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More on Media Consolidation
A few more links on the important FCC decision coming up in a few weeks (see our previous story for more). Common Cause has a good set of background information and advocacy. The Washington Post has a story about the decision, focusing on how independent television stations will be squeezed even harder. This article about ClearChannel is a useful primer about the future of mass media.
good cartoon on the topic
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Anyone else think whenever 'ClearChannel' is mentioned the Imperial March should play in the background?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
"Lowry Mays is the Big Daddy of radio. The founder and CEO of Clear Channel, Mays oversees 1,233 radio stations with some 100 million listeners across all 50 states, and runs a company with $8 billion in revenues and a $23 billion market cap. But ask Mays about what he does for a living and you won't hear much about musicians or how to bring up ratings or who's the best DJ. Those things don't interest him much. Truth is, Mays isn't that passionate about what goes out over the airwaves. As long as his broadcasts sell ads, he's happy. "If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company," says Mays, 67. "We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products.""
On a different topic but related to Corporate consolidation, I think we should just do away with our current government and let the country be run by mega coporations. You see the way it would work is whoever paid the most money gets the most power and favor with government. So if you wanted to expand your company so that it owned every media outlet in a particular area you could just dump money until your able to do what you want. You'd be able to set up monopolies in whatever industry you wanted, be it Cable, Telecom, or hell even the software industry if you wanted. The "President" and "Vice President" really wouldn't be politicians, they would businessmen with strong ties to big corporations and they would give favor to their former companies once they got in power. You konw sort of like a bonus for "making it to the top".
I know my ideas are little crazy, but maybe its worth a shot.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
1. PBS and FOX: This would be something like a collision of matter and anti-matter. New shows: "Firing Line meets Celebrity Boxing"; "When Barney Attacks!"; and "Bill Moyers investigates Monica's Thong"
2. ABC and WB: The dead eating the dead. Is that cannibalism or Night of the Living Dead or neither?
3. New York Times and E!: Oh, the possibilities: "Jayson Blair Investigative Reports: Anna Nicole Smith -- What's real and what's fake?"; "E! Hollywood True Story: All the President's Men -- the Post was really just making up Deep Throat...we should know!"; and "Talk Soup for the Lazy Reporter"
4. CNN and Playboy: All T&A, all the time. Show your tits, Judy Woodruff!
GF.
Lots of petrified grits