The Federal Communications Commission has moved to keep Internet service providers from limiting or unreasonably discriminating against content provided by competing services
The regulations are designed to keep telephone and cable companies that provide phone services from using their Internet services to limit use of Skype and other online telephone services. It is also intended to halt them from making content provided by audio and video service providers they do not own less desirable by limiting downloads from firms such as Netflix or Hulu or providing faster service only for their own content.
The rules are designed to maintain a level competitive position on the Internet and to restrict the abilities of companies that dominate access to the Internet from using oligopolistic control of the service points to harm content competitors.
The regulations require that services allow their customers equal access to all online content and services, but allow the services some flexibility to management network congestion and spam as long as the rules are clear and not anti-competitive.
The rules apply to fixed line services, but do not apply equally to wireless telephony which is becoming the primary means of Internet access though smart phones and electronic tablets and e-reader. Mobile phone providers are permitted to provide preferential access to their services or selected partners, but the rules forbid mobile providers from blocking access to competing sites and services. Mobile services are given more leeway to manage their networks because capacity is more limited than on the Internet.
The regulations are an important step in ensuring that major service providers such as Comcast and Verizon are not allowed to use their dominance in service provision to harm other companies and the FCC should be applauded for its efforts. Such companies have in the past shown their willingness to take advantage of their monopoloy power and are not widely noted for their consumer friendliness.
Major service providers and Republicans are vowing to fight the move, arguing that the FCC does not have the authority to issue such regulations. If the courts side with them on the issue, Congress should explicitly give it the authority or empower the Federal Trade Commission to ensure competivieneess online.
The International Business Times is the leading provider of international business news online.
Showing posts with label audiovisual media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label audiovisual media. Show all posts
Competitive Struggles Among Television Platforms
Since the emergence of cable and satellite television services there has been struggles among platforms to increase their attractiveness to audiences and to draw market share from terrestrial television in developed nations. These struggles have had affected content producers, broadcasters, platform operators and regulators attempting to fashion socially optimal broadcasting systems.
In the first competitive struggles between terrestrial broadcasters and cable operators, broadcasters controlled the highest quality contemporary programming and cable operators primarily competed by offering a wider variety of channels and providing premium movie channels. In many locations broadcasters actively sought regulatory policies to keep their channels from appearing on cable in order to reduce its attractiveness as a competitor.
As cable matured and satellite services emerged, the nature of the struggle shifted as greater subscription and advertising revenues allowed cable networks to offer higher quality contemporary programming. In this competitive phase, terrestrial, cable and satellite operators began struggling for exclusivity of content that would drive audiences to the platforms. Gaining exclusive rights to first broadcast runs of motion pictures, sporting, musical and other events, and high quality original programs became primary goals. In this environment, producers of content and owners of event rights sought to maximize their returns across the platforms. while platform operators sought to maximize their returns by gaining market power through exclusivity. This led to negotiations based not only on transmission rights but exclusivity rights as well, which dramatically pushed up costs of some content—especially sports rights.
As cable garnered a larger audience share, broadcasters that had previously been opposed to carriage of terrestrial signals on cable because asking regulators for ‘must carry’ rules to require cable operators to carry terrestrial channels so they could have additional access to audiences or audiences in places their terrestrial signals had not previously reached. This was especially useful for advertising supported channels, both public service and commercial.
In recent years, the widespread success of cable and satellite platforms and the shift of wealth from terrestrial to other platforms has led broadcasters to demand payments from cable and satellite platform operators for carrying their channels. The newer platforms are resistent and in some nations the struggle over payments remains on-going.
The digitalisation of terrestrial, cable, satellite, and broadband platforms has now created multiple opportunities of distribution of audiovisual materials and is creating a new environment in which additional competitive struggles are taking place among platform operators. At stake are the significant potential gains from advanced paid video-on-demand services and IPTV. Platform operators—DTT, cable, satellite, and telecommunications firms that offer broadband services—are now struggling to ensure that they are not competitively disadvantaged compared to other operators. Operators that control or have high market power over platforms, especially broadband links and systems needed for advanced services or interactive DTT services, will have significant advantages in the next generation of services. Consequently, there is a great deal of effort on the part of major platform operators to acquire access to all platforms and services through ownership, alliances and joint ventures and in many cases there are outright efforts to control those platforms and servcies.
