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Ted Turner's Beef With Big Media
pizen writes "Washington Monthly has an article from Ted Turner where he talks about the problems with the media conglomerates and calls for them to be busted: 'At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates.'"
Unless we fight back against Big Media, we are going to lose, and lose hard, a lot of the things we have come to take for granted in the past 20 years of the Internet...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Move along please.
I dislike big media, because it hurts the small paparazzi who still know the real reason they are there. To stalk.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Interesting how right-wing Turner makes many of the same points as left-wingers Chomsky & Herman in Manufacturing Consent.
If both sides can agree on something as pervasive as mass media perhaps government should rethink things...
"...bust up the big conglomerates"
This coming from the same AOL - Time Warner?? Time Warner that owns Magazines, Cable Stations (and not just one mind you...)
And THEN merged with AOL?
Ok Ted....
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
Why not just change the law to make media companies to accommodate to customers needs?
I thought Ted Turner owned them all...
How's this any different today than it was 5-6 years ago, when Ted happily sold CNN for lots of money? Oh, I know. He's got the money in his pocket now, and can complain about other people doing it.
Take them apart like the government did with the bells a few years back.. Oh wait sbc is buying everything back.. Point being we as citizens need to keep an eye on these types of things or your rights will get lobbied away.
This is something I never thought I would hear Ted Turner say. I never thought I'd hear him stick up for the little guy. What interest of his does this serve?
Evolution or ID?
Would that include Microsoft?
Keep in mind, this is Ted Turner, the crazy Southren billionare we're talking about here. This guy IS the media!
,
A quick snippet from his company's website, http://www.turner.com
Many are familiar with TBS, Inc.'s groundbreaking network, CNN, one of the world's most respected and trusted sources for news and information. Since its launch more than 20 years ago, CNN's reach has extended to 15 cable and satellite television networks; two private, place-based networks; two radio networks; 12 Web sites; CNN Mobile; and CNN Newsource, the world's most extensively syndicated news service.
TBS, Inc. is also home to familiar entertainment networks such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, and Turner Classic Movies as well as specialized networks such as Turner South and Boomerang.
TBS, Inc. is also home to The Atlanta Braves, nascar.com and pga.com
Aaaannd he's the vice chairman of Time Warner. Just goes to show, this guy really is nuttier than a fruitcake.
Pot? Kettle? Black?
Ted Turner is still just irritated that HIS media conglomerate was hijacked by AOL in the bubble years.
-Joe
Ted Turner spent billions of dollars to buy the rights of a bunch of classic movies, which he then went and colourized. He owns at least three stations that I can think of (I don't watch a lot of TV, so there may be more)--TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies.
This man is in no position to talk about big media. This is like Bill Gates bemoaning monopolistic business practices in the software industry.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Where the fuck have you been since 9/11?
I think he's just sour over the AOL/Time Warner catastrophe.
That's why I hardly ever follow BBC News coverage anymore, instead opting for my free weekly copy of the Sutton Coldfield Observer.
I hate those big media companies.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Hello Pot..Meet Kettle...
I totally agree but...
Ted Turner is founder of CNN and chairman of Turner Enterprises.
It looks like he's out to take down fox as the top news network then to help inform the people...
fp?
...red!
Ted Turner makes large donation to the democratic and republican parties.
Don't break up the big conglomerates. Break up the government regulations that are preventing the small companies from breaking through. Compliance with regulations is so expensive that they create a virtual monopoly of only those big companies that can afford to comply.
Remove the government roadblocks, and the conglomerates will have competition.
Somebody needs to read Atlas Shrugged again.
Either that or he needs to be beat with it.
$
...that Ted Turner sees this whole conglomerate issue too much in black and white.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Oh yeah somelike this you mean?????
In todays's megacorp world could you imagine starting something like CNN. It was much simpler 25 years ago when Turner did it. Disney, Viacom, AOLTW, Murdoch, it is very hard for a newcomer to break in now. The last newcomer was Fox and thats been over ten years ago. I don't think they would have made it without Murdochs newspaper empire to back them up till they got a foothold.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Mr Bachman and Mr Overdrive?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Face it: TV is dead .
I don't watch TV much these days: mostly BBC World for news and a few cable channels that broacast things like "Six Feet Under" or documentaries. That's it. It's probably a couple of hours a week, tops.
Most of the news and entertainment that I like, I obtain through the Internet, and it's been like that for several years.
So, am I worried about media consolidation? No. Am I worried about Internet censorship and Internet Provider consolidation? Yes. Actually a lot more worried.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Ted is clearly bored.
--- Ban humanity.
This is the same Ted Turner that, while saying oil and gas are evil is making a LOT of money off of them.
" With the recent upturn in natural gas prices, Turner's holdings are worth billions. He recently signed an agreement to double the number of gas wells on the Vermejo to 1,060 wells and El Paso Corporation is paying him a 6.5 percent royalty."
He thinks it is OK for HIM to have such things, but DAMN IT! us normal people shouldn't!
...John D. Rockefeller has expressed some concern with the size and potential political influence of big oil companies.
"At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates . . ."
" . . .because it's so much more difficult to buy them up when they're big."
In Soviet Russia, Big Media has beef with YOU!
I don't know about Ted Turner, but I /do/ know about CNN. It is the main propaganda outlet for the US of A, and that country is rapidly sliding towards fascism. That is bad enough in itself, but it also is the most powerful nation in the world, and to top it all, it is also rapidly exporting its language, folklore (Santa Claus and Halloween world wide) and culture.
Now the funny thing is that the main produce of the USA (amusement and media) is also the crowbar to obtain wol\rld domination. So I am wondering why one of the most important players suddenly comes over all contrite. Are there some sour grapes in the making?
Paai
The source of the problem isn't the media moguls or the current laws, it is the technology of broadcasting which uses finite resources (radio frequency bands) to broadcast that are owned by very large media companies. Once the technology develops that eliminates the notion of a "channel" - be it a radio frequency or a slot on the cable, this will not be an issue. When people have sufficient bandwidth in their homes to watch video streams, "Joe's Local News" and CNN will be on equal footing. In the meantime Ted Turner can work with the FCC on regulating the media markets, but its mostly water under the bridge, just give it another 5-10 years.
All the bitching that people are doing here. Ted Turner is one who is in a posistion to make this happen. He's rich, has lots of connections in the industry, knows how the industry works, and is willing to try to break up the industry. It seems to me that he just wants to create a level playing field, similiar to when he started so that perhaps, someone who is not already a billionare can make their fortune in TV.
Yes Ted Turner is easily the center of the evils he's complaining about . . . . but well, did anyone RTFA before bashing him?
Sure there's hypocrisy in Turner saying big media should be broken up, but he explains himself rather well. I admit I haven't even read the whole article yet. Maybe he's a little bit bitter (AOL), but he starts by explaining that he could never have gotten started in the current environment and then goes on to detail lots of real problems with the current media. Why can't he just be a very smart old man, who knows more about this topic than probably any of us, and is pissed because his industry is going to hell?
Ted Turner has got no right to get on a pedestal about integrity when CNN's is doubtful at best.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
It was A-OK for there to be big media conglomerates when he was in on them, but now that he's on the outside looking in they "need to be busted up".
He's really mad at Fox News' Rupert Murdoch for winning the fight for #1 cable news network. CNN now has less viewership in the 18-45 age range than the Cartoon Network, and that comes from Neilson Ratings. Ted Turner doesn't have a monopoly on cable news anymore and that chaps him.
... Anyway, not trying to be flamebaiting here.
Ted Turner WAS Big Media before he divested himself of AOL/TimeWarner when the stock fell through the floor. People were offered a choice on the free market and they chose something other than CNN. When the news is slanted one way or another, you run the risk of people rejecting the political statement you're trying to make and ultimately rejecting you as their source of news. Just as the New York Times is floundering as their circulation numbers fall, CNN has driven away a lot of audience with their spin. They just didn't have anywhere to go until the mid-90s.
And don't tell me they don't have a political slant. Did you see Bill Maher on Larry King Live last night? Larry let him say some pretty wild and counter-culture things without challenging him at all, when a challenge would have been good because it would have given Maher a chance to reason with people and explain things. At least on Fox News you get the Colmes perspective to offset the Hannity, and viewers like that because it draws a deeper picture of the issues.
Just noting that there are circumstances that make Ted Turner less than objective about this issue.
WebTV is the next big thing! Honest!
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It's a transparent ploy to get the gov't to do his dirty work for him. "hey, sorry share holders, we were broken up by the feds so don't come looking for me to kill..." I bet he wants to get rid of some large bits of his media empire and he doesn't want to tick off wall-street. Plus he probably gets to write off the "charge" because it was imposed on him by the regulators. Or maybe he's just shilling for a seat on the FCC.
TV 'news'? Haven't watched it in years...
In this environment, most independent media firms either get gobbled up by one of the big companies or driven out of business altogether.
