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FCC to Permit Complete Media/Telecom Consolidation
rhwalker22 writes "Today's Washington Post has a piece reviewing some of the major decisions the Federal Communications Commission will be making in the next few months, moves that could fundamentally rewrite the rules for the broadcast media and Internet service providers. Excerpt: 'Opponents of the proposed rules fear that, taken together, they ultimately could lead to a few powerful conglomerates controlling the flow of electronic information, from programming of television and radio news and entertainment to owning the pipes that connect people to the Internet.'"
And how this is different from today?
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
You'll have to start making out your cheques to "AOL-TimeWarner-Disney-MGM-Universal, an Exxon Company"
Trolling is a art,
Yoda almost had it right
Fear leads to anger
Anger leads to hate
Hate
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Get in your shots now. In a few months, your service agreement will forbid such anti-corporate comments. And since they corporations work for the common good, that's reasonable. Now sit down, watch Rollerball, take your pills and stop idolizing Jonathan. Rollerball is not about individuals.
If it gets bad I can always use carrier pigeons to connect. So long as it isn't hunting season my packet loss should be acceptable.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
No, we prefer not linking to them, but given that most sites are switching to that, I don't really see a choice in the matter.
Yeah, I'm that guy.
i work for a *major* US telecom provider, and i must say this:
.. yes, there is a catch...
DON'T PANIC.
trust me on this one. yes, we do have plans to merge with at least three other companies, mostly medium-sized regional providers. what we haven't told you, however, is that this merge will allow us to provide high-end DSL service to residences across the country for less than $10 / mo.
we will be able to do this due to the fact that there will be no middle-man provider. there are also some amazing projects in the works regarding satellite and wireless data transmission. think: global wireless network, anywhere in the world, anyone in the world, no charge. the bandwidth will be limited to 19.2 bps initially, but the coverage will be absolutely ground-breaking.
what's in it for us?
Well, we broke up Humpty Dumpty (Bell) and now we're putting them back together again. Yeah, the US is definitely in the consumer's corner.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
At one hearing last summer, Hollings all but called Powell a shill for big business in general and the large regional telephone companies in particular.
So, if I got read this correctly, Fritz (Disney) Hollings is calling Powell a corporate whore?
Think For Yourself. Question Authority.
Opponents of the proposed rules fear that, taken together, they ultimately could lead to a few powerful conglomerates controlling the flow of electronic information, from programming of television and radio news and entertainment to owning the pipes that connect people to the Internet.
This is already happening with Radio. Proof? Two words: Clear Channel.
Do you have a KISS-FM in your town? That's Clear Channel. They're putting cookie-cutter pop radio stations (all called KISS-FM) in major markets. In addition to owning KISS-FM in nearly every market, they own TV stations, billboards, concert venues, etc.
Check out this link.
Click here and search for 'kiss' -- you'll find 51 stations, all the same format, all the same manufactured pop stars, all the same type of dopey deejays.
Its radio like this that keeps me listening to CDs.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
What was a sci-fi fantasy/warning is quickly becoming a reality. In the future there will be one corporate entity indistinguishible from and intertwined with the government.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
But they assured the audience that the changes were double-plus good.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Opponents of the proposed rules fear that, taken together, they ultimately could lead to a few powerful conglomerates controlling the flow of electronic information
Shouldn't that be fewer powerful conglomerates?
Deregulation of the telecom industry has brought us the lowest rates ever! Of course, we're paying fees, taxes, tariffs, surcharges, adjustments, and recoupments that didn't even exist before, but look -- deregulation must work because rates are lower.
The situation with deregulation in this country has put the foxes in charge of hen house.
For my opinion of FCC Chairman Michael Powell, read my other post.
In most companies I've worked with, communications and media are bundled in the same vertical anyway - typically something like ICE (Information-Communication-Entertainment) or similar. From a purely technical standing, I don't think it makes much difference.
From a socio-political position, however, it further blurs the distinction between medium and message. Damn that McLuhan - he was smart!
before it gets better.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I for one welcome our new insect - er, media - overlords.
Why limit ourselves to only a few variants of democracy? There are plenty of other options. It's time to give honest plutocracy, argentocracy, timocracy, or even quangocracy a chance.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
DON'T PANIC
the one thing you can be sure you need to do forthwith is PANIC!!!!
No delays now. Start running down the streets screaming at the top of your lungs, rending your clothes and flinging yourself into plate glass windows. It's for your own good.
Brazil is a good example of what happens when media corporations are allowed to do whatever they want.
Brazil's biggest media company is called "Rede Globo" (Globo Network). They own radios (both AM and FM), TV stations across the country and newspapers.
It's hard to describe the power of such corporations although the US is beginning to have a glimpse of what happens when media becomes a tycoon controlled business.
Rede Globo's ascent to power began in the mid 60's when they sided unilateraly with the military (Brazil was forcefully ruled by the military for 20 years starting in 1964, with lots of torture and deaths -- all with the consent of the US governement, but then it's a different story). Newscasts at that time use to portray any opposer as "subversive". The whole thing grew to be what it is today: A big conglomerate with tentacles in all sections of the society.
