A Dark Storm Cloud is Looming Over the Future of the American Media by Jonathan S. Adelstein

This is a sad day for me, and I think for the country. I'm afraid a dark storm cloud is now looming over the future of the American media. This is the most sweeping and destructive rollback of consumer protection rules in the history of American broadcasting.

The public stands little to gain and everything to lose by slashing the protections that have served them for decades. This plan is likely to damage the media landscape for generations to come. It threatens to degrade civil discourse and the quality of our society's intellectual, cultural and political life. I dissent, finding today's Order poor public policy, indefensible under the law, and inimical to the public interest and the health of our democracy.

In the end, this Order simply makes it easier for existing media giants to gobble up more outlets and fortify their already massive market power. It capitulates too many of the longstanding demands of the media companies we oversee.

This approach shatters most of the last vestiges of the consumer protections that weren't eliminated in the 1980's. This decision pulls the teeth out of the remaining rules, leaving the FCC a toothless tiger. As big media companies get bigger, they're likely to broadcast even more homogenized programming that increasingly appeals to the lowest common denominator. If this is the toaster with pictures, soon only Wonder Bread will pop out.

It may take a while for the public to feel the full effects of today's decision. Consolidation in the media markets could take place over a number of years, just as it did in radio. But people will notice every time a new merger goes through that eliminates a voice in a community. Their anger will flash as they surf through their channels only to find more sensationalism, commercialism, crassness, violence, homogenization and noticeably less serious coverage of news and local events, just as many Americans warned me they expected to happen if we allowed further consolidation.

It didn't have to turn out this way. Congress and the courts forced a massive review. They did not force massive deregulation. We had a choice. The courts required us to justify our rules, not to gut them or replace them with pale substitutes. Certainly, the media markets have changed, and our rules must keep pace. But the majority chose to go much further than Congress or the courts required. They chose to pursue gratuitous deregulation. This is by far the most dramatic weakening of our media ownership rules this country has ever seen.

This has turned out to be a painful process. I had hoped for a better outcome I could support, or at least oppose less strenuously. The Commission undertook the most comprehensive review of its rules ever. It was designed as an effort to produce a judicially-sustainable, intellectually-coherent framework. But those good intentions and good faith efforts didn't pan out. The comprehensive framework never materialized. An effort begun with serious intellectual aspirations descended into an incoherent, outcome-driven political document, the likes of which the Commission has too often seen and sought to avoid.

A new regime for a new era never materialized. Instead, we're left with a muddled patchwork of meager protections. The only consistent elements are market-driven philosophies and deregulatory outcomes. The Order is rife with references to market efficiencies but virtually devoid of references to consumers.

It's been difficult for me to watch a group of colleagues whom I genuinely respect, like and admire move in a direction with which I so strongly disagree. I feel compelled to speak out, but take no joy in taking such strong exception.

The majority implies that Congress and the courts forced this outcome. I disagree. We had much wider latitude than this suggests. The biennial review provides a simple directive - to determine whether the rules "are necessary in the public interest as the result of competition," repealing or modifying them only if we deem them "no longer in the public interest."

The linchpin of Congress's statutory guidance is two words - public interest. The American citizenry should benefit from each decision. All American citizens must benefit, including minorities, women, and non-English speaking citizens.

In the context of media ownership, no matter what others think the Circuit Court may have implied, the FCC still has a special duty to protect what the Supreme Court referred to as an "uninhibited marketplace of ideas."

I'm afraid this decision departs dramatically from our statutory mandate, which is to establish rules in the "public convenience, interest or necessity." Let me explain why today I think we fail to meet even that flexible, broad standard.

Judging from our record, public opposition is nearly unanimous, from ultra-conservatives to ultra-liberals, and virtually everyone in between. We have received about three-quarters of a million comments from the public in opposition to relaxing our ownership rules, a new record, and only a handful in support. Of the hundreds of citizens I heard from directly at field hearings across the country, not one stood up to call for relaxing the rules. Of the thousands of e-mails I personally received, I saw only one didn't oppose allowing further media concentration.

The American people appear united in believing that media concentration has gone too far already and should go no further.

I've heard it said we can't make this decision by polls or by weighing postcards. Fair enough.

But the statute doesn't let us simply dismiss the public's views with a passing reference in one paragraph, as this item currently does. The public apparently has no interest in further media concentration. Does the majority really know what's better for the public than the three quarters of a million citizens who are motivated enough to contact the Commission or attend field hearings? We should not assume that those people who took the time to alert us to their deep-seated concerns, with 99.9 percent in opposition, are wrong unless there is overwhelming evidence proving it. Here, just the opposite is true. There is plenty of evidence the people are right.

The public is joined by bipartisan chorus of caution from over 150 Members of Congress. Organizations from nearly every political stripe, from the National Rifle Association to the National Organization for Women, expressed grave doubt about the wisdom of allowing greater consolidation. We heard from artists, academics, media moguls -- Republicans, and Democrats.

It has been said that the public comments we received are too simple and offer no substantive basis from which to make our decision. I beg to differ. I have read a lot of their comments, and I've listened to hundreds of people firsthand in city halls, schools churches and meeting rooms.

Let me tell you, the Americans we heard from know what they're talking about. This is the media they view every day. They take it very personally, and they are very articulate and substantive in what they say.

We have heard from people who have collectively spent billions of hours watching TV, listening to the radio and reading newspapers. There is no better expert witness than the American people. There is no more objective jury.

But today's decision overrides their better judgment. It instead relies on the reasoning of a handful of powerful media companies who have a vested financial interest. Those who stand to benefit by buying and selling the public airwaves won out over the public.

Anyone who questions whether consolidation can cause harm need only look to the experience of radio. The most constant refrain I heard from coast to coast was complaints about the homogenization and loss of news coverage on the radio dial since 1996. People begged us not to let happen to television what happened to radio. But the majority did not heed this concern. By ignoring this history, we may be destined to repeat it. Radio is a very sick canary in the coal mine, and we're about to infect television with the same disease.

I suggested and would have taken another approach. This Order often equates the public interest with the economic interests of media conglomerates. It assumes that efficiencies and cost savings created by mergers will translate into benefits for the public. But it makes no effort to ensure that will actually happen.

We could have easily addressed these concerns. I share the view that given changes in the marketplace, some of these combinations may make sense. I could have supported greater flexibility to evaluate mergers on a case-by-case, market-by-market analysis. That is the only true way to determine if media mergers of this magnitude would actually benefit the public. But the only way to determine the value of a given merger is for the Commission to request companies that seek to merge to demonstrate how, in the case of those particular entities in those particular markets, any efficiencies gained by the merger would be channeled into something positive for the viewing public.

