Disappointed in DTV

Anyone else underwhelmed with digital television?

OK I admit I will never be confused with an Engadget blogger. For someone who works in educational technology and was a TV producer I am oddly a relic when it comes to television consumption. I am not a cable subscriber. I want to retire someday and I would rather pay myself a $100 a month than a cable company (I suspect the economy will drive others to join me.) My TV is a small 16 year old analog set.

So given my modest viewing experience, DTV seemed like an exciting possibility: clear reception, multiple channels. I eagerly requested my coupon. So far I have been roundly disappointed.

Despite living nine miles from downtown two of the major stations frequently stutter and halt, the signal too weak to play smoothly. And what happened to multicasting? The NBC affiliate gives a weather channel (gee I can't get that anywhere) and the ABC affiliate shows old movies -- bad movies -- on its alternative channel. PBS gives me some diversity -- legislative sessions and a channel dedicated to how to programs -- but not much that adds to my life or is particularly local.

So this transition to DTV was supposed to be in the public interest? You would think that given all the extra broadcast capacity stations now have there would be some local programming requirements. Even local sports is now almost entirely relegated to cable TV.

I hope a new FCC and Congress puts some meaningful public service requirements on broadcasters.

The Media Moment

No, it is not a moment of on screen performance but the opportunity to redirect media and internet policy in the United States. Media reform activists are energized by Obama's clear positions on preserving network neutrality, reversing policies promoting media consolidation, and rebuilding public media for the digital age.

The reform group Free Press just released a policy paper filling in some details of Obama's stated principles. It calls for:

• Protecting an Open Internet: The Obama administration should move swiftly to put Net Neutrality into law by urging Congress to pass Net Neutrality legislation.
  
• Promoting Universal, Affordable Broadband: The next FCC should set new speed standards for broadband; collect meaningful data on deployment; transition the Universal Service Fund toward broadband; and open inquiries to stimulate broadband competition.
• Increasing Diversity in Media Ownership: The road to media ownership reform begins by reversing the Bush administration's pro-consolidation policies. Obama's FCC should also investigate the impact of concentration on localism and diversity.
• Renewing Public Media: Urge Congress to substantially increase funding for all levels of public media; create a long-term funding strategy that protects public media from undue political interference and supports the digital transition; and promote new Low Power FM stations and existing PEG channels.

Broadband Stimulus

Some are arguing that building up the US broadband infrastructure should be a component of an economic stimulus plan. The US falls in the middle of the pack in terms of broadband adoption, with over 40 million people -- approximately 5 million in Ohio -- without broadband. Most communities have only one or two providers, a dearth of competition that keeps prices high and performance low. This compromises US competitiveness by limiting education, telemedicine, entrepreneurism and civic and economic participation.

In the National Governors Association letter to Congress Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont wrote:

"[I]nvestments in ready-to-go infrastructure projects are a cost effective creator of high paying jobs. These investments should include a broad array of infrastructure projects including airports, highways, transit systems, clean water, sewers and broadband."

The Brookings Institute has released a study in which it estimates that each percentage point increase in broadband adoption results in nearly 300,000 jobs each year.

I think the most intersting argument is made by Yochai Benkler who argues for British-style federal effort to build fiber to the home aligned with a massive "each one teach one" effort to build up our nations math and science knowledge:

"We are happily contemplating paying people to dig up roads and pour cement. They will be building our physical infrastructure. There is no reason why we should not be equally happy paying people to teach, learn, and share what they learned. They will be building our knowledge infrastructure. Coupled with fiber to the home, by the end of the recovery we will have more of our population connected to much faster networks that will allow them to work from home, and they will be much better prepared to use that connectivity in a networked information economy."

Given Obama's seriousness about technology -- he plans to create a cabinet level Chief Technology Officer -- we could have very different media landscape in the near future.

Will the State of Ohio give away last bastion of local control?

Bill Callahan reports that legislation has been introduced that effectively eliminates local control and public interest requirements video franchises in the State of Ohio. Ohio Senate Bill 117, modeled after AT&T-backed legislation passed in Michigan, is intended sweeten the return on phone companies video over broadband services by eliminating local franchising. Cable companies are OK with that because once their local franchises end they will not have to renegotiate them. What will happen? According to Callahan:

... existing cable providers will stop talking to local governments, having no further reason to do so. Where franchises expire (as is now the case with Time Warner in Cleveland), the cable companies will go to the state Commerce Director for pro forma approval of new ones — standard ten year terms, no more citywide service obligations, no more demands for special services to municipal and school facilities, no more requirements to support community media access and technology programs, no negotiation of any kind. Where a franchise remains in effect, the cable company can walk away whenever it chooses, and “no provision of that franchise or agreement is enforceable” by the community.

