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.

Comments

A Corporate Endeavor

[Scoria]

From any perspective, Clear Channel is an entirely commercial endeavor. Whenever the corporation isn't promoting "sponsors," Clear Channel attempts to promote labels sponsored by the RIAA. Modern radio is a commercial medium, not an exhibition of artistry. "Corporate America" regards you as a "consumer," not a "customer."

Re:A Corporate Endeavor

[ausoleil]

Whenever the corporation isn't promoting "sponsors," Clear Channel attempts to promote labels sponsored by the RIAA.

Cross-marketing. Who ever heard of that? You're forgetting that mass media boiled down to one simple thing: get the most people to listen to most ads that you possibly can. Best of all, slip in ads disguised as "programming." Heck, MTV (when they played music) was the best advertisement ever conceived for record companies. All a video ever has been is an ad for the album. the play "ad" ads in between for more traditional marketing. Probably get paid for both (Clear Channel charges "promotional fees to add a song.")

So "Art" (with a capital A) never entered into it, ever. But the mass in mass media is the message.

Clear Channel is simply practicing lowest common denominator programming in order to get the most "butts in the seats." In other words, they'd rather have more folks half-interested in mediocre music that doesn't offend anyone than fewer folks who are truly passionate about what they're hearing. Why? Easy. Capitalism. The more folks listening to their ads, the more they charge. The more they charge, the more they profit.

Re:A Corporate Endeavor

[Malcontent]

It's much worse then that.

These media conglomarates also come with a political point of view. In a very real sense they will determine who your next president or senator will be. It's hard enough to win an election while debating and fighting against another party. These media conglomarates throw a monkey wrench into the equation by constantly slanting news and commentary to favor their favored candidates.

Now only are these corporations a threat to consumers but they are a threat to democracy itself.

Think yourselves lucky...

[PhilHibbs]

Think yourselves lucky your president doesn't own most of your commercial media.

It's about media control

[scrow]

Over the past few decades or so the U.S. Government has learned many lessons about media coverage and international dealings. The whole dynamic has changed radically from the times of journalism in say Vietnam vs the "inbedded" reporters of this recent action. General Franks and Colin Powell, whos son is pushing he deal, "Cut their teeth" commanding forces in vietnam and they relaize that tight media control is the answer to help the people accept the actions of the government.

This plan is another step in narrowing and refining the information that the public sees. With top political officers havving ties to large corporations, it's hard to tell the lines in which corporate money, goverment money are drawn.

Be afraid.

Homogeneity is a real problem in U.S. media

[HidingMyName]

All sources of news and culture have their biases. Unfortunately, consolidation means that diversity decreases over time. This is why we don't hear about major international events, and most of our news sources look the same. Thus, even if we have "freedom of the press", the de facto freedom is constrained by commercial interests. The recording industry is getting so cozy with the radio stations that there is little variation in content there as well. I hope that we can fix this, however the economy of scale which drives this process may be very hard to overcome.

I should care more than I do, but...

[swordgeek]

...the media companies are working hard at making themselves irrelevant.

News is an important issue, and I get my news from multiple unrelated companies, ideally from different countries. As for entertainment on commercial TV and radio, there ain't none!!!

"Costs are going up, audience is going down, competition is increasing"

Competition increasing is a good thing, and the proposed bills seem to be destroying that aspect. As for the high costs/low audience problem, do you think that spending ONE MILLION DOLLARS PER LEAD CAST MEMBER PER EPISODE on a show as tired and utterly rehashed-to-death as "Friends" might have something to do with that?

Maybe if the media companies started paying their stars less money per weekly episode than most people gross in a decade their costs would go down. Maybe if they spent a TINY amount of money on writers with creative and new ideas, their audience would go up.

But no, it's easier to make money through legislation and monopolies than to actually do your job.

Re:Dissolve Clearchannel

[pHDNgell]

And what right do YOU have to say that a corporate entity (or any other entity for that matter) should be destroyed simply because you don't like it. If they break the law, then fine, go after them then. But since when, in a free society, are people allowed to destroy someone's livelihood simply because they don't agree with it?

Because we liked the radio more when it was illegal for one company to own all of the stations, perhaps?