The trajectory and outcome of this competitive struggle is particularly important because it will have significant impact on the range of services and costs for services available to the public. These developments also have significant importance for the relationship between content producers and platform operators because the means of compensation is likely to evolve from current transmission rights and exclusivity rights payments to one involving revenue and profit sharing. This has significant implications to the funding and ways that contemporary terrestrial television programming is created and role of terrestrial broadcasters in the new environment.
In the first competitive struggles between terrestrial broadcasters and cable operators, broadcasters controlled the highest quality contemporary programming and cable operators primarily competed by offering a wider variety of channels and providing premium movie channels. In many locations broadcasters actively sought regulatory policies to keep their channels from appearing on cable in order to reduce its attractiveness as a competitor.
As cable matured and satellite services emerged, the nature of the struggle shifted as greater subscription and advertising revenues allowed cable networks to offer higher quality contemporary programming. In this competitive phase, terrestrial, cable and satellite operators began struggling for exclusivity of content that would drive audiences to the platforms. Gaining exclusive rights to first broadcast runs of motion pictures, sporting, musical and other events, and high quality original programs became primary goals. In this environment, producers of content and owners of event rights sought to maximize their returns across the platforms. while platform operators sought to maximize their returns by gaining market power through exclusivity. This led to negotiations based not only on transmission rights but exclusivity rights as well, which dramatically pushed up costs of some content—especially sports rights.
As cable garnered a larger audience share, broadcasters that had previously been opposed to carriage of terrestrial signals on cable because asking regulators for ‘must carry’ rules to require cable operators to carry terrestrial channels so they could have additional access to audiences or audiences in places their terrestrial signals had not previously reached. This was especially useful for advertising supported channels, both public service and commercial.
In recent years, the widespread success of cable and satellite platforms and the shift of wealth from terrestrial to other platforms has led broadcasters to demand payments from cable and satellite platform operators for carrying their channels. The newer platforms are resistent and in some nations the struggle over payments remains on-going.
The digitalisation of terrestrial, cable, satellite, and broadband platforms has now created multiple opportunities of distribution of audiovisual materials and is creating a new environment in which additional competitive struggles are taking place among platform operators. At stake are the significant potential gains from advanced paid video-on-demand services and IPTV. Platform operators—DTT, cable, satellite, and telecommunications firms that offer broadband services—are now struggling to ensure that they are not competitively disadvantaged compared to other operators. Operators that control or have high market power over platforms, especially broadband links and systems needed for advanced services or interactive DTT services, will have significant advantages in the next generation of services. Consequently, there is a great deal of effort on the part of major platform operators to acquire access to all platforms and services through ownership, alliances and joint ventures and in many cases there are outright efforts to control those platforms and servcies.
The trajectory and outcome of this competitive struggle is particularly important because it will have significant impact on the range of services and costs for services available to the public. These developments also have significant importance for the relationship between content producers and platform operators because the means of compensation is likely to evolve from current transmission rights and exclusivity rights payments to one involving revenue and profit sharing. This has significant implications to the funding and ways that contemporary terrestrial television programming is created and role of terrestrial broadcasters in the new environment.
JOURNALISM STARTUPS ARE HELPFUL, BUT NO PANACEA FOR NEWS PROBLEMS
One of the most exciting developments in journalism is the widespread appearance of online news startups. These are taking a variety of not-for-profit and commercial forms and are typically designed to provide reporting of under-covered communities and neighborhoods or to cover topics or employ journalistic techniques that have been reduced in traditional media because of their expense.
These initiatives should be lauded and supported. However, we have to be careful that the optimism and idealism surrounding these efforts not be imbued with naïveté and unbridled expectation. All these initiatives face significant challenges that require pragmatism in their organization and sober reflection about their potential to solve the fundamental problems in the news industry today.
