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House Subcommittee Votes to Stop FCC Media Ownership Rule

money.cnn.com — A House subcommittee voted to block the FCC's rule allowing cross-media ownership in the country's 20 largest media markets.

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  • ileen4justice, on 06/18/2008, -7/+45There is HOPE
  • Ridgeliner7, on 06/18/2008, -3/+15"The full committee is scheduled to vote on the spending bill next week, but the final measure likely will be wrapped into a large year-end spending bill covering virtually all federal agencies. At any point in the process, lawmakers could, and most likely will, remove the FCC provision."

  • neognostic, on 06/18/2008, -19/+31Bush will veto it, we will have to wait for President Obama to fix this issue.
    • Cryptocracy, on 08/17/2008, -17/+8Obama is an insider, he won't fix anything.
    • RyeBrye, on 06/19/2008, -1/+3As good as Obama is on some issues, I don't think he's very good on media-related issues... such as this one, fair use... or on other issues... like Real ID (although to be fair, he and McCain are BOTH for Real ID)
      • exspasticcomics, on 06/19/2008, -0/+2he's for net neutrality - so we'll see. anyways- even with a load of money- this thing might be in turn around for a couple of months- about 6 months of bush left.. (ya- i'm optimistic )
    • alexanderthepsy, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1Bush, can't veto the bill if it never passes the house and the senate. Which it sounds like will happen to this bill.
    • VitriolAndAngst, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1I'm just hoping that Obama is pretending to be this "reasonable, middle of the road" Democrat. The last thing we need is someone in the Middle of decent Liberalism and whatever that thing is that lies and steals and cheats on the Right.
    • 55mph, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1President Obama is being set up. The moment he trys to level the playing field in earnest, he's a dead man.
  • Fangsinmybeard, on 06/18/2008, -3/+66They need to stop cross media ownership period. The propaganda machine must self destruct.
  • jmkiii, on 06/19/2008, -1/+11divestment is in order!
  • bippitybop1, on 06/19/2008, -6/+3If this goes through we won't need to use independent news sources like digg!
  • mrzeero, on 06/19/2008, -0/+5I guess for the time being they will have to keep sending out 20 faxes each day detailing their talking points.
  • NacaV, on 06/19/2008, -1/+19Kevin Martin is a corrupt SOB. Another scumbag nominated by Bush...
  • bleutuna, on 06/19/2008, -3/+16Nice. Imagine someone passing a bill that actually protected free speech, instead of facilitating its assassination.

    SiSePuede!
    • cyrax04, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1This regulates speech, what are you talking about?
  • HuskyPuzzle, on 06/19/2008, -2/+10It's about time. ***** has gone far enough.
  • 0Xonox0, on 06/19/2008, -1/+5Down with the old media, up with the new!
  • happyseamonster, on 06/19/2008, -3/+12Broadcast Neutrality.
  • colincornaby, on 06/19/2008, -1/+4I didn't know about this situation beforehand, and the description made it sound like the House Subcommittee ruled in favor of cross-media ownership.

    Having read the article I am relieved, to say the least...
  • hal9003, on 06/19/2008, -11/+10wow can't believe how many diggers favor intervention into free markets. I guess it's easier to say its the government's job to police the media, than it is too think for yourself and choose to get your news & information from the sources available. Yea, that's too much work.

    And people wonder why all the major media outlets are pro big government? As long the government tightly regulates the media, they will favor the companies that push an agenda that expands the power of the state, at the expense of individual freedom.

    Wake up! In a functioning free market, if crappy media companies buy up all the media companies in 1 region and continue to have crappy service, than that creates an opportunity for a new or smaller media company to gain a lot of audience and market share. Thus the crappy big media company loses a lot of money, pissing off shareholders who then fire the execs who thought it would be a good idea to buy up all the media in one region and offer a poor service. The next exec who gets a job would not make such a mistake...

    Why do so many diggers look to the government for solutions? You can't solve many of societies problems with force (i.e. threatening to put people in jail or shoot them). That is all the goverment can do; suck taxes from the productive economy or put people in jail for not following ill concieved laws. It's like trying to fix a circuit board with a big ugly hammer.
    • gaqua, on 06/19/2008, -1/+9What "smaller media company"? Is there a mom and pop radio station that can compete with Clearchannel? Is there a small business owner who looks at TV or radio and goes "Yeah, that's the market I want to be in - I'll have millions of dollars in startup costs, content that will be broadcast for free over the internet within minutes of my broadcast, and no way to keep advertisers confident that my viewers/listeners will even see their ads! What a fantastic business!"