While I totally agree with what Ted Turner says, I think he's missed one tiny thing: the freakin' internet. And digital TV. And the huge & growing increase in avenues of communication.
While the major Networks may have more control over what *they* broadcast, there are significantly more options today outside of the major networks than there were ten years ago, and the number grows every year. The big networks are losing market share, and they are responding by more tightly controlling what they can, but it doesn't matter. As the internet becomes a viable medium for delivering video information, everything will shift away from network TV anyway.
The choices are out there, you just have to look. You don't even have to look hard. Slashdot is an alternate voice, Salon is an alternate voice, Slate is an alternate voice. There are equivalents all over the spectrum. Get with it, Ted.
--------------------
Dr. Movie Movie: DrMovieMovie.com
The media behemoth of the future, today!
now that ted says it, it really means something?
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... protecting the innocents since/until forever. see you there?
Just like his buying up of small working ranches and turning them into his private wilderness preserves.
This guy is way out there
Well?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
"Well I say he does have to shoot me now! So shoot me now!"
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
This man is in a position to talk about big media. He points to media consolidation as a business necessity, since media isn't about producing content, it's about selling advertising.
yours,
kbs
25 years ago the cable TV industry was in its infancy, and Turner leveraged that into making TBS and CNN successes.
But the entire cable TV industry is a lot more mature and saturated these days, making it harder for marginal startups to continue to exist - and they can pretty much forget about growing themselves into multi-billion-dollar players.
This also applies to internet businesses. Five or so years ago you could have tried to start an internet auction business to compete with EBay. That won't work now.
..tha after the big Time Warner merger he lost all power and they sold off World Championship Wrestling
why do these hipocrites say that after they sold off their own company to these conglomerates?
In other words, Ted's pissed that the nasty evil conservative Fox News Channel is more popular and less vilified than CNN, so now it's time to change the rules.
I'm sure Big Media was perfectly fine to Ted back in the AOL-Time-Warner heyday, but now, his empire's receded, it's time to lop the winners off at the knees. Why should he care now -- after all, he's made his Big Media money.
Wah wah, Ted Turner. Wah waaaaaaaah.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
TBS is Turner's company in name only. He does not own it directly, and his indirect ownership in TBS's parent company is now down to 1.1%.
I agree that big media companies kill competition but it's not just the media. You don't have to watch TV or listen to the radio thanks to the internet. These companies are huge because people choose to watch them and other companies choose to advertise on them. It's simple free market economy. Every week on slashdot we have the same argument about Microsoft, the MPAA, the RIAA, or whoever the corporate villan of the hour is. The government may indeed have to step in and do something, but I really wish I lived in a world where enough individual people cared enough about making it better to actually do something... insted of people like me who just post about it online.
I suppose I could start an activist group or something... maybe someday, but for now I'm just going to keep karma whoring.
Yes, CNN is slanted. It is clear. So is fox. They're both retarded.
But did you RTFA? Ted Turner (big media incarnate) is writing against big media...writing and saying it needs to be broken up. It's a pretty damned big sign when one of the largest media moguls in the world is outright stating that big media needs to be broken up. It wouldn't have the same impact if some guy from Joe's Broadcasting said it as Joe has ulterior motives. What motives does Ted Turner have? He has everything to LOSE by having big media broken up. Everything but his honor and dignity, and quite frankly I applaud his commentary.
"Did you see Bill Maher on Larry King Live last night?" Does it matter? He clearly made a point that in order to compete with big media in this market you need to be big media. He grew accordingly. His corporations became corrupted accordingly, good intentions or no.
It reminds me of the way the japanese grow watermelons to be squared...something will only grow as large as its container. And the FCC keeps increasing the size of the container for big media. If the FCC elimitated the viewer-base cap on big media altogether, then big media would turn into monopoly-media, inc. Then it would be like some totalitarian regime.
If the FCC lowered the cap, among other actions, there would certainly be more diversity in ownership, not just diversity of programming. That is the key.
01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110
Ted is television. Last time I checked, he and his chronies were getting their asses soundly kicked around the globe by Internet media. I don't see that changing, and I don't see television as it stands having a hope in hell of competing with it in the long run. What Ted says is really rather irrelevant if you no longer care about Television. I won't be sad to see it go. Clear the rest of that shit off the cable and sattelite lines to make room for more internet traffic.
If Ted wants to turn around and buck the system in the hopes of saving Television, great, more power to him, but it's a battle I don't really care about anymore. Broadcasting will switch to the internet eventually, and then the entire concept of channels and stations becomes meaningless, because there's no finite limit on them, and anyone can create anything they choose. Good luck enforcing any kind of regulation in a global broadcast environment. That'll go the way of piracy; 40+ years of fighting it and they haven't made a dent. Laughable.
The cost of starting and running a broadcast-style information channel (be it audio, video, 24 hour programming, or whatever) is the cost of creating the content and running a cheap website. P2P apps like BitTorrent will easily take care of your bandwidth bills. If you've created the content there's no licensing fee to pay, so big media can't touch you. In fact, the very same laws they have been using for decades to maintain a stranglehold on media rigths will now be reversed, and used to destroy them. Fantastic, isn't it, how things work out sometimes? We enjoy their protection, or they destroy their own laws. Lose-lose for big media, win-win for every internet citizen.
The tools are there, and the infrastructure is there. Big media is just worried someone might start using it and put them out of their misery. It's about time people took their culture back from corporations, and this is exactly how it's going to be done.
Keep fighting the good fight for freedom of speech and the rest will attend to itself.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Most people didn't RTFA and made the obvious comment about his being a big media company.
Quoth the article:
"This wasn't necessarily bad for Turner Broadcasting; we had already achieved scale. But seeing these rules changed was like watching someone knock down the ladder I had already climbed."
To sum up the point that he made in the article, small media companies have more management freedom and thus a greater freedom to innovate. These innovations cause change in the greater world as larger conglomerates start "me-too" enterprises to compete with the new company. By changing rules to favor larger companies, it kills the innovation happening even at the large ones (since the practice of "me-too" requires someone to do it first).
He simply wants the same opportunities for other people that he had.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Beef it's what's for dinner.
Ted Turner is as right-wing as Ralph Nader. He's been a hardcore liberal since he began to obsess over nuclear war in the 1980s. Just take a look at the money losing "Goodwill Games," his money-losing propaganda gift to the Soviet Union. Or perhaps you didn't noice him marrying Jane Fonda.
Crow T. Trollbot
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The error in regulation is the assumption that people as individuals can be served by one regulation. This is why central planning always fails.
It is impossible for the planner to know all the details, to account for all the information and changes. By the time a planner has evaluated and adjusted their plan to match a change, there are already more changes.
This is why ITT doesn't exist any more. Not because it was "regulated", but because it didn't serve its customers. It got too big and couldn't adapt to the changing market. It is what is happening to Microsoft right now, and what happened to the old IBM.
Government regulations restrict change, allowing megalythic companies to exist and flourish. Enron was trying to build a business model on buying and selling government pollution credits, and leveraging regulatory changes that it knew about before hand by buying politicians.
If you enplace regulators and regulations, those regulators become the customers and us little folks remain completely out of the loop.
With changes in technology the "little guy" can adapt faster than the big companies. That is one of the great things about the 'Net. After all, Time Warner doesn't own Slashdot.
The Big Three, which I must assume you don't remember, ABC, CBS, NBC, were all there was for 40 years of Television, and Radio before that. But they couldn't control ShortWave, so instead the government created a difficult license process to restrict access and prevent competition with the moneyed Networks.
The reason I don't have any interest in creating yet more media regulations is because I don't want MY access restricted. I like being able to post articles where anyone can see them without worrying about language or subject content. I can even advertise my business (if I had one).
Once in place, regulators and regulations serve their customers, which are the politicians and bureaucrats who control their budget, and not you, or I, or any nebulous "consumer".
That's why John Stossel is such a breath of fresh air.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Somebody check the stats...
I think www.nakednews.com is stealing market share!
