The FCC and Media Consolidation

An anonymous reader writes "A story on this evening's All Things Considered but also at Now with Bill Moyers reports this June, the FCC will choose whether to keep or drop longstanding rules limiting the number of media outlets (radio stations, TV stations, etc.) a company may hold in a single area. That means all the radio stations in your area, for example, may one day be controlled by one company, like Clearchannel or Rupert Murdoch's FOX Communications. One irony is virtually no news outlet is covering the story. Another is the justifying argument for this move comes from the emergence of new media, like the Internet and Cable/Satellite. Yet with all 100's of new TV channels available, there are only five major media companies out there controlling them all, and recent copyright rules applying to the Internet have all but squelched-out Internet radio. So the old rules might not be so outdated after all. But the only voices being heard in this argument are coming from the media giants." In a related story, AOL/Time-Warner is petitioning the FCC to lift the restriction forbidding AOL from launching "advanced" IM services without letting others access the IM network.

Comments

Variety

[rf0]

We need diversity in TV channels as it the main media through which people get their information. If there is only a limited number of media outlets the stories that get broadcast will be more one sided than they are already. Things like the BBC are relativly fair but still not totally independant. The best course I would say is news.google.com. As all the stories are supposdly chosen by computer then it at least gives a fair cross sample

Rus

Re:Variety

[Blue Stone]

The Google story is quite funny.
In the mainstream news, they often simply regurgitate press releases, and present them as news, with little to no real investigation.

Nice to see Google doing something good by cutting out the middle man!
(and you have to admit, it's more honest!)

Why diversity in media matters

[FunWithHeadlines]

According to the article, many Americans think relaxing the rules of media ownership will be a good thing, or it won't make much of a difference. Here's why it will make a difference, and why diversity of media ownership is a good thing:

All media has a point-of-view. Each media outlet does have a point of view, some conservative, some progressive, some liberal, some off-the-wall. Mostly conservative nowadays, because of being controlled by large megacorps that are by definition conservative in their approach. But there is a point-of-view.

OK, so what if you are in a market with several media choices (newspapers, TV stations, radio stations)? Then you get a variety of political positions being pushed at you. You can pick and choose among those points-of-view and then make up your own mind. Reading all sides helps you come closer to reality. In contrast, if one company owns your local newspaper and your local TV station and your local radio outlets, you get only one viewpoint. If the owner of that company is extreme in his or her viewpoint, you get your news slanted in just that direction -- and no other viewpoint.

If you are Web-savvy, you can escape this trap, but most people get their news as it is fed to them, spoonful by spoonful. Look at how many people think CNN provides an unbiased viewpoint, the facts. Look at how many people think Fox is unbiased. The more control is put over the media by any one company, the worse this will get. Can you imagine a world where the only news it was possible to get came from AOL-Time Warner, or Fox, or any one source?

We may yet find out what that would be like...

--------

Business & Government want one view.

[OldHawk777]

The reality: A Constitutional Democracy occupied by a Capitalist Republic.

Business wins we lose. Government giveaways come in many disguises, but all are in fact Corporate Welfare. The world will follow where we go, and the US is lost forever to history. There are five that closely follow the new "Politically Correct" that provides the "Unified Field of Vision" theory that provides one sight with hues and tints that build our fence.

Until Business and Government are separated expect the worse for US, and those that follow Religion and Government unable to separate the two. Yes, in today's world depending where you live BUSSINESS=RELIGION, both are oppressive, corruptive, and deadly to people/citizens and our GOVERNMENTS.

I have limited my intake of news to ABC, BBC, PBS, and Times/Post/Herald news articles on the internet. The others appear to biased/BS to me and frequently parochial, lame, and personality centric stupid (Talking Heads). Plenty of idiot personal opinion comments with grins and giggles, limited substance, no character, soulless drivel in a complex dynamic world with extremely significant news being avoided or marginalized by policy and actors. Longing, for the days when news people, editors, and the story had dignity ... (all is lost).

OldHawk777

Reality is a self-induced hallucination.

Re:Who cares? So what?

[TKinias]

Ordinarily I try just to ignore trolls, but someone actually modded this up...

scripsit LibertineR:

I guess some of the socialists out there believe that corporations only want SOME of your money. They want money from all sides, no matter how many outlets they own. Therefore, you can expect all points of view to be expressed.

[...]

If one entity owns every station in a town; who is stupid enough to think that they will settle only for the advertising dollars of a single point of view. That is like believing a Right wing dollar is worth a dollar, while a left wing dollar is worth only 65 cents.

