The Tickle File is ftm's daily column of media news, complimenting the feature articles on major media issues. Tickle File items point out media happenings, from the oh-so serious to the not-so serious, that should not escape notice...in a shorter, more informal format.

We are able to offer this new service thanks to the great response to our Media Sleuth project in which you, our readers, are contributing media information happening in your countries that  have escaped the notice of the international media, or you are providing us information on covered events that others simply didn't know about. We invite more of you to become Media Sleuths. For more information click here.

See Today's Features

The License Fee Lives. Long Live the License Fee

US Television Has Always Been Blamed For Excessive Violence That It Perpetuates Around the World, But Now The Feds Are In With Proposals To Regulate What The Industry Has Failed To Do

Media Norge In Trouble With the Competition Authorities

The Norwegian Competition Authority has fired a shot across Schibsted’s bow by telling the Oslo Stock Exchange it might oppose the creation of the Media Norge conglomerate.

The competition people have told Schibsted they would be uneasy with the new conglomerate if it controlled more than one-third of Norway’s newspaper circulation.

To reduce its market share, Schibsted announced it had sold its stake of more than 1 million shares in the local newspaper group  Asker og Baerums Budstikke ASA. It also announced it was selling its stake in the Trondheim newspaper  Adresseavisen and that when that sale was complete, expected by June, it would meet the competition authority’s circulation limit.

Music Downloads Are Not Public Performances

A US federal court has ruled today that music and other media downloads are not public performances and therefore they are not subject to royalty payments.

Public performance royalties are currently paid to songwriters and music publishers for streaming music and other media, while a separate DPD (digital phonorecord delivery) royalty is paid on downloads.  The US. Federal District Courtfor the Southern District of New York ruled against ASCAP and similar organizations that had been charging the public performance royalty for downloads.

The royalty charges had been opposed by the Digital Media Association. "DiMA has argued this case for almost a decade, and we are pleased the court agreed with our view of the law. Unfortunately, some digital media services have actually paid double-dip royalties when pressed by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. We hope those companies will demand refunds -- with interest,” said  DiMA executive director Jonathan Potter.

IFJ Opposes Chavez Actions Against Venezuelan TV Station

The International Federation of Journalists has aimed its ire at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for not renewing the license of TV network Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) that had often been critical of the government.

"For there to be true media freedom in Venezuela, there must be a plurality of voices, both on the airwaves and in newsrooms," said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White in a news release.

"Shutting down a broadcaster without due process and threatening to curb free trade unionism could lead to more attacks on fundamental rights,"  IFJ said. The group said it supports “protests by its Venezuelan affiliate, the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Prensa (SNTP), over the closure of RCTV,” the document said.

A poll said that nearly 70% of Venezuelans oppose the government decision not to renew the license when it comes up for renewal in May. Polling director Luis Vicente León said the license non-renewal for RCTV, founded in 1953, "is the most rejected political action that (President Hugo) Chávez has taken during his eight-year term in office."

"If the government decides eventually not to renew the RCTV license, Chávez will not escape unscathed as to his popularity," León told foreign correspondents.

The Venezuelan government accuses RCTV of censoring journalists covering the 2002 coup and carrying out a campaign of distortion, manipulation and misinformation. RCTV say the decision is connected with Chavez’s bid for reelection.

Mel Makes Millions

US radio industry tip sheet Inside Radio reported Sirius Satellite CEO Mel Karmazin collected more than $31 million in total compensation for 2006. US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) figures quoted show a base salary of $1.25 million and a $3 million cash bonus. Adding in stock options, Karmazin’s 2006 compensation package totaled $31,217,249 (€22,869,455).

Karmazin iscurrently lobbying US regulators and politicians to allow a merger of Sirius Satellite and XM Satellite Radio. Clear Channel Communications owns Inside Radio and joins all American terrestrial broadcasters in opposing a merger of the satellite radio companies. (read more on opposition to the Sirius/XM merger) Executive compensation whinging has grown in America since the Enron scandals and is popular media fodder.

Murdoch Gives His Personal View on World Affairs

Rupert Murdoch told a large audience of business leaders in Los Angeles this week his view of world affairs. Some of the highlights:

• “I’m a supporter of President Bush, but I do believe he’s a bad, or inadequate, communicator.”

• US politics are toxic. “You can’t really expect anything to be achieved in the next 18 months and it’s a very serious, sad problem for this country.”

• “The threat of Islamic terror will worsen significantly if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.”

• Americans need to come together in fighting the war on terror. “It’s a tragedy that we’re not more united.”

• Do business in China is very difficult. “The fact is, media is pretty much closed.”

