Category Archives: Media Ownership

Mergers, diversity of ownership, and multiple perspectives.

Media Ownership

FCC Threatens Governmental and Public Channels

2 Comments

 

Trump’s FCC chair Ajit Pai is a busy guy.  Every month or two, a new piece of the precious little public interest media regulation we have left,  goes on the chopping block.

The current victims are governmental, educational and public channels given to local communities as a benefit for a monopoly on using the cable infrastructure.

The FCC’s proposed rules would let cable companies count in-kind benefits as payments towards franchise fees, basically taking a huge chunk out of the funds that pay for governmental and public access TV and forcing cities and counties to make up the difference out of their general funds, or reduce services.

Comcast doesn’t need a discount on the pitifully small amount they provide in public benefits in exchange for the rights of way.

So we need to say hell no.

File a comment here. Enter proceeding # 05-311.

Comment deadline closes on December 14.

Here are our comments

[pdf-embedder url=”https://v7c3c5.a2cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Media-Alliance-Reply-Comments-05-311.pdf” title=”Media Alliance Reply Comments 05-311″]

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Media Ownership, Press Room

Low Income, Consumer, & Media Advocacy Groups Urge California PUC to Reject the Comcast – Time Warner Cable Merger

 

For Immediate Release: Thursday, December 11, 2014

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Advocacy groups representing low income Californians, consumers, and diverse media voices urged the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to reject the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable in filings made with the PUC late yesterday.

The merger would combine the two largest providers of both cable and Internet service into one giant corporation that would dominate the marketplace here in California and across the country. The California PUC, which oversees telephone and broadband Internet service in the state, is currently reviewing the merger to determine whether it is in the public’s interest.
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Media Ownership

Media Cross-Ownership Rules Upheld by FCC

 

Prometheus vs. FCC, the decade-old lawsuit that sought to prevent the loosening of the cross-ownership rules that prevented one entity from owning too many newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same town, returned to court as the FCC wrangled with the DC Courts about diversity surveys called Quadrennial Reviews that the agency hasn’t done and debated whether the increasingly dated rules needed to be strengthened, loosened or overhauled entirely. Media Alliance is a plaintiff in the case. Continue reading Media Cross-Ownership Rules Upheld by FCC →

Media Ownership, Press Room

New Members Flock to Stop Mega Comcast Coalition

 

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:

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Media Ownership, Press Room

PEG Community Sees Challenges Coming From Combined Comcast/TWC

 

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 →

Media Ownership

How FEMA Blew Up A Wildlife Refuge 35 Times

Originally published on Medium

Every year in September, around the anniversary of 9–11, Bay Area SWAT teams, along with occasional visitors from Bahrain, Hong Kong, Brazil or Israel, gather for the annual training exercise called Urban Shield. All around the Bay Area, they rappell, climb, tackle and shoot at terrorist actors in the nation’s biggest disaster preparedness exercise.

It’s been my privilege to be an observer at Urban Shield for two years running, which I wrote about here and spoke about here. But I didn’t observe one particular exercise last year when simulated improvised explosive devices (IED’s) were set off in a federally protected marine shorebird reserve at Alameda Point. There is a video of the exercise and here it is. This was repeated about 35 times over the course of two days and one night.

If I were a bird, I’d move.

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