Associated Press:
The battle over media consolidation began with hundreds of people, including actors, writers and musicians, imploring the Federal Communications Commission to prevent media conglomerates from growing even bigger.
Two FCC public hearings on the topic Tuesday resembled baseball playoff games with attendees whooping, clapping wildly and even booing as the five commissioners sat quietly and listened for more than seven hours.
Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, has said he backs a repeal of the rule that restricts a company from owning both a newspaper and broadcast station in the same city.
According to AP, "The so-called cross-ownership rule was repealed in 2003, when the commission also relaxed other rules restricting media growth. But the decision sparked a popular revolt, congressional action and a federal appeals court decision that resulted in that issue being sent back to the agency for reconsideration."
The director then was Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell, and hardcore free market moonie. The belief here is that government regulation limits competition, when history shows the opposite is true -- a lack of competition leads to monopoly, the exact opposite of competition. Consumers are poorly served by monopolies because there's no reason for a business that controls a market to try anymore. You get what they give you at the price they demand.
This was pretty much what a study by the FCC showed -- which was why Powell destroyed it. Truth should never stand in the way of ideology, I guess.
FAIR.org:
A 2004 Federal Communications Commission study that showed locally owned television stations provide more local news than others was ordered destroyed by FCC officials, and only came to light this week when a copy was leaked to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.).
Three years ago, then-FCC chair Michael Powell launched a proceeding on the effects of local ownership on television news as part of his drive to further deregulate media and allow for even greater consolidation. But the report commissioned under Powell turned out to undermine his argument that consolidation has no ill effects on local news, and, according to former FCC lawyer Adam Candeub, senior managers ordered "every last piece" of the study destroyed (AP, 9/14/06). On September 12, Senator Boxer, armed with the leaked report, questioned current FCC Chair Kevin Martin about it at his renomination hearing.
The report showed that local issues got short shrift under media consolidation. Anyone who thought things through would've come to the same conclusion -- one broadcast or publication for every market is a lot cheaper than a custom broadcast or publication for every market. Why wouldn't a corporation try to gloss over local news if it could? Think of a media on the USA Today model; all national and international, no local...
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Tags: news politics media business republican conservative FCC censorship
