Category: cable TV

Cable’s 70/70 Rule & the Public Interest: Programming diversity is what should matter

Our friends and colleagues have worked for years to ensure that the monopolistic-run cable television industry be required to operate in a more competitive and–dare I say–democratic manner. So Bravo! to Media Access Project, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, and everyone else. But the focus of any FCC rules changes should be on how to ensure real programmatic diversity, including shows and channels owned and managed by women and people of color. If all we get is an a la carte system where one can merely pick and choose from the narrow content choices now offered us, then we will not be making real progress. How one should measure success of any cable TV regulatory change should be on what we see on the screen. That’s more important, in my opinion, than a focus on lowering cable rates (or offering new options for cable consumers to block programs and channels they find undesirable).

So as advocates and others consider policy changes, here’s what I suggest we consider. What rules are required so that there are new, unaffiliated, international, national, and local news channels available on cable systems? How can we foster independent programs and channels owned and operated by African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and other groups? What needs to be done to ensure that five to seven years from now, there’s channels reflecting the rich cultural and artistic experience of the country? And, finally, what rules can be enacted that will aid these new media outlets to become sustainable, cross-platform (online, mobile, TV) services? That will require they have access to the full-functionality of cable–and not be placed in some digital backwater.

Google Becomes a member of the Nielsen "family." Threats to our Privacy as we watch TV

Few readers may recall when Norman Lear’s “Mary Hartman” realized that she and her fellow patients at a psychiatric facility watched a Nielsen ratings-connected TV set. Lear’s critique that the TV rating system that has determined success for the TV business is deeply flawed and–frankly, crazy– is still true. But Google (and Doubleclick’s) move to monitor and analyze our viewing on TV and other platforms is just as insane–if we want to protect our privacy. “Google has been reporting millions of second-by-second data points to its TV Ads clients,” explains MediaDaily News. “Ultimately, Google expects TV’s interactive capabilities to improve to the point that it is generating the same kind of immediacy and backchannel as the Internet.” [from an interview with Mike Steib, director of Google TV Ads].

We doubt cable and DBS subscribers recognize that they are now involuntary members of the Nielsen/Google data tracking combine. Here’s how Multichannel News reports on the deal: “By combining Nielsen demographic data with aggregated set-top box data, Google plans to provide advertisers and agencies with comprehensive information…We have millions of set-top boxes that belong to EchoStar from which EchoStar is pulling data and is providing it to us for the Google TV Ad system: It’s a lot of data points,” Steib said…Advertisers can better understand exactly how their ad is performing and make near real-time changes to their TV advertising campaigns to deliver better ads to viewers, according to Google.

“One of the things we haven’t been able to provide to our advertisers to date, when we report back the very next day the impressions that they’ve received from the set-top boxes, we have not yet reported demographics and audience composition,” he said. “We are now going to be able to make that information available to our advertisers”…Google and Nielsen claim that as a result of their new partnership, this is the first time that advertisers and agencies will have such a level of detailed measurement available in a single place and at such a large scale.”

We hope Congress and the FTC will step in to prevent the entire TV viewing population from becoming involuntary drafted into the Nielsen/Google data collection, profiling, and targeting system.

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Yesterday, the FTC sent out a release announcing its November town meeting on online advertising and privacy. The hearing is in response to the formal complaint my group Center for Digital Democracy and the USPIRG filed last November.

It’s clear that the FTC is fearful of really tackling the privacy and consumer-manipulation problems intrinsic to the online ad field. Behavioral targeting, which we also address in our complaint, is just the tip of the proverbial data collection and target marketing iceberg. Policymakers at the FTC, the Congress, and state A-G’s must do a better job in addressing this problem. Chapter seven of my book covers the topic, along with recommendations. As we noted in our statement yesterday, CDD has given the staff at the FTC a ton of material since November, further making the case for immediate federal safeguards. There is so much at stake regarding the future of our (global) democratic culture and its relationship to online marketing. We hope others will join with us and raise the larger societal issues, in addition to the specific online ad marketplace concerns.

