Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

[EJ]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Ex-FCC Commissioner Michael Copps on Media Consolidation, Broadband Expansion, Threats to Journalism

Michael Copps served two terms with the Federal Communications Commission. Now the staunch supporter of an open internet and opponent of media consolidation has retired. In a wide-ranging discussion, he examines the FCC’s key accomplishments and failures of the past decade. Copps argues broadband is "the most opportunity-creating technology perhaps in the history of humankind," and laments that the United States still lacks a national broadband infrastructure. He says the FCC has yet to address a lack of diversity in media ownership, noting that "owning a station has a lot to do with the kind of programing that’s going to be on that station." Regarding the future of journalism, Copps calls on the FCC to make access to quality journalism a "national priority," saying, "the future of our democracy hinges upon having an informed electorate."

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

By Michael Hiltzik

February 13, 2014, 11:18 a.m.

A remarkable amount of cynicism is being expressed in connection with Comcast's $45-billion offer for Time Warner Cable, a deal that will cement Comcast's position as the dominant cable operator in America.

The idea is that already the cable industry is a web of monopolies -- no neighborhood in the country has more than one cable operator to choose from. As distilled by Matt Yglesias on Slate, the merger "will in effect turn two medium-size regional monopolists into a big sprawling monopolist. But in terms of consumer-facing competition, you're going from zero to two times zero."

Just because that's a cynical take doesn't mean it's untrue. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts tried to finesse the issue Thursday by arguing that the deal "does not reduce competition in any market or in any way," thereby acknowledging the paramount flaw in the nationwide cable market and trying to depict it as a virtue.

But the ramifications of the cable monopoly go beyond mere access to channels on your set-top box. As we observed back in August, the more damaging consequence of the cable monopoly is in broadband Internet access, where the power of the cable firms' monopolies is magnified by the lack of practical alternatives to their Internet services.

Yes, you can buy DSL Internet connectivity from your local telephone company. In some places, you can buy fiber-optic connectivity, also from a phone company (Verizon or AT&T). But DSL service is typically much slower than cable service and is geographically constrained even within service districts. (The further you are from a DSL connection box, or "central office," the crummier your signal.)

Verizon has ended its rollout of its FiOS fiber service; if your neighborhood doesn't have it now, it's not getting it. AT&T says it's still rolling out its Uverse fiber service, but hardly at a light-speed pace.

The harvest of this domination of broadband connectivity by cable monopolies is easy to see: In general, the U.S. has the lowest connection speeds and the highest prices in the developed world. The New America Foundation serveyed the world in 2012 to determine what customers could get for the equivalent of $35 a month. In Hong Kong, they could download from the Internet at 500 megabits per second (a half a gigabit); in Tokyo 200 Mbps; in Seoul, Paris, Bucharest (Romania) and Berlin 100. In Los Angeles, 10. Los Angeles is a Time Warner Cable monopoly.

The constraint here isn't technological, but commercial. Our fat and secure cable monopolies simply don't feel competitive pressure to provide customers with the fastest speeds at reasonable, affordable rates. When they do get pressured, they respond.

For example, AT&T recently announced that it will be increasing speeds to 1 gigabit this year for customers in Austin, Texas. Why Austin? Because that's one of the communities where Google is rolling out its own Google Fiber 1-gig service. That shows how competition can get lazy incumbents off their rumps. But Google isn't intending to be a nationwide Internet provider -- its fiber service is rolling out only in Kansas City, Austin, and Provo, Utah, and may not reach beyond those communities.

The lesson is crystal clear, isn't it? We need more competition, not less; and allowing Comcast and Time Warner Cable to merge means much, much less

http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...#ixzz2umdqq6zb

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

on NPR

Jeffrey Eisenach

So the reality is that the marketplace has produced a tremendous miracle in the United States. Rashad is right that minorities and the less-advantaged people in the U.S. are more likely to use mobile broadband access. They benefit from the best mobile broadband networks in the world in the United States, and networks which have been largely unregulated from their inception. So the marketplace has produced tremendous results not just for the digital elite, if you will, but for all Americans. And the concern is that we now start messing with that magic innovation machine and messing it up.

Vs.

Susan Crawford

In Sweden, 90 percent of people in Stockholm are paying a quarter of what I'm paying in New York City for speeds that are 17 times as fast. We've got a problem in America.

Seems like if anything was gonna piss off a wide swath of Americans it would be TV prices. Michael Copps alludes to this.

[GRG55]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

on NPR

Jeffrey Eisenach

So the reality is that the marketplace has produced a tremendous miracle in the United States. Rashad is right that minorities and the less-advantaged people in the U.S. are more likely to use mobile broadband access. They benefit from the best mobile broadband networks in the world in the United States, and networks which have been largely unregulated from their inception. So the marketplace has produced tremendous results not just for the digital elite, if you will, but for all Americans. And the concern is that we now start messing with that magic innovation machine and messing it up.

Vs.

