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TechnoratiWhat the FCC Gives with One Hand, It Takes with the Other
Monty Python's Eric Idle wrote a song expressing the way many Americans and media reformers feel about the Federal Communications Commission. He used one of the "seven dirty words" originally uttered by comedian George Carlin that forced many radio stations to zealously police their airwaves to avoid expensive fines or any offense to the media gods.
The song: 'Fuck You FCC.'
Wrote the irreverent singer: "Here's a little song I wrote the other day while I was out duck hunting with a judge... It's a new song, it's dedicated to the FCC and if they broadcast it, it will cost a quarter of a million dollars."
Now, for the first time in recent memory, the army of righteous FCC protagonists, the people who demonstrated at its Washington headquarters and lobbied until they were hoarse of throat and mute of mouth pressing for media localism and diversity, are in a state of shock.
The agency that for so many years did the bidding of the big boys in the industry, always regulating (and deregulating) in the interest of the owners, not the public-a FCC Commissioner in the Reagan years saw television as an appliance like washing machines-maybe about to do the right thing.
It has finally discovered what has been obvious in every living room in America-a small cartel of big brands dominate cable TV, blocking diversity and making it impossible for independent channels to compete. (Ask yourself: Why is Al-Jazeera on worldwide but not here?)
It finally recognized that cable costs have been going through the ceiling. The FCC remembered that it has a duty to stop anti-competitive practices and is now about to impose new rules that are giving the industry a cardiac arrest.
Cable is trouble. Last week, an industry magazine, Cable World gave up the ghost and shut down. Dick Parsons, the CEO of Time Warner, announced he was stepping down. Fellow mogul Barry Diller said he was breaking his media company into five parts. The industry is changing as its revenue model shifts thanks to a steady migration of viewers to the Internet.
Bloomberg reported: "The Federal Communications Commission, is expected to soon issue a report concluding that the cable industry's market share has passed a key threshold that will give the agency broad power to ensure that there is sufficient diversity on the airwaves, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday."
Offers the NY Times: "The commission's conclusion that the cable industry has grown too large will be used to justify a raft of new cable television rules and proposals. They include a cap that would prevent the nation's largest cable company, Comcast Corporation, from growing, and would prevent other large cable companies, like Time Warner, from making any new large cable acquisitions." (Already, The Philadelphia Inquirer in Comcast's home town is framing the story as a blow to the company, not a victory for viewers.)
Pushing for this change are Telecom companies and channels that have been blocked, including the NFL and Hallmark, as well as media reformers like Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, an advocacy organization that opposes consolidation in the media: "It gives the commission a blank check to regulate an industry that Congress had largely deregulated."
Yet, there are questions that need answers says Schwartzman's colleague Greg Kimmelman:
"While industry will surely challenge this finding, we have a great opportunity in the near future to challenge the FCC to address a number of important issues:
1. What unfair practices has cable used to block independent/diverse programming from the most affordable cable tiers, and what should be done to prevent this?
2. How is cable unfairly favoring its own programming to the detrement of independent programming, and what should be done to stop this?
3. What sweetheart deals does cable cut w/broadcast networks and their affiliated studios to the detriment of independent programmers/studios and how should we remedy that?
4. Why is there so little minority/women's programming, independent of cable/network control, on affordable (or ANY) tiers and what must be done to reverse this discrimination?
5. Why is it that, even with the enormous growth of satellite and now entry of telephone companies to compete with cable, cable rates keep going up 2.5 times faster than inflation and how does that inhibit adequate availability of diverse information in the cable market?"
At the same time, what the Republican dominated Commission giveth with one hand, it may take away with the other. Chairman Martin is at the same time thought to be promoting other new rules that will lead to more, not less media concentration. Nearly a thousand people came to a hearing in Seattle last week to denounce that maneuver.
Chris Gregoire, the Governor of Washington State said: "I find it ironic that in an age with so many new ways for people to communicate - and so many ways to exercise the beauty of Democracy - we face the very real threat that these new ways will be controlled by a few," Gregoire said, adding consolidation stifles creativity, narrows perspectives and is unhealthy in a society that rests on the principles of equality and diversity.
This argument did not impress Chairman Martin explained Free Press's Josh Silver on Huffington Post: "FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has made it clear that he doesn't care one bit. The White House-appointed chairman of the five-member commission is one of Washington's dwindling class of hard core Bush loyalists, and he plans to remove some of the last remaining media ownership limits before the end of the year. Seven years ago, Martin was a 33 year-old GOP attorney sent by Team Bush to lead the Florida recount. His wife is a former senior counselor to Vice-President Cheney, and now serves as a deputy assistant to President Bush."
So the battlelines are being drawn once again. This time around, media activists are better organized then they were the last time media rules promoting consolidation were passed. But they/we are still up against powerful media companies who have a full court press on to see the ownership restriction eased or eliminated.
At the same time, a new media environment has old media on the wane and may open a door to the kinds of changes that have been needed for so long.
The fight for media reform is moving onto the front burner. No matter what your main issue is-the war, or the environment, or economic justice-media change has to be on your front burner too. It's time once again to let your voice be heard. Tune in-or be tuned out!
