The End of the World As We Know It If Media Consolidation Continues?

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is bringing his idea of loosening media restrictions to the country and he’s getting a mouthful. R.E.M.’s Mike Mills was one of several entertainment-industry heavyweights who spoke against the plan at yesterday’s field hearing, the first of six, in Los Angeles. As USA Today reports, Los Angeles is an important battleground for media consolidation. The Tribune Company, which has plenty of other problems, owns both the Los Angeles Times and KTLA and wants very much to keep both properties and is pushing for the FCC to eliminate the ban on one company owning both a newspaper and a television station in the same market. (The station license expires in December.) Martin seems quite open to such changes: he tells the Journal “some of our rules have not been updated for years and may no longer reflect the current marketplace.” But director Taylor Hackford was one of many who caled for more regulation of multiple ownership, not less. As ZDNet reports, Writers Guild of America president Patric Verrone said, “Homogenization is good for milk, but it’s bad for ideas. (We looked at this back in June.) This is an international issue: Australia is facing a similar fight.

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