Ipod and Macintosh Doing Great, and Apple Shares Soar

Not only is Apple having huge success with the iPod, but its core Macintosh computer is definitely back in favor. Apple announced Wednesday it had sold 1.52 million Macintoshes and 10.5 million iPods in its first quarter, gains of 36% and 24% respectively over a year ago. Its shares soared more than 8% to cross $100 for the first time as its quarterly profit rose 88%..

Apple announced earlier this month it had sold its 100 millionth iPod, taking just over five years to do it., It has captured more than 70 percent of the U.S. digital music player market. The iTunes music store, has sold more than 2.5 billion songs since it opened.

The Mac is definitely gaining market share with  growth more than three times that for the PC.

Journalists Rights Now on Podcast

ftm Mediasleuth in Denmark Kristen Sparre clued us in on a new podcast from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (US). Each bi-weekly release will feature an interview and updates on media law affecting journalists and media attorneys.

Access it at www.rcfp.org/podcast or via iTunes as “Reporters Committee.”

Everybody Blames Everybody For Czech Digital Mess

ftm Mediasleuth in the Czech Republic forwarded a longer, more complete explanation of the stalled digital TV licenses from the Czech Business Weekly. It can best be described as a “digital circular firing-squad,” everybody blaming everybody.

The Czech Parliament is blamed for not adopting the right rules at the right time. The Czech Telecom Office (CTU) and media regulator RRTV are blamed for offering digital licenses before the law and technical support were in place. At a meeting last week several officials said broadcasters caught in the middle of the confusion are due compensation.

Totally unrelated, the RRTV hosts a meeting of the European Platform of Regulatory Agencies (EPRA) – representing all of Europe’s media regulators – in mid-May.

Newspaper Web Site Visits On The Increase

More than 59 million people visited US newspaper web sites during the first quarter, a 5.3% jump over the same period last year, according to a Nielsen/NetRatings survey for the Newspaper Association of America. The numbers mean that 37.6% of active US Internet users visited a newspaper web site.

The survey said that visitors are averaging about 45 minutes a month on newspaper sites – up 11.5% from the same quarter in 2006. The visitors generated nearly 3 billion page views in the quarter, 11% more than last year.

That all sounds great, but the problem is that Internet growth rates are slowing at a time when publishers need them to be like a runaway train going downhill. The New York Times announced in its Q1 earnings report it did not believe it would reach its forecast 30% digital growth this year. Tribune saw a 17% increase in Q1 digital revenues which on the face of it sounds great until compared with the 29% annual growth it got last year.

Four Sites Are Going to Earn $13 Billion In Advertising This Year

Google, Yahoo!, AOL and MSN between them will earn close to $13 billion in US online advertising in 2007, according to eMarketer.

And Yahoo! and Google between them are forecast to earn 50.8% of all the Online ad spend.

And it probably comes as no surprise that Google alone is forecast to earn nearly one-third of that total revenue (32.1%) with Yahoo far behind at 18.7%.

And when it comes to search advertising, Google and Yahoo! capture a full 91.9% of that spend. Google alone gets 75.6%.

Remembering Boris Yeltsin -- The Day He Damned The US Media And Clinton Couldn’t Stop Laughing

The media is full of Boris Yeltsin memories -- how he promoted freedom of the press that his successor doesn’t seem to appreciate so much, but also how he had the Army tanks fire on Parliament. But ftm’s favorite Yelstin memory is a 1995 New York summit news conference with Yeltsin and President Bill Clinton. 

The American media had predicted beforehand the summit would be a “disaster” because of US-Russian differences over Bosnia. So at the news conference, which followed a rather liquid lunch, Yeltsin was feeling no pain in telling things as he saw them.

Facing the media with Clinton standing at his side Yeltsin declared, “Well, now for the first time I can tell you (the media) are a disaster.” Clinton got the translation and broke into uncontrollable laughter. He just couldn’t stop. He recovered at one point to remind the journalists, “Be sure you got the right attribution there.” And again he resumed uncontrollable laughter, putting his arm around Yeltsin’s shoulder, and wiping away tears of laughter.

No doubt Yeltsin had said what Clinton, and many Presidents before him, had always wanted to tell the American media but never had the guts to do so. Yelstin had a quizzical look on his face the whole time as if to ask, “What’s so funny?”

Clinton and the first President George Bush are leading the US delegation to Yeltsin’s funeral. Clinton and Yeltsin had a close relationship, as judged by Strobe Talbott’s book, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy. Talbott, then deputy secretary of State, has a Clinton quote that really sums up Yelstin as good as it gets, “We can’t ever forget that Yeltsin drunk is better than most alternatives sober.”

Another Regulator Calls For DVB-H Digital Standard

Bids will be issued in Germany on Wednesday for DVB-H spectrum licenses.

European Commission Media Commissioner Viviane Reding recently called for pan-European adoption of DVB-H, delighting the mobile phone people and infuriating broadcasters who favor the Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) standard.

