Ted Turner's Beef With Big Media 552
pizen writes "Washington Monthly has an article from Ted Turner where he talks about the problems with the media conglomerates and calls for them to be busted: 'At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates.'"
Face It. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless we fight back against Big Media, we are going to lose, and lose hard, a lot of the things we have come to take for granted in the past 20 years of the Internet... [newswithviews.com]
Calling the Kettle Black eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
This coming from the same AOL - Time Warner?? Time Warner that owns Magazines, Cable Stations (and not just one mind you...)
And THEN merged with AOL?
Ok Ted....
Why bust? (Score:2, Insightful)
Snap (Score:1, Insightful)
Meanwhile... (Score:2, Insightful)
This man is in no position to talk about big media. This is like Bill Gates bemoaning monopolistic business practices in the software industry.
"Will get"? (Score:2, Insightful)
What nonsense! (Score:1, Insightful)
Remove the government roadblocks, and the conglomerates will have competition.
He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
Me worry? Naaaah... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't watch TV much these days: mostly BBC World for news and a few cable channels that broacast things like "Six Feet Under" or documentaries. That's it. It's probably a couple of hours a week, tops.
Most of the news and entertainment that I like, I obtain through the Internet, and it's been like that for several years.
So, am I worried about media consolidation? No. Am I worried about Internet censorship and Internet Provider consolidation? Yes. Actually a lot more worried.
Re:Calling the Kettle Black eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't always agree with Ted, but I have to appreciate his forthrightness. He doesn't hesitate to say what's on his mind.
Why all the Ted Turner bashing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure there's hypocrisy in Turner saying big media should be broken up, but he explains himself rather well. I admit I haven't even read the whole article yet. Maybe he's a little bit bitter (AOL), but he starts by explaining that he could never have gotten started in the current environment and then goes on to detail lots of real problems with the current media. Why can't he just be a very smart old man, who knows more about this topic than probably any of us, and is pissed because his industry is going to hell?
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Insightful)
NO This is like Bill Gates saying "Microsoft should be broken up to prevent it's detrimental impact on the software market that sifles small business growth." I, for one, would stand up and cheer if Bill Gates said that, but we all know he's not man enough to do the right thing.
PLEASE, let's not pummel this guy for a) doing the right thing b) doing it in a way that will hurt his interestes and c) for his move toward colorizing movies almost 20 YEARS ago [reelclassics.com]
Re:haha (Score:3, Insightful)
Is Turner Volunteering To Go First? (Score:3, Insightful)
A sign that it really IS serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Well I say he does have to shoot me now! So shoot me now!" [cmu.edu]
Re:Why bust? (Score:2, Insightful)
A good start would be to enforce the laws (antitrust) that we already have. They aren't generally enforced by republicans (esp. the current lot), who adhere to the religious dogma that what's good for the corporation is good for America.
Sure, sometimes that's true, but sometimes it most clearly (often painfully clearly) isn't.
The only way someone could rationally support the idea that the concentration of power in the hands of the few is good is if they are a member of (or at least good friends/subjects of) that few.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:3, Insightful)
Q: how many newspapers dose Ted Turner own?
Q: how many radio stations?
Q: how many tv stations?
Q: how many ppl are his market areas?
Q: now.. now about rupert murdoc? clear channel? Caldwell black?
He's exactly the guy to be asking... (Score:3, Insightful)
But did you RTFA? Ted Turner (big media incarnate) is writing against big media...writing and saying it needs to be broken up. It's a pretty damned big sign when one of the largest media moguls in the world is outright stating that big media needs to be broken up. It wouldn't have the same impact if some guy from Joe's Broadcasting said it as Joe has ulterior motives. What motives does Ted Turner have? He has everything to LOSE by having big media broken up. Everything but his honor and dignity, and quite frankly I applaud his commentary.
"Did you see Bill Maher on Larry King Live last night?" Does it matter? He clearly made a point that in order to compete with big media in this market you need to be big media. He grew accordingly. His corporations became corrupted accordingly, good intentions or no.
It reminds me of the way the japanese grow watermelons to be squared...something will only grow as large as its container. And the FCC keeps increasing the size of the container for big media. If the FCC elimitated the viewer-base cap on big media altogether, then big media would turn into monopoly-media, inc. Then it would be like some totalitarian regime.
If the FCC lowered the cap, among other actions, there would certainly be more diversity in ownership, not just diversity of programming. That is the key.
