'Big Media' Set to Get Even Bigger 113
seldolivaw writes: "You might be interested in this Wired article, a fairly good summary of why monolithic media is a bad idea, and exactly how close the US already is. Funny quote: "There are six or seven media conglomerates that rule the world... [b]ut how many companies do you need to provide programming to mass audiences? Six companies should be enough. At least it's not two." America, head for the hills -- I'm safe in the UK, not!"
The problem with advocacy... (Score:3)
That means that you generally find anti-massive-media-conglomeration devolve into little discussion groups and message boards that do a lot of self congratulatory back patting about how evil all this is - ending up with remarkably icestuous discussions with little outside influence, to the point where people involved in such discussions start getting sufficiently out of touch with reality that they come of sounding like rabid crazed individuals who want to live in a happy little commune.
It's about that point where the media conglomerates decide its worth publishing...
Jedidiah
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How to read this article: (Score:1)
The number of sites that slashdot will link to for stories just went through the floor. T & H worried that media will figure out that Slashdot is sucking its bandwidth and must be eliminated or purchased.
News at 11 (ON CHANNEL 1!! mwuahahaha!)
Re:The important point has been missed (Score:3)
And information-everywhere technology only helps those who have it (and that doesn't include those on AOL).
phew, what a relief (Score:1)
At the rate people are signing onto the Internet for the first time every day news via television will be less and less important. On the net you don't have to wait around till the TV station has scheduled the news to be on. Just hit the news site(s) you like the most and get some news.
Sure you don't have the guarantee that the news is right, but there seems to be a much better chance of it. Especially when you start going to sites that have public discussion forums. You get enough people discussing a topic and the "truth" is bound to come out. You also have the ability to check the story against other sites, see what they have to say about it.
Been there... (Score:5)
It's common to only have access to the online version of magazine X if you subscribe to the ISP of the same media conglomerate. It's pretty messy, but people don't give a damn. What irritates me is when you see advertising of a new branch of the conglomerate in the other distribution media of the conglomerate, and you think to yourself that it is obvious that they didn't pay for that advertisement.
Oh, and we have our FCC. It's called ANATEL, for Agencia Nacional de Telecomunicacoes (National Telecom Agency), but it is also known as Aqui NAo TEm Lei (There is no law here).
Re:Internet News Media (Score:1)
Did I mention that their website is one of the most popular sources of news on the net?
I've never read the Drudge Report (Score:1)
Re:It Could be worse.... (Score:2)
TV breakdown:
9 & Optus Pay + Half of the print media (And interestingly a majority of major farms and Casinos) - Kerry Packer
7 - Kerry Stokes
10 - not sure
Foxtel & the rest of the Print Media - Rupert Murdoch
Effectively the bulk of the Australian media market is controlled by Packer & Murdoch (A foreigner now). And they have had the rules changed by governments for the last 30 years to enable them to take a bigger and bigger slice of the pie. We are now effectively in a position where the media moguls decide who will be the next government through selective reportage.
The Government is in the act of hobbling the ABC and SBS through budget cuts and right wing managemnet appointments, further diminishing the range of opinions expressed within the mainstream media.
This is the antithisis of democracy - for a democracy to work effectively the citizens of it must be well informed. As ownership of media contracts, so does freedom.
Re:Internet News Media (Score:1)
They do not get 1.5 Million hits/day. Guess who does?
Hmmm... (Score:4)
And the media mix evolves over time, as new channels become popular. To see this, just look at the evolution of news delivery over the last twenty years or so. When I was 12 I had a paper route - about 50 customers at first, after school - then 100+, early morning. In my town that paid me about $1/month per customer, not bad for a kid. Almost _everybody_ took the newspaper. Not every house had a TV, then. We would canvas poorer neighborhoods regularly to sign up folks who'd just moved in, got a regular job, etc. (I once tried to solicit a subscription at a rundown whorehouse, 11 AM on a Saturday morning. The "lady" at the door was sweetly disappointed that I was too young for what they could trade. So was I, as I recall....) Ahem! Where was I - oh yes, media progression...
(I didn't read newspapers or watch TV at college - too busy with drugs, sex, and rock&roll, I guess... Or maybe it was the physics, chemistry, protest marches, philosophy, falling in love, working computer operations, getting dumped, programming, being depressed, changing jobs, recovering, all those things we all do in our early to mid 20s.)
Then everyone got TVs, even the poor people (who usually paid _more_ for them due to time-payment deals) and there were only three major networks, plus an independant station in my town. About this time there was a bitter union strike/lockout at one of the newspapers, which resulted in a busted union and only one newspaper with any mass circulation (a situation that persists to this very day in the tight little Northwest city where I was raised - and I knew it very well - dated a lady Mayor's daughter who lived a couple blocks away (those were many _nice_ summer nights), later narrowly avoided getting assaulted by some local asshole power-broker when his paid-for candidate lost an election, knew the tavern owner (now former) Mayor,and so on). But looking back, it's clear that the media gravity, and the political power structure changed, there. But it wasn't TV that levered the political change. What made the difference was a little alternative rag of a weekly newspaper. They dug up enough dirt to force the major newspaper to cover the real issues (which it did, professionally well), and the result was a political pendulum-swing that this particular small state is still recovering from.
OK, so there were three, count 'em, only three major networks, plus this hodge-podge of local independant local stations. Then, cable TV got rolled out (and how _that_ happened is a really nasty story in itself - major money skullduggery is buried back there). Somewhere in the early to mid 80s CNN got traction through cable and started _humiliating_ the big networks! The 1990 Gulf War was telecast on CNN, much of it _live_! ABC, NBC, CBS had their faces pushed in the dirt by CNN! (I was interested, since I'd been in Kuwait only six months before. But, I was in Phoenix when the air war started, and heard the CNN guy while watching the realtime AA fire over Baghdad.)
So, then Ted Turner sold out to Time Warner. And then AOL took advantage of the NASDAQ stock bubble (can you say "Tulip Mania? - I knew you could) to swallow Time Warner whole. But nothing's changed, just the players, and their chances, now. There's new media out there, bubbling up, sharp and fresh and struggling for market share, which _will_ come....
Re:Neo-Classical Microeconomics... (Score:2)
There is one basic problem with the US system: the FCC considers airwaves public instead of private property. As such, they can "license" bands, and then continue their meddling. If one thinks about it, this gives great aid to the license holders, in this case mega-corporations. If the airwaves were treated like real estate, the licensees would have to watch their backs.
Here is a Cato Institute paper [cato.org] on the issue, titled "Property Rights in Radio Communication: The Key to Reform of Telecommunications Regulation." Obviously, it's about radio, but the same principles apply to TV.
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***
Re:Dissturbing (Score:1)
What you propose is an interesting idea but that would violate free speech laws. Tell the _big media companies_ what they can not produce and you can kiss _your_ first amendment rights good bye in the same breath. I am way too cynical for a 26 year old.
Re:Dissturbing (Score:1)
Re:well, how did we get here, and what can we do? (Score:5)
Had to bite
erm.... yes. But it's a bit more tricky than that. Most of the money media outlets recieve isn't from the customers directly, but from advertising revenue. For example, the cover price of a dead tree copy of the New York Times is a tiny fraction of the revenue that edition will collect. It's more accurate to say the media outlets got big because *advertisers* got big on our money.
That's just the start. As has been pointed out, GE is a major owner of media outlets. Some of their most profitable exercises, however, have more to do with supplying industrial and weapons componentry. Jet engines, nuclear detonator components, and landmine componentry to domestic and overseas markets are some of the more striking items. I could promise to stop buying them, but I'm not yet a customer.
However, what they can do is take away your ability to make informed decisions. If the information required to make a choice is controlled by editors who understand the importance of responsibility to G.E.'s shareholders, then your ability to make decisions that reflect badly on G.E. is severly curtailed.
This isn't conspiracy theory - this is a basic fact. If you have any role at all in the modern corporate world, have a look around at who's getting promoted. It's usually people who have a pretty good sense of responsibility to the shareholders. To expect a media outlet, which is a company, to be subject to different rules is naive.
Given this, it's pretty unlikely you'll see articles dismissing a media outlet's parent company. Have a look at that list of who owns what media to get an idea of who's not going to get bad press.
Agreed. But have you noticed the drop in diversity over the past five years? Part of the point of the article is that Internet portals are going the way of newspapers. True, content of material on the Internet is mostly up to the individual users, but Quality of Service isn't. Which is going to get more hits - a flashy site, owned by a portal with huge bandwidth, or one not owned by said portal, that doesn't have the bandwidth to choke an ant.
In most of the developed world, finding good food instead of McFast Food is an uphill battle. It seems information is going the same way.
To answer the topic - what to do about it. Give a toss. Spread information. Use the Internet for something productive. Become known in your neighborhood as that wacko who babbles about media control, in the hopes that a few people will catch on and keep demand for diversity alive.
Anyone got more suggestions?
Re:Dissturbing (Score:1)
My god... look what all this monolithic media does to your spelling and grammar too!
damn.
Re:Life mimics Onion (Score:1)
Sorry, couldn't help but generalize your post title.
- Steeltoe
Re:The Usual Whining, Moaning & Lack of Perspectiv (Score:4)
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:3)
Re:It Could be worse.... (Score:1)
With the increasing importance of digital television his newspapers have been agitating for him to be able to enter the market - he is currently blocked due to cross ownership laws and the fact that he is now a foreign national.
There oughta be a law... (Score:1)
which brings up a list of US government mandated disclosures (who they own, who owns them, privacy policy, political donations, etc.). They would have another URL:
Where we would find an alphabetized table of all companies Viacom has at least a 5% stake in. Each row in the table would have a company name, % that Viacom owns, link to <company_domain_name>/pub_disclosures.us/owners. html.
The law could require the list be no more than three months old, and that it follow a standardized template so that it will always be legible. Another plus, is that it would be easy to write a bot that would recursively search to find who owns what.
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:1)
In fact, she felt radio frequencies should be owned like plots of land, sold and traded with no strings attached, not licensed from the government.
Re:Try the food industry (Score:1)
And thank the FRIKKIN' LORD it's capitalists!
Food so cheap that extremely efficient farmers are going out of business because they can't compete with the extremely, extremely efficient farmers.
Food so cheap, a McDonald's worker can earn enough to feed their family of four for a day in one hour of work.
Re:Rupert Murdoch, Sky, etc., (Score:1)
Having 2 major non-murdoch-owned news / ents providers, one of which is semi-owned by the govt (Actually the license-fee payers), increases the likelihood of you getting good news from the "non-aligned" sources like murdoch...
They all act as checks and balances. Anyhoo, try reading some non-UK media about the UK some time. Highly amusing...
Re:The Usual Whining, Moaning & Lack of Perspectiv (Score:1)
The problem I have with it is not the lack of entertainment or options, simply the spin that corporate media puts on their topics. Like the WTO and IMF. Geneticly modified food. And considering that GE is also the worlds largest arms manufacturer, especially nuclear, wait and see the spin they are going to out on any accdents that happen.
