What's really up with CPB

Although PBS has had $100 million of public funding restored to it - for children's programming - the battle is far from over. As I noted the other day, the whole system is under serious threat of emasculation.

Frank Rich gets its right. In an Op-Ed piece in last Sunday's New York Times, he points out that just because First Lady Laura Bush likes to be seen in public with Big Bird,

That doesn't mean the right's new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.

Rich reviews CPB chair Ken Tomlinson's "long career as a "professional propagandist". This career goes back to the Reagan years, when he ran Voice of America, which is either an instrument of public diplomacy or propaganda, depending on your point of view. Then, according to Rich, "he moved on to edit Reader's Digest, where, according to Peter Canning's 1996 history of the magazine, American Dreamers, he was rumored to be 'a kind of "Manchurian Candidate"' because of the ensuing spike in pro-CIA spin in Digest articles." Now if that had all been left in Tomlinson's past, I might swallow hard and accept it (after all, this is the Bush administration, where no-one sets the bar very high for public office probity anymore). But when you consider that Tomlinson is also currently the "chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal body that supervises all nonmilitary international United States propaganda outlets, Voice of America included," that's a bit too much. Frank Rich agrees: "That the administration's foremost propagandist would also be chairman of the board of CPB, the very organization meant to shield public broadcasting from government interference, is astonishing."

Rich goes on to review the ridiculous "research" on "objectivity" secretly carried out for Tomlinson by shady operator Fred Mann - "research" that Tomlinson then tried to cover up from view. Why, asks Rich,

would Mr. Tomlinson pay for information that any half-sentient viewer could track with TiVo? Why would he hire someone in Indiana? Why would he keep this contract a secret from his own board? Why, when a reporter exposed his secret, would he try to cover it up by falsely maintaining in a letter to an inquiring member of the Senate, Byron Dorgan, that another CPB executive had "approved and signed" the Mann contract when he had signed it himself? If there's a news story that can be likened to the "third-rate burglary," the canary in the coal mine that invited greater scrutiny of the Nixon administration's darkest ambitions, this strange little sideshow could be it.

Following the uncovering of this "arrangement" by Stephen Labaton of the Times, Senator Dorgan (a North Dakota Democrat),

called Mr. Tomlinson demanding to see the "product" Mr. Mann had provided for his $14,170 payday. Mr. Tomlinson sent the senator some 50 pages of "raw data." Sifting through those pages when we spoke by phone last week, Mr. Dorgan said it wasn't merely Mr. [Bill] Moyers's show that was monitored but also the programs of Tavis Smiley and NPR's Diane Rehm.

Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and "anti-administration" was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post's star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies.

"It's pretty scary stuff to judge media, particularly public media, by whether it's pro or anti the president," Senator Dorgan said. "It's unbelievable."

I'm glad some people in Washington DC still think this kind of stuff is "scary." I certainly do. But it gets worse.

Eric Boehlert of Salon discovered that one of the two public ombudsmen Mr. Tomlinson recruited in April to monitor the news broadcasts at PBS and NPR for objectivity, William Schulz, is a former writer for the radio broadcaster Fulton Lewis Jr., a notorious Joe McCarthy loyalist and slime artist. The Times reported that to provide "insights" into Conrad Burns, a Republican senator who supported public-broadcasting legislation that Mr. Tomlinson opposed, $10,000 was shelled out to Brian Darling, the GOP operative who wrote the memo instructing Republicans to milk Terri Schiavo as "a great political issue."

But then, last Thursday, came the worst blow of all, what Rich describes as "a Rove dream came true":

Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, ascended to the CPB presidency. In her last job, as an assistant secretary of state, Ms. Harrison publicly praised the department's production of faux-news segments [i.e., VNRs] - she called them "good news" segments - promoting American success in Afghanistan and Iraq. As The Times reported in March, one of those fake news videos ended up being broadcast as real news on the Fox affiliate in Memphis.

So now, just to sum up, we have a former (and current) government propagandist as CPB's chair , and a former RNC co-chair as the CPB's president. So much for impartiality. Under the circumstances, I like Rich's conclusion, which harkens back to Watergate, the last time CPB was under such severe stress.

As the public broadcasting debate plays out, there will be the usual talk about how to wean it from federal subsidy and the usual complaints (which I share) about the redundancy, commerciality and declining quality of some PBS programming in a cable universe. But once Big Bird, like that White House Thanksgiving turkey, is again ritualistically saved from the chopping block and the Senate restores more of the House's budget cuts, the most crucial test of the damage will be what survives of public broadcasting's irreplaceable journalistic offerings.

Will monitors start harassing Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour", which Mr. Tomlinson trashed at a March 2004 State Department conference as a "tired and slowed down" also-ran to Shepard Smith's rat-a-tat-tat newscast at Fox News? Will "Frontline" still be taking on the tough investigations that network news no longer touches? Will the reportage on NPR be fearless or the victim of a subtle or not-so-subtle chilling effect instilled by Mr. Tomlinson and his powerful allies in high places?

Forget the pledge drive. What's most likely to save the independent voice of public broadcasting from these thugs is a rising chorus of Deep Throats.

Peter Jackson vs synergy, vertical integration

Here's a story that caught my attention because it involves one of my favorite directors (New Zealand's Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings film trilogy fame) and the system of vertical integration that lies at the heart of Jackson's professional relationship with New Line Cinema, a component of the Time Warner media empire.

The New York Times reports that Jackson is suing New Line, claiming that New Line has "committed fraud in its handling of the revenues generated by" the LOTR trilogy; as a result, Jackson claims, he was underpaid by up to $100 million. (Jackson's hardly starving, though: his lawyer notes that he has to date "received almost $200 million to date from New Line for the trilogy.") Still, this is a law suit with a difference, because of its implications for the industry. The Times article notes that the concern emerges from "one specific allegation about New Line's behavior."

