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FCC Approves Media Consolidation
evenprime writes "You can expect more media consolidation in the future. CBS is reporting that the FCC has approved the media deregulation that was previously discussed on Slashdot. Expect Clear Channel, Viacom and their kin to get bigger, and the radio to have even less diversity (a situation that some people think is responsible for falling CD sales)."
Neo-conservatives strike again! Thanks Mr. Powell!
The continuing decline of the overall quality of US radio has been my primary motivation in finding alternative music sources. I tried shoutcast and spinner as well as some of the smaller webcast groups. Eventually, I just started listening to Radio 1 from the BBC. This now streams into my home 24/7 as well as my laptop at work. I have never looked back. Hopefully as folks start becoming more disgusted by the dumbed-down and monotonous crap that Clear Channel pumps into Everytown, USA, folks will start to look abroad for entertainment. The music is out there, you just have to look beyond the borders.
Here ya go!
Radio 1 - Rock and Pop
Radio 1 Xtra - Rap and Hip Hop
Some of the music is exactly what you hear in the US on Clear Channel stations, but there is a hell of a lot more music-base to generate the playlists.
While you're there, be sure to read/stream the news. CNN has been becoming even more remarkable selective in what they post lately. Another symptom of the disease that infects the deregulated media industries.
Enjoy!
Has anyone else heard this statistic or know where I can find a source in print?
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Dan Gillmor wrote a column in advance of this decision, worth a read at http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/598 9915.htm
Welcome to life under the Republicans.
Do you even know what you're talking about? The current FCC Chairman was appointed by Bill Clinton. The fact that Bush made him chairman doesn't change the fact that Clinton was the one who brought him on board in the first place.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Except that the FCC is required to review the diversity of media every two years and decide whether or not ownership limitations need to be opposed or lifted (this was result of the 2 year anniversary from the last review). So if the media really did become a monoculture and the FCC actually did serve the public interest ... then we'd be okay.
:)
Oh yeah, you know where I learned that? NPR
Not even all the people at the top agree with this. In particular, Ted Turner (founder of Turner Broadcasting) and Barry Diller (the former head of Paramount and Universal) have stated publicly that media consolidation is unwise.
An interesting article on Ted Turner and media consolidation can be found here: "The media is too concentrated... Too few people control too much."
Probably the most significant statement surrounding all this was made by Viacom Stations Group head Fred Reynolds, quoted in a NY Times story (frrbbb): "We're in the business of making money." So much for the public interest, convenience and necessity.
Just a friendly reminder to try your local national public radio stations. Although these stations aren't typically going to play current new music, often they do indeed run programs which feature new artists in various genres. Their website's music section, which lists upcomming scheduled music radio programs, reviews, and other things, is here.
At NPR's website, one can enter their zip code and your local NPR frequency will be shown to them.
On a side note, Clear Channel. Good Lord. Anyone here from Cleveland or familiar with the once-mighty WMMS? It was, during the late 60's and throughout the 70's and 80's, a great station. After several takovers and a seeming going-off-the-air-forever-stunt, Clear Channel picked them up. Today it is this pop-metal station that is the same format in every city. It is a really sad skeleton of a once-revolutionary radio station.
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
According to this story at Yahoo, News Corp and Viacom are already in violation of the 35% reach rules as a result of mergers:
News Corp. and Viacom Inc., which owns CBS and UPN, stand to benefit from a higher national TV ownership cap because mergers have left them above the 35 percent level. Those companies, along with NBC, persuaded an appeals court last year to reject that cap and send it back to the FCC for revision.
Basically they merged, never divested some stations to become compliant, and have tying up the courts with appeals.
All this FCC decision does is take it out of the courts and make the mega-media companies happy. They have been breaking the rules all along and instead of punishment, they get rewarded. This decision does nothing good for us, the consumers, who OWN the airwaves.
Let us not forget that airwaves, just like public lands, are owned by all of us, the people.
There was a time that in exchange for having a broadcast license, a radio or television station used to have to file reports to show that they were airing programming in the public interest. Now they simply fill out a postcard for the FCC every 5 years or so. Basically they use OUR airwaves for THEIR profit and we get LESS options as a result.
If you want to make change, get out and vote. Call your senator or representative and let them know you are displeased. Believe it or not, they DO listen. They may not respond to every message, but they do keep a tally on how may letters they receive per a given subject and with enough letters, they will do something.
--Jon
I'm not necessarily talking about the FCC chairman. The vote today was along party lines. It is controlled by the republicans, 3-2.
I don't care who brought the chairman on board. It was still the republicans who voted for this.
