Comment Re:Free Speech is Hard to Get Right (Score 5, Insightful) 59
Without a doubt, restricting the target audience a local broadcaster can reach to 39% is a form of censorship, no matter the reasoning behind it.
So if someone can't have a monopoly on local TV broadcasts they are being censored?
In the past the FCC had to balance censorship with censorship, and the cap did that by preventing a broadcaster who refused to air a show from affecting more than 39% of the national audience.
No, the FCC had to balance public interest vs corporate and political interests because it's more beneficial to give the public more choice and different views.
If it is not addressed, local broadcasters will be regulated out of existence by forcing them to compete with one hand tied behind their back.
Where's the competition if all the local broadcasters are owned by the same company?
Now that programs from major studios can reach 100% of the national audience via online streaming services
Oh, so every American has internet? Funny that, about ~25 million Americans lack access to reliable internet access.
If it is not addressed, local broadcasters will be regulated out of existence by forcing them to compete with one hand tied behind their back.
If addressed, there will not be any competition at all because most of the local broadcasters will be bought up by one company. Sinclair Broadcast Group tried this in 2018 by hiding their purchasing of Tribune Media through shell companies which resulted in them being sued and fined 48 million in 2020.
If FCC repeals the 39% national cap Sinclair will quickly dominate local broadcast and considering what has happened to every other local broadcaster they bought, those broadcasters will be gutted and start to air mostly news-slop that is produced centrally.
I guess it has escaped your notice that a consolidation of media is happening which means that a handful of billionaires are becoming the sole owners of a majority of all media which in turn means they get to decide what everyone can see, not you or the public. Anyone with a smidgen of critical thinking knows that is bad, like dystopian bad.