Re:Goebbels protests against media power? (Score:1, Insightful)
As for amusement and and media being a crowbar to obtain world domination, man WTF? What are they going to do, launch B-52s that litter the landscape with Brittney Spears across the landscape?
Re:Face It. (Score:5, Insightful)
distribution channels _not_ maturity of market (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why bust? (Score:5, Insightful)
His entire point is that the number of alternatives is getting smaller - and also that all the large media companies have certain interests in common, which may distort their programming.
It's hard to imagine how we'll have a well informed, critically thinking populace if everyone's opinions are manufactured by a few homogenous companies... The only bright spot is the Internet, assuming it doesn't get too watered down.
Turner is 100% Right (Score:3, Insightful)
The media conglomerates will argue for less rules and regulations, a laisse faire approach. But as we know, unregulated markets lead to only one thing. Monopolies. This is especially true in the mass media field. It costs relativily little for a TV or Radio broadcaster to reach an extra 10 million viewer/listeners. They just turn up the wattage on their antennae. This means companies can easily expand and grow without any significant investement. This is unlike most industries, where in order to expand, companies need to invest in more raw materials and manpower, hindering their ability expand to a point where they dominate.
However for mass media, and even software, expansion is easy. It's even more so if you centralise all your content and simply broadcast and sell the same thing to everyone, which is what has happened. Turner is absolutly right. The big guns have taken over, due to the ease of expansion, and the difficulties of entry for independants. And now that they have gained a monopoly, they have abused their positions by promoting bad TV. People spend less time watching TV now, not because of other distractions, but because TV is simply bad. What else do you expect from a monopoly except a low quaility product. He's dead right about reality TV. The number one reason there is so much of it is because it is cheap.
Whatever about Turner, his points are good. Regulations need to be tightened. Having only 3-4 companies with complete control over a medium, is quite frankly dangerous, as well as foolish. The examples of censorship in the article are frightening. What happens when the big guns decide the only news we need is COPS and LA car chases?
Rampant capitalism leads to feudalism. You've got to have rules, otherwise everybody gets a bad deal.
The author makes good points. I wonder if the mainstream media will give them air time?
question of character? (Score:3, Insightful)
The man is the largest private land-owner in the USA as a result of this effort, and some environmental-denier cranks want to nit-pick the most ridiculous faux-pas he commits? "He bulldozed a hilltop to improve the sighlines of a mountain range" is the best they can come up with?
When you are finished trying to restore a massive bio-region out of your OWN pocket, i'll listen to your nonsense character assasination. Until then, fuck-off.
It sounds like the man's motivation and execution are in the best inerests of the continent's environmental health... and your worried about a few small issues? If you were so damned concerned, why dont you stop the bulldozing of the COUNTLESS suburbs scrawling all over the damn place... look outside your window right now, there is LOTS you can complain about. Not Ted Turner building the largest bio-reserve on the continent.
OR are you simply one of these anti-tree-hugger environemental-deniers? always looking to pick small holes in the efforts of people trying to do something for the environement? Selfless-ness make you uncomfortable? Cant fathom someone doing something GOOD for its own sake? Does that depth of character cause you to question yourself? Are you compeled to undermine their motivation to justify your own myopic selfishness?
Re:Face It. (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA: the "diversity-enhancing value of the Internet." The FCC is confusing diversity with variety. The top 20 Internet news sites are owned by the same media conglomerates that control the broadcast and cable networks. Sure, a hundred-person choir gives you a choice of voices, but they're all singing the same song.
I have already won. (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of TT's point is that Big Media is exerting too much control over the news. No matter how good someone may be at making decisions, feed them defective information and the 'perfectly made' decisions based on that information will be defective, too. For instance, your neighbors, your zoning board, voters, etc.
Re:Turner is 100% Right (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I disagree that more regulations are needed. Rather, I think that we Americans need to get off of our fat asses and start looking for alternate news sources other than Fox News or CNN. A simple Google search shows more than enough alternate views and stories than what the main stream medias show.
Do you really want tigher FCC control of the TV and Radio after what happend to the Superbowl half time show and Howard Stern?
Re:Face It. (Score:2, Insightful)
Gee, that seems to be something Merriam-Webster does, too. They say diversity is, "the condition of being different or having differences" and variety is, "something differing from others of the same general kind". In fact, they list variety and diversity as being synonyms.
