Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Labor's Messy Health Care Bargain
The Washington Post
The Net roots is up in arms about the Senate's version of health-care reform, with many rooters demanding it be voted down. The liberal establishmentarians lament the compromises they were compelled to accept but support the bill's passage. In between the two, indignant and stuck, is organized labor.
"There's an excise tax on policies, but there's no public option to hold down the cost of those policies," says Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers. "There's no Medicare buy-in, no pay-or-play mandate for employers. There's no Canadian reimportation to hold down drug costs, on the grounds of 'safety.' No one gets sick from Canadian reimported drugs," adds Gerard, who is Canadian. "I know a guy who got sick from a Chinese-made ingredient in an American drug, but there's no restriction on Chinese drug imports."
Gerard is hardly alone in his criticisms. Labor believes, rightly, that the cost controls in the Senate bill come chiefly from insurance policy holders (among them, labor's members), rather than from insurance and drug companies. Both the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union have condemned these provisions, while hailing the bill's epochal creation of affordable health insurance for 30 million Americans. They're careful, too, to exempt President Obama from their criticisms.
"I'm not blaming the president," says Gerard. "He wants to believe people will do the right thing."
The unions have few illusions that the public option will be restored in the House-Senate conference committee, but they are working to promote the chief funding mechanism in the House bill (a tax hike on individuals with incomes over $500,000 and couples with incomes over $1 million) over that in the Senate bill (a tax that, to start, will fall on health insurance policies that cost more than $23,000 for a family of four).
With medical costs unchecked by a public option and drug reimportation, they fear that the value of their members' policies will rise above the threshold by the middle of the next decade.
There's a political problem as well. During the fall of 2008, the unions spent millions persuading older working-class whites to vote their pocketbooks instead of their prejudices in such key swing states as Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Just about the only issue that moved these voters from John McCain's column to Barack Obama's, they discovered, was that McCain supported taxing their members' health insurance and Obama didn't. "We negotiate and fight hard for our health-care benefits," said one widely distributed piece of AFL-CIO literature. "Now, Republican John McCain wants to tax them."
"This was our mantra," says Gerard. "Obama was polling better with our active members than with our retirees, which is very unusual, until we focused on McCain's plan to tax benefits. Our retirees are in expensive plans; that kind of tax would be devastating to them."
Politically, in fact, the tax could set in motion the kind of dynamic that undermined many Great Society anti-poverty programs: taxing the working class to provide benefits to the poor (or, in this case, the uninsured). Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan smashed the Democrats' New Deal coalition by fanning the racial and class tensions endemic to such programs. Does anyone believe that today's Republicans will think better of mounting such attacks?
In theory, the House-Senate conference committee should be able to split the difference on funding by raising the Senate's threshold on taxing insurance policies and combining it with a scaled-back version of the House's millionaire tax. If the conference does that, raises the subsidies for people buying policies on the exchanges and extends Medicaid to more poor families, liberals and labor will likely have gotten all they can plausibly hope for, given the constraints that the Nelsons, Liebermans and Republicans have imposed on the bill.
Labor is boiling mad about those constraints, but unlike some of the Net-rooters, they can't and won't call down curses on the Senate Democrats -- yet. "We've played an inside game," says one of Gerard's fellow union presidents. "We've delivered our criticisms privately." Labor's leaders still hope a scaled-back version of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) -- the bill that would restore unions' ability to organize private-sector workers -- will pass the Senate next year.
They've seen the White House and congressional Democrats move their way on jobs legislation, and they welcomed last week's unveiling of a $5 billion tax credit to bolster green manufacturing, a long-overdue step toward rebooting manufacturing in America.
But it will take more job creation and the enactment of EFCA to motivate unions to go all out in the 2010 elections. Anything short of that, and their anger will take a toll on the Democrats' electoral prospects.
meyersonh@washpost.com
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Health Interests Spend $600 Million to Sway Congress
by Jonathan D. Salant and Alex Nussbaum
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20091223/pl_bloomberg/aflbcmedobbk
(Bloomberg) -- More than $600 million has been spent so far this year trying to influence U.S. lawmakers working to overhaul the health-care system, reports show.
The health industry spent $396 million through Sept. 30, more than any other industry and up 9 percent over the same period a year ago, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.
Those numbers don’t include spending on lobbying by insurers such as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and its member companies, which spent $16.7 million in the first nine months of 2009, compared with $16.2 million in all of 2008.
“The health-care industry has a full-court press on members of Congress,” said Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat.
Another $200 million has been spent on television advertising for and against overhauling health care, according to TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, an Arlington, Virginia-based company that tracks political advertising.
The U.S. House passed health-care legislation last month. The Senate has overcome procedural hurdles to pave the way for approval of its version by Dec. 24.
Working With Lawmakers
“The Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies represent 100 million people across the country in every zip code and have 80 years of experience in health care,” said Brett Lieberman, a spokesman for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association in Washington. “We’ve been working with members of Congress sharing that experience.”
The Senate health legislation exempts some nonprofit health plans from a $70 billion tax on the insurance industry, including some Blue Cross plans in Alabama, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Health-industry shares have risen 18 percent this year, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Health-Care Index. Tenet Healthcare Corp., the Dallas-based hospital chain, led the index with an almost fivefold gain, followed by Intuitive Surgical Inc. of Sunnyvale, California, a maker of robotic surgical systems, which has more than doubled.
The S&P index of six managed-care insurers has risen 34 percent this year. Cigna Corp. of Philadelphia, up 120 percent, and Coventry Health Care Inc. of Bethesda, Maryland, up 69 percent, have led the advance. The index has jumped 12 percent since Dec. 9, when Senate Democrats dropped a proposal for a government-run plan to compete with private insurers.
Drugmaker Gains
Drug companies have gained 16 percent this year, as measured by the by S&P Pharmaceutical Index. New York-based Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drugmaker, rose 5.5 percent.
The Senate on Dec. 15 rejected an amendment to allow imports of cheaper drugs from Canada, a provision opposed by the pharmaceutical industry. Drugmakers earlier agreed to contribute $80 billion over 10 years in return for blocking other profit- endangering proposals.
Pfizer’s trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, spent $19.9 million through September. That’s the third-highest amount behind the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp., and almost as much as the $20.2 million the group spent in 2008.
Lobbyists
There are 3,300 lobbyists registered to lobby on health care, Senate records show, six for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate. More than 1,400 of those lobbying on health care formerly worked for Congress, the White House or federal agencies, including 55 former lawmakers.
“This is the way the political system works,” said Representative Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat. “People curry favor in all kinds of different ways.”
Many of those lobbyists visited the White House to meet with President Barack Obama and top administration officials, according to visitor logs. Health-care visitors included Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group for private insurers; Phrma President Billy Tauzin, a former U.S. representative; and Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, a coalition of labor and advocacy groups such as the AFL-CIO.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant@bloomberg.net ; Alex Nussbaum in New York anussbaum1@bloomberg.net .
Analyst Lowers TV Revenue Expectations
BIA/Kelsey VP Mark Fratrik has knocked another billion off his final forecast for 2009 TV station revenues, now put at $15.6 billion. He sees things getting a little better going forward, but only a little.That $15.6 billion forecast for over-the-air revenues is down 22.4% from $2008. 
Michael Angelakis, Comcast's chief financial officer, also signed a contract extension, the filing said. As part of his agreement, extending three years, Mr. Angelakis will receive signing bonuses of $9 million in cash and stock.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Sam Zell Must Face Tribune Employee Pension Plan Suit
By Andrew M. Harrishttp://www.bloomberg.com/
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Sam Zell, the real estate investor who took the Chicago-based Tribune Co. private in an $8.3 billion stock buyback two years ago, must face an employee lawsuit claiming he knowingly violated federal pension laws.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer in Chicago rejected Zell’s request to dismiss the suit filed last year. The employees accuse Zell of working with board members and others who allegedly breached their fiduciary duty to the workers.
The judge, in a ruling posted yesterday on the court’s Web site, said that Zell helped engineer the transaction that left Tribune with almost $13 billion in debt even if he wasn’t responsible to the Employee Stock Ownership Plan that privatized the newspaper and broadcasting company.
The company, owner of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times newspapers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. The employee stock ownership plan that acquired the shares in the buyback is a federally protected pension plan.
As many as 10,000 workers may have lost money as a result of how the shareholder buyout was executed, said Daniel Feinberg, an attorney for the employees in Oakland, California. While only six workers are named as plaintiffs in the suit, he said he will seek class-action certification to sue on behalf of other employees.
“This deal was misguided from the very beginning,” Feinberg said today in a phone interview. “It was obvious from the start that this deal had a huge risk of insolvency because of the amount of debt.”
Pallmeyer dismissed claims against several Tribune board members, ruling they had delegated their fiduciary duty to Greatbanc Trust Co. The judge said in her ruling that Greatbanc, the trustee for the employee plan, must face the lawsuit.
Terry Holt, a spokeswoman for Zell, declined to comment.
Two lawyers for the Tribune and other defendants, David Bradford and Craig Martin, were said by their office to be travelling today and didn’t immediately respond to e-mail messages seeking comment.
The case is Neil v. Zell, 08cv6833, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).
Sam Zell Sued By Tribune Writers
By Bob Norman
The lawsuit contends that, since the inception of the deal, it appears that Zell and his accessories have planned to enrich themselves, tax-free, by perverting laws passed by Congress intended to benefit rank and file American workers.
The employee-owners of Tribune Company had everything, including their retirement plans, at great risk and little to gain in this deal, while Zell had everything to gain and little at risk.
Among the deal's outrages outlined in the complaint: Zell set up a mechanism to buy 40% of the company – valued at more than $8 billion at the time the ESOP took ownership – for as little as $500 million. It’s a classic grift, played out under the cover of legal technicalities. The real losers in this deal, however, are Americans who rely on news and information collected and disseminated by the respected Tribune news organizations.
In the 1970s and later in the 1980s when Senators Bob Dole (R-Kansas), Russell Long (D-Louisiana) and others in Congress spearheaded efforts to promote ESOPs with generous tax benefits, the intent was to empower employees eager to own and manage the companies where they work.
When it comes to Tribune Company’s ESOP, nothing could be further from the truth.
Employees were never asked if they wanted to own Tribune Company.
They had no opportunity to question the wisdom of saddling a media company with $13 billion in debt at a time when the industry faces serious challenges.
Even though they are nominally the owners, they have no voice on the company’s board and no say in its management.
When Zell hung “You own this place now” banners at Tribune newspaper and TV stations across the country, employees could not know the high price they would pay for this “privilege.”
According to the complaint, Zell de-funded employees retirement packages, raided the employee pension fund for more than $400 million, and eliminated more than a thousand Tribune Co. jobs.
Meanwhile, Zell and his band of publishing rookies were wrecking the company’s marquee properties – including the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, and the Chicago Tribune – alienating readers by launching aimless redesigns while dramatically cutting coverage. Seemingly ignorant of journalistic ethics, they, for instance, turned control of the Los Angeles Times Magazine over to the advertising staff, with no indication to the reader that this product is now a “pay-to-play” advertorial. All the while, revenues have continued to decline.
Despite a slowing economy, a precipitous drop in ad revenue in the real estate, classified, and automotive sectors along with the de-monetizing of content put on the web and the spiraling cost of newsprint – the Tribune Company continued to be profitable throughout this decade. Without the staggering debt load from the Zell deal, Tribune's newspapers and TV stations would be solidly profitable today – without eviscerating news gathering operations.
For more information contact:
Attorney for the Plaintiffs Plaintiffs’ spokesmen:
Joseph W. Cotchett, Dan Neil, and Philip L. Gregory
(818) 508-1000
Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy
San Francisco Airport Office Center
840 Malcolm Road, Suite 200
Burlingame, CA 94010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
AFL-CIO President Trumka Answers Questions From Members
Trumka Answers Your Questions, Lays Out Economic Vision
by Seth Michaels, Dec 16, 2009
In a great live Web discussion yesterday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka answered a wide range of questions on the nation’s economic crisis, setting out a vision for short-term job creation and long-term progress toward a fairer economy.
Trumka touched on trade, green jobs, the challenges facing young and older workers, unity in the labor movement and more in an hour-long conversation. More than 6,700 union members and activists took part by submitting and voting on more than 150 questions.
The AFL-CIO has offered a five-point plan to put people to work and turn around the economy. We can and must create jobs now and spur consumer demand, Trumka said in explaining the plan.
Our current economic crisis is just a symptom of larger long-term weakness and inequality in our economy, Trumka said, and good jobs are the solution:
Remember, wages have been stagnant for years, so people had to start borrowing…we got to the point where people just couldn’t borrow any more and the economy just sort of collapsed at that point…we reached the limit of that. Debt can’t continue to be the engine that fuels the economy.
When we talk about stimulating or rebuilding the economy, Trumka asks, we need to ask: “To what end?”
If we’re just rebuilding the old broken economy—with an under-regulated financial sector taking precedence over the real economy—then we haven’t really gotten anywhere. We need an economy where productivity is rewarded and prosperity is fairly shared.
In particular, Trumka says that to ensure the economy is really working in the long term, we need to give workers the ability to bargain for a fair share. The freedom to bargain means we won’t just create jobs, we’ll create good jobs. That means passing the Employee Free Choice Act and giving workers the freedom to form a union—and it means training more organizers to help workers across the country form a union and get a fair contract. That will give people the wages and the economic security they need to support the economy, provide for their families and get engaged in their communities.
You can watch more of this great conversation here.
More questions answered by AFL-CIO President Trumka here at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AFLCIONow#p/u
Monday, December 14, 2009
American cable Asso. Attacks TV LMAs
ACA believes the FCC should now determine whether LMAs are skirting national policy intended to promote local broadcast competition," ACA President and CEO Matthew M. Polka said. "LMAs set the price for retransmission consent for one broadcaster and its direct horizontal competitor, leading to higher retransmission consent costs for consumers."
ACA says that the rules generally prohibit owning two or more television stations in a market to protect consumers and advertisers from anticompetitive behavior, and that LMAs are used to get around the prohibition.
"We hope the FCC takes this opportunity to fix a broken retransmission consent process that permits a broadcaster like Sinclair to pull its signals from cable systems while a retransmission consent grievance is being reviewed by the FCC, inflicting harm on consumers who expect uninterrupted access to local news, weather and time-sensitive information such as school closings, traffic delays and missing-child alerts," Polka said.
Polka concluded, "ACA has long advocated for retransmission consent reform because of the vulnerability of ACA members and their customers in retransmission consent negotiations due to a lack of market power. As the FCC noted when News Corp. took effective control of DirecTV, small and medium-sized cable operators are particularly vulnerable to the withdrawal of `must have' programming."
RBR-TVBR
http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/index.1.html
Rainbow pushes anti-Sinclair proceedings![]()
The Rainbow PUSH coalition has been on Sinclair Broadcast Group’s case since 1998, saying that its operation of stations licensed to other companies constituted “the largest broadcast ownership fraud scheme in history.”
Now it is going to bat for cable operator Mediacom in its retrans battle with Sinclair.David Honig put on his attorney’s hat to represent Rainbow in its latest filing, apart from his leadership role with the Minority Media and Telecommunications Act.
Honig noted that numerous challenges to Sinclair license renewals, and to relationships with stations in certain markets creating de facto duopolies, have gone unaddressed by the FCC.
He cited evidence the Rainbow believes warrants a full FCC investigation into Sinclair’s fitness to be a licensee.Rainbow contends that Sinclair has de facto control over Cunningham Broadcasting Stations, and that it has “brazenly violated basic broadcast disclosure requirements and federal campaign report spending rules” in a variety of ways.
And that’s where Mediacom comes in: “Mediacom’s recent retransmission complaint against Sinclair again raises the issues of Sinclair’s character, fair dealing, and questionable control over broadcast television stations. As Mediacom’s complaint illustrates, Sinclair has refused to engage in good faith negotiations and has made anticompetitive demands that violate the Commission’s policies favoring competition.
Specifically, Sinclair has used its bottleneck control over multiple stations in a market as a bargaining chip.”Mediacom notes that in many markets, Sinclair controls two of the top four stations, a combination that would have been prohibited had Michael Powell’s relaxation of television duopoly rules survived the Prometheus case after Powell’s 2003 dereg attempt.
A pdf file of the document can be read at .http://www.rbr.com/files.php?force&file=pdfs/rainbowsinc.pdf
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Ask AFL-CIO President Trumka About the Jobs Crisis
Hi, All:Wanted to let you know that today we are launching a new online event focusing on jobs, with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Using online moderation tools, union leaders and working familyactivists across the country can submit questions for President Trumka about the jobs crisis and vote on questions already submitted.
President Trumka will answer the top-rated questions in a live online video discussion on Tuesday, Dec. 15, at 4 p.m. EST.
Please save that date.Visit http://www.aflcio.org/open to submit a question and vote on the questions.
* Sign in here to participate if you have a Google account: http://bit.ly/7uk5gZ
* If you don’t have a Google account, create one here: http://bit.ly/7Y3LfN
* More on the AFL-CIO’s five-point jobs plan here: http://www.aflcio.org/createjobs.
Please spread the word!
Cheers,
Tula Connell
AFL-CIO Managing Editor
815 16th St.,
N.W.Washington, DC 20006
http://www.aflcio.org/
Follow the AFL-CIO atFacebook: www.facebook.com/AFL-CIO/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AFLCIO
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/AFLCIONow
__________________________
From Bob Daraio:
I sent in the following four questions for the "Ask President Trumka About the Jobs Crisis" program:
1) "Will you support legislation to curb out-sourcing by requiring subcontractors of work formerly performed by employees of businesses with collective bargaining agreements to have a union contract?"
2) "Will you support legislation that requires employers with union contracts to bring their collective bargaining agreement with them when they move their facility to any other city or State?"
3) "Will you support an AFL-CIO position that no collective bargaining agreement should continue to have a "No strike clause" or at least require contract language requiring all union members to honor any and all sanctioned picket lines?"
4) " Will you fight for legislation to eliminate the "While you can't be fired for striking, you can be permanently replaced" rule?
I'd be interested in Brother Trumka's position on these questions. What do you think?
Thank you to the AFL-CIO for providing the opportunity for the rank and file to ask our AFL-CIO leadership questions and for allowing our input into policy decisions at the highest levels in organized labor. Communication will make us stronger.
Fraternally,
Bob D
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Stations Shift to Talent-Run Teleprompting
http://www.tvweek.com
Stations following the credo of doing more with less are now moving toward talent-run teleprompters as a cost-cutting measure, either reassigning prompter operators to other news production tasks or cutting them completely.
As with any change or cutback in the news business, the move has been met in some quarters with resistance and controversy — especially in major markets, where news anchors have historically had large teams of production professionals taking care of the technical aspects of the newscasts.
As one unidentified newsroom employee put it in a recent Washington Post article about local Fox station WTTG-TV implementing anchor-run prompters: “It’s kind of like a literal one-man band — singing, banging a drum, crashing cymbals, playing a trumpet and strumming a guitar ... except we’re not playing show tunes here.”
Yet for some professionals in smaller markets who are used to more meager resources, the adjustment has been easy.
Loriana Hernandez, news anchor at Austin, Texas, Fox affiliate KTBC-TV, has found having the added chore of running her own teleprompter to be her preference. She’d had previous experience doing it when she worked at CNN and CNN en Espanol, but this time around it’s different.
Fernandez, co-anchor of the Fox O&O station’s 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. newscasts with Mike Warren, used to work with a hand-controlled device that she said she found restrictive. Now she and Warren — and the station’s other on-air talent — can operate the prompter from eight separate foot-pedal locations in the news studio.
Teleprompters — devices that project upwardly scrolling copy in front of a camera lens so that talent can read it without losing eye contact with the viewer — were invented in the mid-1950s and have been a crucial part of the television landscape ever since.
Fox stations have led the way toward self-prompting. Company executives say the switchover has gone smoothly not only in Austin, but at WOFL-TV in Orlando, Fla., where anchors have been scrolling their own prompters for several months now. At its affiliates in Tampa and Memphis, WTVT-TV and WHBQ-TV, one newscast at each station is currently using anchor-driven prompters.
Duffy Dyer, general manager of WTTG, the Washington Fox station from the Post article, said he is confident of the outcome, that the quality of the newscasts will not be affected, and that viewers won’t notice any change. “The feedback is very positive,” he said. “We have been meeting with anchors and reporters. I’d say that, to a person, everyone is looking at this as a positive move. Some are looking forward to learning a new skill and becoming more valuable to the company, and there are a fair amount of people who have done it in markets like Utica and Eureka.”
In the lead-up to the switchover, Dyer said station management is being very patient and making sure that all talent is comfortable with the process. “We’ve made it clear that we have a great news product because of their and management’s efforts, and we won’t do anything to put that at risk,” he said.
Previously, a mix of people from production assistants to the tape library manager was operating the teleprompter, and Dyer said none of them would be laid off.
WTTG was scheduled to install the new prompters in mid-November, and then train about 12 on-air talent who will be using them. The plan was to begin anchor-controlled teleprompting on the weekend shows before rolling it out on the weekdays.
According to those who have already taken the plunge, the actual training is more a matter of becoming at ease than any sort of steep learning curve. “We got together with the morning and evening teams, got the system in place, ran rehearsals and let them get acclimated with how the functions worked,” said Jeff Zeller, vice president and news director of Fox O&O WOFL in Orlando. “We did rehearsals for about a week and then let them at it.”
KTBC’s Hernandez said it was a breeze. “There’s nothing to train,” she said. “You run your own pedal, and are in charge of your pacing and speed. If there is a situation where I need to ad lib, I do. I didn’t feel any training was necessary,” Hernandez said, and gave this advice, “I would say, ‘Plug it in, let them play with it for 10 minutes and let them go.’ ”
What happens when the newscast producer makes fast page kills or floats a story at the last second, as regularly occurs in a fast-paced broadcast? The anchors do not have to deal with pulling pages from the prompter at the last moment. The floor director or someone in the control booth makes those adjustments as the anchor continues reading the copy.
Mistakes can happen, whether there’s a separate operator or when the prompter is anchor-run. “In a typical newscast it’s forced us all to communicate better. I can tell you there’s been no disasters,” said Hernandez. “We have our little system. It’s like a dance.”
“Honestly, it’s been a very smooth transition,” Zeller said. “In practice runs, we made sure they’re not running it too fast. As far as on-air, in the end, it’s a teleprompter, being operated by someone differently than it was before.”
The original prompter manufacturer, which spelled its name TelePrompTer, no longer exists, but there are at least a half-dozen vendors that manufacture prompting products.
AutoScript Inc. is one of the industry leaders, with competitors that include QTV, Telescript and Listec. Typical software/hardware packages run from $1,000 to $7,000, in addition to the cost of outfitting each camera with a prompter, which runs between $2,000 and $8,000.
For most talent running their own prompter, the most desired setup is the foot pedal out of camera view. But there are also wireless hand controllers, called “rats,” with forward and backward buttons.
Seeing a trend over the last year or two of talent doing their own prompting, especially in smaller markets, AutoScript developed a new product. “It’s called Magno Foot Control with Deskpad,” said Gordon Tubbs, vice president of AutoScript. “It uses magnetic encoder technology and sits under the desk. If talent is standing, it’s out of shot on the floor. The farther they push, the faster it moves, like a gas pedal. That is probably the most common way of talent prompting themselves. That’s typically what they’re buying.”
At WTTG, the new system will be a combination of foot pedals and wireless hand devices.
“The system we’re going to be using gives talent the ability to advance to the next story. That’s the kind of feature that will make it virtually invisible to the viewer,” said Dyer. “Individuals will have preferences for foot pedals or wireless hand devices. Situations will call for one over the other. We don’t want to push a square peg in a round hole, and will make sure people can make decisions to do it the best way through a combination of devices in various positions.”
For Hernandez, who said she likes to wear 4-inch heels, her most comfortable position is kicking her shoes off before scrolling away on the prompter foot pedal.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Democrats Take Dim View Of Comcast/NBC
The nicest assessment of the deal was that it is questionable; another called it devastating.
Ed Markey (D-MA), who has long had a leadership role in communications matters on the Hill, was the one who finds the deal questionable. He said, “This proposed deal raises significant questions about consumer choice and competition, innovation and investment in the media marketplace that merit close scrutiny by Congress, the FCC and the Justice Department. While the companies have determined that this merger advances their business interests, it is essential that the public interest is served. As the author of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act to ensure network neutrality along with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, I want to ensure that the combination of a major network operator and a large content owner does not open the door to discrimination on the Internet to the detriment of users. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Administration on this important matter as the process moves forward.”
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), who has taken a leadership role in pushing back against media consolidation, had a much more negative reaction -- in fact, it was completely negative.
He said, “Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal would have a devastating impact on the already decreasing ability of the American people to receive unfiltered access to news, information, and entertainment programming from a wide array of sources."
"Given that we've already seen Comcast try to censor the Internet when it sought to undermine network neutrality several years ago, the American people should have no faith that Comcast would allow them to have access to a wide array of television programming…A diverse media system is critical to a properly functioning democracy. Further consolidation would shortchange the wide array of ideas and content needed to keep the American people informed about their elected officials. This acquisition must be stopped.”
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a longtime foe of consolidation, will have an opportunity to review the transaction. He said, “Some may have thought the era of media consolidation—fewer huge companies controlling more of the nation’s media assets—was behind us. This transaction proves those analysts wrong. The push to combine content and distribution continues and, as the economy recovers, we will see more proposed media industry combinations.”
Copps continued, “While I look at each proposed transaction on its individual merits, my long-tanding skepticism about the harms imposed by so few controlling so much persists.
And this particular transaction raises a multitude of important questions:
What is its impact on the prices consumers will pay?
Would the combination mean more newsrooms (but perhaps fewer reporters) controlled by one entity?
How would the transaction affect minorities and diversity on the airwaves?
Would this merger lead to fewer voices on both traditional and new media?
Does the nature of the transaction make even more urgent the need for FCC network neutrality rules?
What about the future of competition in the several markets these companies serve?
The list of questions and consequences goes on. Clearly this proposal requires close and comprehensive Commission review.
The lodestar for this review must be the public interest.”He concluded, “I look forward to broad stakeholder reaction to today’s announcement—and, indeed, every citizen has a stake here. I am anxious to hear more from the parties to the deal about how they believe the proposed transaction, as presently constructed, advances the public interest. It will come as no news to them that they face a very steep climb with me.”
RBR-TVBR
Friday, December 4, 2009
Merger plans for Comcast And NBC Ignite Battle Over Television Access
Comcast, the nation's biggest cable and broadband Internet company, on Thursday announced plans to take over NBC Universal, creating a new kind of media colossus that would not only produce some of America's most popular entertainment but also control viewers' access to it.
The roughly $30 billion deal set off immediate reaction from consumer groups and lawmakers in Washington, heralding an epic regulatory battle over concentrating so much power in one company. Almost one in four cable subscribers in the U.S. is a Comcast customer. NBC Universal owns cable networks such as Telemundo, MSNBC and Bravo, TV shows such as Jay Leno's, regional stations such as Washington's WRC (Channel 4), and Universal movie studios.
Sens. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chairman of the Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, called for hearings to review the deal's impact on television competition and consumers. Michael J. Copps, a Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission, said that the merger faces a "very steep climb with me" and that it raises many doubts over whether it would be in the public's interest.
Analysts said the deal would face a lengthy regulatory review -- from one year to 18 months -- but would probably be passed with significant conditions. A great part of the debate for federal regulators will be how the merger would impact the future of television programming, which will be viewed online on mobile devices and computers as well as on the box in American living rooms.
"My long-standing skepticism about the harms imposed by so few controlling so much persists," said Copps, a staunch advocate of media-ownership rules that prevent consolidation between newspapers and broadcasters in the same market.
Critics worry that the consolidation of the two big companies could drive up cable TV bills and make some content off limits to anyone who doesn't subscribe to Comcast's services. The Philadelphia company has said it wants to keep NBC and Universal entertainment available to the widest possible audience. It did not address the cost issue on Thursday.
The deal also must overcome the poor track record of previous mergers between media giants, most notably the disastrous pairing of AOL and Time Warner.In a conference call, Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts touted the synergies of the merger, saying the acquisition would further his family's vision of developing the company into an entertainment powerhouse from its humble beginning as a single cable system operator in rural Mississippi. Roberts said he thought the deal was "approvable" by regulators.
"This is pro-consumer and is going to accelerate what I believe consumers want, which is to access all different types of content on different platforms at different times," he said.
Appeasing regulators
Comcast made several commitments to fair play in the television market to appease regulators. The company said it would keep NBC's local television stations and expand programming to diversify its offerings. It said it would abide by program access rules that require it to share shows and channels with competitors.
The FCC will review the deal to see whether it benefits the public. Antitrust watchdogs at the Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission will scrutinize whether it would harm competition in the market.
Under the deal, which has been in the works for months, Comcast would pay $6.5 billion in cash upfront and contribute $7.25 billion in cable assets to acquire a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal from its current owner, General Electric, which would retain a 49 percent stake. Comcast would control the joint venture's day-to-day operations. GE would take $9.1 billion in debt to finance the deal. In all, the joint venture would control more than one out of every five television-viewing hours.
While NBC Universal is still highly profitable, some of its major holdings, particularly NBC and the Universal studio, are struggling. But NBC still has some significant assets, such as a contract with the NFL to broadcast games on Sunday nights and the rights to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., and the 2012 Summer Games in London. It also has a prestigious news division that produces the top-rated morning show "Today" and gives its parent company stature in Washington via such programs as "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" and "Meet the Press." In addition, WRC has been the most popular local news station in Washington for more than a decade.
Comcast will contribute its cable-network group to the marriage, including such channels as E! Entertainment Television, Style Network, Versus, Golf Channel, Major League Baseball channel and 10 regional sports networks. Among the latter is Comcast Sports Network in Washington, which carries the Capitals, Wizards and University of Maryland basketball and football games locally.
Impact on online video
Public interest groups are particularly concerned about the deal's impact on the nascent but growing market for online video, where new operators such as Hulu, YouTube and Netflix are changing the media landscape with free or low-priced products.
Analysts say the merger will be a test for how regulators will deal with the Internet video market, which doesn't fall directly under the FCC's jurisdiction. But the agency is exploring competition in online video, and it could use the merger to implement conditions that would set guidelines for the burgeoning market.
"The transaction gives the FCC a vehicle to explore policy issues relating to Internet video in ways that might have negative implications for Comcast as well as other cable operators and satellite TV providers," said Paul Gallant, an analyst at Concept Capital.
The FCC imposed conditions on AT&T's merger with Bell South in 2005 that kept the company from controlling customers' Internet access, and consumer groups said they would seek similar rules in exchange for approval of the Comcast deal.
Ben Scott, head of policy for the public interest group Free Press, said such conditions would keep Comcast from potentially charging more for Disney content by metering Internet video consumption of those shows but not for NBC shows.
"A broadband provider has a financial incentive to prioritize that content over someone else," Scott said.
David Cohen, an executive vice president for Comcast, said in an interview that such concerns are being addressed in the FCC's net neutrality proceeding and shouldn't apply specifically to the merger. And he said that Comcast doesn't give better services or prices for its own content today.
"There is no incentive in this transaction for us to favor our content," Cohen said.
Competitors, meanwhile, said they are warily watching the deal.
Herndon-based RCN said Comcast doesn't abide by program-access rules and fears that with more content in its grasp, the company could hurt smaller cable competitors.
"Existing program access rules and prior merger conditions have been largely ineffective in controlling the discriminatory impact of Comcast's existing integration of content and distribution and would be woefully inadequate to mitigate the potential for anti-competitive actions by a combined Comcast-NBC entity," said Richard Ramlall, senior vice president of strategic and external affairs.
Watchdogs lining up to battle Comcast-NBCU deal

No one expects one of the biggest media mergers of all time to sail through regulatory approval quickly, particularly since the proposed deal to have Comcast acquire a 51% stake in NBC Universal from General Electric is the first major merger to face scrutiny by the Obama Administration.
Critics are lining up to try to kill the latest move toward media consolidation.
Free Press and the Consumer Federation of America were quick out of the box with a new analysis showing why the organizations believe the deal poses a major threat to video competition that would seriously harm the public interest."The pundits who are predicting this merger will be a cakewalk haven’t done a careful analysis of the damage it will do to the competitive fabric of the video marketplace. This merger’s potential to foreclose competition and stifle innovation is significant and real," said Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America.
The report claims that:
-- A Comcast-NBC merger would hurt competition in traditional video markets. A merger between the nation’s No. 1 cable operator and a major television network threatens competitive rivalry and diversity in the video marketplace. The new entity could leverage its control over content to charge more to its rivals
— costs that will ultimately be paid by consumers.
-- A Comcast-NBC merger would hurt competition in the emerging online video market. Comcast is the largest residential broadband Internet service provider; NBC produces top-notch content and has a substantial interest in the online video provider Hulu. A merged company would have a powerful motive to starve competing online video sources by denying them access to vital content.
-- A Comcast-NBC merger would trigger more media consolidation. Approval of this deal will undoubtedly trigger a merger wave, as the remaining players in both the distribution and content markets seek to muscle-up to match this new behemoth.
As a result, competition from new entrants will be limited, consumer choice will be restricted, and prices will rise."The Obama administration has made a commitment to reinvigorating the nation’s antitrust laws," said Corie Wright, policy counsel of Free Press. "They can’t ignore the severe threat this merger poses and must take the necessary measures to prevent harm to competition and consumers. The correct response to this merger is to just say no."
Even before the deal was official, the Seattle Times had published an editorial calling for regulators to say no. The newspaper was quick with a second editorial stating that not only should Comcast not own NBC Universal, but that GE shouldn’t either. “NBC Universal should be independent,” the newspaper declared. “The consolidation in media is dangerous — to the economic interests of the public and to democracy itself. The trend toward media giantism should be stopped, and the place to begin is this proposed deal,” the Seattle Times editorial concluded.
“This mega-merger clearly spotlights the dangers of media consolidation in the Internet Age,” declared the Communications Workers of America (CWA).“Comcast is not only the nation’s largest cable company, with 24 million customers, but it has 15 million Internet users and controls most must-have regional sports programming. If it takes on NBC Universal, it adds a major television network, 27 local televisions, cable channels including CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, USA Network and more, plus Hulu, a growing stop especially for households under age 35,” the union noted.
“This vertical integration of two very different companies – one controlling distribution and another controlling content – would give the merged company leverage over both in broadcast and network television and the market power to control pricing of content on the Internet. It clearly would threaten competition in the distribution of content and programming,” the CWA said.
The union is also worried about what might happen to its members at NBCU under Comcast ownership. “Comcast also has a long history of violating workers’ rights, firing workers who want union representation, refusing to bargain fairly for contracts, running aggressive campaigns to decertify unions and much more,” the union said. CWA said it represents about 2,000 Comcast workers and about 2,500 NBC Universal broadcast technicians and other workers.
The American Cable Association (ACA) issued a statement urging regulators to scrutinize the proposed Comcast-NBC Universal transaction “and take appropriate action, whether through conditions or forced divestiture, to prevent the new programming giant from using its enhanced market power to raise prices and limit choices for consumers of small and medium-sized cable and broadband operators.”
ACA represents small cable system operators, while Comcast is the giant of the industry. ACA has already been fighting for government to curtail retransmission consent payments to TV stations – and worries that Comcast-NBCU will up the ante.
"Without broad government intervention, regulators in Washington, DC will see Comcast-NBCU wield its unprecedented power to drive up artificially the cost of its programming, particularly for its newly acquired local broadcast TV stations and its 'must-have' national and regional cable networks that air live sporting events. Without restrictions, the new media conglomerate will also leverage its enhanced market power to force other pay-television providers to distribute all of its combined Comcast-NBCU programming on basic tiers, regardless of consumer interest in paying for this content," said ACA President and CEO Matthew Polka.
How Comcast plans to make its case in DC
Among the documents that Comcast and General Electric posted for investors and reporters dealing with the NBCU transaction was a memo from Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen, whose duties include government relations.
In it, he spelled out the points that Comcast will make in trying to persuade the government that the deal to have Comcast acquire a 51% stake in NBCU from GE should be approved.“While we believe that this transaction is, and will be determined to be, pro-competitive, proconsumer, and strongly in the public interest, we recognize that competitive concerns will be raised about the combination of such significant multiplatform assets in a single company,” he said, in what may be quite an understatement. “Therefore, we also intend to make a number of affirmative voluntary commitments in our applications for approval that we believe will effectively address any such concerns.”
Cohen spelled out how Comcast-NBCU will enhance its public interest commitments, saying the combined company will build on the “strengths and histories of Comcast and NBCU in children's programming, diversity, and local programming, and reinforcing the combined companies' commitment to broadcasting, the companies make the following commitments:
1. NBC has a proud history in broadcasting with both NBC and Telemundo. Notwithstanding the turbulence in the current media marketplace and the ongoing threats to the business model of a national broadcast network, the combined company remains committed to continuing to provide free over-the-air television through its 0&0 stations and through local broadcast affiliates across the nation. As we negotiate and renew agreements with our broadcast affiliates, we will continue our cooperative dialogue with our affiliates toward a business model to sustain free over-the-air service that can be workable in the evolving economic and technological environment.
2. The NBC owned-and-operated broadcast stations ("0&OS ") have a demonstrated record of quality local programming in major markets around the country. Comcast also has demonstrated its commitment to local programming, including sports and public affairs, and in providing support for public, educational, and government (PEG) access programming. We want to use the combined resources of NBC and Comcast to strengthen localism:
a. We intend to preserve and enrich the output of local news, local public affairs, and other public interest programming on NBC 0&0 stations. Through the use of Comcasts On Demand and On Demand Online platforms, time slots on cable channels, and use of certain windows on the 0&0 schedules, we believe we can expand the availability of all types of local and public interest programming.
b. With respect to PEG channels, we will not migrate PEG channels to digital delivery on any Comcast cable system until the system has converted to all-digital distribution (Ie., until all analog channels have been eliminated), or until a community otherwise agrees to digital PEG channels, whichever comes first.
c. To enhance localism and strengthen educational and governmental access programming, we will also develop a platform to host PEG content On Demand and On Demand Online within three years of closing.
3. Since NBCU was acquired by GE in 1986, the owners have abided by a policy (summarized in a filing with the FCC) of ensuring that the content of NBC's news and public affairs programming would not be influenced by the non-media interests of General Electric.
a. The combined company will continue these policies with respect to the news programming organizations of all NBCU networks and stations, and will extend these policies to the potential influence of each of the owners.
b. To ensure such independence, the combined companies will continue in effect the position and authority of the NBC News ombudsman to address any issues that may arise.
4. Comcast and NBCU have strong track records in children's programming and children's issues. The combined company will make an expanded commitment to meeting the viewing needs of children, and the needs of parents to better control their family's viewing.
a. We will use Comcast’s On Demand and On Demand Online platforms and a portion of the NBC O&Os' digital broadcast spectrum to speak to kids. We intend to develop additional opportunities to feature children's content on all available platforms.
b. We reaffirm our commitment to provide clear and understandable on-screen TV Ratings information for all covered programming across all networks (broadcast and cable) of the combined company, and to apply the cable industry's best practice standards for providing on-screen ratings information in terms of size, frequency, and duration.
c. In an effort to constantly improve the tools and information available for parents, Comcast will expand its growing partnership with Common Sense Media ("CSM") a highly respected organization offering enhanced information to help guide family viewing decisions. Comcast will work to creatively incorporate CSM information in its emerging On Demand and On Demand Online platforms and other advanced platforms, and will look for more opportunities for CSM to work with NBCU.
5. Comcast and NBCU have been major forces in bringing diverse programming to American television audiences. With the new company's interests in Telemundo and Mun2, and with Comcast’s founding role in TVOne and its extensive offerings of channels meeting the needs of diverse viewers, we will be second to none in providing and promoting diverse programming. But we want to do even more:
a. We intend to expand the availability of over-the-air programming to the Hispanic community utilizing a portion of the digital broadcast spectrum of the Telemundo O&O's (as well as offering it to Telemundo affiliates) to enhance the current programming of Tel em undo and Mun2.
b. We will use Comcast’s On Demand and On Demand Online platforms to feature Telemundo programming.
c. We intend to continue expanding the availability of Mun2 on the Comcast cable, On Demand, and On Demand Online platforms.
The memo makes several other points, as well, designed to hit the hot buttons of regulators and lawmakers. Some of them address the position that Comcast will be in as both a program provider and the nation’s largest cable MSO.
One of those is a voluntary commitment to extend the FCC’s program access rules pertaining to cable/satellite networks to negotiations with other cable companies for retransmission rights to the NBC and Telemundo O&O stations.
RBR-TVBR observation: What stands out is that rather than wanting to exit the broadcasting side of the business, as many expected Comcast to do at NBCU, the NBC/Telemundo O&O station groups are being used as a major selling point for the deal.
“Localism” is a hot issue at the FCC and Comcast is emphasizing how the NBCU television will play a big role in having the merged company promote local programming and public service.
Vote For Sam Zell As "Jobs For Justice" "Scrooge Of The Year".
Each year, national Jobs with Justice gives an “award” to the greediest, most cold-hearted company or person of the year.Past winners of this dubious honor include: Wal-Mart, George W. Bush, and Goodyear Tire & Rubber. Jobs with Justice National is now accepting nominations for the 2009 “Scrooge of the Year” contest. We are collecting nominations this week and will start the election on December 7th.
Vote For Sam Zell
Sam Zell purchased and took the Tribune Company private in a heavily leveraged transaction for $8.2 billion that saddled the Tribune Co. with $13 billion in debt just as the bottom fell out of the advertising market.
Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 protection last December because it was struggling to manage the debt from the deal that made the Company a Sub-chapter S corporation owned by the employees to avoid taxes. The employee "owners" did not have a seat on the board of directors, or any say in the running of the company, now in bankruptcy and ESOP shares valued at $ 0, zero, nadda.
To add insult to injury, after massive nationwide layoffs, wage freezes, and benefit cuts at Tribune's newspapers and TV stations in 2009, Sam asked the bankruptcy court to approve $70 million dollars in executive bonuses. Sam's Merry Christmas to his team of bosses is a big Bah Humbug to the rest of his employees.
VOTE FOR SAM ZELL AS THE "JOBS FOR JUSTICE" 2009 "SCROOGE OF THE YEAR"
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Washington Reacts To Comcast/NBC Merger
The FCC also issued a tersely-worded statement.
First the FCC: Speaking on behalf of Chairman Julius Genachowski, Jen Howard said, “The FCC will carefully examine the proposed merger and will be thorough, fair, and fact-based in its review.”
House Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is concerned about the deal and is rounding up his key subcommittee chair Rick Boucher (D-VA) to be a major part of the scrutinizing posse. He said, “The proposed Comcast-NBC Universal joint venture agreement has the potential to reshape the media marketplace. This proposal raises questions regarding diversity, competition, and the future of the production and distribution of video content across broadcasting, cable, online, and mobile platforms. It is imperative that the FCC, the Justice Department, and the FTC rigorously assess whether this transaction is in the public interest. I will work with Rep. Rick Boucher, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, to schedule hearings on this matter at the earliest practicable date."
Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is starting out with a dim view of the transaction, saying, “I have some serious questions about the deal announced for Comcast to assume control of NBC Universal. A joint venture of this magnitude would benefit from regulatory oversight. When major media companies swell to control both content and distribution, we need to make sure consumers are not left with lesser content and higher rates.”
The rocky path to closing the Comcast-NBCU merger deal will at a minimum go through Capitol Hill, the FCC, the FTC, the DOJ, public debate, and a few other regulatory stops on the itinerary.
Stop The Comcast-NBCU Merger!!
Cable giant Comcast and NBC Universal have just announced that they're merging to form one of the most powerful media companies in the world. Washington and Wall Street are already saying this mega-merger is a done deal. If we don't act now to stop it, we'll have even more corporate control of our media, higher prices and fewer choices.It's a marriage made in hell, and we need a citizens' uprising to stop the merger.
Join the Uprising Against the Mega-Merger
Help us get 100,000 people to tell President Obama to make good on his campaign pledge to act "against the excessive concentration of [media] power in the hands of any one corporation, interest or small group." It's time for the president to kee
p his promise.Sign our call to action - and we will deliver your demands to the president, as well as to decision makers at the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission who have the power to stop this merger.
Comcast, the nation's largest cable company and the second largest Internet provider, would merge with one of the world's biggest producers of TV shows and movies. Here's what this merger would mean for you:
Higher Prices: With Comcast in control of everything from MSNBC, Bravo and E! to Universal Pictures, they'll be able to raise prices for their competitors that will be passed on to you.
Fewer Choices: Comcast would have a near-media monopoly in some communities, controlling cable and Internet access as well as local TV stations. They could push NBC shows ahead of other local and independent voices and programs, making it even harder to find alternatives on cable.
Less Innovation: This merged goliath could control what you watch and how you watch it, starving online video competitors or making you subscribe to Comcast to watch TV on the Internet.
This merger is a dangerous attempt by media moguls to seize control of both media content and distribution, and to use this control to squeeze consumers.
Stop the Merger: Join us at FreePress.net/Comcast
With your help, we can give consumers a voice and keep this doomed marriage from ever reaching the altar.
Thanks,
Josh Silver
Free Press
http://www.freepress.net/
P.S. We need as many people to speak out as possible. Spread the word on Facebook or Twitter or forward this e-mail to your friends. We'd love to hear from them, too!
Forwarded this message? You can also join our E-Activist list.
Want to learn more? Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

