First in a series.

With uncharacteristic brevity for a Washington official, FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps offered a one-word summation of the recent switchover from analog to digital television: “Whew!”

28 Groups Tell FCC That Digital TV Rules Lack Public Benefit

August 2007

Over the past 12 years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has repeatedly failed to redefine broadcasters’ public interest obligations in light of the nation’s ongoing transition to digital television, a coalition of 28 groups said in a filing at the FCC today. The groups echoed the warnings of FCC Commissioner Michael Copps that this “record of inaction” may “go down . . . as the Commission’s major failing in its efforts to move the digital transition forward.”

The groups’ filing came in the FCC’s third periodic review of the conversion of the nation’s broadcast television system from analog to digital television (“DTV”). The DTV transition will increase efficient use of the spectrum, expand consumer choice for video programming, and increase the amount of spectrum available for public safety and other wireless services. Analog TV broadcasts are to end February 17, 2009. In its rulemaking, the FCC proposed procedures and rule changes necessary to complete the transition, but once again failed to address broadcasters’ obligations to serve local communities’ educational, informational, civic, minority, disability and emergency information needs – or how these services should be disclosed to the public.

“Congress and the courts have been clear,” said Benton Foundation Chairman Charles Benton, “that the rights of viewers are paramount in broadcasting. The FCC has worked long and hard to help broadcasters make the transition to digital TV technology, a transition that could greatly increase the value of their businesses. The Commission must now do the work to define the benefits of the transition for the public, a transition that could make their airwaves more valuable to them.”

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies have a vision for the Internet's future. Verizon, AT&T (formerly SBC), Comcast, and Bell South want to create a privately run and branded "pay-as-you-go" Internet, making everything we do online a "billable," revenue-generating service. Our every cyberspace move will be tracked and stored so we can be better marketed to (a data collection system that might even rival the NSA's!). Those with the deepest pockets--think corporate special interest groups and major advertisers--will get preferred treatment. Their content will show up (and be processed) the fastest on our computer and television screens. Content seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, may be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out, say "white papers" and other documents given to the cable and phone industry.

Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from large to small content providers to individual users--will have to pay more when surfing online, streaming videos, or perhaps even sending and receiving email. Companies are mulling the imposition of new subscription plans that will limit our online experience. There will be "gold," bronze," and "silver" forms of Internet access that tightly define what they call our "level of service" (limiting how much downloading we can do, etc.)

Gone will be the more open and nondiscriminatory network of today.

10 Steps to More Democratic Media

By: Jeff Chester and Gary O. Larson
yes! Magazine
Spring 2005

Whether you care about the state of journalism, access to information, diversity of media ownership, privacy, innovation, or the health of noncommercial media -- all these and more will be up for grabs as Congress begins re-writing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 this year. Likewise, the Federal Communications Commission and even your local town or city council will be facing choices that will determine who gets to communicate what, to whom, over what medium during this “digital century.”

How, for example, will policy makers choose to define “public interest, convenience, and necessity,” a concept enshrined in U.S. communications law since 1934? Or will we see a rejection of a concept that has obliged the electronic media to serve the country?

Will we have a communications environment that reflects the highest aspirations of a democratic culture, including equality, diversity, and civic expression? Or one that serves primarily as an inter­active vending machine for the latest products of Big Media and Madison Avenue?

The stakes have never been higher. The major media and telecommunications companies are lobbying for even greater corporate control. But we the people can change America’s “digital destiny” by promoting positive change in these ten areas: