Category: examining the mainstream
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Catch Up on Your Indecency
Last Thursday the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on “Decency,” and the hearing’s video is now available on-line at the Committee’s website, along with printed statements from the invited guests who gave tesimony. I did short report on the hearing on last Friday’s radioshow, available for listening online. You can also read that headline.…
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Government Handouts and Playing Hardball with Cable and Satellite Win Big Money for Nexstar & Sinclair
Nexstar is this year’s Sinclair Broadcast Group — a medium-sized TV station owner getting aggressive about squeezing cash out of stations any way possible. Nexstar isn’t as outwardly political as Sinclair is — there’s no Nexstar equivalent to Mark Hyman‘s The Point — although it recently refused to air NBC’s controversial “Book of Daniel” on…
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On Friday’s Radio Show: Independent Video Producer and Ex-Nexstar Employee Ken Schreiner; More Nexstar Bullying
I initially invited Ken Schreiner on the program because he’s a local guy who completed a feature documentary on the relationship between people and wild animals that he’s distributing on his website, along with other videos he’s produced. Only after extending the invitation did I realize that Ken used to work for our local Nexstar-owned…
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Radio News for Sale
As discussed on the last two radioshows, Clear Channel’s Madison, WI news/talk station WIBA has sold the naming rights of its newsroom to AMCORE bank. Kristian Knutsen has been hot on this story, writing three stories for the Daily Page blog of Madison’s alt weekly Isthmus.
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No Surprise, NPR Smears Florida Pirates
In the 1970s NPR lobbied the FCC to get rid of low-power FM radio, and in 1978, the Commission did. Then in 2000 NPR lobbied Congress to hem in the new low-power FM service, and Congress did that. Now it’s 2005 and it should be no surprise that the public radio network would air a…
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House OKs End Date for Analog TV, Poorest Households Set To Get Screwed
This is a story I’ve been following on the radioshow, though not so much on the blog. Monday the House passed a bill that sets Feb. 17 , 2009 as the date when your analog TV officially becomes obsolete, and all stations must broadcast exclusively in digital. One of the big controversies, besides the transition…
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Tracking the Biggest Godcaster
This month’s edition of Mother Jones magazine is focused on the religious right and its political machinations, and a lot of it is kinda frightening. There’s a good article on Salem Communications, the largest commercial chain of Christian stations in the country. Like its secular brethren, such as Clear Channel, Salem has actively lobbied for…
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News Headlines from the Dec. 2 Radioshow: Indecency Day at the Senate Commerce Committe; Parents and Televangelists Not So Happy With Gov’t Indecency Regs; Giant Alternative Weekly Merger
These are the media news headlines as read on the Dec. 2 edition of the mediageek radioshow. Indecency Day at the Senate Commerce Committee These days, indecency is never gone too long, or, at least, Congress’ love affair with indecency. On Tuesday, Nov. 29 the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on broadcast indecency, and…
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Grateful Dead Prove There’s Really No Such Thing as a Kinder Capitalist
One might argue that the Grateful Dead made their fortune through a combination of luck and savvy marketing. Realizing that after the 60s hippie culture faded away they were unlikely to make it as platinum selling recording artists, the band came to rely on touring as its steady income. Although it’s hard to see it…
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Senate Communications Hearing Orgy with our Spectrum and Internet Rights in the Middle
Perhaps responding to criticism that he’s been dragging his feet on comm stuff, Senate Commerce Committee Chair has schedule a virtual assload of hearings for the first 11 weeks of the next session on various communications related issues. My guess is that this is all prep work for the forthcoming Telecommunications Act of 2006, and…