By FDR (67.249.46.58) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 12:34 am:

FCC Chairman Michael Powell announced that new rules allowing even more big media ownership of the public airwaves will be passed today. This can't be good for regional music, roots music, classic soul, R&B and rock and roll.

Powell obviously believes the public airwaves are corporate airwaves. He has ignored overwhelming public opposition to allowing big media even more reach and power than it already has. He is transparently rewarding America's big media for its cowardedly coverage of and support of his daddy Colin's and Mr. Bush's warmaking.

I will write my elected officials and ask them to seek and support legislation limiting rather than increasing big media ownership of the public airwaves. Mikie's position is an affront to localism, diversity of voices and independence in media.

Ted Turner put it very well.
"They will stifle debate," Turner said, "inhibit new ideas and shut out smaller businesses trying to compete. If these rules had been in place in 1970, it would have been virtually impossible for me to start Turner Broadcasting or, 10 years later, to launch CNN, he wrote in Friday's Washington Post.

"Why should the country care?" Turner added. "When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can't compete by imitating the big guys; they have to innovate. So they are less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas."

By Larry (69.3.129.206) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 04:21 am:

I feel as you do FDR, but, I thought the debate over who owns the airwaves ended long ago.

Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent", Pantheon Books, 1988, ISBN 0-679-72034-0 outlined extensively the Corporate Media takeover of our "Free Press" which if anyone even noticed was replaced by Information via manipulation and fear.

Be careful with CNN, MSNBC and 60 Minutes. They'll clog your arteries and cut off your thought. CSPAN is the only network with Meat. The Media (headed by the likes of General Electric) silenced forever guys like Chomsky and any real forum for debate.

I want to hear what Al Jezeera is saying. I want to listen to different points of view. Those days are gone. It's Partyline or death. Ask Chomsky. Now who owns the party? Big Money tied-in deep with the White House, the silent partner.

Only through civil action will it change.
When money and power are replaced with democracy and respect and all the other values we've replaced with greed, materialism and segregation.

The spirit of the 60's will rise again.

Signed, Larry Tom Joad Martin Luther King Rott

By LTLFTC (12.210.76.205) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 10:37 am:

FDR and Larry; thanks for bringing up and commenting on this important issue. It would be nice to think that an FCC chairman would be familiar with Noam Chomsky - Powell probably dismisses ol' Noam as a wild eyed radical from a bygone era.
On a related note, I wonder what Ted Turner really thinks of CNN now; as reprehensible as the Jayson Blair/ New York Times fiasco is, I have a hard time getting any more worked-up over that than the CNN (and TV in general) coverage of the recent road trip , i mean War, from South to North Iraq. Talk about spewing the company line....
On another related note, while the FCC is getting ambitious, why don't they do something about cable "bundling" ? As far as I'm concerned they should pay ME to have FoxNews as part of a package I might want.

Steve K

By douglasm (68.113.13.31) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 11:00 am:

This creates an interesting problem here in the Pacific Northwest, where Hearst and Frank Bleven are arguing over the operation of a JOA between the Seattle Post-Intellengencer (Hearst) and the Seattle Times (Bleven w/ Knight Ridder). One of the rumors around here is that Hearst (who owns the weaker paper) will buy Fisher Communications--who own half the Wenatchee market (where I live, 4 stations), forcing Bleven's hand on the JOA. When (not if) these new rules pass, this is going to be a fun one to watch.......

By the way, when did newspaper ownership of broadcast outlets end? I remember ID's that read "WWJ-The Detroit News" from my youth.

By Larry (69.3.59.190) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 12:44 pm:

decent article:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2003-06-01-moguls-second-thoughts_x.htm

By Larry (69.3.59.190) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 12:48 pm:

This article exposes Powell's tactics. Frightening stuff, a Puppet with an attitude.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1424-2003Jun1.html

By It aint over, Mikie (209.215.117.4) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 01:10 pm:

Rotten, Old-Fashioned Corruption at the FCC
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
May 29, 2003

AUSTIN, Texas � This is a gross scandal. The Center for Public Integrity has a stunning study out on the concentration of ownership in telecommunications. The even more stunning news is that the Federal Communications Commission, which theoretically represents you and me, is about to make all of it even worse. And behind this betrayal of the public trust is nothing but rotten, old-fashioned corruption. It's the old free-trip-to-Vegas ploy, on a grand scale.