Why is it that whenever the otherwise perfectly reasonable libertarian majority here hears the word "corporation", you all turn into a bunch of frothing anarchists? What part of "laissez-faire" are you not understanding? Yes, the media conglmerates are causing us problems with regards to copyright issues, but that does not mean the solution is to add *more* government regulations. The solution is *never* to add more government regulations, as I'd think you'd all know by now.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ted Turner's not a right winger. He's a businessman and he may have some conservative opinions but for decades he's taken positions that are definitely on the left side of the spectrum. During the Raygun administration when the US and USSR boycotted each other Olympic Games, and the nuclear arms race was revving to a fever pitch, Ted Turner came up with the Goodwill Games. Advertised as the only global sporting event where US and Soviet atheletes had an Opportunity to compete against each other. He also did a few other things to keep engaged with the USSR rather than simply demonizing them. My personal theory is that he realized that rich people might get vaporized along with everyone else if a Nuclear War broke out. But that's just a theory. He did a lot of programming on TBS focusing on Nuclear War/Peace issues. (back when the only channels he only owned were CNN and TBS.) He also has consistently engaged with Cuba, even interviewing Fidel Castro a few times when almost no reporters ever to coverage in that country. He didn't do this because he's pro Castro, he did it beacuse, like with the Cold War with the Soviet Union, he believes the right course of action is engagement and dialogue, not jingoistic posturing that's prevelant in both major parties in the US. Turner has consistenly criticized CNN's "Fox News Lite" cheerleader approach to covering Bush and the War on Terrorism and the War on Iraq since 9/11 when few others have done so. He also was involved with Jane Fonda for a few years. 'Hanoi' Jane Fonda somone who's almost at the top of the Right Wing Hate List.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
his point is that targeted regulation to maintain a competitive market is a _good thing_ for capitalism. The problem with cars, is that the major automakers _own_ the distribution channel. If anything, with the smaller part manufacturers that have sprung up as a result of outsourcing, it is becoming more possible to start a small car manufacturer. Distribution channels, _define_ markets, and these need to be regulated so that their monopoly power cannot be extended into manufacturing and production, both of which need not be monopolies.
People are saying Turner is the proverbial kettle calling the pot black. They miss the point.
Yes, he built CNN but no longer owns it. He has no control of AOL Time Warner, and if he did it is quite clear they would be a very different company. The empire building is not his doing. I've read a lot of interviews with Turner, and he strikes me as a bombastic and determined man, but he has always been against "The Big Guys" and trying to battle for "The Little Guys" because he's always seen himself as the little guy. Go read a history of CNN to see what I mean.
As for the general point of this article, he has a point. The company that disturbs me the most actually is Disney. Down in Florida they have effectively got their own government for several hundred thousand square acres, they have a town in which they control everything (called Celebration IIRC), they have changed state law so that nobody can be declared dead on Disney property, and have interests in more government projects than an entertainment company really should. They are literally, not figuratively, a law unto themselves. How the hell did that happen? How can you compare Turner's business interests with that lot?
On a day when I have readjusted my outlook on life in general after reading the slashdot article and associated links on Joe Trippi, thinking about this stuff just makes me mad quite frankly.
I don't know much about Ted Turner, I understand he's hardly the most angelic of businessmen. However that has nothing to do with any of the arguments he has put forwardm namely that lax FCC regulations have done nothing but stifle innovation,competition and quaility over the media as a whole.
The media conglomerates will argue for less rules and regulations, a laisse faire approach. But as we know, unregulated markets lead to only one thing. Monopolies. This is especially true in the mass media field. It costs relativily little for a TV or Radio broadcaster to reach an extra 10 million viewer/listeners. They just turn up the wattage on their antennae. This means companies can easily expand and grow without any significant investement. This is unlike most industries, where in order to expand, companies need to invest in more raw materials and manpower, hindering their ability expand to a point where they dominate.
However for mass media, and even software, expansion is easy. It's even more so if you centralise all your content and simply broadcast and sell the same thing to everyone, which is what has happened. Turner is absolutly right. The big guns have taken over, due to the ease of expansion, and the difficulties of entry for independants. And now that they have gained a monopoly, they have abused their positions by promoting bad TV. People spend less time watching TV now, not because of other distractions, but because TV is simply bad. What else do you expect from a monopoly except a low quaility product. He's dead right about reality TV. The number one reason there is so much of it is because it is cheap.
Whatever about Turner, his points are good. Regulations need to be tightened. Having only 3-4 companies with complete control over a medium, is quite frankly dangerous, as well as foolish. The examples of censorship in the article are frightening. What happens when the big guns decide the only news we need is COPS and LA car chases?
Rampant capitalism leads to feudalism. You've got to have rules, otherwise everybody gets a bad deal.
The author makes good points. I wonder if the mainstream media will give them air time?
May the Maths Be with you!
Ted Turner is a lot of things, but he is NOT an advocate for the little guy.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Ted Turner invented big media.
I notice he never had such strong views on the issue back when he owned CNN, CNN Headline News, TNN, Atlanta Superstation, WGN, New Line Cinema, and was a chair on Time Warner.
However, it is probably harder than it has ever been to start a traditional media company. If you want to start a new paper, or a new tv channel, or a new radio station ... they just exist on a grander scale than they used to, so you need more money to get into it.
The question is, unless you're Ted Turner, why would you want to start a new traditional media company? The people who are good enough to make a difference in the industry are also smart enough to avoid competing against incumbents for table scraps in a shrinking market.
It's like worrying about Matt Drudge getting all the good Monica Lewinsky stories : it might not be fair but if you're smart you know it's no longer 1998, the last time traditional media or Monica counted for anything.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Dearest Congress,
I had a really good idea for how to make money back in the 90's, and was very successful as one of the first to exploit it. Unfortunately, I lack the skill and work ethic to continue my advantage with this business model in a competitive environment. Please outlaw the business model before other people can get rich off it and knock me out of my rank in Forbes' Filthy Rich Bastards list.
Sincerely,
Ted Turner
P.S. Enclosed please find a huge "campaign contribution."
P.P.S. Wink wink, nudge nudge
What kind of backwards universe do you live in?
Where I come from, if you have special knowledge and experience in something, you are in the perfect position to talk about it.
I suppose you think Stephen Hawking is in no position to talk about black holes?
Not to mention TW as a whole own's Nullsoft (everyones favorite wintel MP3 player)
Believing that Ted holds similar views is not an extraordinary stretch of the imagination.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Pot. Kettle. Black. Calling.
Arrange in the order you see fit.
Honestly though, weren't there more laws in place regarding large media conglomerates (or the prevention of) about four years ago? Hmm, I wonder how we might go about chaning that....
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
Try and start a new shoe company and compete with Vans, Adidas, or Nike. Try and start a new car company and compete with GM, Toyota, Ford or Honda. It's big business and there are a lot of highly capitalized players already in the mix with good products and reputations.
New competition arises from time to time and joins the fray, but they are rare shooting stars of good product coupled with fortune - both the $$$ and the luck kind.
It takes a lot of money to run a news organization like the cable news outlets. For each camera shot during a program there are dozens of people working to bring it to life. For every headline there is a branch office somewhere employing on-the-street reporters, or else an expensive AP deal to allow rebroadcasting of that news item. It takes a lot of time and energy to maintain the connections to verify news stories, which is why smaller upstart outfits like the Drudge Report sometimes post unverified stories to let you see what's cookin' out there.
I say that simply to say that it is impossible, practically speaking, to produce live 24/7 news and commentary television withought being a big damn company with a lot of money. There are reasons why Wayne's World is not our primary source of news.
Ted knows all of this. He knows about the New Media like TownHall.com, MoveOn.org, OpinionJournal.com, DrudgeReport.com, Slashdot.org, etc... I really think he's just whining because for the first time in a long time the conservative voice has a home, and people who don't like liberal news filtering can leave it and go to the conservative source. And they are doing so in droves, which is why CNN's viewership is so tiny.
Nobody is going to wave a magick wand, either in legislation or via the free market, and suddenly give thousands of small businesses the capacity to produce quality news programming on a global scale. One just as well could say, "Everyone should have a lot of money!" Okay, well and good... but who is going to give it to them, and why? What if they don't want to?
Ted Turner should be one to talk about Big Media. Me thinks he's just pissed people want to watch Fox News. That and it's stealing CNN's thunder, because there is actual competition.
"Hard work never killed anyone." -- Some Dead Guy
re FCC change in number of stations and audience reach caps (upwards) in 1996:
"But seeing these rules changed was like watching someone knock down the ladder I had already climbed"
re Corporate Power to control the news in the market:
"Naturally, corporations say they would never suppress speech. But it's not their intentions that matter; it's their capabilities. Consolidation gives them more power to tilt the news and cut important ideas out of the public debate. And it's precisely that power that the rules should prevent."
re the future:
"At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates"
and
"Politically, big media may again be on the wrong side of history--and up against a country unwilling to lose its independents"
Remember the debates on Slashdot on the FCC (chiefed by Colin Powell's relative) on increasing the size limit of media companies?
Ted Turner, the largest individual shareholder of the nation's largest media conglomerate, opposes proposed changes in Federal Communications Commission rules on media ownership that are generally seen as benefiting big players.
Turner, a director of AOL Time Warner Inc. in which he holds more stock than any individual, wrote an opinion piece in Friday's Washington Post saying he would not have been able to start his own media empire in 1970 if the proposed rule changes had been in effect then.
Ted Turner is the good guy here!
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
It seems that successfull capitalism always leads to monopolies or at least oligopolies. At which point, in order to restore competition, you need to have an outside power (govermnent, natural disaster, horrible mis-management) come in and either put severe restrictions (read 'regulations') on the company's behavior, or else bust it up.
While busting it/them up doesn't seem very fair, in the long run it seems more effective than trying to regulate a monopoly (for example, we all see how effective the gov'mt has been at regulating MS, haven't we?)
