Month: October 2001

More on Echostar/Direct TV deal: The NY Times reports that while the deal may have an easy time passing the “pro-business” FCC, it will likely have much more trouble passing muster with anti-trust regulators at the Justice Department. I have an idea — why not let GE donate Hughes/DirecTV to FreespeechTV or the Indymedia network…

Some FCC tidbits: Washington DC public station WAMU did an interview with FCC Chair Michael Powell on its program Public Interest. Click to listen. I’ll comment after I get a chance to listen to it. The FCC also announced that Chairman Powell has created a Media Ownership Working Group. About the Group, Powell said, “Rebuilding…

Speaking of NPR and $$$, the Infoshop.org News Kiosk features one listener’s letter to NPR explaining why he’s not sending them his money.

Examining the Business of Public Radio Washington Business Forward has a reasonably comprehensive article on the current finances of National Public Radio. It gives a nice history of how the network has grown from being entirely publicly funded to relying on listener contributions to members stations and corporate grants, while also giving fair due to…

Satellite TV Consolidation After much hemming and hawing it looks like EchoStar communications, which owns the Dish Network, will be buying Direct TV parent Hughes Electronics from GM. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. had tendered an offer for the network but pulled it after GM failed to make a decision at its last board meeting. Had…

The Sound of Civil Liberties Being Flushed in a Back-Room Toilet Wired News reports that the USA anti-terrorism act is just about done after negotiations between Senate and House committees. While watered down, the USA act still allows police to get court orders to search homes, offices and possessions without notifying the searchee. My favorite…

Scientific American has a nice short, but balanced article on the technical side of low-power FM: “DOES LOW-POWER FM RADIO CAUSE UNACCEPTABLE INTERFERENCE?” Rather than lingering on the interference hysteria sold to Congress by the NAB, the article actually worries about reality, noting that “Congress may be reacting more to political pressure than technical data,…

A follow up to an earlier entry about legislation that would require copy protection in all digital hardware — ZDNews says that the big tech players, like Microsoft, Intel and IBM, are staging a full-frontal assault on that legislation. greed vs. greed in a fight to the finish.

Midwest IMCistas Meeting in Urbana this Weekend Just a quick note that it’s still not too late to join in the Regional IMC Gathering and Workshop this weekend at the Urbana-Champaign IMC. Anyone interested in independent media is invited and welcome, just as long as you can get to Urbana. Go to the webpage for…

More Record Industry Nonsense ZDNet’s David Coursey says that “the RIAA owes us all an apology” for their half-witted attempt to get immunity for hacking into our computers, while the consumer electronics industry is backing legislation aimed at forcing the industry to license independent vendors to sell digital music (my favorite quote: “There is a…