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The Media Media Television

The FCC and Media Consolidation 200

Posted by michael from the pay-attention dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A story on this evening's All Things Considered but also at Now with Bill Moyers reports this June, the FCC will choose whether to keep or drop longstanding rules limiting the number of media outlets (radio stations, TV stations, etc.) a company may hold in a single area. That means all the radio stations in your area, for example, may one day be controlled by one company, like Clearchannel or Rupert Murdoch's FOX Communications. One irony is virtually no news outlet is covering the story. Another is the justifying argument for this move comes from the emergence of new media, like the Internet and Cable/Satellite. Yet with all 100's of new TV channels available, there are only five major media companies out there controlling them all, and recent copyright rules applying to the Internet have all but squelched-out Internet radio. So the old rules might not be so outdated after all. But the only voices being heard in this argument are coming from the media giants." In a related story, AOL/Time-Warner is petitioning the FCC to lift the restriction forbidding AOL from launching "advanced" IM services without letting others access the IM network.
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The FCC and Media Consolidation More

The FCC and Media Consolidation

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  • public comment (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gumbi west ( 610122 )
    is there a public comment that anyone knows about?
  • I dont understand how you can lift a petiton to brake the interoperability of an IM...
    Who would sign this ?AOL employees ... who want to use IM with the least people possible ?....

    Imagine somebody saying : hey! they are way too much people talking on AIM lets kick those nerds out....
    • Methinks AOL [shit.com] wishes to break interoperability in order to create a market for their "advanced" IM services. They are hurting in the wallet right now, and IM services are one thing AOL has a hefty market-share on. All they need now is to hook up with say, Verizon or Nextel to offer "premium" wireless IM, for a fee of course. This reminds me of the early cellular company battles over their text messaging services. Don't allow someone elses, possibly cheaper, possibly better, messaging service to work thro

      • Sorry... (Score:2, Informative)

        by StillDocked ( 471133 )
        Here is the deal with AOL IM. When AOL and Time Warner merged, they were forced to agree not to add advanced IM features (Video and such) until their network was open to other companies. Hindsight shows that this was a poor choice. Now that other companies offer these services, and the fact that AOL-TW has not become the behemoth it was supposed to have become, they seek to remove this restriction.

        While it may be used as a revenue item, the purpose is to level the playing field before people starting sw

  • Why won't they just accept the fact (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That broadcast media is different? They've allocated a limited number of airwave slots, airwaves that belong to the people, and so the government does have a stake in protecting their use. Own all the cable stations you want, own all the websites you want, but you shouldn't be able to lease all of our resource. You should be able to use one at a time in a market per type (ie 1 FM, 1 AM and 1 TV max).

  • No scarce resources in a digital world (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mariox19 ( 632969 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:10PM (#5669239)

    All the FCC rules for divying up the airwaves is based on the notion that bandwidth is a very scarce resource, and ultimately owned by the public. This "extreme scarcity" however is changing.

    Once television stations are transmitted digitially, there will be far, far more bandwidth available. There will no longer be these so-called "natural monopolies" in each locality, encouraging government regulation of the resource.

    When we go digital, there is no longer even any half-justifiable reason for restricting who gets what. There is plenty more to be gotten, and far more oportunity for competition.

    Moreover, freedom of speech does not require restrictions placed on the private sphere -- just the opposite. If anything, government restricting who is allowed to run a media outlet in a free market is an attack on the first amendment.

    • What do yopu mean when we go digital? We're already digital in Toronto, and the choices are actually worse.

      The new digital channeles have been gobbled up by the companies already owning newspapers and television stations. The scarcity may not be there any longer, but the media companies have adapted to the additional supply by a traditional polyopolist's trick: buying up all the suppliers!

    • Re:No scarce resources in a digital world (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Once television stations are transmitted digitially, there will be far, far more bandwidth available. There will no longer be these so-called "natural monopolies" in each locality, encouraging government regulation of the resource.

      False. It's called CONSOLIDATION and it's the easiest way a large business concern can dominate a market w/o providing any value of its own. All it takes is money

      If anything, government restricting who is allowed to run a media outlet in a free market is an attack on the first

    • Don't like US radio? Listen to streaming radio from somewhere else!