This mega-merger clearly spotlights the dangers of media consolidation in the Internet Age.
Comcast is not only the nation’s largest cable company, with 24 million customers, but it has 15 million Internet users and controls most must-have regional sports programming. If it takes on NBC Universal, it adds a major television network, 27 local televisions, cable channels including CNBC , MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, USA Network and more, plus Hulu, a growing stop especially for households under age 35.
This vertical integration of two very different companies – one controlling distribution and another controlling content – would give the merged company leverage over both in broadcast and network television and the market power to control pricing of content on the Internet. It clearly would threaten competition in the distribution of content and programming.
Comcast also has been cited for anti-democratic corporate governance processes. Comcast’s chief executive officer has super-majority voting rights at the company, despite owning just 3 percent of stock. Comcast has been criticized by investor and public interest groups for refusing to implement the one share-one vote policy that nearly all major corporations use for shareholder decisionmaking.
Comcast also has a long history of violating workers’ rights, firing workers who want union representation, refusing to bargain fairly for contracts, running aggressive campaigns to decertify unions and much more. CWA represents about 2,000 Comcast workers and about 2,500 NBC-Universal broadcast technicians and other workers.
CWA urges careful and close review of this proposed merger.
Comcast Gets NBC From G.E. in Deal That Reshapes TV
By TIM ARANGO
In a joint statement announcing the agreement, Brian L. Roberts, the chief executive of Comcast, said the deal was “a perfect fit for Comcast and will allow us to become a leader in the development and distribution of multiplatform ‘anytime, anywhere’ media that American consumers are demanding.”The deal could take up to 18 months to pass regulatory muster. Although Comcast is based in Philadelphia, NBC’s headquarters will remain in New York, the joint release said.
In some respects, G.E.’s decision to sell reflects the deteriorating state of the broadcast television industry, and a desire to exit a business that never quite fit well with its industrial side.
NBC has been mired in fourth place among the major broadcast networks, and the economics of the broadcast television business has deteriorated in recent years amid declining overall ratings and a decline in advertising. By contrast, cable channels have continued to thrive because they rely on a steady stream of subscriber fees from cable companies, such as Comcast.
Shortly after news of the deal leaked in September, G.E. and Comcast signed a standstill agreement, which effectively blocked other bidders from entering the fray. Previously, G.E. had sought to entice Time Warner. More recently Rupert Murdoch, who controls the News Corporation, considered making an offer for NBC Universal.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tribune’s Payouts To Lenders’ Lawyers No Secret Anymore
By Peg Brickleyhttp://blogs.wsj.com/
Tribune Co. got a slap from a bankruptcy judge Tuesday for allegedly sneaking $24.7 million to lawyers and financial advisers for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other lenders who are likely targets of a lawsuit over the company’s collapse.The money came from Tribune FN Cable Ventures Inc., the Tribune unit that owns a stake in the Food Network. Tribune FN Cable isn’t part of the parent company’s Chapter 11 case. According to Tribune, that made the payoffs kosher.
Sam Zell, the chairman and chief executive of Tribune Co., led the company’s 2007 leveraged buyout. Tribune’s unsecured creditors are investigating the deal, which saddled the media company with billions in debt.
Judge Kevin Carey called the long-hidden payments “a tactical error whether there was a nefarious motive or not.”
Nefarious? J.P. Morgan? You betcha, say bondholders, who are licking their chops at the prospect of suing J.P. Morgan and other lenders over the disastrous leveraged buyout that piled more than $8 billion in debt on Tribune.
J.P. Morgan and Tribune “orchestrated a way” to get money out of the company without tipping off the bankruptcy judge, said bondholder attorney David Rosner, who’s with Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman.
According to bondholders, the legal and financial advisory fees had nothing to do with enforcing Tribune’s rights under its $8 billion loan deals. Tribune is already picking up the defense costs for a lending group that is in the crosshairs of creditors itching to make someone pay for the soured deal, bondholders say.
Company attorney Bryan Krakauer said Tribune did disclose the bank fee payments to federal bankruptcy watchdogs, who failed to bark, and to the official committee of unsecured creditors, which had no objection.
J.P. Morgan has a seat on the committee but didn’t participate in the panel’s decision to stay quiet about the fees.
Carey said “it was a mistake” not to clue in the bankruptcy court on the payments. He ordered Tribune to disclose the payments and prepare for an evidentiary hearing on whether the money should come back.
How NBC's Grinch Could Steal Christmas
In the crew
Liked the Christmas tree lighting a lot...
But the NBC grinch just didn't see
Without them, the lights would light not!
Now, please don't ask why.
There's no reason anyone sees.
But if he won't, the crew may just might
Do something that would be NBC's blight.
Jane Krakowski and Zachary Levi will have to stand there and say
For the NBC grinch's heart is two sizes too small,
We will challenge the grinch, to quit going at it alone.

