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(1) ... The Kerry campaign trying to stop the broadcast through legal and procedural actions. How does this enhance free speech?

Interesting issue. Are there any limits on the freedom of a broadcaster? Just ask Howard Stern!

A TV station or a radio station uses a public resource, the RF spectrum, essentially for free. That's a big government subsidy (think how much cell phone providers pay for a few MHz of spectrum.). Not only that, but the FCC polices the spectrum -- if I try to set up a 50KW RF amp and broadcast in any Sinclair licensed frequency/area, the FCC will come down on me like a ton of bricks, shut me down and throw me in jail.

In return for exclusive use of protected spectrum, broadcasters agree to certain conditions. For a long time they had no choice, but now there's cable, and satellite, neither of which has exclusive use of a public resource, and on those media broadcasters are much more free to define content (Howard Stern will be moving to satellite radio, and I've heard that Michael Moore is trying to present a cable pay per view event before Nov 2).

What are the FCC conditions? Here's the FCC's brief description. In particular there's the FCC Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time rule. I think a fair application of equal time might be to broadcast the anti- Kerry movie one night, and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in the same timeslot the next night. Somehow I doubt Sinclair Broadcasting is devoted enough to free speech to do that.

Actually, your free speech question may be a red herring here. Sinclair doesn't have a great track record on free speech. Last May, Sinclair censored Ted Koppel's Nightline broadcast of the names of our Iraq war dead. Check out this story quoting John McCain:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) sent a letter to the president and CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group, David Smith, about the broadcaster's decision to pre-empt Friday night's broadcast of "Nightline.

"I write to strongly protest your decision to instruct Sinclair's ABC affiliates to preempt this evening's Nightline program. I find deeply offensive Sinclair's objection to Nightline's intention to broadcast the names and photographs of Americans who gave their lives in service to our country in Iraq," McCain wrote.

"I supported the President's decision to go to war in Iraq, and remain a strong supporter of that decision," McCain continued.

"But every American has a responsibility to understand fully the terrible costs of war and the extraordinary sacrifices it requires of those brave men and women who volunteer to defend the rest of us; lest we ever forget or grow insensitive to how grave a decision it is for our government to order Americans into combat," he wrote.

. . .

"It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves," he concluded.

My conclusion: these Sinclair folks are hardly paragons of free speech.

(2) I would suggest you see the broadcast before protesting. Maybe it isn't what you think it is -- who knows?

Great idea! Will you babysit my kids while I'm doing that? I'm willing to let the marketplace decide this issue too. Fahrenheit 9/11 was a for-profit venture that has earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000,000. I'd say th

In a 1987 case, Meredith Corp. v. FCC, the courts declared that the doctrine was not mandated by Congress and the FCC did not have to continue to enforce it. The FCC dissolved the doctrine in August of that year.

The wringing of hands and gnashing of angry liberal teeth here is palpable.

It's an opinion piece. They OWN THE COMPANY. The airwaves are public, but they have licensed those airwaves.

AFAIK, the equal time rules don't apply here. If a broadcaster allows time for one candidate for public office, it must allow equal time for all others. But this isn't "for Bush" and it isn't "by Bush". That's why equal time doesn't apply.

Here is a nice description of equal time for you.

Decided to do a little googling to see if I could substantiate your claims....

Rupert Murdoch inhereted several newspapers, which he then built upon to create a vast multinational print empire, before he ever got involved in television. In the 80's he purchased Metromedia's independent television stations, which came with preexisting broadcast mechanisms. This was soon after his purchase of the fox movie studio, with the idea that the stations would serve as a distribution medium for the studio's programming. Therefore, not only did he not simply start his own network from scratch, as he was already a media mogul, but he used already existing stations to do so. This was in a time before today's modern media conglomerates, where such a large scale purchase of independent stations was possible. Today there are very few small independent stations, most of which are in small markets to begin with, and his approach would no longer be valid [source].

Ted turner also inhereted a media-based business from his father, in this case a billboard business, and again started by purchasing a television station, in this case a UHF station based in Atlanta, in this case in 1970, again well before the dominance of today's media moguls.[source]

So, if by "started from scratch" you mean "inherited a media business and used its profits to purchase previously existing television stations" then yes, both Murdoch and Turner started from scratch.

So, apparantly all we need to "start our own damn networks" is a daddy already involved in a media-based business, television stations available for purchase, and a media business landscape similar to that which existed 30 years ago. Anybody here fit that description? Raise of hands? Beuller?

I can't make up my mind about these Annenberg 'independent' groups. On the one hand, Walter Annenberg has a rep as a conservative, but on the other hand, you have Adam "Asshole" Clymer as Annenberg Political Director.

The other wierd thing is that you're like the third person who has sent me a 2-3 sentence recommendation of Factcheck.org. It seems like an astroturf campaign or something. For example, see here.