We need to recognize that these online initiatives are not without precedent. We can learn a great deal about their potential from other community- and public affairs-oriented media endeavors. Community radio, local public service radio and television, public access television, and not-for-profit news and public affairs magazines have existed for decades and provide some evidence about the potential of the startups. Most rely heavily on the same types of foundation, community support, and membership financial models that startups are employing and this gives them a head start in the competition of those resources.
Despite sharing fundamental objectives and goals, these existing news and public affairs enterprises exhibit wide differences in the services they provide and their effectiveness in offering them. Many suffer from precarious financial conditions.
For the most part, such initiatives are highly dependent upon volunteer labor, individuals with the best of intentions who contribute time and effort. Those who manage the operations must expend a great deal of effort to train, coordinate, motivate and support these volunteers. This incurs cost and takes time from other activities.
Most of the organizations operate with highly limited staffs of regularly employed personnel and this is especially true in news operations. Professional journalists working in these organizations tend to be poorly paid; few have health and retirement benefits; most do not have libel insurance that protects aggressive and investigative reporting; few have access to resources to invest time and money in significant journalistic research. The consequence of these challenges is that there tends to be high turnover because the operations typically rely on young journalists who use the organizations to gain professional experience and then move on to better funded or commercial firms.
The community and public affairs operations also exhibit widely disparate size and quality in their journalistic activities. Even most affiliates of National Public Radio—which is generally considered the most successful of non-commercial news operations—tend to have small and relatively undistinguished news operations. Most rely upon the exceptional content of the national organization, large metropolitan affiliates, and the best of the content collectively produced by other local affiliates. Affiliates with larger news staffs and quality tend to be limited to those linked to university journalism programs or in the best-funded metropolitan operations.
The challenges faced in these organizations should not deter the establishment of new online initiatives or keep the rest of us from supporting them. We need to be realistic about their potential, however. In the foreseeable future these startups will tend to supplement rather than to replace traditional news organizations. They may be part of the solution to the problem of news provision, but they alone are not the remedy.
These initiatives should be lauded and supported. However, we have to be careful that the optimism and idealism surrounding these efforts not be imbued with naïveté and unbridled expectation. All these initiatives face significant challenges that require pragmatism in their organization and sober reflection about their potential to solve the fundamental problems in the news industry today.
We need to recognize that these online initiatives are not without precedent. We can learn a great deal about their potential from other community- and public affairs-oriented media endeavors. Community radio, local public service radio and television, public access television, and not-for-profit news and public affairs magazines have existed for decades and provide some evidence about the potential of the startups. Most rely heavily on the same types of foundation, community support, and membership financial models that startups are employing and this gives them a head start in the competition of those resources.
Despite sharing fundamental objectives and goals, these existing news and public affairs enterprises exhibit wide differences in the services they provide and their effectiveness in offering them. Many suffer from precarious financial conditions.
For the most part, such initiatives are highly dependent upon volunteer labor, individuals with the best of intentions who contribute time and effort. Those who manage the operations must expend a great deal of effort to train, coordinate, motivate and support these volunteers. This incurs cost and takes time from other activities.
Most of the organizations operate with highly limited staffs of regularly employed personnel and this is especially true in news operations. Professional journalists working in these organizations tend to be poorly paid; few have health and retirement benefits; most do not have libel insurance that protects aggressive and investigative reporting; few have access to resources to invest time and money in significant journalistic research. The consequence of these challenges is that there tends to be high turnover because the operations typically rely on young journalists who use the organizations to gain professional experience and then move on to better funded or commercial firms.
The community and public affairs operations also exhibit widely disparate size and quality in their journalistic activities. Even most affiliates of National Public Radio—which is generally considered the most successful of non-commercial news operations—tend to have small and relatively undistinguished news operations. Most rely upon the exceptional content of the national organization, large metropolitan affiliates, and the best of the content collectively produced by other local affiliates. Affiliates with larger news staffs and quality tend to be limited to those linked to university journalism programs or in the best-funded metropolitan operations.
The challenges faced in these organizations should not deter the establishment of new online initiatives or keep the rest of us from supporting them. We need to be realistic about their potential, however. In the foreseeable future these startups will tend to supplement rather than to replace traditional news organizations. They may be part of the solution to the problem of news provision, but they alone are not the remedy.
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