Telecoms believe pan-European DVB-H adoption will jump-start mobile TV offerings, a needed revenue stream as income from basic phone calls drops.

Currently Germany licenses both systems in different parts of the country.

We’ll hear Less From Merrill Lynch

Merrill Lynch has announced that it is reducing the media’s access to some of its research reports and will only release information to reporters about those reports on a case-by-case basis.

The idea apparently is that the research reports are written to guide clients and if journalists write about them too quickly after they are issued they lose their value.

Speaking of Merrill Lynch, Lauren Rich Fine, its long-time media analyst, has retired.

Globally, Newspaper Shares Rose 25% last Year

In the “interesting to know” department: Newspaper shares outside the US rose on average  25% last year whereas US newspaper shares fell 9.9%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Five of the 10 top best performers were in India and China, the news agency said.

Here’s An African View Of The Importance Of A Free, Strong Press

Ms. Anna Bossman, the Acting Commissioner of Ghana’s  Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice  described more eloquently than most us could  the importance of a free, democratic press when she spoke recently at the second Bannerman Lecture on the theme "The Media, the Law and Public Accountability”, organized by the African Institute of Journalism and Communications. She declared:

"The media acts as a watchdog of not only the Government but institutions such as the security organs of state, the police and military and other state institutions. An independent, free and objective media promotes democratic governance, and at its best functions to uphold accountability, transparency and good governance in the public sector! An effective and independent media can function as a government watchdog by subjecting the actions of the government to public scrutiny and showing the people that what the government is doing is quite different from what it claims to be doing."

" It thereby holds governments to account for their policies and management of the public sphere. This is indeed a very onerous role and one that requires the maintenance of high standards of integrity, competence and professionalism.”

EC Prize For Dubai Journalist

Khaleej Times journalist and columnist Aijaz Zaka Syed was awarded the European Commission DG Development’s Lorenzo Natali Prize for Press.

The selection committee cited Syed’s columns on Sudan’s Darfur region.

Syed joined the Khaleej Times based in Dubai in 2002 from Indian Express. He is currently Assistant Editor of Khaleej Times.

The award has been given annually since 1992 to journalists in the Middle East and Africa writing on human rights.

White House Correspondents Contribute Financially To Virginia Tech Newspaper

The White House Correspondents Association has presented a $5,000 check to the Virginia Tech student paper, Collegiate Times, to help pay for its coverage of the tragedy there last week.

"It meant a lot to the whole student body," said Editor Amie Steele.

Upon the presentation at its annual black-tie dinner attended by President Bush and most of Washington’s elite, half the crowd chanted "Let's Go" and the other half chanted "Hokies."  the nickname given to those who attend Virginia Tech. Then they joined in a standing ovation.

Unlike previous years, President Bush did not give a comedy routine, saying that given Virginia Tech he was not in the mood. Instead the comedy was left to host and impressionist Rich Little. Bush noted that many of the journalists at the dinner probably needed some comedic relief since so many had been covering Virginia Tech during the week.

Russian Radio News Told At Least Half Its News Must Be Good

A syndicated New York Times story getting a lot of print around the world tells that journalists at Russia’s largest independent radio news network have been told by its new owners that half of the news they report must be “good news”. Example of good news: The weather. Example of bad news: discussing death, violence or poverty. And the US should be treated as an enemy. The Times says new owners of the network, including Lukoil, are loyal to President Vladimir Putin.

Elsewhere in Russia, citizens have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest what they say are Kremlin policies to restrict democracy, and riot police have not been shy in preventing people even getting to the marches let alone what they did as the marches proceeded. The media was out in force to cover the events, but it soon became evident that even government-issued ID vests were not enough to protect journalists from the policeman’s club.

The vests have the word 'Press' on them, as well as a quote from the Russian Criminal Code barring police from interfering with news gathering, but that didn’t stop 15 journalists from being beaten and detained by police at a street demonstration in St. Petersburg.

Oleg Panfilov, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations said, “Special vests for journalists can serve as cure-all only in a law-governed state, where this helps policemen, who understand their liability for breaking the law."

Belgian Media Report French Election Results Before Polls Close

French election law is very strict. No polls can be published for 24 hours before an election and no results given until the polls close at 1800 GMT(2000 local).

But  Sunday night, more than an hour before the French polls closed, Reuters was reporting for all the world to read that two Belgian TV  networks – state-run RTBF and the private RTL --  were saying, accurately as it turned out, that the two candidates to go into the round two would be Nicolas Sarkozy (conservative) and Segolene Royal (socialist). They only differed slightly on the actual vote percentages. 

Both TV networks said they made their projections based on what they said were counted votes. If they had voting information from official sources surely it was embargoed until 1800 GMT?