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More on Media Consolidation/Deregulation
I'll try to accumulate some links not previously posted. William Safire comments. The Register has an editorial; see also The Guardian for more on the British perspective. Associated Press story. The Washington Post has a good and lengthy (and rare) piece. The phone companies are making a cynical political announcement that they've agreed on a standard for fiber-to-the-home; that doesn't mean they'll ever use the standard, and indeed they've already promised *not* to roll it out anytime soon. Note that the FCC is removing any requirement for the Bells to share their fiber, so if Verizon runs fiber to your house, you'll be able to get Verizon service or none at all.
The FCC is set to vote on their secret-none-more-secret changes to the media ownership regulations on Monday. If you like the direction commercial radio has taken in the last few years, don't worry about it. If not, moveon.org has some good resources for who to call.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
NPR ran an interview with FCC Chairman Michael Powell this morning, it is available here.
Compared to the UK situation, where 2 of the 5 analogue broadcast channels are part of the tax-funded BBC? (Along with 5 or more national radio stations, a couple of magazines, a serious web presence, and a newspaper with a very similar agenda).
I really don't think having "only" four or five different TV companies available (to non-cable/satellite subscribers) is a problem - especially when so many people have cable or satellite, giving them literally hundreds of different channels to choose from. Not to mention a huge number of newspapers and magazines, and of course the Internet!
Keep this in mind: For years, the UK had just three different TV companies - the largest one state-owned, and the smallest subsidised. No cable (that came in the 80s), no satellite (same). With or without these changes, US viewers without cable/satellite will have more choice than UK viewers. I'm not holding the UK up as some sort of media Utopia, but it's hardly the disaster area these guys seem to predict!
They just covered this topic on Ted Koppel's Nightline. Barry Diller (who is *against* this deregulation, BTW) appeared along with 1 or 2 other big players. Michael Powell was supposed to appear too, but conveniently cancelled. I say "conveniently" because I really think he's trying to quell the debate now that it's gathered steam, and move forward June 2 with no resistance.
It's not the cable companies preventing you from ordering these channels a la carte, it's the channel owners. The packages are sold to cable companies as packages, and they're required to be sold to consumers as a package.
Competition is good unless the network effect is extremely strong.
Basically that means competition is good at bringing down prices but sometimes the benefit of having a single solution that everyone uses is more than the reduction of price that would come with competition.
In this case however I think we have something thats more anti-competative. Phone company A runs fiber to a house (either because they got to the area first or the person in the house requested company A) then when the person with that line decides that company B might have a better service the cost to change companies is prohibitive because company A won't sell its fiber line, or more to the point company B won't use the line from company A that the person already purchased and instead wants them to purchase another line.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
"so if Verizon runs fiber to your house, you'll be able to get Verizon service or none at all."
I would have thought a telco could make lots of money by rolling out fiber connections and then leasing them wholesale at above their costs. They won't have to support end users and the costly call centres, services, network infrastructure and bandwidth that that involves. They'll just have to provide the same infrastructure services that they need to provide anyway.
Where I live, I can get DSL from the my local telco for CAD$45 (1.2mbs), or from a small ISP for $50 (3.5mbs). Apparently the local telco charges ~CAD$20 for DSLAM port leases. I'm glad I'm not paying for useless tech support or a heavily subsidised ISP portal that I would never use. It's easy money: I think they only support the CO, and line from there to the outside of my house.
Not all local governments are corrupt in the manner you describe. On the San Francisco Penninsula there is the San Mateo County Telecom Authority (SAMCAT) that encourages multiple telecom and cable companies to offer service throughout San Mateo County. The major hurdle here is not getting local governments to grant multiple franchises in the same geographic area (this has already been done on multiple occasions), but getting the competing telecom and cable companies granted a franchise license to actually spend the money on infrastructure to offer competing services in the current down economy. In most communities there still is only a single choice because the established provider is the local 800lb gorilla, but at least there is some hope for real competition once the industry starts growing again.
The owner is staunchly pro-Israel (his name is Israel Asper): so all CanWest media must provide pro-Israel news coverage of the Middle East. Journalists who don't follow this can be fired or suspended. And all CanWest newspapers are required to print company editorials on national and international issues. Even worse, CanWest is pro the current Liberal government: so the government has done nothing during the past few years while CanWest spread.
The Economist had story last year and another story the year before giving details.
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