The suit accuses New Line and Time Warner of using pre-emptive bidding (a process closed to external parties - external to Time Warner's media empire, that is), "rather than open bidding for subsidiary rights to such things as Lord of the Rings books, DVD's and merchandise. Therefore, New Line received far less than market value for these rights, the suit says."

So it all has to do with "synergies" supposedly created by Time Warner's extensive vertical integration of its media production-distribution-exhibition empire. Time Warner was using its own extensive media holdings to deal out subsidiary rights to its internal companies - at rates allegedly far below what would be expected in a competitive bidding process. "Most of those rights went to other companies in the New Line family or under the Time Warner corporate umbrella, like Warner Brothers International, Warner Records and Warner Books. So while the deals would not hurt Time Warner's bottom line, they would lower the overall gross revenues related to the film, which is the figure Mr. Jackson's percentage is based on." As the Times states:

According to people on both sides of Mr. Jackson's lawsuit, the claim strikes at the heart of the modern vertically integrated media company. One of the apparent - though largely unproven - benefits of media integration is the ability of conglomerates like the Walt Disney Company, Time Warner, the News Corporation, Viacom, Sony and General Electric to sell subsidiary rights to the many divisions within the company.

So in the case of the Rings trilogy, the overall New Line/Time Warner pie - in terms of gross revenues - appears smaller than it really should be. Profits for the trilogy are estimated at more than $1 billion, out of total revenues for Time Warner standing at some $4 billion. But the total revenue figure should be higher than that - allegedly, it has been artificially depressed by the insider bidding for these lucrative subsidiary rights. And remember, Peter Jackson gets a percentage of the revenues, not the profits. Very sneaky. But now, by "painting this corporate synergy as 'self-dealing,' Mr. Jackson's lawsuit and similar suits filed in the last few years, called vertical integration lawsuits, argue that the idea of the media conglomerate is at odds with the interests of the creative minds behind the content." The article goes on:

If that idea was not enough to make studio heads very nervous, Mr. Jackson's status in the business could encourage other directors and stars who take a percentage of gross revenues to look more carefully at the accounting on their films. And because deals between corporate siblings are approved at the highest levels, vertical integration lawsuits often focus on senior division executives and their sales chiefs.

The article notes that "Since no studio head or corporate executive wants to be subpoenaed in a lawsuit over accounting, vertical integration lawsuits are almost always settled before reaching open court." But this time, with the stakes so high, who knows what will happen.

A Conservative Court at work

As noted by the BBC, in three other important and rather disturbing decisions, the US Supreme Court has:

• "ruled against the display of the Ten Commandments inside two Kentucky courtrooms but approved a monument to the same in Texas.
  
• "declined to hear appeals by two US journalists facing a contempt ruling by a lower court over their investigation into an alleged White House intelligence leak.
  
• "overturned a ruling that cable operators' high-speed internet lines must be opened up to rivals."
  

So at first glance it looks like we're going to have at least some more Christian religious relics in public grounds, more journalists (starting with Judith Miller and Matt Cooper) going to jail for protecting their sources, and higher prices for cable consumers because cable MSOs (Multi-System Operators) won't have to open up their lines to competitors.

Not a great day for the US media.

Grokster under the gun

Slam dunk for the copyright holders!

An AP report notes that the US Supreme Court has ruled that Internet file-sharing services, such as Grokster (a service run by StreamCast Networks Inc) and Morpheus can "be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally." In a surprise move, the justices unanimously rejected "warnings that the lawsuits will stunt growth of cool tech gadgets such as the next iPod." The BBC characterizes the ruling as making clear that the "file-sharing companies are to blame for what users do with their software." It seems clear from the ruling that the Court believed Grokster could be facilitating illegal activity, i.e., copyright infringement.

The case, MGM v. Grokster, had been "brought by 28 movie and music makers who claimed that rampant piracy was denting profits." Even though the Supreme Court justices hadx been expected to rule in favor of the file-sharers - because of legal precedents such as a 1984 case involving Sony's Betamax VCR, they didn't do that. Instead the Court has set aside the precedent (and lower court decisions) because they've determined that "the makers of a technology have to answer for what people do with it if they use it to break the law." Notes the BBC:

In the ruling Justice David Souter wrote: "The question is under what circumstances the distributor of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties using the product."

He added: "We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright ... is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties."

The decision sends the cases back to a lower federal district court - which had previously ruled in favour of file-sharing services. "The justices said there was enough evidence of unlawful intent for the case to go to trial" (AP). For Grokster, this is likely to mean a hail of litigation coming down on it. In other words, now that the Supreme Court has ruled that in principle that file-sharers can be held responsible for illegal activity conducted with their technology, it will now be up to the trial court to decide in this case whether Grokster is in fact responsible for such illegal activity. And it won't be just one trial now, but many.

The BBC also notes that the decision could "have an impact on any technology firm developing gadgets or devices that let people enjoy media on the move. If strictly interpreted the ruling means that these hi-tech firms will have to try to predict the ways people can use these devices to pirate copyrighted media and install controls to stop this infringement."

The file-sharing ruling and other rulings come on the last day (today) of the Court's current session, prior to breaking for a three-month summer recess.

Natalee Holloway hijacks the news

With the Michael Jackson trial over, the BBC points to the US media's desire to return its "news" agenda to a favorite staple: a pretty white female who may have come to some harm. The latest candidate in this category is Natalee Holloway, the missing teenager in Aruba, who joins a class of news figures anointed by the media (albeit fleetingly) as instant news "celebrities." Their number includes Chandra Levy, Pvt. Jessica Lynch, "runaway bride" Jennifer Wilbanks - and even Terri Schiavo, who was quite pretty in previous years, allowing the media to continuously run photos taken of her in her 20s (before her brain damage).

media statistics
The BBC quotes figures from Arianna Huffington's latest column, which "compares the major US news networks' focus on three stories from 1 May to 20 June: Natalee's disappearance, the Michael Jackson trial and the Downing Street Memo." According to Huffington, on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC combined, there were 56 segments dealing with the memo, 646 on Natalee and 1,490 on Jackson.

