One Small Step for Capitalism

One larger step for Washington

U.S. communications regulators on Monday narrowly approved sweeping new rules that will allow television broadcasters to expand their reach, despite fears about reducing the diversity of viewpoints.

The Republican-led Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to allow the broadcast networks to own television stations that reach 45 percent of the U.S. audience, up from 35 percent.

Citing a need to update decades-old rules to reflect new sources of entertainment, information and news via cable television and the Internet, the FCC also voted to lift a ban that prevents a company from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same market -- except in cases involving the smallest markets.

The FCC should be dissolved and nothing should take it's place or it's duties, but I'm glad they did this.

UPDATE(6/3/2003 2:15am)
Then again, with friends like these...anything is possible. Feel free to ignore any "free market" rhetoric from these guys and their supporters. They don't understand the meaning of the phrase.

UPDATE(6/21/2003 2:05pm)
Panel rejects new FCC rules

The Senate Commerce Committee voted Thursday to overturn parts of a Federal Communications Commission decision allowing media companies to buy more outlets and merge in new ways.
The proposal, which faces an uncertain future in the full Senate and a tough road in the House, would roll back changes that allowed individual companies to own television stations reaching nearly half the nation's viewers and combinations of newspapers and broadcast stations in the same city.

"I would like the FCC to start all over," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who opposes the changed rules. She said they are "potentially dangerous to media diversity in this country."

[...]

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and other lawmakers say they also will try other methods to overturn the changes.

"The airwaves belong to the people," Dorgan said. "The FCC ignores that requirement and advances corporate interests at the expense of the public's interest."

Continue justifying your interference in the market with the fallacy of collective rights over individual rights. Via Brainville.

Posted by Drizzten at June 02, 2003 12:14 PM