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[Nov. 17th, 2009|10:39 pm] |
When President Obama was merely Senator Obama, back on June 16, 2008, he was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times about the consequences of continued media consolidation and other media topics.
Q: You signaled that you would put the teeth back into antitrust enforcement. What would that mean for media companies that want to merge?
A: There is a clear need in this country for the reinvigoration of antitrust enforcement. Our competition agencies, the Department of Justice and the FTC [Federal Trade Commission], need to step up review of merger activity and take effective action to stop or restructure those mergers that are likely to harm consumer welfare, while quickly clearing those that do not. Specifically, for media mergers, the Department of Justice and the FTC should closely scrutinize all mergers for their implications for competition and consumer choice. The FCC should more seriously evaluate the impact of proposed mergers on the ability of divergent communities to participate in the national media environment.
Yet here we have one of the world's major television networks about to merge with America's largest cable company and America's largest internet provider and I'm not seeing any Department of Justice or FTC action. Was that just campaign talk? Business as usual? NBC Universal gets to be sold to Comcast because it's convenient for the rich people involved even though it's going to totally alter everyone's lives forever? Fuck that. But I'm not surprised.
People will say "Oh but it's just NBC, Telemundo, MSNBC, etc, kill your television, blah blah blah." But just wait-- This is the beginning of a big wave of mergers. Once Internet providers each have their own store of content, it'll be locked up behind pay walls, and this is how the Tiered Internet begins. Ugh. |
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