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Drive that Behavioral Targeting, As Microsoft Acquires aQuantive

One of the features Microsoft is acquiring in its aQuantive purchase is Drive PM. They plan to use DrivePM to add targeting functionality to its ad network business. This will further the role that behavioral targeting plays with Microsoft and others. Here’s an excerpt from its website:

“For any online targeting service to be “worth its salt,” it must be able to target on multiple relevant variables. DRIVE has gathered an impressive list of targeting variables to which it is continually adding, which include:

    • Behavioral variables:
      • Client site visits/conversions
      • Email/newsletter list membership
      • User interest category (new!)
    • Demographic/psychographic variables:
      • Geography
      • Prizmâ„¢ Cluster
      • Day part/day of week
      • Gender
      • At work/at home
    • “Technical” variables:
      • Connection speed
      • Browser/OS
      • ISP/domain”

Youth Health Crisis: New Report on Digital Marketing of Food & Beverage Products

I co-authored a report released yesterday. For those concerned about the obesity crisis, it’s a useful resource. It also offers a good overview about the forces shaping the global media system. It’s available here.

New MIT Book Covers Children/Youth and Digital Culture/Politics

My wife Kathryn C. Montgomery has a new book about to be published. It’s titled “Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet.” The following is from the MIT Press catalog:

“Children and teens today have integrated digital culture seamlessly into their lives. For most, using the Internet, playing videogames, downloading music onto an iPod, or multitasking with a cell phone is no more complicated than setting the toaster oven to “bake” or turning on the TV. In Generation Digital, media expert and activist Kathryn C. Montgomery examines the ways in which the new media landscape is changing the nature of childhood and adolescence and analyzes recent political debates that have shaped both policy and practice in digital culture.

The media have pictured the so-called “digital generation” in contradictory ways: as bold trailblazers and innocent victims, as active creators of digital culture and passive targets of digital marketing. This, says Montgomery, reflects our ambivalent attitude toward both youth and technology. She charts a confluence of historical trends that made children and teens a particularly valuable target market during the early commercialization of the Internet and describes the consumer-group advocacy campaign that led to a law to protect children’s privacy on the Internet. Montgomery recounts–as a participant and as a media scholar–the highly publicized battles over indecency and pornography on the Internet. She shows how digital marketing taps into teenagers’ developmental needs and how three public service campaigns–about sexuality, smoking, and political involvement–borrowed their techniques from commercial digital marketers. Not all of today’s techno-savvy youth are politically disaffected; Generation Digital chronicles the ways that many have used the Internet as a political tool, mobilizing young voters in 2004 and waging battles with the music and media industries over control of cultural expression online.”

Digital Ad Lobbyists Meet in DC: Media Powerbrokers Gather to Fight Online Privacy Rules

Yesterday, the new Interactive Advertising Bureau’s DC lobbying operation held its “inaugural” event near Capital Hill. Attendees were expected from the 40 members of the IAB “Public Policy Council,” including Google, Time Warner, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Disney, CBS, and News Corp/Fox.

The group was briefed by “two senior attorneys from the FTC Division of Advertising Practices,” according to ClickZ [Mamie Kresses and Richard Quaresima]. While the agenda included a broad range of issues, such as online taxes and network neutrality, there is no doubt that preventing any public interest policy that protects consumer privacy online is the key agenda item. Digital marketers fear that once the public learns how their privacy is threatened via the many techniques of online advertising, there will be a demand for federal safeguards. So the IAB has expanded its political operations to include the hiring of a lobbyist—former Chamber of Commerce official Mike Zaneis. They hope to keep the FTC and the Hill under their political influence—which is considerable.

The IAB is already boosting a success in having its policy chair speak at a recent Congressional hearing.

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Is Google Doing a Turn-about on Network Neutrality Law?