The majority rejected such an approach in favor of bright line rules. They refused even to ask parties that seek to merge to say anything about how many news staff would be retained, the number of hours of local programming planned, cross-programming plans for TV duopolies or the overall impact on news and public affairs programming.

Their stated goal is to achieve more market certainty for entities that seek to merge. They proudly note that establishing set rules facilitates transactions, reduces costs and makes deals more attractive to the capital markets. Another stated goal is to avoid the administrative burden that a case-by-case approach would impose upon the Commission.

The Order actually makes a special effort to proclaim the Commission has no interest in the facts of particular cases since the new rules are the be-all and end-all of what's in the public interest. This implies the Order divined some sort of higher truth as to what works best in every case for the American people. It says we don't want to be bothered with facts that might point in another direction.

In its rigid insistence on fixed rules based on oftentimes arbitrary numbers, the Order ignores our statutory obligation to serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity in favor of the convenience of those who seek to maximize the money they can extract from private sale of the public airwaves. And it favors the Commission's administrative "convenience" ahead of the public interest. We are here to carry out the statute, not subvert it with the excuse that it's too much work to implement. This just won't do when our very democracy is at stake.

The majority's approach simply assumes that if we let media companies merge, they will channel the resulting efficiencies into better programming for the public. Broadcasters have a long and proud tradition of public service I know many will want to carry on. But in the absence of some other compulsion, the logic of marketplace competition and the media companies' fiduciary responsibility to shareholders will require them to maximize profits rather than serve the public interest. The record does not support the dangerous assumption that the many mergers contemplated under these rules will invariably serve the public interest.

One argument in favor of unleashing the media giants is that free over-the-air television is threatened. That's a worthy goal, but the rumors of its demise, widely spread, are greatly exaggerated.

In reality, just last month, broadcast network advertisers spent a record $9.4 billion in upfront sales for next season, up 13 percent. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that some networks make $600-$700 million, though others are less profitable.

It is quite telling that the best case for consolidation is that the networks need to make still more. It's not the FCC's job to make sure every big TV network makes money - that's up to network management. Our first priority is ensuring the American people get a wide range of diverse viewpoints.

The day we will know over-the-air TV is in real trouble is when broadcasters start lining up to turn back their licenses. Today, instead, the value of television stations continues to skyrocket because these licenses are so scarce. One station in Los Angeles sold for $800 million. Why are the networks so interested in increasing the nationwide cap or acquiring triopolies or duopolies in local markets if this business is on the way down?

It violates every tenet of a free democratic society to let a handful of powerful companies control our media. The public has a right to be informed by a diversity of viewpoints so they can make up their own minds. Without a diverse, independent media, citizen access to information crumbles, along with political and social participation. For the sake of our democracy, we should encourage the widest possible dissemination of free expression through the public airwaves.

Some argue that the concern about the threat to American democracy is overblown since it is so strong and resilient. While our democracy is strong and not about to crumble, does it mean we can afford to weaken it? Doesn't it matter that only half our citizens vote? The same people argue there is plenty of diversity already, so we can afford to lose some. I just don't agree.

Despite the Order's assumption that technological advancements render broadcasters just another voice in a crowd of ever-expanding and fungible media channels, a simple fact remains. No technological advances have made it possible for every person who wants to broadcast in a local community to do so. Nobody yet has figured out how to replicate the spectrum for everyone who wants to broadcast a message. The exclusive right to use the broadcasting spectrum denies it to all others.

The majority completely ignores the reality that neither cable nor the Internet has changed the huge market power granted by federal license to use scarce broadcast spectrum, particularly when that license comes with the requirement to be carried on cable.

It also ignores that people still get the vast bulk of their local news and information from the same places they always have: their local newspaper and local TV stations. And these are the very outlets we are giving the most new flexibility to merge.

Today's bottom line spells an open season on consolidation. In place of our once powerful cross-media limits, only 2.3 percent of the American population will now receive full diversity protection. In contrast, the markets where all remaining cross-media protections have been entirely lifted represent 72.58 percent of the population.

While I agree that some consolidation may be warranted in the very top markets, the leap from protecting 100 percent of the population with full cross-newspaper/broadcast protections to less than 30 percent is dramatic. We are moving to a world where in larger markets one owner can combine the cable system, three television stations, eight radio stations, the dominant newspaper, and the leading Internet provider, not to mention cable networks, magazine publishers and programming studios which could produce the vast bulk of the programming available to those outlets. In my view, it is no exaggeration to say the rules now permit the emergence of a 21st Century Citizen Kane on the local level, with perhaps a handful of Citizen Kanes on the national level.

In smaller markets, say the town of Great Falls, Montana with a population of 56,690, under our new rules one entity could own the cable company, the dominant television station, the dominant newspaper, and multiple radio stations. Is this safe for democracy?

We have heard that relaxing the rules is appropriate because so many Americans can now access so many channels, the Internet and other media. But it turns out the same few vertically-integrated global media firms own the bulk of what people see. Ownership has become more concentrated. A person can always add more electrical outlets throughout their home, but that doesn't mean they will get their electricity from new sources. The same goes for media outlets.

And we cannot ignore that many citizens have no access to these wonderful new options. Until every American can effectively access these outlets, this Commission should protect the diversity available in the outlets that serve their needs.

Our task, therefore, should be to encourage maximum diversity, not assure a four-voice or six-voice sliver of it. This Order, to the contrary, concludes that there is plenty of diversity already, so we can afford to sacrifice some and have enough left over.

The public interest means more than just efficiencies and cost savings. Every community has local needs, local elections, local news, local talent, and local culture. While localism reflects a commitment to local news and public affairs programming, it also means much more. It means providing opportunities for local self-expression and reaching out to, developing and promoting local talent. It means making programming decisions to serve local needs. It means allocating resources to address the needs of the community. Localism's many virtues are hard to capture, but may get easier to ignore as companies consolidate.

When this full document is finally made public, I expect it will be torn apart by media experts, academics, consumer groups, activists, and most of all, the American people. They will find it riddled with contradictions, inconsistencies, false assumptions and outcome-driven thinking.

I would like to recount some of the most glaring inconsistencies and flawed reasoning behind these new rules. I've got a much longer written critique I will release soon, but will spare you now by summarizing some highlights.

In perhaps the Order's most inexplicable inconsistency, the Majority decides to retain a 50 percent discount for UHF stations in the national television cap, yet fails to apply comparable treatment to the local television rule and cross-media limits. To discount some stations for one rule while failing to do so in others is arbitrary and unjustifiable. If the purpose of this exercise is to update our rules in light of technological developments, we can't ignore some just because we don't like the outcome of more stringent limits.