Here are the full figures she cites in her post, for "the number of news segments that mention these stories: (from a search of the main news networks’ transcripts from May 1-June 20)."

• ABC News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 42 segments; "Michael Jackson": 121 segments.
  
• CBS News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 70 segments; "Michael Jackson": 235 segments.
  
• NBC News: "Downing Street Memo": 6 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 62 segments; "Michael Jackson": 109 segments.
  
• CNN: "Downing Street Memo": 30 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 294 segments; "Michael Jackson": 633 segments.
  
• Fox News: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 148 segments; Michael Jackson": 286 segments.
  
• MSNBC: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 30 segments; "Michael Jackson": 106 segments.

So it's not as if the network news was doing any better than cable in covering the DSM story.

The Natalee Holloway thing is, of course, the latest example of how a simple and appealing-yet-meaningless news story with limited applicability to the rest of us can hijack the news agenda increasingly set by cable TV. And Iraq and Social Security and Medicaid and North Korea and John Bolton (and the DSM) can all just take a back seat . . . again.

So how much more of this can the viewing public take? Apparently lots. The BBC piece quotes Mark Feldstein, associate professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, who reminds us, "Maybe there will eventually be a public reaction against it. But there really is a public appetite for it. . . . The public may be saying 'Isn't this terrible' but at the same time the ratings are going up, people are watching it."

Canada behind on HDTV?

I'm interested in the transition to HDTV in the States, so it's always fun to compare the US experience with that of other countries. The record in Europe is spotty. As the BBC has reported, digital TV penetration in the UK market - one of the most sophisticated in Europe - is currently at 60% (the percentage of UK households have already made the switch to digital TV). And "the UK government is keen to switch off its analogue signal and will begin a region by region move to digital in 2008." But things are still a bit slow on the HDTV front. The BBC wants to be broadcasting 100% of its programs in HDTV by 2010. However, at the moment only a tiny proportion of sets sold in the UK are HDTV-ready.

It seems that Canada is also a bit slow off the mark. Macleans reported earlier this year that Canada is lagging behind the US. According to the piece, "The difference lies partly in regulatory approaches. The U.S. government has mandated that all the networks and their affiliates must be broadcasting digital signals by 2006. (Most observers agree that deadline now looks unrealistic, and 2010 is a more likely target for a full switch to digital.) Canada has opted to hold off on legislation." So while the US is less than clear on how serious it is about deadlines, Canada is even vaguer.

Ads "outside the box"?

media statistics
USA Today notes how increasingly difficlut it is for advertisers to make an impression on their audiences in this ad-saturated media environment. A report headlined "Advertisers forced to think way outside the box," posits that "TV used to be tops, but now marketers go for games, Net and product placements."

The piece quotes figures from J. Walker Smith, president of consumer and marketing watcher Yankelovich, who states that punters now encounter from 3,500 - 5,000 marketing messages per day, compared with 500 - 2,000 in the 1970s. The result, says Dan Howard, professor of advertising and consumer behavior at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business: “There are so many ads out there that consumers actively avoid commercials today to an extent never before realized. . . . No matter how many more ads we put out there, it's not going to work . . . because it's not registering.”

More consumer control and more marketing white noise will be a big part of the buzz among industry leaders this week in Cannes — particularly what it means for mass-market TV advertising. The TV commercial remains the biggest source of revenue for the ad industry — and for the networks that sell the time. Marketers put 38% of all ad dollars spent in 2004 into TV spots, according to TNS. But the cash cow now is getting a run for its money from more narrowly targeted upstart ad venues, such as the Internet, video games, TV and movie product placement, and event marketing. Most of the new choices promise lower-cost ads that are harder to ignore. Advertisers are starting to ask whether TV is worth the price. Some observers see a future of ad campaigns that include TV spots, but as part of a creative mix of media that work together. A campaign might also include elements that reach consumers spending more of their time on the Web, on mobile phones, reading text messages or playing video games. And TV spending might be split between commercials and product placement that DVR users can't skip over.

PBS fighting back

It's been a scary year for PBS so far. With the partisan CPB chair Ken Tomlinson in charge, it has seen its integrity attacked and now it is threatened with a massive (46%) budget cut. (See, e.g., here and here and here for previous mediaville comments on this matter.)

Tomlinson, remember, has charged that PBS and NPR has a systematic left-wing bias - without providing any evidence of such bias - and, dangerously, he has "appointed two ombudsmen - one for the left and one for the right." (NPR's own ombudsman addresses the issue here).

There is also increasing evidence that Tomlinson has explicitly "injected partisanship into the agency" by actions "including his hiring of a former White House official to develop an ombudsman's office and his push for PBS to add conservative programming." Tomlinson's reported pick for a new CEO - Patricia de Stacy Harrison, an assistant secretary of State who served as co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee - has drawn objections from public broadcasters and Democrats." And his hiring of a shadowy outside consultant by the name of Fred Mann "to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, 'Now with Bill Moyers,'" has also shocked people.

It seems that a backlash against Tomlinson's partisanship is finally gathering steam: The CPB's inspector general is investigating Tomlinson's record. Pressure to get rid of Tomlinson is building. Sixteen Democratic senators, including Charles Schumer, are calling on President Bush to remove Tomlinson. (See the New York Times report here.) These are not radical liberals: even Joe Lieberman is on board. So far, Bush has resisted calls for Tomlinson's removal.

Meanwhile, since Tomlinson shows little interest in fighting for a restoration of CPB's slashed funding (he "issued a relatively tepid statement last week when the House Appropriations Committee approved a 46% cut to public broadcasting "), PBS President Pat Mitchell has stepped in to lead the fight, focusing on the power of PBS's children's programming. Republicans in the past have rued the day they mess with Barney and Sesame Street. Now I'm not the greatest fan of Mitchell, but she's a whole lot better than Tomlinson, who's shown himself to be a partisan hack, plain and simple.