Cute little form of argument, Ted, but nothing but a sound byte, ripe for the quoting elsewhere. Like Slashdot.
Re:Why all the Ted Turner bashing? (Score:4, Insightful)
This statement seems to show that you didn't RTFA! Since what he is complaining about is that the system has already changed after he got what he wants. He states that he couldn't have gotten what he wants if the system was back then like it is today.
Re:Face It. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Face It. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why Turner is NOT sincere (Score:3, Insightful)
What a crock (Score:2, Insightful)
Its a very sad truth when... (Score:2, Insightful)
Wake Up And Smell The BS! (Score:2, Insightful)
The truth of the matter is, Ted is damn-spot-on right. Every word of that article is something that every American should heed.
You don't think it's a problem? Have you watched Fox News lately? Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is one of the huge abusers that Turner is referring to. There is currently a lawsuit against Fox to have "Fair and Balanced" be eliminated as their motto. Don't believe me? Check out Outfoxed.org
Why do you think the media coverage has been so miserable during this presidency? Why has the editorial content been so weak that it has failed to raise a single eyebrow? The effects of corporate media domination are all around us and we're letting them tell us it's okay!
Microsoft, for example, conducts a great deal of its business outside the law. No, Microsoft is not above the law, they simply find it is more profitable to break our laws and pay the fines. Over and over and over again. And don't think this is limited to our buddy Billy's empire. Breaking the law in the name of profits is de rigeur the order of the day in corporate America. Remember Enron? Now add Monsanto, AOL Time-Warner, ALCOA, and a hundred other giants.
The corporate music giants are blackmailing our universities through their puppet group, the RIAA. "Pony up for our legal Napster service or we'll sue you and your students all the way to the poor house."
If any of you doubt this, check your local movie listings and see the film "The Corporation." If it isn't showing near you, wait a little while and rent or buy it when it comes out on DVD. (I'm pretty sure I saw it on IRC the other day...) These are issues we must all think about, whether we agree with the views presented or not.
IN ORDER TO MAKE UP OUR MINDS, WE MUST FIRST PULL OUR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND AND USE THEM! You don't have to agree with me, I don't require blind confidence. I do, however, ask that you to take the time to learn about and consider these issues. Reject them if you will, but do so only once you understand the issues. How can we reject ideas we know nothing about?
We must call our legislators to action. We need to get the corporations and their lobbyists out of Washington. We need to create new restrictions on corporate behavior that protect the interests of the public good. If we don't protect ourselves from the actions of corporations, who will? The corporations themselves certainly won't. It's simply not profitable to do so, and profit is the only motivator in the conciousness of the corporation.
Democracy depends on diversity of viewpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine that you're in Soviet Russia (where media controls you). You have three networks, but all three of them air the same stories, and are blatantly politically biased towards the government. How are you going to get alternative news? How are you going to have sufficient information to act as a proper democracy? Russia happens to be a good example today, because while it's nominally become a democracy, its media is once again as subserviant to the ruling structures that its democracy is suffering. If you're in Moscow and you want to hear news which is critical of Putin or supportive of anyone else, you're going to have a hard time trying to find media which will air those views.
For those who say that competition between the oligarchs of media will prevent that, look again at Russia. What happens if the government "rewards" those who look favorably on its policies and "punishes" those who don't? Well, if there are 100 sources of news, then it doesn't matter, because they're not going to control all of them. But if there are only 3 or 4? How difficult would it be to "convince" all 3 or 4 major news sources that they should report a particular way on a story?
And diversity of smallish news outlets doesn't help either. If you say "oh, well, we've got these hundred small internet sites and newspapers," the problem is that their credibility is in doubt with most people, because they take information on who to believe is credible from the major sources. So if you say to someone you get your news from NBC, and someone else says that they get their news from FooBar.com, if you're a normal person you're going to think they're a crackpot or incorrectly informed, because it lacks credibility.
So imagine a situation where all major, credible news organizations are controlled by 3 people. Imagine how that would impact democracy. Now tell me that media is just another mature industry.
Re:That's true for *any* mature market (Score:4, Insightful)
For one thing, the media conglomerates control how a large percentage of Americans get their information. Do you really want everyone to hear only the news that Rupert Murdoch thinks you should hear?
For another, the broadcast media companies in particular, are making use of the public airwaves and as such, are required to submit to rules that they provide some public benefit. Broadcasters have been whining about those rules since day one, and have been weaseling their way out of them since day two. The FCC was supposed to act in the public interest, it is sadly much more likely to operate in the corporate interest these days.
