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Media Reform Act Of 2005: Could it affect TV station owners?

> It looks like a pair of congressmen are planning to
> introduce a bill that would roll back ownership caps in TV
> and radio stations and a plan to restore the Fairness
> Doctrine. Here's the press release from one of the
> co-sponsors of the proposed bill
http://www.house.go> v/apps/list/press/ny22_hinchey/morenews/071405mediabill.html
>
Put out by the usual leftist turd congos. Chances of it passing, slim and none.
 
> > It looks like a pair of congressmen are planning to
> > introduce a bill that would roll back ownership caps in TV
>
> > and radio stations and a plan to restore the Fairness
> > Doctrine. Here's the press release from one of the
> > co-sponsors of the proposed bill
> http://www.house.go>
> v/apps/list/press/ny22_hinchey/morenews/071405mediabill.html
>
> >
> Put out by the usual leftist turd congos. Chances of it
> passing, slim and none.

If we can keep from the snide remarks about the bill's authors and discuss this without political emotion, that would be preferable.

Sadly, I also believe this bill has little real chance, because there will be a lot of well-funded lobbying to kill it. None of the conglomerates wants this to happen, and we know they'll do everything they can to keep hold of their empires.

Although it would certainly be interesting to see how Clear Channel would react to it as a mandate.

<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
Clear Channel could probably sell 600 out of 1200 stations and still be the major presence in all of its major markets. Lots of paperwork requirements, it looks like, and let's all pretend its 1965 and we'll all do top of the hour news whether our listeners want it or not, having boring P.A. and "educational" shows no one will watch, and, of course, we gotta force those damn conservatives to listen to liberals on the radio! We all know everyone in town is asking "Where's the Inuit Music"?<P ID="signature">______________
Soon to set the world record for recieving Nigerian scam and phising e-mails!</P>
 
Although I doubt this proposed legislation will be enacted into law, I think that if the Media Reform Act of 2005 does becomes law, major broadcasters will go to court to seek to strike down any tightened ownership restrictions.
 
I've said for years that if anyone is expecting a new law to undo consolodation and get them their DJ gig back, forget it. By the time the court challenges are done, we'll all be too old to care!<P ID="signature">______________
Soon to set the world record for recieving Nigerian scam and phising e-mails!</P>
 
> Sadly, I also believe this bill has little real chance,
> because there will be a lot of well-funded lobbying to kill
> it. None of the conglomerates wants this to happen, and we
> know they'll do everything they can to keep hold of their
> empires.

Right now, I have to agree with your assessment. Unfortunately, the political climate is not real friendly to this type of regulation right now.

However, that doesn't mean that the environment may not change in a way that is eventually more hospitable towards this type of legislation. Considering the lack of public support for media consolidation, I can easily imagine that this legislation could become "doable" in several years.

> Although it would certainly be interesting to see how Clear
> Channel would react to it as a mandate.

My guess would be that they'd simply split the company into several smaller companies, either based on region or market size.
 
Don't they usually put a grandfather clause in the bills so anyone who owns more won't have to sell, they just can't buy anything else.

I think the ownship caps have produced duller TV stations. Seems every UPN affilate FOX bought has become a dumping ground. Certainly in Chicago Channel 50 was a better station before FOX. <P ID="signature">______________
Once I figured out the meaning of life....Then I forgot to write it down.</P>
 
More than likely, everything would be grandfathered that companies own now. What produced blander TV is the hundreds of channels that all have to be filled 24/7.<P ID="signature">______________
Soon to set the world record for recieving Nigerian scam and phising e-mails!</P>
 
Ask 100 people in your town who owns the radio station, and 99 wouldn't be able to tell you, let alone have any opinion on "media consolodation". They may get upset if a format changes, but there's no guarantee that won't happen even if we mandate stations switch owners to new corporations. Clear Channel, if mandated to do so, would sell off their smaller markets and also-ran stations in bigger markets. <P ID="signature">______________
Soon to set the world record for recieving Nigerian scam and phising e-mails!</P>
 
> We all know everyone in town is asking
> "Where's the Inuit Music"?

Easy:

<a target="_blank" href=http://www.knom.org/realaudio/>http://www.knom.org/realaudio/</a>

Then scroll down to "Eskimo Music". Several
examples in "RealAudio".

