mediageek

Category: media ownership & consolidation

  • This Blog Could Terminate My DSL

    Ars Technica reports on a change in the terms of service for AT&T broadband customers that gives the company the company to terminate service for anyone who “tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.” Yes, it’s overbroad, overly vague, and therefore probably too difficult to enforce across…

  • Media Ownership Workshops in Chicago

    Workshops on media ownership are being held in Chicago in anticipation of the FCC’s visit on Sept. 20 for hearing on the topic. Chicago has one of the lowest levels of minority media ownership amongst major markets, so the issue of diversity in ownership is a particular focus of these workshops sponsored by groups like…

  • Links from the Aug. 10 radioshow

    Listen to the show here. Non-commercial FM Radio license filing window: GetRadio.org – Instructions on how to apply for a license, including a frequency finder. National Federation of Community Broadcasters Prometheus Radio Project’s Mapping Project – The LPFM advocacy organization has also done a lot of organizing for the full-power license window, creating maps showing…

  • Taking Another Stab at Restoring LPFM

    After the FCC created the low-power FM radio service in 2000, Congressional Republicans in the pocket of the NAB made a last-minute backroom maneuver to add a major restriction to the service in a budget bill. The restriction requires 100-watt LPFM stations to be spaced on the dial the same as full-power stations as large…

  • “Until there’s a satellite channel dedicated to a lonely statistician in Tacoma…”

    The Onion has the most incisive analysis on the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger.

  • When Competition Doesn’t Provide Much Competition

    The single biggest rationale behind fast-tracking AT&T and Verizon into offering cable TV services over the broadband lines is to provide more consumer choice and competition in television services. Sounds like a good idea on first blush, since most communities only have a single incumbent cable provider, with their only alternative being a direct broadcast…

  • Does the American “Market” Abhor Competition?

    Mergers, mergers, mergers. There’s been talk for quite some time about the nation’s two direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers–DirecTV and Dish Network–merging. More recently the talk has been about the nation’s only two satellite radio providers merging. Today, there’s a leak from the companies that a merger between XM and Sirius may be announced soon,…

  • Headlines from the 1-26-07 radioshow: The FCC to Face up the Senate Commerce Committee

    From the January 26, 2007 edition of the mediageek radioshow [listen now]: On February 1st, the Republican dominated Federal communications Commission will have its first hearing in front of a Democratic-controlled Senate Commerce Committee. Commissioners are certain to hear about the current media ownership rules review, in addition to network neutrality. In particular, network neutrality…

  • NCMR: The Dicey Future of Public Broadcasting

    When I first walked in I’d just been in the hip-hop panel, and actually started to giggle. The audience for this panel was like the polar opposite of the hiphop audience, I thought maybe there was a nice baroque music concert or a showing of a Jane Austen film — mostly older, even elderly, middle-class…

  • Uncommon Candor

    I’m sitting in a session on the FCC featuring current Democratic commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, with former commissioner Gloria Tristani as moderator. I’m very impressed with the degree of candor that Commissioners Copps and Adelstein have expressed at this conference in mulitple sessions, on topics ranging from payola to the BellSouth/AT&T merger. These…