The other day, a report came out from an inflential media advocacy group advocating “unplugging” the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and making it independent of the federal government. Such calls, of course hardly cause a ripple when they are made by conservatives or liberations (even here at TLF). But this particular report was from FAIR — Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting–a certifiably Leftie group that campaigns against conservative bias in the media. (With–until recently–stunning success, it seems. Of course, they don’t see it that way.)
Anyway, FAIR is fed up with CPB, now that it is led by conservatives, such as Ken Tomlinson, its chairman. Tomlinson has been pushing to balance public broadcasting’s output–which has been famously left-leaning for years. (They see Tomlinson, of course, as pushing for conservative bias in public broadcasting.)
FAIR’s solution: to cut CPB off from the federal government, making it an independent foundation. Enough of trying to “save” CPB, they say. The only way to protect public broadcasting is to cut it free of meddling (conservative) officials. They write:
Media activists, independent producers and public broadcasting advocates need to ask themselves whether CPB funding is needed to keep public broadcasting afloat–or whether that government support compromises the very independence of PBS and NPR, and prevents them from ever fulfilling their promise.
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In previous posts earlier this year, I warned that efforts by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block the proposed acquisition of video rental firm Hollywood Video by Blockbuster Inc. would likely lead to the demise of both companies in the long run. Well, excuse me while I toot my own horn for a moment, but it appears that I was likely right, and sooner than I expected.
Joe Flint and Kate Kelly report in today’s Wall Street Journal (“New Signs of Strain for Blockbuster” p. B5) that “Blockbuster Inc. is facing new pressures as signs increase that a sharp decline in the video-rental market is putting a strain on the company’s finances.” The company’s stock prices fell by 9.7% on Friday, hitting a 52-week low of $4.60 per share. This came on news that Movie Gallery Inc., the industry’s #2 firm, was reporting that sales at many of its stores were expected to drop by 8-10% this quarter.
What’s happening is clear: technological and market evolution are finally catching up with this old business and is about to wipe it from the face of the Earth. With all the new sources of competition out there–Netflix and cheap DVDs at WalMart, online movie download services, cable and satellite movie channels plus video-on-demand, telco entry into the video business, all sorts of handheld mobile media gadgets like the PlayStation Portable, and so on–its no wonder that Blockbuster and others in this sector are struggling.
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I would like to draw everyone’s attention to a wonderful new blog on the media industry and media economics. “Rebuilding Media” features the musings of some of the brightest minds in the field of media analysis, including my friend Ben Compaine.
Thanks to a link on the “Rebuilding Media” site, I’ve also stumbled upon the excellent “On Demand Media” blog too. Some very interesting essay on that site on the same issues. Check ’em both out when you have time.
Yesterday, economist Daniel English and I filed comments at the FCC in the cable ownership caps proceeding. (MM Docket No. 92-264)
In the filing, Daniel and I argue that because of the array of new distribution platforms and the resulting increase in outlets and competition, cable ownership caps are no longer needed. More broadly, we show how the old regulatory model for analyzing media ownership issues is obsolete in light of rapid market evolution and ongoing technological innovations. Any future market power issues that might creep up in the media sector can be better handled by relying on the nation’s antitrust laws, we argue.
In our new media model, we show how media content is no longer tied to specific distribution platforms and receiving devices because of the transition to digital formats and transmission methods. The combination of ongoing digital convergence and an increase in market innovation and entry makes it nearly impossible for any media company to restrict the flow of programming in the market. Simply stated, cable ownership regulations are specifically geared towards an outdated media environment and no longer apply to today’s video marketplace.
Again, the paper can be found here, and you might also be interested in this earlier filing that we did in the Comcast-Time Warner-Adelphia merger proceeding. Daniel and I also recently penned a short paper entitled “Testing ‘Media Monopoly’ Claims: A Look at What Markets Say” in which we evaluate the market performance of five large media stocks (Time Warner, News Corp., Clear Channel, Comcast, and Viacom) over the past five years and show that they have lost 52 percent of their market value (in terms of market capitalization). Moreover, we chart the performance of the entire Dow Jones U.S. Broadcasting & Entertainment Index and show that it is down almost 45 percent below where it stood in 2000. This is another indication that the media industry is not one big monopoly but instead subject to intensely competitive rivalry and new entry / substitutes.
Finally, I’ll just put in another plug for my recent book on these issues, “Media Myths: Making Sense of the Debate over Media Ownership” as well as an important paper by media economist Bruce Owen that we recently published, “Confusing Success with Access: ‘Correctly’ Measuring Concentration of Ownership and Control in Mass Media and Online Services.”
