Oligopoly: The Big Media Game Has Fewer and Fewer Players by Robert W. McChesney (The Progressive, 11/99) is an excellent assessment of our current media dilemma.
He lists 9 media giants who currently dominate our waking reality: Time Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Viacom, Sony, Seagram, AT&T/Liberty Media, Bertelsmann, and GE. In regard to these media mergers McChesney writes, “They do a superb job of maximizing profit for their shareholders but a dreadful job of providing the basis for a healthy democracy.” We are not informed as citizens of the impact these media mergers have on our lives.
The press provides a background of merger cheerleading by focusing on superficial details. Time’s coverage (9/20/99) wrote about how CBS’s Karmazin dangled Howard Stern as bait to woo Viacom’s Redstone. This is informative news? The same article included an empty debate concerning which president will most likely become head CEO.
The public is yet to be given sufficient information that would enable it to question an information system based on greed rather than the non-commercialized disbursement of vital information. Merged conglomerates form vertical integration that enables a company to increase profits by cross-promoting products—creating unfair advantage to anyone outside their ever-shrinking circle.
A recent example of media bias was the disproportionate amount of news time dedicated to the Egypt Air crash while simultaneous news of a law that will allow banking systems to merge with insurance companies appeared as a mere blip. According to NPR’s report on Nov. 4th, this bill would allow banking and insurance systems to merge. It sailed through with unanimous votes in the House and Clinton signed it into law. Will these merged firms share information? Will bank loans review one’s health history when considering loans? NPR briefly mentioned the negative impact this merger will have on the future of bank loans for low income neighborhoods. On this same news day we were treated to regular and detailed updates of the treacherous waves in Nantucket and the extraordinary depth of the plane’s black box. NPR had ample time to cover the bank mergers in detail, but too often even our “public” radio ( NPR lite) fails to deliver substantive reports. An old-time radio programmer from Berkeley noted that the BBC’s Public Radio International (PRI) sends a “special rendition” of its news for U.S. audiences. The U.S. listener is thought to prefer entertaining news, realized through an emphasis on human interest stories and padded with pleasant musical interludes.
“They do a superb job of maximizing profit for their shareholders but a dreadful job of providing the basis for a healthy
democracy.” —Robert McChesney
According to McChesney’s article, the federal government provides a paltry $260 million annually for our entire public broadcasting system while Japan and Britain’s public systems spend between 5 to 10 billion annually.
McChesney outlines in this article a four part proposal for media reform that makes enormous sense.
“1. Shore up nonprofit and noncommercial media. The starting point for media reform is to shore up a viable nonprofit, noncommercial media sector. What exists currently is too small and underfunded.
2. Strengthen public broadcasting.” By this McChesney means to take all the commercials out of Public Broadcasting and “to serve the entire population, not merely those who have highbrow tastes and disposable income to contribute during pledge drives.” He also suggests that federal spending on public broadcasting be expanded to compete with other parts of the world like Britain and Japan.
3. Tougher regulation on public ownership of the airwaves has given the Federal communications Commission (FCC) “a clear legal right to negotiate terms with those who are bestowed the hallowed broadcast licenses.” Today these licenses, in our deregulation frenzy (thanks to Reagan and all the presidents following) are literally given away by our government. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed with little opposition because the populace had little or no information about it. It included, among other nasty provisions, what amounts to a 70 billion dollar giveaway to these media giants in the form of 50 years of free digital access. Things might change quickly if people understood that our government must charge for the use of broadcast licenses especially while the beneficiaries of these free licenses (like cable giant Viacom) refuse to reciprocate with free cable access. Cable companies charge upwards of 40 dollars a month in cable fees and there is no current legal limit on their “need” to raise fees. These fees must be waived as long as the FCC gives away freely what could be enormously lucrative and would greatly benefit the average citizen. Seventy-billion dollars in potential profit is nothing to sneeze at.
A great part of his proposal is his outline for what should be required of all who attempt to get broadcast licenses from the FCC. “First, they will not air any paid political advertising during electoral campaigns unless every candidate on the ballot is given equal time, free of charge, immediately following the paid spot of a rival. This would go a long way toward clearing up the campaign spending mess that is destroying electoral democracy in the United States.”
“Second, we should follow the lead of Sweden and ban advertising to children under twelve. Likewise, we should remove advertising from TV news broadcasts. “Third, broadcasters should donate some percentage of their revenues to subsidize several hours per day of noncommercial children’s news/public affairs programming. Educators and artists should control the children’s programming, and journalists the news programming.”
4. Antitrust Regulation “If ever there was a need for antitrust laws that need is painfully clear in the area of media conglomerates. Not only do the media giants make a mockery of free competition, they impede the very functioning of democracy. Antitrust laws were put on the books at the turn of the last century to counteract the power of a few huge companies over both our economic and our political system.”
McChesney summarizes his four point proposal, meant to begin discussion: “The aim of these combined measures is to produce a media system that is fair and accurate, that scrupulously examines the activities of the powerful, that provides legitimate accounting of the diverse views and interests of society . . . The only bias is a fervent commitment to democracy.”
[©Robert McChesney, The Progressive, 11/99] compiled by Ann Simonton