FCC to relax ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership against congress wishes

[ViolaLee]

The Republicans in the FCC are pushing through a plan to let the few corporate owners of tv and radio media buy up the newspapers. In the past 25 years, the ownership of the media has dwindled to just a few corporate owners. Congress wants to look into the concequences of this. The FCC refuses to wait until they debate and vote on it. They are set to make the changes next week. Good bye free press.

Watch the story on Bill Moyers Journal here. (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12142007/watch2.html) December 14, 2007

Publishing conglomerates have been buying up local newspapers for more than thirty years, but they've been prohibited from buying radio and TV stations in their home towns. The FCC is poised to relax this rule within the month.

This week, the FCC went before the Senate Commerce Committee to discuss media ownership rule changes that Chairman Kevin Martin has been advocating, hoping to push through by December 18. Martin explains:

"This proposal would allow a newspaper to purchase a broadcast station - but not one of the top four television station - in the largest 20 cities in the country as long as 8 independent voices remain. This relatively minor loosening of the ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership in markets where there are so many voices and sufficient competition would help strike a balance between ensuring the quality of local news gathering while guarding against too much concentration."

Yet after 6 public hearings on proposed changes, the latest in Seattle on November 9 that lasted until 1 in the morning, public opinion appears to be overwhelmingly opposed to relaxing the rules. "We told you a year ago when you came to Seattle...What part of that didn't you understand?" stated area resident Susan McCabe at the hearing.

Watch the Senate Commerce Committee FCC hearing, 12/13/07 (http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=1920)
Watch the House SubCommittee FCC Hearing, 12/5/07 (http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.120507.MediaOwnership.shtml)
Watch the full Seattle hearing here, 11/9/07 (http://reclaimthemedia.org/deepmedia/fcc07audio_video)

Three days after the Seattle hearing, Chairman Martin released this Op-Ed in THE NEW YORK TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13martin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin), which further stresses his desire to push through changes, despite public opinion.

Commissioner Michael Copps (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08242007/profile.html), one of the two Democrats in the minority on the FCC, continues to speak out vigorously against the impending rule changes vote:

What we have here is an unseemly rush to judgment, a stubborn insistence to finish the proceeding by December 18th, public and congressional opinion be damned. When overwhelming majorities of citizens oppose this, when members of Congress write to caution us every day, and when legislation to avoid a nine-car train wreck is being actively considered on Capitol Hill, I think the FCC has a responsibility to stop, look and listen. The stakes are enormous.

[ViolaLee]

Well they did it. The FCC just allowed media moguls to buy up TV, radio AND newspapers in the same city. There goes the free press......this is how a Democracy dies.

Michael J. Copps, a Democratic commissioner who has led a nationwide effort against relaxing the media ownership rules, said the rule was nothing more than a big Christmas present to the largest conglomerates.

“In the final analysis,” Mr. Copps said, “the real winners today are businesses that are in many cases quite healthy, and the real losers are going to be all of us who depend on the news media to learn what’s happening in our communities and to keep an eye on local government.”

“Despite all the talk you may hear today about the threat to newspapers from the Internet and new technologies, today’s order actually deals with something quite old-fashioned,” Mr. Copps said. “Powerful companies are using political muscle to sneak through rule changes that let them profit at the expense of the public interest.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/business/18cnd-fcc.html?ref=technology

[potter]

If you control the media, you control the people. And the fewer people that own the media the easier it is to control. Nobody knew that better than Hitler.....oh...and the fine folks pulling the strings at the FCC....

[ViolaLee]

Yup, and this was another party line issue. The republicans for it and the democrats against.

[NortheastCynic]

It is truly heartbreaking to see private owners of media outlets allowed to sell their business to the buyer of their choosing.

Damn you capitalism...Damn you!

[/sarcasm]

-NC

[potter]

Yup, and this was another party line issue. The republicans for it and the democrats against.



Now why would anyone with a committment to freedom and democracy want to consolidate all media ownership?

They wouldn't. But then freedom and democracy is really one of our weak points as a country.

If one were to want to create a dictatorship I think this is an excellent place to start...:clapper:[hr]
It is truly heartbreaking to see private owners of media outlets allowed to sell their business to the buyer of their choosing.

Damn you capitalism...Damn you!

[/sarcasm]

-NC


But I think we both know that's not the real motivation...people have been buying and selling media successfully for decades. The real motivation is control of the message and eliminating competition.

[NortheastCynic]

Want? Want? I don't believe I've stated that I want the media to be owned by very few people. In fact, I KNOW that I haven't.

There are a lot of things about the market that I would not LIKE to happen, but that is not for me to decide. I do not WANT people to sell their privately owned newspaper/radio station/etc. to a large conglomerate, but it is their RIGHT to do so. Similarly, I do not WANT anyone to have an abortion, but it is their RIGHT to do so.

-NC

[potter]

Want? Want? I don't believe I've stated that I want the media to be owned by very few people. In fact, I KNOW that I haven't.

There are a lot of things about the market that I would not LIKE to happen, but that is not for me to decide. I do not WANT people to sell their privately owned newspaper/radio station/etc. to a large conglomerate, but it is their RIGHT to do so. Similarly, I do not WANT anyone to have an abortion, but it is their RIGHT to do so.

-NC


Unless you're on the board of the FCC, I wasn't talking about you.....

BTW....I agree with you on the rest....

[NortheastCynic]

Ah, I gotcha, my mistake.

-NC

[Osborn F. Enready]

This kind of shows the FCC is and has always been pretty much toothless.

Why pay for it?

[NortheastCynic]

A fine question.