By Danny Shea
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
A labor dispute is threatening NBC's "Christmas in Rockefeller Center" telecast.
The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA) Local 11, which represents nearly 3,000 of NBC's producers, writers, and technicians, vowed Tuesday to "pull the plug" on Wednesday's Christmas special -— which includes the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree — over failed negotiations with NBC management.
The union's contract expired in March and the union says there's been very little progress since talks began last year, describing NBC management as "increasingly hostile" in "ignoring the concerns of the union's membership."
"We can't let the Grinch at NBC steal another Christmas from thousands of honest working people," said NABET-CWA Local 11 president Ed McEwan. "This charade must stop. Christmas is supposed to be a time of goodwill, but the network's management is trying to hide behind their fancy lights while leaving their employees in the dark."
The union has set up a website, NBCStoleChristmas.com, to air their concerns and attempt to avert a strike during Wednesday's Christmas tree ceremony.
NBC did not respond to a request for comment on the union dispute.
Tribune Co. names Randy Michaels CEO; Sam Zell remains chairman
Randy Michaels today was named chief executive of Tribune Co., succeeding Sam Zell, who remains chairman of the Chicago-based media concern that has been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for nearly a year.Michaels, 57, joined Tribune Co.’s executive ranks when Zell took the company private in a debt-heavy December 2007 transaction, becoming its chief operating officer half a year later. With the elevation to CEO, Michaels also will join the Tribune Co. board.
Comcast, NBC Aim To Ease Feds' Concerns
In previous major media mergers, companies have agreed to preserve local news coverage and grant competitors access to content, for example. Sources familiar with the Comcast-NBC Universal talks said such promises would probably be announced with the merger.
The $30 billion transaction would significantly reshape the media landscape by giving the nation's largest cable and broadband Internet provider control over content that makes up one out of five TV viewing hours, according to some analysts. NBC owns Universal Studios, theme parks, shows such as "The Biggest Loser" and "Heroes," and cable channels such as USA Network, Bravo and CNBC.
The deal, which has been in the works for months, was jump-started Monday when General Electric agreed to acquire the portion of NBC Universal it doesn't own from French conglomerate Vivendi for $5.8 billion, according to sources. That agreement was the remaining hurdle for Philadelphia-based Comcast to consummate its purchase of NBC Universal.
Under the terms of the merger, Comcast is expected to pay about $6 billion in cash for a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal. GE would retain a 49 percent stake, and Comcast would contribute its cable assets to the joint venture. Comcast would control the venture's day-to-day operations and have the right to buy the rest of NBC Universal within seven years, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal has not been formally announced.
Big hurdles
If completed, the deal would extend Comcast's vision to bring more content to its subscribers in as many forms as possible -- TV, computers and mobile devices.
But the proposed merger faces significant hurdles, including a close review from federal regulators that some analysts said could last a year. Either the Federal Trade Commission or Justice Department will review whether the deal is anti-competitive, and the Federal Communications Commission will examine how the deal affects consumers.
NBC Universal owns 34 TV stations, including District-based WRC (Channel 4), and Comcast dominates cable service, owning most of the major systems in the area. The only major jurisdiction Comcast does not serve in Washington's immediate suburbs is Fairfax County.
Although no regulation prevents ownership of a broadcast station and cable assets in the same market, such combinations would probably raise concerns. Regulators conceivably could force Comcast to sell its broadcast or cable stations in the same region as a condition of approval. Washington is one of several markets where Comcast and NBC have such properties.
Sources familiar with the deal said the joint venture has no plans to divest its local TV stations or the NBC network.
Online video scrutiny
Another area expected to draw regulatory scrutiny is online video distribution. Comcast hopes to expand its offerings by acquiring NBC's content.
Public interest groups have said Comcast could have too much control over content amid a shifting media landscape that is moving increasingly to the Web.
The FCC has a history of nurturing nascent video distributors to promote competition. A source at the Justice Department said the antitrust division is considering questions about how the merger would affect online distribution models such as Hulu -- a joint venture owned by programmers, including NBC -- and a cable industry plan, TV Everywhere, that will bring more shows online, but only to cable subscribers.
"They will face a year-long gauntlet of regulatory and political hearings and conditions that threaten to derail not just the synergy value that might otherwise be achieved in a combination, but in a worst case scenario, that might threaten the structural attractiveness of the core businesses of both Comcast and NBCU," Craig Moffett, an analyst at Bernstein Research, wrote in a note Tuesday.
Comcast and GE declined to comment. A Comcast spokeswoman, however, has said the company's online video strategy allows programmers to negotiate deals with other cable, satellite and online distributors of content.
The deal follows similar media mergers.
Time Warner spun off AOL this year, separating its cable and Time Warner content business. Comcast also made a failed bid for Walt Disney in 2004.
Washington Post Staff writers Paul Farhi in Washington and Tomoeh Murakami Tse in New York contributed to this report.
In Comcast-NBC merger, companies will seek to ease regulator concerns
A new kind of company, a new challenge for feds
Comcast-NBC Universal: Same old media merger, or something different?
Comcast-NBC merger nears, questions begin
Vivendi's sale of NBC clears way for Comcast; public interest groups decry merger
Let's Say Thanks

You can't pick out who gets the card, but it will go to a member of the armed services.Tuesday, December 1, 2009
FCC Asks Court To Continue Cross-ownership Stall
The Third Circuit in Philadelphia had asked the FCC what it planned to do about the challenges to Martin’s rulemaking attempt.
The two results of Martin’s December 2008 rulemaking were to allow cross-owned combos in the top 20 Nielsen DMAs (and to permanently grandfather other existing combinations), and to leave other broadcast ownership rules intact.
The FCC points out that these and other regulations are all being studied as part of the 2010 quadrennial review, and that it would be duplicative to deal with the issues in two separate proceedings, and counterproductive to “second guess” the intent of the Martin FCC.
General Counsel Austin C. Schlick pointed out that only two of the current Commissioners were serving with the FCC at the time of the December 2008 decision, and that one of them – Michael Copps – was a dissenter.
The FCC asked that if the court prefers not to hold the matter in abeyance, that it remand the matter so that it may be reconsidered in conjunction with the quadrennial review.
FTC Will Team With FCC To Vet Journalism's Future

By John Eggerton
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz says the commission will hold workshops in the spring on possible policy changes to help save journalism.They could include taxes, cross-ownership issues, changes in copyright laws, and antitrust treatment.
That came in the kickoff to "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?," a two-day Federal Trade Commission workshop prompted by the declining fortunes of print--and broadcast--journalism and the rise of the Internet.
Leibowitz said the FTC would work closely with the FCC on those issues and whether the government will need to step in, and how.
Leibowitz said that the commission was not out to undo the profound changes wrought on journalism by the Internet, "nor do we want to," he said. What he wants to find out, he said, is whether the "creative destruction" brought about by the Internet's impact on journalism represents more destruction than creation for journalism and what, if anything, the government needs to do about it.
He said it was appropriate for the FTC to investigate because of its competition and consumer protection policy interest, including the impact of behavioral advertising journalism organizations are using to increase ad revenue online, but also because of its role in recommending policy to Congress.
Interest Groups Speak Out Against Impending Comcast/NBCU Meld
Media Access Project, Free Press among those opposed
Calling it "the most important media merger since Lucy met Desi," Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman says that his group will oppose the meld of NBCU and"No entity should have control over such a large audience," he said in a statement following news that GE and Vivendi had come to an agreement on the purchase of Vivendi's stake in the company that would pave the way for that merger.
Shwartzman said that he was particularly concerned about the effects of the merger on distribution of online video.
Free Press also expressed its strong opposition, but that came as no surprise, since it already has a web site up and running to try to block the deal.
"Washington and Wall Street want the public to think this is a done deal. But it's time for policymakers to stop putting the narrow interests of big corporations ahead of what's best for the American people," said Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver in response to the news of the Vivendi/GE agreement.Tribune Co. gets more time to file Ch. 11 exit plan
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey granted the extension at a hearing in Delaware this morning. Tribune had asked the court to give its management team until March 31 to craft a plan to exit Chapter 11 without interference from other parties. The judge said the Tribune could apply for more time if needed.
The ruling comes as certain bondholders have claimed the leveraged buyout engineered by real estate mogul Sam Zell used to buy Tribune violated federal bankruptcy laws. Some creditors have opposed Tribune management's effort to craft their own exit plan. Tribune filed for protection last December.
In addition, Tribune's unions continue to protest Mr. Zell's request for permission to pay up to $70 million dollars in executive bonuses, as opposed to using those funds to stave off further layoffs, benefit reductions, or pay down some of the $ 13 billion in debt obligations.
Judge Carey seemed swayed by arguments for granting a limited extension, giving time for talks but forcing participants to report back.
"Look around and listen. The sound of clocks ticking is deafening. Courts have to be sensitive to how much of a cost benefit there is in requiring the exercise in two months rather than four," Carey said.
He ordered the parties to report back on Feb. 18, at which time he could grant an added 60 days of exclusivity.
Bankruptcy gives a company a limited time in which it has the exclusive right to propose a plan to reorganize its business and debts, although that right can be extended with court approval.
The biggest issue remaining in the case is the investigation of the $8.2 billion leveraged buyout that put real estate developer Sam Zell in control of the company in 2007.
Holders of $1.26 billion of unsecured notes have argued for a full investigation of the deal, which they said put their claims behind billions of dollars of secured claims.
They have argued the deal could amount to a "fraudulent conveyance," which could strip some of the lenders of the senior position of their claims.
A similar argument was recently made in the case of bankrupt home builder, Tousa Inc (TOUSQ.PK). A judge voided some Tousa loans and ordered the lenders to return $600 million.
In the Tribune case, a group of hedge funds holding secured loan claims had argued that the judge should terminate the exclusivity period and allow them to put forward their own plan.
The group proposed reorganizing Tribune's subsidiaries, which conduct most of the company's business, and bringing them out of bankruptcy quickly, under the control of the lenders.
The parent Tribune would be left in bankruptcy under their plan while the dispute over the leveraged buyout would be settled through litigation.
"I don't see any benefit to separating the corporate family," said Carey. "The presentation was very thoughtful. We may have to think about it more in the future.
The case is in Re: Tribune Company et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 08-13141 (Editing by Gerald E. McCormick) ((thomas.hals@thomsonreuters.com; 1-302-993-6283; Reuters Messaging thomas.hals.reuters.com@reuters.net))
Monday, November 30, 2009
Vote For Sam Zell As "Jobs For Justice" "Scrooge Of The Year".
Each year, national Jobs with Justice gives an “award” to the greediest, most cold-hearted company or person of the year. Past winners of this dubious honor include: Wal-Mart, George W. Bush, and Goodyear Tire & Rubber. Jobs with Justice National is now accepting nominations for the 2009 “Scrooge of the Year” contest. We are collecting nominations this week and will start the election on December 7th.
Vote For Sam Zell As
2009 "Scrooge Of The Year".
Sam Zell purchased, and took the Tribune Company private in a heavily leveraged transaction for $8.2 billion that saddled the Tribune Co. with $13 billion in debt just as the bottom fell out of the advertising market.
Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 protection last December because it was struggling to manage the debt from the deal that made the Company a Sub-chapter S corporation owned by the employees to avoid taxes.

To add insult to injury, after massive nationwide layoffs, wage freezes, and benefit cuts at Tribune's newspapers and TV stations in 2009, Sam asked the bankruptcy court to approve $70 million dollars in executive bonuses. Sam's Merry Christmas to his team of bosses is a big Bah Humbug to the rest of his employees.
VOTE FOR SAM ZELL AS THE "JOBS FOR JUSTICE" 2009 "SCROOGE OF THE YEAR"
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Law Protecting Workers From Retaliation Takes Effect
The New York Times
A law that increases penalties for companies that retaliate against employees who complain about labor-law violations takes effect this week, at a time when the state has stepped up enforcement of minimum-wage standards and other labor standards.
The law increases the minimum civil penalty for retaliation to $2,000 from $200 and the maximum penalty to $10,000 from $1,000. The new law also allows the state labor commissioner to award lost compensation to workers who have been victims of employer retaliation.
“Every worker in New York is afforded basic protections under state labor law -– minimum wage, meal breaks and the right to be paid in a timely manner,” Gov. David A. Paterson, who signed the law on Aug. 26, said in a statement. “Oftentimes, when workers are not afforded those rights, many are too apprehensive to come forward due to fear of retaliation by their employers. This law will persuade more workers to come forward, while at the same time ensuring that lawbreaking employers who do retaliate against workers will face stiff penalties.”
Retaliatory acts include firings, demotions, salary reductions and reassignments to less-desirable work shifts or work duties.
In January, the State Department of Labor said it had recovered $24.6 million in lost wages for more than 17,000 workers — the largest amount of collected and distributed monies in the department’s 100-year history.
But since 2007, there have been a number of troubling cases of employer retaliations, the Labor Department said, citing several examples: three Long Island restaurant workers dismissed for complaining about subminimum wages, a backstretch worker from the Saratoga race course denied a job he had been promised because of his role in a state investigation into the racing industry and a supermarket bagger fired after reporting that he had only been paid tips, not wages.
The Labor Department encouraged anyone with complaints of labor-law violations to call 1-888-52-LABOR.
Radio and “National Security”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Citadel/ABC hired a large firm on June 4th to deal with “restructuring” its debt, so this may be approaching more than hypothetical status…
Let’s say hypothetically that any one of the top 5 largest Radio Owners fails and files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. What would happen next?
There are people who specialize in managing radio stations while the owners are in the bankruptcy process (or when a sole proprietor dies suddenly). Typically radio bankruptcies involve “mom and pop” local radio stations, not big conglomerates.
When a radio station folds, it often goes silent for a while and the FCC is notified and the license is transferred to the debtor in possession – but banks are not qualified to operate a radio station, so the FCC wants to know that someone who knows the FCC regulations is running the station.
To keep the FCC license from lapsing, the bankruptcy court hires someone to run the station until the license can be disposed of – which generally means little more than playing automated or satellite fed music for months. The objective is to spend as little money as possible until a new owner for a station is found, often times by auctioning off the assets.
But what would happen if an owner with 100 or more radio stations and 1,000s of employees closes its doors suddenly? This has serious national security implications (that’s not hyperbole).
As long as most of us have been alive, we’ve heard Emergency Broadcast System messages on Radio and TV doing tests to warn us in event of an “actual emergency”. EBS was renamed EAS a few years ago.
The basic principle of the EAS is that every radio, TV station, and Cable TV system are required to have an EAS decoder connected to their transmitter equipment. The EAS device is pre-configured to “listen” to one or more EAS Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations for national messages, and local relay stations (LP1 and LP2) - and if the appropriate signals are received, the EAS message takes over control of the radio, TV stations unilaterally. The station has no discretion in the matter on national messages. If you want to read more about EAS, here is the EAS Page at the FCC Website.
In June of 2007, there was an accidental activation of the real doomsday facility in the Chicago area – announcing that a White House spokesperson was about to address the country. [TV coverage and report here]
In this case, the LP1 station was WGN-AM (The owner of WGN is currently in bankruptcy, but WGN is their only radio station and the bankruptcy is proceeding in an orderly manner).
What if one or more of the really big radio owners fails? In order to protect the operations of the EAS, the failed company’s radio stations cannot be allowed to “go dark”, even temporarily – and must remain staffed 24 hrs/day with someone familiar with the EAS procedures and equipment (that’s an EAS requirement). Could this become the pretext for a government seizure of some radio stations in the interest of national security?
The EAS system is based on 34 PEP (Primary Entry Point) stations that feed every station in its area (typically an old 50 kw legacy AM station). The government is adding more PEPs so eventually there will be one in every state (but waiving the requirement that they have a fallout shelter). The AM PEPs being directional at night starting in 1986 also impairs their ability – PEPs can broadcast non-directional at night during an emergency if someone knows how to turn on the daytime settings at night… The brand new 50 kw station near Fargo, ND did exactly that during 2009’s Spring floods.
Here is the requirement to be a PEP, dating back to the 1960s and “duck and cover”…
Diesel backup generator with fuel sufficient for 30 days of continuous broadcasting without commercial power
Landline, satellite, and HF radio connectivity to FEMA OperationCenters
Special EAS Encoder/Decoders (ENDECs) with unique EAS codes
Generally located just outside of major city area for survivability
Fallout shelter, on-site food, and special lightning protection
Here is the list of PEPs as of 2001:
PEP Station Location Owner
KALL (AM) HERRIMAN UT Sports Capital Partners
KBOI KUNA ID Citadel
KCBS NOVATO CA CBS
WHB (AM) KANSAS CITY KS Union Broadcasting
KERR (AM) POLSON MT Anderson Broadcasting
KFLT TUCSON AZ Family Life
KFQD ANCHORAGE AK Morris
KFYR (AM) MENEKEN ND Clear Channel
KIRO VASHON WA Bonneville
KKOB ALBUQUERQUE NM Citadel/ABC
KKOH RENO NV Citadel/ABC
KOA PARKER CO Clear Channel
KTRH DAYTON TX Clear Channel
KTWO (AM) CASPER WY GAP Broadcasting
WABC (AM) New York Citadel/ABC
WBAP MANSFIELD TX Citadel/ABC
WBAL Baltimore Hearst
WBZ Boston CBS
WCCO Minneapolis/St Paul CBS
WHAM (AM) Rochester, NY Clear Channel
WLS (AM) Chicago Citadel/ABC
WLW (AM) Cincinatti Clear Chanel
WMAC MACON GA Cumulus
WQDR FM Raleigh, NC Carolina Media Group
WRXL FM RICHMOND VA Clear Channel
WSM Nashville Grand Ole Opry
WSTA ST THOMAS, VI Ottley Communications
WTAM (AM) Cleveland Clear Channel
WWL New Orleans Entercom
WYGM (former WQTM) CLERMONT FL Clear Channel
WKAQ CATANO PR Univision
WCOS FM COLUMBIA SC Clear Chanel
KFWB LOS ANGELES CA CBS
As more people began to watch Cable TV or satellite TV instead “over the air” TV, Cable TV and DirecTV systems were also brought under the control of EBS. If you’re watching HBO, you still need to know that a tornado warning has been issued or that North Korea has just launched a nuclear missile.
In addition to the 34 PEPs, each state has a local Network consisting of LP1 and LP2 stations that allow the Governor of a state to alert people in his/her state.
The EAS system is further being expanded as part of thing called IPAWS, which will enable FEMA to do things like have sign language video messages for those who are deaf.
I’m going to start adding an EAS logo to those stations that are PEPs or LPs so that in the event the EAS doesn’t function as intended some day, you may be able to find a stream carrying a nationwide alert should the unthinkable happen some day. Hopefully your internet service remains up.
Big Radio’s Owners
This collection of information was started in May 2009, and now covers most of the major radio station owners. The primary source of information is the FCC’s ownership reports, supplemented by information from the owner’s web site and other media reports.
License count are approximate AM and FM radio license counts – no LPFM or FM Translators are included. The numbers also do not include TV stations.
Defining what “Biggest” means in radio is something that has no single answer. Is it the most number of licenses? Presence in the largest number of major markets? Income? Profits? Employees? Ratings? To people in the radio business, this is a religious issue – and I’m not in the radio business.
For our purpose, “Biggest” means the largest number of Full power licensed stations. It’s not a very good measure, but it is something that can be directly determined from FCC records.
Most of the companies in this list have suffered huge losses from declines in the value of radio station licenses in the past 5 years. Any investment in a company that owns radio stations is highly speculative, and should not be done without advice and extensive research done by a trained professional.
LMAs
To understand radio “Bigness”, you first need to understand what an LMA (Local Marketing Agreement) is. Back in the good old days of heavy regulation, an LMA was used to circumvent the intent of the FCC ownership limits.
The LMA is an agreement to Lease a radio station to another party without actually transferring the ownership of the license.
If a “Too big for the limits” owner wanted to take “control” of another station in the market, they would enter into an LMA with the current owner. The original license holder would retain the license and the legal responsibility for the station, but effectively the station would be run by the Big Company. The FCC eventually closed that loophole, so when the Big company controls another station via an LMA today, that station counts against their limits.
Since those limits are now much less restrictive and the LMA loophole was closed, the main use of the LMA today is for temporary control of a station while a sale is pending. The New Owner is given effective control of the station (programming, personnel, operations) while the FCC approves the transfer (or not), and the lawyers and bankers finish up the paperwork and transfer of assets.
LMAs are also used when the station owner doesn’t have the interest, ability or desire to continue to operate a station. The station owner turns over control of the station to a regional or national programmer (often a religious programmer like Salem or Moody Bible) and the station remains owned by the original owner – but effectively becomes part of the larger network. Generally this seems to be done for tax or estate planning reasons when the station’s owner has no children who want to carry on the family business.
A recent development in the use of an LMA is to technically comply with Section 310 of the FCC rules requiring radio stations to have no more than 20% non-citizen (United States citizen) ownership (or 25% of a radio holding company).
A company in Mexico recently “acquired” control of a major radio station in Los Angeles via a long term LMA agreement, where that company from Mexico will run the station – on paper, the station is still owned by an American Company, but for all practical purposes it was “sold”.
Commercial Radio Operators as of May 8, 2009
(Total # licenses = 14,311)
Owner #Licenses(approx)
Clear Channel 851
Aloha Station Trust
(Divested CC Stations) 42
GAP Broadcasting
(Former CC Stations) 116
Cumulus 327
Citadel 227
CBS Radio 136
Entercom 109
Cox Radio 85
Saga Radio 69
Cherry Creek 64
Regent
Communications 62
Univision (Spanish) 54
Radio One 51
Nassau 51
Three Eagles 50
Entravision 48
BiCoastal 49
NRG Media 44
Salem Broadcasting 44
Beasley Broadcasting 44
Midwest
Communicaations 42
Disney 38
Forever 37
NextMedia 36
New Northwest 36
Journal
Broadcasting 35
Morris
Communications 34
6 Johnson Road
(Pamal) 34
Mapleton 34
Monterey 33
Backyward 30
Bonneville 29
Emmis 22
American General 22
Tags: EAS, EBS, National Security
Friday, November 27, 2009
THE STATE OF THE MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY

ABC's corporate parent is the Walt Disney Company. Disney owns 10 television stations, 50 radio stations, ESPN, A&E, the History Channel, Discover magazine, Hyperion publishing, Touchstone Pictures, and Miramax Film Corp.
If the FCC votes to relax media ownership limits, it could further erode diversity of ownership at the local level and increase the influence of large media conglomerates. In 2003, the regulations restricting a broadcast company from owning stations that reach beyond 35% of American households were loosened to 39%.
FACT: Three media giants own all of the cable news networks.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was, in part, meant to increase competition in the cable industry. The Act was heavily influenced by industry lobbyists and has had the opposite effect.
RADIO
FACT: The Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted ownership limits for radio stations, leading to incredible consolidation of radio station ownership.
One company alone, Clear Channel Inc., now owns nearly 1,200 radio stations across the country. Before the change, a company could not own more than 40 stations nationwide. INTERNET
FACT: Major corporations, including AOL Time Warner, the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and USA Today dominate the top Internet news sites.
EFFECT on DEMOCRACY
To their corporate owners, media outlets do not exist to promote the public interest; they exist to make profits. But media companies don't manufacture widgets; they provide information. And information from diverse, competitive, and independent sources is vitally important to the health of a democracy.
FACT: The nation’s largest broadcast companies that will benefit from looser ownership standards have given more than $13.3 million in political contributions to federal candidates and national parties since 1995. These same media giants have spent more than $68 million lobbying Washington since 1999.
With their political clout, media giants have the ability to make their case heard at the FCC, the White House and Capitol Hill. The concerns of average citizens do not get the same attention from key policymakers.
FACT: The FCC is in the process of making important decisions that will have a significant impact on our democracy. This appointed body is doing so without distributing the proposed regulations for public review and without allowing for adequate public review and comment.
"It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market, whether it be by the Government itself or a private licensee. It is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral, and other ideas and experiences which is crucial here. That right may not constitutionally be abridged either by Congress or by the FCC." --U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark 1969 case of Red Lion v. FCC
Note: Station Consolidation, Shared Services Agreements (SSA), Local News Services (LNS), Hubbing of graphics and station master control on server farms, and studio control room automation have combined to create massive layoffs at TV stations across the country.
In New York, IATSE Local 1 Stagehands have lost about 100 network TV studio jobs this year. By the end of June 2010 WNYW and WWOR will have eliminated about 60 more IATSE Local 794 positions due to LNS, studio control room automation, and hubbing.
ABC has already eliminated the Robotic Camera Operator, Video Operator, Audio Mixer, Server/Tape Operator, Graphics Operator, Associate Director, Lighting Director, Technical Director, and Director from the news control rooms with automation, cutting the crew from 9 people to 1 person. This will be done at NBC by June 2010 and eventually at CBS and WPIX as well.
The use of LNS to pool all ENG efforts in markets across the country will allow TV stations to drastically reduce the number of news camera crews and truck operators they employ at the cost of severely limiting the range and diversity of the news stories broadcast by those participating stations.
This is a major public interest issue that needs to be addressed at the FCC, FTC and DOJ.
Bob D
Tribune Co.'s No Good, Very Bad Week
...it is time for the parties, who have been provided with more than enough information to permit them to decide how to proceed with regard to the transactions, to move forward without further delay. A four-month extension of debtors exclusive period to file a plan of reorganization will serve no purpose; an imminent termination of that period may spur movement.Several other senior lenders are asking the courts to review the case and hand control of the process over to them, where those who have stake in the company could form a holding company over Tribune's assets and subsidiaries.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tribune lenders propose competing plan of reorganization
(Reuters) - Debtholders of bankrupt Tribune Co (TRBCQ.PK) have asked a judge to deny the media company's request for more time to present a plan of reorganization so the lenders themselves can offer a plan, according to court filings."The motion should be denied so that the Credit Agreement Lenders themselves have the opportunity to proceed with a plan of reorganization that should win unanimous or near-unanimous acclaim and approval of the subsidiary debtor creditors," the group said in a Wilmington, Delaware, bankruptcy court filing dated November 24.
"We are reviewing the filing and will respond in due course," a Tribune Co spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
The Credit Agreement Lenders include several Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co KKR.UL funds, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc fund and the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund.
(Reporting by Chelsea Emery, editing by Maureen Bavdek)
Organizations Ask FCC Not To Delay Date For Collecting Ownership Information
By John Eggertonhttp://www.broadcastnewsroom.com/
Delaying process of collecting more detailed information from station owners would hurt other parties, the public
A group of organizations, including ownership diversity fans Common Cause, Free Press, and United Church of Christ, have asked the FCC not to delay the Dec. 15 date for collecting more and more detailed ownership information from station owners.
Expanding reporting requirements were part of then acting FCC Comissioner Michael Copps' effort to tee up minority ownership reforms by collecting more and better data on just who owns what.
In a filing with the FCC Monday, the groups were opposing a motion for a stay filed last week by Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth which told the FCC the changes it made to the form earlier this year were an "unexpected revision...inappropriately adopted." They require more information, including social security numbers from anyone with an interest, attributable or not, in a broadcast property.
United Church of Christ et al. says wrong on both counts, and a few more as well.
They say the law firm is not a party to the proceeding and did not comply with the rules regarding filing stay motions. As for argument's merit about the revision being unexpected and that there could be irreparable harm from providing all those SS numbers, the groups said there wasn't any to either argument. "Their SSN's will at all times be protected from public disclosure," said the filing, and the FCC "published a general notice of its intent to revise the form 323 form," they said, and provided plenty of opportunity for comment.
The FCC did not specify those changes, but the groups said it didn't have to. The APA [Administrative Procedures Act] does not require the FCC to spell out that filers would need an FRN [FCC Registration Number] in the NPRM [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking], because it is either a logical outgrowth of the proposal or an internal FCC process exempt from public notice."
Delaying the process, the groups say, would "hurt" other parties and the public.
"Now that the FCC has a system designed to obtain accurate and complete data on minority and female ownership, it would be unconscionable to countenance any further delay," they say. "Moreover, the FCC, researchers, and the public need this information to fulfill the Commission’s obligations in the 2010 Quadrennial Review of the ownership rules."
Fletcher Heald has an ally in the Minority Media & Telecommunidations Council. While that group backs enhanced disclosure, it is not happy with requiring Social Security Numbers.
Big Tribune Creditors Seek Control Of Bankruptcy Case
http://www.latimes.com
Holders of senior debt pursue the right to file a reorganization plan for the owner of the L.A. Times without further delay. The move could intensify a fight with junior creditors.
A large group of prominent investment firms sought to wrest control of the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case Tuesday in a move that threatens to intensify a pitched battle between senior and junior creditors.
In a filing Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, the group asked Judge Kevin Carey to deny a request by Tribune management to extend its exclusive right to file a reorganization plan for the media company, which is the parent of the Los Angeles Times.
The group hopes to win its own right to propose a plan that would enhance senior creditor returns at the expense of the junior creditors.
Calling itself Credit Agreement Lenders, the group owns $4.4 billion of the $8.2 billion in loans Tribune Chairman Sam Zell used to take the company private in 2007.
It is composed of a large number of hedge funds and other investment firms, including such heavyweights as Angelo, Gordon & Co., Oaktree Capital Management, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Absent from the group are big lenders to the Zell deal that also own the senior debt, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co. But JPMorgan, in filing its own objection Tuesday to management's request to extend exclusivity, signaled its support for the Credit Agreement group, saying that "it is time for the parties . . . to move forward without further delay."
The filings amount to a protest against Tribune's attempts to broker a deal between the senior creditors and a group of militant junior creditors led by Centerbridge Partners, another big distressed-bond investor. In late August, Centerbridge and other owners of $1.26 billion in junior bonds challenged a proposed reorganization plan that would swap debt for equity to recapitalize the company, arguing that the plan would give them a mere "sliver of equity" for their claims.
On Nov. 13, Tribune petitioned the court to extend until March its exclusive right to forge a reorganization plan, partly so it would have time to work a compromise between the increasingly combative creditor factions.
But in its objection to the Tribune filing Tuesday, Credit Agreement Lenders complained that the Centerbridge group was dragging its heels and threatening to send the case into "a litigation morass of monumental proportions." The senior group said that it had already proposed a plan to Tribune management but that the company hadn't acted on it. At the moment, the group complained, "there are no negotiations" and "no progress toward a consensual plan." Consequently, the group concluded, it should be allowed to propose its plan to the court directly.
Judge Carey will take up the matter at a hearing in Delaware on Dec. 1. Tribune declined to comment Tuesday.
mdoneal@tribune.com
________
Tribune Co. Control Of Bankruptcy Challenged
By Michael Oneal
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com
In late August, Centerbridge and other owners of $1.26 billion in bankrupt Tribune Company's junior bonds, challenged a proposed reorganization plan that would swap debt for equity to recapitalize Tribune Co., arguing that the plan would give them a mere "sliver of equity" for their claims.
To gain leverage, they threatened to challenge the 2007 buyout as an instance of "fraudulent conveyance," a legal term meaning the deal was doomed from the start.
If they could prove it, the judge would invalidate the $8.6 billion in claims owned by the senior lenders, leaving plenty of value to pay off the junior claims.
In October they got some heartening news: A fraudulent conveyance case in Florida resulted in a $600 million judgment against a set of senior lenders, including several involved in the Tribune case.
Sources said the standoff is likely to focus the judge on a highly technical area of the law: Whether the junior creditors have legal standing to bring a fraudulent conveyance case in the first place.
The Centerbridge group, which is represented by its trustee, Law Debenture Trust Co., argued in its own filing Tuesday that Tribune Co. inappropriately used its subsidiaries to guarantee the leveraged-buyout debt, guarantees that form the basis of the lenders' seniority over the junior bondholders.
That put the subsidiaries at risk without giving them any value in return, since all money went to pay parent company shareholders, one basis for fraudulent conveyance.
The catch to this argument is that the junior creditors own notes issued by the parent company, not the subsidiaries, raising the issue of whether the Centerbridge group can legally claim it was harmed by something that happened at the subsidiary level.
The Credit Agreement Lenders signaled in their filing that they would challenge this point by proposing a plan that essentially ignores the junior creditors. They would reorganize the subsidiaries, including companies that own the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Tribune Co. TV stations and other assets, and form a new holding company owned by the senior creditors.
In doing so, they would pay off subsidiary trade creditors, buying their support. The old parent company and the junior creditors, meanwhile, would be left behind in court.
Sources said Law Debenture would likely argue that because the holding company's value derives from the subsidiaries, the junior creditors were, indeed, harmed by a possible fraudulent conveyance and should be able to bring a claim.
Monday, November 23, 2009
FCC keeps Hawaii TV dispute on restricted basis
The case of the three-television station shared services agreement in Honolulu has been challenged before the FCC on regulatory grounds in a restricted proceeding.
The FCC has decided to keep it that way, preventing it from becoming a matter for public debate, at least where the FCC itself is concerned.
The Shared Services Agreement in Honolulu brings together Raycom’s NBC KHNL-TV and MyNetworkTV KFVE-TV with MCG Capital’s CBS KGMB-TV. The two companies have since swapped the calls and programming of the MNT and CBS stations, leaving the programming of the two majors directly under Raycom, while MCG takes primary care of the MNT programming.
Among recent developments was the FCC treatment of a letter from Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI). Abercrombie had written, “The merger cannot help but lead to the loss of editorial diversity and may violate FCC ownership rules. Three stations will be combining their news and editorial functions, which will lead to fewer perspectives in the news and fewer outlets for the public.”
The FCC told Abercrombie that any ex parte contributions to a restricted proceeding must be served on all appropriate parties and that the fact that this step was taken must be clearly indicated on the submission or its cover letter.
Attorney John Griffith Johnson Jr. of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP has been resisting efforts by Media Council Hawaii, the original complainant to the FCC, to turn the matter into an ex parte permit-but-disclose proceeding so that public comment could be brought to bear on the matter.
Johnson said MCH failed to demonstrate a good reason for changing the status of the proceeding, arguing, "Nothing is to be gained by allowing this proceeding to be debased by converting it into a form of 'American Idol'-style of popularity contest, with the contesting parties each vying to fill the record with comments from the public and from elected representatives in favor of their respective positions on the merits and outcome.”
He said that since MCH is seeking license revocations, or a “death sentence,” for both television companies, the outcome should not in any way be influenced “by underinformed commentary and opinions from uninvolved third parties that have no relevance to the specific legal issues presented for decision.”
RBR-TVBR observation: The rules, as far as we know, allow a station licensee to farm out certain back room operations, to farm out advertising sales operations, and to farm out responsibility for up to 15% of the programming schedule. That amounts to just over three-and-a-half hours daily for a 24/7 station – plenty of time to produce a nice chunk of local news programming. Raycom has steadfastly maintained that the SSA in Honolulu is within the parameters of the rules.
The decision to keep the matter restricted means that the focus probably will be on the specific merits of this specific case.
If the FCC wants to change the rules, that is an entirely different type of proceeding, definitely the type in which stakeholders and the public will be invited to participate.
Here’s how we handicap the Honolulu situation: We think Raycom will win on the merits, but the whole publicity-generating issue may very well lead to intense scrutiny of television SSAs and a possible rule-making attempt as part of next year’s quadrennial review.
“The Great Recession and the Battle for Good Jobs in the Black Community.”