Caution: Inuit music is an...ahemmmm....
acquired taste. Beware some lower 48
garage band picking up on the beat....<P ID="signature">______________
Yes, and even the fleas on their children's pets and the cockroaches under their sinks.</P>
 
> What produced blander TV is the hundreds
> of channels that all have to be filled 24/7.

The problem is that the cost of acquiring a station (or putting a new one on the air) is so high that cash flow has to start happening almost immediately.

No one has the resources to spare to try something innovative. Even stations that try to do the "independent model" end up with blocks of infomercials, overnight home shopping, brokered religious programming, etc.

KDOC/56, the lone UHF "traditional indie" in the Los Angeles market, is religious in the early morning, then has a block of old 1970s and 1980s shows (including Rockford Files, Kojak, and Mission: Impossible) which have lots of commercials for Bryman College and other vocational schools. After 6:00pm, the programming is reruns of Magnum P.I., Perry Mason, and the old NBC Mystery Movie series (Columbo, McCloud, Banacek), which is the only time KDOC has any "real" advertising such as AM/PM Mini Market. Then it's infomercials until the home shopping after midnight. Weekends, the daytime schedule is entirely infomercials and religion (and a three hour block of old Gene Scott tapes in prime time Sunday night).

Just looking at KDOC's schedule, it's easy to see what trade-offs they've made to stay in operation. Twenty years ago, when they went on the air, a lot of the schedule was old "B" movies. Now, the only non-network movies seen on <u>any</u> L.A. station is when a sporting event carried live on both coasts wipes out prime-time and a movie gets tossed into prime time by the network O&O, or the handful of weekend afternoon movies on KTLA/5, KCAL/9, or KCOP/13 (and never anything older than 1985).

The vicious circle, of course, is that local stations and basic cable networks end up with audiences primarily composed of viewers who don't have premium channels. Here's how my viewing breaks out, in general:

More than 50% HBO/Cinemax/Showtime/TMC/Starz (and variations)
About 25% TCM/Fox Movies/Flix/Encore/IFC/Sundance (and the variations of Encore)
At least 15% Discovery networks/History/National Geographic
And the rest is scattered amongst basic cable networks (but not TBS, TNT, F/X, and the like), a selected few broadcast network shows, and the reruns on KDOC.

You get the idea. The programming on the local stations, and the non-niche cable nets, doesn't appeal to me, so I don't watch. Lose enough of the viewers like me, and you start losing your appeal to advertisers; so you program for the lowest common denominator and try to get as much of what's left.




<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
> Ask 100 people in your town who owns the radio station, and
> 99 wouldn't be able to tell you, let alone have any opinion
> on "media consolodation". They may get upset if a format
> changes, but there's no guarantee that won't happen even if
> we mandate stations switch owners to new corporations. Clear
> Channel, if mandated to do so, would sell off their smaller
> markets and also-ran stations in bigger markets.

I think you underestimate the public concern over media consolidation. While I don't expect that it would make many people's lists of the "top five" issues facing the country, the fact is that the media do impact people's lives on a daily basis and are thus something that concern people.

The fact that somewhere around a million people wrote in and commented to the FCC regarding media consolidation back in 2003 certainly suggests this. Yeah, I know that 1 million folks is only a small portion of the population -- but in an environment where 1,000 comments on a rulemaking procedure is considered a lot, the response this brought was close to unprecedented. For every person who wrote in, there are probably 50 more that feel the same way. And note that it was folks from both ends of the political spectrum -- with the left represented by Common Cause and Consumers Union, and the right by the NRA and American Family Association.
 
> Don't they usually put a grandfather clause in the bills so
> anyone who owns more won't have to sell, they just can't buy
> anything else.

They usually do, but not always. The FCC can force groups to sell stations that are in violation of the new rules, and has chose to do so on occasion in the past. The most famous example is from the forties, when NBC was forced to sell off an entire network and its owned stations -- which became the nucleus for ABC. In the early seventies, when the FCC implemented the ban on newspaper/TV combos, they did force a few to be sold off while grandfathering the majority.
 
Thanks KM for explaining that. It really makes a lot of sense.<P ID="signature">______________
Once I figured out the meaning of life....Then I forgot to write it down.</P>
 
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