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TechnoratiBig Media Steals 5,100 Digital TV Channels
On February 17 of next year, 5,100 new digital TV channels are scheduled to become operational. Every single one of them is stolen.
The biggest theft of the public airwaves in U.S. history is nearly complete, a crime perpetrated in semi-secret, that transfers a brand new universe of the digital broadcast spectrum into the possession of wholly undeserving corporations. As a result Blacks, other minorities, unions, community organizations and all other non-rich societal stakeholders may be shut out of the main streams of television for the foreseeable future.
The Congressional Black Caucus and most of what passes for African American "leadership" have done virtually nothing to thwart the scheme to gift corporate media four high-quality digital TV channels for every single full-power channel license they currently hold. Where science has made possible a new age of programming possibilities - a chance, finally, to create islands and archipelagos of meaningful news, information and cultural TV programming that serves and reaches all the people - corporate-bought politicians have snatched away the prize. Acting as agents of the broadcasting industry, rather than representatives of the people, Congress awarded the already filthy rich a digital TV bonanza valued at $80 billion. It is an unearned gift of a priceless resource made possible by digital technology's capacity to deliver far more information than analog technology. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is overseeing the mega-theft.
Ironically, corporate media, already in possession of 1,700 highly profitable, full-power TV channels, doesn't know what to do with its 5,100-channel windfall. But the industry is united in its determination to keep the channels out of anyone else's hands. Such is the nature of monopolies.
This historically unprecedented heist of the airwaves has been hidden in plain sight. By now, everyone that owns a television set knows that something big will happen early next year, that viewers who are not hooked up to cable or already own a digital converter box might find themselves without a TV signal when stations shut down their analog broadcasts and switch to digital, on February 17. Far fewer people are aware that the digital changeover will multiply the number of broadcast channels four-fold. And most Americans will be totally shocked to learn that these thousands of additional channels have already been given away - stolen, really - further enriching the corporations that have turned American commercial TV into a "vast wasteland."
Daylight Robbery
The women of the Harlem Consumer Education Council, gathered last week in a meeting room of the massive Church of the Intercession, at 155th Street and Broadway, certainly had no idea they were being robbed of the possibility of seeing their lives and organizing activities reflected through a vastly expanded array of digital New York City TV channels. They were vaguely aware of the (inadequately funded) campaign to inform consumers about coupons available for digital conversion. But only the council leadership, veteran organizers Florence Rice and Marjorie Moore, knew anything about the broader outlines of the digital transition - possibly the biggest public rip-off since the Congress conspired to grant millions of acres to the railroad barons. And Rice and Moore had only learned about the scheme through Bruce Dixon's June 11 article in BAR, "Grand Theft Digital: How Corporate Broadcasters are Hijacking Digital TV."
The broadcasting industry and its servile accomplice, the FCC, are committing daylight robbery. In the public arena, the conspirators educate consumers on the technical aspects of the digital changeover. At the same time, they are engaged in a conspiracy of silence about the ownership and obligations of the new digital TV regime.
The thieves have been spectacularly successful. For more than a decade they have kept the public out of the loop - purposely misinformed - about the most important development in TV since the first commercial broadcast, in 1941. The official FCC website on the digital transition, DTV.gov, claims to contain "What you need to know about DTV." Yet there is not a word to explain how and why the same corporations that controlled the airwaves before the transition are to be enriched with 5,100 new channels. Nor is there any discussion of the corporate license holders' obligations to the public. The FCC and the station owners think the public doesn't "need to know" about such matters, which might lead to questions like, "Why wasn't the citizenry given an opportunity to decide how they would like to use the new channels?"
