This is a complicated series of combination. Before I begin, I would like to once again bring up a quote from Gabriel Kolko I previously mentioned. Keep in mind Kolko pulled this information from the testimony records for the U.S. Industrial Commission:
The Industrial Commission accepted the necessity and inevitability of industrial combinations, urging that “Their power for evil should be destroyed and their means for good preserved.” More significantly, the commission’s hearings provided a forum for key businessmen on the question of federal regulation. Of some type in some specific area, and no interest was as strong in this demand as Standard Oil. John D. Rockefeller, John D. Archibold, and H. H. Rogers of Standard called for a national incorporation law and the federal regulation of accounts and financial publicity.
The film Orwell Rolls in His Grave warns of corporate consolidation in the media.
On June 2, 2003 the FCC voted to loosen ownership rules
Currently almost all of the major media in the US is owned by one of 10 companies (this chart is from 2000 so is likely outdated).
If you look at the 10 companies who own the media you will see General Electric currently owns NBC. Now Comcast is attempting to buy into NBC. We already have the combination of GE and Microsoft in the form of MSNBC. Fox News reported:
In agreeing to buy 51 percent of NBC Universal from General Electric Co., which has controlled NBC since 1986, Comcast hopes to succeed in marrying distribution and content in a way Time Warner Inc. could not. AOL and Time Warner are undoing their ill-fated marriage Dec. 9. Time Warner has already shed its cable TV operations.
. . . .
GE would retain a 49 percent stake, with the option of unloading half its stake in 3 1/2 years and all of it in seven years. The new NBC Universal would borrow $9.1 billion that would partially go toward covering the money GE owes Vivendi.
Comcast would name three people to the board and GE two, and Comcast would manage the joint venture. Jeff Zucker would remain NBC Universal’s CEO and report to Comcast Chief Operating Officer Steve Burke. NBC Universal’s headquarters are expected to stay in New York.
Consumer groups fear that a Comcast-NBC combination would be so threatening that rivals would strike similar deals just to compete — a sentiment echoed by DirecTV Chairman John Malone in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
And if media ownership were further concentrated, consumers would see higher prices and fewer choices, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, chief executive of the Media Access Project. He warned that online video and other new forms of competition could be squashed “before they can gain a toehold in the market.”
Satellite TV rival Dish Networks Corp., meanwhile, worries that Comcast would be in a stronger position to withhold channels from competitors. CEO Charles Ergen has complained that a regulatory loophole lets Comcast bar his company from carrying Philadelphia sports games shown on Comcast’s regional sports network. Comcast did not respond to requests for comment.
The Comcast-NBC deal is widely seen as a test of the Obama administration’s resolve to fight media consolidation, but consumer groups aren’t confident regulators will find a legal means to block the transaction.
Net Neutrality may become a big issue if Comcast owns NBC. The reason is Comcast will own a great deal of web content and they will have a vested interest in what web sites you access. What that means is Comcast will have an intensive to give packet priority to their own web sites. What packet priority means is the connection speed to a particular web site. An internet service provider has the ability to dedicate bandwidth, meaning connection speed to one site over the other.
Does this mean we should job on the Net Neutrality band wagon. Maybe. The only problem is people are easily conned by politicians from the party the identify with, so people may throw their weight behind a Net Neutrality bill that does the exact opposite of what they think they are doing.
A prime example of a bill that did the exact opposite of what everyone was told it was going to do is NAFTA. NAFTA accelerated extreme poverty in Mexico, causing illegal immigration to increase by 60% rather than helping the poor and reducing illegal immigration.
Let’s take a look at what we currently have with General Electric’s ownership in NBC.
Jeffrey R. Immelt the CEO of General Electric. Immelt is also the “Public Representative” for the Federal Reserve Bank
There are supposed to be public voices on the board of the New York Fed. The Fed is a sort of an odd entity. The Fed is a quasi governmental, quasi private entity. It’s board members chosen partly by the Board of Governors of the Fed in Washington, partly by the banks that control the Fed. The public representative, I’m going to try not to strike too close to home here, the public representative chosen by the banks–public–Jeffrey Immelt. The chairman of GE. Also the chairmen of this company — but wait a minute — he is the public voice who’s bonds are being guaranteed by the Fed.
– Eliot Spitzer
Let’s remind everyone who the Fed Represents
General Electric is more dangerous still. On August 26, 2009 the Washington Examiner posted an article titled, Leaked e-mail shows how GE puts the government to work for GE:
“The intersection between GE’s interests and government action is clearer than ever,” General Electric Vice Chairman John G. Rice wrote in an Aug. 19 e-mail to colleagues.
. . . .
“On climate change,” Rice wrote, “we were able to work closely with key authors of the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill, recently passed by the House of Representatives. If this bill is enacted into law it would benefit many GE businesses.”
Most of all, Waxman-Markey would profit a GE joint venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which deals in greenhouse gas credits, products that have value only if a cap-and-trade bill like Waxman-Markey passes.
The leaked e-mail shows how tightly GE connects PAC contributions and lobbying efforts. “Our Company is heavily impacted by a number of issues pending in Washington this fall,” Rice wrote.
I don’t want to plagiarize this article, by copying and pasting the entire article, so please read it in it’s entirety by clicking on Leaked e-mail shows how GE puts the government to work for GE.
Perhaps the issue shouldn’t be what major corporation owns NBC, but allowing any major corporation to buy a media outlet so they can control the media. I would argue media ownership should be limited to create diversity within the media because media ownership consolidation does just the opposite.
More Information:
How we got competition in the telecom industry. The break up of Ma Bell.
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