Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - July 15th, ’23

[JackSpratts]

Since 2002































July 15th, 2023




Congratulations! The US Is 32nd Worldwide On Broadband Affordability
Karl Bode

I’ve spent the better part of two decades writing about how telecom monopolization (and the corruption that protects it) results in expensive, spotty, sluggish, broadband and historically terrible customer service. The cause of our substandard broadband isn’t much of a mystery, but because of these companies’ political influence, state and federal policymakers often lack the courage to do much about it.

So the problem persists. One recent study found that the U.S. was currently ranked somewhere around 32nd globally, behind countries like Russia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria (you can find the full breakdown here):

“The United States and Canada both have one of the highest internet costs,” Alex Tofts, the Broadband Expert for Broadband Genie, said in a summary. “It’s driven by a lack of competition and bigger distances to connect, with lower population density than other developed countries. However, both have average wages in the top fifteen in the world, compensating for the high cost of internet.”

For decades, people (mostly the industry) tried to suggest the problem was because America was just so gosh darn big. But you’ll notice that China and Russia, (ranked 25th and 17th, respectively) still perform better. Data routinely shows that affordability is the key obstacle to access, yet it’s only been in the last few years that you’ve started to see this reality reflected in U.S. policymaking.

Usually after a study like this appears, telecom monopoly lobbyists and think tankers will subsequently try to claim that U.S. broadband is actually super affordable if you stand on your head, squint, and only look at the metrics in some bizarrely specific way, like only looking at relative value in cost-per-Megabits per second in some markets at certain times of day. I wish I was kidding.

But again, the cause of this problem is very clear: monopolization and consolidation, protected by corruption. Few U.S. markets have the choice of more than one broadband provider at next-generation speeds. And that’s because federal and state lawmakers are so comically corrupt, they routinely let AT&T, Comcast, Charter, or Verizon lobbyists endlessly merge, crush all competition, then literally write state or federal legislation and policy over several decades.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Decades of federal policy corruption and dysfunction have created an extremely strong, local, bipartisan grassroots movement for better broadband access. In countless towns and cities, municipalities, cooperatives, city-owned utilities, and creative new partnerships are building new, open access fiber networks with an eye on competition and cost.

The federal government hasn’t proven to be entirely useless. Both COVID relief and infrastructure bill legislation are delivering more than $60 billion to fix the problem. And yes, while a big chunk of this money will be dumped in the back pocket of telecom monopolies responsible for spotty access and high costs in the first place, a big chunk will also be headed to these community-built alternatives.

Still, it’s comical and grotesque that it’s 2023 and a country that fancies itself a technology giant still can’t meaningfully tackle equitable broadband access and affordability. And that telecom and media policy has basically become a boring afterthought in the era of “Big Tech.” Ensuring equitable access to an essential utility is just too boring for most 2023 policy circles, much less the modern attention economy.

The FCC has made it very clear it’s an agency staffed by careerists who don’t really care about monopoly power or broadband consumer protection. Most of the agency’s Democratic policy proposals are (sometimes) well intentioned regulatory theater. Most GOP proposals don’t even bother with the illusion that consumers matter (see: Ajit Pai). When anybody tries to disrupt that dynamic, you generally get treated the way Gigi Sohn was when her nomination was scuttled earlier this year by industry.

As a result, all the interesting telecom policy is happening locally, block by block by communities pissed off by decades of neglect and overbilling. And the entrenched monopolies they’re taking aim at deserve every last bit of the long-overdue disruption headed their way.
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/12/...affordability/





Disney, WBD, and More Hollywood Companies are Arguing that FTC Plans To make it Easier for Consumers To Cancel Subscriptions Violate Streamers' Free Speech
Lucia Moses

• Trade orgs for Netflix, Disney, and others oppose an FTC plan to make it easier for people to cancel subscriptions.
• The "click to cancel" proposal comes as streamers and other businesses face rising cancellation rates.
• Companies argue the regulation would impose heavy costs and infringe on their freedom of speech.

Now that we seem to be at peak subscription, media and entertainment giants are pushing back hard against the Federal Trade Commission's "click to cancel" proposal that would make it easier for people to cancel streaming, gaming, and other services.

But legacy Hollywood giants like Disney, together with tech interlopers including Netflix and other affected businesses, are putting up a resistance to the proposed regulations.
Companies of all stripes have angered consumers by making services all too easy to sign up for but often confoundingly difficult to cancel, with gyms and news outlets considered among the worst offenders. The FTC has gone after individual companies; it recently sued Amazon, alleging the etailer "tricked" people into signing up for Amazon Prime.