      Here in the UK, we have a reasonably enlightened regulatory framework which gives us advert-free streams from the BBC, and gems like ResonanceFM.com which plays 'art radio' which is so abaout as far from pop music as you can possibly get - I highly recommend rsonance to people wishing to broaden their exposure to the unusual!
    • This is one of the worst Score:5 posts I have ever seen. It's vague, and wrong. Bandwidth may become irrelevant when you're talking about wired media (fiber, coax, etc). Broadcasting is a different story. There is a finite amount of bandwidth available for the public to use. With the new HDTV channels taking up even more bandwidth than their analog counterparts, bandwidth may become even more scare (as far a TV is concerned).
  • In a related story, AOL/Time-Warner [wants to launch] "advanced" IM services without letting others access the IM network.

    At what point will the FCC finally force IM interoperability? Imagine if the phone companies could get away with this. Sprint customers wouldn't be able to call MCI customers, for example.

    The FCC needs to intervene soon!
    • There's more to this.

      If AOL is forced to make IM interoperable, others may have problems defending proprietary protocols too.. like later versions of Office being deliberately designed to be inoperable with Linux.

      Or file structures ( i.e. .GIF, .JPG. etc. ).

    • Imagine if the phone companies could get away with this. Sprint customers wouldn't be able to call MCI customers, for example.

      No one purchases Sprint phones, and the company's buisiness goes to a competitor?

  • Don't forget print/broadcast consolidation (Score:5, Informative)

    by Zygote-IC- ( 512412 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:11PM (#5669243) Homepage
    One part of the FCC rules that could be lifted prohibits a company from owning a newspaper or broadcast outlet in the same market. So not only could they own all the radio and television stations, but they could also own the newspaper in town.
    Sounds great from a "diversity of voices" standpoint doesn't it?
    • Why not just one television and radio station for each city. Much more efficient.

      I'm sure the One Big Company would argue "all the diversity you need on one channel."
    • There is an important difference between broadcast and print, though: While there is no practical limit to the number of newspapers or print publications, there is a limited number of broadcast stations (TV or radio) that can fit in the spectrum of a given market. Yes, I know that technological advances will make spectrum shortage irrelevant in the future, but as the broadcast market exists today, scarcity exists, necesitating some limits on ownership (the same way space constraints necessitate limits on
    • You know, as much as it pains me to observe the "dumbening" of the US media, I'm not terribly freaked out about it. The result is simply that our airwaves carry almost nothing worth watching or listening to, and our papers write almost nothing that's worth reading.

      Luckily, the FCC faschism hardly affects me at all, because foreign media is now accessible with an ease that we would have found amazing 10 years ago. Anybody in the USA can put up a statellite dish and watch Al Jazeera news, or state televisio

  • Variety (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:12PM (#5669249) Homepage
    We need diversity in TV channels as it the main media through which people get their information. If there is only a limited number of media outlets the stories that get broadcast will be more one sided than they are already. Things like the BBC are relativly fair but still not totally independant. The best course I would say is news.google.com. As all the stories are supposdly chosen by computer then it at least gives a fair cross sample

    Rus
    • Hmm google - who now put non important Press releases in it
      http://theregister.co.uk/content/6/30112.html :-(

      • Re:Variety (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Blue Stone ( 582566 )
        The Google story is quite funny.
        In the mainstream news, they often simply regurgitate press releases, and present them as news, with little to no real investigation.

        Nice to see Google doing something good by cutting out the middle man!
        (and you have to admit, it's more honest!)

  • The FCC also needs to raise or completely remove the limits on transmitter power. Allow stations to broadcast farther, so if maybe I can't get programming from one of the major networks in my area, I'd be able to get it from another station.

    Second, I very much doubt that this will be a big deal. It's to the advantage of the networks to have an affiliate in all of the areas of the US with a sizable TV audience. The more area they cover, the more people there are viewing their ads, and the more revenue they

  • Why diversity in media matters (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:14PM (#5669258) Homepage
    According to the article, many Americans think relaxing the rules of media ownership will be a good thing, or it won't make much of a difference. Here's why it will make a difference, and why diversity of media ownership is a good thing:

    All media has a point-of-view. Each media outlet does have a point of view, some conservative, some progressive, some liberal, some off-the-wall. Mostly conservative nowadays, because of being controlled by large megacorps that are by definition conservative in their approach. But there is a point-of-view.