From Nine to Sky - and back

Media Guardian provides an insight into the links between the UK and Australian TV industries. Former BSkyB chief Sam Chisholm - actually a New Zealander - who thinks "British broadcasting is amazing."

Chisholm has just returned to Oz to run Kerry Packer's Nine Network in Australia. It is, according to Media Guardian, "a retro move - Chisholm ran Nine for 15 years before Rupert Murdoch lured him to Britain to run BSkyB in 1990." It seems he misses the UK.

Chisholm is renowned for creating a winning culture at Nine and turning BSkyB into a money-spinner for Murdoch. He pulled off numerous feats at Sky: signing the Premier League football, securing movie rights, pioneering the concept of TV channel marketing and introducing cutting-edge digital technology. "I've run television in half the countries in the world. There are a lot of things Australian television does very well. The standard of British television overall is _ " his voice trails off as he thinks better of risking offence on either side of the equator.

But it appears that Chisholm is keen to apply much of his BSkyB formula for success to Nine. Since his return to the network, insiders say he has been chanting two mantras which will sound familiar to those who worked with him at BSkyB: news and technology.

Chisholm is described as "an admirer of the 'brilliant' branding of British channels" - he had a major role to play in successfully "branding" Sky - and on that basis is "scrutinising Nine's promos and marketing."

Interestingly, Chisholm is also an archetype of the international media axis linking Britain and the Antipodes. He has close links with Australia's two best-known media magnates: Rupert Murdoch - at Britain's BSkyB and its Ausralian equivalent, Foxtel - and Kerry Packer, who owns the Nine Network in Australia. Although he doesn't have much direct experience in the United States, Chisholm does exemplify new, post-colonial, global network in English-language news and entertainment media - a network that clearly include the US, especially through the links provided by Murdoch's New Corporation.

CRTC decides on satellite radio

The Globe and Mail reports that Canada's media regulator, the CRTC, has ruled on just who will be allowed to sell subscription-based digital radio in Canada. The answer, given Thursday, is three Canadian-based companies, two of whichh are satellite-based and one terrestrial-based.

The report talks of the federal broadcast regulator as ushering "in a new era in the Canadian radio industry." The CRTC ruling is expected to lead to the availability of scores — perhaps hundreds — of new stations in the Canadian radio market," although the article also cautions that "consumers will in most cases have to either buy a new car or get used to making monthly payments to obtain the new services." (The service is expected to cost about C$10 per month.)

The three successful applicants (interesting, since there are only two services in the U.S.) are:

- Canadian Satellite Radio Inc., a Toronto-based joint venture between entrepreneur John Bitove Jr. and Washington-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., which already has four million subscribers.

- Sirius Canada Inc., a partnership between Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Toronto-based Standard Broadcasting Corp. Ltd., and New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.

-A joint venture of Toronto-based CHUM Ltd. and Montreal-based Astral Media Inc. that proposes to use terrestrial transmitters instead of satellites. The CHUM-Astral proposal includes far higher levels of Canadian content than the XM or Sirius systems.

Noted the Globe and Mail in an earlier article: The key feature of the decision is just how much Canadian content will be expected of the two U.S.-based satellite systems, if they are licensed. Each has proposed to include several Canadian channels among the more than 100 channels they beam across North America. And in fact the CRTC has "stuck to its old ways by imposing tight domestic content restrictions on the three service providers." The regulator demanded that the two satellite-based providers -- Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. and Sirius Canada Inc. -- produce:

• "At least eight original channels produced in Canada.
  
• "No more than nine "foreign" channels for each domestic channel.
  
• "At least 85 per cent Canadian content on the Canadian music channels.
  
• "One French-language channel for every three English-language channels.
  
• "At least 25 per cent new Canadian content on the musical channels, which means work produced by artists within the last six months.
  
• A further 25 per cent of the musical selections on the Canadian channels must be the work of "emerging" artists, which means those who have not yet had any hits.

The paper also noted that the decision "is likely to prompt a lengthy period of turmoil in the nascent broadcasting sector." And today's piece even suggests that the ruling "could even signal the death knell for the conventional industry."

Public confidence down in media & other institutions

media statistics
Editor & Publisher has a good overview of the recent Gallup annual survey of "public confidence in major institutions" in the United States. Depressingly, public confidence in the media has reached an all-time low this year.

Those having a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers dipped from 30% to 28% in one year, the same total for television. The previous low for newspapers was 29% in 1994. Since 2000, confidence in newspapers has declined from 37% to 28%, and TV from 36% to 28%, according to the poll.

However, some other institutions fared far worse this year, suggesting a broad level of distrust, cynicism or malaise.

Confidence in the presidency plunged from 52% to 44%, with Congress and the criminal-justice system also suffering 8% drops. Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court fell from 46% to 41%. The 22% confidence rating for Congress is its lowest in eight years, and self-identified Republicans have only a slightly more positive view of the institution than do Democrats.

The military topped the poll with a 74% confidence rating, with the police at 63% and organized religion at 53%. Big business and Congress (both at 22%) and HMOs (17%) brought up the rear.

Looking at the newspaper numbers, of those surveyed, 24% say they have "very little" confidence in them, while 1% said "none." By far the highest number, 46%, said "some," with 28% expressing strong confidence.

BBC takes Canada TV's top prize

Since I talked about the Banff World Television Festival" - Canada's top international media event - the other day (see here), I thought I'd mention that the BBC has just taken the top prize at the festival's awards ceremony. And, according to the Canadian Press (published in the Globe & Mail), British shows bagged no less than nine international trophies, compared to just three each for the U.S., Japan, and Canada. The BBC alone captured six awards. The CP article calls it a "British invasion."