Do you want to know what the future of television might look like? Then you need to be reading this amazing new column by Diane Mermigas on Hollywood Reporter.com. Few analysts have their finger on the pulse of the modern media industry like she does.
Mermigas begins her column by noting that “with television’s traditional food chain being shaken to its core by technological innovations, industry players on both sides of the content equation are groping for ways to use technology-driven changes to their advantage. But getting there means sifting through some fairly weighty questions that have no easy answers and rewriting the status quo.”
She notes, however, that even if traditional television operators are willing take a stab at rewriting the status quo, the challenge will be formidable in light of the radically expanding universe of media inputs from which consumers can choose. “With television becoming only one, albeit important, spoke in the multimedia wheel, broadcast and cable players are beginning to see the possibilities for leveraging the value of their content elsewhere. They must.”
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There’s been a lull in the indecency wars so far in Chairman Kevin Martin’s short tenure at the FCC–no fines have been assessed this year, compared to $7.9 million in fines in 2004. That may soon change. Mediaweek reports that the FCC has hired Penny Nance, an anti-pornography advocate and founder of the Kids First Coalition, to serve an an advisor on the issue. Nance will work from the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis (an office that historically been focused on economics, and not involved in indecency issues.)
It’s too early to say what the appointment means. There’s some speculation that the Commission is preparing to act on a new set of indecency complaints.
When called by MediaWeek, Nance declined an interview, saying “I can’t talk now.” That leaves open the obvious question: “Who can talk now?” Stay tuned.
There’s been a debate raging in Washington recently about the future of public broadcasting. Paul Farhi of The Washington Post provides some details of this catfight and yesterday’s Senate hearing on the matter in his column today.
I don’t want to get into all questions about “bias” on PBS or NPR, although I think there’s a lot less of it than others do. Indeed, I think there is a great deal of informative and entertaining programming on public television and radio that is not “biased” at all. I especially enjoy NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” as well as PBS’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”
Are there some biased shows or personalities on public TV and radio? Of course there are. But I don’t really think there’s any more bias on public broadcasting outlets than any other media outlet these days. And I don’t have any problem with the tilt of the bias being a little more to the left than to the right on these outlets. There’s no way any of us could ever agree on what constitutes “perfect” balance TV or radio. Moreover, attempts to strike such a balance–even for public broadcasting–ultimately run afoul of the First Amendment since it interferes with the editorial discretion of the programmers. Finally, in our world of media abundance, there are plenty of other good outlets to which we can turn if we find any one outlet overly biased.
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Beware lowly citizens of Planet Cyberspace, an ominous new threat lurks in your midst. Its name is Google and this beast won’t rest until it has taken control of all our minds. At least that’s what Wired columnist Adam Penenberg would lead us to believe.
In a June 23rd article entitled “Beware the Google Threat,” Penenberg spins a dark and foreboding tale of “big, bad” Google’s apparent sinister plot to take over the world and control our minds. You think I’m kidding? Well, let’s dissect Penenberg’s apocalyptic article in detail.
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I have an essay on the Tech Central Station website today entitled, “What Ever Happened to the Big Media Boogeyman?” In the piece, I note that just a few years ago, everyone was running around making Chicken Little predictions about how the media sky was set to fall on our heads in the wake of the AOL-Time Warner merger and the FCC’s media ownership decision. But today, by contrast, all the headlines tell a very different story: the old media players are in big, big trouble with all the new form of competition they now face.
Read the entire article here. And don’t forget, I’ll be debating these issues at the National Press Club this Friday along with former FCC Commissioner Susan Ness. Event starts at 10:00. Here’s the event / registration link.
The Viacom split is finally offical. Faithful readers know that I have been sounding off about this (and other media divestitutes) for many months now and wondering why we haven’t heard a peep from the Chicken Little media critic crowd about it. After all, whenever there’s even a minor media merger or acquisition proposed, these critics rush out hysterical press releases predicting that the End Times will soon be upon us.
And so I went searching again today online to find see if these groups had posted something–ANYTHING!–about the Viacom crack-up. But I have found nothing. The silence is deafening. I guess that’s no surprise since these critics have made a career of spinning gloom-and-doom tales without providing a shred of evidence about how consumers have supposedly been been harmed. Worse yet, they run around saying that the Internet and new technologies and media outlets change nothing and that the old media companies are still programming our brains. Just silly.
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.