The real question here is not whats wrong with the big media, but what does Ted Turner see wrong with it? There has to be something in it for him, and the real question is what? Sure the big media is larger then he likes, but if he truely felt that way deep down inside he would have done something far more effective then sending off this letter. He would have when he sold his company off done it in bits and pieces to people all over the world, and cover the loss to his stock holders.
Of course no one would uphold their principles to that level. Now he is at an advantage. If he forces rules through (which he may or may not want personally), he can gobble up the pieces at low prices, and reform his media empire. So he sells large to Time Warner, and buys back for far less then he got paid for it.
What else could possibly be in it for him? I guess there are other "change of heart" things, but I find those hard to believe, and extremely week, because he only "changed heart" once he wasn't the media.
I hate to sound like a consiparcy theorist here, and I'm not usually one to bust out the tin foil hats, but get real people, there has to be something in this for Ted. People don't just do this sort of stuff after spending your entire life as a media mogul. He's a stereotypical liberal. . . . Do what you think the people want, when the profits greatest for yourself.
Phil
Government regulations restrict change, allowing megalythic companies to exist and flourish.
This is sometimes true, sometimes false. Turner is making the argument that the regulations in the 60's, which restricted very large companies was _good_ for capitalism. It allowed a large bunch of smaller competitors to get stronger. If the large companies were not regulated, then they would have _squashed_ the smaller competitors before they got strong enough to really compete.
Enron was trying to build a business model on buying and selling government pollution credits, and leveraging regulatory changes that it knew about before hand by buying politicians.
A great example of a broken political system, where regulation is put in place _by_ the large companies to restrict small ones. But this does not invalidate the usefulness of good regulation. The evil item here is concentrated media, which gives large companies a bigger voice than the smaller companies and individuals. And this evil item is exactly what Ted is attacking.
The reason I don't have any interest in creating yet more media regulations is because I don't want MY access restricted.
This is exactly why medial regulation is needed,
perhaps a smaller cap on the number of stations that every company can own, etc.
I like being able to post articles where anyone can see them without worrying about language or subject content. I can even advertise my business (if I had one).
I'd like to note that you can do this exactly because of government regulation of Bell Telephone and Telegraph. Without this regulation (allowing data to travel over phone wires via local telephone calls), the Internet would have been squashed. Also, since Ma Bell was restricted so that it could not sell software, it released Unix, pretty much for "free" to Universities. Most of its 'internal' tools -- which it was restricted from selling -- form the basis of your Linux box!
And if you want to extrapolate your "regulation == the suck" process further, say to the Environment, you'd really cause problems. The EPA keeps me from dumping shit into rivers, air, and other stuff that you would have to drink and breath. Regulation has its place, capitalism by itself, without a set of rules for its behavior, will always run amuck. It's not Black vs White world.
in creating a "... critically thinking populace" Critical thinking is something all-too-rarely taught in our schools and universities. The whole entertainment industry doesn't ignore this fact, they positively count_ on it.
I'd go so far as to say that the majority of what's out there masquerading as entertainment is probably as likely to dull critical thinking as enhance it.
On top of all that, I like to think that it's possible to be well-informed without sipping from the tainted well of broadcast media at all.
Are you kidding me? The man buys up tonnes of commercial land, reestablishes working grasslands, re-introduces buffalo (a declining, indigenous, massive mammal that once numbered in tens-of-millions on the NA praries) and you have a PROBLEM with this?
The man is the largest private land-owner in the USA as a result of this effort, and some environmental-denier cranks want to nit-pick the most ridiculous faux-pas he commits? "He bulldozed a hilltop to improve the sighlines of a mountain range" is the best they can come up with?
When you are finished trying to restore a massive bio-region out of your OWN pocket, i'll listen to your nonsense character assasination. Until then, fuck-off.
It sounds like the man's motivation and execution are in the best inerests of the continent's environmental health... and your worried about a few small issues? If you were so damned concerned, why dont you stop the bulldozing of the COUNTLESS suburbs scrawling all over the damn place... look outside your window right now, there is LOTS you can complain about. Not Ted Turner building the largest bio-reserve on the continent.
OR are you simply one of these anti-tree-hugger environemental-deniers? always looking to pick small holes in the efforts of people trying to do something for the environement? Selfless-ness make you uncomfortable? Cant fathom someone doing something GOOD for its own sake? Does that depth of character cause you to question yourself? Are you compeled to undermine their motivation to justify your own myopic selfishness?
Turner might not be saying this from a "sore former media conglomerate"
But from a economist point of view, he might have owned a lot of things, but I dont recall him being anti-competitive. (correct me if I'm wrong)
See, when he was in power, he had a chunk of stations and media, but he wasnt just the only one, others existed as well, and startups could starup when he was running the show.
Now, if you want to be a startup, ClearChannel will knock your ass off the planet, either by lawsuits, buyouts, or forcing you out in illegal ways (if you're a radio station, they'll get some useless station to overpower yours to where you can only broadcast for a few hundred yards.)
His qualm is ClearChannel, which owns just about everything in the media, they're the only ones. them and one or two others.
I think that's the point he's getting, it's not a competitive market anymore, it's now a shaped, controlled monopolistic market with no separate identities or companies. just one huge monster, and the consumer or the little guy has no say in what they do, and they can also use their great power to push propaganda the way they want it, at least in Turner's reign, it was all separated still.
Maybe he should stage a massive "use the bathroom during the commercials" protest. That'll really show them. Especially since he's the one who suggested that going to the bathroom during the commercials is somehow violating a non-existant agreement between the viewer and the broadcasters to view the commercials.
The fact that you no longer watch TV != the rest of the world.
/. half of the articles are links to AP,AFP, BBC, Reuters or some other large conglomerate news station.
Drive through any ghetto of any nationality and you'll see lots of people watching tv. I recently went on a night kayak trip through the canals of las olas which is one of ft. lauderdales rich neighborhoods. Like everyone else, they watch their TV's just as much as the rest of us do... the only difference is they either watch it from their big ass boats, or in their million dollar mansions on their 60 inch plasmas.
Lots of people still watch TV, it's far from dead.
As for the internet, I would really like to know where you get your new stories that aren't from large conglomerations. Even here at
Ok, I don't really care much for Ted Turner or his comments here but it would be nice to see arguments that are based on Ted Turner today instead of Turner five to ten years ago. Here are some things you might have missed happening:
1. Ted Turner is not married to Jane Fonda. They got a divorce.
2. Turner does not own CNN, TBS, etc. except for the small amount of stock he might still own in AOL-Time Warner company. (RTFA)
3. Turner did not own CNN at the time of the AOL-Time Warner merger.
4. Turner WAS Vice Chairman of Time Warner (who bought CNN) when the AOL-Time Warner merger happened. (According to previous link, he opposed the merger.)
The rule changes he opposes/opposed profit/profited him! That doesn't make him a hypocrite, that makes him a rare thing among the wealthy: a man of principle. Good for him.
He's actually criticizing himself to some degree too - I have to give him some credit there
His remarks are applicable to lots of media, radio stations (something like 3 companies run 90% of the FM stations), the book publishing industry (small presses are going extinct, and about 4 massive publishers run the market now), bookstores (about a 60% of US independent bookstores have closed in the past 5 years), mega retailers (Home Depot, Wal-Mart, etc) have destroyed the smaller, 'mom & pop' businesses.
While many people think the 'uber' stores are a good thing - ultimately we are often given less choice, more average/mediocre products, and little innovation and originality.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
He speaks to the internet in the article. And also - there's a signal/noise ratio that needs to be considered when talking about "alternative" news media. is Alternet.org or moveon.org acceptable alt-news? How about fromthewilderness.org? They're varying degrees of tinfoil hats IMO. While I'm opposed to large media conglomeration, the idea of everyone sending out their own ideas on news is foolish as well. noise becomes too much because frankly, half the people I know are underinformed.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I noted the Fox News mention but that is only half the issue from Ted's point of view.
The fact of the matter is that Ted sees a battle lost after it was won - Leftist ideologues controlled and were the "fourth estate" and "fifth column" elements in the United States and around the world for 50 years.
Today, Ted is seeing his religion taking a virtual beating in the public marketplace of the Internet and televised and broadcast media outlets such as Fox News and ClearChannel successes like Rush Limbaugh and so-called "conservative talk radio" in general.
Like all leftists of Ted's stripe, the idea gives them blood-spitting fits. Stay tuned, he's falling back on the usual leftist knee-jerk in this sort of situation - He'll want the leftist elites in government to "do something" as only people in government can do anything: Use force and resort to "scorched earth" tactics if necessary.
Ted has plans for the ashes. Count on it.
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
he donated billions to the UN.
The UN, believe it or not, is not a left-wing organization. It was formed by FDR, Churchill, Stalin and many others after World War II to prevent another World War. (History scholars, forgive my simplifications.)
Somehow, certain right-wing radicals have created the notion that the UN, other multilateral institutions, and internationalism in general are left-wing ideas and that reactionary, isolationist right-wing radicalism is in the center.