That followed the FTC's proposal in March for a regulation that's intended "to make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up." The policy would cover providers of both digital and physical subscriptions, from streamers and gym memberships to phone companies and cable TV distributors.

The new rule would require companies to offer a simple mechanism for users to cancel subscriptions the same way they signed up. For example, you wouldn't have to cancel a service in person or over the phone if you signed up for it online.

"I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to cancel subscriptions I never wanted, let alone the cost!" one person wrote in a comment to the FTC.

The proposal comes at a precarious time for the entertainment industry. Hollywood distributors are counting on streaming to save them from the decline of the cable bundle. But the model depends on getting more subscribers to join and stay, and consumers have become trained to frequently cancel their subscriptions.

The average monthly churn rate across 10 subscription video streamers reached 5.8% in 2022, up from 3.2% in 2019, according to data analytics firm Antenna. In a Deloitte survey, 44% of respondents said they canceled a paid streaming service within the past six months, the highest level in the nearly five years Deloitte has been tracking churn.

Battling churn has thus become an industry priority. In rolling out its new streamer, Max, for example, Warner Bros. Discovery emphasized new features built into the app to keep people from canceling.

And entertainment trade orgs are fighting the FTC's proposal, submitting comments to the FTC ahead of its June 23 deadline for public comment.

The Internet & Television Association, which counts Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery as members, said in its public comment that the proposed reg is so vague, it would lead marketers to be excessive in their disclosures, leaving consumers "inundated" and "confused." The reg would even infringe on its members' freedom of speech, the association argued.

"The proposal would also severely curtail or, in some cases, even prohibit companies from communicating with their customers, in violation of the First Amendment," the association wrote.

Sirius XM wrote in its comments that one proposed requirement — that companies maintain records of phone calls with customers — would cost the company "several million" dollars a year to comply with.

The Entertainment Software Association, the video gaming trade organization, noted that the FTC's proposed disclosure requirements "would interfere with game play and customer enjoyment." The ESA wrote that "most consumers understand autorenewal offers and are knowing and willing participants in the marketplace" and that letting customers cancel immediately would prevent member companies from offering them alternative plans or discounts. The ESA was joined in its comments by the Digital Media Association and Motion Picture Association, whose members include Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Universal Pictures.

The FTC will examine the feedback it's received through public comment before considering a final rule.
https://www.businessinsider.com/holl...ription-2023-7





Actors Say Hollywood Studios want their AI Replicas — for Free, Forever

The reveal came as SAG-AFTRA actors confirmed they were going on strike.
Andrew Webster

During today’s press conference in which Hollywood actors confirmed that they were going on strike, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, revealed a proposal from Hollywood studios that sounds ripped right out of a Black Mirror episode.

In a statement about the strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said that its proposal included “a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members.”

When asked about the proposal during the press conference, Crabtree-Ireland said that “This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”

The use of generative AI has been one of the major sticking points in negotiations between the two sides (it’s also a major issue behind the writers strike), and in her opening statement of the press conference, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said that “If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”

The SAG-AFTRA strike will officially commence at midnight tonight.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/13/2...i-image-rights





Peak TV Has Peaked: From Exhausted Talent to Massive Losses, the Writers Strike Magnifies an Industry in Freefall
Jennifer Maas

The tipping point has finally arrived. After years of heady growth, heightened demands and unpredictable development and production schedules, seasoned TV writers are feeling the burn and yearning for the structure of simpler times, before streaming changed everything. As striking Writers Guild of America members gather daily on picket lines in Los Angeles and New York, the realization of how much has been lost amid the unprecedented spike in episodic production has come into sharp focus.

“I miss the predictability of pilot season,” says Cindy Chupack, a veteran writer-producer who is a two-time Emmy winner for her work on “Modern Family” and “Sex and the City.” Chupack adds that these are words she never thought she’d say — or even think. And she’s not alone.

Since the writers strike began on May 2, the unintended consequences of the ramp-up in series production during the past dozen years have been laid bare.

The phrase “Peak TV” emerged around 2015 as a description of television’s endless appetite for original series. Now, there’s one thing that writers and their estranged employers agree on: Peak TV has peaked. The talent pool has been stretched beyond its breaking point, and so have most of Hollywood’s balance sheets. The entertainment industry in aggregate can’t afford to keep producing content at the pace of recent years, as evidenced by the astounding financial losses reported and cost-cutting campaigns underway at Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global and to a lesser degree Comcast.
Andrew Rae for Variety

“You already have major legacy media companies that are struggling with pretty sizable streaming losses,” says Rich Greenfield, media analyst for LightShed Partners. “The challenge right now is that all of these companies are firing people and shrinking. There couldn’t be a worse time for a strike than right now. Yes, they save some money on not producing stuff in the short term, but the reality is these are increasingly challenged businesses. Linear TV is not doing well,” he says.

