FCC Votes To End 77-Year-Old “Main Studio Rule”
October 25, 2017 7:12 AM   Subscribe

The FCC voted 3 to 2 yesterday to eliminate the "Main Studio Rule," which requires local TV and radio broadcasters to maintain studios in the communities where they are licensed.

(Often, that means the place where their physical antenna is located.) Doing away with the rule, which was established in 1940, benefits the largest broadcasters, especially Sinclair, which is set to swallow Tribune Media to become even more of a behemoth.

Mignon Clyburn's notes in his dissent:
"Today is a solemn one, in the history of television and radio broadcasting. By eliminating the main studio rule in its entirety for all broadcast stations — regardless of size or location – the FCC signals that it no longer believes, those awarded a license to use the public airwaves, should have a local presence in their community. Yes, the very same majority, that talks about embracing policies to promote job creation, is paving the way for broadcast station groups, large and small, to terminate studio staff and abandon the communities they are obligated to serve.
posted by JoeZydeco (79 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
Meh. Things are different now.
posted by Melismata at 7:16 AM on October 25, 2017


If you live in a rural area, this is going to destroy your local news.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:17 AM on October 25, 2017 [106 favorites]


Things are different now, and about to get differenter.
posted by potrzebie at 7:22 AM on October 25, 2017 [28 favorites]


This is supremely fucked.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:23 AM on October 25, 2017 [24 favorites]


Prepare for the news to become even more like ClearChannel music. Prepare for election coverage to become even more narrow & biased. Yes, it's already that way, but this is a nailing the coffin shut.
posted by kokaku at 7:25 AM on October 25, 2017 [28 favorites]


Things are different, but we don't need to enable Sinclair's propaganda machine any more than necessary.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:25 AM on October 25, 2017 [43 favorites]


I think that in some ways, this is even sadder than rolling back the Open Internet rules.

We're losing the idea of the airwaves and the Internet backbone being public goods that the public licenses out in exchange for something of value. Maybe we're losing the idea of public goods period.

I don't know how far we're going down this path, but it gets a little more frightening every day.
posted by roll truck roll at 7:27 AM on October 25, 2017 [66 favorites]


I think I'm okay with this one - more people are avoiding TV altogether every year, getting all their entertainment from the internet. And more people who provide content both for TV and for the web are doing so independently of broadcast stations (albeit often with their funding).

And the more generic and corporate those channels become, the more people are fleeing for independent options. Which means there's room for local magnates to create and fund their own web channels. More of the money swings rightward politically, which is a problem, but that's the same problem we already have with the huge players.

I don't think this decision is great, but I think it was not only inevitable, but also has fewer ramifications than if it had happened at any other point in my lifetime, if not much longer.

It bothers me from a "public utilities should be free and for the good of all" perspective, but we lost that battle so many years ago that I don't know how we'd ever get it back. The bigger and more important fight is net neutrality. And I don't think this naturally leads to that being in more jeopardy, though I'm sure it will embolden its opponents.
posted by Mchelly at 7:31 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


I've pretty much given up on the FCC now. They were really moving in the right direction, but Ajit Pai is an evil clown and is not only walking back the progress they made under Wheeler, but is digging around finding new ways to make things worse, too.

Things are not going to get better there anytime soon, so I'm pinning my hopes on local solutions. Municipal broadband mostly, but now I guess we should, uh, set up community TV stations or something. Ugh, I have no idea. I had no idea he was going to go after broadcast TV, too.

(PS: We need to stop letting people call them regulations. They're consumer protections or rights.)
posted by ernielundquist at 7:33 AM on October 25, 2017 [32 favorites]


Mignon Clyburn's notes in his dissent:

i think you misgendered her here
posted by indubitable at 7:35 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Ooops! Sorry.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:37 AM on October 25, 2017


Meh. Things are different now.
This is such an infuriating non-response. You could reply that to any development in our unwell society, and it would carry the same amount of information, which is to say, none.

"meh" is what is allowing corporatism to swallow everything around it.
posted by jgooden at 7:37 AM on October 25, 2017 [79 favorites]


I think I'm okay with this one - more people are avoiding TV altogether every year, getting all their entertainment from the internet. And more people who provide content both for TV and for the web are doing so independently of broadcast stations (albeit often with their funding).

