Once, a colleague enticed me to work on a textbook project. Little Brown was interested, flew into Boston, shuttled came through a group of editors and executives, until he hit the highest level, where the honcho told him that the book would be unacceptable because the table of contents was not similar to that of McConnell's book. McConnell was the best seller at the time.
On Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 02:36:18AM +1000, Rob Schaap wrote: > I think Steiner discovered in 1951 that when a second TV station went to > air in a market, it invariably felt obliged to emulate the schedule of > the first - sorta ensuring a shot at half the going market. He then > discovered a third station did precisely the same thing - better to > chase 33% of a proven market than actually be worthwhile. It was around > entrant number four that a few schedule disparities would first become > evident. On that reading, a monopolist with four licences would proffer > more variety than four competitors with a channel each. Makes sense to > me. And not particularly dangerous for news and current affairs either, > as it'd be hard finding a more harmonised quartet than the big US > networks, no? > > I hear MSNBC is the last word in daring TV leftism over there ... > > Heh heh, > Rob. > > Bill Lear wrote: > > > > On Monday, June 3, 2002 at 14:39:44 (+0000) Justin Schwartz writes: > > >[Doug Henwood writes:] > > >>Bourdieu argues in his book On Television > > >><http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Why_TV_sucks.html> that > > >>competition produces sameness, not diversity. > > >> > > >>Doug > > > > > >What's his reasoning? Or is it just an observation? I would expect it to > > >depend on the circumstances. jks > > > > It is also highly dependent upon what definition of "competition" one > > uses, n'est-ce pas? > > > > If by "competition", Bourdieu means modern Western state-supported > > large- (very) and small- firm market mechanisms, that's one thing. If > > he means classic individualistic competition which drives prices to > > approach marginal costs, that's entirely another thing. > > > > With the latter, we would have zero diversity, since we'd all still be > > living in caves. With the former we would have a high degree of > > phylogenic differentiation, but a large degree of sympatry (been > > reading Gould's book, in his honor, you see:-). > > > > Didn't Thomas Frank also remark somewhere that the United States > > is a very dynamic society going nowhere? > > > > Bill > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
