The Rise Of Big Media

[Robert G. Seeberger]

My Beef With Big Media
How government protects big media--and shuts out upstarts like me.

By Ted Turner

In the late 1960s, when Turner Communications was a business of
billboards and radio stations and I was spending much of my energy
ocean racing, a UHF-TV station came up for sale in Atlanta. It was
losing $50,000 a month and its programs were viewed by fewer than 5
percent of the market.
I acquired it.

When I moved to buy a second station in Charlotte--this one worse than
the first--my accountant quit in protest, and the company's board
vetoed the deal. So I mortgaged my house and bought it myself. The
Atlanta purchase turned into the Superstation; the Charlotte
purchase--when I sold it 10 years later--gave me the capital to launch
CNN.

Both purchases played a role in revolutionizing television. Both
required a streak of independence and a taste for risk. And neither
could happen today. In the current climate of consolidation,
independent broadcasters simply don't survive for long. That's why we
haven't seen a new generation of people like me or even Rupert
Murdoch--independent television upstarts who challenge the big boys
and force the whole industry to compete and change.

It's not that there aren't entrepreneurs eager to make their names and
fortunes in broadcasting if given the chance. If nothing else, the
1990s dot-com boom showed that the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive
and well in America, with plenty of investors willing to put real
money into new media ventures. The difference is that Washington has
changed the rules of the game. When I was getting into the television
business, lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
took seriously the commission's mandate to promote diversity,
localism, and competition in the media marketplace. They wanted to
make sure that the big, established networks--CBS, ABC, NBC--wouldn't
forever dominate what the American public could watch on TV. They
wanted independent producers to thrive. They wanted more people to be
able to own TV stations. They believed in the value of competition.

So when the FCC received a glut of applications for new television
stations after World War II, the agency set aside dozens of channels
on the new UHF spectrum so independents could get a foothold in
television. That helped me get my start 35 years ago. Congress also
passed a law in 1962 requiring that TVs be equipped to receive both
UHF and VHF channels. That's how I was able to compete as a UHF
station, although it was never easy. (I used to tell potential
advertisers that our UHF viewers were smarter than the rest, because
you had to be a genius just to figure out how to tune us in.) And in
1972, the FCC ruled that cable TV operators could import distant
signals. That's how we were able to beam our Atlanta station to homes
throughout the South. Five years later, with the help of an RCA
satellite, we were sending our signal across the nation, and the
Superstation was born.

That was then.

Today, media companies are more concentrated than at any time over the
past 40 years, thanks to a continual loosening of ownership rules by
Washington. The media giants now own not only broadcast networks and
local stations; they also own the cable companies that pipe in the
signals of their competitors and the studios that produce most of the
programming. To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has
become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks--ABC,
CBS, NBC, and Fox--fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the
new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years
later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.

In this environment, most independent media firms either get gobbled
up by one of the big companies or driven out of business altogether.
Yet instead of balancing the rules to give independent broadcasters a
fair chance in the market, Washington continues to tilt the playing
field to favor the biggest players. Last summer, the FCC passed
another round of sweeping pro-consolidation rules that, among other
things, further raised the cap on the number of TV stations a company
can own.

In the media, as in any industry, big corporations play a vital role,
but so do small, emerging ones. When you lose small businesses, you
lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own
bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can't compete by
imitating the big guys--they have to innovate, so they're less
obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas. They are quicker to
seize on new technologies and new product ideas. They steal market
share from the big companies, spurring them to adopt new approaches.
This process promotes competition, which leads to higher product and
service quality, more jobs, and greater wealth. It's called
capitalism.

But without the proper rules, healthy capitalist markets turn into
sluggish oligopolies, and that is what's happening in media today.
Large corporations are more profit-focused a

Team America

[Robert G. Seeberger]

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/team_america/

This film by the creators of South Park has the White House hopping
mad.
Supposedly it puts the screws to the left as well.

The trailer is quite a bit of fun, in the mold of Gerry Anderson's
Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet...


xponent
Strings Attached Maru
rob


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Hellllloooooooooo.....

[Gary Nunn]

Are we up or down?? It's verrry quiet here...

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Back to school again

[G. D. Akin]

Well, I've signed up for a DE course with The University of Maryland,
European Division.  The course is ENGL476, "Modern Fantasy and Science
Fiction."

The course runs from August 23rd to Dec 18th. The works to be covered are:

1.  Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End
2.  Connie Willis and Sheila Williams, eds., A Woman's Liberation: A Choice
of Futures By and About Women
3.  Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
4.  Philip K. Dick, The Philip K. Dick Reader
5.  Frederik Pohl, Gateway
6.  Raymond Feist, Magician
7.  William Gibson, Neuromancer
8.  Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
9.  Pat Cadigan, Tea From An Empty Cup
10. Andre Norton, The Wind in the Stone. ISBN 0380795566

Should be fun!