Unearned Resource
Everyone in the broadcast business has known since the mid-Nineties that the digital transition was inevitable. Big Media was, however, anything but eager to take on the responsibility of additional channels: Channel 2.1, Channel 2.2, Channel 2.3, Channel 2.4. Back then - and now - commercial TV owners viewed the prospect of quadrupling their channels as more of an imposition than an opportunity. From an advertising standpoint, the industry felt it had nothing to gain from taking control of so many new channels. Audiences don't grow when new channels are added; they fracture. Corporate broadcasters would much prefer to preserve the "general audience" approach to television - bland content aimed at huge numbers of people - than be compelled to create program content targeting much slimmer demographic slices. Additional channels were extraneous and potentially costly, according to their business model.
But the digital future could not be avoided. What would be circumvented was public interference in the disposition of the new stations. As far as Big Media were concerned, the only thing worse than being burdened with thousands of new channels, each of them begging for programming dollars, was the prospect of others getting possession of the resource. The industry's strategy, slavishly implemented by the FCC, illuminates how monopoly capitalists actively frustrate scientific advances that threaten existing business models. Corporate media compelled the Congress and FCC to structure the transition so that current owners would inherit three additional channels for each license they held, with no obligations to the public as to the channels' content. Home shopping network clones, outsourced weather maps - whatever the licensee chooses to splash on the screen is his business. The great channel expansion made possible by science - humanity's common patrimony - would be contained and rendered useless.
The Dream Derailed
As various U.S. media and technical organizations gradually reached agreement on standards for digital television in the late Nineties (the Americans lagged behind Europe and, especially, Japan in this regard), it became apparent that the multiplication of channels could usher in a brand new day for ethnic (and political) minorities in television. Corporate television had always defended the "general market" - a euphemism for "white" - character of its programming, including its news orientation, as necessitated by the limited number of television frequencies. Minority-oriented programming was better suited for radio, we were told, where there were plenty of places on the dial.
Suddenly, with digital transmission, the television spectrum promised to become as accommodating to minorities as the radio spectrum. Cities with six or seven full-power stations would be transformed into 24- or 28-channel markets. Surely, at least a few of these new channels in scores of markets would, based on local market forces, cater to Blacks! It seemed that the digital television business model could one day soon resemble the radio model, with multiple Black-oriented stations in markets with significant African American populations. The demand for informational and cultural content for these outlets could fuel a renaissance in Black creative and political expression.
For once, the "free market" might work in African Americans' favor, since the same logic that led to ethnic segmenting of radio markets should also apply to an expanded television channel universe - especially with the rapid fall in equipment costs. One could easily envision at least a hundred Black-oriented TV channels throughout the nation.
But of course, monopolies abhor "free" markets; their entire purpose is to cage and destroy them. The FCC is a captive of broadcasting monopolists, who instructed their federal minions to deliver the new channels to the old masters - as if all products of science and technology belong to them, as a right.
By 1999, a coalition of civil rights and public interest groups were demanding hearings to establish a "digital public interest standard" to govern the new channels. These groups included People for Better TV, Consumer Federation of America, American Academy of Pediatrics, U.S. Catholic Conference, NAACP, Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, National Organization for Women, National Association of the Deaf, Project on Media Ownership, and League of United Latin American Citizens. However, nothing resembling full hearings on the obligations to the public of digital channel license holders ever occurred - much less a national conversation on who should receive those licenses.
The corporate media were too powerful, the FCC too devious, and civil rights groups too weak and beholden to corporations. Only supporters of children's programming succeeded in winning concessions on advertising and a requirement of three hours per week of children's shows on each of the new channels. Blacks and other minorities got nothing.
In 2005, 15 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) sent a letter to powerful committee chairmen, requesting the setting aside of portions of the outgoing analog TV spectrum for bids by minority entrepreneurs. The CBC members made no requests regarding the public obligations of the new digital television spectrum - thus revealing that they cared more about making a couple of Black businessmen into millionaires than for putting some democracy into the operations of the television system that the entire nation would soon be watching.