News Dissector Danny Schechter is "blogger-in chief" of Mediachannel.org, His new film is IN DEBT WE TRUST: America Before the Bubble Burst (Indebtwetrust.com) Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
© 2007 MediaChannel.org
7 Comments so far
Show AllSaw a Quentin Tarantino flick on TV the other day, the first I'd ever watched. From beginning to end, it was blood and violence. Luckily for me, it was on TV so I didn't have to be offended by hearing the word "fuck."
It is frightening that there are only five other comments so far on this oh so important issue. I would wish that more of the progressive movement would take this issue seriously. We need to take our democracy back and this is very difficult with an out of control media, especially when internet neutrality is endangered. We lose that and things go from bad to worse in the U.S. of A. We gotta wake more Common Dreamers up! Thanks for being out there, Danny!!
Maybe it's time for Mona "the Hammer" Shaw to take on the FCC like she took on Comcast--to the delight of thousands of her fellow no-choice Comcast subscribers in the Washington DC area recently:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359.html
From the evidence of what goes on in other places, when the time comes, communication will be shut down when it's expedient to do so. Like maybe when Bush and co launches their final war or thereabouts.
NET NEUTRALITY IS THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
The reason for these dust-ups is not serious competition, but how the media cartel gets to carve up the market according to the rules it controls through the lobbyists.
Every so often they clash at tipping points and things have to be resolved by its revolving door compatriots - the regulators.
It's like the counter-vailing powers of John Kenneth Galbraith getting together and deciding who gets what part next and someone has to coordinate the transaction.
This time, Big Tele beat out Big Cable, the latter having gorged itself with market power beyond accepted levels of etiquette around the Market Share Dinner Table.
There's Pigs and there's Pigs, and when the Big Cable Pig strays beyond the Monopoly-Duopoly-Tight Oligopoly Brotherhood, it must be reigned in to remain one of our Pigs.
That's why serious, forceful, regulation on the behalf of consumers is so critical going forward. The media market will not be subject to serious FACILTY-BASED competition for a long time, if for no other reason due to the natural monopoly nature of the networks involved.
The real elephant in the room here is what the FCC does with the Comcast complaint on net neutrality.
Today the internet is rare in terms of full, open, unimpeded entry and access by anyone to any content with a connection, due to the carryover of past regulations associated with net neutrality.
The ONLY reason net neutrality hasn't been shut down is FEAR of regulation, NOT competition. The carriers are biding their time to strike, like the electric utilities did, waiting for just the right moment after the regulations were lifted to explode electricity rates through the ceiling.
Because there are no hard laws or FCC rules that govern net neutrality, its future is most fragile, resting precipitously on case-by-case rulings by the FCC in a stare decisis context (law by precedent) that will determine its outcome.
Commissioner Martin may be using as a shield the loosening up of the cable business to undermine net neutrality the same way he's allowing more concentration of media ownership.
This is the latest of the Fascists manouvers to undercut democratic process in America. Since the beginning of the Bush era our democratic system has been under systematic assault as well of course as our constitutional rights, God given rights, and liberties. Control at the ballot box has been demonstrated in the Ohio election rip off when our presidential election was stolen by those in power...... and that was only necessary because the propaganda machine was not doing it's job yet. Critical to democratic process is diverse and reasonably accurate news and information.
The actions of the administration and their supporters are not just minor offenses, but taken in their entirety show an absolute contempt for the very foundations of our governing system, the principles upon which this nation was founded, our constitution and the very principle of governance of, by and for the people. Their objective clearly is to destroy the constitutional government, dispense with the three independent bodies... legislative, judicial, and executive for practical purposes, and in it's place create a dictatorship of the executive supported by the other two bodies. A government that RULES rather than serving the people.
The crimes of these people rise even beyond high treason to a level that makes them not only the enemies of all freedom loving Americans, but of all mankind. At some point this must be rooted out, the criminals must be identified, and "purged", otherwise all of modern civilization will revert to the model of Czarist Russia with only the very wealthy, and the very poor who's very existence is only to serve their masters, and perhaps a small merchant class as a buffer between. This is NOT about political parties, or politics, it is about preserving a way of life that has served most "civilized" societies well in the last century, created widespread prosperity, and liberties unknown in earlier times.......... for future generations. If ever in human history "then end justified the means", it is now and that end is the elimination of these threats to our way of life, our liberties, our prosperity, and the legacy we leave to those who are to follow us.
Howard
I can't speak to what is legally possible in the "cable" (including satellite) arena, because I'm not a lawyer. But I know that liberals and conservatives alike could find common agreement on a single theme if Congress could manage to force providers to sell programming on a FLAT fee per channel, no tricks, no exceptions
Liberals could buy what they want without spending the moon for a super-duper premium package. Conservatives could absolutely ban what they deem objectionable from their homes. Everybody could budget and save a little money yet have a little cable. Some dumb channels would go away for lack of interest. This is what is in the consumers' interest. I'd love to see a Dem Congress and a Dem president give it a try. It would be hard to imagine Alito, Scalia, Roberts and Thomas trying to reverse on a technicality that would be abhorent to their citizen supporters who think these justices are pro-family.
This ought to be a front and center election issue. It would get the attention of every voter from 18-90, even those who can't distinguish the national role of Nancy Pelosi from those of Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith.