mediageek

Category: media ownership & consolidation

  • It’s Confirmed — AT&T Planning To Gobble Up BellSouth, Public Interest Be Damned

    AT&T confirmed today that it plans to buy BellSouth and the remaining portion of Cingular wireless that it doesn’t already own, for $67 billion. If the deal goes through, AT&T will be both the biggest conventional telephone and the #1 wireless/cellular company in the US. Marketwatch is reporting that analysts it has talked to don’t…

  • Recreating a Monopoly

    Remember the old Ma Bell, AT&T? Before the 1980s we pretty much all had the same phone company and one long distance company with pretty high rates. You could only get your phone from the phone company, and this monopoly was protected by the federal government. That looks like the current dream of the new…

  • News Headlines from the Feb. 24 Radioshow: Net Neutrality Setback in the House; Senate Comm Committee Considers Cable

    These are the news headlines as read on the Feb. 24 edition of the mediageek radioshow. Net Neutrality Setback in the House Energy & Commerce Committee The battle over the future of the internet is heating up on Capitol Hill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is currently drafting telecommunications legislation that will address many…

  • Godcasters Making a Mint by Trafficking in Free Low-Power Radio Licenses

    Last year I was tracking the apparent trafficking in low-power FM translator stations by several Christian broadcasting groups. Translators are stations whose only legal purpose is to rebroadcast the programming of a full-power parent station. John at DIYmedia has an update on the traffickers and their spoils from laundering licenses that come free-of-charge from the…

  • The Future of the Internet Is on the Table

    I dedicated all of yesterday’s radioshow (already available for download) to the issue of network neutrality. I’m quite convinced that this is the most important communications issue to watch in 2006, since whatever Congress does will have long-lasting repercussions on the very basis of our telecommunications infrastructure. Yesterday’s show featured some excerpts of testimony from…

  • Network Newspeak

    As I predicted yesterday, the telecomm industry showed up at today’s Senate Commerce Committee meeting and found a way to advocate for THEIR version of network neutrality–the one that lets them filter what customers get over the internet-which isn’t really all that neutral. Say hello to network diversity, and what Congresscritter wants to be accused…

  • What Congresscritter Can Say ‘No’ to Network Neutrality?

    Tuesday morning the Senate Commerce Committee takes up the issue of net neutrality, which I believe is the most important issue on the nation’s telecomm agenda this year. As Ben Scott, Policy Director for Free Press, pointed out on this week’s radioshow, Congresscritters aren’t weighing in definitively yet on the issue, and the devil will…

  • Ownership Change Decimating a Local Newsroom

    JD Lasica’s New Media Musings put me onto a story about FOX affiliate KHON in Honolulu, where the station’s news anchor went on a bit of a tirade on air about the massive layoffs the station’s new owner is implementing. In particular, he revealed the new owner to be nothing more than the equivalent of…

  • WB/UPN Combination Will Hurt Sinclair, Trigger Consolidation

    The news this week that the WB and UPN will be merging into one network has many mid-sized station owners shaking. That’s because a lot of markets have one affiliate for each network, but when they combine, one of those stations is going to lose its network affiliation. Already big players like Tribune and CBS…

  • Senators Discuss Plugging the A-Hole

    Public Knowledge’s Policy Blog has a rundown summary of today’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the Broadcast Flag. According to PK Sen. John Sununu was the hero of the day, questioning why Congress needed to interevene and noting that other technologies, like VHS videotape, flourished without government mandated protections. If there wasn’t a consensus on…