BC/DC: Eggerton on Washington
BC/DC is the media executives\' must-see view from Washington, delivered by yours truly without the aid of rose-colored glasses and without the need, quite yet, of bifocals.
McNamara's Broadband
OK, I want to be the first to call it “McNamara’s Broadband” now that the FCC has officially asked to move the new broadband plan deadline date to March 17. The FCC routinely gives others a break with deadlines at holiday times, so I have no problem with the move, though the date is troubling to anyone who cherishes donning a plastic green leprechaun hat rather than ...... Read More
Comments (0)PTC Calls For Indecency Complaints Targeting Dad's Horseplay
In what has become a recurring theme for both Fox and the Parents Television Council, PTC has asked its members to complain to the FCC about programming featuring sexual horseplay, as it were. The latest programming to rub PTC the wrong way was Sunday’s episode of American Dad, in which featured a scene in which a horse was being, well, pleasured. “A broadcast television network aire ...... Read More
Comments (1)Nielsen and the Mysterious Decline in Product Plugs
When Nielsen released its top 10 lists of “most popular trends” for 2009, on Dec. 11, one list that jumped out was top programs for “product placement activity,” which means the number of on-screen appearances of or references to products. According to that list, the No. 1 show was NBC’s Jay Leno Show, with 1,015 “occurrences.” NBC’s The Bigg ...... Read More
Comments (0)FCBA Menu: Chairman On a Roll With Roasted Lobbyist
“Before I begin my remarks, three ground rules: First, everyone must sign an ethics pledge that you will not profit from the retelling of my jokes for two years [a reference to the two-year ban on lobbying one’s former agency]; Second all jokes about Comcast/NBC deal are subject to must carry; third, any Verizon employee leaving early a pays $350 dollar fee (a riff on early terminati ...... Read More
Comments (0)DTV and Broadband Map on a Skewer With Relish
Taking what they said was a closer look at 100 more projects funded by the stimulus package–it is the second such report–Republican Senators John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla) included a DTV transition promotion project and the National Telecommunications & Information Administration’s broadband mapping programs as among the money “wasted, mismanaged, or dire ...... Read More
Comments (0)Opinionated Talkers Bloviating: Helpful or Hurtful?
Respondents to a just-released USA Networks poll are evenly divided over whether opinionated talk radio, cable, and blogs are a positive or negative trend. While 39% said it was a very or somewhat favorable phenomenon, 40% said it was very or somewhat unfavorable, while 30% were neutral. That was one of the findings of a poll released in advance of a USA Networks’ “Characters Unite&# ...... Read More
Comments (0)‘Seattle Times’ Disses Potential NBCU/Comcast Merger
The Seattle Times has come out against an NBCU/Comcast merger. In an editorial Sunday, the paper called it an arrangement “made for mischief” and urged federal regulators to block it if the deal does indeed get done. The paper said the deal, which would combine a movie studio, news outlets and cable programming “is ripe for high prices being foisted on viewers and smaller cabl ...... Read More
Comments (0)Dobbs Pondering Presidential Run
Lou Dobbs, who recently left CNN, told WTOP radio in Washington Monday that he has had conversations about running for president, though he framed it as part of a larger discussion about politics in general. Dobbs said that he exited the network after it became clear that he was too opinionated for the channel. “I like to speak truth to power,” he said, adding that sometimes power do ...... Read More
Comments (1)Start of Something Big
I remember it as if it were yesterday, so long as yesterday was more than two decades ago. It was 1986 and I was in Dallas for the BPME/BDA (now PROMAX) convention, an annual gathering of promotion and marketing executives, where syndicators promise plenty of co-op dollars, tchatchke’s pile up like snow drifts in Aspen, and station executives kick the tires on the shows they are giving prim ...... Read More
Comments (1)FCC Cleans Up Its Space
“Will the FCC censor its own MySpace page?” asks Progress & Freedom Foundation bigwig Adam Thierer in a blog posting Friday. The answer appears to be yes. Thierer pointed out that within a few milliseconds of announcing the creation of the page, the FCC had received the kind of comments that, if aired on Fox, it would have found indecent. Thierer included a screen grab from the F ...... Read More
Comments (0)Sex and the Capitol City
Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker was among those named to the Washington-based President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities, along with a number of other actresses, actors, dancers and creative types. Among the other familiar names announced Monday were Alfred Woodard, Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker, Edward Norton, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In September, the president name ...... Read More
Comments (1)Guest Blog: NAB's Second Chance on Public-Service Programming
In this guest blog, Henry Geller, former General Counsel of the FCC in 1964-1970 and Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information (NTIA) in the Carter Administration, says it is time to consider a new form of pay-for-(public service) play. In the late 1970’s, I, as head of NTIA, proposed to Congress and the NAB that commercial broadcast radio be relieved of its public ...... Read More
Comments (0)
