Tuesday, January 05, 2010
NBC + Comcast = TV Nowhere?
The new year started out with fallout from the (contested) merger between Comcast, the largest cable service provider, and NBC-Universal. Their new product is called "TV Everywhere," which will deliver streaming cable service over the Internet to subscribers. Much as the entertainment industry has previously, these companies spun the removing the access of millions to television as benefiting consumers. The argument goes something like: choice is king, and subscriptions improve the quality of content. This frames seismic shifts in control, which have consistently eroded public access and utility, as being beneficial to the average citizen. This attitude is pervasive even among those who ostensibly police broadcasters.
NBC and Comcast are set to appear at a Senate hearing later this month, but don't expect the deal to be blocked. They never are. At most, Kerry & co. will demand minor provisions and make several bold statements. As McChesney points out, questioning the commercial nature of the established media system is verboten. Making demands of them, such as ensuring a reasonable amount of educational programming or universal access, is out of the question.
The other more ominous threats are that this merger would make it easier for Warner to prosecute those sharing their content online, or even throttle connection speeds for connections to competitors to NBC on Comcast. If "TV Everywhere" spreads, well, everywhere, there would be little incentive to continue providing broadcast signals to non-cable-users. They are generally lower on the socio-economic ladder, and have the least amount of disposable income. Network broadcasters who broadcast through television frequencies are already trying to extract retransmission fees from cable companies, to get the same double-dipping revenue (ads + retransmission fees) that cable networks currently enjoy.
On the lighter side, two buddies in Florida went through Morgan & Morgan (who notoriously run late-night commercials to dredge up injury claims) to file a petition against News Corp, who was negotiating with Time Warner Cable, who were threatening to cut off access to Fox stations. Suffice to say that when Americans are filing lawsuites about a football game rather than vocally complaining about the sorry state of our fourth estate, we are in a very bad place.
"The consumer will be king," said Colin Crowell, senior counselor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "You'll be able to get your own set-top box that does all the whiz-bang things you want it to do, and you'll be in control."Unfortunately, it's not a good situation for consumers. The goal of companies, of course, is to maximize revenue. They seek mergers to add value to existing properties, and this one may open up entirely new ways to monetize content. The Internet is a goldmine of contextual subscriber information, which can inform advertisements directed to consumer tastes. Most importantly, "TV Everywhere," which would forbid cable channels to stream for free online, would add to the cable companies existing empires, while attempting to tame the Internet by restricting free content. As Josh Silver points out, cable companies are terrified of subscribers canceling their subscriptions in light of widely available online content.
NBC and Comcast are set to appear at a Senate hearing later this month, but don't expect the deal to be blocked. They never are. At most, Kerry & co. will demand minor provisions and make several bold statements. As McChesney points out, questioning the commercial nature of the established media system is verboten. Making demands of them, such as ensuring a reasonable amount of educational programming or universal access, is out of the question.
The other more ominous threats are that this merger would make it easier for Warner to prosecute those sharing their content online, or even throttle connection speeds for connections to competitors to NBC on Comcast. If "TV Everywhere" spreads, well, everywhere, there would be little incentive to continue providing broadcast signals to non-cable-users. They are generally lower on the socio-economic ladder, and have the least amount of disposable income. Network broadcasters who broadcast through television frequencies are already trying to extract retransmission fees from cable companies, to get the same double-dipping revenue (ads + retransmission fees) that cable networks currently enjoy.
On the lighter side, two buddies in Florida went through Morgan & Morgan (who notoriously run late-night commercials to dredge up injury claims) to file a petition against News Corp, who was negotiating with Time Warner Cable, who were threatening to cut off access to Fox stations. Suffice to say that when Americans are filing lawsuites about a football game rather than vocally complaining about the sorry state of our fourth estate, we are in a very bad place.
Their complaint, filed by Morgan & Morgan law firm, claims that the two men "can never be made whole" if they miss the New Year's Day game.