Much of the Republican party is internationalist. Working with other countries isn't idealism, it's practical and necessary, just like a business working with other businesses, and citizens working with each other and obeying the law.
You need to work on your haiku skills.
Well, he's got the billions of dollars now. We all know that it's money that gets the laws passed/enforced. Sure, he may not have as much money as big media companies, but I'm sure he has enough to get a few people on his side in DC. I think it's time for him to put his money where is mouth is.
You haven't won. You've merely gotten out of the immediate battleground, and are ignoring the War.
Part of TT's point is that Big Media is exerting too much control over the news. No matter how good someone may be at making decisions, feed them defective information and the 'perfectly made' decisions based on that information will be defective, too. For instance, your neighbors, your zoning board, voters, etc.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Like building homes is a _mature_ market,
and you don't see it being a monopoly. Anyone can buy wood and build their own home. Or how about selling plants? that's a mature market too... how come there are so many mom & pop green houses? As for internet business, everyone would have agreed with you 4-5 years ago that Yahoo had WON the searching market... it was considered a mature market -- whoa! imagine what 4 years have done, google has taken their place, lock stock and barrel. Your argument is riddled with holes and is far from insightful.
Only in America? It's interesting to view the article from the viewpoint of Noam Chomsky's classic work on the consolidation of American media, "Manufacturing Consent". Approached from either perspective, the future of independent news media in America looks to be in poor health. Turner's quote from Justice Hugo Black seemed to bridge the approach Turner has taken to that of Chomsky: "The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public."
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Turner's theory is interesting, but the data simply contradicts him.
There are far, far more media outlets available to you than 10 years ago, thanks to the Internet. It's better than it's ever been, better than Ted Turner could have dreamed when he started CNN.
And I don't just mean, you can read almost every newspaper in the world -- I read papers from 3 continents every day. The very low cost of publishing allows endless Internet-only media outlets: Slashdot, the Drudge Report, Salon, Wired, every blogger in the world, etc.
and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies
Yeah and Turner broadcasting so fits into that category...
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
I like the analysis that says we all deserve choice, diversity, news coverage not dictated by corporate interests, etc., but one point I wish he had made would be to look at how the spectrum is ours and not Disney's.
I can't quite get over the example of Clear Channel owning 6 stations in North Dakota- it seems like if one company can sit on all that spectrum (and if they can do that all over the country) I ought to be able to get a license just by asking. I can afford a 1000-watt transmitter and some mixers...
An independent buying a media outlet like Ted talks about throughout is one thing, but why shouldn't it be more feasible for someone to just start one up if it's broadcast? Seems like the FCC could even say 'we've lost- Clear Channel, you're now at a billion watts on 100.1, 100.7, 101.3, 101.9, etc. but we're revoking the thousands of local licenses you've got all over the dial all over America.'
Should I just let my head explode now and get it over with? I feel like a cheezy sci-fi computer that has just been fed a good dose of contridiction.
DOES NOT COMPUTE!
NOT COMPUTE!
BLAM!
They show an average of 2 hours of Law & Order a night. Classic TV. The stuff from the early 90s doesn't feel dated. Compare that to LA Law reruns or even early ER.
When your product becomes so worthless that no intelligent being has a use for it then its time to force the public to pay for it by government decree? I love capitalism. The internet with all of its false stories and hoxes is more trusted by the public the the media conglomerates. Can you say "agenda". Snail mail is a prime example of the government keeping alive something that is out dated.
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
For those who might want to hear more from Ted Turner on this subject (and perhaps others), he will be appearing tonight (Friday, 07/23/2004) on PBS' Charlie Rose show.
A description from a pop-up window on the Charlie Rose website:
From Aspen, Colorado: A one-hour exclusive conversation with media tycoon and CNN founder Ted Turner on his life; past, present, and future.
Check your local listings. Recall that Charlie Rose not only has this interview show nightly on PBS, but he is also a contributor to CBS' 60 Minutes II.
FYI: Time Warner kicked Turner out. That's why he is suddonly so 'anti-conglomerate'.
Hypocrite. >:(
-B
...is that he doesn't own any of them anymore.
Chris Mattern
That's interesting. I never even considered there was a canadian approach ? Do you mainly speak British or American ? What about Aussies ? Indians ?
Half a brain, or low ethics? I don't think ethical business behavior is tied directly to intelligence.
Our current notion of capitalism lacks proper negative feedback.
Negative feedback is what ensures the stability of a dynamic system. Essentially it works like this: A fraction of output is subtracted from the input. This provides a damping effect keeps the system within acceptable limits. Taxation and antitrust laws are examples of negative feedback.
In a system with positive feedback, a portion of the output is added to the input. This results in unbounded growth over time. Interest payments and mutually-reinforcing congolmerates are examples of positive feedback. This can be summarized in four words: the rich get richer.
The United States' model of capitalism is mostly based on positive feedback. The "American dream" is to start a small company and then "make it big." In doing so, you must displace the competition and take their market share. You do so by using positive feedback: the bigger your company gets, the more resources you can dedicate to growth (more advertising, new stores, better products, etc). Walmart and Microsoft are shining examples of positive feedback in action.
One of the reasons software and media companies can grow so rapidly is the fact that it requries there are little to no extra expenses required to sell additional products. As long as people are willing to buy the product, profits are endless. Similarly, Walmart takes advantage of economy of scale: on a per-unit basis, it's cheaper to buy a million units than it is to buy a thousand units (This one of the factors that allows Walmart to waltz into a small town and displace the competition).
Ted Turner's position reduces to this: he's played the game (and won), and he's seen the impact on society. He's now advocating increased negative feedback control over corporations in order to promote competition and restore quality.
Truner wanting to break up big media is simply a distraction from the real issue. That society can't survive the information age with copyrights in tact. Get rid of copyrights, and the other problems will solve themselves. But it is precicely that he wants to keep his cozy copyright monopolies that he is trying to force a breakup of the media conglomerates - the copyright system corrupts the industry so bad that he can't spawn innovation from within, so he's trying to get the government to force it from the outside instead.
Argh. Many times I previewed this a bunch of times, but I didn't read it carefully read it with care. I'm sorry for redundant redundancies and grammatical inconsistencies. *sigh* :P
This is a bunch of BS - there is no way the Internet is going to be shut down by government or big media. Take off the tinfoil hat and settle down a bit.
Some of you are missing a very basic point to media. The consumer rules. If they do not buy, watch, or listen...the media entity dies. And for all of you that say it is impossible to start an independent media venue for an audience...how about the Drudge Report? I know that he is looked down upon by the "big media" types...but he hangs in there and sticks it to 'em every single day. It may not be the best example in the world...but it works. Get out there and make your own media portal if you don't like the big media companies. I will check it out if it interests me.
...Ted Turner is the little guy.
May Ted have better luck ...
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
No, I'm not talking about Ted Turner's article. It's not the BS. It's right on. The BS is everyone who thinks that Ted Turner has to have an alterior motive to voice an opinion like this.
The truth of the matter is, Ted is damn-spot-on right. Every word of that article is something that every American should heed.
You don't think it's a problem? Have you watched Fox News lately? Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is one of the huge abusers that Turner is referring to. There is currently a lawsuit against Fox to have "Fair and Balanced" be eliminated as their motto. Don't believe me? Check out Outfoxed.org
Why do you think the media coverage has been so miserable during this presidency? Why has the editorial content been so weak that it has failed to raise a single eyebrow? The effects of corporate media domination are all around us and we're letting them tell us it's okay!
Microsoft, for example, conducts a great deal of its business outside the law. No, Microsoft is not above the law, they simply find it is more profitable to break our laws and pay the fines. Over and over and over again. And don't think this is limited to our buddy Billy's empire. Breaking the law in the name of profits is de rigeur the order of the day in corporate America. Remember Enron? Now add Monsanto, AOL Time-Warner, ALCOA, and a hundred other giants.
The corporate music giants are blackmailing our universities through their puppet group, the RIAA. "Pony up for our legal Napster service or we'll sue you and your students all the way to the poor house."
If any of you doubt this, check your local movie listings and see the film "The Corporation." If it isn't showing near you, wait a little while and rent or buy it when it comes out on DVD. (I'm pretty sure I saw it on IRC the other day...) These are issues we must all think about, whether we agree with the views presented or not.
IN ORDER TO MAKE UP OUR MINDS, WE MUST FIRST PULL OUR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND AND USE THEM! You don't have to agree with me, I don't require blind confidence. I do, however, ask that you to take the time to learn about and consider these issues. Reject them if you will, but do so only once you understand the issues. How can we reject ideas we know nothing about?
We must call our legislators to action. We need to get the corporations and their lobbyists out of Washington. We need to create new restrictions on corporate behavior that protect the interests of the public good. If we don't protect ourselves from the actions of corporations, who will? The corporations themselves certainly won't. It's simply not profitable to do so, and profit is the only motivator in the conciousness of the corporation.
