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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 So the old rules might not be so outdated after all.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.
Yes.
Write your comment on the back of a check for $12,000,000 and mail it to your state's Republican party.
0 1 - just my two bits
All the FCC rules for divying up the airwaves is based on the notion that bandwidth is a very scarce resource, and ultimately owned by the public. This "extreme scarcity" however is changing.
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.
When we go digital, there is no longer even any half-justifiable reason for restricting who gets what. There is plenty more to be gotten, and far more oportunity for competition.
Moreover, freedom of speech does not require restrictions placed on the private sphere -- just the opposite. If anything, government restricting who is allowed to run a media outlet in a free market is an attack on the first amendment.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
One part of the FCC rules that could be lifted prohibits a company from owning a newspaper or broadcast outlet in the same market. So not only could they own all the radio and television stations, but they could also own the newspaper in town.
Sounds great from a "diversity of voices" standpoint doesn't it?
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...
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Yes. In fact, it was in the article.
Public Comments Filing for Media Ownership Policy Reexamination
Public "People's Forum" on Media Ownership, at Phoenix, Arizona (April 7)
AOL Time-Warner - WB, HBO, Cinemax, CNN, TBS
General Electric - NBC, A&E, Bravo, MuchMusic
Viacom - CBS, UPN, MTV, VH1, Showtime, Nickelodeon
Walt Disney Company - ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN
Liberty Media Corp. - Discovery Channel, TLC, USA Networks, Sci-Fi Channel
AT&T Corp. - Many shared stakes with AOL-TW
News Corp. - Fox Network, FX
Bertelsmann - Largest European broadcaster
Vivendi Universal - USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel, HSN, Sundance
Sony - Telemundo, Game Show Network
More detailed information available at The Nation.
This article brings up some important points that need to be addressed about government regulation of media. Nobody wants a consolidation of media so that one company ends up controlling all the media in a given area. This would be similar to if K-Mart bought up every retail store in a metropolitan area.
There is a distinct difference between the retail environment and the media environment. If government decided to limit the number of grocery stores in a given area with a new agency called the GCC (Grocery Control Commission) there would be obvious problems. Corporations with the most money would immediately suck up all of the licenses and every mom & pop store would immediately go out of business.
The way things stand now, city councils have some regulatory power over rezoning but for the most part there are no limits on the number of grocery stores in a given area. The market sets the price. Unfortunately, due to the huge amount of regulations by the FCC the radio and televison stations are limited by something that the government calls bandwidth.
The effect is that the barrier to entry to start your own radio station, television channel, etc. is very high due to licensing costs and bandwidth "availability". Thus we really don't have anything resembling a free market in the area of media. As long as the government controls the licenses, the people will not have a voice. I have heard arguments recently on slashdot that there is no such thing as a bandwidth problem. This begs the question exactly what is the government doing limiting the number of radio or television stations in a given area?
I'm not sure what the solution is to the problem with the FCC and giant media companies buying up stations around the country. One thing is clear, though: The present situation is nowhere near capitalism, nor the fault of the free market.
PBS has a very informative website outlining The Merchants of Cool -- "a report on the creators and marketers of popular culture for teens".
But the most eye-opening part is their section on the Media Giants. It has a huge listing of all the holdings and subsidaries of the largest media giants: News Corp, Vivendi Universal, Sony, AOL Time Warner, Walt Disney and Viacom.
Check out AOL Time Warner, for instance.
As you know from a previous /. story, the spectrum is limitless. Current dumb devices tune to frequency X and simply display, A/V or other; smart devices would be able to filter transmissions, meaning that you could have an infinite amount of data in a very small chunk of spectrum. Spectrum is nothing more than colors, visible or otherwise, and you cannot run out of colors. Even if it was not so, the internet gives one the ability to transmit whatever they please, assuming of course that they are willing to make the same investment as those already in play. The FCC, by basing itself on the flawed-theory of spectrum scarcity, is doing far more to limit broadcast diversity than any one corporation.
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I do some contract work for a nationally-syndicated home improvement radio show, so I'm quite familiar with the whole Clear Channel buyout process. Since some of you may not know how this works, I'll explain it as succinctly as I can.
Let's say you own a radio station. Your radio station plays Top 40 stuff. You have hired some local DJs from the nearby college to play music, and you have some fun with various weekend and Friday night shows that showcase some local artists. You have a playlist that is based both on what other Top 40 stations are playing (the "popular" music), and requests from your listeners. You're doing well, but you have to maintain a staff to sell ads, and you're finding it harder and harder to do this.
Clear Channel comes in and offers to buy your radio station. Now, Clear Channel has enough money so that they can make you an offer you can't refuse. You acquiesce and agree to become a Clear Channel station.