According to the filing, Thomas Moore and Richard Anderson "have alleged and will demonstrate that [News Corp.'s] actions are immoral, unethical, oppressive, and unscrupulous."
Friday, January 01, 2010
What to leave in 2009?
It’s the first day of the New Year. I woke up, ate some of the almond cake I baked for last night, put my daughter down for her first nap, and looked again at world to see what has changed. My resolutions are to ditch certain trappings I’ve been locked into for the last few years. This break is a necessary one, part of the shift I must go through to re-focus my energies on topics of importance and interest.
1. “Social media” research that focuses on adoption and interface questions on advertising-driven websites. Generally, social media have been adopted by various players – advertising, media, and entertainment – as a tool. It is part of the picture in online media use, but by no means the entire one. Much of my repulsion derives from my moving away from business-related topics - been there, done that, tired of the same old Los Angeles rhetoric. On its own, social media just doesn’t raise very interesting questions in 2010. This year there was an abundance of conference papers on SNSs, which I believe mostly stems from young researchers arriving who have a familiarity in the area. My inclination is that researchers in industry and academia will thoroughly cover questions surrounding social media.
2. Denying the intensely conflicting (and highly moralistic) effects transparency has. Online shaming is seen as a solution to various problems, such as social inequality and government accountability. I’ve come to believe that this is intensely problematic, but most, including some very sharp thinkers, aren’t yet considering the ways that general transparency will serve to level power. Much of this is because examples are case studies. Still, there’s at least as much evidence to suggest that transparency is, at best, limited in benefits and problematic - see: publicizing information on women seeking abortions in Texas, and the intensely ironic lack of transparency exhibited by online companies that are part of this latest wave.
3. Being a “technology guy”... enough said. I’ll likely always integrate technologies with my thinking, but the context will be richer and quite different.
4. A focus on individual characteristics. From my work with media system dependency, demographics and individual psychology have limited effects on the relationships individuals develop with media. Much of the action in media research is at the meso level, in communities and organizations. Here there are also rich connections with political science and cultural studies, the import of which is lost if we isolate our focus to, say, individual psychology.
5. Demanding immediate reactions. We really can’t keep this up, people. The media do not need to cover news contemporaneously, and I don’t need to email you back within 5 minutes. It takes much effort to keep up, and there are so few items that are truly important.
1. “Social media” research that focuses on adoption and interface questions on advertising-driven websites. Generally, social media have been adopted by various players – advertising, media, and entertainment – as a tool. It is part of the picture in online media use, but by no means the entire one. Much of my repulsion derives from my moving away from business-related topics - been there, done that, tired of the same old Los Angeles rhetoric. On its own, social media just doesn’t raise very interesting questions in 2010. This year there was an abundance of conference papers on SNSs, which I believe mostly stems from young researchers arriving who have a familiarity in the area. My inclination is that researchers in industry and academia will thoroughly cover questions surrounding social media.
2. Denying the intensely conflicting (and highly moralistic) effects transparency has. Online shaming is seen as a solution to various problems, such as social inequality and government accountability. I’ve come to believe that this is intensely problematic, but most, including some very sharp thinkers, aren’t yet considering the ways that general transparency will serve to level power. Much of this is because examples are case studies. Still, there’s at least as much evidence to suggest that transparency is, at best, limited in benefits and problematic - see: publicizing information on women seeking abortions in Texas, and the intensely ironic lack of transparency exhibited by online companies that are part of this latest wave.
3. Being a “technology guy”... enough said. I’ll likely always integrate technologies with my thinking, but the context will be richer and quite different.
4. A focus on individual characteristics. From my work with media system dependency, demographics and individual psychology have limited effects on the relationships individuals develop with media. Much of the action in media research is at the meso level, in communities and organizations. Here there are also rich connections with political science and cultural studies, the import of which is lost if we isolate our focus to, say, individual psychology.
5. Demanding immediate reactions. We really can’t keep this up, people. The media do not need to cover news contemporaneously, and I don’t need to email you back within 5 minutes. It takes much effort to keep up, and there are so few items that are truly important.