George A



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RE: Karmic slappage (was: Phone home?)

[Travis Edmunds]

Confessedly, my previous post was slightly haphazard, and I fear that I may 
have come off as a tad asinine in places due to the haste in which I wrote 
it. My apologies.

From: Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Karmic slappage (was: Phone home?)
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 14:54:32 -0700 (PDT)
> Travis Edmunds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >From: Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Travis Edmunds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Ah...ok...but which would you prefer? (Deb or Debbi)
I was in a particularly silly mood yesterday, being
cryptic; Debbi, please.   :)
I was in a particularly frantic rush the other day, being indiscriminate; 
Debbi it is.

> >I think that the vast majority of the faithful have
> >no idea how much of what they believe (of church
> >doctrine) has no basis in Scriptureso I don't
> >think that they're being hypocritical.
> Neither do I. I was actually talking about the
> administration.
There probably is either hypocrisy or a serious case
of 'the masses can't understand this complexity,
therefore we will teach them black and white' at the
highest echelons.
Is that not hypocritical by nature? Especially in conjunction with the topic 
at hand...

I'm not sure if it's true that so
many people want clear, unequivocal directions (I've
heard this argued),
Interesting, that premise. In terms of christianity however, wouldn't it be 
a blow to the general organized structure? Essentially speaking, faithful 
practitioners of a meticulously methodized system would be living a lie.

or if they simply aren't
encouraged to think of things as multi-faceted, and so
don't develop critical thinking well.
I'm fairly certain that by living one's life within the imposing umbra of 
christianity, and by doggedly dedicating oneself to it's doctrine (being any 
specific faith within the realm of christianity), one's own ruminative 
tendencies simply must be repressed on some level.

Please note that my above statement is not intended as an all-encompassing 
look at human consciousness, but rather as a targeted assertion. For as you 
may or may not know, I actively maintain that God may indeed exist. 
Therefore in matters such as faith and organized religion (this is a 
bare-bones yet very specific idea), I also maintain that religious thinking, 
while obviously holding back other ways of thought, may be quite prodigious 
in and of itself.

> What if I'm human? (as opposed to a politician). (Referring to the Kerry 
comment)

  The problem seems to be (in part) that
politicians and their constituents _forget_ that thay
are merely human, living in a complex world that
cannot be accurately reduced to catchy sound-bites.
Do you mean that the constituents forget that their politicians are merely 
human, or were you talking about the constituents themselves? (Coupled with 
the politicians of course)

> I'm talking about catholicism.
Oh, I was responding to the "christianity in general"
phrase - IOW Purgatory is not a part of any of the
Protestant denominations that I am familiar with.
It's not your fault my dear. It's the fault of the writer if a reader cannot 
pick through an assortment of words clearly. Unless of course the reader is 
shall we say, stupid. This is certainly not the case here I can assure you! 
Besides, you hit the nail on the head already.

So I suppose my question still stands. But only in relation to faith's that 
contain Purgatory , or some similar construct of 'soul cleansing'.

> Besides, if purgatory
> has nothing to do with
> those religions then it serves no real purpose to
> bring them up in this
> discussion. Unless of course I'm missing
> something...
  If I'm going to criticize the concept of
karma, which I understand is an integral part of a
religion in which I was not raised, it would be remiss
of me not to note a similar construct in Christianity
(even if it isn't a version which I practiced, i.e.
Catholicism).  I was just being evenly critical.
Please, just omit my above idiocy.
> >But to toss out _all_ spiritual beliefs, influence,
> >and practices because of the misuse of some is
> equally
> >simplistic.  Somewhere in that turbid and noisome
> >bathwater is a baby!
> I'm not sure if that was a sleight towards me or
> not. It can be taken either way.
> Anyway, I agree with you.
Not a slam, but yes, as a criticism of those who lump
all spiritual beliefs and practices together.
As far as I'm concerned, I only put into words what is.
I'm not saying that all religions are one and the same. What I am saying is 
that in matters of a specific religion all parts are a part of the whole. 
Hence the word 'parts' I suppose. Consequently, to exclusively segregate or 
endorse any one part of the whole can only take away from the whole itself. 
If this were not true then there wouldn't be any GOD as we know Him; there 
would also exist many more item-specific deities. How could it be o

List down?

[William T Goodall]

The last message I got was Robert J Chassell's  on the "Karmic 
Slappage" thread on Sunday. I see a handful of messages have been added 
to the archive since then but I haven't received any of them.