Re:Face It. (Score:3, Insightful)
Once an entity becomes famous or important, the tendency is for it to become buyable. And if it becomes consistently famous/important enough, Big Media will buy it. Thus the conglomerates will maintain their dominance.
There are plenty of Cola flavoured drink sources. But the "Joe Public" has only room in his brain for a handful of brands, or maybe just two or three.
There are plenty of politicians. But "Joe Public" only can think about voting Republican or Democrat (even if both candidates are _Owned_ by Corp America).
I'm curious to see what happens to Google.
Don't Hate the Media - Become the Media (Score:2, Insightful)
While being a slashdotter might be a step in the right direction, most of what ends up on here is regurgitated from fairly mainstream sources. Why don't more people harness technology to share information with their neighbors? Especially local information. Sure there are sites like indymedia.org, but what about people doing real independent reporting?
Anybody got examples?
Ayn Rand - Philosophy of "Greed for Greed's Sake" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Say you've got a great idea and a niche market to play that idea to. Unless you're already wealthy, you won't be building your own TV station. And you're not likely to find one to buy, since most are already owned by the big players.
But say you've got a station. You're now a local broadcaster. How can you expand beyond the local market? Cable probably isn't going to pick you up, since it's owned by the big media. Satellite isn't going to take you.
Pretty much, you either make something attractive enough to have your company bought by the big media, or you're doomed to a niche in a small market. Good luck getting any real ad money.
Your only chance to ever grow will be on the internet, by word of mouth (or of hyperlink, as the case may be). So forget TV and radio. If you have an idea, the internet is the only distribution channel that can possibly get your idea to a decent sized audience. Perhaps you can pull a CNN or a Fox on the internet. But you won't, with the current rules and market, create anything significant in television or radio.
Re:Face It. (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got to be kidding. I am not interested in "the other side of the story" which may be just as slanted. I am interested in an accurate story (realizing that all reporting is biased) so that I can make up MY mind. Two misleading stories about the same event isn't going to enable someone to make accurate decisions.
Secondly, while YOU may be able to find alternate news, most people may not. If the mainstream media doesn't compete for accuracy, most people will be misinformed. This is bad for those of us who are informed. Remember, you get the government/society not that YOU deserve but that MOST of the people deserve. The last thing I want is MORE uniformed/misinformed people.
Re:OT: Re:Left meets Right (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention, Americans (myself included) should have learned from recent experience that acting without the facts can get you into big trouble.
The fact is, the UN has served American interests more than any other country's; the parent post is just ignorant of history. The UN was established to create a forum for international power; we are the biggest power, but we don't always get our way.
In terms of our principles, should that upset us? Absolutely not! Democracy is giving a say to people you don't like: We believe in self-determination and that 'all men' are created equal, not just Americans. That means Senators DeLay and Kennedy both get a vote, despite the fact that one probably disgusts you.
In terms of practicality, you think ugly partisan disagreement, and long frustrating negotiations is the sign of malfunction? Have you noticed what goes on in Washington DC? It's the fascists that historically disparage it: Hitler and Mussolini offered the alternative of strong, decisive leadership; it's an old con that works on the ignorant. As Churchill said, 'Democracy is the worst possible system, until you examine the alternatives'. If you lack the courage of your convictions on democracy, you might note that all the richest, most powerful nations are democracies.
Even if you care nothing for the rights of others to have real, forceful say (Europeans, Iraqis, and everyone else), they will get their say, peacefully if possible, thorugh conflict if not. Allies and international cooperation provide great value to us: If you think we can survive without them, you're just ignorent: Ignorent of history, politics and economics. Conflict, especially war, is incredibly expensive and completely unproductive.
Diplomatic forums like the UN provide systems to peacefully resolve real disputes between heated enemies. Ugly? Frustrating? So what? It's not there to entertain you. Not getting your way? Welcome to life. Who said you deserve to get your way? What makes you more important than the other guy?
As I said, the UN was created in the ashes of World War II to prevent future wars. Since 1945 almost no sovereign nation has invaded another (compare that to all world history before 1945): Civil wars and proxies, maybe, but hardly any direct acts of agression by any major power. The USSR invaded Afghanistan, and now, the US invaded Iraq.
Do you want to return to pre-UN days? Why? What do you hope to accomplish?