Re:The Bad Side of huge companies. (Score:1)
Yes we've seen connections - i know it doesn't follow one point.
Damn why do i respond to anonymous cowards?
Re:well, how did we get here, and what can we do? (Score:1)
An interesting logical conclusion of this argument is: if you want smaller internet media companies to thrive among the big conglomerates, you should support their advertisers.
In other words, when you visit your favorite indy media site, click on its banner ads.
Definition of media regulation ... (Score:2)
What media representatives are forgetting is that people are quite able to create their own forms of amusement and reality distorting fields. With software and half-decent hardware you can blend your own tracks, publish your own local rag, and propagate generic gossip on your personal grapevine. People have always been able to practice their own instruments and can exist quite independently of external providers. The NGOs have shown it is possible to exert pressure independent of governments and political activists hav ebeen enobled by the internet. I believe figures are showing a drop in total hours of TV watched as people substitute the net (reference anyone?).
Sometimes you just have to have faith that the invisible hand will self-correct.
LL
Re:Neo-Classical Microeconomics... (Score:1)
> radio is now monopolized by a few huge
> corporations
And they all play Britney songs because that's what the masses desire. That may upset their intellectual superiors, but it's very, very little-d democratic. Those of socialist bent should love the current state of things. A capitalist does. "Feed 'em what they want," both sides agree.
> Its been almost as successful as
> electricity deregulation [in California, presumably]
The massive failure of electrical deregulation is because it was only partial deregulation, and the results were predictable.
They set up a situation identical to areas with rent control. Demand keeps growing, but the profit motive is completely eviscerated. Thus capitalism CANNOT respond by new power plants (als hindered by nonsensical environmental laws, sorry, regulations.) What happens when there is demand but no profit (incentive) for people to build new supplies (apartments, electrical plants)? Shortage, and that means cost skyrockets and/or shortages appear, right on perfect economic schedule (pronounce that "shedule" for maximum effect.)
Of course, California isn't the world, and outstate is trying to keep up, but, although there is financial incentive to build new power plants to supply you, it is stupid for them to do so when California might chang its laws any day, thus allowing native companies to start building plants again, cutting out the legs from under the outstate power companies. Therefore they don't build more either, and just run up the rates to California.
This simple economic analysis is nothing new, peeps. It's been around for the better part of a century. That modern socialists would haul the entire population down this road is so knowingly irresponsible as to be darned near treasonous. And all because a few votes can be gotten from the average bozo who can't see beyond the end of their nose.
Re:Neo-Classical Microeconomics... (Score:1)
MS OS still sucks compared to a Mac, but MS OS is better in that many other applications are available, and a WinTel box is still $1k cheaper than a comparable Mac box. Guess what wins out? Now do the same analysis with free Linux, disregarding the physical box cost, and note that "better" means also easier to use, and you'll see why Linux ain't going anywhere any time soon, either.
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:2)
Re:The Usual Whining, Moaning & Lack of Perspectiv (Score:1)
I would like to add that even small ownership of, say, a TV station gets you very little.
Where I live, they added a new broadcast station about ten years ago that was an unused frequency. That station couldn't hook up with any of the networks. What do stations like that broadcast? Home shopping channels and religious broadcasting (both masterfully tuned to sucking the life savings out of old people.)
Whooo hooo! Life without the big media moguls is grand!
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:2)
Web sites don't generate traffic. Viewers do.
As a result those top ten sites have earned their traffic.
Wow, that is damn long. (Score:1)
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:4)
Most radio stations in the US are owned by a few (two?) companies (thanks to the wonderful "deregulation" of radio. Yipee for Ayn Rand -- i hope she likes listening to the same 5 songs from coast to coast).
If they were allowed to build a transmitter powerful enough to blanket the entire country, they wouldn't be wasting any more money on this "local" stuff. The internet can be "broadcast" from anywhere, so we'll see in the future exactly what we see now -- the top 10 sites having 75% of the web traffic (or whatver the statistic is).
We'll have local stuff on the net only because it's part of the power of customization and demographic targetting -- if they could get away with mass-produced content for everyone, they would. Its no less expensive to make local content, and you can only sell it one place!...
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Re:6 wouldn't be *that* bad... (Score:1)
Re:The Usual Whining, Moaning & Lack of Perspectiv (Score:1)
Uhh no monopolys (Score:2)
Hurray for the monolithic media culture! (Score:2)
Whew! Thank God I'm on the right side of that one. As lowly peons, we lose out on so much else. Don't deny me the right to gloat over this one thing. For once I'm on the winning team. Yeah Western culture! Hurray for the English language, however bastardized and dumbed-down.
Sure, the media oligarchy can bring you Punky Brewster in sixteen languages.
But it's better in my language and everyone knows it. [ridiculopathy.com]
BBC and the UK (Score:1)
In Canada the CBC handles it by producing really crappy television (except for news and sports) coverage.
The Solution: Piggyback (Score:1)
It could create a small chink in the armor that leads to a groundswell.
--
OliverWillis.Com [oliverwillis.com]
Re:Less government (Score:1)
Dream on. Humanity is one heck of a complex machine. On one hand there are chances that this isn't bad and that there'll never be real problems resulting from big corps.
I tend to think otherwise. Simply all corps are not directly controlled by people. When you think about it you'll see what i mean.
Take Nike as an example. It's big corp it makes tons of money. It's a good examble because of it's business practice. Nikes is famous for it's sweat shops. It's a big deal and most people here knows about that.