In perhaps the most blatant evidence of a results-driven process, the Majority goes out of its way to allow companies to seek waivers of the new bright line rules to achieve greater concentration, while it attempts to deny the statutory right of opponents of mergers to petition to deny a given transaction. It is fundamentally unfair to allow waivers for corporate interests in extenuating circumstances without the corresponding protections to the public.

The Diversity Index was a noble effort that tragically degenerated into an ill-conceived rote formula that even Merlin couldn't decipher. The Index is seemingly nothing more than economic jujitsu, an ornate castle built upon a foundation of sand at the ocean's edge.

After detailing at length the new formula and its underpinnings, the Majority stresses that the index is used only as a basis to draw bright-line rules. But the order specifically denies any person the right to apply this new magical formula to a particular market. In other words, no one can use the FCC's own new methodology to show that an application in a particular market harms the public interest.

Among its many flaws, the index distorts how it calculates the market shares of relevant providers in each local market, resulting in grossly understated measurements of the impact of any particular combination. For example in New York, it treats the Shop At Home TV station the same as the local NBC station. Similarly, with respect to newspapers, the index treats the New York Times the same as the Polish Daily News.

Despite the quest for empirical footing, the index is premised on admittedly incomplete data. Recognizing that the Nielsen study failed to ask the specific question of the source of local news, the majority marches ahead, cobbling its own data points on local news sources from selective answers to muddled questions.

Against all notions of consistency, the majority unwisely decides that even if a broadcaster is restricted from acquiring a newspaper, the broadcaster can still buy the paper and hold it until its next renewal period - a period of 8 years. This simply underscores the outcome-driven nature of this Order.

On the radio front, the retention of some local radio rules appears an acknowledgment by the majority that they couldn't stomach the fallout from the rapid consolidation of the past 7 years. And some actual improvements were made in the market definitions.

Yet, for all the talk about tightening the radio rules, in several important respects the Order actually further unleashes the industry. It eliminates the radio-TV cross ownership rule. And it eliminates the current limit on the audience or advertising share any one owner can gain through mergers in a local market. For a rule designed solely to address competitive effects of mergers, it is mystifying why the majority would cast aside such a fundamental and economically sound principle as accounting for the measure of power of combined stations. The revised rule now clears the way for mergers that previously were denied or designated for hearing due to the strong likelihood of negative competitive effects.

The Order includes a helpful provision that allows only small businesses --initially -- to buy grandfathered groups of radio clusters that no longer comply with the new market definition. While useful, it may not get used much. Small businesses will encounter great difficulty in raising the capital necessary to buy expensive, large clusters, if they ever even come on the market at all. This is especially true given that the seller could peel off one or two stations and then sell both the remaining cluster and the spin-off stations with no restrictions to an unlimited pool of potential buyers, which will limit the exclusivity of the eligible entity buyer pool.

In my view, adding an admittedly helpful provision that potentially affects a only a handful of stations, if it ever gets used at all, doesn't come close to offsetting the sad truth that small businesses, including those owned by minorities and women, are going to find it even harder in more concentrated and expensive media markets to raise capital, own outlets or have their unique voices heard.

Most alarming is that after only two years, the small business can flip the grandfathered cluster to any large radio or media conglomerate like Clear Channel. Making this approach so ripe for abuse further diminishes the likelihood that it will serve much of a useful purpose, since real disadvantaged businesses will have to bid against companies that plan to sell to well-capitalized radio giants, raising the price of clusters. The ultimate beneficiaries of this approach could be companies like Clear Channel that could add even more grandfathered clusters than it currently controls.

Today the Commission introduces a new behemoth into our media landscape: a TV triopoly. Where is the empirical evidence supporting this creation in our record? As unjustified by evidence as it may be, this leap is in only six of top TV markets.

More troubling is the leap in the number of duopolies now permitted. Duopolies are now restricted to sizable markets. But this Order expands duopolies to 162 out of 210 markets, or 95.4 percent of the population. I can't fathom why we would allow such dramatic consolidation across the board with no analysis as to how this will impact individual markets. It's a breathtaking assumption that each of these mergers, all of which will eliminate a local voice, is in the public interest. And I don't believe the record justifies it.

I do believe the record demonstrates that further concentration of power in the hands of networks justifies retention of the national network cap at the 35 percent level set by Congress.

The majority has not adequately justified the selection of a new 45 percent cap. It relies exclusively on evidence showing that the largest network station owners possess no greater bargaining power, measured by prime time preemptions, than the smallest network station. This is a thin reed on which to justify a 10-point increase. Moreover, without access to more data, this conclusion is unconvincing.

In the end, we have yet another tradeoff between efficiencies and public interest goals such as localism. Guess who wins. The social benefit of locally originated and oriented programming and program selection to me outweighs the efficiencies of further vertical integration.

Finally, let me explain why I cannot join the majority in voting for retention of the dual network rule. I disagree with the Order's conclusion that diversity no longer underpins this rule. But more importantly, a more rigorous examination of this rule must be conducted in light of the rising tide of Spanish-language broadcasting networks. Just as the rule is retained for the top-four English-language networks, so too should Spanish broadcasting be examined separately. The rapid growth of the Spanish language media in the past several years is having a significant effect on the landscape in which broadcast networks operate. I believe that these developments require us to consider whether to afford Spanish-speakers the same protections available to English-speaking television audiences.

Looking back on how we got here, I am convinced there is little else I could have done to change the outcome. In an effort to moderate the extreme proposals that emerged, I offered suggestions to my colleagues which unfortunately were not incorporated. The turning point when I realized I could not likely support this proposal was when a majority settled on the notion that bright line rules were preferable to making case-by-case determinations as to whether mergers served the public interest.

The Supreme Court has said that "promoting the widespread dissemination of information from a multiplicity of sources" is of the highest order. So safeguarding diversity should not be subject to abstract diversity scenarios or arbitrary decisions that reduce the number of voices people can hear.

I don't mean to suggest that bigness is always bad, or that free enterprise will always fail the public. There is some truth to the arguments that my colleagues make today. There's nothing inherently wrong with earning profits from using public property.

But when it comes to gaining even greater profits at the expense of the cornerstones of our democracy, we must carefully question the effect on the public. Today's rules just don't let the big get bigger, they will effectively prevent smaller entities from breaking in. I would have relaxed the rules more incrementally and shown the public each time how it would benefit.

Since my arrival here 5 months ago, I have approached this proceeding with a constructive frame of mind. I sought to understand the various proposals and their underpinnings, and offer my views on their efficacy. Even after others closed in on an approach with which I could not get comfortable, I made reasonable attempts to moderate the proposals -- which were refused. In the end, it wasn't the process that precluded me from participating in drafting and supporting today's Order. It was the substantive direction the item took and the results-driven imposition of bottom line, bright line rules ahead of all else. I am disappointed that a majority of my colleagues could not be persuaded to take a more reasoned, conservative, case-by-case approach.

This is far from over. Congress may prove more responsive to the citizens who passionately plea for the independence and diversity of their media. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, this is not the end, or even the beginning of the end, but just the end of the beginning.

---

From http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0602-13.htm

"Congress may prove more responsive to the citizens..."

They can't be LESS responsive than the majority of the FCC. But will they prove more responsive?

Or do the monopolies own Congress as well as the FCC?

I didn't have time to read the whole article, but i've always disagreed with the paranoid opinion that our media is being insidiously gobbled up by greedy corporations for the purpose of dumbing us down so we're stupid enough to buy their crap.

Is TV getting dumber? I don't know, watch a few Gilligan's Island reruns and get back to me.
TV has always been a sea of banality punctuated by the occasional worthwhile show.
that's because most people who sit around wacthing TV all day are dumb, or intelectually lazy.

Radio? 10 years ago, the radio consumer in my city had few choices, now we have a station for every genre,(almost) and if you don't like commercial radio there's always state radio(CBC) or campus radio, and what about internet radio?

Anyway, the internet has made diversity in conventional media irrevelevant, if TV and radio aren't telling you what you want to hear then there is a website out there that panders to whatever dumbass conspiracy theory you can name.

nobody ever talks about the downsides of having diverse media...

competition between multiple news agencies is partially responsible for how scandal hungry the news industry is.
I think most of us do not benefit from all of the conflicting information we get.

Well, now TV will end up like a radio station owned by Clear Channel. They'll hold a contest that will seem local, but will involve being the 25th nationwide caller to a special 1-866 number.

Before long the FCC will let the networks merge and we'll have ABCBS and FOXNBC. Then they'll just merge all the networks into one super network that puts out crap that's crappier than the current reality crap and the nation will fall.

I laugh at all of this.

I watched the entire thing on C-Span. The most notable parts were the Adelstein and Capps speaches punctuated by applause from those in attendance. And the protesters being led out at the end for singing. You could just FEEL the anger of the country at the theft of our media channels by the industry.
Let's hope congress caves in to our only viable recourse... the power of our VOTES!

shoshidge:
You are ignoring the fact that a large percentage of Americans do not have access to the internet. These folks have to rely on TV, radio and newspapers for their information. If the majority of these are owned by a few big corporations, the information available to them will be very limited.

How long did it take for those of us on the internet to hear about the Super-DMCAs? Have you ever heard about the SDMCAs in any media outside of the internet? I know I haven't. Would you even know about it if you didn't have access to the internet?

Further media consolidation will make it that much easier for big media companies to squelch news concerning topics that are contrary to their own greedy agendas.

Even worse, the government can more easily cover up issues they want kept under wraps. After all, since the government is so willing to bow to the wants of the big corporations (mostly because of their big contribution$), it goes without saying that these same companies will be more than happy to ignore what they are asked to.

Also, consider this. How long before these same media companies corner the market on ISP service and begin shutting down websites that disagree with corporate interests.

You have all GOT to see this...

mirrors.creativecommons.html

What does your vote matter when in a corrupted and decadant regime where entire blocs of votes (cemetaries included) are bought and sold between special interest PACs and politicians.

And peaceful protest is a joke - ONLY when 'peaceful' protests turned out not to be has anything ever changed, period.

They won't be covered by the media, especially the big 'combine' media, or if they are they'll be spun to make the protestors look like pathetic idiots.

A bunch of 'hippies' holding signs are not taken seriously, rioters with torches, a grudge and an address are - although I cannot see most folks lowering themselves to that methodology when they have a less risky one available.

You want to really hurt an industry or politician, hit them below the belt, in the WALLET - that kind of pain they understand.

Follow the dollar, find out where the income comes from and STRANGLE it, as many of us are doing by refusing to buy product from certain corporations.

And while I cannot legally suggest mucking up those pipelines of dollarsigns in other fashions...

It remains a consideration, especially in light of the fact that if your voice isn't going to be heard since the law of the land doesn't seem to apply to folks above a certain income level...

Then perhaps one should find another way to 'shout'.

Kill the money, and you cut out the black and evil heart of corporate media.

HOW you do that, well, that's up to you.
Just a thought.

-User

Hey music, I don't know what it's like in the U.S. these days but in Canada, anyone with a library card has access to the internet.
there's also an internet cafe on practically every street corner here.
if those alternatives aren't an option, then what about bartering with your neighbor for use of his computer?

Of course, if a person in the lower socio-economic strata was that resourceful, they probably wouldn't be in the lower socio-economic strata for very long..(whoops, did I just say that?)

Some people believe that poverty causes ignorance, i think its the other way around,(if I keep talking like that, User's probably going to come over and bomb my house)

Alternative media here is usually FREE as opposed to coventional media which usually costs something.

The arguement seems to be between two differing perspectives..
'corporate media dumbs down the population' as opposed to
'the population dumbs down corporate media'.
To me, the latter arguement fits my everyday observations.
The reason we have so many reality shows is because they're cheap to make and people like watching them, not because corporate media is trying to make us stupid.
if people get sick of reality shows then they'll stop making them, the viewing public dictates the content, not the other way around.

Fox news had the highest ratings during the war because people wanted patriotic jingoism, not anti-government criticism.

If it was all about the money than we wouldn't have ANY good shows.

And music, even if your super-DMCA stories were all over the front page, most people still wouldn't give a shit about them, not with all of the juicy war and disease stories going on.

All of the scary scenarios regarding media consolidation might scare me too if it weren't for the fact that things seem to be going in the opposite direction, honestly, i don't know how a government or a corporation is supposed to get anything done these days with all of the lobby groups, protest groups, activist groups and scandal hungry media hounding them wherever they turn.

Musicwantsto -- And recent news says the balance on Internet users has just shifted as well. More than half of Internet users in the US are on broadband.

Shoshidge's last paragraph is great. Things ARE going in the opposite direction. Since Monday, the media has already turned on itself. I've seen ads for Fox's Bill O'Reilly on MSNBC this week. Chris Matthews said he's not accepting anyone's bias except his own.

And as far as people hounding the government, well, that's been going on forever. We don't want that to change. They are our representatives to government. They had better listen.

Because the RIAA doesn't have enough money to pay to get them re-elected again. We'll all make sure of that.

>>Some people believe that poverty causes ignorance, i think its the other way around,(if I keep talking like that, User's probably going to come over and bomb my house)

Copy/Paste cutoffs - SUCK.
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>>Some people believe that poverty causes ignorance, i think its the other way around,(if I keep talking like that, User's probably going to come over and bomb my house)

So does flaky HTML...
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*Some people believe that poverty causes ignorance, i think its the other way around,(if I keep talking like that, User's probably going to come over and bomb my house)*

Nah, cause you are utterly right.
America has dumbed down 'education' till it's full of rote learning, padded with encouragement to unquestioning obediance.
Folks are no longer taught the only skill worth going to school for, how to think for themselves, and learn constantly and fluidly, instead of monkey-see, monkey-do.

