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Court Blocks FCC Media Ownership Rules
Dr. Mu writes "According to this story in today's Seattle Times, 'The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia blocked implementation of FCC regulations that would have allowed companies to own more radio and television stations in the same market, and directed the agency to rewrite the rules.' In the interim, the FCC has already granted waivers to the old (1975) rules. It's unclear whether these waivers will now be revoked. Nonetheless, this ruling spells relief for smaller media interests and the diversity they provide."
I don't know whether I should be happy that judges seem to be tapping the brakes on the kleptocracy, or sad that the judiciary is interfering with regulatory bodies appointed by (nominally) elected officials.
...of the big media conglomerates?
Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?
A decision made to *prevent* monopolies? What's the world coming to! We'll be disbanding Microsoft before you know it!
The FCC is finally getting told what it's limits are.
Ah, you found me!
This is great an all, but is it possible for a higher court to reverse this ruling? I'm assuming the current broadcast oligopoly will not take this sitting down.
I also reply below your current threshold.
...the FCC will be bought out by the SEC which was recently acquired by the FBI.
As good as this news is, I still do not expect my local access guy to be able to compete with the likes of Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner. Free press is getting tougher and tougher. At least there is the internet...
~8^]
I'm glad to see it. I'm not sure about anywhere else, but it seems like Clearchannel owns my entire city... I'd like to see some indie TV stations or something start up and not be squashed.
----
Ground Control to Major Tom...
Mod me as a troll if you want to, but this is needed!
/disgruntled jock
With the the big radio corporations eating up radio stations left and right, the only thing we have left is 10 minute stop sets (commercial breaks) and "playlists" of songs that are cookie cutter.
If there were only a way to get things back to where they were back in the early-mid 90's where it was MUSIC played on a radio station, not voice tracked half assed talent, piped in morning shows from across the country, and corporate demanded commercials.
I mean, not everywhere has a AutoZone, Valero Diamond Shamrock, etc....
I know it'll be impossible to go back to MY glory dys of radio, but at least we can make sure that what has happend to create this beast, can be restrained.
WAY TO GO PHILLY!!!
Now, if other states could only learn a leason from this....
It seems that any industry that is allowed to "consolidate" from many to a few owners or companies has the same results: Higher Prices, Worse Service. Doesn't matter what group you are talking about the same thing happens.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
But seriously, these small stations have a lot of unique programming that should not be lost.
I've discovered a remarkable proof, but this margin is too small to contain it...
While still good, it's worth noting that this is not a complete rejection of the FCC's new rulemaking. Specifically it still gives them plenty of leeway in radio consolidation and cross-ownership of radio and TV stations in the same market, provided the FCC "can provide better justification" for doing so.
But still, many a good reason to be doing the Happy Dance today! Hooray! Nice to see the courts still have some sanity in them.
So can u name some of the companies that will be a big loser because of this ruling?
Why does yahoo do this
Yay, no monolopies (bad spelling)
Webmaster of Infoweb
"Stanley Spadowski's Playhouse!"
I loved that movie! Even saw it in the theatre when it came out. I'm not sure if that's cool or... sad. Being a fan of Kramer before there was a Kramer. :-)
"You're a lucky, lucky boy 'cuz you know why? You get to drink from... the FIREHOSE!"
Funny though, at the time (20 years ago?) I remember thinking how radio consolidation was getting out of control. If only I knew how good we had it then.
The one point that may be lost to the casual reader is that the conglomerates were the biggest stumbling block to the allocation of Low Power FM (LPFM) radio stations going on the air.
With marginal engineering claims that "channel adjacency" would cause "undue interference" (read: get people to listen to something else in a virtually closed market owned by Clear Channel, for example), LPFM has been sidetracked and slowed from expanding to fill local community needs.
As well, this could also assist in 'breaking the back' of Clear Channel in its efforts to become the entertainment monopoly, controlling not only who it is that plays concerts at local venues, but the 'reverse payola' of not giving airplay to artists that aren't a part of the Clear Channel "stable of stars".
Now, if only the National Lawyers Guild would finish their legal challenge to the Communications Act of 1934...
"Eustace? Eustace? Are you there? Are you there?" = John Leeming
Aren't rules meant to be followed until new rules come, instead of one agency just waiving them?
Best Community for Gaming and Gadgets!
