In case you haven’t heard, on June 2, the Federal Communications Commission (the government agency charged with regulating media in the US) granted sweeping new freedoms to individual media companies–the most extensive in decades. Among the changes were the freedom to own a newspaper as well as multiple television, radio, and cable stations within the same market (city or town), and the freedom to own more television stations penetrating the national market, up from 35% to 45% of US households. In an era when media concentration offers Americans fewer broadcasting voices, the ruling was strongly supported by the major networks and the White House. (News Corp., which owns Fox, and Viacom Inc., which owns CBS and UPN–as well as MTV, Showtime, and Blockbuster Video–both currently exceed their 35% limit.)
Yesterday, however, the House voted 400-21 in favor of rolling back the television restriction to 35% (although it allowed other aspects of the FCC ruling), and the Senate looks likely to follow suit. President Bush has threatened his first-ever veto if the rollback is successful, but the bipartisan opposition appears overwhelming. (Apparently, both liberals and conservatives feel they’re the minority voice on today’s airwaves.)
Media mergers have a profound impact on what Americans see, hear, and read. As David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson point out in their book, Film Art, “Warner Brothers can finance a film, distribute it, produce a sound track CD, promote the film on CNN and in Entertainment Weekly, and later feed it to US cable on HBO and to worldwide cable/sattelite showing on TNT–all within the same company.”
Outrageously, FCC Chairman Michael Powell (the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell) has defended the 45% ruling by claiming it will increase diversity: “”We are confident in our decision. We created enforceable rules that reflect the realities of today’s media marketplace. The rules will benefit Americans by protecting localism, competition and diversity.”
Does anyone even think through such statements anymore? Or is everything merely boiled down to nice-sounding catchphrases, randomly applied?
Stay tuned for more developments…