FCC To Consider Ending Merger Ban Among US Broadcast Networks (reuters.com) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted on Tuesday to consider whether to lift the long-standing prohibition on a merger between any of the largest four broadcast networks and to consider relaxing other media ownership rules. The FCC said it would consider public comments before deciding whether to reverse the rule that bars a merger among the "Big Four" networks: NBC, owned by Comcast, Walt Disney Co's ABC, Paramount Skydance's CBS or Fox. The FCC also said it was seeking public comment on whether to eliminate or revise a rule that limits a single entity from owning more than two of the four largest television stations in the same local market and a rule that limits the total number of local radio stations that may be owned in a single market.
Previously, the FCC noted that a version of the rule barring dual ownership of networks has existed since the 1940s. A 2018 media ownership review concluded the bar should be upheld "because it advances the agency's core policy objectives of competition and localism. "We intend to take a fresh approach to competition by examining the broader media marketplace, rather than treating broadcast radio and television as isolated markets," FCC Chair Brendan Carr said. "If we determine that any rule no longer serves the public interest, we will fulfill our statutory duty to modify or eliminate those rules."
Previously, the FCC noted that a version of the rule barring dual ownership of networks has existed since the 1940s. A 2018 media ownership review concluded the bar should be upheld "because it advances the agency's core policy objectives of competition and localism. "We intend to take a fresh approach to competition by examining the broader media marketplace, rather than treating broadcast radio and television as isolated markets," FCC Chair Brendan Carr said. "If we determine that any rule no longer serves the public interest, we will fulfill our statutory duty to modify or eliminate those rules."
"public" interest (Score:5, Insightful)
"public" interest... you mean "billionaire owner" interests, am i right?
consolidation at this scale has never helped individuals or communities other than those at the top. this is just more of the same BS.
Re:"public" interest (Score:5, Insightful)
It is about controlling what you see and hear. They want only MAGA everything and to stifle everything else.
Re:"public" interest (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"public" interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Far right is KKK, white supremacists, and literal Nazis. Far left is dope smoking hippies.
There's no comparison.
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Did you mean Stalin?
It's very odd to me that tankies ever thought of the USSR, a military dictatorship with a perverse supply side central production system that was constantly used to try to control the population 'left'.
What actually is meant by the term 'left'?
I'll wait (Score:1)
How many people have Antifa killed in the last 30 years?
Re: I'll wait (Score:2)
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Far left in 2025 is antifa and BLM "mostly peaceful" setting government buildings on fire.
You mean the buildings that were actually determined to be set alight by a reich winger? Nice try, Nazi.
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Far left is dope smoking hippies.
Your are being disingenuous or lived under a rock for the past 30 years. Far left in 2025 is antifa and BLM "mostly peaceful" setting government buildings on fire.
*You are* or *You're*
Well that's telling. I can only assume you associate anti-fascism with the left because you associate fascism with the team you're on. So the opposite of that using mush-brain logic is COMMUNIST!
Punching neo-nazis and fascists isn't communist, moron. It's the right thing to do, and a time honored American tradition. It would be bi-partisan if you didn't um... obviously feel that fascism is on your side.
Also a dumpster fire in one city doesn't negate a million peaceful protestors in anot
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Punching neo-nazis and fascists isn't communist, moron. It's the right thing to do, and a time honored American tradition.
Violence against your political opponents will only lead to more violence directed back at you, and there is no guarantee that you will win the fight you started. I would rather live in a peaceful democratic society where differences settles via debates and at the polls, but then "punch the nazi" morons like you are widespread.
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Right:
Extreme right:
wants guns
wants to kill anyone who votes Democrat, or socialist, or has alternate sexuality (but watches pr0n of that).
Left:
wants people to live their lives without being attacked by others
wants healthcare for all, and decent wages, etc.
Right, no difference./s
Party of LIES (Score:2, Interesting)
Free speech: Takes critics to court. Top members of the Executive branch threaten ("joke") about imprisoning or killing critics for "treason".
Honoring our nation's veterans: But cancels staffing increase for Veteran Affairs. Limits access to mental health treatment options to our veterans.
Personal liberty: Wants a special police force that can search your car without a warrant if you travel in a border state
Fiscally conservative: Biggest deficits in recent history has been under their watch.
Sanctity of huma
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"Support of the Jewish people and Israel: A massive war in Israel is prophetically significant for evangelical Christians, who believe once the last Jew dies in Israel that the Messiah will return."
No they don't. They believe that if the Jews rebuild the Temple, then God will say to Jesus, ``It's go time!!"
God: Jesus, get yer ass ready, the Christians appear willing to force Israel to rebuild the Temple.
