Your neighbors are dangerous, and we need you to do something about it. They threaten not only the future competitive landscape of television and digital media, but also the vitality of our democracy. You know these folks very well, their names are on your royalty checks and production credits. They are companies like AOL Time Warner, GE/NBC, News Corps/Fox, and Viacom/CBS.
Over the last decade, these media giants, along with their lobbying organizations, have engaged in a systematic attack on public policies designed to encourage diversity of expression in the U.S. They are on the eve of sweeping away the few remaining rules on media ownership. I describe them as dangerous because of their principal political argument. AOL Time Warner, Viacom, and Fox, for example, claim that their companies’ First Amendment rights are violated by any public policy that limits their ability to own and totally control as many media outlets as they want to acquire. There is never an acknowledgement that these safeguards reflect values critical to a democracy, including the right of Americans to receive a wide array of distinct and diversely owned sources of information.
Perhaps more ominously, many of these media conglomerates now have their sights set on the Internet and the emerging new medium of broadband. The vision that the conglomerates have for the future of digital media is rooted in their past—TV (especially cable). And the danger is that despite the new medium’s potential to offer greater choice and opportunity for both creators and viewers, it may never be able fully to do so. What is behind all the mega-mergers, lawsuits and political arm-twisting is an attempt to ensure that these giants will be able to control and shape the new media landscape.
Over the last decade, cable and broadcasting have engaged in a “tripartite” strategy to eliminate media ownership safeguards. If they could not succeed at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), they went to Congress. And failing that, they went to the courts. Give the industry’s political clout and a timid FCC (no matter which party is in charge), the industry has been largely successful. The following rules are now being considered for either elimination or to become drastically weakened.
Also under attack is the safeguard that has prohibited common ownership of a cable system and a TV station in the same community. The FCC has already decimated the duopoly rule, so that two TV stations can be operated by the same company in a single market. Of course, most radio ownership limits were thrown out in 1996, as a result of the Telecommunications Act. As everyone knows, today two companies (Clear Channel and Infinity) have swallowed up large portions of the radio industry.
If all these rules are eliminated, then one company in a town will be able to control the newspaper, several TV and radio stations, and the cable system. And, of course, there will be fewer owners of most major media outlets nationwide.
The media conglomerates’ lawyers have also engaged in a most successful flim flam before the courts and the FCC. In briefs and filings, the big media companies tell the court or the FCC (and ultimately you and the public), “don’t worry about ending these ‘old’ media safeguards. We have the Internet today, an unlimited source of perspectives.” Why, they say, should there be any limits on how many newspapers, stations, cable systems, or satellites they can own? The ultimate safeguard is the Net. These old rules are superfluous, because many were based on the concept of spectrum “scarcity,” goes their plea. Everyone and their dog, or so they claim, can be a successful programmer today.
But untold to the courts is that these same conglomerate interests now also threaten the Internet. Cable in particular has long viewed the Internet as a competitive problem, with the ability of consumers to potentially access multichannel programming streams elsewhere. The cable lobby quickly developed a solution—fight against any policy proposal that would require cable operators to manage their networks in a open and non-discriminatory way. Known as “open access,” the Internet’s ability to offer fair access to endless numbers of web sites, as well as choice of Internet service providers (ISPs, has been based on this principle. The Internet’s open architecture, its DNA, so to speak, according to experts such as Lawrence Lessig of Stanford, has been responsible for its ability to support innovation, as well as competition and content diversity. This openness has prevented the company delivering the content (the phone company in the dial-up world), from interfering with its delivery. The Net’s framework was based on the requirement that the phone company had to operate as a common carrier, could not own content, and had to serve everyone fairly.
Cable understood that it had key advantages in the emerging broadband world, where TV and digital content will seamlessly travel together. First, it already had a high-capacity wire to most people’s homes. It owned content and understood the entertainment business. But more crucially, cable was still considered by regulators as a one-way TV medium. No open access or share-my-wires allowed, please.
The cable industry is thus positioned to dominate the digital age, especially the TV business (given the end of ownership rules, I mean maybe four companies). They are dictating the technology in the set-top boxes that will be the key tollbooth for digital TV and its interactive successors. Its broadband Internet service is outpacing telephone-operated DSL lines. Cable will be able to bundle its TV and Internet offerings, providing it with a powerful position in the market.
Cable understands that its wires provide the crucial “return path” that is at the heart of the TV business’s future. The emerging model for TV will require the programmer/network to capture data from the viewer/user. Information collection for the processing of T-commerce (TV Commerce, as they call it), whether for a sponsor’s products or on-demand programming, is really the foundation for the next-generation of television. Privacy concerns aside (although important), companies such as AOL and Paul Allen’s Charter understand how the technology and network control will be able to generate huge revenues. And in the absence of a federal open access policy, every content provider will have to pay homage, financial and otherwise, to this new digital monopoly. The cable giants will be able to foreground their content and advertising, giving viewers instant access to those services. Everyone else will have to affiliate, pay fees, or suffer marginalization. The big broadcast TV networks, through their political clout, will have to be cut in by cable. That’s because their lobby has secured both free digital spectrum (now worth close to $300 billion) and a federal policy known as “retransmission consent,” which forces cable to share some of its monopoly space. (The not so-Baby Bells are now lobbying to end their open access requirements as well).
One of the most troubling aspects is the vision that companies like AOL Time Warner, Viacom, or the soon-to-be-wedded AT&T Comcast hold for the future. Despite the technology’s capability to deliver more and new voices, the mega giants see a world, as they tell the FCC in their “public interest” statements, that can offer more “branding” opportunities with “sticky” commercial features. There is nothing said about civic engagement, cultural diversity, or (dare we say) artistic expression.
We need your help, because our country’s new media future doesn’t have to be the old media’s marketing past. There is an opportunity to serve all interests, and to ensure that creators—whether commercial or noncommercial, national or in the neighborhood—can harness their imaginations, passion, and market-savvy. With a fairly run and open digital system, more people would have access to audiences (and maybe even to a profit).
But we have to fight the gatekeepers, the handful of companies and their lobbyists (like the NCTA, NAB, and MPAA). So far, only a few public interest media advocates have been resisting—Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Media Access Project, and my own Center for Digital Democracy. Needless to say, we are losing.
Very few people understand what’s at stake, let alone make the connection with how the TV industry operates. Since almost of all of broadcast and cable news operations haven’t covered what their company and industry are doing, it’s no wonder that this isn’t an issue on the public’s radar screens.
The Caucus and its members should do more—to sound the alarm, to challenge the false arguments of the networks, and to fund lobbying efforts. We’re mad as hell and don’t want to take it anymore. Come and join us.
Jeff Chester is the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit organization working to ensure an open and diverse media system.
www.democraticmedia.org. jeff@democraticmedia.org. 202-452-9898