Radio Follow-up

So today was the big vote on relaxing media ownership rules at the FCC. As you can see from this link, the FCC voted party lines, with the Republican majority approving the relaxation of how much any media company can own in a given market. Here’s the highlights from an AP article:

The FCC said a single company can now own TV stations that reach 45 percent of U.S. households instead of 35 percent. The major networks wanted the cap eliminated, while smaller broadcasters said a higher cap would allow the networks to gobble up stations and take away local control of programming.

The FCC largely ended a ban on joint ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city. The provision lifts all “cross-ownership” restrictions in markets with nine or more TV stations. Smaller markets would face some limits and cross-ownership would be banned in markets with three or fewer TV stations.

The agency also eased rules governing local TV ownership so one company can own two television stations in more markets and three stations in the largest cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

The FCC kept a ban on mergers among the four major TV networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

“The more you dig into this order the worse things get,” said Michael Copps, one of the commission’s Democrats. He said the changes empowers “a new media elite” to control news and entertainment.

Fellow Democrat Jonathan Adelstein said the changes are “likely to damage the media landscape for decades to come.”

The Democrats said the new rules mean a single company can own in one city up to three TV stations, eight radio stations, the cable TV system, cable TV stations and the only daily newspaper.

Slashdot has been covering this for the last week or so, with a great article that covers many links, including a fantastic piece at the Washington Post: More on Media Consolidation/Deregulation; a follow-up piece covering the history of copyright: Media Monopoly: Thomas Edison to Hillary Rosen , and today’s followup with over 700 user comments.

In addition, last Thurdsay Kuro5hin posted a great editorial on the Consolidation of American Radio. It’s a great look of how this started to happen – in the 70’s, and even the role computers and advertising played.

It’s another sad chapter in the history of American copyright. Our forefathers specifically granted rights in our Constitution – but never this broad in scope. Not only did they believe in copyright, but they believed in passing that same information into the public domain – not this version of locking everyone out. Now we are surrounded by the loosening of rules regarding the media, so they can continue to tell us what to think in even more ways. Great. Because I like having a lack of choice in how I’m told to think I get my news.

Thankfully, there is the Internet. I’ll leave you with this: