Media Consolidation

FCC's Kevin Martin To Eliminate Local Media

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin intends to let a few giant media corporations swallow up local television channels, radio stations and newspapers. If the changes are approved, one corporation could own the major daily newspaper, radio stations and television stations in the same town.

If Martin gets his way, local media would be swept away.

Would it really be good for Los Angeles if the Chicago Tribune's parent company owned The Times, KCAL-TV, KCBS-TV, KTLA-TV and radio stations KABC, KFI, KFWB, KLAC, KLSX, KNX, KRLA and KSPN?
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Go to the FCC Hearings, October 3, Los Angeles
October 3, 2006, Los Angeles: Official FCC Hearings

Fight media consolidation

Live audio and video webcast of the hearing will be available at the FCC’s website at http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/#oct3

FCC Town Meeting

on 8/31/06, the FCC conducted a town meeting at USC in Los Angeles, to collect community opinions about media consolidation. the panel included FCC commissioners Copps and Adelstein, congresswoman Solis, reps from media conglomerates such as disney and abc, reps from a variety of other media organizations, and others. the 'public' in attendance included folk from local indie radio stations kpfk, kxlu, hollywood movie- and tv-producers, media watchdog groups, women's groups, latino groups, and others.
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here's a two-minute audio clip of my testimony to the panel:
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Revised Transcript:

(which i'll submit in writing to the FCC)

Summary

I'm asking the FCC to protect and create low barriers of entry into mass media for independent, low-budget, non-profit, small business, and underserved citizen voices, on the internet, radio, and television, through technology and regulations.

Case Study: An Internet Radio Station

My broadcast name is johny radio. I work with an anti-corporate internet radio station called KillRadio.org. KillRadio means 'Kill Corporate Radio'. It was formed about six years ago during protests at the DNC, because the Democrats are too right-wing.
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Although I may not agree with that sentiment, I believe that freedom of speech should not be prohibitively expensive. These opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent the views of KillRadio.org.

Internet Freedom

The internet has created a wonderful new opportunity for underserved voices to reach niche audiences. It has leveled the playing field for media producers and consumers.

Preserve internet neutrality, and prevent media conglomerates from controlling access to internet content.
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Take Action
Save The Internet
Save The Internet2
Save The Internet3
Save The Internet4

Technology

There are now on the market at least two new portable WiFi radio devices which enable people to listen to internet radio, wirelessly, while walking down the street.
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Therefor, in order to promote that technology as an opportunity for alternate voices to reach larger audiences:

prevent telecommunication corporations from blocking the creation of free, public WiFi and WiMax hotspots in urban and rural areas.
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fund the creation of more public hotspots.

The USA is stuck with an obsolete 100-year-old radio technology, which unnecessarily restricts the number of stations in a region. Modern radio techniques can enable hundreds or even thousands of simultaneous broadcasters in the same region, as described by architect of the internet, David Reed:
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Promote the development of modern radio technologies.

Public Funding

Fund and enable non-profit and public-domain media channels without political interference, vis-à-vis the British BBC model.
History of Public Broadcasting in Europe and the US

Eliminate right-wing infiltration of Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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Take Action
Save Save NPR and PBS

Licensing

Preserve low-power FM licensing (LPFM) for community FM broadcasters.

Ensure that corporate lobbyists will never again be able to override your own technical data and suppress community broadcasting.
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Stop busting pirate broadcasters on technically falsified claims of interference with commercial broadcasters and airports.
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Censorship

What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple? "Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." He met with President Bush five times in 2004.
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Some observers complain about crass sexual content in the media. One wonders why they don't simply change the channel, until one realizes there are too few channels out there which don't use sexual titilation to capture viewership and advertising dollars. If the FCC promotes more small and non-profit media outlets, then those viewers will have more alternatives to switch to.

However, adult Americans must be assured access to adult-oriented programming if they want it. And I don't mean pornography: censorship on the basis of sexual content has been used in past to suppress political, artistic, and educational content:
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Keep censorship away from pay channels. Support House Bill HR-1440.
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HR-1440, the Stamp Out Censorhip Act of 2005

Respect parents' decisions about their children's viewing options.
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Preserve uncensored late-night rules for non-pay channels.
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"Every day, in many countries of this world, children are bought and sold, transported against
their will, and forced into lives of prostitution, slave labor and utter misery.” – Mary Robinson,
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, www.tinystars.org

This is a terrible tragedy, and one which certainly should not be ignored by mass media. However, the sensational 'news' which dominates corporate news channels, such as Janet Jackson's breast, Jon Benet, and Bill Clinton's sex life have little to do with the real tragedy of international child exploitation. When news channels use anti-sex hysteria to attract viewers' prurient interest, it's no different than attracting viewers with shallow sexual titilation.

Stop participating in this phony, politically-motivated moral panic with excessive "indecency" citations.

Content: The Fairness Doctrine

These are just distractions from far-reaching local, domestic, and international issues affecting millions of Americans in their daily lives, like schools in crisis, corporate corruption, government ineptitude, and environmental degradation. On-going problems are ignored in favor of fleeting news-bites. Real analysis has been replaced with shouting matches. Therefor,

Reinstate the FCC Fairness Doctrine, dissolved by the Reagan administration, expand it, and vote it into law.
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a Conservative perspective

Require reporting of underreported news stories, as documented by the UN, Doctors Without Borders, and other sources.
Doctors Without Borders
United Nations
Project Censored

Take Action
Judiciary Committee details crimes committed by Bush: Unreported
Comedian lambasts Bush at Whitehouse Dinner: Unreported

Require that analysts from differing perspectives be given ample time to explain their views, without interruption.

Require "civility"--shouting matches and personal attacks should be discouraged.

Take Action
Reform The Media
Confront Bias At ABC-TV
Confront Bias At Fox News

Also present at the hearings were reps and parents from local, primarily hispanic school, Academia Semillas del Pueblo, which was recently criticized on-air by local Disney-owned KABC 790 AM radio station. Subsequent to the broadcast, the school began receiving bomb-threats and harrassment. i'll be interviewing a rep from the school on my show in the near future.
Left Perspective
Right Perspective

kpcc audio about the situation:
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Take Action
Hear inflamatory KABC audio, and take action.

i can be contacted at:
johnyradio@gmail.com

Take Action
please comment below, if you know about more actions people can take on any of these issues, urgent news, or any key issues i missed. thanks!

Thank you for listening.