As part of our fall 2009 series of Labor Breakfast Forums, we are pleased to announce a forum entitled
While some economists have begun to discuss the formal end of the Great Recession, most also recognize that the economy will likely enter a jobless recovery worse than those following the recessions of 1990 and 2001. This situation promises to have particularly damaging impact on the Black community which entered this recession with disproportionately high level of unemployment and low-wage work. Racially stratified labor markets existed prior to the Great Recession; economic growth policies which ignore this reality will simply reinforce these racial hierarchies.
What sort of legislative policies could help to remedy these problems?
Please be sure to RSVP to Eloiza Morales at 212-642-2029 or eloiza.morales@mail.cuny.edu by Monday, November 30, 2009.
Sincerely,
Paula Finn, Associate Director
WPIX Names Bill Carey News Director
NEW YORK, N.Y. - WPIX, Tribune Broadcasting's New York CW affiliate has named Bill Carey News Director.
WPIX made its on-air debut on June 15, 1948 as New York's fifth television station and second independent outlet. It was also the second of three stations to start up in the New York market during 1948, one month after Newark-based independent WATV (channel 13, now WNET) and two months before ABC-owned WJZ-TV (channel 7, now WABC-TV)
Like its longtime sister station WGN-TV in Chicago (which first signed on two months earlier), WPIX's call letters come from the slogan of the newspaper that founded it—in this case, it was the New York Daily News, whose tag was "New York's Picture Newspaper". Both the paper and the station were owned by the Tribune Company. Then and now, WPIX's studios and offices are located in the News Building, at Second Avenue and East 42nd Street (alternatively called "11 WPIX Plaza") in Midtown Manhattan. In its earliest years, WPIX also had another studio (called "Studio Five") located at 110 Central Park South, where programs with a studio audience were produced.
By the mid 1970s, WPIX was the clear number-two independent station in the city, behind WNEW-TV. It identified on-air as 11 Alive from September 1977 to 1986, a slogan made popular by stations like Atlanta's WXIA-TV, who also started using 11Alive themselves from September 1976 and still do so today. In 1978, WPIX was launched on satellite and became a Superstation. In 1980, WPIX began 24 hour a day operations along with WOR-TV.
In January 1995, WPIX became an affiliate of the WB Television Network. Through Tribune's ownership interest in the WB (initially 12.5 percent in 1995, and later expanded to 22 percent), channel 11 could have been referred to as the WB's "flagship" station—though this is a designation in name only. The Warner Bros. Television division of Time Warner was the majority owner of the WB, and programming was distributed from the WB's facilities in Los Angeles. In 1999 the station replaced them with the New York Mets, which up until that point had spent their entire televised history with WOR/WWOR. Ironically, beginning in 2005, over-the-air Yankees broadcasts were aired by WWOR, which was as synonymous with the Mets as WPIX was with the Yankees.
On September 11, 2001, the transmitter facilities of WPIX as well as eight other New York City television stations and several radio stations were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers.
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN networks announced that they would merge into a new service, the CW Television Network, named for its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and Warner Bros. Television. The new network signed a 10-year affiliation deal with most of Tribune's WB stations, including WPIX. Unlike in its relationship with the WB, Tribune does not have an ownership interest in the CW—meaning, once again, WPIX is the network's "flagship" station in name only. Thursday, November 12, 2009


Dear Friends of the Murphy Institute,
Please help us to get the word out about the new Masters Degree in Labor Studies at CUNY, to co-workers, union leaders, activists, students, union staff, and others!
Refreshments served.
Please RSVP by calling the Murphy Institute:
(212) 827 - 0200
The Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies is part of the School for Professional Studies and the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York
New York, NY 10036-7406
Tel: 212.827.0200 Fax: 212.827.5955
Our September classes have generated a lot of excitement from the 37 new Labor Studies M.A. students, as they make new friends and get immersed in their classes.
Here is a comment from one student:
"For me this is a tremendous opportunity for those of us who are committed to the labor movement and the empowerment of all workers. I highly recommend this program which is developing the innovative labor leaders of today and tomorrow!" - Damon, Local 1199 staff
With exceptional faculty and lecturers, and CUNY's relatively modest tuition, this is certainly one of the finest Labor Studies Programs in the country.
We appreciate your help in publicizing the Masters in Labor Studies program.
In addition, if you can help arrange a meeting with your union's leadership or members, or any organization, please let us know.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Laurie Kellogg
Labor Studies Program Coordinator
212-827-0200
Laurie.Kellogg@mail.cuny.edu
About the M.A. in Labor Studies
· Students explore issues from many perspectives, including economics, sociology, history, political science, global studies and cultural analysis.
· The curriculum combines theory with practice and includes fieldwork opportunities.
· Graduates are prepared to work with unions as field representatives, organizers, researchers, educators, and communications specialists, among other staff and leadership positions. Others pursue careers in law, labor relations, human resources, and government.
· Earn a professional degree to enhance career opportunities in laborand related fields
· Develop a deeper understanding of work, workers and workers’organizations in a global society
· Become a more effective advocate for labor rights and social justiceAcquire new knowledge and sharpen analytical skills
· Study with world-class faculty and outstanding practitioners in the field
See for yourself how the MA in Labor Studies at the CUNY Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies will help you become a more effective organizer, negotiator, and advocate for the rights and needs of workers.
New York, NY 10036-7406
Tel: 212.827.0200 Fax: 212.827.5955http://www.workered.org/
FCC May Relax Media Ownership Limits
Forbes
On the day after the Nov. 3 elections, television newscasts were focused on upset political victories in New Jersey and Virginia. Back in Washington, a different kind of politicking unfolded at the FCC, where television broadcasters argued for unprecedented rollbacks in ownership rules.
They did so as part of a "workshop"--the Obama FCC's new format for assembling policy scholars, industry bigwigs and regulators to hash out regulatory issues. The workshops are part of the FCC's quadrennial review to prepare for possible rule changes in 2010.
Last week's discussions buoyed the hopes of Susan Patrick, managing partner at media investment shop Patrick Communications.
A likely change, she says, is a lifting of rules that restrict common ownership of a daily newspaper and a TV or radio station.
"Newspapers are breathing their last breath," says Patrick, co-owner of 15 radio stations in Wyoming.
For broadcasters, a bigger change may be in the works: loosening station ownership rules.
The FCC allows an entity to own only two TV stations in the same market, based on complex demographic mandates. Changing these rules would boost small markets where only four or five television stations operate.
"These are places where many stations have abandoned news in favor of syndicated content. A small-market news operation can cost $300,000 a year," says Patrick, who didn't attend the workshop but closely followed it. "Those are the markets that need a broadcaster to be able to own more than two stations. You could own an ABC and a Fox, or an NBC and a CW. Economically you could spread costs and news functions across operations."
To erase any shadow of doubt, David Barrett, president of Hearst Television, put a fine point on the argument at the workshop. The ad recession is mostly permanent, not cyclical, and has wreaked financial devastation on local television stations.
Before the recession, the Boston TV market reeled in $500 million in revenue a year; this year, it's down to $300 million. Other industry reps described the hits real estate and consumer electronics advertising have taken. Car commercials, once the bread-and-butter advertising for local newscasts, have all but disappeared.
For local broadcasters to survive, Barrett suggested a twist on station ownership rules. Why not allow common ownership of multiple TV stations in a market on the condition that, collectively, they have no more than 30% of the audience?
Michael Copps, the only FCC commissioner to speak at the hearings, seems to be listening. Hardly a beloved figure among broadcasters, he's known as a merger bear, blasting broadcasters for chasing "elusive economies of scale" that "doomed so many companies over the past few years." Yet it could be Copps, of all people, who turns out to be broadcasters' savior.
Given the sad state of the ad marketplace, that wouldn't surprise Susan Patrick. "If any FCC is going to make rule changes like these," she says, "it'll be this one."
(Sadly, the unions that represent the employees of TV stations across the country were not present, or at least were silent. One wonders why there is no hue and cry? Are the people who've worked so hard for so long to create the programs, write, direct, shoot, edit, and broadcast the news, sports, and entertainment America has come to love going to go quietly away into history without a fight? Why? - BD)
Gore's Current TV cuts 80 workers, shifts programming
The Tech Chronicles
Current TV, the San Francisco cable and Internet video channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, on Wednesday cut 80 workers and announced a big shift in its programing strategy.
Current Media Inc. said the company is moving Current TV away from daily in-house production of short-form programs and toward programs presented in more industry-standard 30- and 60-minute formats.
The cutbacks come even as Current Media expects its most profitable year.
"This is less about an exercise in cost-cutting and more about a strategic realignment of our programming,'' Chief Operating Officer Joanna Drake Earl said in an interview.
Since the channel's launch in 2005 by co-founders Gore and Joel Hyatt, Current TV touted short-form video as the way to reach younger audiences who were shifting their attention to online video sources like YouTube.
But the shorter programs on the cable channel, available in 59 million households in the United States, United Kingdom and Italy, did not capture audiences and proved to be confusing, Earl said.
Current TV and its online component Current.com are not abandoning the use of short user-generated video, she said. Instead, the channel has been packaging them in the longer formats that are proving to better retain audiences, such as the "Rotten Tomatoes Show."
The company is consolidating in-house video production in new facilities in Los Angeles, although the firm's headquarters and production of original online content such as "Current Green" and "Current Tech" will remain in San Francisco, Earl said.
The company has canceled shows like "Current Tonight," "Current Takeover" and "Current Exposed.'' The fired workers were production and support staff of the canceled shows.
But Current TV still plans to fill new positions being created by the new programming strategy, which will include shows from outside producers, Earl said. The company plans to end up with about 300 employees.
Current TV stayed in the headlines earlier this year when two of its journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were held captive by North Korea for five months. Former President Bill Clinton helped engineer their release in August.
Gore, who was Clinton's vice president, is chairman of the board at Current Media.
And in April, the company canceled plans for a $100 million initial public offering because of the bad economy.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=51482#ixzz0WfdM1bPT
Monday, November 9, 2009
Over 100 Jobs Cut At A&E, Lifetime
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDERAnd Lifetime digital topper Dan Surratt will now head up digital for all of AETN.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
How to Write a Mission Statement That Isn't Dumb
http://www.fastcompany.com
Why most mission statements are dumb -- and how to write one that isn't.
Here are four mission statements. Two are from real organizations. Two were created by Dilbert's Automatic Mission Statement Generator. Can you guess which ones are genuine?
1. It is our job to continually foster world-class infrastructures as well as to quickly create principle-centered sources to meet our customer's needs.
2. Our challenge is to assertively network economically sound methods of empowerment so that we may continually negotiate performance-based infrastructures.
3. To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities.
4. Respect, integrity, communication, and excellence.
Mission statements are like corporate Hallmark cards. Often written in a bland cursive font and plastered conspicuously at headquarters, these aspiring epigrams are pretty words in Air Supply -- like rhythm.
Sometimes they're created at a retreat in the woods, between the trust fall and the passing of the speaking stick. Vigorous fights over semantics last for hours, even months. Then you end up with some variation of the jargony quasi-poetry above.
For three years, I sat on an advisory board at my alma mater that helped shape the university's entrepreneurship program. At every board meeting, someone would say, "So why are we here?" Then someone would read the mission statement (it was packed with words like "commitment" and "empowerment"), and even the most dramatic James Earl Jones -- like vocal effect couldn't help motivate us to think more clearly. Because it was neither clear nor useful -- and if it wasn't useful, why the heck were we arguing about it?
Mission statements don't have to be dumb. In fact, they can be very valuable, if they articulate real targets. The first thing I'd do is forget the exact words and remember the reason for a statement in the first place.
In 2006, Wilson Learning surveyed 25,000 employees from the finance and tech industries. Respondents said they wanted a leader who could "convey clearly what the work unit is trying to do." The same applies to mission state-ments, which set the tone. Employees, vendors, and clients don't get stoked by fuzzy mission statements. They will line up behind concrete goals.
The phrase "big hairy audacious goal" (or BHAG) was first proposed by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1994 book Built to Last. They say a BHAG is "clear and compelling and serves as a unifying focal point of effort, often creating immense team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal .... A BHAG should not be a sure bet ... but the organization must believe 'we can do it anyway.' "
Microsoft came up with probably the most well-known BHAG, "A computer on every desk and in every home, all running Microsoft software." Amazon has a great one for its Kindle, too: "Every book ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds."
Both statements do something crucial: They quantify the goal. Microsoft doesn't just want to sell software -- it wants its software on every computer, in every home. Amazon doesn't just want you to buy a book; it wants to help you do so in under one minute.
Most companies aren't so successful at laying out their goals (or, obviously, at execution). And in my experience, not-for-profits are especially awful at creating BHAGs with clear targets, preferring warm, fuzzy words that have all the gloss of inspiration and none of the soul and drive of the real thing.
Here is my challenge: Write a mission statement with a goal that's an action, not a sentiment; that is quantifiable, not nebulous. I
f you're trying to sell a product, how and how many? If you're trying to change lives, how and whose?
Take your wonky mission statement and rip it to shreds. Then ponder your ambitions, and write and rewrite the thing until it reflects -- in real, printable words and figures -- the difference that you want to make.
Oh, and the mission statements above? Nos. 1 and 2 are Dilbert's. No. 3 is the mission statement of the United Way, and no. 4 belonged to Enron.
Email Nancy Lublin, the CEO of Do Something, with your nominees for best and worst mission statement.
Feedback: lublin@fastcompany.com>
Landmark Health Care Reform Bill Passes House

Friday, November 6, 2009
Check Out Unionjobs.com
To view open positions, select Staffing Positions or Trades & Apprenticeships at:
Support the Employee Free Choice Act!
Celebrating over 12 years of putting people to work union—worldwide!
Union Jobs Clearinghouse
Email: ujc@unionjobs.com
Voicemail: 707-538-2701
Twitter: unionjob
CBS Corporation Staying Put In Local Radio And TV
http://www.rbr.com/media-news/18327.html
Lots of folks on Wall Street like to talk about how TV network companies should jettison their O&O stations and go directly to viewers via cable, satellite and the Internet.
Well, CBS Corporation CEO Les Moonves is having none of it.
He says the company is committed to local media and notes that trends are improving.
For the entire company, Q3 revenues were down only 1% in Q3 to $3.35 billion. Operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA), before impairment charges each year, was $597.3 million in Q3 2009, vs. $638.8 million in Q3 2008.Television division revenues were up 9% to $2.27 billion and OIBDA gained 17% to $483.9 million.
Gains in television license fees and affiliate revenues were partially offset by lower advertising sales. And while ad sales have been down this year at the O&O stations, Moonves notes that, excluding political, spot sales were up for the TV group in October, so a rebound is underway.
Meanwhile, scatter pricing for the CBS Television Network is up over 100%, with the CEO saying he’s heard from agencies who’ve lamented that their clients didn’t take their advice to buy more in the Upfront.
Radio revenues declined 19% to $318.9 million and OIBDA declined 33% to $93.1 million, with cost-cutting more than offset by the soft advertising market. However, CBS officials said the ad market is improving for local radio as well as TV.
CBS Outdoor saw Q3 revenues decline 23% to $424.9 million, with the overseas billboard business down more than the US. OIBDA decreased 71% to $32.6 million. But Moonves was dismissive of an analyst’s suggestion that CBS Corp. load the outdoor company up with debt, since the credit markets are currently receptive (CBS Corp. itself announced closing on a new $2 billion credit facility running for three years), and then spin it out to shareholders as a separate company.
The CEO said he liked the cash flow from CBS Corporation’s local media businesses and is sticking with them. (He did allow that CBS might still try to sell more of its radio stations and possibly some smaller market TV stations.)
In fact, the company is changing its quarterly reporting segments and, beginning with Q4, Local Media will be reported as a new segment. That will include CBS Radio, CBS Outdoor and the O&O TV station group, which will not longer be lumped in with the network and cable businesses.
At the beginning of Thursday’s call, Moonves got a glowing endorsement from Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone, who said two things have become clear in this difficult year. “One, the light at the end of the tunnel each day continues to get brighter. And two, the companies with the best content have not only fared the best throughout these challenges, they’re emerging stronger than ever as well. And CBS is clearly one of those companies, and, if I may say so, the preeminent company,” he declared.
RBR-TVBR observation: What is it about local radio and television stations that Wall Streeters don’t like?
Over the course of history, local stations in large markets have been a high-margin business, while TV networks have been a low-margin business.
Even in this recession, the O&O groups have continued to pump out cash flow for their parent companies.
Les Moonves at CBS and Rupert Murdock at Fox continue to tell analysts that selling off their TV station groups would be a stupid move, but they just don’t seem to get it.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Job: Asst. Shop Foreman
Location: Hudson Scenic Studio, Inc., Yonkers , NY
Hudson Scenic Studio is seeking an organized and highly motivated individual to run our expanding Automation /Electrics department. Candidate will coordinate all of Hudson Scenic's Automation/Electrics on the floor. Full time position. Local One wages and benefits.
All resumes must be submitted to HR-Payroll@hudsonscenic.com by Friday, November 13th, 2009.
Qualifications:
5 + years in professional theatre or entertainment industry.
Past leadership experience.
Self motivated and directed.
Ability to effectively prioritize, execute tasks, and solve problems in a high pressure environment.
Experience working in team oriented, collaborative environment.
Must be in good health and able to lift 50-75 lbs.
Experience with theatrical automation systems, mechanics and electrics.
Computer literate, experience with AutoCAD, Windows XP, Word and Excel.
Specific Responsibilities:
Manage a crew of technicians varying in size from 4-25.
Supervise the Automation, Electrics and Rental departments.
Coordinate with our engineering department to get drawings to the floor and projects underway.
Communicate to production management what resources are needed to get projects done on time and under budget.
Gain an understanding of all projects in order to direct the crew in the most efficient way.
Ensure that all automation equipment is properly prepped before loading out.
With production management make informed decision regarding crew size and overtime.
Coordinate with appropriate personnel to complete equipment sign offs
Willingness to work overtime hours as projects require.
From IATSE Local One
320 West 46th Street
New York, NY 10036-8399 USA
http://www.iatselocalone.org
Local One is the premier stagehand union of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E).
We are the Brothers and Sisters who construct, install, maintain, and operate the lighting and sound equipment, the scenery and special effects which thrill and delight audiences attending Broadway shows, concerts at Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden and Carnegie Hall, the magnificent, spectacular productions at The Metropolitan Opera and throughout LIncoln Center, and the many entertaining broadcasts from CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and PBS.
We work at numerous cable TV studios and make possible the presentation of major corporate industrials and special events.
Local One does it all -- lights, sound, video, scenery and rigging, special effects. Whatever your production needs may be, however big or small, nobody can make your dreams come true better than the skilled, talented professional stage employees of Local One. We are famous for our dedication and unique abilities.
Local One is New York. We welcome you to our city and to our web site. Please explore these pages to find out more about us, our history, and our capabilities.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Open House At CUNY Murphy Institute's MA In Labor Studies Program Monday, Nov. 23 at 6pm