Why was the CBC so reluctance to demand elementary fairness in the disposition of 5,100 new channels? The next year, 2006, told the tale. Two-thirds of the Black Caucus sided with the telecom companies to vote for the infamous COPE Act, which would have rolled back Black gains in cable TV access and endangered Internet neutrality. The CBC's support for the telecom giants was proportionately greater than among Democrats as a whole. The Black Caucus showed itself to be largely in Big Telecom's pocket.
In 2007, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) took the lead in pressing for some semblance of public accountability in digital TV. Mark Lloyd, writing for the Center for American Progress, noted that the FCC and the Bush administration constantly spoke of the "benefits" that would accrue from the corporate-owned digital regime that was being established:
"Yet the biggest problem with the transition to digital television in the United States...is that the Federal Communications Commission under the Bush administration has locked the public out of the process of determining what those benefits might be. What's more, yesteryear's Republican-controlled Congress set the rules regarding this transition. Thus the public interest obligations of digital broadcasters remain undefined and insufficient money has been set aside for the digital conversion. Both problems need to be addressed by Congress this year."
"The FCC," said Lloyd, "has yet to reopen the proceeding begun in 1999 to define the public interest obligations of digital broadcasters."
The FCC is determined to keep the new channels in the old corporate family. The single "concession" granted by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, last year, was to "encourage" broadcasters to lease time on stations' digital channels to "new entrants in the broadcast area" - meaning, those who have been shut out of the digital cornucopia by Chairman Martin and his corporate friends. The Gannett Company and Media General Inc., corporations that own TV stations and newspapers, promptly responded to Martin's "trial balloon" by offering to support leasing time to minorities and women if restrictions were lifted on their ability to buy more TV stations. Imagine the gall of these corporate blackmailers. Having used their political and economic power to take possession of digital channels they have done absolutely nothing to earn, they demand more privileges in return for allowing minorities and women the honor of paying them rent!
However, GOP malice, FCC deviousness and corporate media greed do not excuse Black capitulation to Big Media. There has been no sustained African American resistance to corporate Grand Theft Digital. Instead, a Who's Who of Black and Latino organizations have joined with the Titans of monopoly broadcasting to shift all attention to making sure that everyone is equipped to consume the digital television experience, on February 17, 2009. This consumer project is, of course, a matter of simple justice and of great importance to the 20 percent of the public that is in danger of losing TV reception, entirely. But there is no reason to treat the digital TV transition as a simple consumer issue while abjectly abandoning the arena of media democracy. Much of so-called Black leadership is collaborating with the same corporations that are busy stealing 5,100 of the people's channels.
Don't Steal Anything Small
Two weeks ago, the FCC held hearings in Rep. Edolphus Towns' district, in Brooklyn. The Black Congressman expressed no irritation at corporate theft of the digital TV spectrum. Instead, his greatest fear was petty criminals. "There is no shortage of swindlers willing to capitalize on the confusion and fears that could surround the DTV transition," said Towns. "With vulnerable populations as their main prey, people are already scheming to dupe people into the purchase of unneeded televisions or converter boxes or scheming to siphon coupons from the limited supply that is supposed to be for people who really need it."
All this is , of course, quite true, and requires vigorous government and community attention. But Rep. Towns would rather rail against ghetto converter box swindlers than offend the corporate criminals who are stealing $80 billion worth of TV spectrum. Unfortunately, Towns's behavior is the norm in the CBC, which as a body is utterly incapable of confronting Power.
Almost as an afterthought, the FCC decided to do a "test" roll-out of the new digital regime in one city, on September 8. They chose Wilmington, North Carolina, a town with a population of about 100,000, one-quarter Black. Wilmington has no Black-oriented radio station, and no Black college. The head of the local NAACP knew nothing about the FCC's "test" when telephoned by BAR in June. The state NAACP chief was only slightly better informed. Clearly, FCC Chairman Martin knows how to pick his test locations - to avoid concentrations of organized minorities and other stakeholders who might demand media democracy.
But then, New York City these days seems no better organized than Wilmington.