The best criticism I've seen of Fact check is that they don't actually point to the primary sources; they point to news articles about the primary sources.

Mr. Wizard rocked. Definately one of the better shows on Nickelodeon in the day. I'm not sure if it's still or in syndication these days as I don't have cable, but it was a great show to learn growing up. Check out these facts from the pre Nickelodeon days
--
Cool kids click here

Cue Marlin Perkins (of the old Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom shows):

MP: "Today, we are going to find and capture the elusive XP2 Leopard. My associate, Jim, is armed with a toe-nail clipper and a badminton raquet. Jim, why don't you start marching down that trail over there? I'll be back at the truck with the cameraman and a bottle of scotch."

this is akin to hardware "spyware"

Actually it's more like Nielsen, Arbitron, Hooper
and other media ratings services that have been in use since advertising began in radio in the 1920's.

I was an Arbitron participant one year and kept a booklet of all the radio I heard for a week. Shortly after that a TV ratings service asked for the same, and I was glad to send them back a book mostly blank except for a few half-hours watching Nightly Business Report ;))

But you're not buying it. You're paying for the right to have a copy of it to listen to - and not make copies of it.

Read here

and here

Don't get me wrong... I think some major reforms are needed in the music industry. I'd rather pay my money directly to the band if I have to pay for the music I listen to.

PAY CABLE once upon a time was supported by subscriber fees.

Anyways, my understanding of antitrust etc is that its only a crime if they are colluding to drive prices up. Thats why we have someone called a "market leader." In other words, when they decide to raise or lower prices, everyone else follows suite fairly quickly. Example: one gas station raises prices, so does everyone else in a several block radius.

nope, the gist was correct.
1941 was the start date for b&w.
I was off by a few years.

Actually Color TV is older than 50 years. And it was developed by a mexican engineer.

Ronald knows better

Another history on the subject

Quoted in slashdot on a previous article

Maybe ir played the theaters in your town because they filmed it there, but the majority of America (almost half the TV-viewing public) saw it as a made-for-TV movie on ABC Sunday, 20 November 1983.

There had been a huge amount of hype before it played (I remember the TIME cover) related to its obviously anti-nuclear bias which was in direct conflict with the Reagan presidency's view that a nuclear war was survivable.

More info here and here.

This is an overly simplistic statement. The electromagnetic spectrum is a public resource. It is thus subject to less First Amendment protection than other mediums and subject to more government regulation.

There are First Amendment considerations at issue, such as the Equal Time Rule, which in essence, "a station which sells or gives one minute to Candidate A must sell or give the same amount of time with the same audience potential to all other candidates for the particular office."

Thus, if CBS runs an ad for one candidate, they must offer the same time to other candidates. I don't know how this would affect running a purely "anti-candidate" ad which positively endorses no specific candidate. But it might give rise to the right of the "anti-candidate" to give a rebuttal.

I suggest this be named the 'Elizabeth' gene.

The book reviewed book sounds like a crude quantization of the joy of culture. Not that I've read it, which makes my criticism phillistine at best.

But seriously, if you get a chance to pick up the book of the TV Series (or they rerun the series--I believe it was broadcast on PBS in the states) I highly recommend it.

That said, if there is one thing to fix on TV, I would make the language get fixed. Prime time TV has become a sewer. "I Love Lucy" was (and still is) a funny show without having to have the characters talk like sailors. There are some situations where I understand it (ER does a good job for the most part) but overall I think there is too much cursing on TV. That famous "7 words you can't say on TV" bit (I think it's George Carlin's?), I think I heard that almost all of those words are allowed now.

Putting the shoe on the other foot, I Love Lucy is a horrifying 1950s-stereotype-fest that shouldn't be on prime time either. One local cable channel (Showcase) used to actually have a viewer discretion warning pointing out that accepted standards for personal and professional relationships had changed since the program was made. I first saw it for Wojeck .

In Canada almost anything goes later at night when the kids should be in bed. This is (IMHO) as it should be: we're adults, and can make up our own minds. When (for example) Dominic da Vinci's police pals are working at cleaning up the Downtown East Side, the people they encounter are Not Nice. And they speak accordingly. As it should be.

But when even Trinny and Susannah come with a Coarse Language warning, I start to wonder...

...laura

It's worth noting that the fish wrap this article appeared in a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, a man whose publications are not known for their in-depth reporting skills. The Sun is only slightly more fact based than, that bastion of journalistic integrity, the Weekly World News .

Terry Nation once did an after-the-virus show for the BBC called Survivors. Aside from destroying civilization, the virus also allows rabid dogs to escape from quarantine. In one episode, people are attacked by these dogs, and themselves go mad, wanting only to spread the infection. Oddly enough, this never seems to happen in North America, even though rabies is endemic here.