The BBC's series "Blackpool" (described as "A stylish British miniseries synthesizing music, gambling and drama" - though I haven't seen it) picked up the C$50,000 Global television grand prize.

The CBC notes that "more than 100 programmers and decision-makers are in Banff for the 26th annual event to represent broadcasters from around the world, including the CBC, the BBC, National Geographic Television, the Disney Channel, the Comedy Network, Germany's ZDF and Japan's NHK."

Of course, the BBC and other UK TV producers have a long history of involvement in Canada. In spite of Canada's strict domestic programming quotas and stiff competition from the United States, British producers have continued to export their products to Canada - not only on the public CBC, but also on commercial networks and now on BBC Canada - a "a general entertainment channel available on cable and satellite TV" and "a joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Canadian broadcaster, Alliance Atlantis." BBC Canada, in other words, is similar in function to BBC America in the U.S., except that because of "Canada's broadcasting regulations, BBC Canada must carry a quota of Canadian programming."

Michael Jackson cleared. Move on ...

OK, so Michael Jackson's been cleared of all charges relating to child abuse at the end of the four-month trial. Next story, please . . .

OK, so Salon's coverage is slightly less barf-inducing than the MSM (MainStream Media) norm. A piece by Alessandro Camon posits that, "From O.J. to Robert Blake to Kobe Bryant to Michael, the modern celebrity show trial makes us voyeurs at a morality play that showcases not guilt vs. innocence but wrong vs. wrong."

One more time, a celebrity beats the rap. It should give Martha Stewart something to think about that she's the only megastar who couldn't. And yet, one more time the show ended with the sense that the truth remains somewhere "out there," shadowy and elusive. One more time, it's hard to discern any moral of the story.

Reflecting on spectacles such as O.J. Simpson, Kobe Bryant, Robert Blake, Phil Spector, and the Menendez brothers, Camon argues that such trials have "undoubtedly become a new genre of entertainment. They are American tragedies for our age -- big, crass, bizarre and, most crucially, morally empty." He then cites Sophocles' "Antigone" to compare classic tragedy with this modern lesser form. Read for yourself here. Other Salon contribution are by Heather Havrilesky (on the press corps and the jurors); and John Gorenfeld (on the "freak-show antics of O'Reilly, Grace, Scarborough, Corey Feldman, and the rest").

Here, btw, is the BBC's overview of world press reaction, if you're interested. I'm glad that the Beeb concludes that "the story of his acquittal has not dominated the world press in the way it might have been expected to." Good! Maybe now the world can move on.

Vile, utterly vile, the whole thing! I'm vexed, terribly vexed.

Don't you know there's a war on?

Laurence W. Britt of Rochester's City newspaper noted the passing of an interesting date that almost no-one seemed to have noticed: Thursday, June 9 marked 1,365 days since September 11, 2001 -- supposedly the effective date of the start of the War on Terror. And, as he notes, "It was 1,365 days between the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) and final victory over the Axis powers in World War II (September 2, 1945)."

Hard as it seems to believe, as much time had elapsed between America's entry to WWII and final victory, as has now elapsed between 9-11-01 and the present (and, yes, we know the US was two-and-a-half years late, but we'll let that pass for the moment). Yet, as we all know, the contrast between the early 1940s and the early 2000's couldn't be more stark. But if you're interested, Britt recounts them here. Not surprisingly, our effort now is pretty lame compared to WWII.

Cineplex Galaxy takes over Viacom theatres in Canada

Cineplex Galaxy LP, a Canadian-headquartered theater exhibition chain, has agreed to purchase Viacom's Famous Players chain for C$500 million (US$400 million), "combining Canada's two largest movie-theatre companies," according to a report in the Globe and Mail. The deal will make Cineplex Galaxy easily the largest exhibitor in Canada. (See here for the CBC report.)

A deal had been expected since New York-based Viacom had announced its plans last fall to sell Famous Players, described in the report as "the largest movie exhibitor in [Canada] with a market share of about 40 per cent." Apparently "industry observers have seen Cineplex, with a 31-per-cent share, as a top contender for the unit."

Canada's competition bureau gave the go-ahead for the purchase, provided Cineplex divest itself of some theaters. "As part of the transaction, Cineplex Galaxy will comply with a Competition Bureau stipulation that the company sell 35 theatres with annual box office revenues of almost C$100 million."

If my math is correct, the expanded Cineplex Company will still control 135 theaters across Canada, compared to 86 before the deal. That still sounds like quite a bit of concentration of ownership.

Supreme Court ignores industry on ownership limits

A smattering of good news for all of us concerned about concentration of media ownership in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear appeals from media corporations (and their broadcast and newspaper groups) seeking to restore proposed FCC rules that would have eased restrictions on media ownership. The LA Times reports that "Without comment, justices let stand a lower court ruling that threw out the Federal Communications Commission regulations as unjustified."

The new rules could have allowed the same company to own up to three television stations, eight radio stations, a cable operator and a newspaper in a single market (depending on its size).

This means that the FCC "now must take a second shot at revising its older [pre-2003] set of ownership rules that the media groups say are inadequate to address the burgeoning cable television, satellite broadcasting and Internet markets."

Back in October last year, 3rd Circuit federal appeals judges in Philadelphia rejected industry attempts to lift restrictions on crossownership of TV and radio stations in the same market. The attempt to relax the limits was initially part of the Republican-controlled FCC's sweeping deregulation of broadcast ownership rules in 2003. But the proposed changes met a national public backlash, court challenges, and action in Congress. Then the Philadelphia court, hearing a court challenge, stopped the changes taking effect, and ordered that the rules be rewritten. The LA Times notes that the reason the 3rd Circuit blocked the changes was because the FCC "has not sufficiently justified its particular chosen numerical limits for local television ownership, local radio ownership, or cross-ownership of media within local markets."

