Category: media ownership & consolidation

A small blip on today’s Associated Press radar: “Clear Channel Defends Size of Company” “WASHINGTON – The head of a major radio company is taking aim at charges that his company engages in anti-competitive behavior. Lowry Mays of Clear Channel Communications told a Senate panel that the competition in the radio industry is “robust.” He…

Radio activist extrordinaire Don Shellhardt relays how to submit your testimony to the FCC for the Commission’s public hearing on media ownership to be held in Richmond, VA: As noted elsewhere on this Message, the FCC has just announced Field Hearings in Richmond on whether the FCC should remove the remaining legal limits on how…

When the FCC appeared in front of the Senate Commerce Committee a couple weeks ago the focus was primarily on telecomm and competition in the phone/Internet biz. But the issue of ownership in the mass media nonetheless got brought up by several Senators and was therefore addressed by the five commissioners. Now, the Commerce Committee…

I’ve just seen a glimpse of television conglomerate Sinclair Broadcasting’s plans to centralize and de-localize local news at its stations. Sinclair owns and operates 63 stations across the country reaching 25% of the national broadcast audience. Your local news may soon come from Maryland.

You know that a particular issue is getting traction with the broader public when the New York Times’ crusty old conservative commentator opines on it… and he agrees with you. William Safire’s Sunday column is “On Media Giantism,” where he comes down squarely against loosening media ownership restrictions. In fact, his leading complaint is that…

Yesterday was the first public forum on the FCC’s upcoming media ownerhip review. This one was sponsored by the Columbia University School of Law (not the FCC), and, according to CBS Marketwatch apparently had several hundred attendees in addition to lots of speakers. Columbia has archived videos of the forum on-line. I watched a little…

I just finished scanning through the C-SPAN archive of the meeting and found about a half-hour where the commissioners tackle the media concentration issue at the prompting of Sen. Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Dorgan (D-ND). Chairman Powell’s response was quite interesting, in fact, contending that he is concerned about concentration, especially in radio, and that,…

The Wall Street Journal conjectures: “The big-name exits [of media CEOs] indicate that time may be running out for executives who haven’t fixed the growing list of problems brought on by the conglomeratization of the entertainment industry. The departures also raise the question of whether the lumbering conglomerates make sense. … “For better or worse,…

According to Variety, FCC Chair Michael Powell has agreed to appear at a public forum on media ownership being held at Columbia Law School on Jan 16. Originally only FCC Commissioner Michael Copps had agreed to attend this forum, while Powell only grudgingly gave in to holding one public forum on the issue in Richmond…

According to the Wall Street Journal the FCC has received over 1700 comments on the upcoming media ownership rules reviews. The article attributes the flood to some coordinated campaigns run by consumer and advocacy groups, which according to an unnamed “former FCC insider” means that the commission will likely note the volume but not necessarily…