[US] Common Cause FCC Action

dahamsta

If any Americans read this board, I'd appreciate it if you'd have a look at this action by Common Cause against FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Chairman Michael Powell's proposals to raise the allowed population coverage of media companies from 35% to 45%.

http://www.commoncause.org/action/fcc.htm

I'm not an American citizen so I can't add to this protest myself, but I think it's critical that concerned US citizens express their distaste with this proposal, since it will have a global impact. Even the current FCC rules are horrendously damaging to the quality of broadcasting in the present day, and the media companies' behaviour during the Iraq war should serve as an example of this.

Increasing the allowed population coverage will lead to more bland television and radio, more automated radio and TV stations killing jobs and diversity, more civil rights violations such as the conglomerate's treatment of the Dixie Chicks during the Iraq War. It will set a precedent that will have global reverberations, including here in Ireland with our useless regulators.

We don't need more Reality TV, we need diversity and better quality programming; particularly programming that will educate as well as entertain.

Thanks,
adam

dahamsta

Here's a little background by the way. Originating from Slashdot:

CLEAR CHANNEL
Not the Bad Boys of Radio
Lowry Mays and sons made enemies building Clear Channel into an empire.
FORTUNE
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
By Christine Y. Chen

Lowry Mays is the Big Daddy of radio. The founder and CEO of Clear Channel, Mays oversees 1,233 radio stations with some 100 million listeners across all 50 states, and runs a company with $8 billion in revenues and a $23 billion market cap. But ask Mays about what he does for a living and you won't hear much about musicians or how to bring up ratings or who's the best DJ. Those things don't interest him much. Truth is, Mays isn't that passionate about what goes out over the airwaves. As long as his broadcasts sell ads, he's happy. "If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company," says Mays, 67. "We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products."

[...]

Media Fight Focuses on Local TV Stations
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 14, 2003; Page E01

If broadcast networks such as ABC and Fox are prevented from buying more local television stations, viewers may soon have to watch NFL games on cable or satellite, meaning football fans who depend on free, over-the-air television would be out of luck.

Or if they are allowed to buy more stations, they would use their increased muscle to force network programming onto independently owned affiliate stations, even when they would rather show local programs or preempt network programs that may offend community standards.

Either and both arguments may be true. Local television station autonomy is at the heart of one of the media ownership rules set to be changed soon by the Federal Communications Commission. It was also Topic A yesterday at a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) but starring Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin.

[...]

And loads more on Google News.

adma

dahamsta

Internet is dying - Prof. Lessig
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 15/05/2003 at 21:33 GMT

The Internet is dying, says Lawrence Lessig, a law professor with a cult following amongst technophiles.

Lessig is mobilizing against the FCC's relaxation of media controls which will leave most of the United States' professional media outlets in the hands of a tiny number of owners. In Michael Powell's vision, Old Man Potter can own every newspaper, radio station and TV channel in Pottersville.

The move, which has even been criticized by former FOX and Vivendi executive Barry Diller, would return the mass media to a state even turn of the century robber barons couldn't have wished for.

But drawing an important parallel, Lessig argues that the relaxation of media controls for the latter-day robber barons bodes ill for open computer communications.

"The Internet is dying," he writes, launching a torpedo at the heart of techno-utopian mysticism by questioning the belief that all will be for the best in all possible worlds.

Writing an introduction to the centenary edition of Orwell's 1984, Thomas Pynchon describes The Internet as "a development that promises social control on a scale those quaint old 20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could only dream about."

Lessig is more subtle, but points us the same way.

"When the content layer, the logical layer, and the physical layer are all effectively owned by a handful of companies, free of any requirements of neutrality or openness, what will you ask then?"

[...]