I wonder how much of the new regulation mentioned would include Washington pressuring (censoring?) local stations not to air shows critical of the Administration and Administration-friendly companies (ie, campaign contributors)? Or is that being cynical?
Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do.
Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press.
Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters.
The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress and that currently receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies each year. In fiscal 2009, it is receiving an appropriation of $400 million.
“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,” Lloyd wrote in his book.
“Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” Lloyd wrote. “This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. Funding should not come from congressional appropriations. Sponsorship should be prohibited at all public broadcasters.”
Along with this money, Lloyd would regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focused on “diverse views” and government activities.
“Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs,” wrote Lloyd. “These programs should include coverage of all local, state and federal government meetings, as well as daily news and public issues programming.
On a vaguely unrelated topic, I’m thinking that a tad less than $18 million was used to create the FCC website.
What everyone seems to have forgotten was that public broadcasting was set up so that we could get news and information not filtered by the corporations advertisers paying the bills for private broadcasting. Hard to report on corporate corruption when the corporation pays your salary.
There’s still a need for that, but PBS has commercials now so what good are they?
>> # 18 pedro said, on August 14th, 2009 at 5:52 am
>> #1 “We do it cuz they did it”. You missed the “neener neener” ending on that.
But the Bush Administration tried to REMOVE balance in the reporting.
If the Obama Administration RETURNS balance, how is that the same?
Oh… I get it — (seriously, It just dawned on me as I write.)
Balance and diversity are “liberal”!
Wow. As much discuss with conservatives, it still takes me a while to get into their heads.
Not only do facts have a well-know liberal bias, so do balance and diversity.
I gotta get my mind around that.
Don’t confuse conservatives, which I can stand, with wing nuts, who populate most of the Republican party now.
#41, Animby,
I would have thought him a more manual type of guy.
😉
Getting back on topic.
Why shouldn’t commercial stations pay a license fee towards financing Public Broadcasters? They use OUR public airwaves to reach their audience.
I would even add a small amount (1/2 c per customer ?) to each commercial cable network. A stable revenue source will help give us continued quality programing. This would also remove tax money from CPB funding (currently 18%).
#45, Improbus,
Good point and I almost totally agree. When the conservatives in the Republican Party align themselves with the wing nuts though they deserve the same condemnation. It is that point that is killing the Republican Party as a viable alternative.
Old saying, “Lay with dogs, awake with fleas”.
#45 Well, Improbus, it would be a good refresher here for us to be reminded of what “conservative” means (or used to mean). I’m curious what you think it is.
There’s a whole raft of different definitions at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
My idea if the ideal conservative is Bill Buckley. They don’t make conservatives like him anymore. Is there any one of his mental abilities on Fox News? Uh, no. The conservatism in the MSM (including Fox) is about as deep as a slogan.
>> Mr. Fusion said, on August 14th, 2009 at 9:12 am
>> Getting back on topic.
>> Why shouldn’t commercial stations pay a license fee towards financing Public Broadcasters? They use OUR public airwaves to reach their audience.
A FCC license is a permit to exclusive use of public property.
You, Mr. Fusion, own the radio waves equally with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
Yet, they are allowed to use government-owned property to makes themselves astoundingly wealthy.
And yet they whine and carp about “oppressive government” at even the mildest suggestion that balance might be nice.
Isn’t it ironic that PBS gave William F Buckley a platform with Firing Line for 30 years when no one else would.
>> Improbus said, on August 14th, 2009 at 9:33 am
>> My idea if the ideal conservative is Bill Buckley. They don’t make conservatives like him anymore. Is there any one of his mental abilities on Fox News? Uh, no. The conservatism in the MSM (including Fox) is about as deep as a slogan.
Perhaps Fox’s collective IQ would be in Buckley’s range.
But that’s not the biggest issue, for me. Fox news is a propaganda machine with all the lies, cynicism and dishonesty inherent in propaganda.
Even though I’m a liberal who disagreed with Buckley on many points, I would never accuse him of that.
>>> Alfred1 said, on August 14th, 2009 at 6:16 am
>>> #23 You are for Obamacare…that’s a statist program, not that of “liberty lovers,” where we have the liberty to manage our own health care.
Finally I agree with Alfred.
It’s oddly liberating to give all your money to the insurance companies and still die destitute and untreated.
… but it’s not so liberating for our widow to grieve your needless death while buried under a mountain of debt to the healthcare industry.
Even though you paid premiums all your life.
and the conservative will overthrow the government before changing this fantastic system.
Sigh, this entire public airwaves argument is stupid. If you believe that the government has the right to regulate content because it uses the airwaves to get to people, then you also have to agree that the government is allowed to control content in newspapers and magazines since they use the public roads to get to people.
Both are using “public” resources to spread their message. Perhaps we should start to charge newspapers a fee to help government propagandist newspapers print, that way we don’t have to worry about running ads in the government newspapers, and they can reprint crappy British articles that would never make it in the regular newspaper. The FCC responsibilities should be keep stations from interfering with each other, and leasing out the airwaves, but that should be where their responsibilities end.
