Mergers, diversity of ownership, and multiple perspectives.
Update: The DC Court of Appeals unfortunately rejected the stay on the reinstatement of the UHF Discount on June 15. This will allow the Sinclair-Tribune merger to move ahead. See press release below.
Continue reading Obscure UHF Discount Feeds Media Consolidation
Bigger isn’t always better.
Of all the cable, telephone and Internet companies, the one with the most awful reputation is Comcast. Type the words “Comcast customer service” into a search engine and prepare to be flooded with customers using words like “nightmarish,” “embarrassing,” “worst ever,” “epic failure” and “customer service from hell.”
And America is not enduring this for the sake of bargain-basement prices.
Continue reading CPUC Should Say No To Supersizing Comcast
For Immediate Release: January 12, 2015
The Stop Mega Comcast Coalition, which comprises public interest organizations, private companies, labor unions and industry associations opposed to the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, today announced the addition of 12 new organizations, bringing the coalition to 27 total members. The new members include:
Continue reading New Members Flock to Stop Mega Comcast Coalition
California’s fifth largest public television station, KCSM-TV, has been the property of the College of San Mateo and its governing board, the San Mateo Community College District, for more than half century.
Recently the station, which once trained much of the Bay Area’s broadcasting corps with probably the best educational program ever offered at a public community college, has been very much unwanted property.
The station was put up for sale, twice, and some very reasonable offers from new operators were turned down in favor of a deal with a hedge fund, the Blackstone Group, to have subsidiary Locus Point Networks, eradicate the station entirely by selling its spectrum to wireless companies in the FCC’s spectrum auction.
The get rich quick scheme foundered. The District’s authorized bidder, who appears to have been VP Jan Roecks, failed to make a bid at some point in the complex procedure and KCSM-TV was dropped from the auction.
This article by Media Alliance ED Tracy Rosenberg describes the troubled history in the AFT May 2017 Bulletin. Continue reading KCSM TV Spectrum Sale Dissolves Into Lawsuits
For Immediate Release: February 26th, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Consumer groups renewed their call today for the California Public Utilities Commission to reject the proposed Comcast–Time Warner Cable merger and announced that they had collected 90,000 petition signatures from Californians opposed to the deal. Today’s announcement coincided with the California PUC’s All-Party meeting on the merger scheduled to begin at 2pm in San Francisco (California PUC Auditorium, 505 Van Ness Avenue).
The petitions organized by Common Cause, Consumers Union, Courage Campaign, CREDO, Daily Kos, Greenlining Institute, Media Alliance, Presente, TURN, and the Writers Guild of America, West, will be delivered to the California PUC, which is currently reviewing the merger. Continue reading 90,000 Californians Sign Petition Calling on PUC to Block Comcast Merger
Communications Daily Feb 27 2014
The public, educational and government channel community plans to continue its push to protect the interests of PEG channels while monitoring Comcast’s efforts to buy Time Warner Cable for about $45 billion, PEG advocates said in interviews this week. If the companies combine, PEG channels could be negatively impacted, they said. Continue reading PEG Community Sees Challenges Coming From Combined Comcast/TWC
Charter ended up being the successful suitor for Time Warner Cable after Comcast’s offer for the Southern California cable/ISP giant went down in flames.
Charter, which made much of being “not nearly as bad as Comcast” got their merger, but they got it with some conditions attached, noticeably in the State of California, where the Public Utilities Commission went through a robust approval process.
However, Charter was not content with yes for an answer and spent much of the last few months agitating about the merger conditions and trying to get them abated, using typos and other lame arguments to do so. Continue reading CPUC Slaps Charter
Radio World – September 14 2015
WASHINGTON — A power-increase proposal is stirring new debate about low-power FM broadcasters and has LPFM and translator advocates again taking up positions on the subject.
Through a petition for rulemaking, REC Networks asked the Federal Communications Commission to consider allowing eligible 100-watt LPFM stations to boost power to 250 watts in order to increase building penetration and overcome the effects of multipath in their coverage areas. REC also seeks other benefits for LPFMs including second-adjacent channel protections from FM translators and boosters.
Continue reading The Push Is On For LP 250