Jesus: Why must I wait until then?
God: Errrr....Hell, I don't know.
Beelzebub bursts through Heaven's floo
Re:"public" interest (Score:5, Interesting)
It is about controlling what you see and hear. They want only MAGA everything and to stifle everything else.
I remember reading that continued Nexstar w/Tenga and Sinclair w/whoever mergers would give them each presence in something like 80% of U.S. broadcast markets. Do we really want 2 companies controlling that much?
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If anyone actually tuning in? Last time I tried to talk to someone about broadcast TV they told me they don't like pirating. Also, ATSC 3.0 looks like complete advertising garbage.
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If anyone actually tuning in? Last time I tried to talk to someone about broadcast TV they told me they don't like pirating. Also, ATSC 3.0 looks like complete advertising garbage.
I'm pretty sure the local OTA broadcasters are also on the local cable too. I'm sure companies like Nexstar and Sinclair own other media outlets, like radio and perhaps print...
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Do we really want 2 companies controlling that much?
Yes. 2 gives the illusion of choice whilst being easily manageable for content. Oh, you didn't want a dictatorship? Too bad, so sad. A day late and a dollar short.
This was all foretold in 1963 (Score:2)
It is about controlling what you see and hear. They want only MAGA everything and to stifle everything else.
There is nothing wrong with... [youtu.be]
Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. [wikipedia.org] If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter.[3] We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: There is nothing wrong
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To be fair. Broadcast TV, FM, AM is just a complete dumpster fire right now. No one outside of boomers are getting their news and media consumption though them anymore. The best thing the FCC could do it just leave AM / FM as it is, it's a great emergency backup medium to get out info to the masses. Plus it's just such a small chunk of spectrum that there realistically isn't probably much more valuable that can be done with it. Broadcast TV should just be shut down and the spectrum sold off to cellular and or other wireless internet providers. Perhaps make a chunk of that TV band ISM and create some kind of a long range wifi standard within those mid UHF frequencies since those frequencies would travel though obstacles well.. These uses would probably provide far more positive experiences to the general public than a hand full of mass media companies pumping out brainwashing media 24/7 that you have little control over what you're consuming other than changing the channel to a maybe lesser evil brain washing channel.
What is the better non-brainwashing alternative to broadcast TV? The Internet? YouTube influencers? Twitter? Facebook? Personally I find broadcast TV useful and oppose its destruction. At least with broadcast TV you are not spied upon and forced to sit through non-skippable commercials.
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What??? Broadcast TV absolutely has non-skippable commercials, has since 1941.
Since the 2000s broadcast TV is an MPEG transport stream. To skip commercials you write the stream to storage and seek forward in your player.
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Boomers are the most likely to vote, so they are a prime target for anyone wanting to manipulate US politics. That's why broadcast TV and radio, and Facebook, are the battlegrounds as Trump, Russia, China, and other interested parties try to influence the direction that the country will take.
One of the reasons that Republicans have such a big issue with TikTok is that they fear it might do for younger voters what Facebook did for older ones.
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wifi standard within those mid UHF frequencies since those frequencies would travel though obstacles well
You'd never use it because everyone in the neighborhood would be constantly fighting over air time to send or receive their packets. Wifi is more like a walkie talkie than broadcast TV. Due to that low frequencies that go through everything sound nice and convenient, but fail in practice unless you live in the middle of nowhere. If you do live in the middle of nowhere, then you already have all of the spectrum bandwidth you need.
A better option would be to keep those TV channels around for local use duri
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"public" interest... you mean "billionaire owner" interests, am i righ?
In the new FCC view mergers and free markets help provide higher value to public shareholders; who are members of the public, and therefore, more mergers are in the public interest. So government interference with mergers is against the public interest.
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The system values money more than people; therefore, money is the 'public interest', so yeah, billionaire interests. You do not matter at all.
Why do we need more monopolies? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is more consolidation, less competition, and more powerful corporations wielding copyright and causing a higher barrier of entry in the public interest?
Re:Why do we need more monopolies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the decline in network viewership do they still have a monopoly? None of the networks have a monopoly where I live because none of broadcast a signal that can reach me.
Picking an example from Spokane, if channels 2 and 4 merged and one of them went away, would it matter? One of the networks would likely get dropped and its frequency would be available. In fact you could make that a condition of the merger. Sure you can have your merger, what frequency are you giving up?
The TV stations won't care, they make money on distribution fees to cable, satellite and streaming but they spend money on powering and maintaining transmitters. The MBAs will be drooling over the chance to dump legacy costs for streaming income.
