As mentioned here before, PFF has been rolling out a new series of essays examining proposals that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. We’re releasing these as we get ready to submit a big filing in the FCC’s “Future of Media” proceeding (deadline is May 7th). Here’s a podcast Berin Szoka and I did providing an overview of the series and what the FCC is up to.
In the first installment of the series, Berin Szoka and I critiqued an old idea that’s suddenly gained new currency: taxing media devices or distribution systems to fund media content. In the second installment, I took a hard look at proposals to impose fees on broadcast spectrum licenses and channeling the proceeds to a “public square channel” or some other type of public media or “public interest” content. The third installment dealt with proposals to steer citizens toward “hard news” and get them to financially support it through the use of “news vouchers” or “public interest vouchers.”
In our latest essay, “The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media, Part 4: Expanding Postal Subsidies,” Berin and I argue that expanding postal subsidies won’t likely do much to help failing media enterprises, will raise the risk of greater meddling by politicians with the press, and can’t be absorbed by the Postal Service without a significant increase in cost for ratepayers or taxpayers. The entire essay is attached down below.
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As I’ve mentioned here previously, PFF has been rolling out a new series of essays examining proposals that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. We’re releasing these as we get ready to submit a big filing in the FCC’s “Future of Media” proceeding (deadline is May 7th). Here’s a podcast Berin Szoka and I did providing an overview of the series and what the FCC is doing.
In the first installment of the series, Berin and I critiqued an old idea that’s suddenly gained new currency: taxing media devices or distribution systems to fund media content. In the second installment, I took a hard look at proposals to impose fees on broadcast spectrum licenses and channeling the proceeds to a “public square channel” or some other type of public media or “public interest” content.
In our latest essay, “The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media, Part 3: Media Vouchers,” Berin and I consider whether it is possible to steer citizens toward so-called “hard news” and get them to financially support it through the use of “news vouchers” or “public interest vouchers”? We argue that using the tax code to “nudge” people to support media — while less problematic than direct subsidies for the press — will likely raise serious issues regarding eligibility and be prone to political meddling. Moreover, it’s unlikely the scheme will actually encourage people to direct more resources to hard news but instead just become a method of subsidizing other content they already consume.
I’ve attached the entire essay down below.
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Oh yeah, that was me. And a lot of others. Well, we were wrong. The mobile app store market (Apple, Android, etc) is brimming with a bonanza of micro-business opportunities for producers and consumers alike. I am consistently amazing by the range of offerings available today, the vast majority of which remain free of charge. But what is more impressive is the growing array of applications and games available for mere pennies. Sure, some are more than a buck — but not that much more. I was just looking through the 40+ apps that I’ve got on my Droid right now (not really sure how many I’ve downloaded overall since I’ve deleted a lot) and I would guess that I paid for at least 25% of them–many after being “upsold” by first trying the free versions and then buying. Yes, I know there continues to be a debate about what counts as a “micropayment,” but the fact that so many more people are paying just a couple of bucks or less for content in these mobile app stores suggests that its only going to easier for people to pay even smaller sums for content in coming years.
What got me thinking about all this was slide #75 in Mary Meeker’s latest slideshow about Internet trends. The Morgan Stanley web guru notes that users are more willing to pay for content on mobile devices than they are on desktop computers for a number of reasons, but the first of which she listed was: “Easy-to-Use/Secure Payment Systems — embedded systems like carrier billing and iTunes allow real-time payment.” The important point here is that the combination of these slick, well-organized online app stores + secure, super-easy billing systems have combined to overcome the so-called”mental transaction cost problem,” at least to some extent. We’re not nearly as reluctant today to surf away when something says “$0.99” on our screen. Increasingly, we’re hitting the “Buy” button.
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Friday, April 16: I’ll be moderating a PFF Capitol Hill briefing on Super-Sizing the FTC & What It Means for the Internet, Media & Advertising. My panel of FTC veterans and observers will discuss the growing powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As I’ve mentioned here and here, financial reform legislation passed by the House and now pending in the Senate would give the FTC sweeping new powers to regulate not just Wall Street, but also unfair or deceptive trade practices across the economy. This could reshape regulation in a wide range of areas, such as privacy, cybersecurity, child safety, child nutrition, etc. The FTC has also asserted expanded authority to regulate “unfair” competition in its lawsuit against Intel. Register here for this 12-2 pm briefing in the Capitol Visitor Center!
Thursday, April 15: I’ll be participating in Capitol Hill briefing on Google’s proposed acquisition of AdMob, a leading in-app mobile ad network, which the FTC appears poised to challenge. (RSVP here.) Geoff Manne has probably done the best job debunking arguments against the deal but, sadly, couldn’t make the panel. ITIF’s Dan Castro will moderate a panel including (besides myself):
- Simon Buckingham, who’s expressed concerns about the deal on his Appitalism blog and accused Google of leveraging Google’s desktop search dominance into the high-end mobile market”;
- Lillie Coney of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which never passes up an opportunity to denounce Google on privacy grounds;
- Jonathan Kanter, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, who represented TradeComet.com in their antitrust suit against Google and has also represented Microsoft in the past; and
- Glenn Manishin – Duane Morriss LLP, an antitrust lawyer who’s represented Google.
Tuesday, April 27: We just announced another PFF Briefing: Cable, Broadcast & the First Amendment: Will the Supreme Court End Must-Carry?, 10:00-11:45 a.m at Hogan & Hartson LLP (555 13th Street NW, Washington, DC). Continue reading →
Good to see so many media industry executives expressing skepticism about the idea of government subsidies for the press. Danny Glover brought to my attention this new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in association with the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA). It revealed that, “Fully 75% of all news executives surveyed—and 88% of newspaper executives—said they had ‘serious reservations,’ or the highest level of concern, about direct subsidies from the government.” A smaller percentage (only 46%) had serious reservations about tax credits for news organizations, then again, only 13% said they “would welcome such funding” and just 6% said they were “enthusiastic” about it.