Has your cable company agreed to pay a fee to support “PEG” (public, educational and government) access television facilities, as in Cincinnati? That agreement will be unenforceable.

Has your cable company agreed to offer digital cable service — which is necessary for broadband Internet access — to households in every neighborhood, no matter how poor? That agreement will be unenforceable.

Has your cable company agreed to provide free or discount service to municipal buildings, schools, libraries, and nonprofits? Or senior citizen discounts? That agreement will be unenforceable.

Has your cable company agreed in past franchise negotiations to provide special one-time grant support for community technology or minority television development, as in Cleveland in 2000? Never again.

Will the state, as the new franchising “authority”, be able to negotiate any of these (or other) public benefits on behalf of its communities? Absolutely not. SB 117 says the Commerce Director must approve any properly completed “video service authorization” request within twenty days of its filing, or it goes into effect anyway.
“The director has no authority to regulate video service in this state, including, but not limited to, the rates, terms, or conditions of that service.”

Let your state Senator know that broadband service is vital to the future of Ohio and that local communities have the right to negotiate for universal service and community media so all Ohio citizens can participate fully in our economy, educational system and culture.

Technorati Tags: Broadband, Franchising, Community Media, Bill Callahan, Ohio

The non-coverage of non-profits

From what I have red about other hearings, it seems a common practice by broadcasters in attendence is to tout their support of local charities. And they will bring leaders of local charities to publicly thank them for their support by reporting on fundraisers, sending anchors to act as Masters of Ceremony, occasionally running a PSA. Typically these efforts are done in support of a children's advocate, medical organization or United Way.

This is all fine. But it should never be confused with doing the actual work of journalism. When is the last time the issues cared about had a decent airing on local commercial broadcasting? How many of the smaller non-profits and neighborhood associations, who wrestle with complicated issues of poverty, sustainability, education and neighborhood development have access to media to tell their story, and engage the community in their issues?

If you belong to or support a neighborhood association or non-profit organization, do whatever you can to get its membership to attend the hearing and demand media that recognizes them and serves their needs.

Technorati Tags: FCC, FCC Hearing, Columbus, Media Ownership

Does Big Media serve you? Sound off here.

Does media monopoly serve you?

• Tired of local "News" that is anything but?
• Tired of outrageous campaign ads replacing real campaign coverage?
• Tired of not seeing your community represented in media?
• Tired of bland radio formats that you can hear anywhere?
• Tired of absent or poor children's programming?
• Tired of offensive and outlandish content at every hour of the day?

Media is THE issue. Our media are the oxygen of our democracy, the gardens of our culture.

Are you being served? Add a comment about how media effects you.

Then prepare your comments for the FCC on March 7th.

Tags: FCC, FCC Hearings, Media Reform, Columbus,

Are Media Serving Your Community?

I'll have more to say on this later but it is time to start spreading the word that Columbus will host an FCC hearing on Media Ownership on March 7th.

You may recall the tremendous public backlash in 2003 against proposed rules to weaken ownership rules. Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein led the way by holding informal hearings around the country to get public input. Well, the FCC is at it again.

On June 21, current FCC chairman Kevin Martin issued a draft proposal -- called a Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making, or FNPRM -- that kick-started Big Media's latest effort to weaken the rules protecting local voices, vibrant competition and diverse viewpoints. The rule would eliminate two key protections:

• The rule on "newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership," which prevents companies from owning a television or radio station and the major daily newspaper in the same area.
• The local ownership caps that limit a company from owning more than one television station in most markets. (They can own two in larger markets as long as there are at least eight other competitors.)

The upcoming Columbus hearing will be significant because it will be the first hearing attended by a majority Commissioner, Robert McDowell. According to organizer Amanda Ballentyne

"having McDowell attend the hearing is a very big deal, as he is appears to be the possible swing vote on the issue of broadcast ownership at the FCC. There are 5 commissioners at the FCC, three republicans (the majority) and two democrats (Copps and Adelstein). Copps and Adelstein have been outspoken on these issues, pressing the FCC not to allow further consolidation. McDowell appears to be undecided. This forum will be an excellent opportunity to impress McDowell."

Below is text from a promotional flier that you can download here.

RAISE YOUR VOICE NOW — OR LOSE IT!

Do you want the media to do a better job of covering issues you care about? Do you want more quality journalism? Are you wondering whether a few giant media conglomerates will provide the diverse and independent viewpoints you need? The Federal Communications Commission and media industry lobbyists want to change the rules so one company can own more newspapers, radio stations and TV stations in places like Columbus. Now is your chance to weigh in.

