On February 19th, a federal court handed a victory to today's largest American media corporations, stating that limits on the number of stations a network can own would be reconsidered and the regulation that had kept cable operators from owning television stations would be lifted.
Executives of large media corporations welcomed the ruling, stating the ownership rules to have become outdated in an era of media consolidation.
"We're very pleased the court vacated the cable broadcast cross-ownership regulation," said Paul T. Cappuccio, general counsel of AOL Time Warner. " The rule had long ago become an anachronism and did not serve the public interest. It wasn't remotely necessary to protect competition."
But consumer groups expressed distress because of future concentration of ownership this court ruling has let loose.
"Comcast and Time Warner will be kicking tires on NBC before the week is out," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, which is ready to appeal the decision and take it to the Supreme Court if necessary.
English: A portrait of Noam Chomsky that I took in...
Chomsky at the World Social Forum (Porto Alegre) i...
Official Portrait of President Ronald Reagan"It's a terrible thing for diversity of viewpoints in general, for programming diversity in particular, and it will increase the price of video [...]"
Steve Wilson and Jane Akre were fired by FOX TV in Tampa Bay, Florida, for attempting to tell the truth about the dangers of bovine growth hormones (BGH) in the nation's milk supply, Monsanto's in particular.
The BGH arose concern of potentially promoting cancer in humans, a worry that has lingered for 5 years, well after the FDA approved that is was safe for humans.
"We paid $3 billion for these television stations, we'll tell you what the news is," said David Boylan, a micro manager that replaced the manager who had hired Wilson and Akre as investigators. "The news is what we say it...