I mean, you're not wrong, but what about people who don't get all their content from the Internet? I'm thinking in particular of my mom, who just got her first smartphone last month, and who only uses her desktop computer to check her email (which, I s2g, is nothing but spam) once a week. She doesn't surf the Internet idly, she doesn't want any apps on this new phone--hell, texting just happened in our relationship, like, two years ago--and she likes her local news. She doesn't watch stuff online. My in-laws are the same way. They have no smartphone, they just got wifi, they just got tablet, and all their entertainment comes from cable.

You and me and a huge chunk of people we know are not like that, but what about folks who aren't? Do we frogmarch them into the current way of doing this, using shame as a tool?
posted by Kitteh at 7:41 AM on October 25, 2017 [13 favorites]


Remember that gutting the FCC really hit overdrive with President Clinton's Telecom Act of 1996[pdf] which, incidentally, gave us the service we've come to expect from Comcast and your favorite cell phone company.

The telecom act also created "net neutrality", which lasted as long as it took for Googlefacebookamazon to decide it wasn't worth it anymore. Ajit Pai (and by extension Trump) is just taking the heat for what has been a bipartisan process of implementing the idea that the telecom/internet industry is best equipped to regulate itself.

It will be interesting to see whether the tech lords at Googlefacebookamazon can beat the stock/debt manipulation crooks at Comcastverizonattwarnersoftbank. Don't count finance out...
posted by I hate nature. at 7:43 AM on October 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


on one hand, local teevee news is nigh universally non-educational garbage; otoh, the further consolidation of media is A Bad Thing.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:44 AM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


on one hand, local teevee news is nigh universally non-educational garbage;

While I concede your point, I'm pretty sure this will make it worse, especially in smaller markets.
posted by drezdn at 7:47 AM on October 25, 2017 [17 favorites]


i concur
posted by entropicamericana at 7:49 AM on October 25, 2017


No, the Telecom Act didn't give us the FCC we had, the FCC gutted the Telecom Act by refusing to enforce many of its provisions like local loop unbundling.

This will primarily affect markets like Yuma, AZ and Dothan, AL. Markets of 200k+ will likely continue to have local studios until consolidation locks all of the stations up.
posted by wierdo at 7:49 AM on October 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


A lot of people just kind of forgot that broadcast TV still exists. Like, people subscribe to network TV channels now to watch things that are available for free over the air. I get Cassandraed all the time on that, and have had to show my friends that you really still can watch TV without the internet. (I have a friend who I think STILL doesn't believe me. Like, she thinks I'm doing something illegal.)

But since the FCC is getting ready to roll back net neutrality next month, and the political climate is so permissive right now, there's a very good chance that ISPs are going to start charging more for streaming TV shows and the like, which might motivate people to re-discover free OTA TV.
posted by ernielundquist at 7:50 AM on October 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


This is going to make it a lot easier to be a crooked local politician.
posted by Bee'sWing at 7:52 AM on October 25, 2017 [33 favorites]


The iHeart/ClearChannel rock radio stations here in Louisville share some talent with Lexington, and I think all that's recorded/broadcast in one of the cities (probably Louisville) and shipped to the other other. With this ruling, the one guy that Lexington had that Louisville didn't and vice versa will probably get whittled down to one guy that now goes on both. Then between the engineering, producing, and other jobs, this will end up being a significant net-loss-jobs for the radio and TV industries, and the increased homogenization of the media. Don't forget about NPR / PBS during this. They are still stalwarts of local, community based news and commentary.
posted by deezil at 7:53 AM on October 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


A lot of people just kind of forgot that broadcast TV still exists.

And here I am all excited that when I move in 2 weeks I can eliminate by cable bill completely and replace with a cheap antenna (I'll be 12 miles from all the network transmitters) and Sling so my wife can watch HGTV. My $120 cable / internet bill is going down to $60 ($40 for 50/50 mbps FIOS and $20 for Sling).
posted by COD at 8:00 AM on October 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


Comcastverizonattwarnersoftbank killed net neutrality, not Googlefacebookamazonetflix.

And this is deeply troubling. Fox news is bad, but at least it you know what you're getting when you tune in. Sinclair's new play is far more insidious.
posted by MengerSponge at 8:02 AM on October 25, 2017 [12 favorites]


So, basically, this means literally every single radio station nationwide will be shut down, all its employees summarily fired, and the "station" turned into a rebroadcasting hub that gets content from a single central location? Did I understand the outcome and intent here correctly?
posted by sotonohito at 8:03 AM on October 25, 2017 [12 favorites]


more people are avoiding TV altogether every year, getting all their entertainment from the internet. And more people who provide content both for TV and for the web are doing so independently of broadcast stations (albeit often with their funding).

