Wired News has this report from the cable TV industry’s annual trade show where during a luncheon talk Ted Turner–formerly of AOL/Time-Warner/Turner–expressed regrets for selling his cable empire to Time-Warner and admitted that consolidation in the cable TV industry is hurting diversity.
I think this one falls into the “a little too late” category. I don’t think Turner could ever be accused of being the most progressive guy–despite his occasionally liberal-leaning politics. While it’s not bad to hear the once-mogul admit that the media consolidation he had a hand in maybe wasn’t so good for the people, it falls a bit flat, since he still made millions doing it. I’ll take him more seriously when he donates a few of those millions to the likes of Free Speech TV and Indymedia, to help repair some of the damage he had a hand in. Or maybe he could pay for them to have some leased time on one of his former networks, like TNT or CNN. Instead of just whining about the lack of diversity, he could do something about it.
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