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R.i.p. Consolidated Media Ownership.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I'm lovin this.
"The House moved closer last night to blocking the Federal Communications Commission from allowing television station ownership to be concentrated in fewer corporate hands."
This is soooo against Fox owner Murdoch. I see zero advantage to consumers if more newspapers and magazines, t.v. and radio stations are "owned" by fewer people. The Bush administration was pro consolidation because it was good for business.
There were similar effrots for media consolidation gong on in the UK right? That's my debating point on this post.
"The House moved closer last night to blocking the Federal Communications Commission from allowing television station ownership to be concentrated in fewer corporate hands."
This is soooo against Fox owner Murdoch. I see zero advantage to consumers if more newspapers and magazines, t.v. and radio stations are "owned" by fewer people. The Bush administration was pro consolidation because it was good for business.
There were similar effrots for media consolidation gong on in the UK right? That's my debating point on this post.
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Comments
Yep, unfortunately our Communications Bill will go ahead most likely. Consolidation in the media is a dangerous thing, I think our media is too consolidated even at the moment.
The newspapers are too concentrated, I would have a law saying that you could only have one daily newspaper and one Sunday newspaper together with their websites.
The TV industry has seen a huge increase in consolidation in the past ten years - especially ITV, originally ITV was 16 regional companies for several reasons - to provide employment in the regions, to provide competition between the programme makers so only the best programmes got onto the network and to encourage a plurality of voices and a sense of local identity. Since it started consolidation over the past ten years we have seen huge job losses as everything became concentrated in London, a noticeable decline in programme quality and an increase in the concentration of ownership. So I'd repeal the 1990 Broadcasting Act and make it law that you could only own one ITV region. Channel 4 I would keep as it is, a non-profit limited company but for Channel 5 I would stop any shareholder having more than 15% of the firm.
The dominance of Sky over the digital TV market is also cause for concern, BSkyB controls the programming (which channels get on its platform), the technical side (the satellites and recievers), the sales (interacting with customers). I think that the satellite system should be broken up - OFCOM should handle which channels go on the platform just as they do for normal TV, Sky should handle the technical side, and the market for the recievers and dishes should be opened up so you don't have to go through Sky to get set up and you can buy your reciever and dish without involvement from Sky. Also the technical side of things should be broken off from the channels such as Sky One and Sky News.
The Communications Bill on the other hand does everything the wrong way round, encouraging consolidated media which is a huge mistake.
Scarier still cause we know it's Murdoch again...same guy pushing consolidation legislation through Congress/and failing apparently.
Now I can see why you're defending the BBC. They are a good balance to him.
Surely it is just a coincidence that Murdoch loathes the BBC as it is the only serious competition to the Murdoch empire (and one that he cannot buy or ruin)?
I noticed that and it brought a question to mind? Are the Murdoch media entities conservative...or about twisting things to aggressively get more market share. In this case, make the BBC less trusted so people will turn to Sky. In America, make the NY Times seem untrustworthy because some African American reporter admitted to lifting a story from somewhere else...so the whole NY Times is untrustworthy conclusion. So is all of this about marketshare? Not Conservatism vs Liberalism????
He like the Bush admin he so adores are merely out to get what they can for themselves and their cronies at our expense. The more spin they put forth the less informed society becomes as to whats really going on, the real reasons for it and who is profiting from it all.
In a sea of corrupt corporate media its nice to see a publicly funded news agency with global integrity like the BBC not bowing to political pressure or slander.
Sky News, with all its flying logos, special effects and sounds, viewers polls and that big 'Breaking News' big screen behind the newsreaders, it's something to watch on the satellite when there is nothing else (and even then I'd rather watch BBC News 24). But when the BBC or Channel 4 are broadcasting their nightly news broadcasts on the 'proper' terrestrial channels, practically everybody who wants news will watch them and ignore Sky News.
The most direct competition between the BBC and Sky comes from entertainment rather than current affairs. Sky it's good for low-brow entertainment (endless re-runs of the Simpsons, Buffy and assorted rubbish) and for football and recent cinema releases. I think few people doubt (least of all the Dirty Digger himself) that the BBC is of immensely superior quality to anything Sky has to offer.
PNJ - the government wants to switch off the analogue method of transmitting TV by 2010 thus making us solely digital. Sky has 90% of the digital TV market in Britain, thus if we were to switch off the analogue transmissions today Murdoch would have control over the channels that 90% of British people would be able to see and the regulator, OFCOM, would be powerless to do anything about it which is why the laws need to be changed to stop Murdoch having virtual control over the British media.
Even on the Freeview platform, which is a different way of getting digital TV, Murdoch's channels still feature heavily so whenever we shut down analogue transmissions Murdoch will only increase his control over the British media.