PBS and public television, and radio are outdated concepts, put in place when their were only 3 tv stations per market, now we literally have hundreds. The US government cannot afford to keep floating stations that could not make it on their own. If the typical liberal PBS slant can compete with every other station, then great, those stations will stay on the air. If they can’t then they will go dark, and we will have 1 less boring station to flip past.
Besides we all know that if Obama wants to air a 2 hour infomercial he no longer needs PBS, he just calls CBS.
#56, well said.
#56 If the typical liberal PBS slant can compete with every other station, then great, those stations will stay on the air. If they can’t then they will go dark, and we will have 1 less boring station to flip past.
You’re working on the principle of “Whoever pays gets to decide what information is presented to the public.” Because for-profit media is beholden to the big money people who buy advertising. Is that what you want? Big corporations deciding what you see on the news?
Did you ever stop to think why the only “liberal” station is the non-profit one? It’s the only one that doesn’t have to tailor its message to please its advertisers.
#58, There’s a reason my grandma called those things, “Devil Boxes.”
On one hand, you have the the corporations trying to influence you.
On the other, you have the government trying to influence you.
#59 “government trying to influence you” ? Please. It’s not like the head of PBS is in the room with the president’s strategists planning out how to spin the president’s agenda.
PBS has had far more independence from any president than the for-profit networks have had from their advertisers.
#60, We have this government program. As we all know, government programs never, ever go away. It costs too much money to keep things going because the Fed has killed the dollar and we’re too far in debt to give them more money. So how do we keep the cash flowing to this one?
They need another bucket to get the money out of — private broadcasters.
In either case, they are trying to influence us by saying private broadcasters are biased so they need to level the playing field. Well, DUH!!! All private industrialists are biased because they’re human and humans have opinions.
If you don’t like the opinions, de-TIVO them. FauxNews isn’t even on my cable lineup anymore because I got tired of their crap. I don’t have a link in my browser anymore, either. I sent them a nasty-gram stating just that, too. Vote with your dollars.
I trust my own opinion more than trust some government bureaucrat’s.
Alfred, seriously, take your meds.
#66
In either case, they are trying to influence us by saying private broadcasters are biased so they need to level the playing field. Well, DUH!!! All private industrialists are biased because they’re human and humans have opinions.
Well, DUH!!! Since the private industrialists call the shots in the corporate media, they’re going to make sure the news is spun to meet their particular biases, regardless of what the facts really are. Whoever pays the piper, calls the tune!
I trust my own opinion more than trust some government bureaucrat’s.
And how do you come up with your opinions? Do you have your own reporters in Washington interviewing decisionmakers? Do you have your own reporters on Wall Street investigating things? Do you have your own foreign correspondents reporting directly back to you? No? Then you depend on the corporate media to provide the information that you use to formulate your opinions. You trust that the version of reality they present to you is accurate. Anything they choose not to report on, it might as well not even exist for you.
We’re all living in that bubble, and we formulate our opinions the best we can given the information we have. Don’t fool yourself into believing you’ve achieved some impartial truth.
#67 Improbus, my theory is that he’s a closet racist unhinged by the fact that we have a black man as president (or rather half black, which is even worse, if I remember my racists correctly).
#70 You just have different races you hate.
Ah, different from the ones you hate?
Dude, don’t make it so easy.
Obamacare, Obamageddon… pretty good! Come on everyone, let’s play!
Obamaphobic
Obamatastic
Obamazing
Obamallergic
Obamalloy
Obamaramadingdong
Obamalicious
#69, Phydeau,
There is no closet.
Arguing with Alfie, ditto heads, born agains, young earthers, Schivo right to lifers, insurance salesmen, – – – – – ? – – – – gosh, the list just goes on and on.
Never mind.
rolls eyes at Alfred1, your posts get progressively more stupid. What’s unbelievable is that you seem to think you actually are an intellectual, when in fact I would argue you are intellectually challenged.
Give up, you fail.
Wonder long it will be before the Ministry of Truth is formed and the first Night Watch units are created. You thought Bush was bad.
#73, Oven
“These programs should include coverage of all local, state and federal government meetings, as well as daily news and public issues programming.”
And thus dies American television. Seriously, who the hell would watch any of that on a daily basis?
I guess you never heard of CSPAN. They already do much of that. Their ratings aren’t very high but they are a significant source for news.
And yes, CSPAN is much dryer than watching old Hanna Montana reruns. But whatever turns your crank.
#75 pedro, no one here loves Obama with the same passion you and your buddies hate him with. He’s got some good points, some bad points. I like him, overall. But you and Alfred1 and the others… we can always count on your incessant chant: Obama sucks Obama sucks Obama sucks.
We get it. You hate Obama. Whatever the question about Obama is, we know your answer: Obama sucks. You are annoying, predictable, and boring. You add nothing to the debate that a simple computer program couldn’t do:
if (subject is Obama) then
yell(Obama sucks!)
So we get it, you’re getting your rocks off expressing your simple-minded sentiments. How does it feel to be mentally masturbating in front of strangers? eeeuuuww.