hold on to your skirts, ladies: big media might be getting de-regulated. what’s this mean?
in a nutshell, newspapers will be able to own radio or tv stations in the same geographic market as the parent corporation. what’s that mean to us? as an example, it means tribune media, which is one of america’s largest media conglomerates (and the one which has almost all chicago media by the throat), could own a full suite of advertising and news outlets…which means fewer viewpoints in reportage and a further monopolization of marketing monies.
i personally think this is kind of a bad thing. media is monopolizing at an alarming rate as it stands—check out this list of agencies under one roof.
this could mean that agencies and design firms active on a national level could be beholden to a much smaller market, which means greater ease on the client’s part of driving the market pricing of our industry. it might also mean that larger agencies could potentially squeeze smaller shops out of RFP rounds with greater ease.
any takers? discuss.
that the FCC can even claim that deregulating this industry will improve competition is absurd. the first round of deregulation only eliminated the competition and reduced the number of voices in the media to less than a handful.
the chilling effect of this deregulation is very apparent in the appalling behavior of Clear Channel Communications. they now own most of the radio stations across the country, as well as most of the billboards. clear channel has used its monopoly to significantly influence politics. by contributing massive amounts to campaigns, they have effectively bought the FCC and support from right-wing politicians. clear channel returns this favor by broadcasting incredibly conservatively biased news and information, creating blacklists of anti-war songs and celebrities, organizing and funding pro-war rallies, and attempting to ruin the careers of artists who freely share their opinions about war and other issues. they were the first to issue a do-not-play for all dixie chicks songs, and organized the disc burning events held in the south. should a media company be doing this? shouldn't they disperse unbiased news and information? the BBC is the example that should be followed, but american corporations have far too much influence on news in the US.
things will only get worse under the new regulations. corporations will be able to own more major media formats in each city, reducing the number of news sources even further. do we want all media to behave as biased as Fox News? how does this serve the public? corporations serve the public, not vice versa. there are so many reasons not to support this.
under the new rules, a single corporation could own ABC, NBC, and CBS. yay, three identical newscasts with three identical viewpoints. there is little public awareness of what's going on. obviously the media giants that will benefit from more deregulation aren't going to report it!
On May.05.2003 at 09:15 AM