For more information, visit freepress.net/future or contact Amanda
Ballantyne, aballantyne@freepress.net, 612-849-0195

Technorati Tags: FCC, Media Ownership Hearings, Columbus, Media Reform

The Fact of Life: Gank and be Ganked

Radio Open Source hosted a fabulous discussion on the excesses of copyright enforcement and the creative process of appropriation and modification. They were inspired by Johnathan Lethem's brilliant essay in Harper's called "The Ecstatsy of Influence," in which he exposes creativity as a gift economy by plundering ideas and phrases right and left to make his case.

Lethem is a guest on the show along with scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan, Mark Hosler of the band Negativeland (famously sued by U2's label), and one of my favorite singer songwriters, Mike Doughty who coined the slang "Gank" to describe his own appropriation.

I call this a fact of life because I see us, as a society, wrestling with how we protect and grow our creative wealth. On the one had we have grotesque extensions of copyright duration beyond anything Thomas Jefferson ever conceived of or would have recognized as beneficial to the common good. On the other hand we have a movement labeled as "Open Source" -- spanning software, music and art -- in which code, images, sound are all freely shared. Creative Commons emerged to permit creators to explicitly express the terms of their gifts.

The fact of life is that "Open Source" is simply a natural process. As Vaidhyanathan said in the show:

What we think of as open source is is basically culture. It’s how human beings have organized themselves, communicated with each other, joined each other, forged identities, and most importantly, grooved and danced, for centuries. This is basically how people have always dealt with each other. It’s just in recent years we’ve imposed these interesting cages — legal cages, psychological cages, ethical cages — around this level of sharing.

I've thinking a lot about sustainability lately. Most of the attention, as it should, is directed at the environmental side of that concept. But there are many more. Sustainability of culture is one. As the daily business news reports on increasingly consolidated media (and I am blogging on one giant's -- Google-- platform) there is not a coinciding conversation about preserving and cultivating the diverse cultural expression that helps us create and make sense of our future.

Technorati Tags: copyright, Media Reform, creative commons
Gank

Got Broadband?

The change over in the US Congress and Ohio Governorship are fueling already passionate interest in media reform. On Friday Feb 2nd that passion manifested at the One Ohio gathering at he State Library of Ohio. See my full post at the One Ohio Blog for a summary and more information on Governor Ted Srickland's Broadband Ohio proposal. The key issues are that in Ohio:

• communities struggling to keep and attract businesses because they are unable to offer simple broadband connection;


• farmers, a significant economic sector in Ohio, unable to monitor agricultural markets;


• citizens, both urban and rural, unable to use a computer to do things connected citizens take for granted such take online classes, search and apply for jobs, access political, consumer and cultural information.

Not that this reality needs corroboration, but it was by a recent FCC report on national broadband penetration. Ohio ranks a mediocre 28th out of 50 states with about 1.4 million households connected.

While this may tell a discouraging story, it is not the full story. Recently, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) filed a little reported lawsuit against the FCC to force it to release data from the Form 477 filings that telecom companies provide detailing where their service lines are deployed. The CPI requested the data under FOIA in late August. When the agency did not respond, the CPI filed suit.

The CPI wants to take a close look at how the FCC comes up with its broadband data. As I learned doing a local broadband survey with the Center for American Progress in 2005-6, a telco is given credit for serving a community even if there is only one connection within that zip code. So are there really 1.4 million households connected in Ohio?

According to CPI's statement:

Knowing the identities of the companies would also allow the public to better gauge the reliability of the FCC's own database. In a report released in May 2006, the Government Accountability Office discussed "information [received from the FCC] on the companies providing broadband service in ZIP codes throughout the United States." The GAO's analysis of Form 477 data allowed it to conclude that the median number of broadband providers within a ZIP code was two, rather than eight, as the FCC's analysis of the data found.

Additionally, the FCC sets a very low standard for broadband: 200kbps. With bandwidth ceiling this low it is near impossible to access many media files. And while you may have purchased a plan promising a fast connection you are unlikely ever to receive that top speed. Why? Because that bandwidth capacity was sold to you and 49 of your neighbors. If the majority of you are surfing YouTube your speed will drop precipitously.

Want to know your connection speed? Try this tool from Speakeasy:


Speakeasy measures both download and upload capacity. Upload capacity is vitally important if we are to use our computers as communications devices and not just as interactive televisions.

Other testing sites include Bandwidth Place and Windows User Group Network which has a nice graphical interface that measures upload and download speed.

Are you getting what you a paid for? Tell your story in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Broadband, Media Reform, FCC, Ohio, Ted Strickland, Center for Public Integrity, One Ohio