Greenfield’s view is echoed by a top literary agent who has watched closely as spending on film and TV content has been curbed across the board, even at the largest streamers, which are insulated from the pain spreading across traditional Hollywood.

“Old media is in the worst position, including Disney,” the agent says. “Netflix, in the way that they’ve gobbled up local production and gotten global hit shows out of it — that can sustain them forever with the WGA sitting out. With Apple and Amazon, they’re not content companies. One makes phones and computers, and the other brings your groceries, and that’s always going to be their bread and butter. If their content pipeline slows down, it’s not going to lead to less Apple subscribers or less Prime subscribers.”

The solidarity SAG-AFTRA demonstrated with the WGA on picket lines has became loud enough to dramatically affect the Emmys’ FYC season. The fear of Hollywood enduring a double strike has become all too real during what J.D. Connor, associate professor of cinematic arts at USC, calls the “hot labor summer of 2023.” He predicts it will spur more merger and buyout activity among smaller outfits such as Lionsgate and AMC Networks.

“It is one of those situations where, once one or two of the dominoes finally fall into place, I expect to see a large wave of new consolidations, of acquisitions, barring a Biden administration antitrust activity that we haven’t seen yet,” says Connor, who specializes in contemporary Hollywood and studio economics.

Likewise, one former broadcast executive sees the niche, slow-to-grow streamers having the hardest time once the strike is over: “I think people start saying, ‘Well, where’s the shows? I don’t need this, so I’ll cancel this service.’”

As whispers spread throughout Hollywood about who will live and who will die by the writers strike, these companies remain radio silent on when they think the strike will be — and, financially, will need to be — over.

“The most surprising for me is just how no Hollywood executive seems to be standing up saying, ‘I’m going to take the lead in resolving this,’” says analyst Greenfield. “You haven’t seen Bob Iger, David Zaslav, Shari Redstone, Ted Sarandos — nobody is stepping up and saying, ‘Let’s get this resolved,’ which is fascinating.”

There is no doubt that the TV content landscape will be very different once the strike is settled. The work stoppage has set off a domino effect among delayed shooting schedules that will complicate the best-laid plans of networks and streamers for months, if not years. But even without the strike-induced disruption to the content pipeline, the volume of scripted series orders is expected to drop by double-digit percentages in the coming years.

In 2022, mainstream TV networks and platforms delivered a record high of 599 total English-language adult scripted TV series, according to the annual industry benchmark compiled by FX Networks. That compares with 182 in 2002, the year FX announced its arrival as a major player with the police drama “The Shield.” The success of “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” — two beloved dramas that transformed the fortunes of the once-sleepy movie channel AMC Network — added more demand in the late 2000s among cable networks that were then flush with profits. In 2012, just before “streaming” became synonymous with “television,” the industry’s aggregate original series count hit 288, per FX.

But the greatest catalyst for content growth was Netflix’s big splash in February 2013 with its $100 million, two-season bet on “House of Cards,” the edgy political thriller from director David Fincher and writer Beau Willimon. With its explosive debut, the show introduced viewers to the radical new concept of binge-watching by making a full season’s worth of episodes available on premiere day. And that big-bang moment, so quickly embraced by viewers, led to the launch of Disney+, Apple TV+, Max (and its HBO-branded predecessors), Peacock and Paramount+. Netflix’s example also drove Amazon to pump up the volume at Prime Video.

Ten years later, amid labor strife and the ragged business landscape, the original series count number for 2023 can only fall. Even Netflix is easing the throttle on overall content spending as the company begins to deliver steady profits after years of investment.

With the changes in the industry, there’s been so much that has impacted our livelihoods and the health of this business,” says a veteran media executive who has been allaying the fears of younger colleagues. “We’ve known those changes are going to continue to come until there is some sort of financial stability for all the studios. And I know that it’s much broader than the strike, but it’s all impacting at the same time.”

Hollywood’s old guard has been forced to make draconian cuts in the turbulent post-pandemic era, punctuated by Disney’s pink-slipping of 7,000 staff positions. Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount have also made deep cuts. And they’re all yanking shows right and left from cable and streaming platforms to save money on basic residuals and music licensing costs. Apple and Amazon remain outliers, bolstered by their respective trillion-dollar market capitalizations, but even the deepest of pockets have their limits.

