FCC

FCC Chairman Nominee: ‘I Do Not Support’ Reinstating Fairness Doctrine

Douchebaggery, Fairness Doctrine, FCC, Politics

Wednesday, June 17, 2009
By Edwin Mora

Bloomberg Intrepid
U.S. Capitol (AP Photo)

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Julius Genachowski, President Obama’s nominee to become chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, told a Senate committee Tuesday that he does not plan to resuscitate the “Fairness Doctrine”– a rule that regulated how broadcast stations covered controversial issues, until it was repealed in the ‘80s.

“No, senator I don’t support reinstatement of the ‘Fairness Doctrine.’ I feel strongly about the First Amendment and I don’t think the FCC should be involved in censorship of content based on (limiting) political speech,” Genachowski told the members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The nominee’s comments were in response to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s (R-Texas) question of whether he favored reviving the doctrine through any existing regulations, including “localism” standards.

“As I understood, you said that you do not support reviving it (the Fairness Doctrine) or anything like it, directly or indirectly through ‘localism’ and that sort of thing, and I just wanted to have for the record that I am correct stating your position that you would like to reinstate it,” Hutchison asked the nominee.

Genachowski’s response was similar to that given by the White House in February.

“As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said on Feb. 18.

Concern about reviving the doctrine had surfaced a few days earlier, on Feb. 15, when Obama advisor David Axelrod told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” that he would “leave that issue (reviving Fairness Doctrine) to Julius Genachowski, the new head of the FCC, and to the President to discuss.”

Conservatives are concerned that even though the administration has said it does not endorse bringing back the “Fairness Doctrine,” several Democratic members of Congress have indicated that they would like to reinstate the policy.

What’s more, conservatives say the new administration may try to use existing FCC regulations, such as its “localism” policy, to bring back the requirement that broadcast stations either present “both sides” or avoid talking about controversial issues.

Under localism, which is already in place, “local content boards” would be created to ensure that a broadcasting station is up to par with community standards.

But conservatives and some broadcasters say that local content boards could add additional burdens to broadcast stations, which already have to answer to advertisers and listeners.

Worse, they say, the boards would likely bow to political influence to determine what should – and should not — be aired – in some localities, which could wind up excluding some conservative talk radio shows that dominate the talk radio airwaves.

Genachowski clearly stated his opposition to any attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) brought up the concern during his opening statement, but rather than staying to question the prospective FCC chairman, Johanns left after making his initial remarks saying he would rather deal with the issue at a later time.

“Maybe sometime you can stop by the office, I would love to visit with you about the community advisory boards (local content boards),” said Johanns. “I can’t say there is huge controversy out there, but there is some controversy.”

He added: “There is some concern that, if a local broadcaster doesn’t know the community who can possibly know the community? But again I don’t want to sidetrack you.”

Hutchison and Johanns were the only Republican committee members, out of 11, who asked Genachowski questions. Johanns left after his opening statement, and no other Republican members attended the hearing.

The Republican members of the committee — Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), John Ensign (Nev.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), John Thune (S.D.), Roger Wicker (Miss.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), David Vitter (La.), Sam Brownback (Kan.) and Mel Martinez (Fla.) — were not at the hearing. DeMint was briefly present, but left soon after the hearing started.

Committee Chairman Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.V.) said he was embarrassed about senators leaving right after their opening statements, given the importance of the FCC.

“I am not pleased by the way — this is my fault I take full responsibility for it, that people made their statements and left. Some happen to come back . . . but it’s wrong it this particularly immensely important hearing, nomination hearing,” Rockefeller told the nominee.

“This is an embarrassment to you (Genachowski), it’s an embarrassment to me, an embarrassment to the United States Senate, and to this committee,” added the Senator. “So, from now on, we will not have opening statements except for the chairman and the ranking member.”

The chairman criticized those committee members who included their questions and concerns in their opening statement and left soon thereafter.

FCC, TV, Internet Set For Big Changes in 2009

Barack Obama, Broadband, Cable Television, Digital, FCC, Internet, Net Neutrality

alg_keitel_farrow

David Ho

Cox News

via SF GATE

January 28 New York —

From an Obama administration plan to give all Americans broadband to the nation’s looming switch to digital television, the communications landscape is expected to see big shifts in 2009.

