Technology360

Katrina Whips Up Spectrum Storm in D.C.

Todd Shields writes:  "... Broadcasters are loath to publicly oppose the notion of hustling spectrum over to first responders. But they worry about losing chunks of their audience—the 21 million households who rely on over-the-air reception and would need new equipment to receive digital signals. Many of those people are not prosperous, like those stuck in New Orleans during Katrina. 'We make the point that broadcasters play a critical role in times of peril,' said Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. 'Broadcasters are undoubtedly a lifeline service.' ..."  Link:  Mediaweek.

NPR piece on tagging

"Commentator David Weinberger says a growing trend allows us all to have a say on how to organize the Internet. Weinberger is a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society."  Link:  NPR All Things Considered.  Great description of tagging.  --Dennis

Verizon switches on TV service

Marguerite Reardon writes:  "Verizon Communications officially launched its paid television service on Thursday, opening its push to take on cable companies in the video market.  ¶  Keller, Texas, will be the first town in the United States to get Verizon's television service, which runs over its Fios fiber network. The company held a press conference Thursday to outline details of the new service, including pricing and channel availability. ..."  Link:  CNET News.com.

Coalitions Take Competing Stances Over 'Multicasting' Rules

Drew Clark writes:  "Two coalitions of public-interest advocates are taking different lobbying approaches to the question of whether broadcasters should obtain carriage of multiple channels on cable systems -- so-called multicasting.  ..."  Link:  National Journal.

GAO: Digital Television Transition report

In this week's Monday Memo, Mark Schubin links to a GAO report with the above title.  --Dennis

"- The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has submitted a report, "Digital Television Transition: Issues Related to an Information Campaign Regarding the Transition," to members of the House Commerce Committee.  Among the findings are that consumers don't know the difference between DTT and HDTV and don't understand that analog TV broadcasts won't still be available after the transition...  ¶  Here's a summary from the Association for Maximum Service Television."

Schubin on disasters and analog shutdown

Mark Schubin is a widely-respected independent television engineer not affiliated with any station and author of the mostly weekly Mark's Monday Memo on DTV which is linked here in the Links section on the left.  This week, Mark responds to the chorus of assertions that the slowness of the analog TV shut-off has deprived emergency responders from the spectrum they need for their work.  Here's his commentary  --Dennis:

" - Speeding the U.S. DTT transition - Senator John McCain has decided that communications problems during the Hurricane Katrina disaster were caused by the sluggish U.S. DTT transition.  He now wants unequivocal analog shutdown by the end of 2006:  [Link].  ¶  I disagree completely.  Communications problems during the Katrina disaster were caused by downed or damaged towers and antennas, broken and submerged equipment, severed cables, and loss of power.  No amount of spectrum would have helped.  A broken communications transceiver with 100 channels is no more useful than a broken one with only one.  ¶   McCain has previously also tied 9/11 communications problems to the transition speed.  Again, I disagree.  The 9/11 Commission Report notes that the Port Authority Police radios had 16 times more channels than what they used.  It notes that perhaps the biggest problem was that a fire-department communications repeater installed after the 1993 attack was not activated properly.  Speeding the transition will do nothing to solve either problem, but it could certainly endanger lives.  ¶  DTT penetration in the U.S. is currently extremely low.  Some 30 million TVs of all types (analog and digital) were sold to U.S. dealers last year, but there are over 110 million U.S. households.  So, if every TV sold starting in January is digital, and each sale goes to a different household, then all U.S. households will be equipped with DTT by 2010, three years after Senator McCain wants analog TV shut down.  ¶  Given that 5/8 of Americans prefer to get their local news via TV, that hurricane weather can knock out satellite and cable, that there are analog battery-operated TVs (sold for under $20) but no digital ones, and that the urban poor most affected by Katrina in New Orleans would be most likely to lose TV in a rapid DTT transition, Senator McCain's call for analog shutdown by 2007 seems to me more likely to endanger lives than to protect them.  How much worse would the Katrina disaster have been if the urban poor didn't know a storm was coming?"

Also see the related story, "After The Storm, New Orleans Stations Add Fuel To DTV Transition Debate."  Link:  National Journal.

Just The Ticket

Newsweek has a good lay overview of Netflix and the operational changes for which it's planning.  "[Netflix founder Reed] Hastings envisions Netflix becoming a destination Web site offering a mix of free, ad-supported content, premium pay-per-view content and subscription services. 'No one has figured out what's the right economic model,' he says. 'We know that we can do all of those and we'll continue to evolve.' And with many Americans upgrading to big-screen, high-definition TVs, Hastings is betting they won't watch this fare on their computer monitors. That is part of the rationale behind the deal announced last year between Netflix and TiVo, which makes personal video recorders that already connect televisions to the Internet. Although Hastings will shed little light on exactly what these partners are cooking up, outsiders say they are a smart match. 'If you can deliver video to the box that's connected to the TV and not to the PC, you're way ahead of the game,' says Laura Behrens, a media-industry analyst for Gartner. 'This is a good move for Netflix.' ..."  Link:  Newsweek.

The Matter of "Getting It"

Terry Heaton writes:  "... Former FCC Chairman, Michael Powell, had his own terminology for the change. "Application separation," he said, "is the most important paradigm shift in the history of communications, and it will change things forever." The essential nut of his statement is that one no longer needs to own the infrastructure in order to publish, distribute or broadcast content. This is turning the media world upside-down, and most of the traditional media response, I'm sorry, falls under the category of "they just don't get it."  ¶  It's turning the media world upside-down, because smart people now have their hands on the tools that used to be exclusively ours. They're innovating ways to communicate using those tools, and people are responding. Cumulatively, observers call these innovations Media 2.0. This is the new wine of media, and the initial response from traditional businesses has been to try and pour it into the old wineskins of Media 1.0.  ¶  This is no small thing. In the old, mass-marketing world, it was essential that all roads flow FROM the media entity, whereas the new model demands the opposite. The road now flows TO the media entity. Local television seems the least capable of understanding this, for our brands are attached to transmitters that beam down on everybody. The only way we know how to make money is to attach ads to the roads that flow away from us and our brands.  ¶  So we're clueless when it comes to disruptive innovations that challenge our business assumptions. Our first response is to hope the disruption fails, so we misread and underestimate cues from the disruption. Any failure is magnified to prove the bigger point that everything's fine the way it is. It's the "baby with the bath water" syndrome that's so inherent in businesses confronting disruptive innovations. ..."  Link:  Donata Communications.  Another must read essay from Terry Heaton.  --Dennis

Study: Radio Is Better ROI Than TV

Paul Heine writes:  "Presenting the results of its third study on the effectiveness of radio commercials this morning in New York City, the Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab concluded that radio campaigns show 49 percent better ROI (return on investment) for advertisers than national TV campaigns.  ¶  The $1 million study, funded by radio companies with input from advertisers and ad agencies, was a live in-field test in four small markets over six months, comparing the results of radio and network TV ad campaigns. Conducted by Millward Brown and Information Resources Inc. (IRI), it looked at four pairs of radio and television campaigns for four products: a grocery food product, a grocery non-food product, and two different over-the counter drugs. ..."  Link:  Mediaweek.

The Power of Mesh Networks

Om Malik writes:  "Who knows whether mesh networks will become the third broadband option, but there is no denying that in times of disaster, mesh networks add up to a technology that simply works. The New York Times looks at the role of mesh networking in the current Katrina disaster recovery efforts; and how the mesh-based WiFi networks were used to jerry-rig a communications infrastructure in the New Orleans region. ..."  Link:  Om Malik's Broadband Blog.