Susan Crawford

In Sweden, 90 percent of people in Stockholm are paying a quarter of what I'm paying in New York City for speeds that are 17 times as fast. We've got a problem in America.

Seems like if anything was gonna piss off a wide swath of Americans it would be TV prices. Michael Copps alludes to this.

So what is the government subsidy for all that infrastructure in Sweden compared to the USA, and how do the other tax rates to support those subsidies compare?

I always start laughing when people make such comparisons between nations...sort of like the "free" health care in Canada; it may or may not be "better" than what some other nation has, but it ain't "free".

Edit added: Just out of curiosity, does Stockholm have a competitive advantage over NYC because Swedes can post pictures on Facebook, Twitter or download a porn movie 17 times faster? Just askin'

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

I think the LA times article answers that. Monopoly...higher cost plus lower quality content at lower speeds. And it's the content that is more of a concern.

FM radio was obliterated in the US after the FCC dropped ownership rules in the mid 90's.

From the Copps interview...

"We forgot how we built America. We always, when we built infrastructure in the past, had the public sector and the private sector working together. The private sector is the lead economic engine pulling the locomotive, but heading toward a vision, heading toward a national goal, when we were building those railroads and becoming a continental power and building the interstate highway system. And then we got off on this tangent, beginning in the '80s, that the market would solve all of these problems. You didn't need government, you didn’t need a vision. So, we went from being first or second in broadband in 2001, when I joined the Federal Communications Commission, to now 15th, 20th, 24th."

"The problem is, there is so much less of that news, because of the developments in the private sector that we talked about with consolidation and because of the abdication of its public interest responsibilities by the FCC over the last 30 years in not insisting on some public interest guidelines and enough news."

[EJ]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

I think the LA times article answers that. Monopoly...higher cost plus lower quality content at lower speeds. And it's the content that is more of a concern.

FM radio was obliterated in the US after the FCC dropped ownership rules in the mid 90's.

From the Copps interview...

"We forgot how we built America. We always, when we built infrastructure in the past, had the public sector and the private sector working together. The private sector is the lead economic engine pulling the locomotive, but heading toward a vision, heading toward a national goal, when we were building those railroads and becoming a continental power and building the interstate highway system. And then we got off on this tangent, beginning in the '80s, that the market would solve all of these problems. You didn't need government, you didn’t need a vision. So, we went from being first or second in broadband in 2001, when I joined the Federal Communications Commission, to now 15th, 20th, 24th."

"The problem is, there is so much less of that news, because of the developments in the private sector that we talked about with consolidation and because of the abdication of its public interest responsibilities by the FCC over the last 30 years in not insisting on some public interest guidelines and enough news."

See if you can find a story on a Comcast channel where former FCC commissioner Copps is interviewed.

[jk]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

So what is the government subsidy for all that infrastructure in Sweden compared to the USA, and how do the other tax rates to support those subsidies compare?

I always start laughing when people make such comparisons between nations...sort of like the "free" health care in Canada; it may or may not be "better" than what some other nation has, but it ain't "free".

Edit added: Just out of curiosity, does Stockholm have a competitive advantage over NYC because Swedes can post pictures on Facebook, Twitter or download a porn movie 17 times faster? Just askin'

i would think the way to guage what nations are paying for healthcare is to look at both the inputs in terms of %of gdp or absolute dollars per capita, and the outputs in terms of health outcomes. of course the latter data are very contaminated by differences in culture, availability of mcdonalds and so on, but it would be a start.

meetings i've heard about, on the subject of financial matters at workplaces, say that the cost that's rising most rapidly is health insurance.

as to the value of faster internet connections, i don't think it would mean much to me, but who could have predicted the various changes that have been wrought by our society's connectivity to date? i don't think of social media as revolutionary, but i think it has subtly changed the world for younger generations. and amazon and netflix certainly are still revolutionizing retail and media. i recall that in the early days of the net, it was said that the only thing that made money online was porn. now there are other things that make money, while i gather porn has been democratized and now a product of the people worldover.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Copps is on the board of Free Press (see link below), whereas former FCC chairman Michael Powell is now President and CEO and top lobbyist of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

The average American watches 34 hours of television per week and pays about 90 bucks for cable. As users and content providers switch to internet TV, Comcast is doing an end run. If the merger goes through, Comcast, the largest ISP will double its number of broadband subscribers, thus giving it huge leverage with content providers, see Netflix agreement.

On the topic of a la carte TV viewing Powell says, “We’ve modeled this a million times. People assume that if ESPN were a la carte the price would somehow stay within some realm of reasonableness. But for ESPN to maintain its current revenue, it would have to cost hundreds of dollars. If you look at the MLB, NBA, NFL, they’re all a hundred or eighty dollars a year. And that won’t even get you local games.”

(God forbid athletes make less.)

Thus people who don’t watch sports are subsidizing people who do, just as non-TV watchers will be subsidizing watchers by paying the higher prices for basic broadband that Comcast has let known it will seek.