Consider that phonics is no longer really taught in school, you have to buy it seperately, mine was one of the last classes in the state I lived at the time to have a reading program that included identifying words by sounding-out and context, instead of rote memorization.

The american education system causes ignorance, and that ignorance causes poverty - it CAN be overcome, but it's a hard uphill climb.

And yes, as long as "products of the system" (perfect unquestioning consumers) are willing to consume the garbage corporate media force-feeds em, folks with a mind and will of their own will remain a minority in a country where majority rules.

Only solution to that is to start convincing other people that it's ok to have a mind of their own, and sites like this are at least a beginning.

There's definately a split, and our segment is growing as more blatant and obvious stupidity on behalf of the RIAA, FCC and others causes a natural backlash effect even in the most clueless - I celebrate their idiocy because it reveals them to folks who would otherwise just go on, unquestioning as they are taught.

From the cradle to the grave in this era, we're taught not to question, simply to accept, to obey (which is why the big combines can get away with selling the GARBAGE they do..) and mass media has a significant part in that.

Without independant media, however, the situation is only going to get worse, especially as we have at least two generations of "drones" under our belt already, by my count.

I'd rather have a 100 channels in hopes of wading through the garbage and finding something worthwhile, than 5 channels I KNOW are fecal matter and worthless.

Without independant media, there is no future for media - it's that simple.

-User

well said gdZiemann, I'm all for hounding the government if they screw up, or if they are planning to screw up, I just wish they were given the benefit of the doubt sometimes.

government critics never seem to stop at questioning the rightness of a governments action, they always go on to speculate on the hidden agendas behind the action, assuming the worst possible motives.

While these innuendos make for juicy sound bites, they contribute to a general pessimism towards politics, whereby anyone caught speaking positively about their government is seen as naive or brainwashed by corporate mainstream media.

Whenever I listen to our local AM talk radio shows, which like yours are predominantly right wing, there's always someone who calls up accusing the host of bending over for the corporate establishment.
The host always responds by pointing out that the VAST majority of his listenership agree with him and that he has never had to alter his content or opinions for the sake of keeping advertisers happy.

As long as his ratings are high, he can talk about whatever he wants.

Corporate media IS about money, they get money by giving the public what the public wants, if they don't then they lose advertising revenue.
It's the ultimate meritocracy.

It doesn't matter if one guy or a million guys control the mainstream media, if no one's buying it, you'll still go out of business.

Perhaps the state should run the media? it works in China, or does it?

User, as far as I can see, independant media is exploding thanks to technology.
And while I agree that the state of public education is a joke, the reasons for it's decline are disputable.
Also, i've never thought that school encouraged free thinking, ever.
School can mess you up, make you rebel, but it can't make you dumb, it can only train you to endure temporary periods of mind-numbing tedium, which is an important skill for most people.
Those on the ends of the bell curve, who are too stupid or too smart to train either suffer through it and play along or they drop out and become criminals or entrepreneurs, depending on their nature.
Public school only benefits the hump in the middle of the curve, and for that matter, so does mainstream media.
i don't think that there are any crack-whores who set their alarms so they can watch 'survivor' and the same goes for neurosugreons

I'll take these points one at a time.

>>> I didn't have time to read the whole article, but i've always disagreed with the paranoid opinion that our media is being insidiously gobbled up by greedy corporations for the purpose of dumbing us down so we're stupid enough to buy their crap.

That's because in Canada, it hasn't happened to the degree it has in the United States.

>>> Is TV getting dumber? I don't know, watch a few Gilligan's Island reruns and get back to me.
TV has always been a sea of banality punctuated by the occasional worthwhile show.
that's because most people who sit around wacthing TV all day are dumb, or intelectually lazy.

TV is getting dumber. Not that Bewitched or Gilligan's Island represented high points, but where are the high points on American TV right now?

The fact is, although televison's been on a decline since the cancellation of See It Now, television did have some high points - coverage of the Vietnam War, for example. M*A*S*H, Roots, and many other shows with meaning, depth, and relevance were on the air. TV used to have two purposes, to inform, and to entertain. Now it does not inform, and it only entertains the lowest common denominator.

>>> Radio? 10 years ago, the radio consumer in my city had few choices, now we have a station for every genre,(almost) and if you don't like commercial radio there's always state radio(CBC) or campus radio, and what about internet radio?

The U.S. doesn't have state radio, and campus radios in the US are limited to very weak broadcasts - usually barely reaching the entire campus it's based on. A few years ago in New York, we had an electronica/hord rock station, 2 hard rock stations, a classic rock station, a soft rock station, a spanish station, and a few talk/news stations.

The electronica/hard rock station went off the air, one of the hard rock stations switched to talk after they had a big success with Opie and Anthony, and then in a brilliant move, they fired their flagship DJs which prompted the format change. We lost 1 hard rock station, the other now only plays top-40 hard rock. The Soft Rock station went from Soft rock to pop, the spanish station keeps on chugging. The classic rock station is owned by Clear Channel now, and they play the same 50 or so classic rock songs all the time, in between interminable blocks of ads. The spanish station keeps chugging along, and I know there's at least 1 talk/news station out there.

>>>Anyway, the internet has made diversity in conventional media irrevelevant, if TV and radio aren't telling you what you want to hear then there is a website out there that panders to whatever dumbass conspiracy theory you can name.

The problem is, most people get their news from the same sources as the major providers. Cnn.com, nytimes.com, etc... The only real competitor is Salon.com, and that's periodically having troubles, despite being one of the best news organizations on the planet.

>>>nobody ever talks about the downsides of having diverse media...

Cause there are none.

>>> competition between multiple news agencies is partially responsible for how scandal hungry the news industry is.

I'd rather have multiple sources carrying Monica Lewinsky than no sources carrying the important stuff.

>>> I think most of us do not benefit from all of the conflicting information we get.

Right. We should get all our information from one source so we know the absolute truth from the Information Ministry dept. of Viacom.

>>> Hey music, I don't know what it's like in the U.S. these days but in Canada, anyone with a library card has access to the internet.

Nope, that's not the case here. I wish it was.

There's also an internet cafe on practically every street corner here.

Not the case here. Internet cafes are pretty rare.

>>>If those alternatives aren't an option, then what about bartering with your neighbor for use of his computer?

