Songs in the key of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

posted by The Vidiot @ 9:35 PM Permalink

What do these stories have in common?

Hollywood bashes media consolidation

Television producers, musicians, actors and writers made that pronouncement during testimony in Los Angeles in the first of six public hearings being held across the country.
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The commission heard from notable people in the industry such as Mike Mills, bassist for the rock band R.E.M., Stephen Cannell, producer of the 1970s detective show "Rockford Files,"
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Patric Verrone, president of Writers Guild of America
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Taylor Hackford, third vice president for the Directors Guild of America.

FCC urged not to relax ownership rules

A parade of Washingtonians — some prominent, some not-so — urged the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday to resist big-media pressure to loosen rules limiting how many local media outlets one company can own.
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The two FCC commissioners in attendance, Democrats Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, joined in denouncing media consolidation
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Thursday's forum was not one of the six official hearings the FCC will hold on media ownership rules.
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Locations for the other four have not been announced.

Musicians Oppose Media Consolidation

Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America told FCC commissioners in the second of six public meetings nationwide. "You can drive I-40 from Knoxville to Barstow, California, and hear the same 20 songs on every country radio station."
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George Jones, who said he and his fans have suffered under tighter radio playlists that he says are often determined by a relative few with little knowledge of country music history.
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Porter Wagoner said "clear channel" used to mean a powerful coast-to-coast radio signal like the one that used to broadcast the Opry.[...]"The days of an artist receiving airplay as a new act are gone,"

Listeners Rally to Save Liberal Radio Station

Progressive format dumped despite ratings

Local activists, politicians and business owners said the Texas-based radio giant's decision to replace its highly rated progressive talk station with Fox Sports Radio simply doesn't make sense.
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The station had the second highest ratings in Madison for news talk and the 11th highest in the market overall over the summer, according to Arbitron, Inc.
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The top rated news talk station, WIBA-AM, features a mix of straight news and conservative talkers.

The airwaves belong to us. Every time a large corporation consolidates more outlets, we hear less of our collective voices. So you see it's not just radio, it's not just TV, it's politics. The politics of controlling the message we get to hear.

To back that up I give you this:

Media ownership study ordered destroyed
FCC draft suggested fewer owners would hurt local TV coverage

The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

The arts have always been at the forefront of societal change.

If Mike Mills, Stephen Cannell, Porter Wagoner, George Jones, the Writers Guild of America, the Songwriters Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, to name just a few, all agree this is a bad idea? It's a bad idea!

Silence our voices and you silence our choices.

More examples of this trend and what you can do to help are here.