A. INTRODUCTION

I. Suppose Comcast owned all the commercial radio stations in Philadelphia, along with all the TV stations, newspapers, and sports teams. They own your satellite provider, the magazines you read and the music you listen to. And they might as well be the owner of the nuclear power plant down the road too! This is referred to as cross-ownership, in which a corporation owns companies of different media outlets in the same or different market.

II. The question I pose relates to media content. If Comcast were to own the majority of the media outlets in Philadelphia, do you think the public interest would be served? Would people be informed of the truth or would they just receive a fixed Comcast-version of the news? We live in a democracy, and an important part of its makeup is the diversity of choices and viewpoints. Corporate media control threatens this democracy. Margie Monin of The College Press stated that, “because most media outlets are owned by giant corporations, this limits the amount of information and what kind of information is disclosed to the public, thus limiting the public’s freedom and responsibility to form its own opinions.”

III. I would first like to talk about the recent Comcast-AT&T merger and its possible affects on media content. Next, I will give you some short examples of how corporate control detrimentally affects our media. Finally, I will talk about an ever-growing monopoly in the radio industry, Clear Channel.

B. COMCAST

I. Comcast Corporation, soon to be AT&T Comcast, with the closing on the acquisition of AT&T Broadband this week, is the leading cable franchise in the United States reaching 27 million subscribers, which is nearly twice as many as second-place AOL Time Warner Inc. Comcast controls 29 percent of the market with systems in 17 of the nation’s 20 largest cities. Comcast also has majority ownership of QVC, Comcast-Spectator, Comcast Sports Net, and The Golf Channel, and a controlling interest in E! Networks as well as 21% stake in Time Warner Entertainment.

II. In a 3 to 1 vote, the Republican-dominated FCC approved the Comcast AT&T merger, saying that they found no evidence to prove that the merger would harm consumer choice, and that it may in fact lower cable prices. The only one to oppose this decision was lone democrat Michael J. Copps who in his dissenting statement stated that the Comcast applicants admitted themselves that the merger probably would not lower cable prices. So some members of the FCC cannot even get their facts straight. If the FCC has found no evidence of harm in the merger, then they obviously did not address the fact that 1,700 AT&T jobs would be lost, or the fact that Internet broadband services could soon be monopolized. If the FCC cannot get their facts straight, should we believe that they have thoroughly researched and are able to comment on the procedures that come before them? Copps believes that Comcast could have too much control over programming, consumer prices and distribution.

III. Copps, who believes that Comcast could have too much control over programming and prices, is the only one from the FCC that has defended media ownership rules, which have recently been reviewed, and relaxed. For example, limits on local radio ownership have been lifted, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 reversed the ban on cross-ownership in the same market. In February of 2002, the rule that prevented cable companies from owning TV stations in the same market was also lifted, which is why Comcast continues its vast expansion.

IV. Consumer advocacy groups such as the Center for Digital Democracy believe that the new Comcast conglomeration “spawns a new industry giant that will be able to exert unprecedented control of both the cable TV and broadband Internet sectors.” Comcast will have the power to oversee the entire multichannel, digital TV and broadband marketplace. As Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders wrote, “with 85% of Americans getting their news from television, it is unacceptable that a few corporations will be able to dominate television production.” Advocates like Sanders believe that a healthy democracy requires a diversity of viewpoints.

V. Since the passing of the Telecommunications Act, there has been a huge change in the way that information is brought to us. The United States went from having 50 media-owning corporations in 1983 to 9 in 2002. Large corporations have teamed up and used what they call synergy to control our media content. Synergy means that the integration of two or more companies will have greater affects than the sum of the individual ones. Synergy seems to me to be a copout, and a code word for monopoly, of which the actual result is corporate censorship. There are so many examples of this censorship that I could probably spend days talking about it. Instead, I’ll tell you about 3 specific situations.

C. EXAMPLES

I. One prime example of censorship occurred in 1998 when Disney-owned ABC News cut a 20/20 segment about Disney World that exposed problems with its hiring methods.

II. In another example, Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, made it a policy at MTV only to cover and promote film studios that purchased large amounts of advertising on the channel.

III. A final example is a famous incident that occurred between CBS News and the tobacco industry in 1995. The network did not broadcast an episode of 60 Minutes that featured an interview with tobacco insider Jeffrey Wigand.

IV. These examples prove that corporations do in fact have a strong grip on what is distributed to an audience. The scary fact is that our media is sinking into the deep depths of commercialism. According to Robert W. McChesney, author of the book Rich Media, Poor Democracy, “concentrated media control permits the largest media firms to increasingly commercialize their output with less and less fear of consumer reprisal.” This statement means that corporations are more concerned about profit than audience approval. The end result is that the diversity and integrity of the media is compromised, making it incredibly hard to distinguish between fact and fiction. Furthermore, if media content changes, so to does the public opinion, because the information that the public is exposed to influences social and political views, which ultimately affects who gets voted into office and runs the country.

V. One example of political corporate control was in 1998 when CNN, under pressure from the Pentagon and conservatives, fired producers of a documentary that investigated the use of nerve gas by American Special Forces operating in Laos during the Vietnam War.

