Update October 15, 2014: Only hours before a scheduled vote to authorize the California Public Utilities Commission to weigh in on the federal network neutrality debate and share the overwhelming opinions of Californians that the Internet should be re-classified as a public utility, the item was suddenly withdrawn from Thursday’s meeting agenda for undisclosed reasons. Continue reading CA Public Utilities Commission Buries Net Neutrality Vote
Originally published at Truthout.org
The future of democratic media may come down to a bunch of lawyers.
Twenty-five years after pirate radio aficionados and media activists pushed for and eventually won the Low Power Community Radio Act, the fate of hundreds of radio licenses is up in the air.
Continue reading A Thousand New Radio Stations: Whose Will They Be?
A fun video by Bay Area radio veteran David Gilton Soma on the low power radio revolution.
May 20, 2013
For Immediate Release
Contact: Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Media Alliance
(510) 684-6853 (Cell), tracy@media-alliance.org (E-mail)
SMCCD Board Liquidates KCSM-TV
Board Votes to Cement Blackstone Deal, Objectors Threatened With Armed Security Guards
San Mateo – On Wednesday May 15th, three San Mateo Community College board trustees approved an unseen contract with Locuspoint Networks, a 99%-owned subsidiary of hedge firm The Blackstone Group, to liquidate the 48-year-old noncommercial TV station KCSM in a spectrum auction.
Members of the public objecting to the District’s lack of transparency, including former KRON-TV reporter and commentator Henry Tenenbaum, award-winning journalist and KAXT-TV principal Ravi Kapur, CO- based Media Stewards Project counsel Patrick Reilly and Media Alliance executive director Tracy Rosenberg, were threatened with removal by armed security prior to the board vote.
Continue reading SMCCD Board Liquidates KCSM-TV
In response to MA’s public records request, censored bid information was released by KCSM-TV’s owner, the San Mateo Community College District. MA was joined in the public records effort by the Palo Alto Daily Post, a local newspaper that has reported extensively on the District’s effort to sell, transfer or liquidate the 5th largest public television station in California. Continue reading Censored KCSM-TV Bids Released by Community College District
MA filed these comments with the FCC on asking for the commission to consider lower watt service in urban markets where the band is too crowded to allow significant low power service for residents including: San Jose, Detroit, and New York City.
We were joined by the Let The Cities In coalition.
The San Mateo Community College District plans to liquidate peninsula public television in partnership with the Blackstone Group hedge fund.
Locus Point Network is 99% owned by the Blackstone Group, one of the largest banking/hedge fund collaboratives in the world.
Continue reading KCSM TV To Be Sold Off By Notorious Blackstone Group
Comments Filed 12-26 with the FCC Saying No More!
Enclosed are MA’s comments on the FCC plan to relax cross-ownership rules and increase media consolidation, without even finishing the analysis of their own data on media ownership and diversity.
Media Alliance is also represented in this proceeding by the Institute for Public Representation (IPR) at Georgetown University.