Dear Friends of the Murphy Institute,
Please help us to get the word out about the new Masters Degree in Labor Studies at CUNY, to co-workers, union leaders, activists, students, union staff, and others!
Refreshments served.
Please RSVP by calling the Murphy Institute:
(212) 827 - 0200
The Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies is part of the School for Professional Studies and the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York
New York, NY 10036-7406
Tel: 212.827.0200 Fax: 212.827.5955
Our September classes have generated a lot of excitement from the 37 new Labor Studies M.A. students, as they make new friends and get immersed in their classes.
Here is a comment from one student:
"For me this is a tremendous opportunity for those of us who are committed to the labor movement and the empowerment of all workers. I highly recommend this program which is developing the innovative labor leaders of today and tomorrow!" - Damon, Local 1199 staff
With exceptional faculty and lecturers, and CUNY's relatively modest tuition, this is certainly one of the finest Labor Studies Programs in the country.
We appreciate your help in publicizing the Masters in Labor Studies program.
In addition, if you can help arrange a meeting with your union's leadership or members, or any organization, please let us know.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Laurie Kellogg
Labor Studies Program Coordinator
212-827-0200
Laurie.Kellogg@mail.cuny.edu
About the M.A. in Labor Studies
· Students explore issues from many perspectives, including economics, sociology, history, political science, global studies and cultural analysis.
· The curriculum combines theory with practice and includes fieldwork opportunities.
· Graduates are prepared to work with unions as field representatives, organizers, researchers, educators, and communications specialists, among other staff and leadership positions. Others pursue careers in law, labor relations, human resources, and government.
· Earn a professional degree to enhance career opportunities in laborand related fields
· Develop a deeper understanding of work, workers and workers’organizations in a global society
· Become a more effective advocate for labor rights and social justiceAcquire new knowledge and sharpen analytical skills
· Study with world-class faculty and outstanding practitioners in the field
See for yourself how the MA in Labor Studies at the CUNY Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies will help you become a more effective organizer, negotiator, and advocate for the rights and needs of workers.
New York, NY 10036-7406
Tel: 212.827.0200 Fax: 212.827.5955http://www.workered.org/
Monday, November 2, 2009
FCC Commissioner Copps Challenges Broadcaster Responsiblity
http://www.rbr.com/media-news/18193.html
The stance of Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps on media ownership is well known. He is a harsh critic of media consolidation, and sees very little good that has come from it.
At the same time he recognizes the excellent work done by many in the broadcast community. At the 11/2/09 ownership workshop, he issued a challenge to the excellent – use this ownership review to stand up and make the case for strong local service.
His position is simple – in his view consolidated station groups with distant headquarters, focused on the bottom-line, Wall Street and massive debt-service, have been dropping the ball on serving their local communities and producing quality journalism, and he says this trend was already under way years before the recession rocked the economy.
When such a company is in the market with a committed local or regional broadcaster, it puts competitive pressure on the smaller local company that makes it much more difficult for the local company to survive, much less thrive, and diminishes its ability to continue maintaining high quality local content.
RBR-TVBR observation: We’ve heard complaints over the years from smaller broadcasters, who make up the vast majority of licensees. It’s easy for a consolidated, multi-market company, with a lot of stations in a local market, to do things to make life miserable for its smaller competitors. It can drive rates down, it can attack specifically-formatted stations, it can outbid locals for sports and quality syndication programming, it can throw in temporary game-changing amounts of cash, it can do all kinds of things. Is this a problem?
(Yes it is a big public policy problem affecting diversity of available news coverage, creates roadblocks to healthy competition, and may even raise serious anti-trust issues. - BD)
The issue: Promoting diversity or protecting free speech
Diversity, localism and competition. Those are the issues on the table as the FCC looks once again at media ownership rules.
At least one witness at the Media Ownership Workshop: Policy Scholars Panel 11/2/09 said these standards are worth regulating for.
Another said any rule beyond anti-trust statutes was a violation of the First Amendment.
C. Edwin Baker of the University of Pennsylvania argued that diverse media was an expression of democracy, that every member of society should be able to easily find a media outlet with which he can easily identify. The burden should be on those favoring more consolidation to prove that the need for it outweighs this democratic principle. He also argued that a large owner with control over a significant percentage of the media has the potential to exercise excessive influence over the debate of issues of the day; and on the flip side, he argued that large national companies are less beholden to local communities and more focused on profit, both conditions which diminish their commitment to providing quality local journalism.
On the other hand, former FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth simply said that anything beyond anti-trust law put the government in general and the FCC in particular in the untenable position of deciding who could and could not speak. He said the First Amendment is easy to attack and that such attacks happen all the time. He mentioned blue laws – popular, on the books to attack religious non-religious minorities, which restrict those minorities’ speech, and the Nixonian cross-ownership rules, which he said were specifically put in place to punish certain journalism organizations.
RBR-TVBR observation: The US broadcast system is unique. It recognizes that the airwaves belong to the public, but it also recognizes if the airwaves are to be a venue for truly free speech, the government cannot have very much involvement in that speech at all. So the airwaves are licensed to private companies.
But each station is a megaphone, and the holder of one of these valuable licenses has a much louder voice than do fellow citizens.
For numerous reasons, minorities and women are under-represented in the ranks of media ownership.
Some companies have used their financial muscle to take advantage of relaxed ownership rules to grab a very large chunk of the broadcast megaphone.
The FCC cannot simply take licenses from large companies and reassign them to minorities and women. But it is well known that many of the large companies would love to prune their portfolios. Should the FCC use what mechanisms it can to actually make it easier to sell to local or socially-disadvantaged owners? Or should the FCC stay out of it and let the open marketplace provide the final word on who owns a station license?
FCC Media Ownership Workshop 11/02/2009: Policy Scholars’ Panel
Media Ownership Workshop: Policy Scholars’ Panel
The upcoming 11/3/09 9:00 am Media Ownership Workshop: Public Interest Group Panel
and 11/4/09 9:00 am Media Ownership Workshop: Broadcasters & Industry Panel
can be seen at: http://www.fcc.gov/live/
Defining Excessive Pay
Washington Post Staff Writers
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Investor case may hint at high court approach to compensation
The Supreme Court this week will hear a case that raises bedrock questions about the ability of the market to set "reasonable" corporate compensation, and experts say its outcome could hold important clues about the judiciary's view of extraordinary interventions in the economy by the executive branch and Congress.
At issue in Jones v. Harris Associates is whether investment advisers charged too much for their services to a mutual fund under their control. But it contains natural parallels to the current controversy over executive compensation at publicly held companies.
"The fact that the Supreme Court is looking at compensation again is in itself extraordinary," said Charles M. Elson, director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, adding that the court's history is to defer to the markets rather than to intervene. "But I think it also demonstrates the political reality that compensation is sort of foisted onto the national scene, whether in Congress and now certainly at the Supreme Court."
It may also set up what could be years of judicial review of the measures that the Obama administration and Congress have taken -- and envision -- to deal with the worst collapse of the economy in 75 years.
"It's like the thin edge of the wedge," said William A. Birdthistle of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, who has closely followed the mutual fund case. He said the economic solutions of the Obama administration and a Congress solidly in Democratic hands will be judged by "the last of the branches controlled by conservatives."
Business decisions
The case is just one of many that the business community is watching. Another could affect when the statute of limitations starts to run in certain types of cases. Cases involving the power of regulatory agencies are likely to come up later, as the Obama administration takes a more assertive role in matters such as antitrust or the environmental regulation of greenhouse gases.
It also remains unclear how the court will respond to a Solicitor General's Office that is more likely to oppose businesses, as it is doing in a case against the National Football League's power to negotiate exclusive licensing agreements.
Business-related cases will also pose an early and interesting test for the court's newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor, who was a corporate lawyer and has ruled on many business cases as a Manhattan district judge and as a member of the business-heavy U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
"She may have more corporate experience than the rest of the court combined," Birdthistle said, and the docket laden with business cases allows her "immediately to have a disproportionate impact" compared with a typical first-year justice.
Duty vs. profit
In the case that comes to the court on Monday, three investors in the Oakmark family of mutual funds have alleged that the funds' manager, Harris Associates, violated its fiduciary duty by charging investors "excessive" fees -- more than twice the amounts Harris charged for advising other clients.
In one year alone, the mutual funds paid between $37 million and $58 million more in fees than they would have if they had been charged the same as other clients of Harris Associates, the investors said. But because of the cozy relationships between the boards of the mutual funds -- whose members were all appointed by Harris Associates -- the fees were not challenged.
Lawyers for Harris responded that the mutual fund business is competitive and that investors are free to choose funds with lower fees. In fact, the size of the Oakmark funds has grown, which they say shows that investors think they are getting good value for their money, even with the higher fees.
According to the Investment Company Institute, assets invested in mutual funds grew from $2.8 billion in 1995 to $9.6 billion at the end of 2008.
One of the giants of the mutual fund industry has weighed in on the side of the investors. John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group and a champion of index funds and other funds with low fees, said in a brief that the explosive growth of the mutual fund industry has made it harder to monitor the "conflicting loyalties" of investment advisers and the failure of fund managers to share economies of scale with investors.
Therefore, he said, it is up to the courts to enforce "fiduciary duty" required by a 1970 law to ensure that fund managers charge only "reasonable" fees.
"It is difficult to imagine a clearer violation of an adviser's fiduciary duty than when the adviser charges its captive fund more than others for similar (or lesser) services," Bogle's brief says.
The case was set up for the high court by competing opinions of two of the appeals courts' leading thinkers on economics and the law.
Chief Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago found that the law requires only that the management's fee process be transparent.
He noted that fund directors were not likely to fire the advisers for high fees but that investors could effectively fire the advisers by moving their money elsewhere. He wrote that there was no evidence that Harris "pulled the wool over the eyes" of its shareholders and that there was no reason to engage in "judicial price-setting."
But Easterbrook failed to convince a longtime colleague, Judge Richard A. Posner. When the full court split on whether to rehear the case, Posner penned a dissent that reads like an invitation to the Supreme Court, writing that the notion that the market can police excessive compensation is "ripe for reexamination."
"Executive compensation in large publicly traded firms often is excessive because of the feeble incentives of boards of directors to police compensation," Posner wrote, adding that "competition in product and capital markets can't be counted on to solve the problem."
In two different blog postings, Posner also took aim at the big bonuses Goldman Sachs is paying its top executives and traders, saying that while "regulating financial compensation is a mistake," he also thinks that "financial executives probably are overpaid from a social perspective."
The disagreement between two judges who have been "philosophically aligned for many, many years," Elson said, elevates the importance of the case. Both were University of Chicago professors appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan. Birdthistle said the split also blurs what could be seen as liberal and conservative positions on the issue.
Lines are drawn
Reaction to the case, though, has created familiar alliances. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business and conservative groups support Harris Associates and urge the court to stay out of pay decisions.
Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute said the decision will likely be seen as a "marker" for future court actions, and he filed a brief urging the justices not to "stretch the judiciary's role far beyond its constitutional boundaries" and in the process threaten "the fundamental right to earn an honest living."
The Obama administration has taken the same side as consumer groups. Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote that Easterbrook took a narrow reading of what Congress intended, adding that a court reviewing such a claim should make a "more encompassing inquiry."
However the Supreme Court rules, many lawyers expect it to focus narrowly and avoid the larger compensation issue.
"I don't think that the court will use this case as a vehicle to send a message about executive compensation. The court's a judicial branch and not a political branch," said Richard Bernstein, a partner at Wilkie Farr Gallagher who worked with the Chamber of Commerce on its friend-of-the-court brief.
Cubicle Workers Unite ... White-Collar Unions?
http://www.suntimes.com/business
Time may be right for unions to attract white-collar employees
Could a union be coming soon to a cubicle near you?
While unions often have been associated with the factory floor, the current congressional and presidential support of unions, along with a disillusioned professional labor force, may mean that the time is ripe for unionization to move into new territory -- the white-collar arena.
Not only has President Obama expressed support of unions, but his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board "have fundamentally changed the face of the NLRB, and are poised to make much more union-friendly policies," says Shanti Atkins, a lawyer and president and CEO of ELT Inc. in San Francisco.
One of those changes currently afoot is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, now in a House committee, which would change the NLRB system regarding how workers vote on unions, Atkins says.
Specifically, the bill would give workers the choice of forming unions by getting a majority of employees to sign cards to join, without having to hold a secret ballot election. Currently, the law leaves it up to companies to decide whether employees must hold an election or can organize by checking the union membership cards. The proposed bill also states that if employers and employees can't agree to a contract within 120 days, then a government arbitrator will help them set terms.
"There is certain to be an increase in union-organizing activities, regardless of whether or not the highly controversial bill passes," Atkins says.
That's a change since union memberships have declined dramatically since the 1950s. It's estimated that currently only about 7 percent of the private sector is unionized, but workers battered by the recession and the increasing government support of unions sets the stage for those numbers to grow, Atkins says.
Clete Daniel, professor of labor history for Cornell University, agrees.
"Traditionally white-collar workers have made advances because of their individual hard work, so there was reluctance to assign themselves to groups such as a union," he says. "The relationship between professionals and their employers was based on loyalty and mutual good will. As long as they were productive and efficient, then they had a reasonable expectation that they would be rewarded."
But as millions of white-collar workers have been laid off "in a capricious way," have seen their pay and benefits reduced or are required to do more work without getting a pay raise, a different attitude is sweeping through America's cubicles, he says.
"That old emotion -- loyalty -- gives way to an attitude of obedience," he says. "And obedience is rooted in fear."
If that fear becomes outweighed by anger, then unionization may become more appealing to white-collar workers, Daniel says.
Still, that doesn't mean these unions will look like they do currently, he says.
"Unions have often been in an adversarial position, and I don't know that white-collar workers will be that way," he says. "I think they're going to say that there just ought to be a way to decide what's fair. These workers may want to express themselves through activism."
Another reason unions may find a toehold in the professional ranks is the changing relationship between the white-collar employees and their managers.
"Management authority has really been eroded over the last 20 years by Wall Street and investors who have now become the ones who dictate what success is," Daniel says. "What this leads to is managers not attuned as closely to the worker, and they're not influencing employee loyalty as before. Managers' roles have really been undermined by other people. They're really caught in the middle."
Daniel says it's important to remember that even though union membership has declined in the last 50 years, union influence shouldn't be discounted.
"Labor unions have actually been much more successful than they have been portrayed," he says.
"A lot of companies voluntarily gave workers comparable pay and benefits as those gained through collective bargaining. It was a way for them to stop unions from coming in. But all the workers benefited -- even the white-collar ones."
Gannett News Service
Unions: Trying To Get Workers' Clout Back
http://www.courant.com/
Does anyone care about labor anymore? (Just us working folk)
Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO's longtime secretary-treasurer, was recently elevated to president of America's largest labor federation.
He now leads a confederation of 11.5 million workers, a membership bigger than the populations of 44 states.The country barely noticed. It was a big shrug-fest. Few newspapers offered more than perfunctory coverage.
Working Americans don't see their fortunes tied to the labor movement any longer.
Which is really, really too bad.
Because they are.Unions brought America the middle class, and now that middle class is "being crushed," as Trumka puts it, unions are the only thing that can bring it back from the brink.Is Trumka the man for the job?
To look at Trumka, a former mine worker who after law school went on to lead the United Mine Workers, is to see the visage of a classic union boss. The football player he was in high school is still evident. But Trumka's appearance belies his ideas, which are energetically progressive, and he's not shy about admonishing his own.
Trumka's YouTube moment came in July 2008, when he bluntly told a convention of steelworkers to get over any discomfort they had voting for a black man as president. Trumka relayed a story of how a woman said she didn't trust Barack Obama because of his color. "Are you out of your ever-loving mind, lady?" came Trumka's reply.
But the foundering labor movement needs more than a leader with a big persona and a liberal streak. It needs resuscitation. Only 7.6 percent of the private sector is unionized, down from about a third of the private sector workforce in the 1950s, and the patient is still not stabilized.
Trumka has to address the disastrous public relations unions suffer that somehow turns them into the bad guys when Rust Belt companies go bust. The typical storyline reads that Detroit's Big Three automakers wouldn't be facing near-collapse were it not for the burden of union demands.
Why do we so easily point the finger at our fellow workers for the demise of the American auto industry?
The blame belongs at the feet of the companies' top executives, who designed lousy cars and failed to innovate. They are the ones who put at risk the livelihoods and retirements of massive numbers of autoworkers doing tough, physical jobs for 20, 30 or 40 years.
True, there has been some terrible labor history. Unions were once hotbeds of bigotry and exclusion — a legacy that Trumka readily acknowledges. They clung to old work rules and featherbedding tricks when they should have given way. But weighed against the good that unions have done, giving tens of millions of rank-and-file workers a modicum of power, dignity and security in the workplace, organized labor should be lauded as America's backbone.
What we have instead is a country that remembers fondly Ronald Reagan's breaking of the air traffic controllers' strike in 1981 and feels more solidarity with strangers in online chat rooms than with fellow workers.
Are the nation's schoolchildren even taught about the struggles of Samuel Gompers, Eugene V. Debs, John L. Lewis and A. Philip Randolph?
I doubt it.
All this points to the challenges Trumka faces. He will have to reinvent unions in a way that makes them appealing to a broad range of workers, encourage young people to join, and reach out to white-collar and poverty-wage workers alike.
On top of that, Trumka says, unions must become truly international. "The corporate agenda doesn't end at water's edge, and neither can ours," he intoned at his presidential acceptance speech in Pittsburgh. Trumka's right, of course. Capital has been unleashed to flow wherever workers can be best exploited, and the union movement has to follow.
Is all this feasible?
Can the union movement be revived?
I think so, but only if Americans wake up from our collective passivity and start to care again which side we're on.
Robyn Blumner is a columnist for Tribune Media Services.
Friday, October 30, 2009
BBC to Cut Pay, Jobs
The BBC, which is funded by a license fee paid by the public, plans to cut the amount it spends on the salaries of its top bosses by about 25%, according to the BBC Trust.
The BBC also expects to abolish 18% of senior management posts in that time. And, the current pay freeze and bonus suspension for top management will also be extended.
The moves come as the BBC is facing tough questions about its funding and spending practices. The BBC -- known around the world for its journalism, quirky comedies and period dramas -- is a media behemoth in its own market. About two-thirds of all shows made by U.K. television networks are BBC productions, while 56% of all U.K. radio shows are made by the BBC and the most-read news Web site in the U.K. is www.bbc.co.uk, according to government figures.
The BBC receives £3.4 billion annually from a £142.50 tax -- known as the TV license fee -- on everyone who owns a TV in the U.K. Commercial rivals complain that gives the BBC an unfair advantage in dominating the radio, TV airwaves and Internet. As a result, the BBC is under pressure to share its publicly funded wealth with rivals.
The BBC's director general Mark Thompson, who is among those who will be affected by the pay cuts, said in a statement as part of the BBC Trust announcement that he and other senior managers "need to recognize that we are in a different economic climate." He said that "senior managers will see their total remuneration fall over the period, with the biggest reductions felt by those in the most senior positions."
Earlier this year, the BBC said it planned to reduce the amount it pays its top on-air talent following widespread public criticism about the talents' compensation.
Write to Cassell Bryan-Low at cassell.bryan-low@wsj.com
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Labor Across Prime Time TV
http://blog.aflcio.org/
Prime time last night was well worth watching. The NewsHour on PBS profiled AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann hosted California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.
NewsHour showcased Trumka’s start as a coal miner in Pennsylvania and his graduation from Villanova Law School, his rise to president of the Mine Workers and his key role in the tough battle against Pittston Coal Co.
The segment included clips from those early days, through to his emotional acceptance speech at our convention in September, when he was elected AFL-CIO president.
As NewsHour pointed out, Trumka made his name “as a bulldog against corporate overreach” while he was AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer.
The segment went on to show a clip of Trumka saying:
"I’ll stop demonizing big business just as soon as they put their country before their profits and they put their workers before their greed."
Watch this great segment here.
Later, on the Olbermann show, DeMoro discussed health care fraud—the fraud of health insurers who won’t pay claims, who overcharge patients and who fight against real health care reform legislation.
Watch it here.
Tula Connell got her first union card while working her way through college as a banquet bartender for the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee (they were represented by a hotel and restaurant local union—the names of the national unions were different then than they are now).
Affordable Health Care for America Act
For the first time in U.S. history, all Americans would have access to quality, affordable health care under updated health insurance reform legislation unveiled by House Democrats.For individuals who aren’t currently covered by their employer, and some small businesses, the proposal will establish a new Health Insurance Exchange where consumers can comparison shop from a menu of affordable, quality health care options that will include private plans, health co-ops, and a new public health insurance option. The public health insurance option will play on a level playing field with private insurers, spurring additional competition.
All individuals will generally be required to get coverage, either through their employer or the exchange, or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of income, subject to a hardship exemption.
Increases funding of efforts to reduce waste, fraud and abuse; creates enhanced oversight of Medicare and Medicaid programs.
A Plea to All Creatives: Stop Going to Work
http://www.fastcompany.com/
We are living in interesting times. Never before have we been so connected. Our ability to interact is nearly unlimited. Technology is a most formidable tool, the driver, a catalyst in the laboratory of life.
Designers thrive on the information available to us through this newly heightened era of connectivity. That said, information is not enough. We need inspiration to continue to stretch and truly reach our creative potential. I don't believe that inspiration is sufficiently served up in even the most compelling office environments, nor among the most creative cultures. So we need to get out of the office.
Design how you're going to work. Dial it into the rest of your life and vice versa. Be purposeful about what you do, where you are, where you really need to be in order to be happy and productive.
What makes you happy? When do you feel most inspired? What is it that generates new ideas and fruitful energy in your life? Find those things. Nurture them. Respect them. Being someplace, like in the office, for appearances sake is futile.
When I am happy, I am more creative and more productive.