In the meantime, the previous, tighter set of ownership rules remains in effect. Late last year the big media conglomerates went back to court to appeal the Philadelphia federal court decision. As for the FCC, it "chose not to pursue its own appeal after the 3rd Circuit of Appeals decision, urged justices in filings to turn away the media groups' request. The FCC said it first should be given a chance to come up with new rules that could pass judicial muster under the 3rd Circuit ruling."

The appeals had been filed by many of the Biggest Guns in Big Media, including the Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Co., National Association of Broadcasters and Media General. Also joining the appeals were Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper publisher; Belo Corp.; Morris Communications; as well as CBS, Fox and NBC.

Eric Boehlert in Salon.com notes that "major media companies, eager to gobble up newspapers, television stations and radio outlets in the same markets, had hoped the Supreme Court would step in now." Tough for them. He continues:

"The rejection is a victory for consumer groups, which say the ownership limits help ensure diversity of local news and programming," reports Bloomberg News. "For media companies, the high court appeal was 'the one way out of the box that they're in right now on ownership,' said Stanford Washington Research analyst Paul Gallant. 'The chances of the FCC significantly relaxing the ownership rules are fairly low.'"

While the decision is "good news" for consumers, "the battle over media ownership is far from over," warns Gene Kimmelman, senior director of Public Policy for Consumers Union. "We must remain vigilant to ensure efforts to allow a few companies to dominate the major sources of local news and information don’t succeed. We are extremely hopeful the new FCC chairman will revisit these issues with a better understanding of how important a diverse and independent local media is to a community.”

Btw, for an excellent overview of the "Uprising of 2003" (when more than 2 million citizens rose up to complain about the FCC's attempts to relax media ownership rules), see chapter 7 of Robert McChesney's The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communications Politics in the 21st Century.

The LA Times lists the relevant cases as Media General v. FCC, 04-1020; National Association of Broadcasters v. FCC, 04-1033; Tribune Co. v. FCC, 04-1036; Newspaper Association of America, 04-1045; FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project, 04-1168; and Sinclair Broadcast Group v. FCC 04-1177.

More public money for Canadian TV

The Canadian Press reports that Canada's television industry is to receive C$100 million (about US$80 million) in new funding to create homegrown Canadian programming. The report (published in the Globe & Mail) notes that "the money was announced Sunday by Heritage Minister Liza Frulla to producers and executives at the Banff World Television Festival" in Banff, Alberta (and not Banff in Northeast Scotland) (Click here for the festival site.) The funding will go to the Canadian Television Fund.

This is the latest in a series of infusions of public money to the Canadian Television Fund, described as a "private-public partnership, which supports creation of programming in French, English and aboriginal languages." The funding mechanism is separate from that of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's national public service broadcaster, though apparently CBC can also benefit from the cash. The CBC notes that "the new funding is good news for major networks – such as the CBC, CTV and Global – as well as a tremendous boost for smaller Canadian TV producers." CBC News cites the following endorsement from a private Canadian producer:

"Development funding is very important," Ihor Procak, a producer for Winnipeg's Lightning Films, told CBC News. Procak is in Banff trying to find a broadcaster for his new TV series entitled Brothers in Crime: the Bad Samaritans, which he describes as The Sopranos meet the Trailer Park Boys.

"It's very difficult to do anything without [funding], because then you're putting your money on the line, your credit cards on the line, and your home on the line and that's a hard way to function," he said.

The report claims that the C$800 million (US$640 million) pumped into the fund since its 1996 inception "has helped create $5.7 billion in Canadian programming," and, according to Ms. Frulla, "has helped bring more than 18,000 hours of original Canadian programming to the screen."

The Canadian Government's Canadian Heritage site seems to be a little behind the times, since it claims only "13,700 hours of new Canadian television programming in the essential categories of drama, variety, children's shows, documentaries, and performing arts in English, French and Aboriginal languages." But it does claim credit for funding programs such as "An American in Canada, Cold Squad, Infoman, [and] Annie et ses hommes" The site describes the fund as playing a "pivotal role in the creation of high quality, distinctively Canadian programming for television." The site also notes that the fund has an annual budget of some C$250 million -- presumably the C$100 million menntioned above is on top of that figure, though its's not absolutely clear.

The CBC report also notes that "more than 100 programmers and decision-makers are in Banff for the 26th annual event to represent broadcasters from around the world, including the CBC, the BBC, National Geographic Television, the Disney Channel, the Comedy Network, Germany's ZDF and Japan's NHK."

Hollywood's summer headache continues

I made a blog entry about a month ago ("The Incredible Shrinking Box Office"), recounting how my cinema-going experience increasingly sucks, and how that might be true for more and more people - and even the kids - who think that the stuff they're getting at the movies is just not up to scratch. I thought this might explain why this season had so far been a bit of a dud for Hollywood. Well, a month-plus on from all the early May stories of Hollywood's Box Office slump, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith has opened and Made It Big (domestic box office of $307 million and rising); but otherwise, good news has been thin on the ground, and the rest of the summer fare hasn't matched up to expectations. Thus, according to Entertainment Weekly, this "makes 15 straight weeks that box office is down from the previous year".

The signs of weakness are everywhere. Last weekend's USA Today noted that ticket sales to date were down 7% from 2004 (about $245 million); summer box office is down 9% from last season." Another report from LA's Daily News last week said "the top 12 films earned nearly 30 percent less than the top dozen did during the same weekend a year ago, according to studio estimates released Sunday."