    OK, so what if you are in a market with several media choices (newspapers, TV stations, radio stations)? Then you get a variety of political positions being pushed at you. You can pick and choose among those points-of-view and then make up your own mind. Reading all sides helps you come closer to reality. In contrast, if one company owns your local newspaper and your local TV station and your local radio outlets, you get only one viewpoint. If the owner of that company is extreme in his or her viewpoint, you get your news slanted in just that direction -- and no other viewpoint.

    If you are Web-savvy, you can escape this trap, but most people get their news as it is fed to them, spoonful by spoonful. Look at how many people think CNN provides an unbiased viewpoint, the facts. Look at how many people think Fox is unbiased. The more control is put over the media by any one company, the worse this will get. Can you imagine a world where the only news it was possible to get came from AOL-Time Warner, or Fox, or any one source?

    We may yet find out what that would be like...

    --------

    • Yeah, you can get your national and international and even statewide news on the Internet from a variety of sources, but how will that translate to all the smaller towns and cities which don't get the bright glare of satellite trucks from the major networks?
      What viewpoint will you get from your local school board and city council when one company owns all the voices?
      That's the nightmare the FCC forgets about when they get blinded by the major metro areas and lose sight of the small towns and cities across t
    • Just my two cents:

      I live in Indianapolis, IN and have seen the effects of media consolidation. There was once two newspapers in Indy, the News and the Star. Although both were owned by the same company, they operated independantly. The News was a little left leaning, and the Star a little right leaning, and all was good. Well the corporation decided to trash the News (its readership was about 1/2 the Star), and consildate them into one paper. The sad fact is that almost none of the editors/reporters from t
    • Reading all sides helps you come closer to reality.

      Indeed.

      CNN [cnn.com] reports that "Iraq still controls airport" in what Al Sahaf called a "slaughter", but Al Jazeerah [aljazeerah.info] actually reports a bodycount of 200-300 US soldiers killed fighting over the airport.

      What can I conclude? That the airport is still being fought over, and that the bodycount is higher than CNN's int("slaughter")==0 and less than the number the Iraqi's would exagerate.

      --

  • Big Media Players (Score:5, Informative)

    by CBNobi ( 141146 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:22PM (#5669297)
    For those that are curious, these are the current 'big players' in the media industry, along with some of the major TV networks they own.

    AOL Time-Warner - WB, HBO, Cinemax, CNN, TBS

    General Electric - NBC, A&E, Bravo, MuchMusic

    Viacom - CBS, UPN, MTV, VH1, Showtime, Nickelodeon

    Walt Disney Company - ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN

    Liberty Media Corp. - Discovery Channel, TLC, USA Networks, Sci-Fi Channel

    AT&T Corp. - Many shared stakes with AOL-TW

    News Corp. - Fox Network, FX

    Bertelsmann - Largest European broadcaster

    Vivendi Universal - USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel, HSN, Sundance

    Sony - Telemundo, Game Show Network

    More detailed information available at The Nation [thenation.com].

    • This list [cjr.org] is good too.
    • "# Vivendi Universal - USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel, HSN, Sundance"

      When they cancled the invisible man, I assumed they were evil. Now I know it :(

      Why do all the good (relativly)original shows get cancled so quick?
      The Invisible Man lasted only 2 seasons, maybe its because they had no tits. Wait, Dark Angel lasted only one, and alba is uNFable as hell.
      I'm seriously puzzled as to how Buffy can last this long and Dark Angel gets killed on its first season

      Disclaimer: I don't want buffy cancled, I'm a huge fan

  • The Problem is the FCC (Score:5, Interesting)

    by philipdl71 ( 160261 ) <[moc.tbhy] [ta] [todhsals]> on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:22PM (#5669299) Homepage
    This article brings up some important points that need to be addressed about government regulation of media. Nobody wants a consolidation of media so that one company ends up controlling all the media in a given area. This would be similar to if K-Mart bought up every retail store in a metropolitan area.