There is one bright spot on the horizon. Corporate TV still has no idea what to do with the thousands of channels it has stolen. They have no business plan to exploit their plundered booty. Program-wise, the transition should be a disaster, a bleak digital expanse of uselessness and waste. The shock may finally bring home the enormity of the crime, and cause the public to awaken to the challenge - to take possession of the pilfered spaces and fill them with programming that means something.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
47 Comments so far
Show AllSure seems to be a lot of neocons commenting here about f**k tv, never watch it, etc.... well that is ok for you but there are a ton of people out there that watch msm for their information and when they get what the neocons want to give as in disinformation or no information or fluff and foo foo news then how in hell's name are they gonna find anything out? It just maybe that if these sorry msm bastards ever had to report all the real news that covers how crooked the people's elected officals(local,state,fed) were they just may sit and pay attention. May even get into some true life investigative reporting, if for instance even this site or The Center For Public Integrity were to be able to be broadcast on the tv waves. I would have thought that trying to awaken unattentive couch potatoes is a top priority to start showing how their country is being sold out. They sure won't believe you or me if we told them.
The one valid point that I get mad about is that these couch potatoes have been so brain damaged by their multiple hours of sticking their face in a tv that they are totally brain dead. And that fits into the plan when after the radio would gather people into groups to listen and then tv came along, it turned a huge portion of people in vegetables, with only the minutest of brain wave function. Still I have hope of a lot of them waking up, after all when they loose a house or a car or the farm and realize their money is gone or not worth a plug nickel, even being too late, they will open their eyes. Though my father never said it, I can see what he was so mad about everytime he ran us away from the tv.
There is a mission out there that really needs to be pulled off and that is to get the few conservative owners to split up and sell off their media holdings and pass it off to others, you know instead of 4 or 5 owners go back to 60 or 80 owners. And reinstate the fairness doctrine because the only thing anyone gets now is conservative news and that is an infringement on the right and need of a person to know the truth.
And for a lot of them, trying to get on the internet only gets as far as the 1st or 2nd computer game or their favorite porn sites.
And make these msm jerks pay for our airwaves. No more free rides.
r jackowski July 31st, 2008 11:53 am
I saw the one that was 3 hours and went over all the other books he wrote, and ole Vicent is getting a little forgetful but he is still on top of what he sees as the wrong direction and actions, will look this one up here shortly. I did see him in front of a congressional hearing discussing the prosecution of w for murder and it was good. Man, hope someone follows through on that as he did say he wrote so that a good prosecutor could use it to indict and try w for murder.
"...minorities, unions, community organizations and all other non-rich societal stakeholders may be shut out of the main streams of television for the foreseeable future."
to that statement alone, i applaud the idea that so many people will be without the adverse effects of main stream media BS, lol.
as a person who doesn't watch television, and loving it, i'd very much like to see our citizens cast their TVs out and let the conniving puppet masters try to reach us another way. in fact, cancel their subscriptions to newspapers and mass-media magazines, too. what better way to make ineffective, those in power, than to turn deaf ears on what bullcrap they're trying to feed us. there are other sources of news out there that aren't feeding us Pablum - literally hundreds of thousands of them.
Blueapples26 - I've got you beat by a year. It's been six years without the f'in boob tube.
And the consolidation of fascist control continues . . .
thanx rj for the heads-up on Vincent Buglosi on C-span on the 3rd,will be watching with INTEREST.That an PROTESTING CONDI on the 2nd,and what a wknd!
The produces or creators of what we find on TV are so unimaginative giving them more stations to use will probably be the root cause of their own destruction. I hope.
This weekend, Sunday, August 3rd, C-span2, Book TV, will have an in depth interview with Vincent Bugliosi. His book about the Prosecution of George Bush for murder and war crimes will be discussed.
Prosecution is much better than Impeachment!
Not all TV is worthless.
C-Span is the one channel that is fighting the dumbing-down of the USA.