Clear Channel places your station into one of seven formats. Everyone who listens to radio is now clear on what these formats are, because that's pretty much all that remains on radio today. There's "Top 40", which is what your station will be. There are also "easy listening", "talk", and four others.
Clear Channel fires 4 out of your 6 local DJs and replaces them with DJs from other areas. This is how Clear Channel makes its money: it can pay one "regional" DJ $15 an hour to broadcast out to 4 regional stations, or you and 3 other stations could each pay $12 an hour to 4 DJs to do the same thing. Thus, the complaints from the listeners start to arrive about losing the "local" feel, but by then there's nothing you can do--it's all in Clear Channel's hands.
Clear Channel takes a look at your programming and decides what you will and won't continue to play. In the case of Top 40, they give you a playlist. In the case of talk stations, they give you a list of syndicated shows and force you to drop everything that isn't on the list. (This is where On The House comes in-- every time Clear Channel buys a station out, they force the station to drop On The House in favor of their home improvement guy. We've lost several affiliates this way.)
Let's continue with the analogy of your (er, Clear Channel's) Top 40 station. You're now forced to drop the local bits since you only have two local DJs left (and in all likelihood, they're both doing the morning show, since that's the most lucrative time for radio.) You're now fed a playlist. Clear Channel has national playlists. That means that whatever your station is playing is the same stuff that every other Top 40 station owned by Clear Channel is playing. Do you wonder why all radio stations seem to play the same stuff? If they're owned by Clear Channel, it's because they are playing the same songs.
How does Clear Channel come up with these songs? They test-market in one market. ONE. In your case, the Top 40 stuff is tested in places like New Mexico. Yep, listeners in New Mexico are deciding what your station is going to play! Welcome to Clear Channel.
If you're wondering why radio seems to have gone downhill, you can look no further than Clear Channel. Sadly, DJs are pretty much corporate minions these days. They no longer get to spin new local tracks, and they don't have a choice on what to air. Many of them aren't even in the studio for half or more of the time they're on air -- they pre-record bits and play them as their segment progresses.
It's a sad time for radio. Fortunately, I believe the independents like On The House will survive. The independent radio stations will find their niche as well. I believe that Clear Channel will eventually feel the consumer backlash, much like we lashed out against high CD prices.
Please don't shrug your shoulders about the new FCC regulations being suspended, though. Loosening these regulations is a bad thing. Clear Channel doesn't need to hurt radio any more than it already has.
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Long, long ago (early 1910's to be exact) the US parcelled out its radio frequencies. They were/are supposed to be resources dedicated to the benefit of us all, like our national parks.
Of course that ideal has eroded considerably over the years. The commercial US media has proven time and time again that it can't be relied upon for substantial news or even decent entertainment content. To all my laissez faire friends, look no further than Clear Channel to see how this actually hurts the market...
After the FCC relaxed ownership regulations, the radio industry is actually smaller, less jobs are available, and musicians' barriers to radio play are higher than ever.
PBS and NPR are merely bones thrown out to the public, a meaningless gesture. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has no more interest in providing decent news than FOX or CNN-look no further than the 2000 Presidential debates, where Jim Lehrer supported the blocking of third-party candidates from the discussion for proof.
So what needs to happen? A lot of people have noted that the amount of spectrum available through digital 'modulation' makes it possible to broadcast an almost unlimited number of radio channels...and this technique could be applied to television as well, to a lesser extent. With limited spectrum a thing of the past, public and commercial interests can share the media, each supporting the other. Here's what I'd like to see happen:
1)Corporation for Public Broadcasting/PBS/NPR dismantled. Public funding allocated for those organizations should be used to build a strong public access infrastructure. This new public access project awards grants to budding television producers. This public access network could also serve as a 'farm league' for larger commercial interests. Successful public-access producers could be picked up by the larger networks-allowing risk-free, cost-free market research for Big Media. Everybody wins!
2)FCC laws limiting media ownership strengthened. Let's limit how many media outlets, and what kind of outlets each corporation can own. Media outlets should be required to report their owners, as well as what other media outlets are owned by their owners, on "public service announcements" several times per day. You'd be surprised at how many people don't know that AOL owns CNN, Time Magazine, many local cable companies, etc.
3)Classrooms teach semiotics/media literacy. Knowing how to dissect and critique popular media is very important for a free-thinking society. As (somebody? Gramsci?) said, "The power of ideology is that it presents itself as normal." People need to know that 'objective' news is impossible, and how to spot astroturfing, shilling, and other forms of deception.
So...that's my long-winded take on how to 'fix the media'. Appoint me as FCC chairman in 2004!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
This site provides information on the current monopolies that dominate media due to the deregulations in the early 1990s. Extrapolate from there.
Michael.
Linux : Mac
(From PBS's Merchants of Cool)
If ClearChannel owns all the radio stations in an area, but no one listens to any of them, do they really use any bandwidth?