    There is a distinct difference between the retail environment and the media environment. If government decided to limit the number of grocery stores in a given area with a new agency called the GCC (Grocery Control Commission) there would be obvious problems. Corporations with the most money would immediately suck up all of the licenses and every mom & pop store would immediately go out of business.

    The way things stand now, city councils have some regulatory power over rezoning but for the most part there are no limits on the number of grocery stores in a given area. The market sets the price. Unfortunately, due to the huge amount of regulations by the FCC the radio and televison stations are limited by something that the government calls bandwidth.

    The effect is that the barrier to entry to start your own radio station, television channel, etc. is very high due to licensing costs and bandwidth "availability". Thus we really don't have anything resembling a free market in the area of media. As long as the government controls the licenses, the people will not have a voice. I have heard arguments recently on slashdot that there is no such thing as a bandwidth problem [slashdot.org]. This begs the question exactly what is the government doing limiting the number of radio or television stations in a given area?

    I'm not sure what the solution is to the problem with the FCC and giant media companies buying up stations around the country. One thing is clear, though: The present situation is nowhere near capitalism, nor the fault of the free market.

  • Merchants of Cool (Score:4, Informative)

    by starvingartist12 ( 464372 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:30PM (#5669320) Homepage
    PBS has a very informative website outlining The Merchants of Cool [pbs.org] -- "a report on the creators and marketers of popular culture for teens".

    But the most eye-opening part is their section on the Media Giants [pbs.org]. It has a huge listing of all the holdings and subsidaries of the largest media giants: News Corp, Vivendi Universal, Sony, AOL Time Warner, Walt Disney and Viacom.

    Check out AOL Time Warner [pbs.org], for instance.
  • The reality: A Constitutional Democracy occupied by a Capitalist Republic.

    Business wins we lose. Government giveaways come in many disguises, but all are in fact Corporate Welfare. The world will follow where we go, and the US is lost forever to history. There are five that closely follow the new "Politically Correct" that provides the "Unified Field of Vision" theory that provides one sight with hues and tints that build our fence.

    Until Business and Government are separated expect the worse for US, and t

  • I can understand Clear Channel, but why did the poster choose Fox as an example? They are so far down the Big Media totem pole that they barely qualify as an outllet at all. ABC/Disney and CBS/Viacom both own many, many more television and radio stations, so... why Fox, hmm?

    • Not really. Compare [cjr.org] the numbers if you want.

      Fox's stake in New York also makes it a pretty big influence. That's my take at least.

      • Blockquoth the poster:

        Not really. Compare the numbers if you want.

        Umm, the original story -- and my reply to it -- was about television and radio station ownership. Your link is interesting but not on-topic.

        Fox's stake in New York also makes it a pretty big influence.

        That is a single market. Granted, it's the largest in the country, but it's still only one. Everywhere else, ABC/Disney and CBS/Viacom are much bigger fish. As such, my question remains: why did the original poster choose Fox as an

    • I counted 42 subsidaries so far... (Score:4, Informative)

      by starvingartist12 ( 464372 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @03:09PM (#5669457) Homepage
      Fox is owned by News Corp... which owns the following (and you'll probably recognize some of them):
      1. Twentieth Century Fox
      2. Blue Sky Studios
      3. Fox Searchlight Pictures
      4. TheStreet.com (partial ownership with New York Times Co.)
      5. Healtheon/WebMD Corp. (partial ownership)
      6. FOX Broadcasting Company
      7. FOX News Channel
      8. FOX Kids Network
      9. FOX Sports (partial in some markets)
      10. The Health Network
      11. fX
      12. National Geographic's cable channel (50%)
      13. Golf Channel
      14. TV Guide Channel (44%)
      15. 22 Fox affiliated stations
      16. British Sky Broadcasting
      17. STAR TV (Asia)
      18. Fox Sports Radio Network
      19. New York Post (U.S.)
      20. The Times (U.K.)
      21. The Sun (U.K.)
      22. News of the World (U.K.)
      23. The Australian (Australia)
      24. The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
      25. The Herald Sun (Australia)
      26. The Advertiser (Australia)
      27. TV Guide (partial ownership)
      28. The Weekly Standard
      29. Maximum Golf
      30. HarperCollins General Book Group
      31. Regan Books
      32. Amistad Press
      33. William Morrow & Co.
      34. Avon Books
      35. Los Angeles Dodgers
      36. New York Knicks (partial ownership)
      37. New York Rangers (partial ownership)
      38. Los Angeles Kings (partial ownership)
      39. Los Angeles Lakers (partial ownership)
      40. Dodger Stadium
      41. Staples Center (partial ownership)
      42. Madison Square Garden (partial ownership)