Two Big Event early-summer blockbusters have, at the end of their second weeks, underperformed: Madagascar (4,142 screens, $100.4 million take); and The Longest Yard (3,634 screens, $95.8 million). Three new (supposedly) Big Openers this week - Russell Crowe's Cinderella Man, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, and Lords of Dogtown, all languished (at No. 4, 5, and 7 respectively) despite their multi-thousand screen openings. House of Wax bombed. Mr & Mrs Smith looks creaky. If Tom Cruise and The War of the Worlds tanks, studio execs are going to start running for the exits. I find all this to be tremendouly fun. Studios have been pushing CGI-enhanced junk for so many summers that it's amazing they've managed to pump up the numbers this long. (I saw a rerun on TV of Independence Day last week and had to remind myself with some difficulty that the film is now nine years old! Think how much crap has passed under the bridge since then -- I'm losing track.)

OK, I'm still willing to accept this rubbish is good fun for a drive-in theater. But otherwise . . . To repeat my question from last week (Whither the blockbuster): "Thirty years on from Jaws, the first "blockbuster" to set up the current system, is it time for Hollywood to update its strategy?"

Yep.

Cable news takes a hit

From a year ago:

In June '04, five months before the election, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported Pew Research Center findings that (perhaps surprisingly) it is Republicans who have come to distrust the media in greater numbers since President Bush took office, while Democratic views are mostly unchanged. "CNN's once-dominant credibility ratings have slumped in recent years, mostly among Republicans and independents," the survey says. "By comparison, the Fox News Channel's believability ratings have held steady -- both overall and within partisan groups." While the percentage of people who rate CNN as highly credible had slid from 42 percent six years previously to 32 percent, the study says, it was still true that more "say they can believe all or most of what they hear on CNN than say that about Fox News Channel," whose credibility rating is 25 percent. (MSNBC clocks in at 22 percent.) Just edging out CNN in the trustworthiness stakes was "60 Minutes", which clocked 33 percent.

In a finding that apparently surprised Andrew Kohut, the Pew center's director, 29 percent of Republicans say Fox News Channel is credible, only slightly more than the 26 percent of GOPers who feel that way about CNN. Among Democrats, though, 45 percent give CNN a thumbs up for credibility, compared with 24 percent for Fox News Channel. The changing views "reflect the political polarization we've seen," says Andrew Kohut, the Pew center's director. "It reflects anger on the part of Republicans about the way the media's treated Bush lately, and also reflects the appeal of Fox News." Readers and viewers, he says, are "reacting to a perception of a political point of view, whether that means bias in political reports or tone." (From Benton's Communications-related Headlines)

Hillary (and Sidney) slams "timid" US press

Matt Lombard of Temple University's Mass Media & Communication listserv notes that the latest broadside against the "timid" press comes from Senator Hillary Clinton. Speaking "at her first major fund-raiser for her 2006 reelection campaign in New York," Clinton excoriated the press for their timidity in tackling abuses from those (right-wingers) in power. She charges that they "had become a pale imitation of the reporters who brought down Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal" - a charge that Sidney Blumenthal, writing in today's Guardian, would surely agree with. Clinton said of the news media:

"It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. ... They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart. I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake."

Poor old Hillary must be disgusted by the memory of the press hounding her and Bill for years over the huge non-story that was Whitewater, not to mention one "-gate" after another (remember "travel-gate", "file-gate", "Billing-gate" - "Whitewater-gate" was maybe too much of a mouthful). Monica Lewinsky was a story, but it only emerged out of this unfair, constant hounding process. On the other hand, President Bush gets one Get-out-of-jail-free card after another, over the much more serious issue of the war (not to mention one should-be scandal after another, from Valerie Plame to the Downing Street memo to the running joke that is the Department of Homeland Security to just about everything that comes out of the mouth of Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay). And then there's the gross mismanagement of the economy . . . Wow, Hillary might just have a case! Just don't expect to hear much about it in the press. And don't expect anything Bush ever does to have a "-gate" attached to it. That media standard applies only to Democrats, I think Senator Clinton would agree.

Sidney Blumenthal provides a clear and concise answer to Hillary's concerns, drawing a direct line from Nixon's to Bush's Grand Media Strategy:

One of the chief lessons learned from Nixon's demise was the necessity of muzzling the press. The Bush WhiteHouse has neutralised the press corps and even turned some reporters into its own assets. The disinformation WMD in the rush to war in Iraq, funnelled into the news pages of the New York Times, is the most dramatic case in point. By manipulation and intimidation, encouraging atmosphere of self-censorship, the Bush White House has distanced the press from dissenting professionals inside the government. Mark Felt's sudden emergence from behind the curtain of history evoked the glory days of the press corps and its modern creation myth. It was a warm bath of nostalgia and cold comfort.

On the transnational media

Last weekend's On the Media took an international turn - in fact, a transnational turn. After getting its (very good) lead piece on Mark Felt/"Deep Throat" out of the way, the show went on to discuss three examples of transnational media:

• First, "Latin Beat" covered the rise of the Telesur in Latin America. "Frustrated by years of U.S.-centric TV news, the creators of Telesur say the network will present Latin American news from a Latin American perspective. They also say they'll be editorially independent, even if they depend on [Hugo Chavez and] Venezuela and other governments for funding. Bob discusses Telesur's prospects with Nikolas Kozloff of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
  
• Next, "Africa Unplugged" looks at the experience of TV Africa "a pan-African entertainment and education network" funded by the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC). Started five years ago, it collapsed three years later. "Brooke [Adams] talks to IFC senior investment officer Darren Massara about the difficulties of building transnational media from scratch."
  
• "Shaping Reality" turns to pan-Arab satellite channels, which "have had a huge impact on Middle Eastern politics. But American University assistant professor Marwan Kraidy says it's not just the explicitly political programming that's contributing to political upheaval. It's entertainment programming too. Kraidy tells Brooke about one example - the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation reality show 'Star Academy'".
  
• "Press Potlatch" deals with a new BBC service that allows people to create all kinds of new ways of allowing extrenal users to access, alter, and mix some of its online content. Tom Loosemore, co-creator of Backstage BBC, talks about "why it's better to share."