Having a public debate that ends in some consensus or vision is becoming rarer and rarer.

Copps was one of the ones that took the FCC on the road. Those raucous public debates were fun to watch on youtube, and as EJ points out, to hear anything about it you have to seek out alternative news sources like Democracy Now.

http://www.freepress.net/blog/2014/0...r-cable-merger

[jk]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

On the topic of a la carte TV viewing Powell says, “We’ve modeled this a million times. People assume that if ESPN were a la carte the price would somehow stay within some realm of reasonableness. But for ESPN to maintain its current revenue, it would have to cost hundreds of dollars. If you look at the MLB, NBA, NFL, they’re all a hundred or eighty dollars a year. And that won’t even get you local games.”

(God forbid athletes make less.)

the athletes make a pittance. who owns espn? it's disney's profits which are at stake.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Depends on how you define pittance.

ESPN..................11,000,000,000
MLB.....................4,000,000,000
Yankees (team)........400,000,000
Yankees (players).....200,000,000

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

See if you can find a story on a Comcast channel where former FCC commissioner Copps is interviewed.

I was listening to one of those “Is Snowden a hero? Is Wikileaks journalism?” discussions. The guy across from me said, “So the TPP trade agreement is 25 % of the global economy, slated for fast track by Obama. For 6 months ending January 31st, not a single mention of it on the 3 major networks and only one on PBS, but Wikileaks releases a draft.”

[dcarrigg]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

I was listening to one of those “Is Snowden a hero? Is Wikileaks journalism?” discussions. The guy across from me said, “So the TPP trade agreement is 25 % of the global economy, slated for fast track by Obama. For 6th months ending January 31st, not a single mention of it on the 3 major networks and only one on PBS, but Wikileaks releases a draft.”

That's not to mention TTIP on the other side of the pond. I'm not sure what exactly any trade parter gets in return from negotiating with the US. The US runs a consistent and large negative trade balance with every continent but South America. If you're in Asia or Europe, why bother negotiating at all? You're already getting the better end of the deal. The only advantage would be if potential growth clearly exceeds the GDP gains you're already getting in the (exports-imports) column. With tariffs already so low, there can't be much there.

I just don't get what other countries get in return. There's not much industrial base left to capture in the US. Services are still only a third of real goods and are hard to outsource. All things being equal, a consistent account surplus is better than a chronic account deficit - at least that seems to be the correlation for higher growth. Real median household income is down in the US - there's not much of a new consumer market to grow into outside luxury markets. Maybe you think one of your firms can snatch up existing declining market share? The status quo is good, particularly for Asia. Why go messing with it?

What am I missing here?

[Lasher]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

That's not to mention TTIP on the other side of the pond. I'm not sure what exactly any trade parter gets in return from negotiating with the US. The US runs a consistent and large negative trade balance with every continent but South America. If you're in Asia or Europe, why bother negotiating at all? You're already getting the better end of the deal. The only advantage would be if potential growth clearly exceeds the GDP gains you're already getting in the (exports-imports) column. With tariffs already so low, there can't be much there.

I just don't get what other countries get in return. There's not much industrial base left to capture in the US. Services are still only a third of real goods and are hard to outsource. All things being equal, a consistent account surplus is better than a chronic account deficit - at least that seems to be the correlation for higher growth. Real median household income is down in the US - there's not much of a new consumer market to grow into outside luxury markets. Maybe you think one of your firms can snatch up existing declining market share? The status quo is good, particularly for Asia. Why go messing with it?

What am I missing here?

I've been assuming it's in the interests of the corporations - they would much rather have business controlled arbitration than have to deal with national legal systems. Being able to go around national laws probably doesn't hurt either.

[jk]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

That's not to mention TTIP on the other side of the pond. I'm not sure what exactly any trade parter gets in return from negotiating with the US. The US runs a consistent and large negative trade balance with every continent but South America. If you're in Asia or Europe, why bother negotiating at all? You're already getting the better end of the deal. The only advantage would be if potential growth clearly exceeds the GDP gains you're already getting in the (exports-imports) column. With tariffs already so low, there can't be much there.

I just don't get what other countries get in return. There's not much industrial base left to capture in the US. Services are still only a third of real goods and are hard to outsource. All things being equal, a consistent account surplus is better than a chronic account deficit - at least that seems to be the correlation for higher growth. Real median household income is down in the US - there's not much of a new consumer market to grow into outside luxury markets. Maybe you think one of your firms can snatch up existing declining market share? The status quo is good, particularly for Asia. Why go messing with it?

What am I missing here?

tpp is the politically correct reincarnation of seato, anzus and throw in japan for good measure. it wouldn't look good to call it a military defense alliance, as those earlier structures were explicitly labeled. so call it a trade zone.

[don]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

tpp is the politically correct reincarnation of seato, anzus and throw in japan for good measure. it wouldn't look good to call it a military defense alliance, as those earlier structures were explicitly labeled. so call it a trade zone.

Economics and war having little in common . . . .