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Thane Peterson/Business Week explains how Michael Powell's ill-advised efforts to help Big Media united left and right alike. After such a fiasco, resignation is the honorable option for the following reasons:
· Powell's no. 1 policy initiative has been repeatedly rebuked.
· He refused to make the 250-page public policy document about the rules change public.
· He only held one meeting about the rules change.
· He skewered the data he did make available.
In the meantime, Frank James/Chicago Tribune says in FCC Chief Warns Of Future Shock:
"I think free, over-the-air TV is dying," says FCC Chairman Michael Powell. "I don't care how much money they made this year, they're dying." Part of the reason, he says, is that cable networks have both subscriber and advertising revenue, unlike network television. Powell also cites cable's freedom from the federal indecency rules that broadcast stations must follow. "In 10 years, free TV is going to be gone -- absent any policy decisions trying to help," he claims. Opponents remain unconvinced. "Here we have the chairman of the FCC trying to somehow protect four of the six largest and most profitable media companies that dominate the news, information and entertainment market in America today," said Gene Kimmelman, of the Consumers Union. "His entire philosophy reeks of corporate welfare for the wealthiest, most profitable companies at the expense of competition." Powell also fears that the nation's public telephone network will start to fail because rather than building facilities, companies such as MCI and AT&T are piggybacking on the equipment of regional phone companies "like sucker fish on whales." However, he was unsuccessful in his bid to revise FCC policy regarding the telephone industry.
While I don't think Powell will actually resign, I do think it's interesting that a major business publication is advocating this. Powell has tried to change media concentration of companies that control the flow of content both through traditional media outlets as well as the Internet, and people are rejecting that change. His argument is often that the Internet will save us from media concentration, because it provides wide ranging choices from many traditional and non-traditional media. The part he forgets to mention is that those same companies that are so concentrated also control the pipes to the Internet, giving them tremendous power over our supposed savior, and they are the same companies that are trying through various legislative and tort methods to close some of that access. I hope that this is part of the reason people are rejecting the further concentration of companies, beyond the general fear that traditional media is too concentrated already.
OJR has this interview with Powell, who responds to the concentration of media question:
...the problem in a society is not concentration and scarcity but actually abundance, fragmentation and hyper competition. There's so much of it the audience is getting fragmented across so many different media that they're very hard to reach and hold onto.
But if the overwhelming majority of the voices are all coming from the same few media companies, fragmented yes, but still from the same kinds of sources, then how do you have variety of information. Maybe you have a million slightly different shelter or food porn channels, but will you have true variety of viewpoints, critical news, sources and opinions to counter the concentration of media companies? Just because the audience is fragmented doesn't mean that reflects a diverse media.
Regarding the death of over-the-air TV, I would urge you to reread the last bit of this transcript of a debate over the broadcast flag, held at the DRM conference last spring. Advocates for the broadcast flag, a DRM technology that can be embedded in digital TV transmission but will only work if the transmissions are controlled through cable or similar distribution systems (to keep this TV from P2P networks), want to end over-the-air TV because they can't use broadcast flag DRM with it. But as the end of the transcript shows, those who wish to end over-the-air TV are contemptuous of those who still get TV through that method, maybe because they are poor, not with-it, or uninformed about Sex-and-the-City? I suspect those that want to end air broadcast think that they can both control the content with the DRM, as well as force the last 20% of the populace (including Mozelle Thompson, FTC commissioner) to buy cable. And you know increasing the bottom line by up to 20% for the cable companies, who are part of those big concentrated media companies, would be fabulous for this or any year's profit statements, CEO/analyst conference calls, etc.
Broadcast flags and more media concentration would be big wins for these media companies. The losers would be the public, who would further lose choice of distribution mechanism, as well as voice and control, in their content.
Posted by Mary Hodder at September 10, 2003 07:19 AM