So now that the other shoe has dropped.. (FCC vote) What are your thoughts?

[raj2001]

SO now that the FCC has voted to change the rules, and Michael Powell is soon to be the target of many consumer groups, I'd like to hear your thoughts and predictions.

I personally predict that nothing will change for now, but later on we may end up with Clear Channel TV, which sucks. Local TV will end up dying a slow death just like local radio is doing.

[TNGTony]

There is no local TV any more other than the news. I haven't seen a local TV program since Bob Shreive, Bob Brown, Glen Ryle and Al Schottlecotte passed away!

But what I do see is the price of a TV license jumping up to the point that not even LP assignments are affordable by your average joe shmoe company let alone an individual thus killing any oportunity for real diversity in broadcasting. This was the reason for ownership restrictions in the first place. Diversity in ownership of a very limited resource allowing for many different LOCAL viewpoints. The availablility of cable, internet and satellite do not change that need.

See ya
Tony

[Nick]

A fatal blow for local programming. The public air waves will be no more, and the public interest has been cast aside. What's next, throwing wide the gates of Fort Knox?

Why not resurrect the issue of foreign ownership of media outlets. The arabs have billions in extra pocket change. Maybe Prince Faud of Saudi Arabia can buy WNBC and rename it UBL-TV

[RichW]

Local programming went away as stations were bought up by out-of-town consortiums who treated the stations as commodities, hoping to buy low and sell high. With each sale of a particular station, there was less emphais on community programming and more on ad revenues. This ruling just accelerates the movement of station groups to the auction block.
But in reality, it doesn't matter whether an out-of-town corporation owns 6 or 60 stations, the damage to local interest has already been done.

The industry, the FCC, and Congress are to blame, but so are we, the viewers. Supposedly, a station license will not be renewed if public comment shows that teh station is not serving the public interest. Public apathy, as much as anything else, allowed this to happen.

[Randy_B]

Someone will have to show me some proof that the front office actually meddles that deeply and routinely in the newsroom policy and content to cause me any concern about hidden agendas and bias resulting from the changes. I don't think anyone in St Louis has actually owned any of the St Louis media outlets for years. Probably the case most places. The age old distribution scheme is outmoded and the paradigm will have to change over the next few years anyway. Might as well get on with it.

[RandyAB]

Like other people have said....in the bay area we have only had I think about 5 owners owning the major stations for a while. I do not think there will be a real change in TV. They all seem to show the same thing anyways. How many more channels do we need showing Frasier or Sienfield reruns.

[Cyclone]

If there where going to be local stations broadcasting local content, then this would not stop them. There is still room enough on the dial for dozens of new stations.

[normang]

Last time I checked this is America, land of the free, home of the brave? Why can't we let the market decide, why does the government have to make decisions about who owns what and who watches what and whats on? Good programming succeeds, crappy programming dies.. simple as that..

If one's idea of diversity is really to have programming forced on you, whether its good or bad because of some bureuacrat, some how that seems like an oxymoron to me..

Most Anytime the government interferes, things get screwed up, so this is a step in the right direction and probably didn't go far enough..

[Brett]

I dont think locally-owned has any meaningful relationship to "local" television.

Does WTVE 51 which runs shop At Home with paid religion at night do local programming? Um, nope. They dont despite the fact they are locally-owned. Locally owned stations for years have ignored local concerns in favor of syndicated fare, or paid programming.

Comparing Clear Channel and radio to TV is a faulty analogy. Radio stations dont have exclusive songs. Only some talk shows are exclusive. An independent FM station can compete much easier than an independent UHF station, despite the fact that Clear Channel dominates radio.


Does a corporate backed WPVI do local programming? Answer yes. The stations do it where they can, viewers are watching, and if they'll make ad money from it. Why should broadcast TV stations be little mom & shop businesses with poor production content ? So nobody watches them and people, are forced to pay for satellite or cable television for live sports and quality programming? A station needs to make money to finance their digital upgrades and commitment to news.

What should be protected is number of voices in a market. IF tri-opolies and more mergers are allowed locally, its less competition and less chance for multiplicity. But then, you look and FCC allowed Comcast to buy out AT&T and many here wanted Echostar being the only satellite company with a national footprint. If broadcasters are restricted, you'll see less and less content on broadcast television, and only Echostar and the cable/sat companies achieving synergies.

[TNGTony]

Originally posted by normang
Last time I checked this is America, land of the free, home of the brave? Why can't we let the market decide,

Generally I would agree, however when it comes to TV and radio spectrum, this is a very finite resource. There are only so many channel allocations per market. No, there isn't very much room for additional full power channels in many areas of the country.

But the biggest problem is this: Supply and demand drives the prices of these properties to the point that you CANT afford to produce your own programming since the pay-off isn't high enough to cover the expenses.

When a dozen companies are battling over as many TV and radio stations as they can get their hands on, it drives the price of ALL TV and radio stations to an inflated amount which makes entry by a small local company, individual or organization very difficult. And once the property is purchased, you have to now pay for it by having more profitable programming rather than the programming that they would like to have.

As I've said before, the reasons for the ownership caps and restrictions that were placed on over the air TV and Radio have not changed since 1934. Yes, there are other outlets, but there is still the same finite amount of space in the spectrum as there was since UHF was added to TV. And worse yet, another 15 channels are being removed from the spectrum as soon as the DT transition is over.

See ya
Tony

[Mike123abc]

Actually if they ever get rid of analog they will have more TV channels than ever before... There was 83 (or 82 if you do not count 1) then 68. After DTV there will be 54 or so, but since digital channels can transmit on adjacent channels unlike analog, there will be the equivalent of about 100 old analog channels.

[waydwolf]

:soapbox:

    While I am in favor of the change as overall the TV market with the changed rules in no way allows monopoly dominations by a long shot, Clear Channel is "Borg-ing" radio.

    Here in CT we had WMRQ Radio 104 and Dee Snyder in the morning. They'd started carrying his show down in Virginia and things looked as if he might be the next big jock to go national and syndicate.

    The all of a sudden Clear Channel and company get a bee in their bonnet, drop Dee Snyder, and put on Bubba the Love Sponge.

    Where I learned to gradually accept Dee's show despite the increase of talk over the former Jake and Beth Show, and even to enjoy it at times, Bubba the Love Sponge will NEVER EVER EVER have me as a listener. It is almost total talk, tremendously UNFUNNY, and has driven me to drop morning radio from my listening and go to CD exclusively.

    The other pop rock locals had already turned me off with their incessant obsession with dance/hip-hop and shallow and superficial genuflecting to modern rock. Come to think of it, I'm none to happy with 104's afternoon obsession with whiny nerd rock.

    Take a look at the web pages of Clear Channel owned rock stations. Note the common theme of red and black? Note that they all look the same? So are their playlists.

    Where rap-rock might have a larger following in one area of the nation and hard retro another, and punk in still another, Clear Channel has watered down local and regional sounds into a melting pot of "unisound" which only stifles the normal diversity of rock as various bands experiment and put their sound to the public around where they start out. Can you imagine Creed or The Mighty Mighty Bosstones ever getting anywhere with as big a deviation as they are from the overall average(one does heavy neo-Christian soul-searching, the other does a swing-ska-big band thing).

    In TV I've never noted a real regionalism/localism beyond the delusional "this is what makes this a special place to live" nonsense. Over three decades of CT will disabuse you of the notion that Hartford is a special place to live over let's say Boston or Philadelphia. But we should beware a Clear Channeling of TV if it heads towards the point where we see nothing by national news and no local, where we see national sports and never local, and where we see endless exhortations on nationally recongized centers as if where we live doesn't exist.