D. CLEAR CHANNEL

I. In addition, radio giant Clear Channel’s headquarters are in Texas, the same state from which our beloved President is. Clear Channel is run by the Mays family who in fact are friends with the Bushs, all having backgrounds in petroleum interests. FCC commissioner Michael Powell and father General Colin Powell play important roles in the Bush administration. You do the math. According to Corporate Media Portal, “Our current administration is extremely friendly with the large corporate media families. For they all have something to gain from one another, at the expense of the trust and integrity of the American public.”

II. Clear Channel is a corporation that has intense control over the media, especially in the radio industry. Known to many as “Cheap Channel” this company is notorious for exploiting the Telecom Act and milking it for all it’s worth. Clear Channel controls about 1,200 radio stations in the country, owns numerous news stations, runs billboard ads, and is the second largest concert promoter in the country owning the tours of artists like Madonna, ‘N Sync and U2. They also own the network that airs Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, Casey Kasem, and the Fox Sports Radio Network. The company owns 5 radio stations in Philadelphia alone including Q102, Power99, Sunny104.5, 105.3FM/1480AM (WDAS), and 106.1FM. Clear Channel is a big fan of syndication. For example, on Q102, MTV star Carson Daly does a countdown, and on Power99 gossip queen Wendy Williams brings us the “hot and the juicy”. These DJs are syndicated meaning that they are voice tracked to sister stations nation-wide, from a central studio. This means that Clear Channel stations are using recordings, and not people as DJs.

III. Hence, people are out of jobs, Clear Channel saves money, and their stations have the same formats throughout the country. Sunny104.5 recently changed over from Alice104.5. Alice’s entire air staff was fired because the format flopped, according to Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky. “It’s been six weeks since Alice104.5 was transformed into Sunny104.5, and the station still has no live DJs. It’s like a puke box. Oooops, sorry, I mean juke box,” stated Bykofsky. The only real people in the studio were the traffic reporters. The fact that Clear Channel employs robots and computers instead of people is frightening, and proves a major point about media content. If Clear Channel hires no human talent, then their formats will be identical nation-wide, so that there will be no diversity in Clear Channel’s programming.

IV. According to an article written by Eric Boehlert, Clear Channel is “the most powerful force in the music industry today.” Boehlert states that the company is known for its hardball tactics, having been hit with a number of antitrust lawsuits, petitions to the FCC and pending legislation on Capitol Hill. Clear Channel associates have been known to tell artists that if they do not perform in Clear Channel venues, they will not get radio airplay. Furthermore Boehlert reports that since Clear Channel’s rise over the past few years, concert ticket sales have dropped, along with CD sales and radio listener ship. These facts prove that Clear Channel’s corporate control over the radio industry has incredibly affected consumers.

V. The FCC’s website ironically states that it “has a tremendous role to play in creating fair rules for this era of competition.” By allowing mergers, the FCC in fact is eliminating competition. The FCC did studies on media ownership in the radio industry. In Radio Industry Review 2002, The Media Ownership Working Group found that the largest two firms in each radio market have an average of 74% of the market’s radio advertising revenue. In addition the FCC revealed that the number of listeners has been declining 1% annually for the past three years. They also noted a decline in the number of owners of radio stations, obviously since the Telecom Act in 1996.

VI. In another study, Radio Market Structure and Music Diversity, members of the FCC found that play lists for stations in the same format in different markets have grown more uniform while play lists for the same format stations in the same market are more diverse. They have speculated that corporate “concentration may be partly responsible for more uniformity for stations within formats and more diversity between formats.” What they are saying here is that two similar radio stations in the same market will have a more diverse play list of songs between them, than the same formatted stations in different markets. I’ll explain it like this. Philadelphia stations like Power99 FM and 103.9 The Beat have relatively similar formats, but have more song diversity between the two of them. This is obviously because of the fact that they are competing in the same market for the same audience, and therefore must offer alternatives to their audience. Nonetheless, Power99’s sister station in New York, whatever that may be, most likely will have the same exact format, playing the same songs, with some of the same DJs. So although commercial radio music seems to be somewhat diverse in the same market, corporate-owned stations still carry the same format throughout the nation. This data was drawn from the largest markets as well, and included only the most popular formats, so it in no way has surveyed the entire national industry, which would probably be impossible anyway. Thus it does not serve as a comprehensive study and the FCC should not use this to base its decisions upon.

E. CONCLUSION

I. In a survey released by the Future of Music Coalition, 80% of those surveyed are in favor of increasing the number of locally owned radio stations, and want longer more diverse play lists in their radio station’s format. Anyone who listens to commercial radio knows that there are those ten annoying Top 40 songs that you hear at least twice a day, not counting the times when you can’t get the damn song out of your head. Top 40 music is not necessarily a new concept, but continued corporate control could make this situation even worse. Imagine if the only music that radio stations played was those 10 pop songs. That is where we are headed if the FCC abolishes media ownership rules. And not only will we hear the same music every minute, every day, but we will be brainwashed into a Comcast state-of-mind when the company owns our TV stations, newspapers, radio stations, and every other media outlet possible. Our democracy will no longer exist and our minds probably won’t either.