      (From PBS's Merchants of Cool [pbs.org])

  • FCC Irrelevant and Hinderance (Score:3, Informative)

    by MSTCrow5429 ( 642744 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:32PM (#5669330)
    As you know from a previous /. story, the spectrum is limitless. Current dumb devices tune to frequency X and simply display, A/V or other; smart devices would be able to filter transmissions, meaning that you could have an infinite amount of data in a very small chunk of spectrum. Spectrum is nothing more than colors, visible or otherwise, and you cannot run out of colors. Even if it was not so, the internet gives one the ability to transmit whatever they please, assuming of course that they are willing to make the same investment as those already in play. The FCC, by basing itself on the flawed-theory of spectrum scarcity, is doing far more to limit broadcast diversity than any one corporation.
  • In Los Angles, Viacom owns channels 2 (CBS) and 13 (UPN), Disney owns 7 (ABC) and 9 (KCAL), and the Chicago Tribune owns both channel 5 (KTLA) and the only daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. Here in Worcester, MA, both channels 7 and 10 are NBC, 4 (CBS) and 38 (UPN) are both Viacom (and actually share the same nightly news), 2 and 44 are owned by the same PBS affiliate (WGBH), and 98 is also owned by PBS. So what exactly would change here?

  • Why this is a bad thing. (Score:5, Informative)

    by SlashChick ( 544252 ) <erica AT erica DOT biz> on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:40PM (#5669355) Homepage Journal
    I do some contract work for a nationally-syndicated home improvement radio show [onthehouse.com], so I'm quite familiar with the whole Clear Channel buyout process. Since some of you may not know how this works, I'll explain it as succinctly as I can.

    Let's say you own a radio station. Your radio station plays Top 40 stuff. You have hired some local DJs from the nearby college to play music, and you have some fun with various weekend and Friday night shows that showcase some local artists. You have a playlist that is based both on what other Top 40 stations are playing (the "popular" music), and requests from your listeners. You're doing well, but you have to maintain a staff to sell ads, and you're finding it harder and harder to do this.

    Clear Channel comes in and offers to buy your radio station. Now, Clear Channel has enough money so that they can make you an offer you can't refuse. You acquiesce and agree to become a Clear Channel station.

    Clear Channel places your station into one of seven formats. Everyone who listens to radio is now clear on what these formats are, because that's pretty much all that remains on radio today. There's "Top 40", which is what your station will be. There are also "easy listening", "talk", and four others.

    Clear Channel fires 4 out of your 6 local DJs and replaces them with DJs from other areas. This is how Clear Channel makes its money: it can pay one "regional" DJ $15 an hour to broadcast out to 4 regional stations, or you and 3 other stations could each pay $12 an hour to 4 DJs to do the same thing. Thus, the complaints from the listeners start to arrive about losing the "local" feel, but by then there's nothing you can do--it's all in Clear Channel's hands.

    Clear Channel takes a look at your programming and decides what you will and won't continue to play. In the case of Top 40, they give you a playlist. In the case of talk stations, they give you a list of syndicated shows and force you to drop everything that isn't on the list. (This is where On The House comes in-- every time Clear Channel buys a station out, they force the station to drop On The House in favor of their home improvement guy. We've lost several affiliates this way.)

    Let's continue with the analogy of your (er, Clear Channel's) Top 40 station. You're now forced to drop the local bits since you only have two local DJs left (and in all likelihood, they're both doing the morning show, since that's the most lucrative time for radio.) You're now fed a playlist. Clear Channel has national playlists. That means that whatever your station is playing is the same stuff that every other Top 40 station owned by Clear Channel is playing. Do you wonder why all radio stations seem to play the same stuff? If they're owned by Clear Channel, it's because they are playing the same songs.

    How does Clear Channel come up with these songs? They test-market in one market. ONE. In your case, the Top 40 stuff is tested in places like New Mexico. Yep, listeners in New Mexico are deciding what your station is going to play! Welcome to Clear Channel.

