Archive for August, 2010
Thursday, August 19th, 2010 by Josh Stearns
As of yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission had received 33,049 comments about the proposed merger of Comcast with NBC-Universal. Nearly 32,000 of those comments were from local citizens from around the country who oppose the merger. That means 94 percent of people weighing in at the FCC believe this merger is bad for competition, consumers and our communities.
But will the FCC listen to the public, or will it be swayed by Comcast’s lobbying machine?
Comcast’s hometown paper, The Philly Inquirer, estimates that Comcast has spent almost $90 million in the last six months to win approval of this terrible merger. Together, NBC and Comcast have hired nearly 100 former government officials to flood Washington with their money and talking points. And TechDailyDose points out that since 2008, 385 members of Congress (that’s three quarters of Congress) have received money from employees of Comcast or its political action committee.
A few weeks ago, Comcast’s army of lawyers and lobbyists submitted more than 600 pages of documents claiming to justify this deal – one of the biggest media mergers in a generation. However, those 600 pages were mostly full of generic talking points, flawed data and inconsistent statements. Today was the FCC deadline to respond to Comcast’s massive filing and Free Press – along with the Media Access Project, Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union – filed these comments.
The merger of the largest cable operator and one of the nation’s premier video content producers will fundamentally alter the structure of the video marketplace to the detriment of competition, innovation and diversity. Here are two examples:
Online Video Markets
This merger threatens the emerging market for online video by eliminating competition between Comcast’s and NBCU’s online video platforms. By virtue of their combined control over broadband access, cable platforms and a critical mass of content, Comcast/NBC will be uniquely situated to withhold content from emerging online video competitors like Netflix, Vuze and Boxee. As the nation’s largest broadband Internet service provider, Comcast can also control access
and the quality of its competitors’ services. The combined company will have both the incentive and the ability to influence the growth of online video to its own advantage, and to the detriment of competition and consumers.
Local Media Markets
The merger will hurt local media and create a near monopoly in local advertising by eliminating direct competition between Comcast’s cable operations and NBC’s local broadcast stations. Comcast has been making side deals with stakeholders, but all they really do is preserve the status quo, and do not affirmatively promote public interest goals. In fact, Comcast’s “promise” to improve local programming on NBC stations is dubious and unenforceable, and the company ignores making such a promise for Telemundo stations.
Buying Merger Support
The harms resulting from this merger run so wide and so deep that we are skeptical that they can be remedied. So far, most of Comcast’s support seems to have been bought, not earned. In their comments, Comcast made a big deal out of the generous “cash and in-kind contributions” they have made to various organizations. While we applaud corporate citizenship, giving donations to local nonprofits to entice them to back a bad deal will only hurt the public in the long run.
The FCC doesn’t stand for “Federal Cash-and-In-Kind-Contribution Commission,” and this type of financial support, while commendable, is irrelevant to this merger review. The FCC’s duty is to promote competition, diversity and localism – not fostering more charitable giving.
This fight is far from over and there is still time for you to weigh in. Make sure your lawmakers know that you oppose this deal.
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Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 by Megan Tady
Have a great idea for better media? We want to hear it.
Free Press is excited to announce the call for suggestions for the 2011 National Conference for Media Reform. It’s your chance to submit your ideas for sessions, presenters or topics for next year’s big event.
Go here to submit a suggested session, speaker or topic.
The conference is a time for thousands of people to gather and work together to change our media system. We want the conference to reflect the broad sweep of media reform — from policy to journalism to social justice to technology and innovation. We need your input to make this our best conference yet.
Below are the conference details. Don’t forget to mark your calendar!
What: 2011 National Conference for Media Reform. Submit your idea now.
When: April 8-10, 2011
Where: Boston
Info: Sign up for updates or visit http://www.freepress.net/call-for-suggestions for more information.
The conference will be a one-of-a-kind opportunity to strategize, network, share skills, swap information and inspire one another during three days of workshops, panels, caucuses, keynote speeches, meetings and parties in Boston.
This is your chance to help us shape the event from the start. So if you have an idea for an exciting session or have recently seen an inspiring speaker, tell us about it. The call for suggestions will be open through September 10.
And spread the word! Let your everyone know about the 2011 National Conference for Media Reform by forwarding this e-mail and sharing details on Twitter and Facebook.
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Monday, August 2nd, 2010 by Jim Rhyne
As large media conglomerates grow bigger, individual voices are increasingly left out of any meaningful dialogue — even at a “public” hearing. You might think it’s a great opportunity to speak truth to power, but you’d be mistaken. The same money and power that allow corporations to control the public airwaves is also painfully evident in their ability to control the tone at a public hearing.
Based on the majority of testimony at the July 9 FCC hearing at Northwestern University Law School about the pending Comcast/NBC merger, there is no doubt that Comcast is a generous corporate partner to many Chicago area nonprofits. And that’s fantastic. Who could begrudge these nonprofits for forging strategic partnerships that yield valuable dollars—especially in this economic environment?
However, to be distracted by Comcast’s corporate goodwill is to miss the point about the merger. Interestingly, distraction is the same tactic employed by most of corporate media when it comes to news and information. The more you know about celebrities and worry about crime, the less you’ll care that you know absolutely nothing about who is running for office and what topics are being debated from city hall to state and national government.
So the FCC hearing was a dispiriting distraction about Comcast’s selfless commitment to nonprofits. The sad reality is, that in the end, we all lose—even the nonprofits represented that night that are benefitting in the short term from Comcast’s largesse—except for Comcast and big media.
What was missing from the hearing? This merger is not a referendum on Comcast’s community sponsorship. Being a good corporate citizen doesn’t mean this merger is good for our democracy, which demands a free exchange of ideas.
The strength and health of our democracy is completely dependent on a vibrant, independent press. If big companies are allowed to continue their march toward even bigger media companies, the result can only mean fewer reporters, fewer voices and more news sharing than what we have now which is abysmal. In a constant search for profit, these large media companies will continue to abandon their basic duty to our democracy to hold those in power accountable.
If this merger is approved, we risk losing this invaluable part of our democracy.
Since most of the testimony was irrelevant to the debate and the main point of the hearing virtually lost on all but a handful of those who showed up to oppose the merger, it’s clear that we need a new strategy: better media literacy.
Perhaps some of these nonprofits, who normally would support a more open, democratic media, may not be aware that if we had better media coverage and investigative journalism about poverty, hunger, homelessness, workers’ rights and other issues—we wouldn’t need donations and PSAs from big media companies just to get our stories heard. And then maybe, just maybe, we could all be working to foster the real change we want in our communities.
Ultimately what’s at stake is news becoming even more obsolete (think more celebrity and crime) and thereby reducing our ability to make sense of what’s really happening at city hall, in state capitals and in Washington, DC.
At some point we have to recognize the irreversible erosion of a valuable public asset like the airwaves and vow to stop allowing big companies to grow bigger and more profitable at the expense of the public good and the strength of our democracy. With better media literacy, maybe we can.
Otherwise we will always be overpowered, outmuscled and our voices stifled. That’s not a democracy I want. How about you?
Jim Rhyne is a media reform activist and volunteer with Free Press. In 2006 he spearheaded a local Los Angeles TV news-monitoring project and co-authored its report. Then in 2008, he organized the first and now annual media reform summit in Los Angeles. A graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, he now lives in Chicago where he works as a freelance advertising writer.
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