How about it? Let's slashdot bad news agencies!
Thanks for reminding me of the good ol' days when slashdotters knew what they were talking about. Boy, that brings back memories. Good times. Good times.
Ok, back to Ted Turner bashing.
Ted Turner is a complete dude. He donated $1 BILLION to the UN (largest donation to any organisation ever), challenged Rupert Murdoch to a televised boxing match and started the whole concept of 24-hour news.
Plus he built his fortune up from nothing, which I have to admire. Probably my favourite billionaire.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
If you want to get good and mad about the current state of media policy in the United States, read Robert W. McChesney's Rich Media, Poor Democracy and The Problem of the Media.
He's the go-to guy for media policy criticism, and covers the same problems Turner mentions and more in much greater detail. Highly recommended.
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
The fall-out will be much larger and fundamental.
It will effect basic freedom of expression as it branches into your home via the ability to buy books and other 'media'.. As it will effect what content you are authorized to 'see' and disseminate.
Remember the 'internet' is just one form of broadcasting of content.. The restrictions being imposed are on the content itsself..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Because he isn't one of the people running one of these conglomerates
Imagine that you're in Soviet Russia (where media controls you). You have three networks, but all three of them air the same stories, and are blatantly politically biased towards the government. How are you going to get alternative news? How are you going to have sufficient information to act as a proper democracy? Russia happens to be a good example today, because while it's nominally become a democracy, its media is once again as subserviant to the ruling structures that its democracy is suffering. If you're in Moscow and you want to hear news which is critical of Putin or supportive of anyone else, you're going to have a hard time trying to find media which will air those views.
For those who say that competition between the oligarchs of media will prevent that, look again at Russia. What happens if the government "rewards" those who look favorably on its policies and "punishes" those who don't? Well, if there are 100 sources of news, then it doesn't matter, because they're not going to control all of them. But if there are only 3 or 4? How difficult would it be to "convince" all 3 or 4 major news sources that they should report a particular way on a story?
And diversity of smallish news outlets doesn't help either. If you say "oh, well, we've got these hundred small internet sites and newspapers," the problem is that their credibility is in doubt with most people, because they take information on who to believe is credible from the major sources. So if you say to someone you get your news from NBC, and someone else says that they get their news from FooBar.com, if you're a normal person you're going to think they're a crackpot or incorrectly informed, because it lacks credibility.
So imagine a situation where all major, credible news organizations are controlled by 3 people. Imagine how that would impact democracy. Now tell me that media is just another mature industry.
If you had read the article you wouldn't have asked that question.
Turner's article clearly explains how the consolidation of media makes it increasingly difficult (nearly impossible now) to start anything new and independent.
There can be no new CNN now. The market structure and the rules would make it so much more difficult to do than when Turner started CNN.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Thus, American television has moved away from expensive sitcoms and on to cheap thrills. We've gone from ... "My Thruto [to] "My Big Fat
Obnoxious Fiance."
Anyone know when "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance" airs?
"He thinks it is OK for HIM to have such things, but DAMN IT! us normal people shouldn't!"
When were normal people owners of large media conglomerates?
You really should RTFA.
He's complaining that even if normal people WANT to do stuff he used to do, they are unlikely to succeed. And that things are pretty bad.
He's complaining the game isn't fun or even becoming a farce coz the referee isn't doing a good job.
Quote:
"I freely admit: When I was in the media business, especially after the federal government changed the rules to favor large companies, I tried to sweep the board, and I came within one move of owning every link up and down the media chain. Yet I felt then, as I do now, that the government was not doing its job. The role of the government ought to be like the role of a referee in boxing, keeping the big guys from killing the little guys. If the little guy gets knocked down, the referee should send the big guy to his corner, count the little guy out, and then help him back up. But today the government has cast down its duty, and media competition is less like boxing and more like professional wrestling: The wrestler and the referee are both kicking the guy on the canvas. "
RTFA. He knows what he's talking about in that article while obviously you and more than half of Slashdot don't.
?!?!?!?!?!
The Teapot makes a phone call...
*ring*ring*
*ring*ring*
"Hello, Kettle? YOU'RE BLACK!!! "
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
Turners Ladder Climb
Ted owned an independant station, because Broadcasters couldn't get signal to the boonies. But it was cheaper to use syndicated product, could still sell ads. He built up quite a few stations using this product others were ignoring
Then came cable. He had stations to fill that dead air. Starting Headline News and CNN, he had programming he could sell Network affiliates scrambling for 24/7 content. Ended up, he had quite a bit of space on those big sattelites, and was always being used in everybodies cable packages.
Early Cable Trade conventions probably had only a few big dogs. HBO, and Turners channels among them. They grew friendly and got married. Made for a big church.
But the church stopped taking new congregation. They wanted the building all to themselves.
Ted just wants the doors to be as open as they were when opportunity stuck for him. Now you have atrocities like Comcast buying TechTV to turn it to sludge. You can't innovate in cable space. How long did it take the SciFi channel to come to your cable system? Probably five years or more....
Ted's main thrust is to legislate arbitrary media assert ownership rules to create an environment which fosters independent growth.
Well, that's fine for all that, but his approach is to have the FCC rule that, for instance, all TVs must be manufactured with both UHF and VHF receiving capabilities. Or, say, that HDTV sets must implement the copy protection bit.
No thanks. The Internet really is the answer here, let NBC, CBS, CNN, and Pizza Hut own as much of the shlock out there as they want; I can find (or create!) far more compelling content and distribute it to the world without even having to deal with FCC oversight.
It looks like John Kerry has a net worth of at least $164 million, his wife has a net worth of an estimated $1 billion, Edwards has a net worth between $12 million and $60 million, Dick Cheney at about $50 million, and finally George W. Bush at about $15 million.
Blogs are doing a fair job of it on their own. They're updated more frequently, focus more on the issues you're interested in, and (for those tired of "even-handed" reporting) typically wear their biases on their sleeves. It's interesting that many online versions of print/TV news sources are now trying to cash in on the success with blogs for their own writers...
Anyway, the way the world gets news is changing on its own, and I don't think helping it along will be necessary.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
Damn
I only wish I was as broke as he is.
$2B can buy me a few fine dinners.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
I don't feel like I have access to a smaller or less rich range of media viewpoints now than I did 20 years ago.
20 years ago, I did not have access to 100 different cable/DBS channels, 10-100 million different web sites, and hundreds of channels of satellite radio.
If I want to hear right-wing biased news, I can turn on Fox News. If I want to hear left-wing biased news, I can watch CNN. If I want to hear news with an economic centric viewpoint, I can watch MSNBC. And there is PBS.
Locality is also improved, as I can watch a 24-hour local news channel on cable.
Did I mention HDTV?
But who the hell is Ted Turner to talk?!
Derek Greene
While being a slashdotter might be a step in the right direction, most of what ends up on here is regurgitated from fairly mainstream sources. Why don't more people harness technology to share information with their neighbors? Especially local information. Sure there are sites like indymedia.org, but what about people doing real independent reporting?
Anybody got examples?
If the corporate televised media is so popular, and provides the viewer with the information the audience wants, why did Micheal Moore just make $100 million dollars with a documentary? I don't think it's because Hollywood missed some huge documentary audience segment for the last 90 years of motion picture releases. That segment of the 7 minutes Bush sat in the Florida classroom after he was told of the WTC attacks has been on the net in downloadable form since the end of September 1991. The reason nobody knew about video is because the major media refused to run that video and ask why the President did nothing while the WTC towers burned. The Corporate TV Networks want Bush to win. They want Michael Powell to continue on a FCC Chair to allow further corporate media consolidation.
I, for one, would never conceed to such a thing.
...
..." phrase everywhere now? wtf?
I guess you won't welcome our new opinion controlling overlords? As a trusted internet community member, I
Why do I see the "I, for one,
While I agree with your choice to get your news from teh internet instead of the big media, that is only a stop-gap measure. First of, the majority of people still doesn't use the internet to get news, or gets it from sites like cnn.com, newyorktimes.com and so on. Obviously, when the media own the newspapers, they also control the internet versions of those papers.
... This means large fixed costs, and relatively small costs per viewer. No way is a starting company going to be able to compete with a media giant when the giant is able to write off its fixed costs over a viewerbase that is 100 times larger. Keeping the media companies smaller improves the odds, ensuring that at least sometimes someone can make it to the bigtime.
Starting your own network is expensive, and will also be so on the internet. The main cost is not in airing, but in producing content: paying the journalists, the show writers,
Ayn Rand books are nothing but rants (and long, poorly written rants at that) justifying greed for greed's sake. For obvious reasons, the greedy people (particularly right wingers)latched onto these rants as justification for their greedy behavior.
... but I guess it was o.k. a few years ago when the media was dominated by left wing programming: CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc.
Check out these FCC peitions:
http://www.stopfcc.com/
http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/
We CAN make a difference!