So how did the sweat shops started? Nike no doubt has staffs dealing with each and every supplier. These staff are human with human aspirations. They want to do a good job in their boss's eyes. So they can get that promotion so they can afford to get that dream house.
Off they go to some developing country to see about this new factory. OF course they get the royle treatment from the boss of the factory. They might see signs of abuse and bad treatment of workers but heck it'll shave a few million a year off their balace sheet and well in their eyes they see that dream house not the bleeding hands or hot sweaty factory floor.
This is how corps work.. by the lowest human factors. Everyone just want to make that extra buck so I agree no this is a terrible thing.
Re:Dissturbing (Score:1)
Interesting. Your post made me think about this for a second. Correct me if I'm wrong, but book publishers aren't nearly as "evil" and controlling as TV or radio stations. Why is this? I think it's because book publishers generally don't produce content themselves. Authors come to them and commission them to publish their work. In TV and radio, this isn't so much the case. Maybe we ought to redefine what broadcasters are allowed to do. Maybe they should be more like book publishers by broadcasting others' work instead of their own.
Just an idea that came to me after two minutes of thinking...
Re:Uhh no monopolys (Score:1)
Yes there are alternate choices but hardly very much.
In Russia, the government owns the media (Score:2)
The Russian private TV network, NTV, the only one not controlled by the Government, has been bought out by Gazprom, the Russian state-dominated gas company due to the fact that they owe more than a billion dollars, mostly to Gazprom. To add insult upon injury, they sent a US businessman, Boris Jordan, to run the TV network.
The funny part was where Jordan said, "Now we will have free speech, now we will have independence of the media." The last independent TV station being taken over by the state run gas company. Yup, that's free speech and independence in the media alright. Hate is love. Ignorance is strength.
The sad part is, in America, we are going to soon learn that corporate conglomerates are no less dangerous to our freedom than Josef Stalin himself.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
Re:Neo-Classical Microeconomics... (Score:2)
How soon we do forget how things got to be the way they are...the airwaves ARE public property. Radio transmission and reception technology was developed by private citizens and used for two-way communication before broadcasters existed and corporations saw any profit potential in radiating EMF at radio frequencies. Of course once it was refined to the point where it was useful for them, they stepped in. But, of course, in the laissez-faire no regulation environment of the time, anyone was allowed to transmit on any frequency they chose to, and the numerical majority (amateur operators) who had been there all along were seen as 'interference' to the coporate broadcasters.
Your bullshit Cato institute study seems to recognize this in a roundabout way. But in fact it was the communications act of 1934 (and prior regulations dating to around the time of World War I) that created the idea of transmitting rights as 'property', and if it were not for that the development of for-profit broadcasting would have been impossible due to 'interference' from the original users of the bandwidth. If the FCC were eliminated tommorow, every broadcaster regardless of size, and every cell-phone system, and every other commercial user of spectrum would be whining to the government the next day to bring it back, because they would have no means at all to defend their 'property', and in fact it would not be their property at all any more than it would be anyone else's.
In fact, that isn't what the Cato institute is arguing for at all. You might check the date on that report: 1982. What they are arguing for is a carefully controlled market, with freely tranferrable broadcast licenses, that retains the FCC to enforce artificial property rights. This has already happened! These guys must have practically ghost written the telecommunications act of 1996. And you know what the result has been? Local radio is now monopolized by a few huge corporations. Its been almost as successful as electricity deregulation, which is pretty hard to beat if you know what i'm saying.
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:2)
Unmitigated bullshit. Talk to your parents (or your parents' parents) about how radio was before "deregulation" -- there was NBC, ABC, CBS .... and that was pretty much it.
Are you tired of listening to the same five songs? Luckily, the computer industry isn't regulated (yet), so you can buy a Rio 500 and rip your CDs and program your own "radio station".
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Re:Rupert Murdoch, Sky, etc., (Score:1)
Re:Tomorrow Never Dies (Score:2)
Ok... there was the blowing up [bbc.co.uk] of MI6 buildinglate last year, they did this in the movie.
There was the theives who tried to steal [bbc.co.uk] an expensive diamond from the Millennium Dome then tried to get away on a speed boat on the thames. Remember the black speedboat blasting past the Millennium Dome in the film?
The chinese standoff and the dispute about terratorial waters/air when the spy plane crashed a couple of weeks ago. It was the Royal Navy in the film.
What else?
Re:Rupert Murdoch, Sky, etc., (Score:1)
In Germany there are RTL, Sat1, Pro7, Kabel1, and a zillion other ones. You can sometimes get them via aerial, most areas via cable and everywhere by satellite. And while you have to pay for the dish, there is no subscription cost to satellite TV. If you're in the UK and get Sky you will notice all the German channels you get thrown in "for free" cause they use the same satellite and are not encrypted :).
I would have thought it's more lucrative anyway to be financed by adverts if you're received by as many people as possible.
Re:Who Owns What (Score:2)
Simple! For most of the latter half of the last century the US industriy became dominated by Mega corporations while the European industry remained fragmented. This enabled US corporations to out compete the Europeans until the latter finally figured out that the only way to compete with the US is to form equally large and equally slimy Megacorporations of their own.
So what does this have to do with the topic of this thread? Simple! If a few big media corporations control all the most frequently used news mediums it is easyer to influence public opinion. A decentralized system of many indipendent Newspapers, Radiostations, TV-channels is an unpredictable animal, and Politicians do not like unpreditable things. The Vietnam war clearly demonstrated that the media is a powerful tool to infuence public opinion. So powerful it caused US foreign policy to change. Public opinion would in future be an all important factor. Not just in national politics but in world politics. Ever since Politicians in Democratic countries all over the world hav been looking for a (Democratic) way to aquire that greatest luxury of Dictators, Control over the media.