The problem is, if I don't have access, chances are good that my neighbor doesn't either. Mostly because if I'm in the local service area, that means that my neighbor is as well. Many people are also just technophobic. My mother doesn't trust or like computers, for example.

>>>Of course, if a person in the lower socio-economic strata was that resourceful, they probably wouldn't be in the lower socio-economic strata for very long..(whoops, did I just say that?)

And as anyone who's ever had to struggle to get ahead can tell you, that's not true. Read "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbra Ehrenrich. It's not cause people are dumb or lazy that people are stuck in the lower socio-economic classes, it's because of a lack of oppertunity. How else do you explain the mother who works 2 full time jobs just to keep a work over her head. You're a smart guy. How do you get out of that situation?

Asshole.

>>>Some people believe that poverty causes ignorance, i think its the other way around,(if I keep talking like that, User's probably going to come over and bomb my house)

I'll bring the match. Personally, knowing some rich guys that were dumb as dirt and just lucked into the money, and some brilliant and creative poor, I can tell you're 100% wrong on this assertion. Poverty doesn't even cause ignorance - it's a failure of the educational system in this country that causes ignorance.

>>> Alternative media here is usually FREE as opposed to coventional media which usually costs something.

Really? So www.cnn.com is free while www.salon.com costs $15 a year? CBS's Survivor is free, while Showtime's "Six Feet Under" is pay-TV? You don't know what you're talking about. Oh, try getting BBC America without having to pay through the nose. Basic packages carry all the "big corporate" stations, but if you want something like BBC America or Al Jazeera, you need to pay for expensive satellite fees or expensive cable packages outside the realm of affordability for most Americans.

>>> The arguement seems to be between two differing perspectives..
'corporate media dumbs down the population' as opposed to
'the population dumbs down corporate media'.
To me, the latter arguement fits my everyday observations.
The reason we have so many reality shows is because they're cheap to make and people like watching them, not because corporate media is trying to make us stupid.
if people get sick of reality shows then they'll stop making them, the viewing public dictates the content, not the other way around.

Right, as far as *entertainment* goes. As far as *information* goes, though, that's a very top-down process. And how are you going to complain that you're not being informed about something that you don't even know that you're missing?

>>>Fox news had the highest ratings during the war because people wanted patriotic jingoism, not anti-government criticism.

I think the reason there exists such patriotic jingoism in this country is because the media paints anti-government critics as "fringe."

>>>If it was all about the money than we wouldn't have ANY good shows.

Reality clue: We Don't Have Any Good Shows. Name one.

>>> And music, even if your super-DMCA stories were all over the front page, most people still wouldn't give a shit about them, not with all of the juicy war and disease stories going on.

Perhaps not. Most people didn't give a shit about the Vietnam war at first.

>>>All of the scary scenarios regarding media consolidation might scare me too if it weren't for the fact that things seem to be going in the opposite direction, honestly, i don't know how a government or a corporation is supposed to get anything done these days with all of the lobby groups, protest groups, activist groups and scandal hungry media hounding them wherever they turn.

Yes, but who's been successfully lobbying, and who's been unsuccessful? ACLU? Not very successful. AFL-CIO? No thank you. RIAA? Yep. Military-Industrial complex? You betcha. A briber can influence, but only if the politician is receptive. And right now, those who are doing the bribing are also the ones that are charged with the responsibility of making sure you find out about what's going on in congress.

Quite frankly, freedom of the press has always been restricted to those who could afford one. The problem with the FCC ruling is that it effectively makes Television broadcasting so expensive that it's impossible to anyone except the super-rich to own one. And that, to me, is scary.

Another thing User, you mentioned that Phonics isn't taught in school anymore, why is that?

Didn't some well meaning people decide that learning to read phonetically was to regimented and stifled creative thinking?
Part of the problem with public school is that it is so obsessed with developing creativity and self esteem that in the 10 hours a day a kid spends there he/she hasn't learned anything concrete.

Anyone heard of "Built for the kill"? Its a "documentory" program which takes dumbing down to new extremes. I cant describe just how bad it is. To give you some idea, bad music plays constantly in the background while the various predators the documentory is about are shown with a lot of computer graphics and special effects. Its not enough to simpley say a chamelion (can anyone spell that?) has independantly controled eyes. Intstead the viewer is shown a picture of an insect as two crosshairs wave about the screen, edventually finding the insect. Its that bad.

This is what we will have to suffer, as more intellegent programs are sacrificed for programs will mass appeal and mass advertiseing. And people will watch it, because its on every channel.

Asside from the bas programs, could this create media islands? Already the Sun newspaper and its TV guide are showing a notable bias towards (same owner) Fox programs. Perhaps its just because they share a target audience through - morons. The only big exception is yet another attempt to dell everyone how great Disneys Dinotopia program is. How much did that cost Disney I wonder . (BTW, Anyone else translated that name yet? You have to translate the first half from latin and the second from greek, but it gives a good idea of where it was made. It would be funnier if it wasn't named after a book through.)

Someone pointed out libruarys allow internet access, and so access to slightly less biased news. Big flaw here. Convenience. Consider the typical American (or european) person, Joe Public. Joe doesn't want to follow world events. Joe flicks through TV channels and watches whatever looks good. Joe probably buys one paper because he likes the cartoons or wants the TV guide. Joe is certinly too lazy to go all the way to the libruary for news, and its unlikely he even bothered checking the internet daily if he has it at home. Even ignoreing our hypothetical couch potato, there is also the subtler effects of media. The effects we all grew up with and didn't even realise were affecting us. The plot lines of programs, even cartoons. Unspoken lessons in TV morality. The Cyote (sp?) must be bad, because he wants to eat Road Runner. Never mind the fact that he has to eat somehow. No questions: Hes the bad guy, and thats it. Its ok to blow up cities in Iraq, because the countries leader is Evil. Its surprising how fre people even accept that Hitler was vegetarian, the idea conflicts so much with the popular image. Surely by now everyone has heard of Disneys infamous episode of The Proud Family, with a plot which teaches children that internet file shareing is stealing? If not just google it. The combined effect of even a few episodes like that could manipulate an entire generation.

Unfortunatly I was just interupted and its ruined my typeing spree now .

Phew, OK Funksaw onto you.
Good shows? Well, I don't watch a lot of TV but by the standards of the past(M*A*S*H*, you mentioned and Roots), the following shows seem ok...
West Wing,ER, 24, the Wire, Soprano's, the Simpsons, Star Trek.
that's a quick list, but they all dispay quality writing, acting and production, whether or not you like them is a matter of individual taste.
If you still think American TV sucks, try watching Canadian TV, or Korean, Mexican, Indian, Fijian, you name it. You will pray god for "Friends" reruns.

If the radio scene in New York sucks as bad as you say, than it will change, if there is a market for a new radio station, someone will get one going.