In the weeks leading up to the strike, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and other mega media companies assured shareholders and subscribers that their content pipelines are stocked, that they are well positioned to roll out TV series through the end of the year, some through the first quarter of 2024, and that a writers strike over the summer won’t ultimately affect their bottom lines.

But that was before the WGA took an aggressive and tactical approach to mounting picket lines on location shoots to ensure that even shows with completed scripts in hand on May 1 would not be able to complete production orders on schedule. Observers say the hardest blow the WGA strike can deliver will come over the long term, when the cost of grappling with shuttered productions and partially completed seasons will be enormous.

The WGA’s forceful action dovetails with a surge of anger among rank-and-file SAG-AFTRA members that has the performers union on the verge of an industrywide strike for the first time since 1980. SAG-AFTRA’s complaints are more evidence of how employment dynamics have changed for the worse for working Hollywood.

For decades, pilot development episodic television was done assembly-line fashion on a steadily predictable schedule. The cap gun would go off in January, when each of the major networks would select two dozen or so scripts to greenlight to pilot production. Back then, industry insiders would grouse about the rushed pace of producing make-or-break series pilots in a three-month period in advance of the May upfronts. It was nonetheless a process that imposed a schedule for production and decision-making. In hindsight, it feels to many like a level of discipline that has been missing from the Peak TV binge.

“It was all or nothing, but at least you knew where you stood after a pilot season,” Chupack reflects. “Now you can wait so long to hear anything on a greenlight and you can go months and months between seasons if you do get picked up.”

The focus on delivering episodes for a traditional September-May television season also dictated a schedule of production that was punishing but fulfilling. The many picket-line reunions that have been staged in recent weeks have reminded seasoned writers of the camaraderie of working on 22-episode-per-season series that enjoyed long runs on air. The short-order and short-lived shows of today have some feeling like itinerant workers forced to hop from writers room to writers room after four-to-eight weeks.

For companies, the macroeconomic environment marked by high inflation and rising interest rates also puts pressure on corporate leaders. Across the industry, there’s no wiggle room for investment and fliers on projects. USC’s Connor predicts that some of Hollywood’s biggest conglomerates will face hardball tactics from large private equity investors, such as the proxy fight from activist investor Nelson Peltz that Disney recently tamped down.

“The incentives for private equity stakeholders in so many of these companies have changed dramatically in the last 18 months because of the return of inflation and much higher interest rates,” Connor says. “There will be pushes from some of these investors to unload things.”

Issues like streaming viewership transparency, the future of AI in creative spaces and the length of time writers are guaranteed work on a show and what they’ll be paid are the central sticking points in the WGA stalemate. Behind closed doors, executives are looking at the same issues and preparing for more widespread changes before the dust settles. As writers reminisce about pilot season, executives and talent representatives also recognize the need for fundamental changes to course-correct the transition to streaming platforms.

But what that actually looks like is anyone’s guess. First, Hollywood has to figure out how to make real money on streaming platforms and how to shore up the money it now banks on linear channels. Both are far easier said than done. The avalanche of disruption in Hollywood has come largely from the entry of tech-rooted streamers that have never had a stake in the old ways of turning a profit on movies and TV shows.

“There’s got to be some things that get fixed first, because there’s such a dichotomy between the way these companies are making money,” one high-ranking TV studio exec says. “The legacy media companies have these broadcast and cable networks, the streamers aren’t quite encumbered, and even within the streaming world, they all make money in different ways, and these services mean something different to their ecosystems.”

Joe Otterson and Cynthia Littleton contributed to this report.
https://variety.com/2023/tv/features...em-1235666463/





Behind Europe’s Agenda for Undersea Internet Cables
Luca Bertuzzi

Submarine cables account for the majority of the world’s internet traffic, but as concerns over malicious actors moving to cripple or interfere with internet infrastructure increase, the European Union has a number of its own projects underway, underpinned by hidden political dynamics.

Undersea fibre-optic cables facilitate 99% of global internet traffic, according to telecommunications research company TeleGeography, making them a crucial, if unseen, part of our society.

In recent years, the issue of how these networks could be targeted to bring communications and information exchanges to a standstill, and also of eavesdropping, has been central to international tensions between the US and China.

This geopolitical dimension of transcontinental cables inevitably gets intertwined with commercial interests, as deploying internet cables for thousands of kilometres is expensive, and Big Tech companies have increasingly entered the game with their own projects.

In Europe, ensuring the resilience of undersea critical infrastructure is a sensitive topic since the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline last September. European Commissioner Thierry Breton has since pushed a secure connectivity agenda combining a diversification of internet connections and satellite-based communications.

