That is why it seems contrary to the national welfare that most of our major local broadcast outlets, not just ClearChannel, send out programming that could just as well originate in Enid, Oklahoma.
local civic discussion necessary
We need more civic discussion in our local stations,
and I don’t mean bad jokes about local matters by shock jocks and disc
jockeys. And not at midnight. The
public interest requires more broadcast sessions that permit rational
discussion and audience participation.
We in the Bay Area have KQED’s Michael Krasney, who hosts an excellent
issue discussion program. We have the Pacifica station, KPFA, which has
progressive news and programming, a political orientation that is constantly
criticized by many of the same organizations that are happy that almost all the
national talk shows are from the political far right, as with Rush Limbaugh (who,
as you know, is syndicated by Clear Channel).
But ClearChannel alone has ten stations in our market.
Today, all
over the country our cities and states are facing financial crises in budgets
for schools, for other city services, and for all the duties that come from our
system of local governance. We are the richest country in the world, but we are
now shrinking our school curricula, reducing our civic services, and at the
same time demanding that our schoolchildren improve their performance.
Our form of democracy needs routine information throughout
the year on issues we all face every Election Day. The country has a unique need for local civic
discussion on the air. It is a unique requirement needed to maintain our unique form of democracy.
a diverse nation requires diverse media
My third point is that FCC policy in the last 30 years
has permitted five large media conglomerates to own the media on which the
majority of Americans say they depend for their news, information, and entertainment.
Each of these giant conglomerates has major holdings in all our major
media — newspapers, magazines, books, cable, radio, television, and motion
pictures.
We are a nation of 280 million people in 19,000 cities
and towns stretched across a great continent.
Our population is a world model of diversity of ethnicity, race, and
countries of national origin. We have clear differences in our geographic
regions and their differing regional cultures and needs.
We now suffer an unnecessary disconnect between the needs
of our unique local governments and the diverse nature of our population on
one hand, and on the other hand, the lack of this diversity in our broadcasting
system. In recent years, that gap
has widened even more rapidly and has been propagandized so consistently by
the broadcasting industry, that there are now men and women in powerful government
and industrial positions who question the need to regulate broadcasting at
all.
cookie-cutter programming designed to maximize profit
The problem is
intensified by the high degree to which both radio and television stations
duplicate each other, even though they are held by supposedly competing corporations.
If one network and its affiliates find a more profitable program formula,
the others rush to imitate it. Furthermore,
they have so many joint ventures with each other that they have all the characteristics
of a cartel.
In their imitative programming, a very large amount of
what the public hears on political social matters is politically right-wing
of the most crudely aggressive kind. This is not what the public needs or
wants. It is in stark contrast to
what the most serious polls show is the self-identified politics of the American
population. And since cancellation
of the Fairness Doctrine in the 1980s, individuals and organizations attacked
by the talk shows have no right of reply.
more channels does not equal greater variety
Let me state what I think is a fallacy repeated endlessly
to justify deregulation of broadcasting. It is constantly repeated that there
are so many new channels we no longer need to regulate them. There are
many new channels. What are these new channels? They are mainly cable and
satellite broadcasting channels. But
these new channels do not operate as separate corporate entities. Even a working
paper commissioned by the FCC noted that there are many new channels but the
number of owners remains stagnant. The arithmetic is inescapable. More channels and the same number of owners
means that the new channels simply increase the power and control of the existing
oligopoly that controls most United States broadcasting. The owners of our new cable channels, for example,
are AT&T, AOL Time Warner, Viacom, General Electric NBC subsidiaries,
Disney Company, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. The repeated assertion
of new channels includes satellite broadcasting which is now dominated by
Murdoch’s recent purchase of DirecTV,
and EchoStar that owns six satellites with 500 channels of video, audio, and
data.
We speak here of a handful of global corporations that
control everything that a majority of Americans say they use to get their
news, information and entertainment. And this handful of giant corporations
so imitate each other chasing after ratings, and share ownership in so many
joint ventures that our thousands of broadcast outlets is meaningless if we
have a goal of meeting the needs of our diverse American population.
too much power in too few hands
The new channels, by increasing the media power of
existing companies, introduce a threat to the kind of democracy we deserve. We
know all too well that media power means political power in Washington. So not only does the American media audience
suffer, but so do all American voters: they are deprived of diverse politics on
the air, added to the further dilution of their votes by corporate power
lobbies and financial contributions in Washington.
What James Madison said more than 200 years ago is
still true, that a popular government without popular information is a prologue
to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
That is why I think the FCC is one of the most crucial agencies in
maintaining the health of our democracy.
In closing, we are grateful that you recognize this responsibility
by your presence here today. Thank you.