Anyone I've talked to who has struggled to get ahead, has no respect for people who sit on their ass and complain about lack of opportunity, they're the most conservative people around.

As far as my solution to the working mother scenario goes. i'll spell it out for you...(It's what I'm going to tell my daughter so she doesn't become one)

1. Get your education before you become sexually active.
2.If that's to hard for you, at least get to know the guy before you fuck him, make sure he respects you, and use protection.

most people will do OK following these rules alone but for those who don't...

3. listen to your friends and family, if they think the guy your dating is a jerk, maybe you should respect their opinion instead of eloping.

4.If you get pregnant by accident and you're ethically opposed to abortion, consider adoption.

5.if you decide you keep the baby and the guy splits on you, beg you parent's forgiveness and move in with them until you can get your shit together.

6.If you can't do that, move in with anyone who will take you in,(siblings, grandparents, friends), unless you're a total fuck-up, someone is bound to care enough about you to help you out.

7. If that doesn't work, talk to the family of the babies' father, maybe you can guilt them into helping you out.

8.if all of the above doesn't work, maybe you should consider adoption again.

9. For god's sakes, don't have another kid until you can take care of the first one.

10. Join a church, the people there will be willing to help you out, that's part of what religion is for.

If every potential single mother wallowing in poverty in the western world followed these simple guidelines then when something really tragic like a death, injury or illness happened to a family, the state would have no problem helping them get back on their feet.
If believing that makes me an asshole then I know some traditional Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, East Asian, and Christian families who follow those rules and while they might not be fun at parties, their kids aren't standing in line at the welfare office either, I guess they're assholes too eh Funk?

Yes, Funksaw, there are poor geniuses and dumb rich people , but on a statistical level, they are exceptions not the norm.
In the western world, any person with a good mind, and a solid work ethic will do OK, this might not have always been so, especially for minorities but it is now.

Moving on, you're right, most people didn't care about the Vietnam war until they started seeing it on TV.
Most people don't really care about any war that's not going on on their soil until it's put into a context they can relate to, namely graphic bloody images on TV and large casualties.

There's got to be at least a dozen military conflicts going on in the world as i write this that I don't give a shit about, if I did, I'd never be able to sleep at night.
If the U.S. invaded Canada tomorrow, most of the common people in the world wouldn't give it a second thought, they probably can't even find Canada on a map.
The rich have always been able to get away with more than the poor could.
efforts to change that fact have led to some of the bloodiest revoloutions and most brutal regimes in human history and nothing ever changed.

In the western world we have constitutions and rule of law which have not eliminated the problem but they have lessened it to a managable degree.

well...

>>> West Wing,ER, 24, the Wire, Soprano's, the Simpsons, Star Trek.

They're all entertainment. The Simpsons occasinally has a moral relevance or topical or appropriate topics, but usually is just silly. The Sopranos is the only one of the bunch I'd actually say has really good writing quality, and that's on pay-TV.

>>>If the radio scene in New York sucks as bad as you say, than it will change, if there is a market for a new radio station, someone will get one going.

The problem is that there is certainly a market for a new radio station, the problem with the FCC is that there are only a limited number of licenses allowed per-city. Bandwidth is a naturally scarce resource, so the FCC must license the bandwidth to protect the public interest - it's why the FCC can fine you if you say "Fuck" on the air, but not if it's in print or on the internet.

Here's some responses to your advice:

1) Agreed with on principle. But then again, since most people can't afford college anyway, this becomes a moot point.

2) See #1

3) Trust me, if I listened to my friends and family, I'd have no career prospects, would be a neurotic nutball, and generally unhappy with my life. I *did* listen to them on a couple of major decisions in my life, and was unfortunately unhappy with most of them. Bottom line: You can count on your family for support, but when it comes down to it, it's your life and your choices that you're going to have to live with.

4-9) Why do you think that the teen birth rate has anything to do with the general pheonomeon of poverty? Sure, there's a strong correlation between young motherhood and poverty, but there's plenty of people out there that work hard and are still poor, whether or not they've had kids. And what does ANY of that have to do with FCC Regulation?

10) Churches are for pedophiles and the kids who love them. Most clergy I've known have been greedy, money grubbing hypocrites. By telling people to join a church, you're asking people to put their heads in the lion's mouths.

Truth be told, there's absolutely NO correlation between financial success and intellegence. An average-IQ stockbroker will probably earn more than a genius physicist? Why? Because there's more money to be made in stockbroking. Not that the physicist is dumb. On the contrary, he's doing what only he can do, while the stockbroker does what millions can. It's just that the physicist and the stockbroker have different skill sets and different career choices.

funk, the only reason I brought up the single motherhood thing is because you asked, but in response...
Any young woman who follows those steps in that order will NEVER become a welfare dependant single mom, barring any unforseen tragedies like death or illness, I personally guarantee it.

Education doesn't inherently mean college, it could be trade school, beauty school, or any type of certification whether it be a one day or one year course to get you rolling in a half decent career.

If your family situation wasn't ideal, that's unfortunate, but again, that's not the statistical norm.
Some clergy are pedophiliac hypocrites but the VAST majority aren't.
I'm not religious myself, and when I was young and dumb, i was, like you, hostile and skeptical of ALL religions, my experience in being around people who live a decent religious life has taught me that there's more to it than tithing the peasants and diddling the alter boys.

The point of joining a church is not so the priest can molest your kids but to include yourself in a well meaning, charity minded community, you don't even have to invite the priest over for dinner if you don't want to.

If i were to make a chart which took 1000 or more Americans at random and measured their IQ versus their average yearly salary, the curve would indicate that generally speaking, the higher the IQ, the higher the salary, if that's not a correlation I don't know what is.
The prescence of an exception to a rule does not inherently negate the rule.
If I jump out of a plane without a parachute and survive, following your logic, jumping out of planes without a parachute is a safe activity.

That physicist you talked about may not be rich, but he's not poor either, neither are all stockbrokers wealthy.
In fact, if you averaged out the income of all of the stockbrokers in America, and did the same to the physicists, their incomes would probably be within sight of each other.
Acheiving great wealth in a capitalistic economy involves taking financial risks, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward if it pays off.

Physicists generally don't assume great financial risks in their profession, other than the cost of their education.
Yet, I think they do OK, I'm sure they generally have nice homes, shiny cars and send their kids to nice schools.

Wealth and poverty are relative terms anyway, I'm personally in the bottom third of the prosperity scale here.
Yet, I have a car, a roof over my head, good health, beer money and enough leisure time to sit here and argue with you.

How does ant of this relate to FCC regulations or lack thereof? find out later in the next installment of.." Redneck Ramblings" by Shoshidge, i've gotta go, it's been fun

Guys, here's what happened to phonics.

