The Urge to Merge: an hour-long radio program on the effect of the recent Appeals Court ruling removing restrictions on a single company owning both cable franchises and broadcast TV stations in the same market.
Who controls the news? After court rulings this week, doors are wide open for new deals that could make the Rupert Murdock/Sumner Redstone world of media magnates even smaller. With fewer and fewer people deciding what stories get covered on radio and TV and in the papers, some say cross-media monopolies are undermining the market. If the only thing keeping editors honest is competition, what's to prevent a 500-channel, but one-view world?
Supposedly, the FCC; the organization charged with protecting the public and keeping stories like Citizen Kane from coming true. But the new FCC chairman thinks more free market and less regulation is good for the economy and good for you. The leaner, meaner media, mergers and the FCC.
See also: Limits on Media Ownership Voided [via Interesting People]
