("In some cultures they call this Radar To The Bathroom")
Mainstream Media just stinks these days. Why? That little thing called De-regulation, the relaxation of Ownership, one media company eating up another media company and eating up another media company.
It wasn't always that way, and most people I've talked to pinpoint when the change came around 1982, or maybe as early as the day after Reagan took the Oath of Office the first time.
It continued. Once the wheels of deregulation got rolling, it was impossible to stop them, especially when you had an FCC made up of people trained to look the other way. So in 1994 in what seemed like an innocuous move on the part of the FCC, the ownership rules for TV networks suddenly changed and the Networks themselves were no longer prevented from creating their own prime time programming. And as was pointed out, it was now easy for the Distributor to become the Owner. And suddenly, being the owner of a Network now seemed very attractive.
Jim Zirolli (NPR News): “Until recently, the FCC barred the major TV networks from producing a majority of the programs they broadcast. So the biggest part of their schedules had to be filled with programs put out by outside studios. But last year the FCC relaxed its ownership rules. The networks are now allowed to run as many of their own programs as they want. And starting next year they can also reap all the profits from syndication. For the networks this could become a gold mine, and it comes at a time when they badly need it.”
From what was once a rather honorable institution with a modicum of integrity going for it, the FCC have cascaded into a pit of giveaways and corruption with no concept of Public Interest or desire for Public Welfare. The reason it was formed was to prevent exactly what is happening now - the Public Airwaves being hijacked by Special Interests and Corporate shills. The Public's Right to Know being overpowered by Propaganda's Desire to Dumb Down.
