the corporations they regulate, and often receive cushy industry jobs after leaving the commission.
Even within the broadcast industry there is not unanimous support for the relaxation of ownership rules, nor is there agreement about which rules should be relaxed. Nonetheless finally filling the vacant Democratic seat on the FCC increases the likelihood that chairman Powell and the other republican commissioners will compromise on these public interest issues.
For further info:
http://www.radioandrecords.com/Subscribers/TodaysNews/archive/arch120302.htm#Jonathan Adelstein Sworn In As FCC Commissioner
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-229105A1.pdf
http://www.mediageek.org/archives/001923.html#commissioner
Patents May Threaten Open Web Standards
The World Wide Web Consortium, also known as the W3C, which creates and publishes the standards and specifications that underly much of the World Wide Web, recently published a “last call” draft of their patent policy. This policy governs the terms on which consortium members
may submit new standards that depend on patented ideas and technologies. W3C members, all
high-tech corporations, want to submit standards that depend on *their*
patents so implementors will have to pay the corporate patent-holders to
take advantage of the new standard.
The W3C is considering allowing their members to put restrictions on the
patents that limit *how* they can be used. Under such rules, an implementor won’t have to pay to use the patent so long as the patented idea is used in a particular way. But if the
idea is used in a novel way not specified by the patent holder, a fee will be levied. If the implementor can’t afford the fee they will have to find a way to do the same job without using the patented idea. This becomes especially problematic because patents are purposefully written to be overly broad, or can even cover ideas and technologies already in use.
For example, imagine if there were a patent on HTML—the code that web pages are written in – such that only programs that browse the web and display it on a monitor were permitted under the patent. If a program were written by a non-profit group that allowed webpages in html to be read aloud to the blind or printed on paper, that program could be considered a patent infringement and therefore disallowed.
This is particulaly problematic for Free Software where program features are
routinely shared and used in novel ways that often differ from the creator’s original intentions.
The World Wide Web evolved in the manner it did because the standards that
govern its operation were freely available for everyone to implement and use
for any purpose. Free software advocates and other cyber libertarians note that societies in general have benefitted tremendously from the web, a largely unrestricted medium. They argue that if we want to continue to benefit as we have so far, we will need to object to these restrictions on patent claims contributed to W3C standards. To send in comments on this policy,
e-mail www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org before Tuesday, December 31st, 2002. For more information about the World Wide Web Consortium, go to their website at www.w3.org.
(headline submitted by Jeff Nicholson-Owens)
FCC Reduces Pirate Fine
In an unusual move, the FCC decided to reduce the fine it levied on a Brooklyn, NY man for broadcasting an FM stations without a license. While the agency didn’t overturn its ruling that Rev. Dr. Philius Nicolas willfully violated its rules by operating a pirate station from Brooklyn, NY, it decided to lower the fine after Nicolas argued that the larger fine would present a financial hardship. The original $10,000 fine has been reduced to $1000. Nicolas did not dispute that he’d operated the pirate station, but he provided the FCC with tax returns from 1998-2000 to support his claim. He has 30 days to pay the fine, although because it is a regulatory agency and not a police agency, the FCC has little ability to collect fines from individuals who don’t otherwise fall under the FCC’s regulatory power.
Don Imus Ranch Gets Visit From FCC
It looks like the FCC has been focusing on bigger fish in the pirate sea. On Monday morning, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Don Imus announced on his radio program that the FCC made him shut down a low-power FM transmitter on his cattle ranch near Ribera, N.M., 50 miles northeast of Santa Fe. An unlikely pirate, Imus had installed the FM transmitter so his ranch-hands could listen to an Internet simulcast of his radio show, which originates in New York and is not carried locally in New Mexico. It’s not clear just how much wattage Imus’s unlicensed station was running, but Don claims it couldn’t be heard oustide his seven-mile-wide ranch property.
On his Monday program Imus vowed to have frequent guest, incoming Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. John McCain (R-Ariz.), place a call to Colin Powell’s son to resolve the matter. As Imus producer Bernard McGuirk pointed out on air, the Commerce Committee oversees the FCC, and Imus said McCain is known for “follow-through,” unlike another occasional guest, Sen. Domenici (R-N.M.), in whose state transmitter was located.
Back in 2000, Sen. McCain came out as the only republican senator to strongly support the FCC’s creation of a licensed low-power FM radio service, and floated serveral unsuccessful pieces of legislation that attempted to broaden its reach. However, these rules would do Imus no good because has no license.
An FCC spokesman said any transmitter that wasn’t licensed and exceeded a certain geographic range would be in violation of law regardless of wattage and would be subject to removal, although he didn’t know specifics of the Imus case.
For further info:
http://www.diymedia.net/archive/1202.htm#120402
Speedway fined for 1 watt station
In a similar case, the FCC has fined the operators of California Speedway for operating a one watt FM transmitter on 104.7 without a license. The FCC says that power was measured at 250 times over the legal limit for an unlicensed transmitter – a fact that the Speedway is disputing. The Speedway claims that the station was only operated during events and believed that the equipment is FCC compliant. They claimed that the manufacturer told them to turn down the unit’s output control if it received any complaints of interference during use of the equipment. The Speedway was fined $8,000, reduced from $10K based on the Speedway’s past record.
For further info:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-02-3105A1.pdf
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