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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.
Media Fight Focuses on Local TV Stations
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 14, 2003; Page E01
If broadcast networks such as ABC and Fox are prevented from buying more local television stations, viewers may soon have to watch NFL games on cable or satellite, meaning football fans who depend on free, over-the-air television would be out of luck.
Or if they are allowed to buy more stations, they would use their increased muscle to force network programming onto independently owned affiliate stations, even when they would rather show local programs or preempt network programs that may offend community standards.
Either and both arguments may be true. Local television station autonomy is at the heart of one of the media ownership rules set to be changed soon by the Federal Communications Commission. It was also Topic A yesterday at a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) but starring Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin.
"Costs are going up, audience is going down, competition is increasing," Karmazin told the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Viacom owns CBS, 35 television stations and cable channels such as MTV and Nickelodeon. "The only way to help is to relax the ownership rules," allowing networks to buy more stations and increase revenue, he said.
On June 2, the FCC is scheduled to vote -- and likely pass -- several rules that will make it easier for media giants to buy more newspapers and radio and television stations. Several lawmakers and public interest groups oppose relaxing the rules. The FCC "is putting us on a glide path for big media conglomerates to gobble up independent stations," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said yesterday.
(Yesterday afternoon, Democratic FCC commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein asked Michael K. Powell, the agency's Republican chairman, to postpone the vote, a request typically honored under FCC tradition. Usually, such votes are rescheduled for the commission's next open meeting, about one month later. Powell said he will respond promptly. Republican commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin want the vote to proceed as scheduled.)
Perhaps the most controversial of the six major media ownership rules teed up for review is the "35-percent cap" on station ownership. Networks are not allowed to own a number of stations that combine to reach more than 35 percent of the national audience. Thanks to waivers and shifting market shares, all of the major networks hover around the 35 percent figure, with some actually above the limit, anticipating its lifting.
The FCC's media bureau has recommended raising that number to about 45 percent. Powell is sympathetic to Karmazin. The chairman has said that broadcast television needs regulatory help to continue providing free public-interest programming. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are steadily losing audience to cable channels. For the first time last year, the aggregate cable audience surpassed that of the combined networks. About 85 percent of viewers have cable or satellite service.
Further, cable channels have two revenue streams -- advertising and subscription -- where broadcast has one. The smallest major network, however, still has an audience larger than the biggest cable channel, meaning networks can charge advertisers more for commercials.
The rising cost of programming, especially rights fees that networks pay sports leagues to broadcast games, means that networks lose money by putting their shows on broadcast stations instead of cable, the networks say. "Sports content will be the first to go to cable," Karmazin warned, noting that CBS paid $6 billion to broadcast the NCAA men's basketball tournament for 11 years. "Then other [programming] will follow."
The surest way to save free television, the networks argue, is to let them to buy more stations, which routinely log profit margins of 20 percent to 50 percent.
Not everyone agrees. Last week, Rep. Richard Burr
Every major station in New York has either a top 40 format or rock format. And both formats consist of about 10 songs played over and over. If it wasn't for talk radio, I'd have nothing to listen to on the drive to work.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
MoveOn has a page where you can send a letter to your members of Congress and add your name to a petition to stop the June 2nd decision.
i'm not quite sure what you are asking but this article in the guardian explains the situation.
All I Want For Christmas Is My Constitutional Rights
as I have pointed out in the past There's a petition to the FCC about this issue that is worth reading. It has been signed by many prominent musicians, and they are looking for as many listeners as possible to listen.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
They can't count how many radios are tuned in, you're absolutely right. The boycott would work by making them look less appealing to advertisers.
Having a bumper sticker/T-Shirt with the name of your favorite radio station is one way to make the station look valuable. If people who are prospective advertisers to a radio station happen accross people displaying a radion stations logo during their daily routine it shows that station as a good place to spend their advertising dollars because the person who's wearing that shirt and many more will hear their ad.
Calling in to be the 13th or whatever caller. If you help in making every line to the radio station busy in record time it proves you were listening to the radio. Giving away $1,000 is a good way to get people to listen for the word go, and right before the word go is given is an excelent time to play an ad.
Music is just a good way to get people to stick around long enough to listen to the ads and controlling what the target audiance is. The rest is to make money.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Still, it was better then now, when they show is watered down 'reality TV' and poorly made videos of some guy sitting in pig feces....I mean...'comedy'
I'll take the music over the tripe they show now any day. (Still, that doesn't mean I DO, MTV has always been garbage)
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
I'm not sure what your link to google is supposed to mean, but I think it is about the fact the British government owns the BBC. Normally I would agree with you, but because everyone in the world knows that BCC is owned by the government, it gets a lot more scrutiny and criticism. The result? Much better reporting which is much less slanted then things like FoxNews.This is why many Americans turned to the BBC during the war to get better coverage. Many people wrongly assume that foxnews is not related to the government and therefor reports more honestly. Yet as we can all see, this is not the case at all. In fact Rupert Murdock is a friend of GWB and will not let his news network report negatively on the Bush admin. (He has been quoted as saying this.) It would not be possible for the BBC to say the same thing because of all the public outcry.
Note, I'm not saying the BBC is great or unbiased. It would be better if the BBC was scrutinized without being owned by the government. But the BBC is still a much better place for news then the three major cable network of the US, which are not owned by the FEDs.
I used to work for them as an Engineer. I resigned (with over a months notice to them and for a huge raise), then a year later after being laid off, tried to return. You can't...pure and simple. There's a blacklist, and because I resigned, I'm on it. What's even more amazing is that they actually TOLD me about it when I called to find out what was going on (I suspected something was amiss). Clear Channel controls almost half the engineering jobs in Radio, and now the FCC wants to reward them for being nasty by allowing them to control half the jobs in Television? Somethings very wrong here.......
The FCC has already decided that it will allow companies to own much more than they can now. The FCC director stated that this oh so important decision does not need any debate. He tried to shut down the debate by refusing to fund town meetings around the country debating this and informing the general public. He has definitely been bought by the likes of Clear Channel. This will further erode democracy in this country, and if you now hate DMCA and its ilk, wait until the next pass. Laws like DMCA and PATRIOT 2 get passed because there is a lack of healthy debate. It has been shown time and time again that Clear Channel refuses to report on such items. If you don't believe me, when was this particular debate even mentioned on any of Clear Channel's stations? The only time that I saw this reported was on a PBS program called "NOW with Bill Moyers". This was an excellent program that tried to look at the issue from all sides. You can find an in-depth discussion at http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/bigmedia.html
Little by little our rights are being taken away from us. Just look at all of the recent laws implemented, DMCA, copyrights, PATRIOT act etc.
We need to act now, before the decision has been rendered. Once it has, there is very little chance of getting it changed. What's at stake is the very nature of democracy in this country. There is no way to rectify this if a bad decision is made. How do we rectify this in 10 years from now, once Clear Channel has bought up the few remaining independent stations? Do we really expect that at that point, a healthy debate about breaking up Clear Channel will be allowed by Clear Channel?
Clear Channel says it needs to be allowed to buy the remaining independent stations in order to become profitable. If they haven't become profitable at this size, what makes us believe that will become profitable when they have taken over the rest? Lets face it folks, these guys are lying to us saying that they are not profitable. They are quite profitable now, and what's really driving this is pure greed at the expense of this country's core values. They are destroying this country at the expense of a few bucks. Enough is enough.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
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