    If you're wondering why radio seems to have gone downhill, you can look no further than Clear Channel. Sadly, DJs are pretty much corporate minions these days. They no longer get to spin new local tracks, and they don't have a choice on what to air. Many of them aren't even in the studio for half or more of the time they're on air -- they pre-record bits and play them as their segment progresses.

    It's a sad time for radio. Fortunately, I believe the independents like On The House will survive. The independent radio stations will find their niche as well. I believe that Clear Channel will eventually feel the consumer backlash, much like we lashed out against high CD prices.

    Please don't shrug your shoulders about the new FCC regulations being suspended, though. Loosening these regulations is a bad thing. Clear Channel doesn't need to hurt radio any more than it already has.
    • I've been out of radio for a while now (and with all the stations in the area tending more and more towards "robot radio" I'll probably never go back) and don't keep up with the industry as much as I used to (that whole legal payola thing kinda took me by surprise), but isn't it Clear Channel that also has a business that handles most of the concert bookings these days as well, and also has a lot of leverage over the ticket selling business?

      That way they decide who gets played, who gets to come to town to p

    • To a degree, I understand what you are saying but the fact is, to get where the market needs to be, you have to let this go on through. The market has to be let go and let them fail. That is how the market works.

      After these companies have basically been beaten back, more players will come to market. The only problem is that we have to wait for the current guys to fail. I feel for you, I do but I don't see government legistation saving this market. I believe they are going to change the rules regardless

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • There's no reason to believe they're about to "fail".

          The reason I said that they are failing is that if you look at their Balance Sheet they are negative 6 Billion Dollar's in Retained Earnings. The rule is that you cannot pay out any dividends UNTIL R/E are positive and for no more than they have R/E. Now the income that they are generating every year is 200 million. Assuming that everything else is constant it would take 30 years before any stock holders would see a dime!

          Take the fact that they ca

    • Re:Why this is a bad thing. (Score:4, Informative)

      by ChadN ( 21033 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @02:34PM (#5674252)
      Thanks for this post.

      For anyone who listemns to music radio these days, the effect described above can easily be seen with one singer: Avril Lavigne

      Avril has been heavily pushed by Clear Channel stations (I travel a bit, and I try to keep track of which stations are owned by Clear channel). Now, Avril has a song, "Complicated", which was a hit, and could have reasonably been seen to be worthy of about three weeks of fairly solid radio play, before dropping into the occasional play zone.

      Instead, I still hear it almost all the god damn time, after almost a year, especially when listening to a Clear Channel station. There is NO WAY that dumb, trite, banal song should be played like it is after almost a year on the chart. It is being pushed (and I suspect it is because Avril is young, and "trendy", so that by pushing the music, the fashion image can be sold on magazines, etc. which Clear Channel probably also owns, or at least has a stake in.) and the target market of teeny bopper girls can be molded in to Avril wannanbees.

      There is nothing new about all this, of course. But it has gotten so bad that is goes beyond just being noticeable. It is unescapable.

      Consider also that Clear Channel owns a great number of billboards, I've noticed, and if I did some digging, I'd assume they have a large horizontal ownership presence in many media outlets.

      Another recent Clear Channel story that hit the independent newspaper circuit was how they were caught getting permits for assembly at city parks, then having their radio stations promote "anti-anti-war protests" at these places (Their DJs would say things like "everyone go out there and do your patriotic duty supporting our president and our troops. Let's show these anti-war protestors how americans really feel"), and then send out their news teams to cover these events as if they had occured as a spontaneous assembly of people. In essence, they were creating the news that they were reporting (as well as astro-turfing; they denied this, of course, but people did research and traced the permit applications back to Clear Channel)

      So, in conclusion, Clear Channel is evil. :)

  • FCC ignores its mandate once again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @02:41PM (#5669361) Homepage Journal
    Long, long ago (early 1910's to be exact) the US parcelled out its radio frequencies. They were/are supposed to be resources dedicated to the benefit of us all, like our national parks.

    Of course that ideal has eroded considerably over the years [fair.org]. The commercial US media has proven time and time again that it can't be relied upon for substantial news or even decent entertainment content. To all my laissez faire friends, look no further than Clear Channel to see how this actually hurts the market...

