August 2006

FCC Media Ownership Rules

The FCC is about to start the process of rewriting the media ownership rules again. One of my media friends e-mailed me about a campaign run by hearusnow.org, a project of consumers Union. They are urging the public to send a form letter to the FCC and the White House. I can't stand e-mailing form letters, so I worte an e-mail of my own. Not exactly my best writing:

"Originally contained in public utility law, the phrase "public interest, convenience and necessity" was incorporated into the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934.

I do not think that the ownership of massive amounts of radio stations by group owners such as Infinity and Clear Channel is in the 'public interest'. This is especially true in the case of Clear Channel, which also owns SFX Entertainment - a talent representative and major national concert promoter. Companies such as Infinity and Clear Channel now hove far too much control in what we hear on the radio and (if you're a rock fan) what concerts we can see in our local venues. It also amazes me that here in the New York City area, both all-news radio stations are owned by Infinity. So much for diverse voices !

The same problems now exist to a lesser extent with television networks as well. The ownership cap has snuck up from 25% to 35% to 39%.

The large radio and television station groups are all doing well financially. Let's not make it easy for them to buy up all of our country's large, profitable stations, leaving the Mom and Pop 'runt of the litter' stations to go bankrupt and have their liceneses bought by group owners who will pipe in programming by satellite and have no local presence.

Yes, owners should be allowed to make a profit. But the Communications Act says "public interest" not private interest. You have a chance to preserve the freedom of speech and the diversity of opinions that keep our counrty great and free. Yes, anyone can buy a printing press or start a blog, but not everyone can have a radio or television station. Until over-the-air broadcasting goes away completely, you have an obligation to multiply the voices heard and seen on our nations licensed frequencies."

Broadband Media: From Network to Networked

Here's a blog post I missed the first time through. Peter Cervieri posted this video of Herb Granath in a firside chat with Shelly Plamer. Scroll down past the Flash player and read the text summary, if you'd prefer. (I hate talking heads myself. I can read faster than I can watch.)

That'll Never Work

Gee, I wish I could see into the future. Well, maybe I can. When I saw, then made, my first QuickTime™movie I thought it was, well - useful. But beyond making video previews, I didn't think it would ever be as big as "full motion video."

When AVID came out with 'AVR24' resolution and called it 'broadcast' I laughed to myself. "That may fly on cable, but it'll never air on network TV!"

And cell phone video, how great is that ?

Well, my 2 year old computer does a decent job at playing 720p video at 24fps. George Schlatter Productions used AVR24 to edit skits on his 1994 series "She-TV". And YouTube is getting lots of hits with it's cell phone camera and webcam uploads. So what's next? Nah, downloading Hollywood features over the internet will never be big. Right !

In 1996, GENE JANKOWSKI, the former President of CBS, told an interviewer from the BBC:

"The Internet I associate more with cable and with phone companies. It has nothing, the Internet has nothing to do with why people want to watch 60 Minutes or ER or Dallas. In the last couple of years there's been a tremendous amount of attention focused on technology and the new equipment and digitalisation etc and so forth and my attitude is that we cannot lose sight of the fact that it's not technology that gives value to man, but rather it is people with creative ideas that give value to the technology. We don't go out and buy a VCR just because we want to own a VCR, we buy it because it gives us the opportunity to see the creative programming that we can play through our VCR."