This ruling means nothing. It will of course end up in the Supreme Court, where the real decision will be made.
And we have to clean it up, as usual....
Can someone explain why allowing one company to own newspaper and TV in the same area is bad?
How would you like to live in a world where everyone had a staff of lawyers on retainer, and insisted on litigating every little problem in their life?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
What's so good about this news? The old laws, which FCC tried to change, essentially, made certain properties unsellable.
Exactly! So the old illiberal arguments about the public's need (and thus -- right) to force media companies to be independent hold even less water -- the Internet sources of news and views are abundant and available.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I think that "assuming the frequencies are available" is the crux of the issue. The court must be worried that the conglamorates will buy the best frequencies immediately. Also, I think (I don't actually know) that big advertisers are liable to spend their money with known corporations; small stations would have to develop quite a niche before they're going to see any serious advertising dollars.
Regulations don't stop everything. You didn't see Clear Channel buy out Air America, and they're having problems paying their bills. As was put above, "Supply and Demand" has more power than anything. You can't force people to listen to your station simply because it has a "different voice".
who said it best with The FCC Song
I don't think you are way off base, in that you are starting from a free market model, and recognizing the importance of market laws. However, the real situation is already far from a theoretically frictionless free market, as I'll try to show.
First, the smaller stations CAN be forced to sell. Publicly owned ones have to accept offers if they are large enough, as their stockholders can require it, both by legal penalty and by lawsuit. Privately owned radio stations such as schools, often can't afford the fees to upgrade liscences, and the FCC has sometimes allowed a commercial owner to preferentially buy up a frequency that is already in non-commercial use, even where empty bands abound.
Supply and demand doesn't work very quickly in these cases. There are a number of markets where the demand for more of your typical clear channel type broadcasts seems understated to non-existent, but until advertisers stop believing more of that broadcasting will work for them, supply can grow to greatly exceed real demand.
This also ties into the RIAA debate. Sales may slump because people stop buying what they perceive as crap, but no record company exec ever kept his job by saying "Sales are down because I promoted nothing but garbage.". On the other hand, some of them can keep their jobs by saying "Sales are down because of Piracy.", at least for the short run. In the same way, the broadcast megacorps can make money (in the short run) by convincing advertisers the market is there, even if the market really isn't.
There's a rule in the advertising business, that says "90% of all advertising is wasted, but you never know which 10% will produce your profit." That describes a very inefficient process, and a correlary in scientific circles for that situation would be "response lags are going to be large, changes will be small and come slowly". Now try convincing the Nation's advertisers they are in a situation where any change they think is reasonable will in fact (a.) be too small, and (b.) needed three to ten years ago.
Again, that's what theoreticians call market friction. Advertisers are going to be reluctant to stop advertising to over-saturated markets, because the actual decision makers are afraid of losing their jobs by not following the conventional wisdom. It's a sort of "Nobody ever got fired for targeting their advertising budget at the 14-27 year old female demographic, like this big station says they own." rule. Yeah, this will change in the long run, but with government already involved, that long run is pretty stretched out.
You used the word 'everyone" in your post. I'd submit that's where the problem comes in. If you had said "a sizeable majority", you might have reached a different conclusion, and would definitely be phrasing things more accurately. If a sizable majority likes Brittany, and a small minority likes Cobham, Matsui, and Ella, then you would expect there would be lots of stations playing lots of Brittany, and a few playing Jazz, but it would look unnatural to see no jazz stations, or no country, or no classical, or no talk radio without Howard Stern, or whatever. 5,000 people in an overall market of 500,000 is a niche market, but somebody should be able to make some money targeting that 5,000, and if that has stopped happening in many places, there is something besides the free market causing that.
Who is John Cabal?
When the decision was overturned, though, the gloves came off: An NPR story yestermorn quoted him saying `This is deeply troubling', and that he feels the ruling impairs his ability to -- no, really! -- `protect the American people.'
So the 3rd Circuit bitch-slaps the FCC -- gee, wow, how cool and groovy is that. Let me know when your local rock station jettisons the ol' ZZ Top and Skynyrd tunes for, say, the Replacements and the Pixies.
/. comments). Clear Channel already owns 1200 stations; the next three biggest (Cumulus, Infinity, Citadel) own about half that many, combined.
