Archive | October, 2003

DirecTV – News Corp Deal Delayed by FCC

By Paul on October 14, 2003 in media ownership & consolidation

On Friday the FCC announced that they were delaying their review of the proposed acquisition of direct-satellite TV provider DirecTV by Rupert Murdoch’s omnivorous News Corp. Reportedly, Ken Feree, FCC media bureau chief, said the agency will be requesting more documentation and will be consulting further with the Justice Dept’s antitrust division.

One has to wonder if the delay is at all due to the massive amounts of flak the FCC received over its ham-fisted handling of the media ownership rules review. Perhaps Feree is feeling a little shell-shocked and wants to make sure that the Justice Dept. will back him up if he recommends to approve the merger.

On top of News Corp’s big TV network holdings — like FOX, FOXNews, FX — local TV stations, and movie studio, News Corp is already a big player in European and East Asian direct-broadcast satellite TV. Adding DirecTV to his stable would give Murdoch a massively global satellite TV presence with the ability to significantly leverage the content News Corp controls to undercut and squeeze out competitors.

Last year Echostar, which owns competitor Dish Network, was set to buy DirecTV, but the deal got nixed by both the FCC and the Justice Dept., which rightfully feared the US satellite TV duopoly shrinking into a monopoly.

GE division Hughes has been trying to dump DirecTV for a while now, even though DirecTV has been showing signs of growth. Unfortunately, any and all potential buyers must be well-heeled players in the communcations industry, meaning that any deal will probably result in some kind of industry concentration.

Limbaugh Admits He’s a Drug Addict

By Paul on October 10, 2003 in examining the mainstream

… but doesn’t cop to the charge that he’s been obtaining thousands of pills illegally. So, what’s the deal? If he isn’t getting his pills on the black market, is his doctor just too willing to hand out scrips, does he have a bevy of doctors ready to supply his needs, or is he taking off for Mexico when he needs a fix?

However, it seems that he’s speaking an unusual amount of truth, nonetheless. According to CNN he told listeners:

… he is “no role model.”

“I refuse to let anyone think I am doing something great here, when there are people you never hear about, who face long odds and never resort to such escapes. They are the role models,” he said.

Damn, I wish I was listening to the show just then. That’s a quote that needs to be busted out a year from now when he’s back on his high horse:
“I’m no role model… I refuse to let anything think I am doing something great here…” Put that to a techno beat and you can dance to it.

The NAB Radio Show Scene in Philly

By Paul on October 9, 2003 in Uncategorized

Last week the National Association of Broadcasters held its annual Radio Show convention in Philadephia, home to the Prometheus Radio Project. Jesse Walker from Reason magazine has written a nice report on the proceedings, emphasizing some of the emerging conflicts both inside and outside the NAB.

By Jesse’s account (which is the only non-industry one I’ve read), this year’s Radio Show wasn’t as eventful as last year’s one in Seattle, which was confronted by the Reclaim the Media conference and the mircopower mosquito fleet. He says that this year NAB officials seemed a little worried about some reporters who came in on press passes and were working for Prometheus, since last year some Prometheus folks snuck in and set up shop as “Cheap Channel.”

Apparently the Prometheus folks were well behaved, though inquisitive. But according to Jesse, the most inquisitive and challenging reporter came from within the industry — read his account for more.

Goodbye Emusic, and Thanks for All the MP3s — Emusic Gets Acquired, Out Go the Old Rules, Out Go the Subscribers, Too

By Paul on October 9, 2003 in intellectual property

I’ve been a subscriber to the Emusic mp3 download service on and off for about 2 or so years. I was originally turned on to the service due to a free trial I got with the purchase of a CD burner. I stayed on because Emusic was the most rational of the music download services — (mostly) unlimited mp3 downloads for a monthly fee, with no DRM and the right to burn all the CDs you want (for your personal use).

That all came to a screeching halt today when Emusic subscribers received an e-mail from the company announcing that it had been acquired by “Dimensional Associates LLC (“Dimensional”), a private equity group focused on
providing innovative online music distribution services. ” The e-mail also informs subscribers that the terms of service are changing drastically:

“Unless you visit the link below:
http://help.emusic.com/cu/index.cgi?cmd=step2&st=1&categoryID=1198
and notify us of your intention to cancel your subscription
prior to November 8, 2003, your EMusic subscription will
convert into Emusic Plus. Under EMusic Plus, you will be
billed $14.99 per month for access to the service with no
minimum monthly commitment, but you will be limited to no
more than 65 downloads during your monthly billing cycle. “

(Here’s a FAQ from Emusic that explains the change).

From (virtually) unlimited mp3s to 65 a month? That’s a big change. At 14.99 a month that makes mp3s costs about 23 cents each, which is cheaper than iTunes 99 cent downloads.

But Emusic is not iTunes. First of all, Emusic has always been focused on small and independent labels, and as such is virtually devoid of Top 40 hits or superstar artists. Whereas one of iTunes strengths is its hoard of popular artists and hit songs.

In my opinion one of Emusic’s strengths — aside from cheap mp3s — was the exposure it gave to indie artists, making their music much more accessible, and giving people the ability to try it out in an unambiguously legal way, which (I presume) also compensated them.

Emusic had been an independent company, which was then acquired by Universal/Vivendi back in 2001, which worried subscribers then that the terms of service would change. Although there had been a slow encroachment of restrictions in the last year or so — limiting how many mp3s you could queue up at once, sending warning e-mails to people downloading “too many” mp3s in a month — by and large the service remained the same as when I first signed up.

Needless to say, I will be cancelling my current subscription before Nov. 8 (though I’ll probably download a ton before that). My guess is that most Emusic subscribers will be following suit. Which makes me wonder how Emusic’s new master expect to make any money with all their subscribers gone.

A quick search of the web, business indices and Lexis-Nexis turns up no information about Dimensional Associates LLC (probably because they are an LLC), so figuring out who they are and their motive is still difficult.

Emusic’s subscriber message boards are closed down today, too. Emusic subscribers tend to be an outspoken lot, so I’m sure it’s a move intended to quiet the anticipated firestorm by not giving subscribers a common forum to vent their frustrations.

Now, some of you might be thinking, “23 cents an mp3 seems pretty reasonable to me, why all the bitching from you spoiled brats?”

And, compared to iTunes’ 99 cents, I guess it does seem pretty reasonable, but compared to downloading entirely for free on Kazaa or other P2P services, it’s not such a good deal, especially since you can’t download unlimited quantities at that price, just 65 a month — then you’re done.

In the bigger picture, this is another example of the music industry shooting itself in the foot over simple greed. I don’t know the financials of Emusic, and I’m sure the selloff is due to the impending merger of NBC and Universal/Vivendi, but from a user’s standpoint it was a very successful service that I was glad to pay money for and never felt ripped off from, even though sometimes mp3s sounded like shit, albums were mislabeled or otherwise screwed up. You’ll tolerate those kind of inconveniences when you’re getting a good deal. I sure as hell wouldn’t tolerate them if I’m limited to just 65 downloads a month.

Will all these former Emusic subscribers now be flocking to other d/l services like iTunes and Rhapsody? I think not, since they won’t have the artists and songs that Emusic specialized in. No, I think they’ll be flocking back to Kazaa, and more secure alternatives, and to their public libraries’ and friend’s collections, where they can borrow and burn with (relative) impunity.

Good bye Emusic.

Another Bonk for Mikey Powell

By Paul on October 8, 2003 in telecomm

On Monday Powell’s FCC was delivered another legal blow by the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against that the Commission’s “deregulation” of cable modems. Earlier this year the FCC decided to classify cable modems as different than other Internet telecomm, like telephone-based DSL, thus removing the requirement that cable companies open up access to their lines just like local telcos are required to do. The court said that the Commission must continue to cable modem offerings as a telecommunications service, subjecting it to the same regulations governing DSL service provided by telcos.

The decision means that an outside ISP, like Earthlink, would be permitted to lease access to cable modem lines to offer its Internet service over cable modems, in addition to DSL and phone modems. It also means that cable modem customers, who typically only have one provider to choose from, might have a range of choices for this type of Internet service.

It’s amazing how in the name of promoting diversity and competition, Powell manages to do just the opposite, fortifying the power of incumbent monopolies.

But it’s also good to see him get bonked for such duplicitous bullshit.

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Archive | October, 2003