    After the FCC relaxed ownership regulations, the radio industry is actually smaller, less jobs are available, and musicians' barriers to radio play are higher than ever.

    PBS and NPR are merely bones thrown out to the public, a meaningless gesture. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has no more interest in providing decent news than FOX or CNN-look no further than the 2000 Presidential debates, where Jim Lehrer supported the blocking of third-party candidates from the discussion for proof.

    So what needs to happen? A lot of people have noted that the amount of spectrum available through digital 'modulation' makes it possible to broadcast an almost unlimited number of radio channels...and this technique could be applied to television as well, to a lesser extent. With limited spectrum a thing of the past, public and commercial interests can share the media, each supporting the other. Here's what I'd like to see happen:

    1)Corporation for Public Broadcasting/PBS/NPR dismantled. Public funding allocated for those organizations should be used to build a strong public access infrastructure. This new public access project awards grants to budding television producers. This public access network could also serve as a 'farm league' for larger commercial interests. Successful public-access producers could be picked up by the larger networks-allowing risk-free, cost-free market research for Big Media. Everybody wins!

    2)FCC laws limiting media ownership strengthened. Let's limit how many media outlets, and what kind of outlets each corporation can own. Media outlets should be required to report their owners, as well as what other media outlets are owned by their owners, on "public service announcements" several times per day. You'd be surprised at how many people don't know that AOL owns CNN, Time Magazine, many local cable companies, etc.

    3)Classrooms teach semiotics/media literacy. Knowing how to dissect and critique popular media is very important for a free-thinking society. As (somebody? Gramsci?) said, "The power of ideology is that it presents itself as normal." People need to know that 'objective' news is impossible, and how to spot astroturfing, shilling, and other forms of deception.

    So...that's my long-winded take on how to 'fix the media'. Appoint me as FCC chairman in 2004!

    • Become a freebander! Lets see if the corps can't control the media when anyone broacasts whatever they want!

      The DRM cartel wants to take over the internet too. Just read about all the lawsuits against P2P programs. They're not trying to stop copyright infringement, they're trying to stop public access to local and worldwide communications technology!

      Screw the FCC. They're just shills for corporate bribes. The problem is the government assists the thieves in stealing all the communication technologies fr

  • The one where lawyer Steve Dallas time travels and screws things up. He then quips "A blighted landscape of insurance monopolies and hiding, dependent, squabbling mice-people...An entire planet of victims!" Substitute any number of corporation types for "insurance" and you get the picture.

    In these times when the major media corporations suck at the tit of the ruling political party and largely publish only those items that the ruling political party wishes to be published, that the citizenry should questi
  • recent copyright rules applying to the Internet have all but squelched-out Internet radio.

    Those rules don't say one can't create original content (news, music, whatever) and start an internet radio station. Outbound bandwidth on your $40/month cable connection may be a problem but fixing that's just a matter of a little money.

  • Clear Channel (Score:3, Informative)

    by Michael.Forman ( 169981 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @03:06PM (#5669450) Homepage Journal

    This site [evilsite.org] provides information on the current monopolies that dominate media due to the deregulations in the early 1990s. Extrapolate from there.

    Michael.
  • I'm watching the Running Man now.

  • Tree falls in a forest... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Saturn49 ( 536831 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @04:17PM (#5669738)
    If ClearChannel owns all the radio stations in an area, but no one listens to any of them, do they really use any bandwidth?

  • Lots of interesting discussion about the pros and cons of media concentration. It's interesting to see the slashdot views. However, I've seen little comment on the capacity of a few large media organizations to finance their favorite congress/FCC/executive people.

    When there are only a few very very rich organizations, their lobbying and "campaign contributions" (better labeled "graft") is concentrated with amazing effectiveness. This effectiveness allow them to bias the regulators, and being big media co

  • Look what has ALREADY happened... (Score:4, Informative)

    by JohnA ( 131062 ) <johnanderson.gmail@com> on Saturday April 05, 2003 @05:00PM (#5669993) Homepage
    I highly recommend that anyone concerned about media concentration bookmark Columbia Journalism Review's "Who Owns What?" page [cjr.org], where a detailed list of media outlets and their corporate parents is maintained.