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
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Re: Wow

[Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten]

Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
At 09:09 AM 4/30/04, Andrew Paul wrote:
From: Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
>> <>
>>
>> (55KB JPEG or 3MB TIFF)
>Fun picture
>Sonja
>GCU: Saturn put in perspective
Yea, it is pretty impressive.
I think the "image scale is 286 kilometers (178 miles) per pixel" 
sentence did it for me.


If you have the space and time to do so, try downloading the 3MB TIFF 
version and zooming in on the rings . . .

Wow Again Maru
Indeed, whenever you zoom in there appear to be even more rings 
apperently coming out of nowhere.

I love broadband. Took me only 2 minutes.
Sonja ;o)
GCU: Zzzap
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How They'll Steal the Election

[The Fool]

<>

On November 2 millions of Americans will cast their votes for President
in computerized voting systems that can be rigged by corporate or
local-election insiders. Some 98 million citizens, five out of every six
of the roughly 115 million who will go to the polls, will consign their
votes into computers that unidentified computer programmers, working in
the main for four private corporations and the officials of 10,500
election jurisdictions, could program to invisibly falsify the outcomes. 

...
Last fall during a public talk on "The Voting Machine War" for advanced
computer-science students at Stanford, Dill asked, "Why am I always being
asked to prove these systems aren't secure? The burden of proof ought to
be on the vendor. You ask about the hardware. 'Secret.' The software?
'Secret.' What's the cryptography? 'Can't tell you because that'll
compromise the secrecy of the machines.'... Federal testing procedures?
'Secret'! Results of the tests? 'Secret'! Basically we are required to
have blind faith." 

...
The Bush forces in Florida geared up for another purge of released felons
from the voter rolls. Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections for Leon
County, admits with shame that the state's felon purge in 2000 resulted
in more than 50,000 legal voters being disenfranchised. The state
elections division identified 47,000 more suspected felons, a list
disproportionately heavy with blacks, and asked that local election
supervisors purge them. The Bush people refused to make the list public,
but were ordered to do so by a judge. Only then was it discovered that
the list excluded felons who are Hispanic. In Florida Hispanics tend to
vote Republican. This dandy error was "absolutely unintentional," the
Bush people said--while abandoning the then indefensible list. Miami
Herald columnist Jim Defede wrote that Hood--an "amazing incompetent or
the leader of a frightening conspiracy"--must resign. 

...
In swing-state Ohio, under procedures approved by Republican Secretary of
State Kenneth Blackwell, thirty-one counties decided they would not use
paperless DREs in November, and three said they would. Blackwell then
ruled that because of unsolved security problems, none of them will. 

...
In Alabama two years ago, during a controversy over an election for
governor conducted mostly on op-scan machines, Attorney General Bill
Pryor, backing up the sheriff in one questioned county, ruled officially
that under state law anyone recounting the ballots would be subject to
arrest. This year President Bush, circumventing Senate hearings, elevated
Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a recess appointment. 

...
The night of the November 2002 election, sixty-seven of the memory cards
used in Fulton County (Atlanta) disappeared. Running his laptop with a
dual battery, Behler says, in six or seven hours he could have changed
the totals on those sixty-seven cards. "There's no technical problem.
There was absolutely zero protection on the card itself. You throw the
card in, you just drill down into its files." 

...
After some agreements on a division of roles, Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins
and three other scientists produced a devastating twenty-three-page
exposure of the Diebold software. That was followed by two more damaging
technical studies in Ohio. Then a "Red Team" exercise to break the
Diebold code was staged at RABA Technologies' headquarters in Maryland.
Four of the eight computer scientists on the team had worked at the
National Security Agency, and the team director had been the senior
technical director for the NSA. The team concluded, "A voter can be
deceived into thinking he is voting for one candidate when, in fact, the
software is recording the vote for another candidate." A security
vulnerability "allows a remote attacker to get complete control of the
machine." And one can "automatically upload malicious software" that will
"modify or delete elections." Some kids sniffing around in cyberspace had
led, step by step, to the dawning national realization that computerized
vote-counting puts democracy in grave danger. 
...

---
<>

Miami-Dade elections officials find lost 2002 data  
 
 
 
By RACHEL LA CORTE
Associated Press

July 30, 2004, 2:06 PM EDT

MIAMI - 2002 gubernatorial primary that were originally believed lost in
computer crashes last year.

Seth Kaplan, spokesman for the Elections Supervisor office, said the
records were found on a compact disc in the office. "We are very
pleased," he said.

When the loss was initially reported earlier this week, state officials
had stressed that no votes were lost in the actual election. The record
of the votes had been believed lost during the crashes in April and
November of 2003, and county officials had said they did not have a
backup system in place until December.

The lost records