Apparently Ted Turner has failed to realize that he is Big Media. AOL Time Warner is the biggest conglomerate of them all.
...is a communist.
wrt this story, he wants the government to have more power than these companies. If their are multiple conglomerates, the issue isn't monopoly.
Leave it to a communist to think that the government should take care of the "failings" of the market.
The issue might be one of government-corporate collusion (DMCA), but this has little to do with what Ted is talking about. If it did, his enemy would be shitty legislators, and not the companies [every company, like every individual, will act in its own interest].
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
wait.. are you saying that Fox News *isn't* "fair and balanced"? oh my god, and here I was thinking that GWB was God's right hand man and we were all going to be "saved". I mean, if I can't rely on what the media is telling me, my god... I may actually have to learn how to *read*, and actually come up with my *own* opinions rather than echoing what Fox tells me.
Gasp! The horror of it all! I have to *think*??? Thats "un-patriotic"
Why don't people ever think, "Hey, I might save a few bucks this month at the uber-store, but Herb's Grocery has alwasy treated me right so I should give them my business?"
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
... sorry, we cannot tell you. This is slashdot, and only the opinions of extreme leftists are considered valid.
You're quite right - when Ted Turner starts advocating captialist principles it's time to listen. (he has something of a reputation for being a socialistic liberal).
The problem with our variant of capitalism is that it leads to too much consolidation (our variation is that the legislature is for sale). When you wind up with three then two then one companies controlling 90+% of an industry there's no choice but for government to step in and regulate. When the government is dictating how companies are run that's a socialist state.
It's better for a government to intervene early and setup a market for competition. That serves the interests of everybody but those who might seek to dominate and profit from it.
Of course, it's hard to get there until you solve the legislature-for-sale problem. With media it's an especially vicious problem as media is the primary beneficiary of the dollars that a for-sale politician needs, regardless of the issue. That makes media the hardest place to fight this battle - they ought to get back to something easy like computers.
Now if the populous could put together a rational argument and decide elections based on logic and merit and not be swayed by emotional television commercials that would be a big help too. But noone wants to fix the educational system.
So, if Ted Turner is getting pragmatic in his old age and saying competition drives market improvements, then, hey, he's "Uncle Ted" today.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
See Subject
Heh... the title says Ted Turner's beef... heh
I wonder if he spent a million dollars to colorize it
Hint to the clueless: I'm talking about his wee-wee
What I took from the article is the FCC regulation he's saying is needed is fundamentally different than the FCC's idiot crackdowns on "content." and I think he's right about the direction its taking us.
I don't see Turner's motives as anything other than he can't follow his own path to success a second time, so now he'll have to do something else and he doesn't want to--but that doesn't make his points any less valid.
What I read is that as there are bigger and fewer congomerates, the FCC doesn't have to stick their fingers much in anyone's business, because the conglomerates are bending over backwards to not rock the boat. There's a reason American TV is saturated with all this whitewash crap, and there's a reason Stern can't just jump ship and go somewhere else the way he has in the past.
The industry is obviously not going to regulate itself on this one, and since the industry controls what the majority of us think and believe, its a long, uphill battle which frankly, can only be fixed by regulation. Putting a cap on quanity owned is entirely differnt than regulating quality of what is owned.
Its fine to suggest a switch to alternate news sources, but the problem is they're already harder to find. There's still a decent overhead in getting news properly done, issues of accountability and whether something is verifiable, and is lastly pertinent or intersting, which are all requisites to providing news before even looking at going toe to toe with a source owned by a conglomerate.
The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.
Ted Turner is a lot of things, but a lucid, pillar of the community isn't one of them. He's a nut-bag with a pot of money.
I think it's been show many times over that bigger isn't really better (for the consumer), especially as competition gets eliminated. This applies not only to media companies, but most all businesses.
I would support changes to the taxation system that make it unfavorable for giant businesses to merge if it means reduction of competition and harm for the consumer.
Does anybody even read the messages this deep into the thread?
Ranting, I'll give you. But last I heard, "anti-american" did not mean "anti-republican" + "anti-democrat".
It's also dead on topic. If people voted, or ran for local office, they'd be able to influence the government towards appropriate regulations (whatever you might think that would be). But instead most of the crybabies and flag-wavers alike are content to sit at home in from of their mass-media disinformation feeding tubes. This speaks directly to at least one of the major points of Turner's article - did you read the whole thing?
Point out to me the anti-american part. The original poster wasn't recommending doing any harm to The American Way (tm), was he?
Ted Turner is "no longer" the Vice Chairman of AOL-Time Warner.
Ted Turner has nothing to do with the workings or direction of: Cartoon Network, CNN/Headline News, TBS, TCM, TNT, or Turner South but... let the record show that Ted Turner is currently the single largest land owner in the U.S. and he might still own the Atlanta Braves (but I'm not sure)
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
The real issue is Walter Cronkite, and his ilk.
I trusted (actually, still do) the guy, as well as others of the same era.
Some of that trust has been retained, potentially inappropriately, in today's news anchors. Actually, these days I don't get much news off of TV. I rely more on NPR and the BBC.
But for news purposes, unless it's some sort of specialized news, I don't trust the web at all. Even with specialized news I tend to take things with a grain of salt.
So as the sideline to my disagreement with your statement, how do we develop trustworthiness for the web as a source of news?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
That is an example of an independent wide scale news source that can only be provided by the internet.
BTW, I think it is funny that Turner is complaining about this now that CNN doesn't get watched as much as other news channels.
that's the weirdest headline I've read in a long, long time... who is keeping Turner out of the business, Comcast and DirecTV??
Turner's not "head of one of the biggest media conglomerates" AFAIK. Which one are you talking about?
.sig so much I had to use it.
I thought he was sinking his money into motion pictures and bison, and that his picture company was a pygmy on the media veldt. You do know he sold CNN and most of the other Turner media holdings to AOL-Time-Warner almost a decade ago, right?
Sorry about the subject line, I liked your
If you are as pissed off about this as Ted and I are, please write to Michael Powell (FCC chair) and your Congressional leaders and tell him how you feel.
Michael.Powell@fcc.gov
Write your representative
Shut the fuck up, pollock.
Lets not watch and more important, lets shout that we aint watching.....then they will wake up.
yeah, we really really really need a lying sack of shit liberal BBC here in the U.S.
In early 2002, when a freight train derailed near Minot, N.D., releasing a cloud of anhydrous ammonia over the town, police tried to call local radio stations, six of which are owned by radio mammoth Clear Channel Communications. According to news reports, it took them over an hour to reach anyone--no one was answering the Clear Channel phone. By the next day, 300 people had been hospitalized, many partially blinded by the ammonia. Pets and livestock died. And Clear Channel continued beaming its signal from headquarters in San Antonio, Texas--some 1,600 miles away.
What happened to the emergency broadcast network? I remember the tests that interrupted the Saturday morning cartoons and other shows of the 70s. Media bandwidth (TV and radio) is granted by our government to allow reaching the public, but it carried the responsibility of making that bandwidth available for public emergencies.
Another post states that the accident was not Clear Channel's fault, and implies that Clear Channel has no responsibility. Radio is the fastest method to reach the public, and has the responsibility to do so during emergencies. Clear Channel should have been charged with attempted murder through negligence of the entire population of the area, and fined an estimate of the damages that resulted because the warnings were not publicized. Make it economical for Clear Channel to have someone live answering the phone who can override the broadcast with public service announcements. (Six people and their manager in an office in the middle of nowhere should be able to handle the calls for the entire country.)
I am pro-business. I believe businesses should be allowed to profit. Businesses that provide communication services are responsible to provide those services. Verizon cannot decide to declare a company holiday and turn off the phones for 2 weeks. Radio stations must allow interruptions for emergencies, and must be held accountable if they fail.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
..anti-american threats. So of course he means no harm.
He formed Turner Communications which started TBS (superstation), bought the Atlanta Braves, and then started CNN. When the media consolidation started he bought MGM's old catalog and around then they must have started up the other turner channels like TNT and Turner South. Somewhere around here they also acquired New Line. With further consolidation, he decided to sell out to Time Warner, who then later sold out to AOL. Basically, RTFA.
I guess I better go turn on the TV and find out what my opinion is. Wouldn't want people to think I'm anti-american...
Yeah, you're right. I recommend putting sugar in the gas tanks of your local politicians instead; after all, "terrorism is as American as Iraqi oil!"
For the humour impaired: freqres and I are able to trade funny but snide comments that were not said by Rush Limbaugh first. I know that's rare on Slashdot, but bear with us please.
America is amazingly lazy about these sort of issues and just as we like junk food and instant gratification, we expect our politics to be the same. Take for example Internet Petitionshttp://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/in ternet.htm.
We like to bitch but never do anything about it. If anything demonstrates this more, it's the 50% voter turnout. We've become an fat, lazy, apathetic nation and as long as it doesn't directly effect "me" we could care less about it. Democracy and the free market require an involved public. How many people have called their representatives recently? Mailed (not emailed) a hand written letter about a subject? Gotten involved in a campaign or cause? Wrote a check? Obviously not many.