At the heart of much of the change is the Federal Communications Commission, which soon faces its own shake-up as at least one commissioner departs and Democrats take charge.

That could mean policy changes at an agency that oversees everything from cable providers and radio airwaves to public safety communications and broadcast indecency rules.

Overall, experts say, President-elect Barack Obama’s tech-savvy team will be more involved in telecommunications issues than the Bush administration was.

“Obama looks at these issues as part of the solution to unemployment challenges and as an economic stimulant,” said Andy Lipman, who leads the telecom-media practice at the Bingham McCutchen law firm in Washington.

The FCC

The new FCC will begin taking shape in early January as the term of Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate ends. The president appoints commissioners for limited terms, with the party in power getting three of five spots, including the chairmanship.

Republican Chairman Kevin Martin will likely leave the agency when the new administration takes office, and Obama is expected to appoint one of the commission’s two Democrats – Michael Copps or Jonathan Adelstein – as interim chairman. One of them could get the long-term job, but many names have circulated as potential candidates.

While Senate confirmation could take months, Obama’s FCC chairman will arrive with a well-defined agenda, said Ben Scott, policy director for the advocacy group Free Press.

“The president-elect has been so clear and detailed about what he wants to do in telecom and media policy, whoever becomes chairman is going to inherit that set of expectations,” he said.

Broadband

Perhaps the biggest expectation involves improving the availability of high-speed Internet access. That goal is likely to be a part of the huge stimulus package that Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress ambitiously want to enact soon after he takes office Jan. 20.

“It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption,” Obama said this month. “Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online. … That’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

Figuring out how to make that happen has prompted considerable debate, with lawmakers, consumer groups and tech companies chiming in.

“They need to create some kind of mechanism that encourages industry to quickly start deploying faster and farther,” said David Kaut, an analyst with the Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. investment firm. “There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny that it produces jobs in the near term and not just jobs already scheduled.”

The Telecommunications Industry Association and other players favor tax breaks and grants to encourage network building.

One floated proposal involves supporting a broadband rollout through a $7 billion fund that draws on monthly phone bill fees to subsidize calling service in rural and poor communities.

Digital TV

As wrangling over broadband plays out, another mammoth change takes center stage on Feb. 17 as the nation’s TV broadcasters cut off analog signals. The goal is to offer new digital channels with improved picture and sound quality while freeing up radio airwaves for uses such as wireless broadband.

To watch digital programming on older analog sets, consumers need converter boxes. The government is offering coupons to help pay for them.

But when the digital deadline comes, “inevitably you’re going to have lots of people with problems,” Scott said. Recent surveys indicate many consumers remain confused about how it will work.

Key lawmakers told the FCC’s Martin this month that his agency should make smoothing the digital transition the No. 1 priority in the weeks before the inauguration. Martin promptly canceled a meeting on other issues.

The digital changeover has “sucked the oxygen” out of every other telecom topic before the FCC and will dwarf everything else in the first few months of 2009, Lipman said.

Net neutrality

One issue facing a priority shift is net neutrality, or the idea of an open Internet where network providers don’t interfere with Web content and treat all traffic the same.

In August, a precedent-setting FCC decision found that cable giant Comcast Corp. violated federal policies when it blocked customers from sharing online videos and other large files.

Obama has made net neutrality a top communications priority and some lawmakers would like it to be part of a national broadband strategy.

However, the urgency behind government action has faded in recent months as the online content and network sides have come closer together, Lipman said.

He said the issue could flare up if Comcast wins a legal challenge to the FCC ruling, but that decision is a year or two away.

Mergers

The Obama FCC also is expected to apply more scrutiny to mergers while resisting telecom deregulation and weaker media ownership rules.

The new commission may swing back toward President Bill Clinton’s FCC, which exerted tighter control over industry, said Jeff Kagan, an independent analyst in Atlanta. He said companies complained then that regulations could not keep pace with changing technology.

“When the Bush administration took over, the pendulum swung all the way to other side,” resulting in enormous consolidation, Kagan said. He said the challenge for the Obama administration is finding a middle ground.

Cable

One industry looking forward to change at the FCC is cable, which has battled with Martin over a variety of issues including ownership limits and his push for “a la carte” programming, where cable subscribers buy only the individual channels they want.

