In a sort of sick way, I’m almost glad for this update from our friends at BAR. Because it means I’m going to have even more soap for my favorite soapbox, which is “turn it off, it’s killing you.”

So it is that when the transition to digital TV occurs in February of 2009 and the number of TV stations multiplies by from four to ten times, no local entrepreneurs, no unions, community organizations, colleges, universities or other noncommercial, nonprofit broadcasters have any hope of gaining access to the new stations. All the new stations will be the provate property of the folks who already have broadcast licenses, with no obligations to do local news or public service, or educational or even local programming. The existing broadcasters get this gift of public spectrum, thousands of TV channels conservatively valued at $80 billion, for less than what a family in Wilmington NC pays for the yearly state tax on a used Ford —- for nothing. And they get it without the bother of new station licenses being issued, since that might attract undue public attention, with people inquiring about why someone else doesn’t get a crack at them.

I will never understand why so many otherwise smart people seem so addicted to propaganda, crap, and lies. I know folks will forced to make some hard choices as the economy tanks, and I sincerely hope that one of them will be, “I guess I don’t really need that $100/mo cable bill and $3,500 HDTV after all.”  Read more 

You prolly saw this already but it pissed me off and I need to blog on it. Goodwin can suck it; isn’t this how the SA got started? Or at least, there’s some rhyming going on here. It’s never a good thing when an entrenched power rounds up bored, underemployed young men and stands them up in opposition to populists and progressives.

Comcast Blocking: First the Internet — Now the Public
February 25th, 2008 by jstearns
There was huge turnout at today’s public hearing in Boston on the future of the Internet. Hundreds of concerned citizens arrived to speak out on the importance of an open Internet. Many took the day off from work — standing outside in the Boston cold — to see the FCC Commissioners. But when they reach the door, they’re told they couldn’t come in.

The size of the crowd is evidence that many Americans don’t want giant corporations like Comcast and Verzion to decide what we can do and where we can go on the Internet.
But will the FCC hear these voices? For many people who showed up on time for the hearing, apparently not.

Comcast — or someone who really, really likes Comcast — evidently bused in its own crowd. These seat-warmers, were paid to fill the room, a move that kept others from taking part.

[Update: Comcast admits to paying people to stack the room in their favor. Read the report.]  Read more 

Check out Bill Moyers on media consolidation. Kevin Martin (a Republican, bien sur) convened the FCC’s final public hearing on media consolidation on just five business days’ notice:

He intends to lift the longstanding ban that keeps one company from owning both the daily newspaper and a radio or television station in the same market.

From the hearings in Seattle:

SUSAN MCCABE: We told you a year ago, when you came to Seattle, that media consolidation is a patently bad idea, no ifs ands or buts about it. So with all due respect, I ask you: What part of that didn’t you understand?

Do you think that another year of listening to the same homogenized, formulaic, mindless crap that passes for news and entertainment on the commercial dial has suddenly caused us to say,

“Please, I’d like a little more of that.”

And as soon as he got back to DC, Martin went ahead with the consolidation plans. Public input meant nothing to him. What a surprise; he’s a Republican, and no doubt has his job with Rupert Murdoch all lined up.  Read more 

These stories have nothing to do with each other, except that they do. The six-year campaign to get Certain People put in charge of all those alphabetic agencies in Washington is bearing fruit.

The first we will call the “Mom Said No—Let’s Go Ask Daddy” amendment. It affects power companies [coughlikeEnronmaybe?cough] ability to overrule state regulators and put massive power transmission lines wherever the fuck they want.

The second is under the Department of Won’t Anyone Think Of The Children? and would give the FCC, that bastion of civil liberties ’n’ free speech ’n’ all, authority to regulate content of cable and other off-air providers just like they now do with over-the-air (broadcast) radio and TV. The regulations, we are told, would be to regulate violent programming. The FCC has been “studying” this question for three years, it seems, and by sheer coincidence released their report —discovering that they not only have this right but that it “does not conflict with the First Amendment” —a week after the Virginia Tech shootings. Sheer coincidence, we tell ya.  Read more 

The accelerating rush to re-amalgamate the entire US phone system (the breakup of which was just about the last gasp of active antitrust enforcement) has hit a speed bump. One of the FCC commissioners whose vote is needed to allow the merger of BellSouth (my phone company, and the only source of broadband Internet in my exceedingly rural area) and the resurgent AT&T is refusing to vote on the matter. He made this decision final today. Robert McDowell says it would be unethical for him to vote on the matter as he has recently done lobbying for the telecommunications industry.  Read more 

You will enjoy this. A lot. It occurs to me, serious and unfunny person that I am, that it makes a lot of sense for our side, and those Powers That Be in the Party in particular, reach out to media professionals. This is a slick, catchy, easy to remember, low cost, funny way of making a point. Surely only the most dour and constipated with religion and “moral values” would fail to laugh. You can read more about the people who made it here.

Hat tip to reader Peggy Ann. Luv ya, kitten!

Something Lambert said about fundamentals got me thinking.
You ever been in one of those fourth and go with six yards between you and glory?Just enough to keep the blitz honest.
You run through your check list – The struggle ahead is steep and stark.  Read more