As expected, the FCC said “yeah, baby” to a deal between Comcast and AT&T Broadband, wherein the former will acquire the latter. This creates the largest cable company in the US, with twice as many customers as the #2 company, Time-Warner cable. Any cable subscriber with a brain (and who isn’t a major stockholder) has feared that this merger will cause rates to spike, and possibly limiting the variety of content available over cable TV and over broadband Internet services. …
Archive | November, 2002
NBC TV Reporter Says Remain Critical of Media
I guess mainstream TV news journalists are sometimes allowed to speak their mind. The Daily Northwestern reports on an appearance by Dateline NBC correspondent John Hockenberry at the McCormick Tribune Forum:
He said viewers should be particularly critical of broadcast media after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“In light of the paralysis of the government and the media, you have to keep your critical thinking without them giving it to you,” Hockenberry said. “Civic change lies in the citizens of America.”
Of course, I’m thinking, “no shit, Sherlock.” Nevertheless, it’s important for impressionable and thoughtful undergrads to hear this message straight from someone knee deep in the mainstream rather than just from critics.
news headlines from 11-08-02 mediageek radio show
These are the news headlines as read on the Nov. 8 edition of the mediageek radio show.
Stories include: FCC Extends Ownership Rule Comment Deadline; Digital TV Causing Analog TV Interference; Aussies To Block “Protest Websites”; Freak Radio Reporter Arrested by City Council Member; The Microsoft/ DOJ settlement
TelCos Lie
MediaSavvy notes a new report that enumerates the many ways that our local telephone companies (or “Regional Bell Operating Companies” aka RBOCs) are lying to us and picking our pockets. And my local telco, SBC/Ameritech, has got to be one of the worst. I’m still reeling from the fact that the Illinois regulators approved the […]
How the FCC Might Affect Newspapers
Although the FCC has no direct regulatory power over newspapers, if the bureau goes ahead with loosening or tossing out the cross-ownership ban, this would like have effects on the nation’s newspapers, nonetheless. In the American Journalism Review John Morton analyzes some of the ways in which newspapers might be impacted.