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."

Comments

Unrestrained monopolies are poison to a republic

[Mr. Mikey]

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.

Arbitrary?

[Waffle Iron]

Some major FCC rules about media ownership were ruled as "arbitrary"

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 There are thousands of arbitrary laws on the books that must now be repealed.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.?

Microsoft is nothing

[SilentChris]

I love people who are constantly arguing against the Microsoft monopoly on Slashdot, as if it were the most important thing in the world. It reminds me of people who fight for the lives of animals but could care less that a war is going on.

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.

Re:Microsoft is nothing

[akb]

Actually, Microsoft is becoming a media giant and its looks like it will be able to join the club. Bill Gates and Paul Allen have been investing in cable, telco, etc forever. Microsoft is bankrolling the Comcast / ATT merger, and has a plethora of media interests MSNBC, MSN, ISP for QWEST, ISP for DirecTV (and maybe soon Echostar as well), Xbox, cell phones, set top boxes. They are extraordinarily well positioned for broadband / interactive TV / video on demand services that are about to be rolled out.

Its very clear that Microsoft has its sights set on cornering the new media market. And I agree that this pales to what they have done on the desktop.

Re:Not like it matters these days...

[Keith Mickunas]

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.

Don't like corporate-controlled gov't policy?

[Jeremi]

... then stop voting for it. The sooner people stop voting for the Demopublican Party, the sooner we can wrest control of our country/airwaves/lives back from corporations.

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)