June 19, 2010 New York Times newsflash: Under intense pressure from the White House, BP, the oil company responsible for the stricken well, agreed to set aside $20 billion over 3 and a
half years in a special fund to pay claims related to the spill. Concurrently, the Senate Commerce Committee has made it official. CALM, the commercial advertisement loudness mitigation act, requires
that the Advanced Television Systems Committee's recommended practices for variations in commercial volume in relation to the programs around them be put into effect by no later than a year from now.
Apparently, lawmakers have discovered, unbeknownst to the ad community, that there is oftentimes a disparity between the volume, usually louder, of the audio in a commercial and the audio housed
within program content.
Hopefully, once the Obama administration, agency regulators and elected officials are able to turn down the volume by enforcing audio parity between all forms of
media - they will be able to focus their full concentration on what I consider to be a more serious threat to our quality of life issues dwarfing even the audio effect: "pixel emission." Is the number
of pixels utilized by the ad community for commercial creation comparable to those of other nations and their media empires and how do they compare -- in what relative proportion -- with program
content pixel creation?
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Hopefully, at the appropriate time, the climate will be right for regulators to focus on worldwide pixel reduction goals and accept responsibility along with global
leaders to take action to confront the threat of over pixelization in commercials and programs; and then, and only at that juncture, can our administration spend time focusing on other pressing issues
that might make a significant contribution to the freedom of media consumption and quality of life issues in the U.S., such as the following unresolved biggies (in non-hierarchical order):
· multiple ownership of TV stations in the same market
· national television station
ownership (single market and multiple)
· dual broadcast network ownership
· broadcast/newspaper/radio
cross ownership
· v-chip utilization/parental controls
· radio station group ownership (single market
and multiple)
· cable systems operators ownership of programming on their systems
· cable systems
operators and broadcast station cross ownership
· cable systems operators penetration of national viewership
· satellite operators ownership programming on their system
· satellite operators and broadcast station
cross ownership
· satellite/cable/broadcast cross ownership
· telco/cable/satellite cross
ownership
· net neutrality
· enforcing cable card deployment
· must carry broadcast transmissions for all digital terrestrial channels
· must carry versus transmission
consent
· program availability via fair and equitable licensing arrangements
· the sanctity of
copyright
· the efficacy of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
· cable subscription pricing: a la
carte vs. package
· internet access pricing by bandwidth usage and justification of pricing tiers
·
"White Space" exploitation and interference with broadcast signals
· personal identifiable information transgressions both online and
television
· remote programming storage
· global warming
· universal healthcare
· ballistic shield defense
·
nuclear proliferation
· airline passengers transporting liquids on planes
· budget deficits
· unemployment
· completion of the rebuild of the World Trade Towers
· weapons of mass destruction
· institutionalized financial avarice
· military surges in less-industrialized nations
· cell phone usage in automobiles
· Apple's mobile gatekeeping for third-party providers
· internet regulation and status: common carrier vs.
informational service
· offshore oil drilling and consequences