4thefuture, a lone voice in the wilderness to be sure, but nice to know someone gets it! Thanks.
culicomorpha, duality is inherent in all things, and is the metaphorical tree of knowledge of good and evil. Thus, every coin has two sides. Evolving in wisdom and understanding compels us to look beyond the duality to seek the essential nature of a thing itself not as good or evil but merely as a thing with no character other than that which we choose to give it; which is the metaphorical tree of life. Thus, a coin is a coin, not either side, nor edge, nor center, just a coin, which has no value or meaning other than that which we give it when we choose to spend it.
The airways are a PUBLIC resource, and we the people OWN the responsibility for them. Most of the folks posting here are of the mind to say, "so what?" Or, "just turn it off." Well, that is, has been, and always will be the problem.
This matter strikes at the heart of another core issue representative of why so many things have gone awry. Of all the posts so far, the one single post by 4thefuture actually tries to speak to this core issue. The fact that "they" can use our own resource against us speaks more about us than them.
They should pay a hefty annual fee - ameliorated, perhaps, according to the amount of truly public-service programming they put on.
And what about the Sirius XM merger. Does this not smack of a corporate monopoly for satelite radio. Satelite is the future of radio - the technology is just to great. Does anyone at CD care? Or does the thrill of Howard Stern having 18 million listeners, two channels, a 24 hour broadcast, and affiliates from the show having their own channles seem OK with you folks?
Ba Ba booey!
Who are the Black Agenda report people who posted the story?
Again another non main controlled media story on CD to push the buttons of bloggers on CD.
With more stores closed and going under this story is more about money than TV control. There is always something to watch on the 2 to 300 stations. If it gets to a point there is nothing on then rabbit ears like I have in the bedroom work just fine. Got a new set of glasses ( that is covered under my healthcare plan ) so I can always read.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned McLuhan. The medium IS the message. And it would be worth asking what gets through this medium, and what does not.
In a earlier point in my life I designed some of these systems that are used to propagandize the people, and decided to get out when I finally understood what the consequences were. It culminated with watching the propaganda during the first Gulf war, watching people being killed at a distance. For all of you who think there is anything, anything at all even remotely redeemable about television, I'd have to disagree in the strongest possible terms.
They could create 10^20th channels, but all would reflect the prevailing paradigm. The message of this medium is that technology is just a tool, and not a particular message. But that is a bold faced lie. This technology, like all others, is not neutral, is not a "tool" and does not serve you. In fact, it is designed to stupify you, to entertain you, to enslave you. That is its purpose.
It takes a lot of guts to unplug, but that is the only way to get free of this morass. Every minute that you watch a television, you are being enslaved by the powers-that-be whether you realize it or not.
Regardless of whether you watch TV sometimes, always or never, the theft of public property ought to matter to all of us. But it seems that debating or trashing TV's content is more important to most posters here. That misses the theft issue entirely. Just because you don't want it doesn't mean that the corporations ought to get it for free. At the very least they should have to pay beaucoup bucks for these channels.
Also, it's not necessarily the medium itself that is brain-numbing, it's the corporate driven commercial content that has made it so.
The American people should be given the opportunity to add their voices to the medium so that other, non-corporate, voices can be heard.
ezeflyer July 30th, 2008 10:54 pm
Even so, when you see the Heritage logo or others you know are conservative.
I've never been an admirer of Noam Chomsky, he's far to radical for me, but I got to watch a facinating interview with him on C-Span. Many others. Its worth it to me for that type of thing alone. Plus books on sat and sun that someone already mentioned....there is some really, really good stuff there.
Pax
"C-Span is the best thing on TV. "
Probably one of the best. But a study showed that right wing "Heritage Foundation", etc. programs on C-Span outnumbered liberal and progressive programs by a large margin.
This isn't the end of history. Let's make sure we pressure President Obama to appoint new FCC board members who will return these extra frequencies to the people.
Incidentally, I live in Eastern California, on the far side of the Sierra Nevada mountains from the part of California everyone knows about. It will be hard to believe when you read this, but there is no broadcast television here. None. No channels. Period. Zero. Plug in a TV and connect any kind of antenna you like and surf all the channels. Blank. No TV.
