Tag: Robert McDowell

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Who’s Behind the Push for Net Neutrality?

If “net neutrality” were a life form, it would be classified as a simple organism.  And that lack of complexity, as it happens, is its very appeal to certain “progressives,” garden-variety regulators, and large Internet companies, who see in government regulation of the Internet opportunities to cement and extend their franchises.

The brave and gifted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Ajit Pai, and former commissioner Robert McDowell, are doing all they can to point out the many already identifiable problems, as well as potential pitfalls, that line the path of this regulatory nightmare.  Among those problems are higher user fees to consumers, a slowdown in the rate of investment in broadband infrastructure, regulatory creep, and the wrong kind of example to set before foreign dictators and tyrants.

Alas, none of this is likely to deter the three Democratic FCC commissioners, as instructed by the White House, from passing this regulation.

What has not been much discussed in all of this is the role in the promotion of net neutrality played by some of the actors: activist groups like Free Press, Public Knowledge, and Media Matters; huge grant-giving foundations like the Ford, Soros, and Knight foundations; and companies like Google.   >>Read More

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Net Neutrality Decision: A Welcome Development

Tuesday’s decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, striking down the FCC’s so-called “net neutrality” regulations, is a welcome development.  As noted by many, these regulations amount to a solution in search of a problem, with the only lasting and real-world effects being the creation of the precedent of governmental oversight of the previously unregulated Internet.

Moreover, and as argued in this space a little over a year ago, there is an international dimension to net neutrality, as the existence of these regulations in the U.S.A. advances the agendas of countries like Russia and China in regulating the Internet through the International Telecommunication Union.

Writing today in the Wall Street Journal, former FCC commissioner Robert McDowell makes a convincing case that, for this reason too, the FCC should abandon any further attempts to promote net neutrality.

For the new FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, this development threatens the very real prospect of becoming his signature activity for the duration of his term.  This, because if, at the urging of Internet companies like Google, plus the Obama Administration, Wheeler is importuned to try to resurrect the net neutrality rules, he basically has but two options.  One is to appeal the Circuit Court’s decision, and the other is to attempt to reclassify broadband provision as a “telecommunications service,” rather than an “information service,” something that would allow the imposition of net neutrality regs (and who knows what else) by the same authority that the FCC regulates telephone service.

But if Wheeler goes the reclassification route, it will set off congressional fireworks of a sort that will land him and the FCC in a protracted war with telecom companies, and Republican legislators, without any guarantee of success.

Still, one can only imagine the angst among the net neutrality crowd following yesterday’s decision. As reported in The Hill by Kate Tummarello, Internet companies have “pushed net neutrality with an almost religious fervor.”  Indeed, one of the most ardent pushers, the ludicrous organization called Free Press, coined the sophomoric slogan: “Net neutrality, the First Amendment of the Internet.”

So it’s not at all clear what the FCC’s next step will be, but suffice to say that the Circuit Court’s decision is going to make for some very interesting times there … and elsewhere.

                                               

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

 

Posted on By Richard T. Kaplar

Dueling Philosophies on Minority Ownership

What happens when you invite the FCC’s two veteran commissioners to speak about the media at a Rainbow PUSH Coalition symposium?  When one of the commissioners is Michael Copps, and the other is Robert McDowell, you get two very different views of where things stand and how they could be improved, as we saw on Nov. 20.

Copps, a Democrat, is a long-time foe of large media companies.  So he uses phrases like “excessive media consolidation,” “big media run awry,” “tsunami of consolidation,” and the punchline: “Minorities have suffered greatly because of consolidation.”  

One of his proposals to “put some justice back into our ownership policies” would involve a “public interest licensing system for broadcasters.”  Copps would like the Commission to “go back to having some guidelines to make sure stations are consulting with their audiences on what kinds of programming people would like.”  But wait, I think we already have such a system.  It’s called “ratings.”

Copps also favors something called a “full file review,” which would have the Commission award certain broadcast licenses by considering an applicant’s “experiences in overcoming disadvantages,” including race and gender discrimination.  (This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to be filed, but that’s another story.)  In other words, Copps views the FCC as the referee in a fight between “big media” and the little guy, where the solution is a tight rein on ownership regulations.
    
