mediageek

Month: December 2002

  • Today’s Consolidation Watch

    p>It looks like the media attention to the issue of ownership is slowly starting to ratchet up. Like all media coverage, these things tend to snowball — coverage begats coverage. However, these stories are still running in the business section or in media-specific arenas. I’m still waiting to see something on the front page of…

  • A Leaky FCC Is an Unhappy FCC

    According to this Hollywood Reporter article, the FCC’s proposal to raise cable ownership caps wasn’t supposed to be public yet, and so “A top FCC official” is asking the FCC’s inspector general to investigate. Yes, we wouldn’t want the public to know how they’re getting screwed until just before they get jabbed.

  • Berkeley Liberation Radio Is Back

    Less than a week after being raided by the FCC, John at DIYMedia reports that Berkeley Liberation Radio is back on the air. He also notes that “While the FCC has conducted at least three enforcement actions within the last three weeks, the good news is at least three new microradio stations have signed on…

  • More Notes on Media Ownership

    Last week the interim Pacifica National Board released a statement expressing “alarm” over the FCC’s upcoming owner rules review, in light of Chairman Powell’s agenda for raising or eliminating several limits. Also, recent mediageek entries on media ownership and consolidation are gathered together on a single page, thanks to Moveable Type’s category archive feature. With…

  • Denver Rap Pirates Visited by FCC

    p>A Westword article details the quick life and death of a pirate rap station in Denver that played local music when the local commercial urban station wouldn’t. It looks like the station wasn’t particularly clandestine. They apparently were just visited by field agents who served a “written warning” (probably a “notice of apparent liability”) but…

  • A Look at Copps

    The LA Times takes a look at FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, for a time the lone Democrat on the Commission, who is taking Chairman Powell head-on over Powell’s public stance in favor of loosening media ownership restrictions. Copps favors a much more in-depth and public review of current ownership rules, rather than the expedited backroom…

  • Mediageek News Headlines from the Dec. 13 Radio Show

    These are the news headlines as read on the mediageek radio show on Friday, Dec. 13, 2002. Stories include: Media Ownership Review News; FCC To Open More Wireless Spectrum?; Int’l Journalists Sound Warning for Italian News Media; Canadian Media Mogul Says Keep Media Canadian You can listen to the entire show on-line on the radio…

  • Tracking Reportage on Media Ownership Rules

    Mediachannel.org has put together a useful News Tracker for coverage of media ownership and the FCC’s upcoming media ownership rules review. Here’s a fun question for research: how many of these articles don’t come from the business section of their respective publications?

  • Competition Is Overrated – FCC Wants Cable Companies To Get Bigger

    USA Today has an article on the FCC’s proposal to allow cable companies to reach as much as 45% of the national cable audience, up from the current limit of 30%. “The increase could spur the formation of more cable giants, such as the recent AT&T-Comcast merger. The new Comcast is the USA’s biggest cable…

  • Tree Sitter Blog

    Wired News reports on efforts to set up an Internet connection to California treesitters so that they can communicate via a weblog to the outside world. This project sounds like one that Anarchogeek has reported on. He’s even got pictures of the treesit network.