They used to teach it in a year. Then they discovered it was more profitable for the people writing phonics textbooks if they spread it out over 6 or 8 years.

One of the few things I like about the simpsons. Fox produces a lot of programs to entertain the masses full of sex, dirty jokes, bad language and oversimplifications. But at least they admit it, and dont pretend they produce quality programs. The simpsons frequently makes fun of it Not like Disney who act as through every kids film they make is a work of art.

I noticec the topic seems to have wondered off FCC regulations too

(And since noone else has worked it out, dino=terrible or "fearfully great" (abbreviated form of deinos), topia=place. Hence, "terrible place"

Oh boy...

Okay, first -

>>Reality clue: We Don't Have Any Good Shows. Name one.>Yes, Funksaw, there are poor geniuses and dumb rich people , but on a statistical level, they are exceptions not the norm.>If i were to make a chart which took 1000 or more Americans at random and measured their IQ versus their average yearly salary, the curve would indicate that generally speaking, the higher the IQ, the higher the salary, if that's not a correlation I don't know what is.
The prescence of an exception to a rule does not inherently negate the rule.

Oh boy...

Okay, first -

**Reality clue: We Don't Have Any Good Shows. Name one.**

We HAD one, it was called Firefly, and stunning that this may sound, it was on Fox.

Fox repeatedly pre-empted it, often without notice, deliberately aired the episodes out of order, and then canned it with three paid-for episodes unaired even though it had better ratings than ANY show to ever hit that time slot, and a rabid hardcore fan base.
The reason they deliberately set it up to fail and then killed it off is unknown, since it makes no logical sense, but then did Fox ever ?

**Yes, Funksaw, there are poor geniuses and dumb rich people , but on a statistical level, they are exceptions not the norm.**

Untrue, and while I would not say geniuses, I'd say that most poor folks who are still alive, are quite cunning if not exactly bright, they have to be.
I lived more than half my life in abject poverty - which is what happens when both parents die on you and you've no family left worth a damn and you're just past sixteen.

Working your ass off at a two or three dead-end jobs that BARELY pay the rent, eating only every other day, trying to make ends meet without dealing drugs, it's insane, ok ?
You don't even have TIME to get any education or training for anything better, and certainly not the money, on top of which not even time to look for anything better to begin with.
And when the layoffs come around and you are low man on the seniority pole, what then ?

Most of the poor folks I knew in my youth were reasonably bright, and very worldy-cunning on top of that, they had to be to survive - but I noticed that the smarter they were, the faster they burned out trying and fell to addiction, suicide, or crime and it's associated violence because they could see there was little or no hope of climbing out.
I won that lottery, but so few do, it's appalling.

Parents who chuck their kid out the door with a "see-ya-later" at eighteen condemn them to the same situation, and to my eyes, it's attempted murder.

**If i were to make a chart which took 1000 or more Americans at random and measured their IQ versus their average yearly salary, the curve would indicate that generally speaking, the higher the IQ, the higher the salary, if that's not a correlation I don't know what is.
The prescence of an exception to a rule does not inherently negate the rule.**

I would challenge you to prove that.
I live right smack in the middle of one of the biggest industries in the US, the Automotive Industry, see?
With the UAW, and the "Big Three" upper management, it's based on a kind of good-ole-boys-network combination of nepotism, favoritism, sexism and racism, even now.

Women and Minorities ? uh-huh, sure, via temp-contract companies, poorly paid (about 30% of what 'hired' employees make for the same work) and instantly disposable... but actually HIRE them into the company ? over the CEO's dead body.... unless the press is watching.

When you get into the corporate boardrooms, start checking family trees, THAT is where the correlation is, and has nothing to do with intelligence, at least in the auto industry.
===============

And while we're on the topic ?
Consider that most of the "must have car, phone" jobs for young people don't pay enough to pay the car INSURANCE alone, much less enough to support oneself..
And jobs that demand a $70k education and pay less than $18k a year ?

Which brings us full circle yet again.

If they want to charge us $20-$30 for a damned CD...

If you want to sell a product to people, perhaps it might be a good idea to make sure the people you are trying to sell it to can AFFORD the product in question?

But no, that's too complex a thought for the RIAA, isn't it.

-User

i didn't know anyone was still reading this thread...

Nice points User, but I have to defend some of the ones of mine that you challenged.

While I do, it must be said that when discussing a controversial subject like human intelligence, and it's relation to socio-economics, some of the terms have to be clarified...

IQ is a very mis-used term because it is applied too generally, it is meant to measure the innate cognitive capacity of a person and does not reflect their upbringing, educational opportunities, mental balance, empathy, morality, or creativity.

And while modern IQ tests claim to adjust for cultural bias, one wonders how well that actually works.
IQ does not, unfortunately, play a large role in the decision making involved when a person is confronted with the opportunity to do drugs, for example, or date a Hell's Angel, or rob a bank, or donate a kidney to your ailing sister.

Therefore, I believe that part of what User said is true, there are a lot of bright poor people around, you don't need a low IQ to be poor.

However, IQ does apply when determining a persons' capacity to do calculus, finish law school, compose classical music, design a skyscraper or perform that kidney operation I alluded to.
So while you don't need a high IQ to be poor, you do to be rich,(unless you luck out and win the lottery, get an inheritance, or become an entrepreneur of some sort).

Despite what some people believe,(usually for political reasons), dumb rich people are statistically rare in the western world, it takes a certain amount of brains to manage and maintain wealth, some dumb people might acquire wealth somehow but it wouldn't last very long under their control.

I don't need the results of the study in front of me to know how it will turn out,(the studies have been done I just don't have the motivation to look for them right now).

Moving on, the term 'genius' is also misused, it is often used to describe someone who is universally brilliant, whereas, most famous geniuses were brilliant in one or two areas, but horribly stupid in other ways.
When I think of a 'genius', I picture a person who is an intellectual hyper-specialist, whose mind excells at math,( or music, painting, whatever) at the expense of everything else. Such people usually come off as aloof, stoned or retarded when not in the context of the thing that they are geniuses in.

They can also be notoriously bad business people, often dying in povery and obscurity.

it could be argued, I suppose, that the relationship between IQ and income changes when you hit the top 2% or so of the IQ scale but,...

blah, blah blah.. how does this apply to the FCC you say? hold on a sec

Well, it has been implied that consolidation of mainstream media in the hands of the few, is responsible for the perceived low quality and diversity of our news and entertainment sources, and this degradation will continue as long as the trend towards conglomeration continues.

i question this perspective for many reasons...
First off, I see our media/news source options expanding rather than contracting.

I'll continue this tomorrow,sorry for the length and topical digression everyone but i'm getting to it.

WOW!