But how? Well, how do you normally gain control of a market now a days? You become the single biggest player on it, then you drive the competition off the market. Cases in point Microsoft and Boeing. And in case you think I am dumping on the US the US mobile phone industry is now under a similar attack by European Mobile phone giants like Deutsche Telekom. Shure, the US Congress is legislating to prevent it but if the Tele-Giants stay at it they will succeed where Microsoft, Boeing and others suceeded before them, and corner a fat profitable market. They learned from the best!
Rupert Rupert Murdoch demonstrated how this can be applied to the media. You lobby politicians to pass legislation to make consolidation of news and entertainment mediums in the hands of a few Media moguls easyer. First national control and then you take the act Gobal. If you manage that, then you and your clique of 4-5 that control 90% of what the public hears negotiate with governments. A very democratic way to control the media. And a method which into the bargain is comaptable with all the best traditions of Democracy and a free market system. People like Rupert Murdoch are the "Kingmakers" of the 20'th and probabley also the 21'st century! SMILE!! Get used to it!!!
MWUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Uhummm.....
Darn LSD flashbacks!
Da Rabbit!
I, too, am opposed to monolithic media. (Score:4)
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Re:BBC and the UK (Score:1)
What makes the BBC refreshing is its non-commercial remit, and its charter to improve broadcasting technology. The BBC were at the forefront of digital TV here in the UK and are currently pushing Digital radio very hard. That said, they do still have to compete with the other high-quality channels (ITV, Ch4, Ch5, Sky1), so their output quality tends to be extremely high.
Despite what certain people may say, BBC news is still highly respected worldwide. Certainly as much as ITN, and far more than the laughable Sky News (who recently ran an advertising campaign about their first reporter in Africa!!)
6 wouldn't be *that* bad... (Score:4)
Yes, I'm talking about the RIAA and MPAA...
Who Owns What (Score:5)
Where was the FCC when a handful of corporations slowly took over the media?
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Rupert Murdoch, Sky, etc., (Score:4)
Marketing practices by Sky can really kill any challengers - to get digital satellite TV, etc., you pay £40 for installation, and the monthly subscription. It is a good deal, but they end up owning virtually all of the content.
However, a balanced service does remain: on the news services section, both Sky news and CNN top the list, so it's not as if they limit the exposure using technology or anything (or, ahem, limit the broadcast quality of competing services cough-Windows XP and MP3-cough.
The terrestrial based national coverage is quite poor however - 4 channels, 2 of which insist on high taxes to pay for sub-par content. The other two are just bad.
Overall, I use the single service from Sky, and apart from perhaps high subscription rates (£36 a month) the single service is fine, and covers everything from news to teh american channels like Paramount and Sci-Fi channel.
However, the biggest downer to a big company having monopoly is, as we all know by now, that they can charge/increase fees and you really have no choice but to pay if there is no competing brand/service of similar quality.
The important point has been missed (Score:1)
This has been discussed many times before, in many different venues. One of the works I found helpful in understanding where we are with mass communication is Alvin and Heidi Toffler's War and Anti-War, which draws a parallel between the development of communication methodologies and developments in warfare. They argue that we're already past the 'Information' age and into the 'Knowledge' age. I disagree, because we don't have the technology (yet) to allow individuals to filter any information sources as they please to synthesize the knowledge they want. It's coming, but it's slow. If and when it comes to fruition, it won't matter how many media giants eat the local radio and TV stations, because there will still be independent sources of news which can be used to garner alternative takes on the world.
At least I hope there will be.... -drin
Re:There oughta be a law... (Score:1)
Re:In Russia, the government owns the media (Score:1)
> will have free speech, now we will have
> independence of the media."
That was rather incredible, given that they immediately fired all the on-air reporters who were heavily criticising the government.
It's like firing George Will, Sam Donaldson, the McLauchlin Group, John Stossel, and the entire 60 Minutes staff, and inserting a newcast of the boat-rocking Barbara Walters and no-holds-barred Katie Couric. Now we have independence of the media.
Someone in that corporation must owe a huge favor to the new leaders in government, or has been given the nudge-nudge, wink-wink that if things go to crap, well, who was friendly to the new totalitarians when they didn't have to be?
Dissturbing (Score:2)
Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that all the media dose is provide "programming"?
Last time I checked these companies also printed books, magazines and other forms of media in addition to programming like TV and movies.
Oh wait, I just had an idea, the TV news is more for intertainment than for news, magaziens are for gosiping about what you saw on the TV, and books are for cronicaling the magazines and TV shows and movies.
So I guess I was off base because ignorance is bliss and people these days are very happy not to know the details of world events. So these publicly held media companies are just following the wishes of their stock holders by dumbing down society.
"All your indapendant thought are belong to us"
Re:Dissturbing (Score:1)
*Elvis voice* Thankyuhverymuch
Tomorrow Never Dies (Score:2)
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this is news? (Score:1)
- J. Biafra
When the united nations overwhelmingly condemmed the united states for its blockade of cuba a couple of years ago, it recieved little media coverage in the united states. nothing at all, of course, about how its blockcade effects the people there, or why the united nations made that decision.
Presently, the summit of the americas and / summit of the people are a week away in quebec city. and what are 99% of the "news" stories about? how the police are perparing for the protestors and inviews with local residents who are afraid that the local starbucks will have its windows broken. nothing, of course, about why the protestors are there in the first place. why is that?
the same corporations and wealth addicts who own the media don't want you to know. if it was widely known that the recent "free trade" agreements give corporations on one country the ability to overturn democratically invoked laws in another country
they might realize that they have very little democracy left at all.
