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More Media Consolidation Coming Soon
Logic Bomb writes: "According to the Washington Post, a federal appeals court yesterday made a ruling that could make the last couple years of media consolidation look like nothing. Some major FCC rules about media ownership were ruled as "arbitrary" and therefore illegal, most importantly the one preventing a company from owning the cable system and television stations in the same place. Also, though the FCC gets one more chance to defend it, the rule about a company not owning stations reaching more than 35% of the national viewership may get tossed out too."
Would you like to sign up for AOL/Time-Warner's TV Service? No? Enjoy watching static...
Soon enough, it'll be one company to rule them all...
Seriously...what will prevent monopolies from forming if these laws are stricken?
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
On the onehand these laws are limiting large companies from competing with each other, these limits tie the hands of large corporations.
On the other hand it definately opens a huge door for monopolistic reign.
We all agree that large corps are evil but we love to pay $29.95 for highspeed internet access, have HDTV yesterday, have 1000 tv channels, etc.
Its society shooting it self in the foot again. Will loosing such competitive laws and strengthening the monopoly laws possible provide a solution? Or are they the same thing and large corps just buying the laws to strengthen their strangle hold on the competition?
$sig=$1 if($brain =~
When one corporation owns all the news outlets, they can decide what you see and hear, and have the money to buy whatever legislation or legal shielding they need. "But, I get my news from the net!" That's great... until they restrict that too. "But, some entrepreneur will start their own news service" Yes, perhaps... until OneCorp buys the right politicians, or puts pressure on your ISP. A nightmare.
wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
This is great news. There are thousands of arbitrary laws on the books that must now be repealed. Let's start with this one: in my state, you can't buy beer on Sundays before noon. What's up with that? Why not Tuesdays 2-6 p.m.?
I think that's a false analogy. Imagine if the Roman Empire (and/or any of the other great empires of history -- British, Spanish, Chinese, etc.) had been operating under the authority of an even larger government, a super-empire that was structured for the maintenance of the imperial system. That's the situation with the US government and large corporations. Now, you may argue that this super-empire itself would inevitably fall ... but in the absence of something really drastic happening, I don't expect the US government to go away in my lifetime.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
THESE mergers are the killers, people. When you own all the media, all the ways to send it, and the people and resources to shape it, you have enormous power. Who cares if one company runs the software under a couple hundred million computers. We're talking BILLIONS of people affected by the media they see, hear, and consume.
Western media is overwhelmingly in the hands of a handful of individuals already. Check out this article in pravda
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Not only was it for protection of different news sources, but it also keeps advertising rates in check. There are some suits going on regarding clear channel. I hate to sound like a clear channel taking over the world alarmist because I've already posted once about them, but they are a problem. I read a while back (sorry I don't have a link handy) that they sometimes sell radio stations to small companies, whose ownership is unclear, when they approach the limit in a particular market. Then they operate that station for the other company. Some of these things are fact, the unclear thing is the ownership of the small company.
The point is, when one media conglomerate controls a significant amount of a single media type (radio, TV, newspaper) in one market, they then control the ad rates in that market. That's a major problem.
This reminds me of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which within a brief span of years turned my favorite radio station (among others in the Denver area) into a sleek, pop spewing, Clear Channel Crap Spigot. Yay for mega-conglomoration!
Thank God for college radio.
My spoon is too big!
Well, right at the moment you have Faux News, CNN, MSNBC, etc, all doing the same thing. If you consolidate, you can have one news channel (presumably Fox, considering the current political climate), which saves money on employing three times as many pesky reporters as you would otherwise need. One News Channel. One Cable Network. One Media Empire. One Rei[*** ENDING REMOVED TO AVOID CONFLICT WITH GODWIN'S LAW ***]
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As for people who argue that voting for a 3rd party is 'throwing your vote away', I submit that not voting for a 3rd party is throwing your vote away, since it doesn't much matter whether you vote democratic or republican anymore; either way you are just voting for corporate control of government.
As for which 3rd party to vote for, I prefer the Green party (natch) because they don't accept contributions from corporations, but there are probably other good 3rd parties out there as well. Voting for any of them will at least signal your discontent with the status quo, and maybe the demos/repubs will take notice and clean up their act (well.... could happen, anyway)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
That might help, though I think that the REAL death penalty should also apply to the executives and board of directors.
I don't think that the risk to investors is enough to actually result in change. A shell corporation doesn't have much in the way of assets and investment, and any that does occur, can be returned in profits and divs quickly. Then the risk is gone.
Personally, though I used to _like_ the provisions in a corporation that protect the executives from liability for the acts of the corporation, I now wish we could change this.
The CEO, other executives and BOD (Board of Directors) _ARE_ responsible for the actions of the company. That's why they get paid the big bucks. That's why they get fired when things go wrong. And that's why they should be civially and criminally responsible for the acts of the corps that they run.
You hear Ken Lay say - I need a big salary, and stock options because I am responsible for this company, and I am directing it in these profitable times in essence - I am the main man responsible for the "good times" TM.
But, when things go wrong...the story changes. Oh, I'm just the stooge running things - don't ask me, I only work here. I shouldn't be held responsible, they did it behind my back etc.
Sheesh, either you're responsoble, or you're not. If not, then give back all your pay. If you are, then quit whining, and become Bubba's slave in your nearby max-security prison.