As reported by Drew Clark and others, high-ranking Google senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin told a Silion Valley crowd that “Net neutrality will ultimately be solved by competition in the long-run…Cutting the FCC out the picture would probably be a smart move. It is much better to think of this as an FTC or unfair competition type of problem.” It doesn’t appear at the moment that his view is official Google policy. But it underscores why we have never been confident that the corporate supporters of network neutrality, especially Microsoft, Yahoo!, IAC, and Google, could ultimately be counted upon to place the public interest before their own corporate futures. The Google’s and Yahoo!’s of the new media world are fearful of fostering public policies that would ultimately rein-in their efforts to collect huge amounts of personal data about each of us—so they can deliver ubiquitous interactive advertising and branded entertainment. As we’ve noted in the past, word from friendly policymakers is that Google and the coalition have done a terrible job lobbying for network neutrality rules. These developments underscore why those concerned about the future of the public interest and the digital era must quickly move beyond the policy realm. The real decisions about the quality and diversity of our digital media system in the short term will be primarily determined–sadly–in the marketplace.

We note that our friends at savetheinternet have written that Google still firmly supports network neutrality legislation, including the Dorgan/Snowe/Markey proposals. They have a quote from a Google spokesperson saying so. But we believe still that all the key work to promote net neutrality will have to be done by the folks outside the “gang of six.”

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We always appreciate when media industry leaders, such as Viacom’s Philippe Dauman, reveal how the business really operates. From Broadcasting & Cable, reporting on today’s tony Bear Stearns media conference held in Palm Beach: “While Viacom’s U.S. margins are close to 50%, Dauman said he hoped to maintain them even having to invest in more original programming and getting its digital sales operation up to speed. To help in that effort, he has cut jobs and salaries and restructured, saying there were redundancies and people who were, frankly, overpaid.”

It’s also revealing when key executives explain their vision for the U.S. and global digital media future. It’s not plastics, as it was decades ago in “The Graduate.” It’s “immersive.” Here’s Mr. Dauman view, written by B&C: “In a fragmented world, he said, the ability to reach key demos in an immersive, branded way becomes more and more valuable…. “Our business is to reach consumers through our content everywhere they are, and sell to advertisers that consumer relationship.”

This is real life, Mr. Dauman, not the virtual branded broadband reality you are creating at Viacom. There are consequences to squeezing out such fat profit margins–including the cost to peoples lives as you lay them off. B&C has reported two rounds of cuts. Advocates should press Viacom to spend some of its cable monopoly gain on public interest programming.
Source:”Viacom’s Dauman: YouTube Wasn’t Best Environment for Content.” John Eggerton. B&C [sub may be required]

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Washington Post’s K Street Connections

We hope the Post fully discloses its own relationships with lobbyists as it unfolds its major “Citizen K Street” series [reg. required]. Right from the beginning, readers should learn that the Washington Post has had a long relationship with super-lobbyist Tony Podesta. All the various wheeling and dealing which Tony’s firm has and is doing for the company must be disclosed. The Post should also identify how it is supporting the lobbying agendas of the newspaper, broadcast, and cable industries. For example, through its Cable One subsidiary, the Washington Post plays a leading role aiding the National Cable & Telecommunications Association political agenda (such as opposition to broadband network neutrality). Via its Post-Newsweek TV group, the Post is on the board of directors of the National Association of Broadcasters (think opposition to media ownership rules). The Post is a member of the Newspaper Association of America; that trade group is fighting to eliminate the broadcast-newspaper cross-ownership safeguard. Finally, the Post Co. has a representative on the board of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (opposed to online privacy rules, etc).

The series should also examine the role Cassidy has played in weakening media ownership safeguards, including its work for NBC, Fox and CBS back in 2003. As Cassidy’s firm stated on its web site at the time, it had key connections to the then top GOP leaders, including “the Speaker, Majority Leader Conference Chair and seven other leadership offices.” [Source is my book, Digital Destiny, p. 5].