"everything is wonderful. the economy is blooming. all is well. go to your jobs, rent a video on the way home, sit in front of the TV and let us to the thinking for you. why, just look at all this quality programming and large breasts we have to show you. watch our 'news', about sports and celebreties and how much money the superbowl commericals made. things like laws and democracy are boring. issues are boring. we won't bother you with those."
be afraid children. the internet is already WELL under way of being monitored and censored too. it's only a matter of time.
Re:Who Owns What (Score:3)
OK,
- B
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Less government (Score:1)
Re: Radio Costs (Score:2)
Plus, if you are existing on advertising dollars, it takes heavy upkeep to run those salesman out to get those dollars. The day of the "on commission" salesdroid is just about over in our neck of the woods. DOL regs about such are getting stiffer, and in our area nobody is dumb enough to take anybody up on a commission position.
I think the FCC's involvement in radio shold be limited to interference and frequncy assignment, and let the station owners fight it out in the market.
All the more reason to support self publishers! (Score:1)
NA
Media (Score:1)
Re: Radio Costs (Score:1)
I second the motion.
Any objections?
All say, "Aye"
There
Life mimics Onion (Score:2)
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Neo-Classical Microeconomics... (Score:2)
Of course, this doesn't really hold true in industries with high costs of entry (the lines for electricity regulation, lines for cable, etc.). Nor do some of us believe it really works in general either...
You can't have it both Ways (Score:2)
At the same time, many a slashdotters it seems have enjoyed the benefits of playing the stock market wisely. My point here is that everybody should take a deep look at themselves(myself included). The stock market is a large (but not only) factor in the corporate world. When you become an investor, what do you look for in a company? How do you determine what to invest (if you do) in? Reliable profit margins? Cost to earnings ratios? Potential for growth?
If you don't "vote with your" money, so to speak, and just buy based what your broker tells you, or what you think brokers and mutual funds managers will like, then you're just adding to the "evil corporations" encroaching "your rights online" daily.
My apologies to any poor slashdotters who have no options to exercise, money to invest, or don't feel that corporations are evil. And good for you.
The Top Six Media Companies That Own the World (Score:4)
General Electric (owns NBC)
AT&T (owns world's largest content delivery system, stake in portal/ISP excite@home, Liberty Media)
NT&T (cable & telephone monopoly in Japan)
Deutch Telekom (cable & telephone monopoly in Germany)
AOL/TimeWarner (need I say anything?)
Disney
Vivendi
Microsoft (2nd largest ISP/portal, partner in DreamWorks)
Bertlesmann (publishing giant, Napster partner)
News Corp (own Fox Networks, studio, magazines)
BCE (owns canada's largest private network and biggest national newspaper along with satellite TV)
OOPS that's more than 6 and I still haven't got to most of the newspaper companies, the radio company they mentioned in the article, or regional media firms (beleive it or not, you can't get ABC-NBC-CBS-Fox in Germany)
Will someone please tell me which six they are talking about?
Re:Who Owns What (Score:1)
The FTC?
They were busy ignoring the big Oil Mergers, Mobil/Exxon, BP/Amoco, Most of Shell US/Texaco (most people don't even know about this one). Those constitute the three biggest Energy mergers of all time and they all happened in the last 3-4 years.
They were carefully looking the other way as Daimler bought up Chrysler and Ford and GM greatly expanded their International manufacturing assets.
They were nowhere to be seen as unprecedented consolidation occurred in Rail/Transportation, Food Distribution, Agribusiness, Pharmaceuticals and just about every other business you can imagine.
This all wouldn't have been possible had a Republican been President, the media would never have stood still for it. On the other hand, maybe the media has been silent because their corporate masters wanted to take advantage of the merger frenzy.
People need to wake up to just how profoundly Clinton has sold out this country. Not just the Chinese and Marc Rich benefitted...
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The Bad Side of huge companies. (Score:2)
Bin Ladin's people also own UPI if I'm not mistaken.
If you would love to learn why USA is coming down read "The Lucifer Principle" by Bloom[check ebay]. It explains why the media is one small step in changing the meme that controls the society.
Think of it as "Connections" [you know the show,] but about why socities fail and thrive. Just read the book and you'll see that when we merge a company into one larger company it sets us up for an outsider to topple it or frankly buy it.
Re:Who Owns What (Score:1)
Blame the Telecommunications Act of 1996 [loc.gov].
Oops (Score:2)
well, how did we get here, and what can we do? (Score:3)
how did these companies get so goddamn big? Your money. It's nice that some slashdotters posted links about who owns what, but will any of you grow the testicular fortitude to hold back your wallets? or perhaps use this most powerful medium, the internet, to protest? I didn't think so.
The truth is, the internet is exactly the kind of tool that these companies fear, because it offers diversity of entertainment. why should I watch Friends or some other corny sitcom when netizens are making hundreds of way funnier sites and movies and jpegs, etc. Using the internet, not only do we have virtually unlimited options, but we can also bring to bear the minds of millions to a cause we feel just.
P.S. I don't really mind having six or seven corporations, or whatever, personally. Doesn't bother me a bit, because they still can't force me to do anything. the only one with the legal use of physical force is the gov't. which is something you slashdotters should be outraged against. Companies may offer shitty options, but that's what they are, options. when the gov't steps in, there are no options but jail.