The backlash against the FCC last time was an anomaly, and I see no evidence to the contrary. Unless America gets off it's collective duff, we better get used to seeing the umpteenth iteration of Survivor on prime-time and stories about Brittany's seventh marriage as the top headline in the news.
I've talked about this very problem in the past with friends. Here were our questions:
1. At what point should the big corporations be broken up?
2. How would you go about doing it?
3. Where would the two companies reside?
4. Can the two companies work together?
My answers were:
A-1. $1 Billion dollars.
A-2. The companies would split, open a second office, share resources for the first three years, share contacts for the next two years, and then be on their own.
A-3. The two companies can not reside within the same state.
A-4. Only during the first five years of separation. After that - no.
What do you think? Personally, I know there would be good and bad things to the above. The good things would be like Apple Computer having to compete against a competitor (which would most probably mean the price for a Mac would drop considerably). The bad thing is that it could mean the death of some companies because of the competition. Still, I do not think it would harm as much as help the economy and it would make it a lot harder for any one group or company to influence the government the way they do presently.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
What the fuck do you know about civics or economics, you bloated cock? You sit on your fat ass all day diddling computers in New Hampshire.
I propose an alternate explanation. Mr. Turner is primarily concerned with competing media outlets that promote views from the right.
Hint: Clear Channel Networks and Fox/Newscorp.
These outlets are large conglomerates. Mr. Turner can thus direct his ire towards these "media congolmerates" without seeming overtly partisan. I am not saying that his comments are untrue--just extremely self serving.
227-3517
What the fuck do you know about civics or economics, you bloated cock? You sit on your fat ass all day diddling computers in New Hampshire.
Big media should enjoy their bonanza while it lasts. Wait until most homes in the US have access to fiber optics. Anyone will then be able to setup his/her own 'high definition' broadcast company over the internet. These mini broadcast stations will cater to specific niche markets as blogs do today. TV media landscape will definitely change just as print media lost ground to the internet.
I hardly watch TV news anymore. Nearly all the news I get is through the internet. It is much more interesting to compare different points of views. For instance, I like to compare news reports from AlJazeera and CNN. Often the same story but with different points of view. Google and Yahoo news are awesome. Blogs are the best, though.
The problem is that I end up with a different perspective on issues than people that only get the thinly disguised propaganda promoted by the major TV networks. So this sometimes puts me at odds with other people's views on issues.
I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/
keeps them from doing something useful, which is threatening to the status quo. Mislead, preoccupy,
silence,.. tactics to keep a substantive opposition from forming.
Does anyone else find this painfully ironic - that Ted Turner, of all people, is talking about the travesty that is large media congloberates?
This is the man that essentially owns Turner Broadcasting. Turner Broadcasting is responsible for, amongst other things, CNN. CNN defines the state of news in the US today, and maybe even the world.
Here's a snip from tedturner.com. It is not possible to say that Ted Turner has not been largely instrumental, if not mostly responsible for, the unification and conglomeration of media companies. It might appear, though, that he's had a change of heart - this would be nice, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
In December 1991, Turner acquired the rights, library and production facilities of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. Cartoon Network, launched on October 1, 1992, showcases the company's vast library of cartoons and original productions. Cartoon Network in Latin America was launched on April 30, 1993, offering viewers in Latin America and the Caribbean 24 hours of cartoons in three languages. TNT & Cartoon Network were launched in Europe on September 17, 1993, offering classic films and animation programming in seven languages. TNT & Cartoon Network in Asia Pacific, launched October 6, 1994, provides programming in English, with some programs dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin and Thai.
In January 1994, Turner Broadcasting merged with New Line Cinema. Films from New Line and the combined Turner and Warner Bros. library of film greats provide programming for Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a 24-hour commercial-free network launched in April 1994.
Turner Broadcasting continued to expand its news division with the creation of CNNRadio and CNN Airport Network, which provides programming for airline travelers in 29 U.S. airports, and CNN Interactive, the division responsible for multimedia/on-line news production and distribution. CNN en Español, which was launched on March 17, 1997, offers 24-hour Spanish-language news to viewers throughout the Americas.
Mr. Turner became Vice Chairman of Time Warner in October 1996, with the merger of Time Warner Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Mr. Turner oversaw Time Warner's Cable Networks division, which included the assets of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), the CNN Newsgroup, as well as Home Box Office, Cinemax, and the company's interests in Comedy Central and Court TV. He also oversaw New Line Cinema and the company's professional sports teams-the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers. In January 2001, he became Vice Chairman of AOL Time Warner, a position from which he served until May 2003.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
One solution would be really easy - well, ignoring the fact that it is politically impossible.
... the customers.
The boards of directors of all big media companies (and why stop there?) should be elected (hmmm, sounds too democratic) by
But yes, break them up (and Microsoft too) by all means.
I am anarch of all I survey.
When people have sufficient bandwidth in their homes to watch video streams
True, watching TV over the Internet might become commonplace in the next 5 to 10 years. However, how can somebody stream independent news, independent talk shows, and independent music in their cars? Do you think mobile wireless Internet access with 48 kbps downstream will become affordable in the same time frame? And given the Bush administration's fascist leanings, what makes you think the United States of America[1] will remain a reasonably free republic for the next 5 to 10 years?
"Joe's Local News" and CNN will be on equal footing.
The brainwashed masses will tend to trust CNN more than a small partnership's production.
which restricted very large companies was _good_ for capitalism.
Since capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, all regulations can do is restrict capitalism. There are things I am forced not to do, or forced to do. Either way, I am no longer the owner of my property. Regulation is the opposite of capitalism.
Without this regulation (allowing data to travel over phone wires via local telephone calls), the Internet would have been squashed.
You obviously have no idea about the origins of the Internet. It was de-regulation on many levels which created this free-for-all. Private peering, private backbones (remember the thankfully never enacted Federal Information Superhighway plan? Guess you don't), private peering facilities, commercial reselling of routing and address space, all of which happened only as a result of government changing their policies to no longer prevent them.
Regulations are what prevented such innovation from occurring years earlier. The retraction of those regulations is what allowed diversity and innovation to flourish in packet communications.
The "breakup" of Ma Bell was an illusion, only partially effecting interstate long distance. The "Baby Bells" still have a monopoly on local telephone service, just like Mom used to have. All that was ever needed was removal of the government mandated monopoly that Ma Bell enjoyed. So long as those monopolies remain, real innovation in the last mile will be slow and ponderous.
The EPA keeps me from dumping shit into rivers, air, and other stuff that you would have to drink and breath.
That's it? The only reason you don't kill others with your wastes is because of fear of punishment by the Fed.gov? That's not high praise you give yourself.
The fact is that enforcement of simple property rights solves pollution problems quite well. To dump toxins into a water supply is to infringe in the property rights of everyone else on the water way. All the EPA does is set levels for permitted pollution that protect polluters from prosecution. Even when, like with Love Canal, later it's found that those same regulations were inadequate to the task, it is impossible to punish anyone in the bureaucracies even if they knew the regulations to be faulty at the time.
Private individuals have no such limited liability.
it released Unix, pretty much for "free" to Universities. Most of its 'internal' tools -- which it was restricted from selling -- form the basis of your Linux box!
Do you work for SCO? Your complete ignorance of computer history is astounding. Linux was written to adapt to published standards, nothing in it is from "UNIX".
The GNU tools and compilers are, explicitly and absolutely, written from scratch by Richard Stallman and the other wonderful people at the Free Software Foundation, specifically because they wanted tools unencumbered by restrictive copyright like UNIX has.
capitalism by itself, without a set of rules for its behavior, will always run amuck. It's not Black vs White world.
Yet history repeatedly shows that, where people are allowed to be secure with their private property, lawfulness, respect and peace are the rules rather than the exceptions. You should look up "Kropotkin", a Russian aristocrat, who went into the wilds of Siberia to see how people could live without even a semblance of government regulation.
Putting it mildly, he returned enlightened.
It is where private property, "capitalism", is not respected that there is famine, war, and people "run[ning] amuck".
It is indeed a black and white world. There is respect for individual property and individual rights. Opposed to this is the institutionalized use of force against peaceful people, better known by the fascist word "Regulation", and the violence and criminality it engenders with its continuously changing rules and environment of fear of being found out by "The Man".
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Maybe you should tell that to the people who were freed from Nazi camps after the US decided to go to war. Sometimes peace can only be found on the other side of war. In reality if you wait for others to do the right thing there's a good chance the right thing will never be done. How many times in the US have we found children being abused by their parents and when asked the neighbors said "For years I've heard strange noises and noticed that they never let their child leave the house, but it was none of my business." Ohh. One last thing, the last time I checked we went to Bosnia without UN approval. When the UN puts countries like Syria on the "human rights" council the UN renders itself irrelevant.