      It's all giant corporations these days.

      They have weight classes for boxing and wrestling, they have rules for GT and Nascar and F1 racing, they have term limits on the Presidency, why not have a few rules regarding media ownership?

      Saying that zero government intervention in media ownership is going to work is like saying that removing weight classes from boxing is a good plan. Sure, you've got some 250-lb monstrosity in there who destroys anybody who comes near him - but just wait - sooner or later some 120-lb startup will have interesting footwork and will last half a round longer than the last guy until he gets pummeled into oblivion. If he doesn't get paid to take a dive in the 4th round, that is.

      • hal9003, on 06/19/2008, -0/+2"It's all giant corporations these days."

        And have you done root cause analysis for why that is? Could it have anything to with the fact that local & federal government give local monopolies (airwave or cable) to companies that they favor most? (i.e. pro-big government media companies)

        Your boxing analogy is terrible. There are hundreds of cases of smaller, more focused companies beat a large, bloated company in the business world.
    • familynight, on 06/19/2008, -0/+9unfortunately, you're not discussing the real world. the decision is not between a free market and this government intervention. we would have to do away with a whole slew of laws and regulations to take out government intervention in these markets and enact a series of laws limiting the power of local government to interfere in the market.

      it's true that government intervention has monstrously ***** things up. however, this is not a vote to take away all government intervention. even if we did away with the fcc, local governments could still draw up monopoly-enabling contracts with media companies. it's sort of like how i, personally, only have two choices of isp's. it's not due to federal regulation. my local government has granted quasi-monopolistic contracts. the real problem is systemic to our government's interaction with certain industries and we can't just start picking off random regulatory laws because they are in the same category as bad government regulation.

      i have my doubts about the workability of truly free markets, but that's not the topic at hand. the topic at hand is whether the government should allow media companies to create monopolistic environments in certain markets. allowing these conditions would create markets with even less freedom. while it's a step toward free markets, so is jumping off the roof a step toward the ground but i'd rather take the stairs.

      imho, the first step should be eliminating the influence of corporations on our government at the federal, state and local levels. right now, we simply can't trust our politicians with the creation of a free market because they would almost certainly just use it as an opportunity to further slant the playing field toward whoever is lining their pockets.
      • hal9003, on 06/19/2008, -0/+12 things:
        "imho, the first step should be eliminating the influence of corporations on our government at the federal, state and local levels."
        The best way to do that is remove the ability of government to be the king maker in that market. If government can't grant the corp competitive advantage, then corps aren't going to seek influence.

        The best industries in America (from best service or product for lowest prices) are the least regulated. Consumer electronics, Web Commerce, Entertainment, etc..

        The worst industries or where all the "evil corporations" are in the most regulated industries.
        telecommunications (at&t, comcast), finacial services, transportation (airlines, trains, auto), healthcare..
    • greenm1981, on 06/19/2008, -3/+8Free markets only work in theory. Free market ideology assumes that all agents are identical and rational, yet reality tells us a much different story. A functioning market assumes the presence of many small firms competing to deliver homogeneous products, with absolutely no barriers to entry. This does not accurately describe economic conditions anywhere in the United States.

      The nature of big business in the US creates natural barriers to entry, which prevent perfect competition due to their economies of scale. I argue that oligopolies and monopolistically competitive firms are the natural state of a market economy. As wealth aggregates through the decades capital tends towards consolidation. If a "crappy media company" owns all of the infrastructure required to deliver media service to the consumer, then how can a smaller, better company compete without building new infrastructure? The capital requirements of such a venture are enormous, thus raising costs to an uncompetitive level.

      It is not government that we have to fear, just bad government. While government may not always be responsive to "we the people," there is always room to improve. It just requires more than an anonymous monetary transaction. However, if we attempt to dismantle government for the dream of some utopian free market society, we are at the mercy of the oligopolies of the world who are only beholden to their shareholders.

      Digg me down, but at least consider my argument.
      • elisevil, on 06/19/2008, -2/+4You are so right, greenm1981. Corporate monopolies do eat up all the market pie. But you left out an extremely important detail. Monopolies of media leave the the information pool available to us poor ignorant citizens very one-sided. The existing media are almost completely enmeshed in the current oligarchic system (they're all owned by huge military-industry-political corporate systems!)