Re:The problem with advocacy... (Score:1)
The reality is that there's not that much difficulty in finding decent content. The ever growing media conglomeration simply means we can expect an even less informed "masses" blathering on about the same mindless stuff in the background.
Que Sera Sera.
You people worry too much
Jedidiah
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Re:Dissturbing (Score:1)
I find this is easier than PGP incription and it will also make the job of the archeaoligists studying me in the coming decades much easier.
( that last part is a joke )
It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.
--Andrew Jackson
Re:6 wouldn't be *that* bad... (Score:1)
Jedidiah
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Great.. (Score:1)
Heh. Who will have the "off switch" installed?
Re:Who Owns What (Score:1)
Da Rabbit!
Re:Tomorrow Never Dies (Score:1)
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It Could be worse.... (Score:1)
Thats outside of the Government news service, but they wouldn't be biased, would they?
Re:Life mimics Onion (Score:1)
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m-m-Max Headroom (Score:1)
Let's have a show of hands. Who remembers?
Re:I, too, am opposed to monolithic media. (Score:1)
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"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:5)
It's a deplorable situation, but one that can be corrected. Curiously enough, the internet is one of the largest correcting factors, primarily because it is inherently two-way, and because the entry price is low.
Media companies know this. I suspect it is one of the driving factors behind big media's push to make the internet "simpler", as they put it. More like, say, television.
It's really hard to run an internet media company. After all, just about anybody can stand up and call bullshit on your stuff. They even seem to get a perverse satisfaction out of it.
I suspect that in the future, though the media world will realign itself. Large media will probably become feeds for smaller local media that have local advertising concerns not large enough for the big boys to worry about. The key here is just like radio: Local, Local, Local. Local folks presenting local issues concerning the local area. This is awfully hard to do with big media. The availability of more distribution channels at a local level also makes it harder on them.
Internet News Media (Score:3)
I like Internet media. I enjoy reading Drudge Report and WorldNetDaily, which carry stories you won't see (first) in mainstream media. At the very least, it forces the mainstream media to catch up and cover some stories and opinions they wouldn't had wanted to. Here's hoping Internet media sites can survive, I think it's the closest we can get to "freedom of the press".
The conspiracy! :) (Score:2)
The Usual Whining, Moaning & Lack of Perspective (Score:5)
This is the same old kneejerk, Katzian song-and-dance that Slashdot seems to throw up every three months or so. There's one universal cure for big media corporations you don't like: Don't consume their product. Don't watch their movies or TV shows. Don't subscriibe to their ISPs or cable systems or online services or magazines. If you don't like what they produce, buy elsewhere. Or start your own company. If enough people boycott them, the power of the marketplace will force them to change their ways.
What's that you say? Not enough people will boycott them? That they'll thrive despite your boycott? That people who don't share your views will continue to patronize their service? Well GOSH, how SHOCKING that those mindless lemmings would DARE to have opinions other than your own! How dare they use AOL and subscribe to Time-Warner Cable and eat at McDonalds and shop at WalMart despite all the times that you've told them how politically incorrect such actions are! How dare they put their own convienance and financial well-being above the superior opinions of the fashionable elite!
Why, if those all those little people don't use their choices wisely, we'll just have to take those choices away from them! We'll just have to pass laws to tax large media congolomerates so we take money away from them and give it to government subsidized art that we, the politically correct ruling elite, judge to be superior. (Oh, wait. We already do that with PBS and the NEA.) We'll have to raise the taxes and fees passed on to the customers of media giants to punish them for making the wrong choice--just like we do for people who use tobacco. We'll have to file lawsuits against big media companies to drive them out of business--just like we're doing with the firearms industry. And if people still aren't using their freedom properly, we'll just have to outlaw bad media and throw its consumers in jail--just like we do with users of marijuana and cocaine. If we don't like what people choose, we'll just have to take that freedom away.
(/sarcasm)
Remember: Freedom of the press is for those who own one. If you don't like the choices available, go out and create your own. And if you work hard and make it a success, and AOL Time Warner Microsoft Beatrice comes along and says "Hey, Mr. Independent Press Guy, we'll pay you ten times what the book value of your company is worth and you can stop working those 80 hour weeks to clear 20K a year in profit so we can add you to our giant synergy machine," why, I'm SURE you'll turn all that money down. Just like Netscape did when AOL came calling. Just like Bungie did when Microsoft came calling.
Look, all this bitching about the current round of media concentration is just short-sighted, ahistorical whining that ignores the huge diversification of media created by technology. Go back 30 years ago, and what did you have? Three major TV networks. Two major wire news services. (You had more newspapers, but by and large they got much of their national and international news from the same few sources.) One phone company. No cable TV. No internet. No Slashdot!
And since then, look at the vast, technology-fueled growth in various forms of media:
Cable TV, with thousands of possible channels to choose from, of which several dozen or more will be on any given cable system.
Two competeing satelite TV firms, with hundreds of additional choices, many from around the world
Three more broadcast networks
Foriegn language channels
For that matter, more foreign language newspapers available more places
Tens of thousands of small press magazines fueled by the desktop publishing boom
Thousands of independent record companies fueled by the CD boom
Untold millions of websites, all available at a mouse click, thanks to computers and the internet.
Thirty thousand newsgroups (even if half of them are for porn; and, for that matter:)
Multitudes upon multitudes of adult videos and and porn sites where before there were dirty theaters and a handfull of skin mags (a vast number of choices, albeit of a particular type)
E-mail
FTP, Napster, Gneutella, and a thousand other file sharing programs that keep popping up no matter how hard they tru to shut them down
Et. Frigging Cetera.