Ofcom vs. BBC

The UK government's TV regulator, Ofcom, remains locked in a battle with the BBC over ultimate control of the public corporation. According to Media Guardian, Ofcom has challenged reform proposals set in a government green paper on the BBC's royal charter, published today. Ofcom argues that the proposal to maintain an independent BBC board - called the "BBC Trust", replacing the old Board of Governors - is not radical enough. Instead, Ofcom

is in favour of proposals made by the government independent adviser, Lord Burns, who suggested six months ago that another quango should be set up to slice up public funding, a proposal that won the backing of Lord Birt, Tony Blair's "blue skies" adviser and the former director general of the BBC. Ofcom says the proposed "BBC Trust" should "evolve into an external independent body in the future".

Ofcom seems to like the idea of a new, independent body (doubetless under its own oversight) that will give other UK broadcasters a slice of the BBC license fee pie. At one point, culture secretary Tessa Jowell, seemed inclined to agree, though she has apparently backed off. The green paper (government jargon for a "a tentative government report of a proposal without any commitment to action; the first step in changing the law [prior to] the production of a white paper") seems to keep BBC reforms to a minimum.

Back in March, when Jowell announced the continuation of the license fee, a new BBC Trust, and a new 10-year charter, she said that the BBC was "as much a part of British life as the NHS" and should retain its independence from the government. But worryingly, she also said that, "like the NHS it faces the need to change so that it can be as effective in the future as it has been in the past." She also "recommended that its funding should be reviewed within the next charter period," and this is the opening that Ofcom seeks to exploit.

Ofcom, or the Office of Communications has been at daggers drawn with the BBC more or less since it was formed in late 2003 (go back to the Media Guardian story and scroll to the numerous linked stories at the bottom to get a flavor of the debate). Although Ofcom's designed to be an overall regulator of all British broadcasting, replacing five different regulatory agencies, it was never given ultimate authority over the BBC. This is something it would very much like to rectify.

Whither the blockbuster?

Slate's Edward Jay Epstein writes a great article about the changing economics of Hollywood blockbusters. (This also includes a link to some interesting money statistics placed here). A swathe of changes in technology, selling patterns and viewing patterns "add up to a growing disconnect between the money poured into advertising for a large theatrical gross and the earnings realized in the markets that the studios depend on for their money." The bottom line is that the digital revolution, and especially the inexorable rise of the DVD, is undermining the whole 3,000-screen blockbuster release, pushed by a massive advertising blitz. Thirty years on from Jaws, the first "blockbuster" to set up the current system, is it time for Hollywood to update its strategy?

From June 2004 . . .

One year ago: Mel Karmazin resigned as President/COO of Viacom. Karmazin’s resignation brought to an end the four-year, tension-filled partnership between him and Viacom chair/CEO Sumner Redstone. This likely contributed to Howard Stern's departure for the sunny uplands of Sirius Satellite radio: The New York Times noted that Karmazin was Howard Stern's main defender at Viacom.

Media Statistics: A new report last year showed porn was still the most popular thing on the Web. According to Reuters, research firm Hitwise Inc. broke down Web visits that week and gave the following figures: "Adult" at 18.8%, "Search Engines and Directories" at 13.8%, "Entertainment" at 8.0%, "Business and Finance" at 7.4& and "Shopping and Classifieds" at 7%. Search engine Google accounted for only 2.7% of all Web visits. (From Benton's Communications-related Headlines)

Cable News soft on Bush, heavy on pervs

Broadcasting & Cable notes comments by Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who charges that "big media, especially cable news channels, are giving the Bush Administration a free pass by focusing on celebrity news and other 'trivial matter' rather than examining White House policies." This "celebrity news" and "trivial matter" is doubtless related to the prevalent kind of "pervert"-heavy news that Ted Turner was complaining about last week when he urged CNN to "cover international news and the environment, not the 'pervert of the day.'" (He continued: "You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well.")

As for Rep. Conyers: his assertions are based on a recent Congressional Research Service survey of cable news services and their treatment of high-profile stories. (The CRS "gathers data at lawmakers’ request to help them write bills or prepare for hearings.") Conyers used the CRS data "to charge that cable news outlets gave big play to some inconsequential stories while largely ignoring a lot of news casting Bush Administration policies in a negative light." He focuses attention on the lack of coverage of the British government's leaked Iraq memo:

For instance, according to the study, April 28 revelations of a British government memo indicating intelligence services had concluded prior to the start of the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction were ignored by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports and Anderson Cooper 360, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olberman and Fox’s Big Story. Days later, those same shows were leading or devoting a lot of time to the runaway bride saga.

(See here for more information from Media Matters for America, as well as a downloadable PDF file with data included.)

Btw: Turner, who was speaking at the CNN 25 World Report Conference in Atlanta last Wednesday (to celebrate the cable network's 25th anniversary) had this to say about the network he founded:

"I wanted to be The New York Times of the airwaves. Not the New York Post, but The New York Times. And that's what we set out to do, and we did it."

Now CNN - at least in the United States - is undoubtedly back in the New York Post frame.

Jaws: the shark tale that changed Hollywood

As the movie Jaws approaches the Thirtieth anniversary of its 1975 release, the BBC's website has a useful overview of the movie, directed by a young Steven Spielberg, that gave birth to the modern Hollywood summer blockbuster. As the BBC's Neil Smith reminds us:

Before Jaws, summer was considered a graveyard for Hollywood studios - a time when distributors released titles they considered sub-standard and unlikely to turn a profit. All that changed on 20 June 1975, when Spielberg's shark tale opened on 409 cinemas - a record at the time - across the US. Backed by $700,000 worth of TV advertising, the movie swiftly became a phenomenon - spawning a craze for Jaws T-shirts, beach towels and action figurines. The film went on to win three Oscars at the 1976 Academy Awards and be followed by three inferior sequels.

The article goes on to recount the numerous troubles that beset the film during its making - all well known now, so I won't bother repeating them here.