media consolidation and the internet

with a title like this, I would expect a large essay…. sorry kids, this is a two beer, three paragraph rant…

I just finished listening to latest Bill Moyers podcast (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/podcast.xml) on the way home from work. The quick summary is that the FCC is attempting to further loosen the ownership rules allowing big media companies to buy-up more properties. If this does go through, the result is more of what we see on TV, in print, and listen to on the radio will be in the hands of much fewer people.

What really stood out to me were the people (such as the folks producing shows for the WVON radio station) trying to make their own community a better place by providing programming over this controlled media. Their problem is that there isn’t really a business case that justifies this effort — there is no money to sustain such a production. Throughout this podcast, i keep thinking — why not use another media like a podcast, or videocast or something else that didn’t have the huge infrastructure costs. I suppose there is a cost on the consumer end which is a problem — more people have radios than ipods+computer… but that is changing. The point is that the small guy with a small audience can not compete with something that has dozens of times the marketing efforts, can afford the large infrastructure costs, and can leverage syndicated content across multiple channels. These smaller guys have to do something different to maintain a voice — they can’t and shouldn’t fight toe to toe if they don’t have to. This is where I see the importance of a level playing field level — the web.

So, lets just suppose that we take the FCC ownership to a final but unrealistic conclusion. Lets suppose that News Corp. (or another fair and balanced company) owned the tv stations, all of the major papers, and all of the radio stations in my area. Does it matter? It probably does. But what is perfectly clear is that having a Free and Open Web is critical not only to ensuring that there are different viewpoints, but critical to our very Democracy. The more big media owns, the more the Web must remain Open. Sadly, the current FCC proposal doesn’t touch Net Neutrality despite a clear connection between these two issues.

If you want to know about this legislation, check out the podcast or you can check out the fair and balanced website: http://www.stopbigmedia.com/.