You have to have satellite or cable if you want TV. I can watch Free Speech TV because I have the Dish Network. There are no commercials and they broadcast a lot of interesting programs including Democracy Now!, which is the only program of any kind I watch regularly.
If we had a decent government that actually served the people the current broadcast license holders would lose their licenses for being accomplices in the lying that led to the occupation of Iraq and the attempted occupation of Afghanistan.
The current license holders should also be held responsible for not reporting on the Bush crimes and violations of the Constitution.
They let them get away with selling the country a false bill of goods about 9/11. Most of the people running our media actually should be in jail for what they have done.
great news! all the sheeple who rely on TV to kill their imaginations will be even more successful. haven't watched since '73, except the Simpsons.
I never watch the tube, but by chance I heard of a show that depicts threesomes. What but more kinky sex and more shows for the kiddies. TV has ruined America's morals with the shows always getting racier and dirtier. Not since the 50's has love been the reason for romance. Today, the media has fooled the public and taught all that sex is love and that casual sex is ok. How could the media understand a thing such as love which involves giving and caring for another rather than just using another for pleasure?
It would seem the idea is to suppress free speech and different points of view. They have been closing in on PBS for a long time. I look forward to my Friday nights. But there is little else. The Lehrer News Hour is fairly good. But there is something missing. The first half of Keith Olbermann is usually good. The second half is usually a crap shoot. Is it still against the law to shout "Fire!" in a theater? That's just about what Limbaugh, Savage, O'Reilly and a few others do. The man who shot the people at the Tennessee UU church because they were liberals and is a welcoming congregation for gays had a book written by Michael Savage which claimed that liberals were mentally ill. My bet is that he would never have had that outlandish book if not for Savage being a radio celebrity.
Who still watches broadcast TV?
I do. Or what little I watch anyway.
Who brainwashed you into paying 50-100 dollars a month for something that, considering the advertising, should be free?
You can find masterpiece theater on any PBS Broadcast channel.
Paul K - surely, UHF channels will not go dark when they switch to digital. There are major network affiliate and almost always, PBS, on UHF in a lot of cities.
I see this as a tragic loss of opportunity. With political campaigns costing into the millions of dollars (most spent on television advertising) a dedicated broadcast channel for political advertising could go a long way toward removing the undue influence of money from our political system. If politicians didn't have to waste more than half their time fund raising they might actually accomplish the "peoples work" for a change . . . nah, strike that as way too optimistic. I still think there's some value in the idea. Too bad all three branches have been bought out by corporate interests.
We just got two of those expensive converter boxes. I'll give you a hint, wait nine months and the price of the boxes will drop from $60 to $40. That's how the electronics biz works! You might even get a converter unit that works a bit better.
First off, we lost most of our 50 mile away UHF channels. When we want to watch them, we turn the converter box off and switch the rabbit ears antenna over. On February 28 of 2009 these UHF stations simply go dark on our set with no chance of saving them. No more pretty awful old movies and really dreadful sitcoms. One very local and quite clear UHF station also goes dark with the new box. It's the local Fox affiliate, so no big loss next March. Fox and affiliates are going to be the big losers nationwide, along with UPN and CW/WB. Stupid converter box!
On the other hand we were shocked to pick up (with a few glitches) the 50 mile away PBS station that we could never pick up.
We were pleasantly surprised to find two and four channels on our local and not local PBS stations, for six working selections. The PBS shows are rerun over and over and over on their multiple channels rather than, say, putting fresh points of view on (oh, the sacrilege of an informed citizenry!). Too bad, with the price of videocams and home computer video editing suites plummeting. Hey PBS, Ken Burns is boring after the first ten showings. Please drop the "Public" part of your name (and just be "BS" with Exxon and Big Coal sponsoring so many news programs).