The Public Integrity people examined the travel records of FCC employees and found that they have accepted 2,500 trips, costing nearly $2.8 million over the past eight years, paid for by the telecommunications and broadcast industries, which are, theoretically, "regulated" by the FCC. The industry-paid travel is on top of about $2 million a year in official travel paid for by taxpayers.

According to the center, FCC commissioners and agency staffers attended hundreds of conventions, conferences and other events all over the world, including Paris, Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro. They were put up at luxury hotels such as the Bellagio in Las Vegas and ferried about by limo. Vegas was the top destination � 330 trips � New Orleans second with 173, then New York at 102 and London with 98 trips. Why London, you may ask. Well, do ask.

So here's the result of our regulators getting all these nice freebies where they schmooze with the industry guys. The three largest local phone companies control 83 percent of home telephone lines. The two top long-distance carriers control 67 percent of that market. The four biggest cellular phone companies have 64 percent of the wireless market. The five largest cable companies pipe programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers nationwide.

The FCC is what is known in government circles as a "captive agency." It has been captured by the industry it is supposed to regulate. Those who work at captive agencies come to identify with their industry and believe their function is to service it, not regulate it.

The center, www.publici.org, also found that the FCC increasingly relies on industry-generated data to justify sweeping deregulation proposals. Great, it doesn't even have its own numbers.

FCC Chairman Michael ("The free market is my religion") Powell is about to pass yet another giveaway to the country's biggest media conglomerates. There will be another enormous wave of media consolidation. On June 2, the FCC will vote to end long-established rules on multiple ownership.

The big players are Rupert Murdoch's News Corp./Fox, General Electric/NBC, Viacom/CBS, Disney/ABC and the Tribune Corp. You will notice that television is not giving this story, with its enormous impact, any coverage at all, and many newspapers have done no better. (William Safire of The New York Times is a noble exception.)

These are public airwaves. They are owned by us, we the people. Neil Hickey reports in "The Gathering Storm Over Media Ownership" that at public hearings all over the country, there has been a huge outpouring of public concern and anxiety about what is happening. More and more people are speaking out, and the FCC's public reaction counts are completely negative, yet it goes right on doing it, as though the citizens are nothing.

You can register your protest before June 2 by going to www.mediareform.net, or phoning or faxing the agency. But why should you bother, especially if they're not going to pay attention anyway?

Look at what has already happened to radio. Many of the stations you listen to will not break into their programming to tell you if a tornado is headed directly for your town, or to warn you if there's a flash flood on the west side or that a toxic chemical truck has turned over near you. That's because there is no one at your radio station.

You think it's a local station because a voice with your local regional accent announces the county fair attractions for next weekend and such. But that voice is an actress in Los Angeles. She reads the announcement there, and then it is inserted digitally into the programming, which is the same across the country � generic rock, oldies, country, whatever.

When you get this degree of concentration in the news media, the idea of a free press becomes a joke. Liberals and conservatives alike have a common interest in preventing the huge media conglomerates from getting even bigger. We must keep independent voices alive.

This is worth raising hell about. Call your congressperson, too, because, even at captive agencies, when the pols who write the budgets speak, the agencies listen. And the pols listen when the people get stirred up enough. Let's see a little citizenly responsibility from all you patriots out there. You need to do more than sing, "I'm Proud to Be an American" to keep this country free

By Sue (63.85.105.20) on Monday, June 02, 2003 - 01:16 pm:

Detroit News swapped Channel 4 to Post Newsweek for their D.C. TV station in the '70s, right before the FCC banned cross ownership. Forget when it off-loaded WWJ.

By douglasm (68.113.13.31) on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 08:58 am:

Anyone read the articles in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal? Aparently Clear Channel doesn't like the new rules, because it places some restrictions on the operation and sale of radio groups in small and medium markets. Under the new rules, apparently marketing agreements would be considered "ownership" in some cases. According to Bear Sterns, out of the top 200 radio markets, stations in 66 of them would not be in compliance of the new ownership rules.
This whole mess appears to be more complex than it looks on the surface.....

By Sue (205.188.209.109) on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 09:21 am:

Doug--
Yeah but from what I understand (and I spent a horrific double shift going over all this) they grandfathered Clear Channel and Infinity on the "monopolistic" dominance of small markets that already exist. They just can do it any more ...