One interesting example is what happened to "Fernando Collor", a whacko that eventually got elected as the Brazilian President some years ago. Globo supported Collor fiercely, as the other candidate was Lula (the current Brazilian president). Corporations were very afraid that a left wing candidate would win and Globo used all their power in favor of Collor. Later, winds changed and Collor started to go really nuts. Result: Globo gave all attention (nationwide!) to anti-Collor movements across the country. Lots of dust under the rug came to light and he was eventually impeached.
And if this was not enough, consider this: In the US, when Britney Spears starts singing on the radio you just say a few bad words and change the station (OK, OK, it's going to be hard to find a good one). In Brazil, when Globo wants to impose a new fad, you'll see that on TV most of the time, you'll listen on a few radio stations and on the highest circulation newspapers. You cannot escape the annoyance. You just cannot.
Which is of course what you would want if you were trying to subvert democracy and freedom...a task some members of the current administration have already made great inroads on.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Sounds groovy, Buy your computers from IBM Buy your operating system from Microsoft Buy your telecom/ internet from BellSouth ------------ I have had to deal with all three and they suck equally as well. (BTW, I work for a CLEC so I have firsthand experience dealing with an incumbent (incompetent(BellSouth)) phone company with ego's the size of Montana) ------------ DSL is so damned expensive and unavailable rurally because of the baby bell's arcane, antiquated systems that they don't want to upgrade. They just hope that the competition (CLEC's) go away so they can continue to sell you shitty service through the rest of the 21st century. ------------ Take a look at the tarrif pricing on a DS1 or a DS3! Talk about dis-incentive for anyone expect for a fortune 500 to buy. The RBOC's hate bundled (data and voice)services, they hate UNE-P's, they hate their customers. Just send them the money and shut your mouth.
Tisha Hayes
HELOOOOO! it is asleep already! two letters M$
in the 30's the fcc shifted from a public interest view of it's job to a pro-business view. as a result, enourmous barriers to entry were constructed in TV and Radio.
fact is, the system in place favors the regional phone companies too much already. its nearly impossible to switch DSL providers without a massive downtime and loss of productivity. cable is only as good as the local monopoly that provides it (if its like here with AT&T, not even worth the hassle of dealing with those incompetents), and many cable co.s are providing downstream only links to prevent sharing, with a dial in modem for up, awful. i thought broadband's big advantage was that you don't need a second telephone line.
fact is, the only way to break the hegemony of the regionals is for someone to step in and require that the infrastructure is separated entirely from the sales and marketing, and make baby bells that once again become public utilities instead of sanctioned monopolies.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
If you're interested in the effects of media consolidation and government propaganda, check out this short summary of a pamphlet Chomsky put out during the Gulf War.
I disagree with huge chunks of what he says in this pamphlet and subsequent pronouncements. But he has been writing about the consolidation and manipulation of the American media for many years, and if current trends continue, his annoying rants may mirror the truth more closely than any of us would like.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Admittedly, not as bas as WHFS, which used to be an alternative station, but only barely not as bad.
Best Slashdot Co
One day I will wake up and unable to open the electronically controlled front door to my condo I will have to call North East America Inc support center....
.....etc.... 99 if you cannot open your door.
... I am going to e-mail my Congressman about this...
me: dial
phone: Welcome to North East America Inc... your call is important to us... etc.. press 01 for support with your phone; 02 for support with cable; 03 for support with your internet; 04 for support with your climate control;
me: 99... wait...
phone: sir, your buildings central waste monitoring facility has detected trace amounts of marijuana. as you know drugs fund terrorism and terrorism is un-American. as a precaution we have temporarily detained all occupants pending an investigation
me: what!
phone: sir, the central e-mail monitoring facility has detected that your e-mails contain words like "high", "da bomb", and "explosive" and may refer to un-American activities and therefore your e-mail has been suspended...
me: nuts!, I am moving out west!
phone: sir, we have logged your request and are sending you a Western America Inc transfer form. There is a $20,000 transfer fee.
me: thats it I am moving to Canada!
phone: sir, only terrorists live in Canada... please stand by security services are on the way...we have restricted your TV to receive Lawyer commercials you may wish to watch while you wait... have a nice day.
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
As an ex-DirecTV DSL customer, I am seeing it disappear as we speak. The only provider in my area is now SBC. Whether or not the FCC does anything, I see competition as being dead.
BTW, I would love the FCC to get rid of one regulation: the idiotic regulation that requires me to cancel DSL service before I can get another provider to even take an order. The same group comes out to disconnect me as will connect me five days later. I want to see down-times of hours not days nor weeks (if unlucky). How can people try out different competitors easily if they will have to wait so long?
i just spent two weeks vacationing in snowy canada (i live in california) and while i was there i had the opportunity to learn about canada's internet. in short, it kicks ass. it is very fast, very resilient, very regulated, and most importantly, very cheap. the canadian government has been developing and regulating broadband since before anyone knew what broadband was and their investment has surely paid off. how does digital cable service AND broadband internet for $40/month sound? that's 40 candian dollars, or a little over $30 dollars american currency. not only that, but it's purported to be more resilient than the internet2 project that is just barely getting off the ground in the states. canada's regulated deployment scheme has made it one of the most wired nations in the world. we could learn a lot from them.