Some people have raised free speech concerns as if the U.S. might not do the same things the Europeans have. There are reasons to be suspicious.

The FCC used to have something called the fairness doctrine that applied to TV and radio. A media outlet would have to air all points of view if it aired any point of view on a subject.

The fairness doctrine was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Red Lion case. In that case, the issue was whether a person who thought he had been personally attacked in a broadcast had the right to air his defense on the station. The Supreme Court ruled:

"In view of the scarcity of broadcast frequencies, the Government's role in allocating those frequencies, and the legitimate claims of those unable without governmental assistance to gain access to those frequencies for expression of their views, we hold the regulations and ruling at issue here are both authorized by statute and constitutional."

However, if we take the U.S. Supreme Court at its word in an Internet case, the fairness doctrine might well not be sustained on the Internet. As the Court said in Reno v. ACLU, striking down provisions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996:

"In Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 557 (1975), we observed that "[e]ach medium of expression . . . may present its own problems." Thus, some of our cases have recognized special justifications for regulation of the broadcast media that are not applicable to other speakers, see Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969); FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). In these cases, the Court relied on the history of extensive government regulation of the broadcast medium, see, e.g., Red Lion, 395 U. S., at 399-400; the scarcity of available frequencies at its inception, see, e.g., Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 637-638 (1994); and its "invasive" nature, see Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 128 (1989). Those factors are not present in cyberspace."

Given the fact that some broadcasters use cyberspace, e.g. CNN, we can't be sure where our Supreme Court would end up on the freedom of speech issue.

Personally, I hope we don't have to find out.

Fairness Doctrine, which was killed by the Reagan Administration.

Equal Time Rule, which dated back to the Radio Act of 1927 and is now Section 315 of the Communications Act. (I think this is the one that established the FCC itself.)

Fairness Doctrine, which was killed by the Reagan Administration.

Equal Time Rule, which dated back to the Radio Act of 1927 and is now Section 315 of the Communications Act. (I think this is the one that established the FCC itself.)

You are correct.

FAIRNESS DOCTRINE - U.S. Broadcasting Policy

In it, Prof. Bronowski posited that civilisation begins with the invention of agriculture approximately 15,000 years ago. It is at that time that the modern grain came into existence. (How, why or when no one knows.) This allowed people to accumulate food surpluses which could be stored. The importance of this is that it allows humans to settle in a single location rather than leading a nomadic existence.

Now nomads can only keep what they can carry. But a settled farmer can accumulate goods because he is not limited by his carrying capacity. "Well, so what?" you might say. Bronowski made the claim that this leads to the invention of writing. If you have a surplus, at some point you start keeping records - particularly if you have a tribe and a need for distribution of goods. This record keeping starts off with such things as knotted strings or tally sticks, but at some point it starts to evolve into a written language.

And what is the importance of that? It is this. Animals have only two ways of accumulating knowledge: instinct (passed on by DNA), and what it learns in it's lifetime. These have finite limits. But writing allows you to write down information that later generations can access - and build on. Thus the amount of information available to the species begins to increase - and so civilisation.

Which shouldn't surprise us geeks. We know that the design of the system influences the behaviour of the system. :-)

(BTW, if you ever get a chance to view the series or read the book, do so. It is a beautiful and inspiring story. -- Or so I found it. YMMMV)

Not that I want to replace one big corporate entity with another in this situation, but Comcast, or for that fact any major cable company has had prior art on this for at least the past 10 years that I can remember with Pay Per View( which is streaming video on demand) or Video on Demand which allows you to pause.

This is very stupid, I can understand a patent for a certain algorithm used for compression, delivery, etc, but patenting a very basic concept is stupid. I say a patent should at least involve some form of merit and credibility behind it. Our government has been disappointing me for 21 years and I see no change in sight.

After some very brief research I can find prior art that dates back to 1974.
Click Here [museum.tv]

The exact phrase was something like "The VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler is to women." Ah, Jack Valenti - such a way with words.

And yes, they did take it to court - and lost.

Again, that might be true in the US, but it's not true in the rest of the world. Just over the border in Toronto, CITY TV showed soft core movies, over broadcast TV, in the 1970's. Just because the US has been a nanny state in the past is not justification for it being so in the future.

I'd be more concerned about scratches -- how do I touchup a film?

I dunno, but Ted Turner might know a thing or two about it..

The British TV sitcom Yes, Minister offered a brilliant precis of push-polling technique:

Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"

Bernard Woolley: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"

Bernard: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."

Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told, you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."

Bernard: "Is that really what they do?"

Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones, no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."

Bernard: "How?"

Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"

Bernard: "Yes"

Sir Humphrey: "There you are. You see, Bernard? The perfect balanced sample."

