[Mb-hair] YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!!!!!

Thu Jun 9 09:15:06 PDT 2005

OH GOD I SAW MICHAELS NAME AND THE WORDS ON LIFE SUPPORT
OH THANK GOD OH BLESS JESUS ALL RIGHT
IM GOING BACK TO WORK
LOVE YOU GUYS
YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!!!!!
( its just me and my old blind eyes sorry nevermind ) lol
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Butler" <michael at michaelbutler.com>
To: "Civic" <mb-civic at islandlists.com>; "HAIR List"
<mb-hair at islandlists.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 11:59 AM
Subject: [Mb-hair] Broadcast TV on life support


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> Thomas W. Hazlett: Broadcast TV on life support
> >By Thomas W. Hazlett
> >Published: June 2 2005 17:17 | Last updated: June 2 2005 17:17
> >>
>
> Broadcast television is fading into oblivion. Just two web sites, Google
and
> Yahoo!, now account for more advertising revenues than do the prime time
> schedules of the three traditional television networks - ABC, CBS, and
NBC -
> combined. In contrast to the explosion in e-commerce, broadcast TV viewers
> are fleeing to cable programming, which now easily beats broadcast TV in
the
> ratings. And those left to watch broadcast programs don¹t stick around for
> the commercials. Remote controls, VCRs, and the growing popularity of
> personal digital recorders are rendering the 60-second TV spot a quaint
> black and white video clip.
>
> In some ways, however, the dinosaurs of the early TV era are remarkable
for
> their longevity. The network Big Three dominated an earlier time under
rules
> crafted by the US federal government in 1952. By perversely applying a
> doctrine of ³localism,² Federal Communications Commission regulators ended
> up killing a fledgling fourth network then operating - DuMont - and
> precluded new competition for decades. This was achieved via spectrum
> policy, denying entrants the licenses they needed to compete.
>
> This audaciously anti-competitive gambit was couched in the language of
high
> principle. Excluding all but a few was said to serve the ³public
interest,²
> providing not only for ³localism² but for ³fairness² and ³educational²
> programs, to boot. Even as FCC regulators railed famously against the
³vast
> wasteland² that their cosy network triopoly had wrought, as did FCC
chairman
> Newton Minow in a 1961 speech, the Commission moved to block alternative
> media providing higher quality programs and a broader range of consumer
> choice. Minow¹s FCC moved to suppress the emergence of cable TV, which
> regulators declared could never be more than a niche fill-in for
> broadcasting. ³Educational² goals were threatened, it determined, if cable
> ³siphoned² viewers.
>
> But consumers wanted more video programmes, and entrepreneurs sought
> innovative ways to deliver them. Cable TV  ³spectrum in a tube²  was a
> regulatory bypass, recreating the transmission capacity FCC policies
denied.
> It too was blocked by FCC barriers; when it won deregulation in the late
> 1970s, new programmes were soon unleashed, and most US households
subscribed
> by 1988. By then, CNN had achieved the impossible: in just seven years, it
> had become a profitable, mass market, 24/7 all-news network  just what
> regulators had declared impractical and virtually illegal. Liberalising US
> TV rules literally changed the world. When, in 1991, CNN cameras captured
> Boris Yeltsin jumping on a Soviet tank, an empire was toppled  and a
³vast
> wasteland² buried.
>
> But the first generation cable success of CNN was not an equilibrium. New
> rivalry came, once more, in the form of new spectrum. Digital satellite TV
> systems launched by DirecTV in 1994 and EchoStar in 1996 were greeted as
the
> ³death star² by cable incumbents, as they beamed 200-channel video bundles
> to subscribers. Cable, scrambling to respond,spent $80bn to upgrade their
> systems. The unregulated capacity competition triggered a new content
boom.
>
> One upstart to gain carriage in 1996 was the Fox News Channel. It made an
> overt ideological appeal with its ³Fair and Balanced² slogan, hitting CNN
> and the broadcast networks as slanted left. In contrast to news shows that
> interviewed Ralph Nader activists as default experts, FNC featured talking
> heads from the (Republican) Heritage Foundation. Critics cried foul,
> portraying the new channel as a right-wing front  further advancing Fox
> News as ³fair and balanced² and attacked by elite purveyors of opinion.
>
> Fox News now garners more than the combined audience size of CNN and its
> sister network, Headline News. But FNC (owned by Rupert Murdoch¹s News
Corp)
> receives only 25 cents per month for the average subscriber in homes it
> serves (about 80m), below the 40 cents paid for the CNN/HN tandem. In new
> carriage agreements, Fox is reportedly asking for at least 50 cents. This
> shows a stunning turnaround: Just nine years ago, Fox News paid cable
> systems over $300m in aggregate (or $12 per new subscriber) to gain
initial
> carriage. ³Fair and balanced² had to pay to play.
>
> The gold discovered in these hills is prompting innovative counter
measures
> from both established networks and entrants such as the network headed by
> former vice president Al Gore. The battlefield extends to radio, where the
> meteoric rise of conservative talk shows (following the abolition of the
> Fairness Doctrine in 1987) has triggered counter-counter liberal talk, in
> the form of Al Franken¹s Air America.
>
> Today¹s markets deliver diverse choices far beyond what the ³public
> interest² in broadcasting delivered. With the transition to the
> post-broadcasting television world ninety-percent complete, courtesy of
> households paying for cable and satellite delivery, it is time cancel the
> 1952 TV Allocation Table  the longest run ratings bomb in US TV history.
If
> station licensees were given the right to use allotted frequencies for
their
> highest and best use, over-the-air broadcasting would quickly migrate to
> more efficient platforms, and TV band frequencies would be redeployed for
> mobile telephony and broadband  wireless services customers yearn to
enjoy
> and are willing to pay for. Once the radio spectrum is made available for
> productive use by market competitors, additional generations of innovative
> video content  and free speech - are yet before us.
>
> This writer is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy
> Research
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> Find this article at:
>
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/371df8a0-d291-11d9-bead-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=_ftaler
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