FCC Media Consolidation Town Hall Meeting, 10/19/06

Two members of the FCC rolled into NYC last week for a town hall-style meeting aimed at gauging public opinion on media consolidation. The feds are considering a relaxation of the media ownership laws that prevent one company from owning newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations in the same market. As expected, these meetings have generated widespread public outcry for the feds to maintain current ownership restrictions.

Although the two commissioners in attendance, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, are both clearly against consolidation (in addition to being the FCC's only democrats), this series of public hearings are a very wise PR move on their part. It will be mighty difficult for the commission's pro-consolidation republicans to justify relaxing ownership rules while also considering the public's concerns about big media. Homogenized sounds on the radio, masked advertisements in TV news, and negative portrayals of minorities are all issues that the public correlates with media consolidation.

Lucky for you, the WFMU Street Team was on the scene to record last week's public meeting in all of its glory. [ Download the proceedings ] (real audio, 28 MB)

This sucker is about 3 hours long, which may seem a tad daunting... until you read through the shortlist of highlights I have lovingly provided below. If you don't have the stomach for 3 hours of testimony from an angry, raucous, leftist mob, fast forward to these crucial moments:

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein's comments - 14:32

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps' comments - 26:16 (he sounds just like Maxwell Smart!)

An elderly lady sticks it to The Man - 1:27:42

Afrika Bambaattaa (!) gives testimony - 2:05:09

Take-the-airwaves-away-from-those-obscene-media-molesters rant - 2:35:28

Well-spoken teen waxes eloquent: hip-hop on the radio and institutionalized power hierarchies - 2:37:55

If you would like to file a comment with the FCC regarding media ownership, visit this page. More information is available here and here.

Comments

[K.]

I genuinely don't understand the point of these meetings. Does anyone in Washington think that ordinary people are demanding that a single company control every source of media available to them? I think not. That said, will angry ranting make a difference here? If so, blog about it beforehand and we'll all pile on down and unload. But again, I think not. My solution to this dilemma was simply to let my TV die and stay dead ( no more magikal resurrections by cleaning the HV transformer ) I think this is what needs to happen, people need to shut this stuff out of their lives permanently, and make a point of it. Same thing with DRM. Just stop buying the crap. Your life will improve measurably, and there will suddenly be a compelling reason in the boardrooms to diversify...Our vote may now be meaningless, but our purchases certainly aren't. What do you call this system, where citizens are now consumers?

[Jeffersonic]

I agree with K. about letting the T.V. die and shutting the commercial crap
out of our lives. If enough people begin to walk away from these sorts of
things, (T.V., bad radio, certain forms of commerce) I believe they'll collapse
in an entertaining fashion. Wouldn't it be cool if we could walk away from
these economic systems/religions we're forced to participate in....... However, I personally believe that giving government representatives a piece
of your mind is always an important thing to do whether it seems initially
effective or not for a number of reasons......It's always good that "the powers" know someone is still paying attention even if they believe they can marginalize these people......