‘media monopoly’<\/em> still means a concentration of media companies into the hands of a few powerful conglomerates that exercise undue influence over distribution and content. And those issues still possess great resonance. In 2003, three million Americans rose up to roll back FCC regulations that would have allowed the media monopolists to grow ever larger.<\/p>\nWe are facing that same battle today and the same voices from Big Media are telling the same lies to advance their greed. They argue that cable and the Internet neutralize the risk that any one company can dominate public opinion.<\/p>\n
“There are more (media) outlets today than there have been at any point in the past,” says media investor Christopher Dixon of GGCP. “Every day that more people are on the Internet, the argument for cross-ownership limitations falls by the wayside.”<\/span><\/p>\nFirst of all, there are not more media outlets than ever – or at least not by any qualitative count. The actual number of radio and TV stations has remained fairly constant. The new players are in cable and the Internet. But most of the major cable networks are owned by the same corporations that have consolidated so many of the broadcast stations. It’s just nonsense to allege that the number of outlets is increasing as the number of owners is decreasing.<\/p>\n
Secondly, it makes no sense to suggest that more people on the Internet should affect cross-ownership regs. Monopolies in media distribution are adverse to the public interest no matter how many people use the Internet. And, again, it needs to be pointed out that most of the top Internet news destinations are owned by Big Media. They think that just because I can<\/em> have a web site, that I pose a competitive threat to Fox News.<\/p>\nI wish that were true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the FCC continues to review media ownership rules, Big Media hacks persist in spreading false claims about competition and the benefits of local ownership. Former FCC commissioner, Reed Hundt, told USA Today that the meaning of ‘media monopoly’ has changed: “‘Media monopoly’ seems now to be about whether you can use the Internet for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-media","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-5q","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1135,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1135","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":0},"title":"Change At FCC And Congress: Good News For Media Reform","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/21\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The signature slogan for the 2008 campaign season was a single word that can spark a thousand interpretations: CHANGE! [It narrowly beat out \"Maverick\" and \"You Betcha\"] And change there will be. This week, something happened in the House of Representatives that is almost unheard of. The sacred principle of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FCC"","block_context":{"text":"FCC","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=90"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":246,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=246","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":1},"title":"The FCC Weapons of Mass Comminication Tour 2006","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/4\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The people do not want bigger media monopolies stuffing homogenized content from corporate headquarters down the throats of local consumers. In the first of six public meetings on new rules for media ownership, members of the Federal Communications Commission brought their dog and pony show to Los Angeles. All five\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3354,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3354","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":2},"title":"Fight The FCC’s Phony Net Neutrality Plan","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/2\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most promising signs of the early Obama administration was the appointment of Julius Genachowski to chair the FCC. There was significant hope that the days of coddling Big Media and permitting more consolidation and concentration of corporate influence was about to end. However, it is now turning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":292,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=292","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":3},"title":"The FCC’s Ownership Quandry","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/7\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Federal Communications Commission is getting it from both sides. A consortium of broadcasters and publishers wrote to Chairman Kevin Martin, to complain that they still don't have as much of a stranglehold on the public's attention as they would like. The letter was signed by all of the broadcast\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":231,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=231","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":4},"title":"FCC Censors Itself On Local Ownership","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/15\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A report written in 2004 by researchers at the Federal Communications Commission found that local ownership of broadcasters enhanced coverage of community issues. That conclusion directly contradicts prior arguments made by the Commission that claimed consolidation aided localism. The research analyzed over 4,000 hours of news programming and was conducted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":648,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=648","url_meta":{"origin":336,"position":5},"title":"FCC Still Shilling For Big Media","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/18\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From the New York Times: \"The head of the Federal Communications Commission has circulated an ambitious plan to relax the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.\" \"Kevin J. Martin,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tell the FCC: Stop Big Media","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.stopbigmedia.com\/graphics\/blogad.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}