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.'"

Comments

Ted Turner for Capitalism!

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.