Globe199
In a recent interview, Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel, made the following remark: "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."
Therefore, whatever you think Clear Channel is today is whatever the consumers wanted.
I'm forced to conclude that the RIAA knows that more diverse, alternative radio stations are also more likely to play independent artists and are (maybe) less likely to accept payola, so the RIAA is afraid that the increased sales won't necessarily be of major label releases, and that is the explanation for their opposition to webcasting.
The BBC's Jessica Lynch "expose" was recently exposed as a fraud.
/.ers make -- thinking that "independent" means "agrees with me."
You make the same mistake a lot of
Is the recent mistreatment of the Dixie Chicks. The head of Cumulus Media, which owns 41 radio stations, decided himself that none of the stations would play the Dixie Chicks any more.
See this link for more on this. What we see and hear is decided by corporate heads and lawyers.
Expect to hear (or to not hear in this case) more of this.
I'm guessing that "public access" radio might be closer with its lower bandwidth and production cost requirements. I could easily forsee some kind of Wi-Fi peer-to-peer device blowing the radio market wide open. The software might resemble the streamer p2p protocol, but optimized with multicasting and some way to elect repeater nodes. Assuming a real world bandwidth of 1Mb/s, that gives us 16 64Kb/s channels. Not exactly an abundance of channels, but it's a start.
Don't forget NPR along with National Association of Broadcasters has vehemently opposed community microbroadcasting. That coupled with the advertising is enough to keep me from supporting them ever.
As much as I enjoy (some of) their content I think its sometimes better to let something die to give something else the opportunity to fill the vacuum. Or we continue to limp along with the steady Clear Channelization of public radio.
Quack, quack.
On at least one point...
...this was result of the 2 year anniversary from the last review
The FCC is supposed to review every 2 years, but the last review was actually 8 year ago. In another 8 years things will be pretty awful if the critics are right.
Also, if the media becomes one great big company, who is really going to go up against it? That company would effectively control politics in this country.
I'm keeping my eyes on the boarder for now.
the FCC is not required to review the diversity of media. a commissioner said as much today. they're required to review the "competition" -- so long as there is no technical monopoly, they've done their job. doesn't matter of there's an oligarchy of corporate/state entities with the same interests that behave similarly.
To make matters worse, the review is anti-consumer.
If you look at the Media Access Page, you will see that the federal courts force the FCC to "re-justify every major ownership rule or strike it from the books" every time there is a review.
The problem here is that the same corporations that want the relaxed rules also are among the largest soft-money donors. They buy the legislators and then demand favors.
The article from The [Toronto] Star points out that it's as shitty up here as it is in the U.S..
We used to have a good alt-rock station, called CFNY (102.1 FM). Then, slowly, they started to change. They started to cash-in on their image, calling themselves "The Edge" (tm) and playing more Lenny Kravitz.
Then they were acquired by CHUM-City, which owns Q-107 - the Toronto classic-rock outfit. They actually pretend to compete with each other, which is the most sickening display of market monopoly you can watch. CFNY went as far as to secure the web-domain www.no-stones.com to show their true colours (which in retrospect will only serve to alienate anyone with a wide latitude of musical taste).
Alt-rock radio is dead in Toronto. No more Buzzcocks, no more The Fall, no more pre-"Let's Dance" Bowie. It's as if punk never happened, and post-punk was just a passing 80's novelty.
*sigh*
I guess if the Leafs were in the Cup right now, I wouldn't feel so bad. Unfortunately, 2003 will not be remembered as The Year of Toronto (hello SARS)...at least not for the right reasons.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
The current FCC Chairman was appointed by Bill Clinton.
That means nothing. No FCC commission may have more than three members from any one party. On top of that, Powell was appointed in 1997 when the Senate (which must approve appointees) was controlled by Republicans. So not only was Clinton required to appoint a Republican, but any choice not approved by the rest of the Republican party would have been shot down.
You and all the people who modded you up Insightful are just repeating the same tired, meaningless defense of Powell's ultra-conservative deregulation binge.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
A similar situation occured last December in central North Carolina, when the biggest ice storm in years knocked out power to more than a million people in the area. Nearly all of the (mostly Clear Channel-owned) FM stations that could broadcast at the time were still playing the same old Dave Matthews and Fleetwood Mac songs that they always played, totally oblivious to anything happening outside. Luckily, we have a few locally-owned and/or operated AM talk radio stations that filled the void and got important news and info out to people.
Local radio presence is important in any market, especially in times of emergency. I get the feeling, though, that only local and state civic leaders will be able to do anything about that...
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
I don't think so. Ownership by the *State* is the central tenet of Communism. Everything owned by the government. What you're talking about is corporate monopoly, not a form of government.
How does this kind of Just Plain Bad Information get modded up so high?
there are plenty of non-locally-owned radio and television stations that are staffed at all times, and can break into local programming with news flashes, even if most of their operations are centrally controlled.
Yea. Too bad none of them are owned by ClearChannel.
ClearChannel has over 1200 radio stations. They also have 200 employees. You do the math.
And, as this poster said, there is only one full-time employee manning those six stations. But I'm sure that ClearChannel is responsible enough that they have that one employee man those stations 24-7.
according to reports from local authorities they tried, nobody answered the phones
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
They're now gone. The broadband audio stream is now a feed from Denver station KBCO. Same format, but the LA foundation is long gone, as are the DJ's that were there. (For those who know the station, I think Nicole Sandler is working somewhere in a New Mexico station as their Program Director. But I digress.)
Why do I mention this, off topic though it may seem? Because the slashdot blurb is right - there isn't any more diversity on the radio unless you go to public radio, college stations, or the AM band. The broadcast stations are picking up their money on low-quality music because that's what somebody $ay$ is popular.
And the RIAA has the audacity to say that, if I want to decide what I listen to in CD's, I should base my decisions on what's on the radio. In that case, how about I give them The Finger, and listen to these guys (a jazz station in Long Beach) - and donate when I can.
This sig no verb.
Republicans get just a bit more than the Democrats.
Both sums are really sick though.
Sorry, as a 25 year veteran if the industry - I must say diversity is not a factor here - never was. That's just all media BS to hype people in believing a certain agenda. This didn't just happen today.. this began during the CLINTON administration with the first wave of deregulation of radio broadcasting. At first, everyone was happy to buy up a competitor and have stations compliment each other. But, all the buyers over extended themselves and had to cut people to make their loan payments. The result is today - fewer people listening to the radio and watching broadcast TV. People in braodcasting are scratching their heads wondering "what happened?" They cut creativity, cut talented people only to replace them with automated stations and people in powerful positions who wouldn't have gotten a job sweeping floors 15 years ago. This was more about de-regulating TV. For the moron who posted that this actually RE-REGULATED radi- YOU re-read the story - this actually relaxed the rules further than they already were. Oh, yeah and Clear Channel "bashing" they deserve every insult thrown at them. They aren't the only slayers of modern radio, only the worst....
A few years back, when Murdoch was a Canadian citizen...
You've got your media barons confused. You're thinking of Conrad Black. Rupert Murdoch's an Aussie. Black owns lots of newspapers, whereas Murdoch only owns one (New York Post?). Not sure if Black owns any TV stations.
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
No kidding. Fox News was so slanted, they actually ran messages on their Times Square news ticker insulting the protesters. This has no place in real journalism.
If you play to the lowest common denominator you sacrifice diversity and (because this is communications) sacrifice choice and freedom. If you don't play to the lowest common denominator then you risk pissing people off, which causes those "people" to crack the whip and complain. So, the larger a company gets the more likely it is to AVOID taking on challenging issues, AVOID pissing people off, and thus AVOID providing a diverse outlook on the issues.
If you are the ONLY market in a town (as CC has all but become in many towns) then you existence has nothing at all to do with "keeping the people happy" and EVERYTHING to do with "not pissing anyone off" - especially when a portion of that "someone" may represent regulatory agencies. the important issues get ignored out of self interest (just as they were in this case) and, with no competing viewpoint in the market debate is utterly stifled and the back room politics gets deeper still - just as in the FSU, just as it does in China.
According to Salon (ad clickthrough required), John McCain has scheduled a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee for this Wednesday. All 5 commissioners including Powell will be there. Your opinions can be sent to Sen. McCain here. The Commerce Committee's listing is here. While it does include Fritz Hollings (D-Disney) It also includes such high-profile opponents as Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Ted Stevens (Alaska). Congress can still stall this. It isn't over yet.
Murdoch was an Australian citizen. He started out inheriting 1 daily newspaper in Adelaide, Australia. He grew to control most daily metro & regional newspapers & magazines in Australia.
He also bought some UK newspapers and had a large run in with newspaper unions that he won with help from British PM Margaret Thatcher. He also eventually took control of BSkyB, the leading UK satellite service.
When he went to the US and bought 20th Century Fox and established the Fox brand through TV station acquisitions he had to change his citizenship to US as a requirement to own as much media as he does.
News Corporation, the parent company of the various media holdings, is still an Australian company.
Cheers VikingBrad