        This pre-existing system is what led those 'preselected' (by the pentagon) retired generals (with financial interests and well learned pentagon phrases) to convince the U.S. citizenry that Saddam Hussein had all those scary weapons and that we had to invade Iraq.

        U.S. history is now all the sadder because of the actions of those monopolies/oligarchies that this provision is not even designed to break up (even if it does survive.)
      • sloppychris, on 06/19/2008, -4/+4Does the incredibly rapid advancement of Hong Kong as a financial power only exist in theory?
        • greenm1981, on 06/19/2008, -1/+2Read an economics textbook and tell me that Hong Kong is a free market.
        • sloppychris, on 06/19/2008, -1/+2"Hong Kong is one of the world's leading financial centres.[34] Its highly capitalist economy, built on a policy of free markets, low taxation and government non-intervention,[35] has been ranked as the most free economy in the world in the Index of Economic Freedom for 14 consecutive years."
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong

          Facepalm *****. I've read many economics textbooks.
        • thedarkwolf, on 06/19/2008, -1/+2@sloppychris

          I would not even try to dispute free-market capitalism or passive government interference and the benefits therein. Howerver, you completely fail to address the issue of oligopolistic/monopolistic market forces. The government attempting to prevent monopolies in the market is a long standing practice in the US and around the world because monopolies are not efficient. In this case, they are trying to prevent media monopolies, a step toward non-biased news and competitive markets.
        • sloppychris, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2@ thedarkwolf

          I did not make any comment regarding monopolies or oligopolies. I merely responded to the "free markets only work in theory" concept since all evidence we have points to the contrary.
      • hal9003, on 06/19/2008, -0/+3Consider this counter example:

        Huge, entrenched media company that owns all the infrastructure and market share (Knight Ridder) within 5 years gets CRUSHED by small startup created by 2 stanford students with VC funding (google) and a 1 guy who builds a website sell stuff (craigslist). The advertising dollars have almost flipped on its head.

        The nature of big business is to make money. If you have a good business plan with an experienced team, it is not very hard to get investment capital to compete with a big player. And high barriers to entry don't scare away all the investers, some I-bankers prefer markets with high barrier to entry so their investment is more stable once market share is captured.
        • greenm1981, on 06/20/2008, -0/+1Dugg for your counter example. However, I'm just saying that big business doesn't coincide with the theory behind functioning free markets. The theory suggests that if the market is functioning properly, then competition is so great that profits approach zero as prices are driven down.

          It is only under such conditions that free choice and consumer surplus is maximized.
        • sloppychris, on 06/20/2008, -0/+2@greenm1981

          There are lots of examples of functioning markets staying profitable, they do this through innovation (among other things).

          This is why markets are so powerful, they thrive on coming up with good, new ideas to help people. Look at, say internet business. It is a functioning market. It is profitable for lots of companies, through innovations like ajax, social networking, ad networks, and so on.

          (And don't counter with the internet bubble. That was created by the Fed's desire to "help" by manipulating the market)
    • VitriolAndAngst, on 06/19/2008, -1/+2"Tightly regulates the media"?

      You should have started with; "I for one, welcome our homogenized media overlords." You know, if I could just get me a little plot of them air waves, then I could just outcompete these folks. Yessir, I'll get right on competing with ABC on my alternative programmin'

      The free market is going to whoop that news feed into shape -- any decade now.
    • 55mph, on 06/19/2008, -1/+2"wow can't believe how many diggers favor intervention into free markets."

      that's funny. How is it a free market when the man with the deepest pocket always win and then imposes his agenda on editorial freedom.
      • hal9003, on 06/19/2008, -0/+3the man with the deepest pocket always win is completely false. You should go back and slap your business or economics teacher in the face for giving you such a terrible education :-)
        • 55mph, on 06/22/2008, -0/+1You're refering to business history. Let's talk about the history of deregulation and the FCC.

          I'm talking about current economics. A regulatory enviorment that has enabled the likes of Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch made the Wall St. Journal's owners an offer they couldn't refuse. Now he owns the most respected business publication in the country. The Wall St. journal is a great place to subtly advance his neo-con agenda.

