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FCC Ends Decades-Old Rule Designed To Keep TV, Radio Under Local Control (variety.com)
The FCC on Tuesday voted to eliminate a rule that required broadcast station groups to maintain a physical presence in the community of their primary local coverage area, a move that critics say will help media companies further consolidate their operations and even be a boost to the ambitions of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Variety reports: But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the elimination of the rule has been a long time coming and will produce cost savings for stations. He said the "overwhelming majority" of public input favored the elimination of the rule, citing the support for such an action even from National Public Radio. "Continuing to require a main studio would detract from, rather than promote, a broadcaster's ability and incentive to keep people informed and serve the public interest," Pai said. The National Association of Broadcasters supports the rule's elimination, and has argued that it will free up funds for stations to spend on staff and programming. Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said the elimination reflects how the public currently interacts with local businesses -- not by visiting their facilities, but through telecommunications and social media. The rule dates to 1940. The two Democrats on the commission opposed the change. "There are many broadcasters who do an extraordinary job serving communities during disaster," said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. "But let's be honest -- they can only do so when they have a real presence in their area of license. That's not a retrograde notion -- it's a fact."
This is all about consolidation of our media to a more "centralized" structure. You know the precursor to the state run that we always point to about OTHER countries that lack our "freedoms" This administration is openly hostile to free press, so any move they make will be filtered through that lens.
time to reel in the catch
When was the last time you watched/listened to broadcast?
The kids?
Broadcast is already dead, it's just zombie media for now, same as dead tree.
The RF spectrum still has value.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
... welcome our regulation free media overlords.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
fuck that fucking fucker.
The rule is obsolete, dating back to 1940 before the massive expansion of networks like NBC, ABC, and the others that have formed since then. Although the stations are locally owned, they affiliate with the networks to gain access to programming that increases ratings. However, that gives the networks substantial control over the operation of those stations such that they are hardly independent. The difference between networks like NBC and CNN versus a conglomerate like Sinclair is that Sinclair isn't directly producing programming or running news operations. NBC and CNN have repeatedly been caught peddling fake news that is disseminated through the local stations that depend on those affiliations. Expanding the conglomerates gives financial independence to the local stations through more financial stability to push back against fake news networks like NBC and CNN. We should be very concerned about fake news manipulating our elections, so any policy change that gives the market more power to resist fake news is something that we should support.
They are the US broadcast equivalent of Silvio Berlusconi's broadcast companies.
I don't think it's right to call yourself "alarmist". I mean, whether it's state-run or just run directly by the corporations who control the politicians, it's definitely a move to centralize control in a few people's hands. That's just obvious.
The very least we can do is call this "realistic", "forward looking" or "awake". To call it "alarmist" is to undercut how certain the outcome is.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
"NBC and CNN have repeatedly been caught peddling fake news..."
Have they really? Can you cite some, or indeed any, examples? Please be aware, news is not "fake" just because someone who doesn't like it says so.
Anyway, the only people this action will serve well are those who have a vested interest in reducing the number of independent news reporting sources.
This is going to have the same effect on local news as the consolidation of local newspapers had - true reporting replaced by slightly-localised standard content.
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people typically vote locally for Democrats, so removing local control hurts the Party. I know where I live in SC, the people here are about 80% Democrat, but vote nationally for Republicans, because seriously who in the South would vote for Mondale, Dukakis, or Gore (since we know him well since he's from TN). This hurts us.
Thereâ(TM)s very few companies that own high or medium power local tv stations. This just makes formal what has already happened over the past 30 years.
Expect about 50% of all local DJs to get fired as they consolidate to national coverage.
Color me surprised, yet another move from Ajit Pai against societies' best interest and for corporations and conglomerates to fill their pockets. Wow, who would've thought.
And of course it comes right after a huge string of natural disasters that killed people all around and destroyed property everywhere, where the role of local media played an important role on informing people of what's happening.
I'm sure nothing bad will come out of it, such as local broadcasting stations being sold left and right, closing doors and abandoning the communities they had a presence and important role as source of information. Nonono.
...against these grand experiments.
The USA got rid of the fairness doctrine that required standards in news gathering and broadcasting and look at the result. Now you'll have gated access to the internet so that news becomes even more corporatized and with no local coverage, you could have hurricanes ripping up the district before the studio a time zone or two away decides to see if they can get someone with a cell phone to do a live hit.
Great.
Your electorate will be less informed than ever.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
âoeoverwhelming majorityâ
9 out of 10 bot posts agree
What's "radio"? Is it that thing in my car that plays commercials when I turn it on?
As a conservative, I think this decision is a horrid one that is made more out of ideology rather than good government. It follows from the incorrect conclusion that because companies can merge to form larger conglomerations, why can't radio stations do so too?
Even though the FCC voted for this, ultimately the buck stops with congress and they are the ones that need to be held accountable. With republicans who don't understand the dangers, or with the Democrats who are so impotent because they are burdened down with social agendas to the point everybody who does not live on the east/west coast won't vote for them.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Part of the social contract for being able to use precious spectrum exclusively (spectrum is considered a public resource) is to provide a public service. That service is inherently local by the nature of radio propagation. Removing the local requirement just turns stations into glorified corporate repeaters providing no service to the communities whose spectrum they occupy.
This is yet another violation of the public commons by amoral corporate douchebags, same as endless copyrights.
I'd argue all three most certainly are.
Talking heads shitting out half-truths while muttering under their breath somethingsomethingsomething opinion...
Yeah, sorry, but that isn't news.
"An anonymous source" isn't news. "Trump expected to..." based on nothing isn't news. And yeah, Fox is definitely in the running here, because they pull the same shit on the party their viewers dislike.
Journalism, verily. Might be what these people went to school for, but they're every one of them working in entertainment.
That's interesting, because just a couple days ago I noticed a small town near here with their own low-power radio station. When it gave station identification it was Pandora Media (I think the "Media" part was right) and it didn't have a human DJ - it was a male synthesized voice. With this ruling I think we'll see this sort of thing pop up everywhere - small low-power FM stations serving small areas that are 100% automated. That will be profitable because the FCC won't require staff in person at the stations.
Better known as 318230.
Here's what this story is really about: The Sinclair Broadcast Group.
https://www.salon.com/2017/10/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
He said the "overwhelming majority" of public input favored the elimination of the rule, ...
I imagine that "public input" doesn't necessarily mean "the public".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
iHeartMedia radio stations can finally close down the NAPA studios, the McDonald's Weather Center and the Dunham Sports Desk since they were such money pits and were so outdated.
At least they'll recoup their huge losses over the decades by Selling the Kohl's Traffic Copter since the Ford Fusion Traffic Report is no more.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
If they'd just eliminate the rule that a single entity can't own broadcast stations in enough markets to have a potential audience of more than about a third of the population, it would be possible to buy up cheap or failing little UHF stations and create new networks.
THAT rule is essentially anti-competitive anti-upstart protection for the old networks, which are primarily contracted programming services for a collection of separately-owned stations and groups of stations. It's why you don't see a lot of new network upstarts, and things like CNN and Fox News only/initially happened on cable - despite a vast underserved viewership.
(In CNN's case it was people who wanted actual news reporting, after the major networks' news organizations decided the viewers really wanted news-like entertainment. In Fox News' case it was people who wanted to hear conservative viewpoints (conspicuous by their absence on mainstream media) once CNN had sold out to the left-leaning mainstream - first figuratively, then literally. There's been room for a new one since the lead-in to the 2012 presidential election, when Fox News went all-in for the neocon faction of the R side, abandoning the libertarian, paleo-conservatve, religious-right, and perhaps a few smaller, factions.)
Such an effort doesn't need to be restricted to just the rich, by the way. Imagine crowd-funded news networks. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
How will reducing costs benefit me or you?
Expense of physical infrastructure is already considerable compared to some AWS compute instances for Internet radio, who can afford payroll for every local station that people only listen to in the car? This way broadcast radio can be at least supported for a while longer. What we need is a good automated emergency broadcast system that authorities can use to provide information during natural disasters.
you need to take care of your working class. Otherwise folks like Trump will continue to take advantage of their desperation to get stuff like this through. Everytime a tech worker looked down on a blue collar guy for not 'updating' their skills you're playing right into the hands of the folks that made this happen. Congrats.
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Ok so CNN NBC ABC is fake and we know FOX news is the Nazis propaganda station - what actually is credible news? I mean usually the nuts screaming fake news somehow believe the joke nutcase Infowars or Klan in Breitbart or anti-fa democracy now - someone got some actual good news sources?
a government of the corporations, for the corporations, bought by the corporations.
"Of the public i have spoken to... who work as executives for media companies... who are the only people i ever actually listen to... and they are also members of the public... so this is a public consultation"
Which seems absurd from an external point of view but we're assured makes total sense if you're a media executive. You just need to know the field better, and will understand more when you have more experience in the industry.
Which is totally not a threat, mind you. You enjoy working here, right?
I for one welcome our new oligarchy overlords.
(this post paid for Citizens for Oligarchy Council, Inc)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"The problem with the corporation is that they have neither souls to damn nor necks to hang"
Allegedly Benjamin Franklin.
You misspelled "owners", "hookers", and "blow".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Can mean the incumbent government is running the stations as well as the government. A Fascist or Oligarchy based regime can do this by using control of the government to reinforce control of the media and vice versa. That doesn't mean it has to be 'state run' in the traditional sense of 'state owned' media, and while some of the most obvious examples are, plenty of other examples internationally are not.
the 'liberal' amongst bible belters. They all voted for Trump, either because they thought Clinton was MORE corrupt, or because they thought it would send a message to the establishment in a way that voting third party wouldn't have.
Given the FTTP voting style of Americans and the two party 'opposing football team' mentality, Americans are going to be easily gamed until they are all speaking Chinese or Russia on the way down to third world poverty (assuming the Great Culling doesn't come first as a result of automation and the wealthy wishing to clear up land so either they can have more land, or there can be more estates for those who have joined the wealthy.)