We see essentially nothing on our local commercial networks except I see TV football sometimes, OK football is a bunch of millionaires getting concussions and brain damage and arthritis for life, a truly weird reality-type show where a bunch of guys claim to represent my section of the country. I watch anyway.
Anyways the local commercial oligopoly stations have hoarded their personal unused airwaves like the thieves they are. One has put a second channel up, which shows the weather. Oh yeah serve the public.
Canada is the new test bed globalresearch.ca has a good story about the internet in Canada and it to will be controlled just like TV.
Go ahead with your lock step media. As soon as that happens I pull the plug on my dish and put up the rabbit ears again. Then with the extra time I have put it to making my life better for my family.
C-Span is the best thing on TV. That is the only place to watch the government in operation -unfiltered through FOX, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC.......
Book TV on C-span2 weekends is one of the few places to see authors of non-fiction in depth.
I have learned more from C-span than I have in all of my years in school.
Samson July 30th, 2008 12:40 pm
Excellent point. I don't believe we have watched broadcast TV in years and years. Offers nothing.
But Masterpiece Theater, Mystery, the History channel, etc. There is a plethora of good stuff there.
People I don't agree with a lot, but watch on access channels from Satellite, all sorts of good stuff. We watched a financing scheme for third world situations, told us the good and bad...not just glowing reviews like you get some places.
Television is a tool and an entertainment medium. We also watch two different productions of "The Lion In Winter" I think that might be worth watching for anyone.
Some of the right wing stuff on C Span is worth watching and I'd say there is plenty of liberal programming there.
The line I used in my previous post "Discern, intuit and know what is yours to know." is attributed to Neil Kramer of the The Cleaver blogspot.
Will we still have the Disney Channel and I've Got A Secret?
Discern, intuit and know what is yours to know. How many of you have read more than 20 books this year? 50 books?, 100 books? how many of you have written a poem, a short story, a novella, created new music, painted, sculpted, postulated new theories of the cosmos, explore the meaning of life and possibly a new way of living on this planet. How many of you have had your neighbors over more than once?
C-Span is a "service of cable companies". That explains they're mostly right wing programming.
The FCC is a tool of capitalism. Corporate greed rules. Ever since the Congress gave the cable companies the right to "bundle" the channels, the consumer has been ripped off.
Recently Comcast took C-Span2 out of one 'bundle' and put it in another. In order to continue to receive C-Span2 the consumer had to pay more. That is like going to the grocery store for a loaf of bread and being told that you also have to pay for 100 pounds of hamburger. Blame Congress. They did it. The cable companies are only doing what greedy corporations do all the time.
C-span 1, 2, and 3 should be available to all for a minimum cost. That is the ONLY channel where you can see the Congressional hearings live - unadulterated. If you missed the Congressional oil price hearings, you missed an important one.
Why protest these outrages? Just turn it off and the fasci-corps will bleed uncontrollably and die. That is easiest and least confrontational way of dealing with these arrogant bastards.
Mr. Ford fails to include in his very incomplete list of African-American sell-outs on the digital spectrum the name of CONGRESSCRITTER BOBBY RUSH (former Black panther, now just a Black Cat for corporate American). He's on the same committee as Edolphus Towns but has been more energized in his support FOR the corporate heist.
It really makes no difference whether you "rise above TV viewing" or succumb to its allure. The writer's point is that we are witnessing more and more shitty, goddam public policy coming from this Congress.
PROTEST THESE OUTRAGES!
Send money to Cindy Sheehan!
Support the Nader campaign!
Vote Pelosi, Hoyer and Emanuel out of the House leadership!
Why defend a tool that is used to distract, dumb-down and propagandize us. What would people do without the idiot box, maybe read or even write, play music, paint, explore life not just watch it on TV.
Definition of tool-A device, such as a saw, used to perform or facilitate manual or mechanical work. The TV does non of that.
This definition is more in line with the current level of sophistication of this country's populace. Tool-A person used to carry out the designs of another; a dupe
AND?
