FCC Eases Ownership Restrictions
Well, they done gone and did it. The FCC voted today 3-2 to ease ownership restrictions on media outlets. There's a great deal of debate over whether this is a good or bad move, and some good points have been made on both sides.
However, the right answer is that it's a bad move. Period. I'm right. In a perfect world, where the ineffable guiding hand of the market nurtures the good, kills the week, and makes things beautiful, the new vote would be endorsing good policy.
Unfortunately, the media world in general is more like the way Hunter Thompson describes it: "The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason." Whereas media companies control information in the grubbiest and least-glorious sense, I'm fine with keeping a leash on their behavior. I know some of these people personally, and their commitment to "integrity" (*chuckle*) is entirely nonexistent. This decision by the FCC: will prevent new entries into the media-ownership market at any level; will, along with other FCC decisions, further freeze local, independent providers out of the bandwith and license auctions; will lead to an integration boom much like the music industry has seen, where four companies control the mainstream and most of the fringe with a concomitant rise in quantity and decline in overall quality; and will be my personal punching bag until I'm too old to care anymore.
I will blog more on this at a later date, but I cannot today. I sprained my wrist in a freak baking accident on Saturday (shut up.... it's not what you think. I'm a klutz. It's not what you think, the bread was delicious), and typing is rather painful. It's actually a benefit for you, dear reader that I am so disabled, as I'm sure reading my drivel is also rather painful.
[moreover] Time will prove me right or wrong on this count. Except that I'm right.
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Ted Turner commented recently that under conditions such as those just created by the FCC this morning, CNN would not have existed, and could not have been created.
The so-called "competition" amongst the pay television channels that the stations are so afeared-of will, in the end, be owned by ClearTimeWarnerNews, if it isn''t already. Say, who really owns the Discovery Channel and all of those other pitiful excuses for cable TV?
Are they scared of Bravo? Oxygen?
Bottom line -- we deregulated radio, and now it''s a wasteland of payola and single-purpose opinion. America marches to a single drumbeat, and the drummers will seek to maintain their position.
Say Buckethead -- I''d say that''s rather UnAmerican. Play your cards right and you''ll have nobody left to preach to. At least, you''ll have nobody who isn''t addicted to Bill O''Reilly and "embedded" reportage. And as we all know, the best thing in the world is to be preaching to a crowd that completely agrees with you! Feels quite heroic!
From an evolutionary standpoint, this is all quite dark. As we unify media, unify responses, unify and codify "correct" opinion in this country (and that has NOTHING to do with "political correctness") the ideological flexibility that has permitted this country to survive and prosper is slowly being squandered.
Clever manoeuvering by the right has resulted in any disagreement with their position being labelled "UnAmerican". This is rust in the gears, and it will result in, well, badness.
Did we learn nothing in the last few years? What goes up must come down. Deficits, unexploded ordinance, and that brief, glorious renaissance in America, where you could actually say what you want, without being pointed-at and patriotism-questioned.
I can''t post... AAARGH. Well
I can't post... AAARGH. Well, the problem with the FCC is that it is deregulating the top of the market without deregulating the bottom. It is impossible (and I know people who have tried) to get a broadcast license for radio or TV in this country, unless you are already part of a large network. Cable TV provided a loophole, which is now being closed. While I am not against allowing large companies to merge in principle, the flip side is that you must allow new entrants into the field. As older dinosaurs calcify and grow stagnant, new dinosaurs move in. However, if you lock out the bottom of the market, you assure that the current players will stay there forever.
We never truly deregulated broadcast media. That is the problem.