Truth is that niether this court action, nor the FFC rules it blocks, will have much effect on radio (which seems to be the focus of these
This ruling will actually hurt independent Mom-n-Pop broadcasters wishing to sell out to a bigger fish, because now all station sales pending FCC approval must be put on ice (again) until the FCC rerwites the ownership rules.
There will always be good non-commercial radio out there (in bigger towns and cities, at least), but as for commercial radio, stick a fork in it.... it's done.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
but unlikely, should Chariman Powell decide to pursue it. This would involve all 12 judges at the 3rd circuit (there are 14 seats but two are vacant) reviewing the case, on the grounds that the standard appellate review was somehow flawed and/or unconstitutional.
Failing that, there is, of course, The United States Supreme Court.
Basically, according to London's Financial Times: the "...appeals court banned the FCC from implementing the controversial rules until the agency redrafted them or provided better justification for the limits it chose."
It is important to note that the court of appeals took several distinct and seperate issues with the reasoning behind FCC's new rules regarding further media consolidation, such as how it chose to define reasonable competition, and its data collection methods.
Even if the Supreme Court does decide to take up the case (unlikey, especially failing a full appellate review first) there is a high degree of likelihood they will simply send the case back to the apellate court for "further" review in a manner specified by the Supreme Court.
By the time all of this rolls around, we may have a new president and, therefore, a new FCC chairman as well.
In short, it will be a long time before further media consolidation takes place as currently propsed.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
What provisions are there for low-power FM stations in Canada? I looked at the CRTC, but they're unlikely to tell me what the likelihood of actually obtaining a license would be.
"But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
If they really wanted to get serious they go as far as actually taking the airwaves away from the big corporations and giving them back to the people. We want something in return for the use of those airwaves and it ain't a one-time bargain sale.
We used to get Real News. Now we get attractive people spewing corporate and government propaganda ant us all day. Why doesn't the FCC do anything about that? (thanks to Juan Cole for some of this stuff)
What's happened to the US?
Ah, got to love these guys. They come to Pittsburgh 1996 bought up a great station and turn it into the worst elevator music you ever hear. Not even you grandmother would listen to. They do this over and over again and then get annoyed the radio listen ship started declining even before satellite radio got a significant listener ship. Last year the PBS show NOW with Bill Moyers had on the x-own of a small radio station. The own tried to hold on to his business when all the other station were sold a few "media giants", but all the other radio stations under cut his advertising prices. Probably selling advertising at a lose for a year or so, until he went bankrupt. You can take then to court because that is price fixing/collision, and years later you win a few million but you can't operate an independent radio station any more. Should probably take the money and buy a Denies franchise or something, or analogously speaking the media giant throws a lit cigarette but in your face and says "get lost". I've read the mixed response to the decision and I don't understand why I have to keep giving the civic lesson no free process = no democracy/republic on and off line? Even with the sad state of public education these days this fact should be self evident.
It's about time some judge stops this freak. The FCC doesn't even follow their own regulations consistently. Especially with the unjust fining of Howard Stern. Other people do the same things he does and don't get fined. Ever since Howard Stern has been talking about about Bush and degrading him, he has had more and more problems. And of course Michael Powell (Colin Powell Jr.) has had it out for him. And of course Clear Channel Executive Michael Long ( very good friends with G.W. Bush) pulled Howard Stern off the air less than two weeks after it began. The reason everyone gives is Janet Jackson. What makes matters worse is that our own congressmen (house of representatives) and senate approved the bill ( 99 - 1) hidden under another bill by Senator Sam Brownback from Kansas, who lives in a house funded from religious groups, that increases the fines that the FCC can give for "indecency", which is whatever the FCC determines it is. Because there are no guidelines for issuing these fines, this is a complete violation of our First Admendment.
> Glory Days? You want Glory Days?
Here's a related story on Kuro5hin. I think these Glory Days may just be selective memory. Nobody wants to remember the bad stuff.
I grew up in the St. Louis area and remember listening to that station, KSHE, in the late 80s. To me, they were Jurassic rock dinosaurs who were oblivious to the exciting new music forms of the time: hip-hop, hardcore punk, and thrash. (KSHE *did* have a metal show but you had to suffer through the Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin ad naseum.)
I heard better music coming out of college radio stations. I also heard KDHX, a great community radio station, when it first went on the air. It's still on the air too, so the glory days are still here!