this is something i’m really really angry about.<\/p>\n
The three largest local phone companies control 83 percent of home telephone lines. The top two long distance carriers control 67 percent of that market. The four biggest cellular phone companies have 64 percent of the wireless market. The five largest cable companies pipe programming to 74 percent of the cable subscribers nationwide. <\/p>\n
This is why Verizon can get away with operating on “suck” mode for the phone service in Westwood. This is why your cable bill is ridiculously high, and you can’t get all the channels you want anyway. This is why you can see the same newscasters on Channel 2 and 9 in Los Angeles. This is why your DSL provider can get away with giving you crappy service because there really are no other providers anyway. This is why radio is so terrible. Competition in telecommunications has been nearly eliminated in the rush to deregulation in 1996, and it will be completely eradicated if the FCC gets its way June 2.<\/p>\n
The FCC is going to decide next week to raise the cap on media ownership to 35% and allow media companies to own both television stations and newspapers in most markets, effectively enabling one corporation to control all the major information sources in a region. Is this a bad thing? Well, ask yourself why you haven’t heard much about it from the standard tv and print outlets. The story is being buried at the expense of the public, and if that isn’t enough sign that media conglomerate control is a bad idea, then i don’t know what is. FCC chair Michael Powell is quite adamant about pushing this through, and unless there is major public outcry, he will succeed.<\/p>\n
so here are some links to a few articles to get you started on the outrage. here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n