Some in the industry worry about new net neutrality restrictions, but many FCC watchers expect pressure on cable to ease and the a la carte issue to fade as broadband becomes the top priority.

Lipman said cable companies typically do better with Republicans in power, but without Martin “paradoxically cable will probably end up doing better in the Obama administration.”

The FCC is a Cesspool of Distrust, Suspicion and Turmoil

Comcast Corp., District Of Corruption, Kevin Martin, Time Warner Cable;Cox Communications; FCC

“a blueprint of what not to do”

Investigation finds pattern of mismanagement at FCC

The Associated Press

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

WASHINGTON: In a scathing report released Tuesday, congressional investigators outlined a pattern of mismanagement, dysfunction and abuse of power at the Federal Communications Commission under the agency’s Republican chairman, Kevin Martin.

The report – the result of a nearly yearlong, bipartisan investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee – accuses Martin of manipulating data and suppressing information to influence telecommunications policy debates at the agency and on Capitol Hill.

kevin-martin_fcc

The report charges that the commission has become politicized and failed to carry out some important responsibilities under Martin’s leadership. It also blames him for undermining an open and transparent regulatory process.

In addition, Martin is accused of micromanaging commission affairs, demoting agency staffers who did not agree with him and withholding information from his fellow commissioners. “Chairman Martin’s heavy-handed, opaque, and non-collegial management style has created distrust, suspicion and turmoil among the five current commissioners,” the report says.

Robert Kenny, a spokesman for Martin, said the committee “did not find or conclude that there were any violations of rules, laws or procedures.” Martin is widely expected to leave the commission after the White House changes hands.

Martin’s legacy at the FCC will be “a blueprint of what not to do,” said Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who chairs the House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

“The findings suggest that, in recent years, the FCC has operated in a dysfunctional manner and commission business has suffered as a result,” said Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who will be relinquishing the reins of the panel to California Democrat Henry Waxman next year.

Among the findings of the 110-page report:

– Martin manipulated the findings of an FCC inquiry into the potential consumer benefits of requiring cable companies to sell channels on an individual – or “a la carte” – basis. The House investigation concludes that Martin undermined the integrity of the FCC staff and may have improperly influenced the Congressional debate on the matter by ordering agency employees to rewrite a report to conclude that a la carte mandates would benefit consumers.

– Martin tried to manipulate the findings of an annual FCC report on the state of competition in the market for cable and other video services to show that the industry had a big enough market share to permit additional government regulation. When the full commission voted to reject that conclusion, Martin suppressed the report by withholding its release.

– Under Martin’s leadership, the FCC’s oversight of the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund, which pays for special telecommunications services for people with hearing or speech disabilities, was overly lax. This resulted in overcompensation of the companies that provide these services by as much as $100 million a year – costs that were ultimately passed along to phone company customers.

Kenny said Martin makes no apologies for his “commitment to serving deaf and disabled Americans and for fighting to lower exorbitantly high cable rates that consumers are forced to pay.” He added that Martin remains confident that pricing channels on an individual basis would bring down cable rates.

The House report is a significant victory for the cable industry, which has fought Martin’s efforts to impose a la carte requirements and other regulatory changes. At Martin’s urging, the FCC in October opened an investigation into the industry’s pricing policies, including its practice of moving analog channels into more expensive digital tiers of service.

Among the companies being investigated are Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Cox Communications Inc.

Gene Kimmelman, vice president for federal policy at Consumers Union, which helped bring attention to the cable pricing practices now being probed, said the issues highlighted by the House report are not new or unique to Martin.

“The FCC processes have been an enormous problem for years,” Kimmelman said. “This is just more of the same.”

After Eighteen Months, The F.C.C. Approves Sirius/XM Merger

Stories

CNET

Posted by Steven Musil

Updated at 4:45 p.m. PDT to clarify that portable receivers are capable of receiving live program signals.

The marriage of satellite radio providers Sirius and XM has finally received the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission on Friday. Now we can all finally get the game we want.

