A Blow to Big Media’s Internet Claims
Big Media’s favorite scapegoat is the Internet. In broadcasters’ attempts to convince the Federal Communications Commission to allow them to increase their media holdings, they cry that the Internet is stealing their viewers.
For instance, in appealing to the FCC to lift the ban on cross-ownership, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) said: “Internet users, especially broadband Internet users, are turning to the Web as a supplement and replacement to traditional television, radio and the newspaper.”
The argument was one of the central themes when the FCC capitulated to Big Media in 2003 and gave the green light to more media consolidation. But while Big Media has failed to provide any specific evidence to backup their assertion, a new study released last week by Nielsen reveals what consumer groups have long been arguing: Consumers do not use the Internet as a substitute to traditional television watching but as a complement.
Nielsen, the company that decides the ratings for television shows, installs equipment on TVs to track the nation’s viewing habits. Nielsen recently implemented a program to also track Internet usage in these same households and found that “television viewing and online video streaming are complementary activities.”
“The top fifth of Internet users spend more than 250 minutes per day watching television, compared to 220 minutes of television viewing by people who do not use the Internet at all,” the findings say. Nielsen said there is a significant amount of simultaneous TV and Internet usage.
Nielsen’s conclusions echo the evidence put forth by consumer groups. Using the FCC’s own data, Free Press illustrated last year that at most one hour of Internet usage results in a less than two-minute decrease of television viewing.
The discovery by Nielsen is just one more brick in the towering skyscraper of evidence illustrating that the last thing we should allow is more media consolidation, and the last entity we should trust to base policy on fact is Big Media.
With regards to the broadcaster argument that they are suffering from competition for audience with the internet, I feel a little confused. Maybe I’ve just been out of broadcasting for too long, but I seem to have missed the prohibition of broadcasters competing on the internet themselves. I also missed the regulatory framework in which they are compensated because of competition from new media.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:00 pmAn exert from http://www.dgswilson.com a site that works with addiction.
This is why its so important to have good mentors from an early age. It’s why its so detrimental to have your head filled up with stories based on nonsense. Cultures have, in the past, used stories with archetypal characters to inspire and encourage their youth to greater heights. In the U.S. we raise consumers. We do this the same way we raise crops, then the crops are harvested and taken to market where they are turned into cash. In the land of consumerism that’s the purpose for having people. We have one of the worst records for education, infant mortality, health care, diet and income of any developing nation and we’re constantly told we live in the greatest nation on earth. We have more lawyers than any other nation and most kids want to grow up and be celebrities. If we don’t start cleaning the propaganda from our brains, and start using them for some other purpose, as a society, we’ve had it. And it will be our fault.
No atrocity ever came to this planet that originated apart from man. Literally millions upon millions of people have been tortured, dehumanized and killed because some “me” that’s not “you” wanted some thing to add to its me-ness. All of us compete for things that are owned by someone else. People are after the stuff. There are people that have made, and are making, laws that will enable them to own the planet. All money is conjured and lent and the only real earnings is the interest paid on the loans. Every one in this nation ( U.S.) owes around a fifth of a million dollars because of loans made to our government (us) from banks. There is no real money now like there was a hundred years ago but somehow we owe more money than all the money there was a hundred years ago. We owe more than the monetary value attached to the planet. Does it seem that some one is pulling a fast one here? Its a big global game of bait and switch and we are the dupes. In the end it will amount to nothing. No one will have lost or gained anything, no one will have won. We’ll just go on and on from one stupid thing to the next until there is no more maneuvering to be made and it will simply vanish into the nothingness that it is. Then all the stuff that the brain, programmed by society, held dear will cease to be. Maybe then we can have some fun. Next: Establishing a Position
November 10th, 2008 at 11:24 pm