This is encouraging news as many government officials at the FCC, FTC, and in Congress are currently considering whether government should steps to prop up failing media entities or promote certainly types of content. Berin Szoka and I have been working on a series of essays about the wrong ways to go about reinventing media [see Part 1, Part 2] and plan several more installments leading up to a big filing in the FCC’s “Future of Media” proceeding (the deadline is May 7th).
Here’s a chart from the Pew survey illustrating funding alternatives and the percentage who had “serious reservations” about each option:
(Adam beat me to the punch (he’s on East Coast time, after all), but I wanted to make a few preliminary remarks about the FCC loss today anyway.)
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion today in Comcast’s appeal of sanctions issued in 2008, rejecting the FCC’s authority to issue the sanctions in the first place. (Brent Kendall of The Wall Street Journal has already reported the story, see “Court Strikes at Net Neutrality.”)
The ruling punished the cable company’s efforts to throttle peer-to-peer traffic over its network of some customers using the BitTorrent application, a network management principle the FCC said violated its “policy” on open and transparent Internet or “net neutrality.” Since Comcast agreed to more subtle forms of traffic management and to make such decisions more transparent, the FCC left them with a slap on the wrist. Comcast appealed nonetheless. (Appeals of FCC adjudications go directly to the D.C. Circuit.)
I’ve read through the court’s 36-page opinion, which will serve as an important marker in the “net neutrality” debate. It largely follows the harsh line of questioning taken during the oral arguments for the case back in January, where the panel challenged the FCC to identify a specific statutory provision that gave them authority to impose the neutrality principles—in this case, in an adjudication that Comcast had failed to follow the rules.
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In the latest PFF TechCast, I discuss the issues considered in the second essay in our ongoing series, “The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media.” In this 6-minute podcast, PFF’s press director Mike Wendy chats with me about proposals to impose taxes on broadcast spectrum licenses to funnel money to public media or “public interest” content. In my paper and this podcast, I make the case again socially engineering media choices and outcomes through the tax code.
MP3 file: PFF TechCast #2 – Saving the Media Through Broadcast Spectrum Taxes (4/5/2010)
As mentioned last week, in a new series of essays, PFF scholars will be examining proposals that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. With many traditional media operators struggling, and questions being raised about how journalism in particular will be supported in the future, Washington policymakers are currently considering what role government can and should play in helping media providers reinvent themselves in the face of tumultuous technological change wrought by the Digital Revolution. We will be releasing 6 or 7 essays on this topic leading up to our big filing in the FCC’s “Future of Media” proceeding (deadline is May 7th). And here’s a podcast Berin Szoka and I did providing an overview of the series.
In the first installment of the series, Berin and I critiqued an old idea that’s suddenly gained new currency: taxing media devices or distribution systems to fund media content. In the second installment, “The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media, Part 2: Broadcast Spectrum Taxes to Subsidize Public Media,” I discuss proposals to impose a tax on broadcast spectrum licenses to funnel money to public media projects or other “public interest” content or objectives. Such a tax would be fundamentally unfair to broadcasters, who are struggling for their very survival in the midst of unprecedented marketplace turmoil. Moreover, such a tax is unnecessary in light of the many other sources of “public interest” programming available today. Finally, even if the government creates or subsidizes wonderful, civic- and culturally-enriching content, there’s no way to force people to consume it. Nor should government force such media choices upon the public. There’s no good reason for government to be socially-engineering media choices through taxes.
I’ve attached the entire essay down below.
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PFF recently started a new “TechCast” podcast series and the topic for one of our first episodes was about the new series of essays that we have coming out about “The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media.” In this series, we’re examining proposals that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. We’re concerned about the prospect of central planning for media or a “public option” for the press.
Berin Szoka and I recently sat down with PFF’s press director Mike Wendy to chat about our concerns in this brief 5-minute podast:
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MP3 file: PFF TechCast #1 – Overview of Wrong Way to Reinvent Media Series (3-28-2010)
Steve Forbes has an entertaining essay out today about the agenda of Free Press and its founder, the Marxist media scholar Robert McChesney. Forbes notes that McChesney has expressed a great deal of sympathy for the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and has even defended some of his tactics to control the press. This leads to his fear that McChesney and Free Press will convince the Obama Administration to use similar tactics here in the U.S.:
Once the federal government starts subsidizing our own free press, how long until the feds start revoking broadcast licenses of government opponents and bringing pesky reporters up on charges of say, “corruption” or “subversion”? According to McChesney and the Free Press folks, it apparently can’t happen soon enough.
To be fair, I haven’t heard anyone from Free Press defending Hugo Chavez or his tactics. But I do wonder why the organization continues to associate itself with such a radioactive figure like Mr. McChesney. After all, Forbes isn’t making up anything about McChesney, who is an outspoken, and self-described, Marxist media theorist. McChesney really has expressed sympathy for Chavez and said that, “If [Venezuelan broadcaster] RCTV were broadcasting in the United States, its license would have been revoked years ago. In fact its owners would likely have been tried for criminal offenses, including treason.” Far more troubling are Mr. McChesney’s views regarding how to reform media going forward, which I’ve documented in past essays in more detail. (See, “Free Press, Robert McChesney & the “Struggle” for Media,” “What the Media Reformistas Really Want,” and “Socializing Media in Order to Save It,.”) One need look no further than this lengthy interview with McChesney that appeared in an online newsletter called “The Bullet” produced by the Canada-based “Socialist Project.”
The whole thing is quite troubling to read, but here are a couple of jaw-droppers that make it clear just how radical Mr. McChesney’s worldview and agenda are:
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