Category: media

“Many producers and writers have maintained that a concentration of media ownership has led to a decrease in diverse and experimental television and that the new rules would make the situation worse because fewer outlets would be available and open to creative program ideas. The executives who supported the looser regulations said those arguments were ridiculous at a time when the average household receives about 100 channels of television. They also said good ideas would always be welcomed in a business desperate for hits. In a sense, the F.C.C.’s decision reignited a battle that goes back at least a decade.”

“Despite the disingenuous if not wholly cynical blather of FCC Chairman Michael Powell, Monday’s vote is antithetical to promoting diversity and will allow, if not guarantee, that Americans are served an ever-more-homogenized news and entertainment product by the same handful of gigantic entities that already control the majority of the most popular venues and channels. If you doubt it, all you have to do is turn on your radio.”

The new FCC rules governing media ownership actually tighten regulations on how many radio stations a single entity may own, even as it relaxes the same rules for TV and print media. It is a move the commission’s chairman says is in response to public concern that a few mega-companies now control the lion’s share of U.S. radio programming. But the wording of the new rules will actually tighten the death grip on the industry of the biggest radio giant, Clear Channel, since its current station ownership, now over the new limit in many markets, has been grandfathered into the new regulations. In other words, Clear Channel can’t get any bigger, but no one else can even attempt to catch up.

After some initial resistance, digital satellite radio appears to be catching on with consumers in the US. The two satellite radio services are piling up new customers, and equipment to play the new programming is becoming more available.

Australia’s public broadcaster ABC is being bled of funding. “It’s a tried and true tactic. You distract the rest of the media from the issue of the long-term, incremental de-funding of the ABC by lobbing a few verbal grenades in Aunty’s direction. Commentators become so fixated on reporting the resulting explosions and collateral damage, they forget to take a step back and analyse the political and cultural implications of that de-funding process. What we need is a discussion about the vital role of the ABC in informing Australians about public affairs.”

The FCC has relaxed controls on media ownership. “The Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 – along party lines – to adopt a series of changes favored by media companies. These companies argued that existing ownership rules were outmoded on a media landscape that has been substantially altered by cable TV, satellite broadcasts and the Internet. Critics say the eased restrictions would likely lead to a wave of mergers landing a few giant media companies in control of even more of what the public sees, hears and reads.”

“It’s not alarmist, given the plain-as-day trajectory of policies – including the FCC’s own recent actions – to suggest that the Net’s promise is in jeopardy. A few giant media and telecommunications companies could well grasp full control of the Net. Earlier this year, the FCC gave U.S. regional phone companies the right to control access to their high-speed data pipes. This basically mirrored earlier policies allowing the cable companies, which also created networks by getting government-granted monopolies, to refuse to share access to their lines. In other words, U.S. high-speed data access will soon be under the thumb of two of the most anti-competitive industries around.”

“Despite massive opposition, it looks like the Federal Communications Commission will approve relaxing regulations on media ownership. “The proposed changes are such a threat to First Amendment freedoms that even some Republicans on Capitol Hill have been brave enough to oppose them. And yet, a fat lot of good it does. FCC Chairman Michael Powell wants to plow ahead with his deregulation scheme no matter what. It appears he is trying to do more damage than any other chairman in FCC history.”

“Recently, even at the biggest conglomerates, where deregulation is an article of faith, some executives have professed a certain nostalgia for a more restrictive era. From the libertarian-minded media investor John C. Malone to Donald E. Graham of the Washington Post Company, executives in television, radio, music, newspapers and cable TV have started to talk about the unintended consequences of two decades of deregulation and to ask for new rules, setting the stage for battles in Congress and the courts.”

Should radio frequencies be auctioned off as property? Or, since technology has improved and “smart” radios can pick up stations more efficiently, should the whole licensing approach be rethought? “Technology may thus help to create markets; but it also makes some of them obsolete. In this case it has turned land into sea, metaphorically speaking. To draw a historical parallel: the development of better ships did not lead to parcelling up the world’s oceans but to something called free trade.”