So, in short, stop whining. You have more media choices available to you than any other people at any point in the history of mankind.
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:2)
Radio got that way due to the heavy entry and upkeep costs on a radio station. Big media wants this, it allows them to use their money as that extra lever.
That said, you ought to see the penetration statistics on LLL style radio broadcasts. Yep, folks keep the office radio tuned to sat-fed pop-rock (musak with commercials) because they're trying not to offend, or simply because they can't / don't want to think about it, but if you are out trying to get the local opinion leaders in a market nailed, then you can do worse than real local radio.
I suspect the real change will come when computers become capable of inexpensive content filtering. At that point, the advertisement becomes much less a revenue factor, and content provision becomes king. Yes, it will probably mean a shift in funding sources and role for media providers, but hey, what ever happened to horse-carriage makers?
Bay Area radio situation (Score:3)
Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:3)
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Re:The Top Six Media Companies That Own the World (Score:3)
All of us rely on journalists to tell us the objective truths, and I know it's more than a little disconcerting to see journalists write a 'story' that is nothing more than a parroting of a company's press release. There is simply just too much information and things happening out there for any one person to do their own research to find the events occurring. However, with the continued conglomeration of the media, honest journalistic practices are being replaced with nothing more than ratings grabbing, where a story that embarrasses a politician or other public feature gets a more thorough investigation and coverage than the things that will really affect all our lives.
Re:The Top Six Media Companies That Own the World (Score:2)
The problem is worse when the State-owned CBC [cbc.ca] is told by politicos to become more "profitable", then start to copycat the private media stations, and start competing for a bigger share of the advertising market. So, the State television becomes more like a whorthless popular pap provider like private networks than quality content provider for the minority of people who really understand culture (and are the only people who really matter - as opposed to the masses of corporate fare-sucking unwashed consumer hordes).
Interestingly, the people the most opposed to tha increase of advertising share are the private broadcasters; they're the most vocal in wanting to keep the CBC a State-operated network so it won't intrude too much in their lucrative advertising.
But it seems it still won't please the likes of Konrad Black [nationalpost.com], who would like the State minimized to the point that it solely looks at Konrad's interests (as long as Konrad doesn't pay any taxes for it), so Konrad keeps his crusade [nationalpost.com] to destroy the State as much as possible, especially if it won't let him be anointed [canoe.ca].
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Independent Media Sources? (Score:2)
What better way to combat this this eventual conglomeration into the International OneMedia Corp than to start spreading the word about the small independent media?
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Natural progression of radio... (Score:3)
So the natural evolution of things is to consolidate stations of similar musical taste, and eventually the stations within a local area will become "orthogonal." Their listenership is determined by the fact that listeners of one station will probably enjoy none or few of the other stations.
For instance, in DC, we have one dancy/uptempo pop station, one urban-rap-pop soul station, one crunchy/grungy modern rock station, one old-school-rock station, and a mix station. I usually listen to the dancy station, and rarely listen to the others. We might have a country station, but I'm 100% orthogonal to that myself
Radio broadcast is, by definition, a mass-broadcast-medium. You need large audiences to make it pay off. So you need to not only consolidate audiences over a single city's spectrum, but over multiple cities.
Now where does regulation come in? Spectrum should be auction-leased by the FCC for whatever use the leaser would like (AM/FM/digital/cellular/etc.). The auction would determine the true value of the spectrum leased. That would move "cellular" Internet (such as Ricochet) forward.
In the end, our dream of a 20 independent stations per FM band is not possible unless the government runs the radio stations. However, we have the reality of a limitless number of Internet radio stations. I never listen to radio at home, only Shoutcast. I'd love to listen in my car, but there is no high-speed ubiquitous wireless Internet service in DC yet.
Let's also keep in mind that satellite radio [xmradio.com] will launch this year to give us 100 stations spanning an incredible variety of musical tastes: jazz, gospel, tejano, caribbean, rock en espanol, christian adult, christian teen, techno, not to mention the PBS News Hour, CSPAN, NASCAR, BBC World Service, etc.
Re:Tomorrow Never Dies (Score:2)
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Re:"Freedom of the press is guaranteed... (Score:2)
I think you might be SomeoneIDoKnow -- you sound a lot like my sister, who worked in radio for many, many, many years (unprofitable ones, too, but that's another story).
I, too, have spent some time in solitary cueing carts. I was way down the totem, but I do know a bit about local radio and how unprofitable it is without a conglomeration.
However, I don't think there's anything sacred or holy in localy owned radio or newspaper, or indeed anything. The local radio station is just as likely to suck as any other station (except for college stations -- they all, universally, suck. But that's my opinion) In the end, the market will decide how stations fare. If you don't happen to agree with the market (and the market can be a fickle mistress, to be sure), you can roll your own station to suit yourself (with an MP3 player), start your own station (and run it, profitless, for a couple of months before you're forced to adopt one or another playlist in order to get advertisers and eventually sell to Clear Channel because they can sell ad time for you and you can go back to being a DJ, until they fire you. And if you're any good, the Arbitron book will reflect that the audience liked you, and Clear Channel will either hire you back, or another conglomerate will).
Look, the market doesn't guarantee you anything but a chance to compete. It doesn't guarantee success. And, it so happens that conglomerating stations makes those stations competitive. What are you going to do about it? Regulate? The same thing will happen, only this time it requires the conglomerates to pay off the regulators, a cost that gets passed down to advertisers (who won't be able to afford it), and thus fewer stations playing more of the same dreck.
"Beware by whom you are called sane."