When I am productive, I feel accomplished and happy. When I'm happy, I am most creative. It's a good, not a vicious, cycle.
Fresh ideas come from fresh minds. Fresh minds need constant and new stimulus. Sometimes it's about escape--seeing a performance or experiencing fine art. We're lucky in Minneapolis, I can walk down the street and take in live theater at The Guthrie or hike over to The Walker and view their latest show of contemporary art.
It could be about forcing yourself to see anew, with an open mind, like spending time with kids and remembering how to look at creative problem-solving from a more innocent perspective (my granddaughter Mia taught me how to loosen up the grip on my paintbrush).
It may be about finding the beauty and design inspiration in the constantly changing and renewing cycles of nature--get out and ride a bike.
We live in a world where burnout is rampant. No wonder why, when we now have the ability to be connected, 24/7. We have to ask ourselves what we want to be connected to. There have always been workaholics but today we see many of those behaviors shunned by a new generation of people seeking greater balance in their lives.
We now have the ability to blend what we do for a living, what we're passionate about and every other facet of our lives into a much healthier/happier life, a designed life. I honestly can't remember the last time I had a bright new idea while sitting at a desk.
Now that we have the ability to dial up, to log in, to upload notes, and download drafts from almost anywhere, we also need to learn the power of powering off and shutting down to charge up, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few weeks.
The business of design is about collaboration at its core. At times this is best accomplished face to face in an office setting. At times it will require working outside of normal office hours as we cross time zones and latitudes.
It also will require the occasional all-nighter or the work-thru-weekend--it's the rollercoaster way the business of design works. But these are all more palatable and have the potential to even be energizing if we realize the opportunities that being connected really affords us as creative business people. You shouldn't try to achieve the normal 9-to-5 routine in an endeavor that is not conducive to it.
I look forward to going to the office now that I don't consider it "going to work." For me it's actually the more social aspect of creating design. Because I'm not going there out of habit or for the sake of appearances, it's just another interesting facet of everyday life and it helps keep things in balance.
Balance = happy = creative = productive. Repeat.
[Feel the Music and Go Outside by Erin Hanson]
Read Joe Duffy's blog Duffy Point of ViewBrowse blogs by other Expert Designers
Principal and chairman of Duffy & Partners, Joe Duffy is one of the most respected and sought after creative directors and thought leaders on branding and design in the world. Joe's work includes brand and corporate identity development for some of the world's most admired brands, from Aveda to Coca-Cola to Sony to Jack in the Box to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
His work is regularly featured in leading marketing and design publications and exhibited around the world. In 2004 he founded Duffy & Partners as a new kind of branding and creativity company, partnering with clients and other firms in all communication disciplines.
Also in 2004, he received the Medal from the AIGA for a lifetime of achievement in the field of visual communications. His first book--Brand Apart--was released in July 2005 and in 2006, he was recognized as one of the "Fast 50" most influential people in the future of business by Fast Company.
Labor Gains - Obama Policies - Cooper Tire-to-Walmart - Companies Rue
There’s a common thread running through these developments. Organized labor is gaining momentum under the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama.
Richard Trumka, 60, Sweeney’s successor, says he meets monthly with Obama, and that union representatives have “daily contacts throughout the administration.” Obama officials visit with labor leaders “frequently,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
Obama sided with the United Steelworkers last month against tire makers such as Cooper Tire and imposed 35 percent tariffs on tires imported from China. Bush rejected putting tariffs on Chinese products all four times the issue came before him.Cooper Tire
“It’s certainly been more difficult,” said Michelle Zeisloft, a spokeswoman for Findlay, Ohio-based Cooper. She declined to elaborate. Because of the tariffs, Cooper went from breaking even on imported tires to losing $14.50 on each one, according to a Sept. 21 report by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Delta Elections
More bills supported by labor, stalled in past years because of White House opposition, have Obama’s support and may get the votes to pass once they get on the legislative calendar.
“The failure to get some of the nominees in quickly has kept some of the agencies from moving, but once they’re in, the business community’s only recourse is litigation,” said Randy Johnson, who handles labor policy at the chamber, the nation’s largest business lobbying group.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sam Zell: 'With some reasonable luck,' Tribune Co. will exit bankruptcy in early 2010
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/
Saying his investment in Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. represents "certainly the most amount of money I've ever lost in a single deal" billionaire Sam Zell said Wednesday that he no longer believes the media company will emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy before the end of this year."With some reasonable luck, I think it'll be out sometime by the end of the first quarter (of 2010)," Zell, Tribune Co.'s chairman and chief executive, told Bloomberg Television. "I've been involved in a lot of bankruptcies in my life -- most of the time as the buyer of the debt as opposed to the debtor in possession. Bankruptcies, by definition, are very frustrating, and they will continue to be."
Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 protection last December because it was struggling to manage the debt from the deal Zell engineered to take the company private a year earlier.
The heavily leveraged transaction for $8.2 billion saddled the Tribune Co. with $13 billion in debt just as the bottom fell out of the advertising market.
The original deal gave Zell a $90 million warrant that gave him the right to buy about 40 percent of the company for $500 million and has been the basis of his control of the company. "I don't think that that structure and that original plan will survive in bankruptcy," Zell said in the interview.
Zell also holds a $250 million note representing a loan he made to Tribune Co. as part of the going-private transaction, but that note is near the bottom of the hierarchy of claims in Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy case and is seen as unlikely to retain any value during the capital reorganization.
With regard to the allegation by some bond holders that the Tribune Co. leverage buyout should have been seen as doomed from the start and therefore represented "fraudulent conveyance," Zell said it's a common argument in bankruptcy cases."Most of the junior creditors in most of the scenarios will allege a fraudulent conveyance," he said. "In the end, it's very difficult to prove, number one. Number two, in this particular case, I don't think it's valid. But ultimately it becomes a basis for negotiations.
"Zell said he was "very happy for the Ricketts family," which acquired control of the Chicago Cubs from Tribune a day earlier. The transaction for the Cubs, who haven't won a World Series in 1908, has been valued at $845 million."I think the team should be owned by somebody who is local, somebody who is really passionate about baseball," Zell said. "I happen to be local. I'm not passionate about baseball. So I wish them all of the best of luck. And maybe we'll break the 101-year curse."
In an April interview with Bloomberg, Zell said that the Tribune Co. deal was, by definition, "a mistake" in that it lost money.
He was asked yet again Wednesday if he regretted the deal and would do it again if he could go back in time. "You can't look back," Zell said. "As I've said oftentimes, my head only work straight. So the answer is: If we made a mistake, or it didn't work it, it didn't work. ... and in this particular case, there was such a crash in the revenue side of the entire newspaper business. As you see by the other companies, nobody could survive it."
Fox Crew Will Swing For Fences
This notion should spark unspeakable horror for corporate types. Imagine having to make a decision at work without forming a task force, preparing a PowerPoint or even calling a meeting – with millions of strangers instantly able to judge your call.But Fox, on its World Series coverage starting tonight, faces just such terror.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Something We Should All Read Once A Week!!
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written.
"My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years,will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything youdid or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's,we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.
45. Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.
Local 600 Fights For New Media Jurisdiction in Local TV

Our photojournalist members at KIRO-TV in Seattle have been without a contract for 19 months in the face of a demand from the Company that Local 600 agree to give up jurisdiction over new media and the Internet.
That contract fight in Seattle moves to a new phase next week at a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board to consider our petition for a “Unit Clarification” – we contend that KIRO’s website should properly be considered part of our bargaining unit. Our attorneys tell us that we have an excellent chance to prevail.
While that is good news – and better news once we win – the Company has already told us that they will appeal if they lose and drag it out for years.
Congress: We Want Real Health Care Reform Now!

The insurance companies and their corporate front groups are fighting desperately to stop reform, but we're not going to let them. We need health insurance reform so no one ever is denied coverage because of a "pre-existing condition." We need health insurance reform so no one is dropped by their insurance company simply because they are too expensive.
Tell Congress now is the time for health care reform and remind them health care reform must include:
A strong public health insurance option must be available to lower costs and make sure everybody has a health care option.
All employers should be required either to provide health care for their employees or pay into a system to make sure everyone is covered.
No new costs or taxes that would hurt working families.
Sample Letter:
Subject:
Dear [ Decision Maker ],
(Edit Letter Below)The time to act is now. We need real health care reform now more than ever. Our health care system is failing us, and we need relief from health care costs that are bankrupting families, endangering our health and hobbling businesses.
Health care reform can't wait.
As you work to fulfill our demand for health care reform, here is what real health care reform must include:
1) A public health insurance plan. It will bring down costs and guarantee quality, affordable health care for all. Giving everyone the choice of a strong public health insurance plan will inject needed competition into the market, drive down costs and improve quality across all plans. It also will mean health care will be there for all of us, no matter what.
2) Employers must pay their fair share. They must be required either to offer coverage for their workers or pay into a fund to finance coverage for uninsured workers. "Play or pay" at fair and reasonable levels will level the playing field so free-rider firms cannot continue to shift costs to the employers that offer good benefits.
3) We should not force working people to pay more for the insurance they already have in the form of increased taxes on our health benefits. This would raise costs for workers in plans cover people with more medical problems and older people--and that's wrong.
Sincerely,[Your name] [Your address]
Take Action on this Issue
Send this message to:
Your Congressperson
Your Senators
Click on the link below to send this important message to your elected officials.
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/healthinsreform2
___________
Hi All,
I've given a great deal of thought to the issue of health care reform.
The United States of America is the wealthiest nation on the planet. We spend more money per capita on health care than any other country, and still have more people without health insurance than any industrialized nation in the world. The current situation can not continue.
I'm not usually comfortable with government intervention, (I'm told I may have authority issues, go figure,) but some activities are just not appropriate for profit centered business.
Nobody would argue today that fire and police protection should be placed in the hands of private industry, yet in the early days of the Republic, fire protection was not provided by the local municipalities.
Firefighting was done by employees of insurance companies, who sold fire insurance policies to business and home owners at a profit to their investors. If you could not afford to pay, your home or business would burn to the ground if you could not gather enough family, friends, and neighbors to fight the fire yourself.
The competition between rival insurance company fire departments was fierce and often became violent. Cost cuts in personnel and equipment to increase profits resulted in the destruction of countless homes and many needless fatalities. Today, paid and volunteer firefighters receive their funding from local, state, and federal taxpayer support.
Medical care being in the hands of private industry makes as much sense as private fire departments.
Reputable research has shown that the most efficient health plan currently available is the plan provided to federal employees. This is a competitive plan in terms of benefits provided and because there are no stockholders needing a profitable return, only 5% of the cost goes to the administrative expences. The most efficient private insurance plans have at leat 18% in administrative and shareholder return expences. Clearly, if the profit motive is removed from the equation, substantial savings can be realized.
Health care reform with a public option will allow employers that can't afford to provide full health insurance benefits to their workers the ability to pay a small share of the cost into the pool, which when subsidized by Federal and State money, will bring the cost down low enough for the employees to be able to afford to pay the difference.
This kind of patnership between workers, employers, and government is the only way we can safeguard the health and wellbeing of the American people without undermining the democratic principals of our capitalist society.
All the best,
Bob D
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Tribune Co. bankruptcy case: Bondholder group says company hid fees
A dissid
The bondholders also accused Chicago-based Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, of favoring the senior lenders in negotiations toward a restructuring settlement and participating in a "plan to assist in burying the estate's claims against the ... lenders."Those potential claims were raised earlier in the case by the same bondholder group, which is led by New York private-equity firm Centerbridge Partners.
N.Y. City's Film Business In A Cliff-hanger?
Odds Costume Rentals, which for 22 years supplied clothes for TV shows like Law & Order and movies such as Road to Perdition, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection this week. Friday, October 23, 2009
Organizing 2.0: Training And Strategy Conference for Labor and Social Justice Activists

Organizing 2.0: Training and Strategy Conference for Labor and Social Justice Activists
Dec. 5, 2009
Can online organizing be seen as real organizing? That’s a challenging question for those of us with the longest memories and the most experience in organizing for social justice. That said, online organizing has proven its value to the recent presidential campaign, and groups like MoveOn and Color of Change have become a powerful force through innovative online strategies.
What does this mean for our organizations?
What skills do we need to share to make the most of the online medium to advance economic fairness in New York City and New York State?
Organizing 2.0 • NYC is a grassroots led conference of social justice organizers primarily from labor and the community organizing world. Our goal is to build capacity, network, and organize to win victories in 2010 and beyond.
As a grassroots led conference, we need all of you: experienced online campaigners and those just starting out, senior staff and volunteer leaders.
Please sign up for our conference announcement list.
Organizing 2.0 • NYC: Training and Strategy Conference for Labor and Social Justice Activists
Date/Time:
Saturday • Dec. 5 • 9 am – 5pm
Location:
25 West 43rd Street
Organized by:
The Murphy Institute, The Center for Working Families, Jobs with Justice, Citizen Action, Workers United/SEIU, Community Voices Heard, Right to the City, Progressive Technology Project, Organizing for America, the Working Families Party, CIR/SEIU, Manhattan Young Democrat