          What does the Wall St Journal and the Fox News Network have in common? Stay tuned.
    • cyrax04, on 06/19/2008, -1/+2Concur Hal. What an anti-freedom resolution this is.
  • defektiv, on 06/19/2008, -0/+5i'm still a little groggy so i'll have to read this again in the morning. it almost appears that something necessary is working its way through congress.
  • Equinox2012, on 06/19/2008, -1/+5It's about time. I hate clear channel, cox media and the other conglomerates. The houston FM radio market is crap. We have an Oldies, a Classic Rock and an Alternative Rock station. But we have 4 Country, 1 New Country, 4 Hip-Hop/R&B, 6 Tejano and 2 Christian. Over half are owned by Clear Channel. A third more are owned by Cox Media. The only ones that can have their own format are the Classical, NPR and Rice College Radio.

    I listen to mostly the Rock stations and I can't tell you how annoying it is to hear Aerosmith 7 times a day.
    • Equinox2012, on 06/19/2008, -0/+0OOPS, My browser screwed up the edit function.
      All we need now is for radio and paper to ban together to tell us what is important and news worthy.
    • Spoomeister, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1It's called satellite radio. Look into it.
      • Equinox2012, on 06/19/2008, -0/+0Sirius just joined XM and XM is partially owned by Clear Channel. I don't like Clear Channel and I don't want to give them my money.
  • freedomwv, on 06/19/2008, -1/+4While I don`t like government regulation not allowing cross media ownership in the same market is actually a good thing.
  • kenvsryu, on 06/19/2008, -2/+8***** you Rupert Murdoch.
  • JMellissa, on 06/19/2008, -2/+4That's good news. Media monopolies make for more political propaganda and political propaganda has historically been used to sway voters during elections. Sadly, there are so many otherwise intelligent people who swallow the political B.S hook, line and sinker and then vote for some of the worse possible choices.
    • cyrax04, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1Name me a monopoly that isn't assisted by govt. Without govt there is no such thing as a monopoly. If someone is making so much money off of a service someone else will want to compete with that. If monopolies do exist w/out govt then their product/service would be so great that no one would care about a monopoly anyways.
      Finally, no one is forcing these people to consume media. There are always other choices, and if all else fails read the net.
      • thedarkwolf, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1Monopolies most definitely can be created without government help. Any market that has large start up costs has the potential for a monopoly or at least oligopoly. Examples: phone companies, utilities, media.

        AT&T had what was considered a "Natural Monopoly" until the anti-trust suits in the 70s.

        No one is forcing people to consume media, but it would be nice if the option was there for non-biased/non-monopolized markets. And believe it or not, not everyone has easy access to the internet compared to television and radio.
  • Treoinmypocket, on 06/19/2008, -1/+5It won't last unfortunately but seriously people this is not a partisan issue. The fact is that Congress (both parties) has allowed the media to consolidate markets for decades now, essentially since the advent of cable television in the 70s.

    That is where the homogenization of news really began.

    I believe it is the Sherman Anti-trust Act that had always prevented this. It used to be that any one company could only own one media outlet in any one market and that was excluded if the two markets overlapped. That's when media was truly independent.

  • VitriolAndAngst, on 06/19/2008, -0/+3Every capitalist should know that the media cannot be consolidated. Everyone who believes in a Democracy. I don't know what to call anyone who would support the narrowing of ownership in our Media. Has Clear Channel at least proven that owning 80% of the radio stations has made them incredibly lame and boring? Could they reduce the weekly play list from 50 songs down to maybe 5 so that I can here the same oldies song more times during the day?
  • pckbeta, on 06/19/2008, -0/+2"The subcommittee approved the spending bill on a unanimous vote. But Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, said he is concerned about the FCC provision. The Internet, he said, has given consumers wide and diverse access to news."

    Yeah..until the neocon cronies destroy net neutrality and a ComCast/NewsCorp merger controls not just tv/newspapers and radio but the internet too.

    • cyrax04, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1You will always have other choices.This is just extremely unnecessary legislation.
  • deshleman, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1Bush BETTER NOT veto that!
  • tatis44, on 06/19/2008, -0/+1Bush problably whould veto, I am sorry. He veto free health care for childrens so.... there you have it he is an ***** rigth winger.
    The media is control by the same elites, thats why Americans don't get real news but all pure propaganda to make them believe they are #1 and no evil comes from them. sad, sad, sad... people are so brain wash.

    www.dailyradical.org
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