Robert McDowell sees things differently.  For minorities to get ahead in broadcasting and other media, Republican McDowell is quite clear about what is needed: access to capital.  “An important priority for me in my three-and-a-half years on the Commission has been to help create a competitive environment that allows minority entrepreneurs and other new entrants a real opportunity to build viable communications businesses,” he told the Rainbow PUSH group.
    
McDowell noted that he enthusiastically supported the Commission’s 2007 Diversity Order, which contained nine measures to help small entrepreneurs acquire capital or use their financial resources more efficiently.  He has also called for a tax certificate program to help disadvantaged businesses.  
    
At the same time, McDowell is keenly aware of the unintended and hurtful consequences of regulations (of the sort favored by Copps) aimed at helping small, local media owners  – like a “localism” proposal to reinstate a 20-year-old rule requiring stations to be manned throughout their broadcast day (technology notwithstanding), or onerous “enhanced disclosure” requirements so complex that they could require the hiring of additional employees.   
    
In short: On the question of disadvantaged minorities, Copps sees the culprit as large media companies.  From his perspective, the FCC must be a strict regulator of media ownership.  McDowell sees the culprit as the lack of access to capital.  He would envision the FCC as a facilitator, creating policies to generate financial opportunities for entrepreneurs.
    
Whose view is more accurate and whose solution is more likely to succeed?  On both counts, my money is on McDowell.   

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Chairman Genachowski’s Modest Proposal re Net Neutrality

FCC Chairman Genachowski’s proposal to extend and codify the FCC’s “Internet principles,” delivered in a speech just yesterday, has already attracted a substantial amount of commentary.  There is no doubt that his proposed rulemaking will be the subject of much literature issuing from The Media Institute proper, and in this space as well, in days to come.

For now, however, just a few observations, in no particular order of importance: First, for those of us who take a perverse delight in the use and abuse of language in policymaking circles, there is much that is droll in the way that industry players have responded.  Like a man about to be executed, seizing on the offer of a last cigarette as a chance to spin or delay the inevitable, many of the broadband access providers’ comments seek to glom onto some part of the chairman’s proposal as will allow them to buy time.

Thus have several of the companies, and their associations, complimented the chairman for promising an "open proceeding" or some such.  Not to be smug, if we at The Media Institute were lobbyists we too would probably say such things.  Since, however, we are not, we can speak more plainly.

The reason this proposal has come into being, and will undoubtedly be passed in some form, is not because of some new threat (or old threat, for that matter) to the “free and open” Internet.  Rather like blaming, as someone once said, the Johnstown Flood on a leaky toilet in Altoona, the record of “abuse” by broadband providers is so inconsequential it doesn’t begin to explain the need for such an intrusion into the marketplace.

No, the reason this proposal is at hand is because of something more prosaic.  It is, would you believe, because of politics.  It is because there are now three Democrats on the Commission and only two Republicans.  (Some would argue that even during Kevin Martin’s reign there were three Democrats, but that’s another matter entirely.)

The best evidence that this is the case can be seen in comments from inside the FCC itself, specifically those of the Republican commissioners, McDowell and Baker.  Not only do they express skepticism about the wisdom of the proposed rulemaking, they openly question whether “factual and legal conclusions may have been drawn before the process has begun.”

Back in the day, at the dawn of the Internet, the concern was that the FCC not become the Federal Computer Commission.  That was then and this is now, but the concern that animated that sentiment survives.  It is that the government is a poor substitute for the marketplace in allocating resources.

Because Chairman Genachowski knows that the strongest criticism of his proposal is that it will frustrate investment and innovation in the broadband space, he looks to preempt the argument by denying it.  His plan, he says, amounts only to “rules of the road” that will actually stimulate investment and innovation.

Well, time will tell but the view from here is much less rosy.  The greater likelihood is that: (1) There will be less private sector investment than would otherwise be the case; (2) that the investments that are made will come from tech firms that employ a peculiarly large number of lobbyists; and (3) that when the dust settles, the only lasting impact will be in the legal precedent established by putting the camel’s nose of government under this particular tent.