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Given the decline in network viewership do they still have a monopoly? None of the networks have a monopoly
They have essentially a monopoly over the market for broadcast TV news.
Network viewership is only declining because TV viewership is declining in general.
It is not no longer a monopoly; just because the medium as a whole is losing share.
The Social media and Streaming services viewers have migrated towards are large monopolies as well.
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Can you imagine they are paying to blow a quarter to half megawatts into space in the middle of the night
To be fair, assuming an Effective Radiated Power of 1,000KW, a TV transmitter will "only" use 150kw of actual power. And the antennas don't radiate that much power into "space", the beams are quite "flat".
I'll stow my pedantism and move on now.
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And for comparison 150kW is a medium speed EV charger. It's really not that big of a deal.
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How is more consolidation, less competition, and more powerful corporations wielding copyright and causing a higher barrier of entry in the public interest?
Exactly who do you think 'the public' is? It is not you or I. We are the farm animals. It is the farmers that are 'the public'.
let em merge (Score:4, Interesting)
and get rid of broadcast TV, make em compete on the internet. auction off all the spectrum.
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they had pay tv over the air with late night adult movies as well in the 80's
Re:let em merge (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, lets get rid of a system that works just fine and replace it with the most hated companies in America. Lets do this after letting those companies buy out the system that is working where shortly after they will make a sad pikachu face when it miraculously sucks and needs to be shut down "to provide better service". In this case "provide better service" means adding exciting new ways to target you with ads and recommendations that you never wanted in the first place.
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Yeah, definitely want to create a system where there is only one neck to choke to control messaging... /s
They want to consolidate power (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas...
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So, they just vote for the best candidate
There is literally nothing best about Cheeto Benito, except "best Russian Asset" — they really got more than their money was worth when they cultivated that shit sack.
They already did (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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they think Trump is one of their own
You do realize this is not a fucking team sport right? This is about administering rules and people. Any partisanship will disturb the results in negative ways. Fuck you and people who think like you.
Why bother? (Score:5, Interesting)
The decision has already been made. They'll probably use fake comments like they did in his first term. Went looking for the quote, but a guy wondered how his dead mother was able to submit a public comment.
This will be no different than RFK, Jr saying in April he'll find a cause for autism by September. And look what happened.
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And look what happened.
Are you meaning to imply that Tylenol ISN'T the cause of Autism?
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In MAGAland Correlation IS Causation.
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Listening to RFK Jr. will cause cognitive decline.
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They'll probably use fake comments like they did in his first term.
I'm betting that they don't even bother this time.
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"And look what happened." Yes, it worked as intended. The Maggotistas have stopped wondering about who Epstein had serviced and have now moved to wondering if Epstein even existed. They have an attention span of a squirrel after his third cup of coffee.
Good idea to make them all say the same thing! (Score:3)
Try to dismiss that you're not being indoctrinated by propaganda in the US.
This video from the Sinclair Broadcast Group says enough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
To vote to end the ban... (Score:2)
Broadasting is dying. (Score:4, Insightful)
Broadcasting is on the decline. It is very common for companies whose products are no longer generating lots of revenue to merge and "Circle the Wagons". The last time I watched any broadcast TV was in the mid 2000's.
What I'd really be worried about is companies like Big News media outlets AP,CNN,Axios,Fox News merging OR a government-imposed "Great American Firewall" cutting off Americans from international news sources. With the serious cutback of PBS, one of the ways you can really find out what's happening iin America, is to go outside and look back in.
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"AP,CNN,Axios,Fox News merging" Does it matter if they all just report the Kremlin's....errr....White House's lies?
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Yep, kind of like pay phones.
Not political (Score:2)
It's not political.
The radio and TV stations are in decline with their largest audience, baby boomers, in decline.
The metric to look at may be the number of towns without any radio station within 50 miles.
What needs to happen is a long-term revaluation and asset write down of the value of existing TV stations and radio stations by owners of them.
No one in the industry, corporations, media and political state houses wants that as it means job losses, tax revenue losses and corporate stock declines.
Not sure they want people to actually comment (Score:1)
Asking for public comments? (Score:2)
Guaranteed that if there is overall public outrage to the point they can't avoid addressing it, they'll address it by saying someone set up bots to spam them. These fucks want one media company that can be coerced easily into posting the "correct" information in all formats. I guess, on the bright side, those who are addicted to streaming can look forward to only having to pay for one giant clusterfuck streaming service.
Wrong way, consider banning all mergers. (Score:2)
Merge them all (Score:2)
Maybe we can merge all of the tv and radio stations and have them run by just republican politicians. Making sure they control what is "approved" for publication?