Prior to the DCMA, the owner of copyrighted materials had the right to duplication and distribution of his/her creations. These rights were subject to the abuse of organisations like the RIAA for instance, but at least the artistic community held the rights until they (often naively) negotiated them away.
With the DMCA, safe harbour provisions were created that transfered the right of distribution away from the creator into the hands of the distributor the moment the creator posted his/her material on the net. In effect the creator of a work lost the right to distribute and duplicate their work - without any negotiation or need for the creator to be compensated.
Thus, a company that owns content (which is presently not made available on the net) would be at a disadvantage because the moment they post it - they would effectivly lose control over distrribution. This ruling by the FCC will fix that. By merging media interests with distribution interests the combined mega corporation controls both the distribution as well as retaining control of their copyrighted materials - IE the problem is fixed.
Collateral damage includes anyone who is not powerful enuf to be a major carrier and/or who does not have a significant amount of internet content - enough to make them attractive enough for a large telecomunications interest to want to climb into bed with them.
Slashdot falls into this category. With no means of negotiating a sweetheart "convergance" contract with a telecommunications carrier, slashdot will get hosed on bandwidth charges. Meanwhile, having lost the "right to copy" their presumably copyrighted materials (DMCA transfers these rights to the carriers) Slashdot is unable to participate in the HUGE revenues that stem from the delivery of same to the consumming public.
What a sad commentary on manipulation of the unfolding cyber world.
This development is NOT in our interest! It certainly should be considered rather draconian by anyone aspiring to make a living utilizing the technologys presently being developed for cyberspace.
This group will include most webmasters, many systems admins, most HTML and CGI programmers and probably most of the flash programmers. The group includes a lot of wanna-be-professional web developers and artists - many of whom are doing brilliant work and may never know why the job offers they were hoping for didn't develop.
If anyone things this is an overestimate of the damages - then consider the number of layoffs in the dot.bomb sector. A good place to read on this is at fucked company
Over at FC, Pud declares that these were just shitty business plans and that any company that does not make a profit will simply go out of business. Ya, Pud is pretty ruthless - might not have a heart.
The point IMHO that Pud is overlooking is that some outfits like Slashdot.org do a RATHER GOOD JOB and they also are feeling a cash squeeze. Perhaps its a bad business plan... but I rather think the issue is having your work taken without compensation and being given no access to a rather HUGE revenue stream that this work helps to create.
Let me ask - if it were not for great websites like Slashdot, why would people like us bother to subscribe to an ISP? We pay our ISP's for access to this material and our ISP's pay their upstreams. Somewhere along the way over to the slashdot servers the money flow stops.
Slashdot is a very popular website - even so they have little market clout in the eyes of upsteams. So little slashdot with little bargaining power is placed in the situtation that they can either pack up their bags and go home - or try to find some way to fund the operation.
Meanwhile, if there are say 100,000 slashdot readers then "we" pay at least $25x100,000 = $2,500,000 per month for our interent access. In my case with the dropping content, I find that the docs over at gnu and a few other open source projects makes it worthwhile for me to have a dedicated connection. In total - slashdot probably represents over 10% of the total internet content I look at. I would be very happy if a percentage of the money I pay each month found itself flowing into the pockets of SlashDot.
But without any distribution clout - that isn't likely to happen.
Meanwhile we should expect that organizations like CNN, TSN, and so forth will find they can make good money distrubuting THEIR content - because THEY will have enough clout to bargan for an inside seat in the distribtution game.
In effect, the rest of us subsidize them because the content they have could NEVER create the net.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
A lot has been written about the potential for a technological riff between the 'haves' and 'have nots'. I believe instead this riff will divide the media-addicts and those strong enough to overcome or avoid media-addiction.
The interesting thing about those who read and write to slashdot regarding this story is their tension between media-craving and media-disgust. The majority of respondents, by virtue of reading the site itself, are in some way addicted to news and information. Notably they are loathe to hear of corporate conglomerates taking control, despite the fact that they likely pay $50+ monthly cable bills to these very corporations.
Media companies have exclusively the interest of their consumers in mind whenever they do anything. This is economic law. They give the masses - and we're all part of the masses despite whatever intellectual tricks we use to convince ourselves otherwise - what the masses demand. Substitution of one sub-media for another ("underground" music instead of "popular" music) does not free yourself, ultimately the happy-go-lucky Media Inc. will figure out your shifting preferences and deliver it to you in any form you're willing to pay for. And you WILL be willing to pay for it.
A good little place to keep up with the mergers and conglomerations in the media world is at Who Owns What.
The Columbia Journalism Review keeps good tabs on such things.