However, how the EU executive has selected and designed such projects has irked some European countries, which want to push their own agendas and companies.
Undersea cable pipeline

The Global Gateway, Europe’s strategy for financing international projects in competition with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, earmarked around €‎30 billion in digital connectivity projects such as submarine and terrestrial fibre-optic cables, space-based secure communication systems and data centres.

The lion’s share of EU funding to third countries is directed to Africa, where currently the main official project for EU-Africa connectivity is Medusa, which connects Southern Europe to Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia via the Mediterranean Sea.

According to a presentation the Commission gave to national representatives in April, another project is under consideration: EurAfrica Gateway, which would run from the Iberian Peninsula along the Atlantic coast of Western Africa through the Gulf of Guinea to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

European Commission’s presentation on Global Gateway [EURACTIV]
The intent is to connect underserved countries and build links with strategic partners in the region like Nigeria, the most populous African country where the Commission vowed to spend €‎820 million in digital projects.

Latin America and the Caribbean is another area of interest. The initial plan is to expand the BELLA programme, which includes EllaLink from Portugal to Brazil until Colombia and Peru, Caribbean islands like Cuba and the Dominic Republic and even up to Mexico via Central America.

Another proposal for which the EU would have available funding is the Far North Fiber, an internet cable to connect Scandinavia to Japan via the Arctic to avoid major choke points like the Suez Chanel and the South China Sea, revealed by EURACTIV last October.

The EU is already envisaging a potential project extension that would connect Japan to the Philippines, although there is no funding available for this part. Similarly, the EU considers this Artic cable fitting with the Humboldt Cable from Japan to Chile via Australia.

A further unbudgeted proposal is Southern Asia Connectivity, connecting Taiwan to Thailand via Indonesia, avoiding the South China Sea at the centre of military tension between Beijing and its neighbours.

The Southern Asia Connectivity would tie up with the South Africa and Indo-Pacific route starting from Thailand with a landing in India. Another EU project would link India up to the Medusa cable in the Mediterranean Sea, with a landing in Kenya.

Political dynamics

However, questions remain about how the European Commission plans these international projects and allocates the funding.

“Global Gateway projects are designed, developed and implemented in close cooperation and consultation with partner countries. Infrastructure projects will be based on the needs and opportunities that they identify for their local economies and local communities, as well as the EU’s own strategic interests,” a Commission spokesperson told EURACTIV.

Another EU official told EURACTIV on the condition of anonymity, “There is no justification for the investments. The decision-making is not fair nor transparent and happens behind closed doors.”

For instance, it is unclear why the EurAfrica Gateway would stop at the Democratic Republic of the Congo and not close the circle until South Africa, which would make commercial sense.

“Lobbying for sure plays a big part,” a second EU official acknowledged.

In March 2021, the EU Council adopted a ministerial declaration on European Data Gateways, which included a series of calls to action for “new, secure cable infrastructures can benefit from sources of growth in the European Neighbourhood and Western Balkans, the Arctic region, Africa, South and South East Asia.”

While the declaration provided the political impulse for the Commission to prioritise the topic, for some EU capitals, the Commission follows its own agenda rather than the path outlined in the declaration.

A third EU official pointed out that the Commission actively engages with the stakeholders to promote subsea cable projects. But while European companies like telecom operators and financial institutions are often interested, engagement from member states is limited.

Indeed, many EU countries that are not strategically placed or are landlocked have little interest in the geopolitics of internet cables. Those member states that are engaged are, more often than not, feathering their own nest.

France, for example, has strong economic ties with the former colonies in Western Africa and the oversea territories in the Indo-Pacific. Portugal is positioning itself as an international data hub that links Europe with Latin America and Western Africa.

Finland has vehemently advocated for the Arctic cable, which sees Finish company Cinia in the lead. So far, Helsinki has prevailed on the Stockholm-backed competing project called Polar Connect.

In other words, just like Europe’s increased attention to subsea infrastructure is a reaction to the embittering geopolitical context, deciding which geographical areas to prioritise is also an opaque mixture of commercial interests and political dynamics.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/dig...ternet-cables/
















Until next week,

- js.



















Current Week In Review





Recent WiRs -

July 8th, July 1st, June 24th, June 17th

Jack Spratts' Week In Review is published every Friday. Submit letters, articles, press releases, comments, questions etc. in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Submission deadlines are Thursdays @ 1400 UTC. Please include contact info. The right to publish all remarks is reserved.


"The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public." - Hugo Black