Payments across borders and those made by mobile users to other individuals offer banks the best chance to attract those who haven’t used the institutions to new kinds of services, ABI Research analyst Mark Beccue said. Nearly 3 billion people in developing countries don’t use banks, and access by mobile phones is the solution, he said during a webinar last week. Though policy makers are supportive in general, regulatory questions about mobile banking remain unanswered, said Timothy Lyman, a senior policy adviser to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, a policy group.
Notable CROSS rulings
The FTC needs to enforce advertising regulations, and the commission could benefit from increased resources, advertisers and consumer advocacy groups said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection subcommittee. But the advertisers said changes that the FTC proposes to its advertising guidelines could hurt consumers and themselves. Consumer advocacy groups supported a commission proposal to require disclosure when bloggers receive free products or other compensation for reviews, to remove the safe harbor for disclaimers of typicality like the “results not typical” disclosures with weight-loss ads, and to consider the treatment of “green” product claims.
It’s probably time to get rid of local and cross- ownership rules that affect broadcasters, said Tom Buono, CEO of BIA Financial Network, a media consulting group. “With local media companies dying on the vine and the TV industry, in particular, hamstrung in many large and small markets, it seems like a good time to explore the steps to save local media outlets.” BIA lowered revenue forecasts for the broadcast industry in 2009 to $16.6 billion -- about what the industry made in 1995. Fixes to the TV business can also be found outside of Washington, BIA said. “Local TV stations will see a return to profitability the quicker they see themselves as local information and entertainment companies rather than simply television transmitters.” Meanwhile, few stations changed hands in the first half of 2009, BIA said. It saw $453 million worth of transactions involving just 45 stations, indicating buyers are waiting for the economy to bounce back before investing in broadcasting, BIA said. “Transactions have slowed to an anemic pace and reflect the general lack of financing currently available for stations and broadcast groups and the poor industry attitude,” said Mark Fratrik, a BIA vice president.
A divisive proposal to ease restrictions on cross- ownership of domain-name registries and registrars is up for debate this week at the ICANN meeting in Sydney. The plan -- included in a draft applicant guidebook for those seeking new top-level domains - would relax the strict registry- registrar separation imposed because of antitrust concerns arising from ties between .com registry VeriSign and its formerly wholly-owned registrar, Network Solutions. Major registries oppose the move, saying it will hurt the domain market and consumers. Registrars and smaller registries call the objections absurd.
A Minnesota town stands to lose $26 million in financing for a fiber network Friday without unusually quick action by the state Supreme Court, even though the municipality has beaten back a challenge in the lower courts. But Monticello, Minn., has a fallback plan for the project, which has been in the works since 2005: Applying for stimulus money from the NTIA. Recent rulings by state district and appeals courts have gone against a challenge by TDS to Monticello’s authority to build the network (CD June 11 p9).
End-to-end Internet-enabled devices are replacing stand- alone consumer electronic devices with configurations of customer experiences and providers, said speakers on a Fierce Wireless webinar Tuesday. With the help of stimulus money, embedded devices will gain significant adoption in health care and utility markets, in addition to consumer electronic markets, they said. The trend, which is changing the carriers’ business models, requires players to concentrate on certification and testing and simplify them, they said.
The FCC upheld a 2006 order letting Rupert Murdoch transfer control of Fox Television Stations to Fox Entertainment. The order was approved 3-2 by the commissioners Jan. 15 and released Friday evening. The FCC had approved the company’s request for a continued waiver of cross-ownership rules so it could own the New York Post, WWOR-TV Secaucus, N.J., and WNYW New York. The commission dismissed opposition from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the United Church of Christ, saying they had no standing because they hadn’t taken part in the original proceeding. It also dismissed an earlier Free Press opposition. The objection was overlooked because of “the informal nature of Free Press’s original objection and the fact that Free Press took no action to renew its objection when the transfer applications were filed and placed on public notice,” the new order said. “Because the grant of the waiver simply involves an internal corporate restructuring and does not create any new media combinations, it does not reduce the diversity of voices in the New York market.” The new order was accompanied by statements by Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps dissenting from the 2006 order but not put out with it. The dissenters said the older order didn’t include a thorough analysis of the cross-ownership waivers. The new order “does nothing to address these concerns,” Copps said. “It fails to even mention the fact that, with the acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, News Corp. operates two of the New York market’s most popular television stations and two of its most popular newspapers.” News Corp., Free Press and Rainbow/PUSH didn’t respond to messages seeking comment or declined to comment. The order “is a slap from the dead hand of the previous administration,” said Cheryl Leanza, policy director of the United Church of Christ, a petitioner. “It could not exemplify more the problems of the lack of transparency, and incremental erosion of media ownership rules that we have suffered from for many years.” Also late Friday, the FCC released eight other broadcast- related orders approved by the commissioners, including two from May 2008. The order “is a slap from the dead hand of the previous administration,” said Cheryl Leanza, policy director of the United Church of Christ, a petitioner. “It could not exemplify more the problems of the lack of transparency, and incremental erosion of media ownership rules that we have suffered from for many years.” People familiar with the orders said the lag between approval and publication came about partly because commissioners’ written statements were held up. The orders were “finalized and released in the backlog clearing-out process,” an FCC spokesman said.
Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., is seeking co-sponsors for draft legislation that would let pay-TV providers import broadcast TV signals from other markets, said a “Dear Colleague” letter we obtained. Ross introduced similar legislation (HR-2821) last Congress, but the bill didn’t advance, nor did it attract House Commerce Committee leaders as co-sponsors. Ross has modified language in the current draft to offer more protection for broadcasters. They fear the bill could harm ad revenue by allowing for the import of out-of-market stations. Ross’ office didn’t reply to a request for comment.
The FCC should further deregulate media ownership in light of competition that traditional outlets face from newer technologies, former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tuesday in one of his first public appearances since leaving the agency Jan. 20. He told a Quello Center symposium that the 2007 commission order (CD Dec 19 p1/07) approved by a 3-2 vote letting a company in some cases own a radio or TV station in the same city as a daily newspaper was a good start. Another panelist said media industry concentration isn’t very high, while an antitrust lawyer said newspapers shouldn’t get antitrust exemptions so they can compete with online news.
The court overseeing an appeal of FCC media ownership limits shouldn’t act on it because the agency is considering further changes to rules barring a company from owning a daily newspaper and radio or TV station in the same town in many cases, said the regulator. A Tuesday filing with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, overseeing Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, reiterated that the majority of commissioners don’t support the 2008 cross-ownership order, which eased the cross-ownership ban. “Because there may be further proceedings on remand, the Commission at this time supports keeping the current stay in place,” wrote Michele Ellison, acting FCC general counsel. The FCC has withdrawn a request for the court to move forward with the appeal, though Commissioner Robert McDowell didn’t agree (CD April 6 p8).