It was like the idiots who added another Area Code of 360 up here in the North of the Seattle Area. The "Masters" had already approved it, and had businesses tell their clients etc. about the upcoming change.....
And, for the longest time a maintenance man (who cared!) kept trying to tell them that the current system at the time can not have a middle digit higher than a 5. He was even harrassed etc for the longest time.... and when they ordered the change,,,,, they found out it could only be converted over by a huge overhaul of the system, costing the tax payers millions of dollars; cause the middle digit could NOT Be a 6!!!!!!
AND? The NEW Digital System..... Well lets just say it is a conglomerate of many electrical mistakes, and currently is an operating PIECE OF SHIT SYSTEM!
Coffeelover,,,,,
By incorporating ourselves, We the People would decide what to do with our public airwaves, not bribed politicians or bureaucrats. And we would receive dividends from the lease or sale of these, as per our equal shares of non-transferable stock in our public treasure.
Not to worry
Broadcast TV is the 30 tonne Brontosauras in the room.
Till they figure out a way to make this interactive, they will be limited to sports.
Which too may be limited in its scope.
You can blow this off and say "Who cares? I don't watch tv anyway" (and I don't), BUT you have to recognize that television is probably THE most significant form of public pedagogy. Don't diss the general public for being stooopid if you aren't prepared to help defend their right to accurate information and intelligent programming.
- There is one bright spot on the horizon. Corporate TV still has no idea what to do with the thousands of channels it has stolen. -
The hell they don't.
I'm sure the corporate networks have hundreds of government propaganda shows lined up to give Americans an even bigger dose of reverse reality.
That's probably the agreement they reached in order to acquire the new channels.
I'd be willing to bet at least one channel we be dedicated entirely to making Americans even more scared of Muslims.
It'll be called the "Mushroom Cloud" channel.
Control of the FCC is MORE IMPORTANT than control of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court merely defines laws.
Media creates reality.
Whoever controls the media controls the country. Period.
How many times do I have to say this.
to: Samson
"TV can be wonderful. Its a tool. Sure, turn off the corporate crap. But that doesn't mean to turn off the tool. Just use it correctly."
Sounds like a great idea, but the bottom line is, when you pay your bill every month, that money is going to the very corporations that are raping and pillaging the commons! Furthermore, you can turn off the corporate stations all you want, but unless you watch only public broadcasting, you have to sit through roughly 13 minutes of targeted advertisement for every 30 minutes of actual programming. And now, with everything going digital, the corporations will have MUCH better capability to monitor your likes and dislikes, focusing advertisement accordingly.
Kill it now!
Corporate television and corporate Amerikka, for that matter, can go f_ck itself. As of two weeks ago, I canceled my cable subscription and I will NEVER AGAIN subscribe! In fact, I plan on taking my television out into a field somewhere and beating the hell out of it with a baseball bat!
The Money Grab is in full swing before the Bush era ends.
If it dose!
How much Mental Onanism can people stand?
I unpluged my propaganda box last year.
Forget about spending my tax money to 'upgrade' to HDTV - just dispose of the damn thing.
Who watches 'broadcast' tv these days? This whole thing only applies to broadcast signals. If the broadcasters wanted to add in these four additional channels on their 'frequency', they then have to go get the cable and sat services to carry them as extra channels.
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Actually, TV is wonderful. I watch it all the time and see some great stuff. I get Democracy Now! and the rest of Free Speech TV. I get World Link TV. I get stuff like Bill Moyers show.
TV can be wonderful. Its a tool. Sure, turn off the corporate crap. But that doesn't mean to turn off the tool. Just use it correctly.
Who cares? TV is a mind control mechinsim anyway why watch it, I haven't in 5 years. I read, read and read some more. 'Wow honey', looky here what got our self a reada' 'what do you do that fer?
Here is an idea, what if all the world stopped watching tv, the fasci-corp sooth sayers would go broke and turn into dust.