For many prospective customers, a key sticking point was the different selections of sports programming offered exclusively by each provider. A few years back, I wanted to make a present of a Sirius subscription to a friend who spends a lot of time driving around Northern California, especially in places that don’t get AM/FM signals. After sampling XM and Sirius’ music selections, I knew that she would enjoy the Sirius offerings over the XM offerings. But XM broadcasts more games of the sports she enjoyed–just not all of them. There really wasn’t a clear winner. So, to keep from saddling her with the wrong or incomplete service, I opted against the gift. Basically, the lack of a comprehensive offering cost the industry a customer.

I suspect that this was a dilemma faced by many listeners who were in search of more than their local radio stations could offer. But the merger means that listeners will be able to choose from a menu to add programming a la carte. For subscribers, this is a big win in programming. You can also bet that the prospect of replacing existing receivers will irritate early adopters.

Critics, however, will tell you that the merger will result in a monopoly. While the elimination of immediate industry competition will create a de facto monopoly, satellite radio is not the only source of music, talk, or sports broadcasting available to consumers. People are getting their music from many sources today. Besides satellite radio, people are finding their favorite tunes on Internet radio, MP3 players, music-playing cell phones and even traditional terrestrial radio.

To tell the truth, I don’t listen to terrestrial radio, or traditional free radio, much anymore, unless there is a game I can’t get on television. Indeed, “free radio” offers one of the more exciting and attractive music options in the form of HD radio. Unfortunately, some four years after HD radio hit airwaves, consumers have not embraced the new format, which ultimately suffers in comparison with satellite radio because of its limited range. If I weren’t so pleased with Sirius’ music programming and the fact that it’s offered as part of my Dish subscription, I would probably spring for an HD receiver to plug into my A/V home receiver. But I keep waiting for an affordable A/V receiver to come on the market that has HD radio built in as part of the tuner. When that happens, expect home satellite subscriptions to wane a little.

(Disclosure: I listen to music-only Sirius at home via Dish Network and a complete subscription in my wife’s car. The only financial interest I have in either company comes in the form of monthly subscription bills.)

You might think that the satellite industry has the upper hand in broadcasting. But while we’re on the topic of things we’re waiting for, let’s look at some of the things the satellite industry can improve. While Sirius now touts portable units as being capable of receiving live signals, many users complain of spotty or poor reception while on the go. Also, while traffic and weather reports for a few metropolitan areas is great, satellite radio can’t provide the same content as local news radio stations, so it would be nice have a portable unit that also gets AM/FM radio stations.

As a prerequisite for FCC approval, the companies agreed to freeze subscription rates for three years. If they try to jack the prices on consumers, expect consumers to change the dial, especially with the wide variety of options that are available to consumers today.

The Mainstream Press Finally Recognizes "The Larry Sinclair Problem"

Barack Obama, Election 2008, FCC, Howard Stern, Larry Sinclair, Lynn Samuels, National Press Club, Politics, Sirius Radio, Tim Russert, XM
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Larry Sinclair to Reveal Corroborating Information on His Illegal Drug Use With Obama

Center for Forfeiture Law
WASHINGTON, June 16 — Despite death threats and an organized campaign to prevent him from speaking publicly, Larry Sinclair – on June 18, 2008, at 2:00 PM (sign-up starting at 1 PM) in the Holeman Lounge of the National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20045, will for the first time reveal the corroborating evidence for his claim that on November 6 + 7, 1999, Larry: (i) met Obama at a gay bar where Barack Obama arranged for the purchase of federal Schedule II drugs, (ii) which Larry and Obama thereafter ingested and (iii) then engaged in hi-risk, homosexual activities.Larry’s story burst on to the scene on January 18, 2008, when Larry released a short video containing these allegations on YouTube.com. That video has had close to a million views yet the mainstream media has completely ignored Larry’s serious allegations. Thereafter, a clearly orchestrated campaign to discredit Larry began on the internet which forced Larry to resort to federal court to protect his reputation.

At the press conference, Larry will (i) reveal the corroborating evidence for his allegations regarding Obama, (ii) address the time-line of the response of the Obama campaign to his allegations and the murder of Donald Young, the openly gay choir director of Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s now-former church and (iii) the significance of the refusal of U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. to allow Larry’s case to proceed.

SOURCE Center for Forfeiture Law

Montgomery Blair Sibley of the Center for Forfeiture Law, +1-202-508-3699, +1-202-478-0371 (FAX), SIBLEY@CIVILFORFEITURE.COM,