That is just horribly, horribly wrong. Let me give you some simple situations where this doesn't work:

• One of my major advertisers is XYZ Semiconductors. My investigative journalists (do any of those still exist?) uncover that XYZ's employees, exposed to nasty stuff, are dying off from cancer or whatever. XYZ threatens to pull its advertising; story doesn't run. There isn't another station to run the story, so the truth never gets told.
• XYZ Semi has a pet candidate for local office. They buy lots of advertising on WFOO and remind WFOO that the XYZ Semi ads will be pulled if WFOO runs another candidate's ads. The other candidate, lacking a major corporate sponsor, can't buy 1000 hours... His dollars aren't worth less, he just has less of them.
• Or even more directly: Let's say WFOO is owned by BarBaz Holdings, which also owns XYZ Semi. WFOO is instructed by BarBaz not to report on the criminal investigation of XYZ Semi's executives.
• Or maybe AAA Semi wants to run an ad in this market. They are a direct competitor to XYZ Semi, also owned by WFOO's parent BarBaz... Do you think they let them run ads?

I could go on ad nauseum. I think this is nauseating enough, though.

Reminds me of an Outland strip...

[TheRealStyro]

The one where lawyer Steve Dallas time travels and screws things up. He then quips "A blighted landscape of insurance monopolies and hiding, dependent, squabbling mice-people...An entire planet of victims!" Substitute any number of corporation types for "insurance" and you get the picture.

In these times when the major media corporations suck at the tit of the ruling political party and largely publish only those items that the ruling political party wishes to be published, that the citizenry should question government and the ideology by which the government is using to rule. The citizens cannot truely be free if they do not have free access to unfiltered streams of information. Refresh my memory, didn't we fight a war +230 years ago to put a stop to this nonsense?!

Monopolies are illegal and should be broken and/or punished. Media monopolies should not be allowed to start. The FCC should not even be considering this action - it should not be allowed. So much for being a democracy and/or republic.

One of the worst things that ever happened to this country was corporations being given protection under the Bill of Rights. Corporations cannot be given the same rights as citizens since corporations cannot be trusted not to abuse those rights. Government and corporations should be on a short leash being held by the citizenry, not the other way around.

Re:No scarce resources in a digital world

[Anonymous Coward]

Once television stations are transmitted digitially, there will be far, far more bandwidth available. There will no longer be these so-called "natural monopolies" in each locality, encouraging government regulation of the resource.

False. It's called CONSOLIDATION and it's the easiest way a large business concern can dominate a market w/o providing any value of its own. All it takes is money

If anything, government restricting who is allowed to run a media outlet in a free market is an attack on the first amendment.

Again, false. The restriction is to limit the ability of a monopolist to attack the same first amendment by not allowing any other voices to be heard.

PICTURE: the fella you hate the most putting only his opinions up on every channel, every newspaper, every billboard available in your community. You complain, he fires back that it's his right under (you guessed it) the first amendment.

Re:No scarce resources in a digital world

[grondu]

We have restrictions that stop things like that. It is called the Sherman Act.

And it worked so well with Microsoft.

Re:Don't forget print/broadcast consolidation

[ThinkingGuy]

There is an important difference between broadcast and print, though: While there is no practical limit to the number of newspapers or print publications, there is a limited number of broadcast stations (TV or radio) that can fit in the spectrum of a given market. Yes, I know that technological advances will make spectrum shortage irrelevant in the future, but as the broadcast market exists today, scarcity exists, necesitating some limits on ownership (the same way space constraints necessitate limits on who can put in water lines, gas lines, and telephone poles).
While I'm strongly libertarian on most issues, I recognize that the nature of broadcasting makes some unusual restrictions necessary. So, I have no problem with a company owning broadcast stations and newspapers in my town, as long as the number of stations owned is limited.

Re:Why this is a bad thing.

[squiggleslash]

Remember that "failing" means "not making enough money to cover their costs".

I think it's reasonable to suggest that few monopolists end up with problems covering their costs. As long as CC's content appeals to a large enough group of people that advertisers keep advertising - and assuming CC controls enough radio stations in a market that someone on the morning commute has no choice but to either tune in to them or tune off, they always will have enough listeners - then CC will not fail.

Despite the rhetoric, capitalism does not always have market forces. If one group is in control of a resource, be it government mandated use of the airwaves, or control over an API as in the Microsoft case, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge them unless they seriously fuck up. Clear Channel is from a business point of view doing all the right things - they're cutting costs to the bone, publishing stuff that's just about good enough for people not to turn off, and attempting to dominate the market recognising that the value of a business is often more than its net income. There's no reason to believe they're about to "fail". Listeners are in for bad times ahead.