It's an implied commitment. If you don't like commercials, fine, don't watch them. But then you are going to bitch when they cancel all the shows you like because advert dollars don't work. Or they'll make you enter in a special code that gets displayed through the adverts and you will bitch about that.

Your logic is still flawed. There is absolutely no "implied commitment" by the viewer to watch commercials, as there is equally no "implied commitment" by the advertiser to provide you anything of value. It's a case of "take it or leave it"...on both sides of the tube. You clearly aren't a lawyer.

But then you are going to bitch when they cancel all the shows you like because advert dollars don't work.

I've watched MOST of the shows I've liked get cancelled prematurely *regardless of how many commercials I watched*. I can't begin to name them all...NBC's original Star Trek, NBC News Overnight, ABC's Police Squad!, Fox's Action...the list goes on and on. The cancellation of most of the shows I liked had nothing to do with skipping commercials and everything to do with the fact that THERE WEREN'T ENOUGH GULLIBLE CONSUMERS WATCHING THEM TO SATISFY THE ADVERTISER'S MARKETING OBJECTIVES. Does that mean that if I want to watch these shows I have an "implied commitment" to lobotomize myself to meet the target demographic? I think not.

Not thinking you are screwing over the networks by deliberately circumventing all adverts with PVRs is like trying to say smoking is healthy.

This is TRULY IRONIC. *I'm old enough to remember advertisements that said that smoking WAS healthy.* Your argument is just as perverse as those advertisements were, advertisements that marketed cigarettes to young people--advertisements that you imply we all had an obligation to watch.

You are try to excuse your own bad behavior.

Now you're just name calling...an ad hominem attack. This is even MORE ironic because I don't even own a PVR! Just because I've refuted the logic of your argument against those who do use PVRs you now think you have the right to recklessly accuse me of bad behavior. That's pretty weak. Believe it or not, I use my 7 year old videocassette recorder almost exclusively to view videotapes I rent; I only own one blank videotape and have only used the VCR TWICE to record a TV program. This underlines how desperate you are to make your ill-conceived point.

You will lose.

Yeah, right. Resistance is futile! :^)

Maybe it's not the old school definition of thievery, but that's the ironic thing about the "Give Me Everything I want for Free" geeks.

Don't you find it the least bit ironic that you have just admitted to changing the definition of thievery...just as the big media have attempted to do? How much more of your freedom do you wish to give away simply by allowing others to redefine your "old school" rights for you? You seem desperate to justify all this by vaguely equating it to blatant copyright infringement, a comparison that simply isn't valid.

They use new technology, and when someone says it's wrong with old words, they say, "Nope, because it's digital it can't be theft!"

No, what they are doing was always perfectly legal using the old technology (editing out or skipping over commercials), so doing it with newer, more efficient technology isn't any less legal, no matter how much the advertisers yammer about it. You seem to think that improvements in technology that collide with certain business perogatives ought to be illegal and that laws ought to be reinterpreted to give advertisers rights they never had to begin with. You're entitled to your personal beliefs, but regardless of how strongly you feel them they aren't equivalent to law.

In general, it seems that the most effective ways of stopping suppression by government is this, not this.

Videotext

The term "videotext" refers to any interactive electronic system which allows users to send and receive data from either a personal computer or a dedicated terminal. The term "videotext" is often used interchangeably with appellations such as "online service" or "interactive network." Videotext systems deliver information and transactional services such as banking and shopping....

Traditionally, videotext systems displayed information only in text format, but as color monitors became more commonplace during the early 1990's, these services began to offer graphical user interfaces (GUIs) which incorporated sound and visually striking computer graphic displays.....

The first videotext systems were developed in Europe in the 1970s by government-owned telephone companies. The world's largest videotext service is the French Teletel system, which boasts approximately eight million users. This system was launched in the early 1980s as part of an economic plan aimed at making France a leader in information technology....

Services provided by videotext fall into one of three areas: information retrieval services such as obtaining stock prices or weather forecasts, transactional message services which enable the purchasing of merchandise over the network, and interpersonal message exchanges which may include conferencing, chat channels or electronic mail.

They're going to be soooo expensive.

Reminds me of an old Spitting Image sketch featuring a puppet of Alexander Graham Bell and his mum. Went something like this..

*Phone Rings*
Mum: Hello, '2'. (quoting her phone number)
AGB: (disguising voice) Hello lady, what colour knickers you got on?
Mum: Alexander, I know that's you!

Made me laugh anyway.

All the way through the show, I kept thinking of the "Mystery of Al Capone's Vault" special that basically destroyed Geraldo Rivera's career as a serious newscaster. Two hours of similar hype as they dug into the basement wall to find ... two old booze bottles.

News broadcasts are keyword-indexed. Some indexing is based on closed-caption data. Other stuff is just listed by title and date.

Anyone can view the video, but you have to go to Chicago. It's fun; I've been there.