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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.
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!
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.
I agree. The old system was a way to divide and conquer. Now it will level the playing field
lucm, indeed.
"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.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
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.
>The old system was a way to divide and conquer
and how is that different?
>Now it will level the playing field
this does the opposite.
go back to sleep.
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.
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.
False, and false.
Sinclair produces "must-run" segments to be incorporated into news programming, including a blatantly fear-mongering "Terrorism Alert Desk" segment, and odious editorial segments from the Backpfeifengesicht-worthy Mark Hyman and Boris Epstein.
Some local stations have (so far) managed to sideline these propagandistic videos to the wee hours of the morning where they won't be seen, but it's easy to anticipate new edicts being handed down from corporate requiring their shit to be broadcast in prime time.
John Oliver covered this fairly well: https://youtu.be/GvtNyOzGogc
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
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
There shouldn't be different rules for "new" media and traditional ones.
lucm, indeed.
dating back to 1940 before the massive expansion of networks like NBC, ABC, and the others that have formed since then
This is exactly what was foreseen. I think you forget that NBC was a radio company long before 1940. It was easy to see what would happen.
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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I for one welcome our new oligarchy overlords.
(this post paid for Citizens for Oligarchy Council, Inc)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Insightful posting targeted by weaponized moderation detected. Mod the parent up, please.
"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."
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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The irony about "sending a message to the establishment" needs to be explained to them...
If voting for Trump was really an anti-establishment vote, ask them why 90%+ of re-running incumbents got re-elected? Don't let anyone try to fool you with the "anti-establishment vote" excuse.
People voted for Trump because their motives align more with him than they did with Clinton. That's all it comes down to. Seeing what Trump's motives are, that should make you feel more than just a bit queasy.
(*) 99.9999% guaranteed downtime of our public-comment servers.
Requiem for the American Dream
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.
> I'd tent to stick with fake news being something like pizzagate
Except it isn't.
Once you stop acting like a fundie and giving journalists blind trust, it's trivial to find examples of them misleading you or just making shit up entirely.
This is especially easy in this age where the media of the entire planet is at your finger tips. You can even use Google translate to read the bits that aren't in English. There's really no good excuse not to employ multiple overlapping news sources.
Even before the media's current decline it was always obvious that journalists didn't know shit. All it required is knowing about whatever subject they were writing about.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You forgot to mention the Russian dossier on Trump ("pissgate") that was funded by the Clinton Foundation.
These people were very nearly put in power.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
How much does Putin pay to you?
Asking for a friend...
Oh that's hilarious. It's the Left that increasingly thinks communism is wonderful; you're the guys in bed with Russia if anyone.
You're the ones who want tight government control of everything and integration with the press. Just like Russia.
Here it is right from one of biggest leftist mouthpieces there is, the WaPo.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
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?
So you're saying it's bad when a candidate's campaign works with foreign operatives to influence an election?
I didn't say either way, I was talking about fake news. The "dossier" is one such example.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Next is state run media
No there won't. There won't be a local office to push back.
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.