mediageek radioshow news headlines for 4-12-02

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. 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 our needs and suit our desires.
Here’s some things that have happened in our media environment this week:

Powell says Ownership Reg Review will go Slow

Last week I reported that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the Federal Communications Commission to review it’s so-called “duopoly rule,” which prevents a single owner to posses two televisions stations in a given market unless one of the television stations is not one of the four top-ranked stations and there remain eight independent media voices in the local area. The court was especially critical of the FCC’s lack of definition for what counts as an “independent media voice.”

With this in mind, FCC Chair Michael Powell told the National Association of Broadcasters this week that they should not expect the FCC to revise its media ownership rules quickly. Speaking at the NAB’s annual convention, he gave broadcasters little explicit indication of how and when the FCC would rule on ownership limits. In the past Chairmain Powell has been publicly critical of rules limiting the number of media outlets a single corporation may own in a given market and nationwide. Recent court decisions have been split over the constitutionality of such rules, in the most recent case ruling that restrictions are constitutional but need to be better defined.

Even within the broadcast industry there is a decided lack of consensus over keeping, changing or eliminating media ownership rules. For example, the national broadcast television networks are eager to see restrictions eliminated on the number of households their owned-and-operated stations may reach nationwide, while the owners of network affiliate stations would like to see them stay in place.

It seems clear that this is a debate that will go on much longer than Chairman Powell had originally promised when he took office, especially since powerful members of Congress, like Senate Commerce Committee Chair Fritz Hollings, are voicing criticisms of Powell’s deregulatory plans.

Copyright and Privacy

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking the U.S. Copyright office to modify proposed webcasting regulations requiring webcasters to gather and report information about individual listeners. The new regulations would require webcasters to collect information that would include each listener's country of origin, local time zone, and a unique user identifier. EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann said, "The Copyright Office's policy will drive smaller web casters off the Internet by enforcing the expense of tracking 25 pieces of information for every song they broadcast. The same policy establishes an unprecedented violation of listener privacy by tracking and providing to copyright holders a 'unique identifier' for each listener."