    What happens when every TV station, radio station, and newspaper in your town is owned by one company? Let's not find out..

  • If you are just now learning and thinking about media consolidation, you're very much a latecomer. I've been hearing about the progress and problems of media consolidation for at least ten years, since 1993, when the FCC repealed the Financial Interest and Syndication Rule. Even before that, in 1987, the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to give equal time to opposing viewpoints. 1987, people!
  • just by coincidence, clear channel has led the way in organizing and covering pro-war rallies on behalf of the shrub administration.

  • Notes from March 31 hearing at Duke Law (Score:3, Informative)

    by gbnewby ( 74175 ) on Saturday April 05, 2003 @09:55PM (#5671320) Homepage
    (This is long, so you might want to just click here to go to the HTML of the notes below directly.) FCC Hearing Notes: March 31, 2003

    The FCC held a hearing on media consolidation on Monday March 31 at the Duke University Law School. The agenda for the meeting is online at: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DOC-232533A1.pdf [fcc.gov]

    Also, there is a public comment facility soliciting input from the public on this and a variety of other issues: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/ecfs/Upload/ [fcc.gov]

    These are my notes from the hearing. They're fairly detailed, but not at all complete. Errors, bias, omission, etc. are my fault. This is long (600 lines), but it was a full afternoon's presentations. If you're in a rush, read Copps' comments and skip down to Tift Merritt [slashdot.org].

    • Greg Newby (contact data at the bottom [slashdot.org])

    * Opening remarks (from 1235 until 1320)

    • Michael J. Copps, FCC commissioner

      Copps thanked everyone for showing up, and expressed optimism that people outside the DC beltway could have an impact during the hearing process. He expressed regret that the other FCC commissioners and other people in DC did not attend, but hope they would pay attention to the hearing's transcript.

    • Johnathan S. Adelstein, FCC commissioner

      Overview of the FCC's role in media. He said the mandate from the supreme court is to provide:

      • diversity
      • localism and
      • competition

      in the media. He also mentioned that the important questions about media and media ownership are difficult to answer. Meanwhile, the FCC is trying to make historic decisions - that will impact the whole future of media - by June 2. A very quick timeline.

      Adelstein said that changing rules can have a very rapid impact on the face of media, citing the telecom act of 1996. He gave a review of consolidation in radio, citing it as the rapid change that can result from changes in rules, and said that radio, in particular, is an early indicator of trends in other media.

      So far, about 8000 comments were received. While this is a lot, it is also a very small proportion of the population. Adelstein pointed out that allowing companies to merge and consolidate is a one-way process, so we need to prevent it - if appropriate - before letting it happen.

    • David Price, U.S. House of Representatives

      Price mentioned that Copps was the organizing force behind today's hearing, and that the hearing was important. He expressed regret that Commissioner Michael Powell was not present (though he was invited).

      Price offered his opinion that the sense of "community" is what is at stake in broadcast media ownership. He doesn't think that 200 channels of cable is enough. He's critical of consolidation in radio, and concerned the same thing might happen to TV. He's clearly critical of ClearChannel's political use of their airwaves for organizing pro-war rallies (applause). He pointed out the fear of local affiliate owners of TV stations to buck policies and programming of the higher-level corporate owners.

    • Richard Burr, U.S. House of Representatives

      He restated the value of hearing from experts and opinions outside of the Washington beltway. He said he is here to urge the FCC to protect the voice of local broadcasters. He wants local stations to control local programming.

      Burr talked about the 35% rule that prevents too much ownership. He said that contrary to the expressed will of congress, consolidated ownership was impairing the power of local citizens to influence the affairs and values of their community due to lack of access to local media (aka lack of presence of local media).

      He wants the 35% rule to stay, and is critical of network-owned local stations. He likes independen

  • If these regulations are lifted, all media will be one company in a few short years. The press is the more vital to the government than the other 3 branches. It's corruption will be exact.

    Most people do not understand scarcity, monopoly, etc...

    Time to revoke Godwins Law....

    Perhaps a mass movment by those with FCC licences could do somthing to stop this....

    The FCC leaving it's post is the end of the constitution, the bill of rights and free speech. The world is fucked! Our regime is trying to con

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