The only solution that would've shown true rebellion against the status quo was both the Green and Libertarian candidates getting 5-10 percent of the vote and getting on the federal funding bandwagon next election, because that would have split the required corporate financing 4 ways, not including multiple candidates for each party. The alternative would be the dissolution of the Electoral College (which given Trump's win has failed at its mission statement and thus has no reason for existence) and a move to a wholly popular vote (personall I would rather see a supermajority required for a presidential candidate to be sworn in rather than just the highest number of votes/sufficient electoral college votes. If he's not a leader for the super majority, then he's just oppression by a minority, like both Trump AND Clinton would have been if they had won, since neither had more than 50 percent of the voting populace's votes, nevermind an actual majority of all Americans votes.)
America's democracy has always been a sham, but most people have not studied its history enough to understand the hows or whys or what methods were used to keep the oppression strong.
Seriously.. clear channel is basically the same in every market.
You have one editorial view.
But what can I say- its so bad I haven't listened to terrestrial radio for almost two decdes now.
It will not yield 'cost savings' because the bid at the auction is based on the value o the channel. So it will be bid up to the point that investing money yields about the same return (except probably a few well connected insiders).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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Dot head corporate cunt. Somebody will be a hero after putting a bullet in that one.
Great. My name is Vladmir, I'm from Russia. I'm opening a great local TV station to all cities of America. You will have great news. And lots of grrrllllzzzz
(*) 99.9999% guaranteed downtime of our public-comment servers.
Requiem for the American Dream
For a second I thought that this was a move paving the way to end franchise agreements so that services offered by CaCos and TelCos would become unified and that the prices, packages, and internet speeds would be the same no matter where I lived. But then I remembered that I live in the U.S. and that Comcast exists.
Sounds like all that will happen is that comcast will be able to close their local office in my town so that it becomes an even bigger hassle to return my cable box when I cancel my service.
So now news is truly all propaganda. That sucks.
The end is a gross economic loss. It is just hidden. The deciders prefer control now to long-term profitability. Myopia.
When they choose that way, they have asked for what they receive.
Firing all the local staff and eliminating programming will free up funds for stations to spend on staff and programming as long as you ignore the part where they no longer need to do so and won't ever spend that money that way.
"The National Association of Broadcasters" is a lobbying group.
Pai said the "vast majority of commenters supports" which, since the SCOTUS has said Money=Speech means "the vast majority of MONEY supports".
This also opens up LOCAL PROGRAMMING to be controlled by FOREIGN OWNERSHIP, not just by massive conglomerates like Sinclair or 21st Century Fox.
Just wait until RT (the Russian news organization) bids to buy local TV stations (although via Sinclair they don't need too. They already have a propaganda arm in the US.)
The end of local TV and radio. Period. Now, they will not even have a Single local employee servicing your area, but one C&C to create all material. You don't need to imagine how New York would feel of their news was created and broadcast from Chicago every day. Local stories take back stage out are entirely omitted to push political agendas. These rules were there for very good reasons that still apply today. Now the News from China, pretending to be from your city.
It always amuses me when people distrust the people who run corporations while at the same time trust the people who run governments, as if the two are run by completely different kinds of people.
It always amuses me when people distrust the people who run government while at the same time trust the people who run corporations, as if the two are run by completely different kinds of people. You will trust someone who operates from a pure profit instead of someone who MIGHT have the common good in mind, why?
Next is state run media
Just more erosion of the Republic and shift of power to a centralized Federal entity.
See 1984.
There once was a time and place for the legacy distribution methods of analog/radio public safety announcements. I believe that time had ended somewhere in the later half of the 20th century. This story indirectly serves as an official acknowledgement of the assertion above.
Simply put, due to the vast proliferation of mobile communication devices, there are now better alternative methods. I have no doubt that many would acknowledge the speed at which information can spread online. There are gaps, sure, but I believe it has never been easier to bonk everyone with a clue-by-four, than the present day.
Unfortunately, the time between the legacy system's EOL and today's new hotness, it seems the cart was put before the gnu. There was an incident that took place in Minot, North Dakota, back in January 2002. A train had just passed through the center of the city when it derailed within a development on the outskirts of town. Five tanker cars core dumped and the population of the surrounding area found themselves involuntarily huffing a thick cloud of anhydrous ammonia.
The emergency response was a complete mess, total failure. The situation called for urgent public safety warnings but announcements were delayed by hours. However, even if the announcements had not been delayed, could it have made a significant difference? Had it happened today, I believe a greater number of people could have been spared injury by simply glancing at their phone.
Decent overview of the situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Does this mean I can set up a TV/Radio station in any city I want, regardless of if I live anywhere near there or work from there?
Look out, DC. The 24/7 Photoshopped Trump Picture channel is on its way.
Funny, Most of the country seems to be in Republican districts now, and I feel the same way about them. The difference is that I can go to see them sometimes, and stare them in the eye with my gun on my hip (if I had one, that is). And at least enjoy scaring the living shit out of them. Unless I'm very uber-rich I can't even come close to doing that no matter how many of my friends I can talk into boycotting Wal-Mart of GE, or Monsanto, or Cargill or McDonalds. You simply have no real idea of the power of a democratic system, although you probably love to salute the flag at ball games, and 'support the troops' and all of that political genuflecting...
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