-NC

[ViolaLee]

I guess we have no choice.

[Drocket]

This kind of shows the FCC is and has always been pretty much toothless.

How precisely does a new policy show that it 'had always been' toothless?

[ViolaLee]

It seems to have sharp teeth.

It's chewed up the free press and spit it out today.

[Truth_and_Power]

If you control the media, you control the people. And the fewer people that own the media the easier it is to control. Nobody knew that better than Hitler.....oh...and the fine folks pulling the strings at the FCC....


There is only one more piece to the puzzle for them now. The end of net neutrality.

[potter]

I would also like to add that this move will reduce competition for advertisers, those who have a product to sell. If a market is controlled by one media company and they blacklist you, how will you advertise? Not to mention they can also dictate advertising rates with no competative pressure which may raise product costs.

[Osborn F. Enready]

I am saying if the FCC was supposed to be "for public intrests", its just proven quite clearly it is not, since it didn't listen to the public, didn't listen to the representatives of the people (congress), and did whatever they thought was right.

IF that is the case, why are "the people" still paying their income?

[Truth_and_Power]

I am saying if the FCC was supposed to be "for public intrests", its just proven quite clearly it is not, since it didn't listen to the public, didn't listen to the representatives of the people (congress), and did whatever they thought was right.

IF that is the case, why are "the people" still paying their income?


The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a United States government agency, created, directed, and empowered by Congressional statute (see 47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154), and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current president. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fcc)

Just more neocons pushing their policies through while they can.

[brien]

Ok So what is everyone all afraid of here? Fox News and Rupert Murdoch taking over the print and electronic media? Whoooo scary stuff indeed. Or perhaps NBC and MESS-NBC and GE lining up on the line of scrimage to take over those big bad guys over on CBS or ABC? Oh, oh but wait, tax dollars, whether you agree with it or not, support NPR and PBS, so they could roll out the donation train and take on all of those nasty right wing bastards. Or simply rasie your taxes to increase the size of NPR and PBS, whether you like it or not, to justify a counterbalance to the "right wing" controlled industry.:unreal: I yi yi.

The free market dictates who is successful and who the people support for their information. Allowing the government to dictate who delivers the news by regulating who buys and sells private companies is tantamount to government control of the media. Allow this and say good bye to the 1st Amendment.

The Bill of Rights, Void where prohibited by Law.:sadly:

Government has no right regulating any media, print or electronic, by controlling who can buy or sell a business. Allow government to dictate who can buy or sell a business, and you may as well hand the keys of the Capitol right over to the Socialists because where will you end the competition that keeps the playing field level. A slipperry slope indeed. If advertisers want to support Fox news to reach a certain audience, so be it. If advertisers want to reach the circulation readers of the NYTimes, so be it. These are two distinctly different consumers and advertisers have a right to choose their market.

What's next??? Could we see the takeover of the "big bad oil companies" because they earn $0.16 cents per gallon on gasoline, before taxes, when the government earns $0.65 cents per gallon of gasoline and they have no overhead at all! Who is the real price gouger here? Yet people like Clinton and Chas Rangle want to put an end to price gouging by applying "windfall profit taxes" upon the oil companies. We need to put an end to price gouging by the government first. It seems to me they are earning about 4 times what the oil companies earn, and with no overhead.:shock:

The government has no right regulating the sales of private business, particularly when it is the government who is earning windfall profits from those businesses. Want to go Socialist, then have the government take over utilities, transportation, mining, media, and other industries that some folks may deem far too large to be "trusted" and uncontrolled in society. Let the people see what happens when government runs industry. As in Education. :grrrr:

True deregulation is the way to foster competition in the US, as was done by RR in the trucking industry, amoung many others. Since the 80's, the number of trucking companies has exploded exponentially, and the price for trucking in adjusted dollars has been reduced substanially.

Here is an overview that proves regulation by government is a failed policy best left behind in the 20th Century:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3573537.html

Washington, D.C., in the mid-1970s must have felt like heaven on earth to federal regulators and those who favor government control over the nation's economic activity.

From 1970 to 1975, federal spending on regulation grew by 77 percent (in inflation-adjusted dollars) and regulatory staffs grew by 46 percent. President Nixon had created new federal oversight agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It was the heyday of lobbying groups and self-styled consumer watchdogs that prodded, cajoled, protested, litigated, and otherwise drove regulatory policymaking in many areas of economic and social life that previously had been the domain of state governments or the private sector.

In the two decades since, however, politicians of both parties have voted to deregulate major industries and dismantle some of the bureaucracies that oversaw them. In that time, deregulation has improved the lives of every American by raising the quality of service and shaving billions of dollars off the cost of telephone service, natural gas, and air travel, as well as the groceries, clothes, and other goods transported by truck or rail (see table).

This early wave of deregulation in the mid- and late 1970s slightly predated the supply-side revolution on taxes. Thus it can be viewed as the first major milestone of the emerging movement toward free-market economics. A new report by Robert Crandall of the Brookings Institution and Jerry Ellig of George Mason University's Center for Market Processes examines five deregulation efforts undertaken since the mid-1970s

So much for the successful track record of government regulation. Government doesn't run anything well, and to "regulate" business is a proven failed policy as we see in the above examples. Competition is the key to regulation, not government. Let the nose of the government camel into your tent and your government will next be regulating your internet. :sick:

What's that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for, because you just may get it."

[ViolaLee]

You say Competition is the key to regulation, not government, but there's no competition here. There are 2 or 3 companies that own all the media, Viacom, Time/Warner, Newscorp.....and there's no way anyone else can get in. Those 3 buy up all the newspapers and that's that.

No competition.