IMO, you sped past a really key point there -- the local coverage that we get online often directly relies on local broadcast stations, but it also indirectly relies on them in a bunch of ways (local job market for journalists, video content from local events, etc.).
posted by roll truck roll at 8:03 AM on October 25, 2017 [11 favorites]


more people are avoiding TV altogether every year, getting all their entertainment from the internet.

A lot of people just kind of forgot that broadcast TV still exists.

But there's another lot that hasn't. This is another split in society allowing people to live in their own bubbles.
posted by Obscure Reference at 8:04 AM on October 25, 2017 [11 favorites]


I feel like this is an inevitable step towards the complete irrelevance of broadcast (and cable) television. We're in the middle of an awkward funding vacuum for journalism and media. It's probably going to get more painful, fragmented, and confusing before it gets better, and it will take a lot of careful regulation and work to get back to a reasonable place where journalism is a stable, funded, and respected industry.
posted by tybstar at 8:05 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


This is probably a bad thing, but maybe it'll open the door to things like, local, worker-owned stations.

But this being America, probably not.
posted by klanawa at 8:07 AM on October 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


...there's a very good chance that ISPs are going to start charging more for streaming TV shows and the like, which might motivate people to re-discover free OTA TV.

Sure. As long as you live in an area where you can pull-in multiple stations without erecting a 30-foot tower outside your house. Where I just moved from (a mid-size college town) OTA was pretty much limited to the single PBS station from the college (which did not have local news). Sometimes you might be able to grab a signal from the big city 60 miles away, but only sometimes.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:07 AM on October 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


Adding to the wish list for if we ever have a Democratic majority again: a law prohibiting any person, conglomerate, umbrella corporation, or any other single entity from owing more than one media outlet of any sort. That means you can own **ONE** radio station, period. Or one newspaper, or one TV station. Not one of each, pick one and that's it.

No, you can't have a holding company that owns a lot but technically they're all independent. One. Period. End of statement. No mergers, no acquisitions, no bullshit, just a glorious chaotic mess of thousands of actually independent media corporations.
posted by sotonohito at 8:08 AM on October 25, 2017 [14 favorites]


I live in a town of around 10k people. We don't have local broadcast TV - it all comes from the nearest city, population about 500k, which is 80 miles away.

Cell phone service here is dismal, as is the internet, and the power goes out regularly. Local radio is about the only way you can find out what's going on in an emergency. I can't even imagine what will happen if that goes.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:12 AM on October 25, 2017 [11 favorites]


more people are avoiding TV altogether every year, getting all their entertainment from the internet.

I dunno about other people - and to be honest, I never really have - but, my wife (millenial) and I (GenX) both watch the local news. In fact, we stream everything else we watch on the roku.

This is a small market, and really, the reporters are basically interning here until they get picked up to a bigger market with actual budgets. But they do cover the local stuff. With this change, I fully expect we'll be getting our news shipped in from Denver with a 5 minute blurb on local weather from someone who doesn't know the region. It will be a crappier, less useful product.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:12 AM on October 25, 2017 [11 favorites]


We're losing the idea of the airwaves and the Internet backbone being public goods that the public licenses out in exchange for something of value. Maybe we're losing the idea of public goods period.

We're losing the idea of 'public'. It's all 'mine' and 'dibs'. No backsies.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:17 AM on October 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


I worked in radio for 24 years. At the beginning, the way to get a raise was to go work for the competitor across town. As deregulation commenced, ownership consolidated until one man owned every station in a particular town. That is true of all the towns around me. No more raises, and instead of working at one station, you now worked at four to six of them at once. As the networks grew, fewer people with fewer skills were needed, so staff and pay were further depressed. It's been a steady stream of nails in the coffin of broadcasting, and it won't stop until a very few people are pulling in all the profits nationwide without creating any jobs at all. Radio is barely ahead of any other enterprise in that respect, though.
posted by Miss Cellania at 8:17 AM on October 25, 2017 [37 favorites]


For a couple decades now, Fox's small-market affiliates' local news broadcasts have been crime reporting, minor league sports, and high school sports. Any remaining time is filled out with helicopter footage of car chases from other cities. There's no such thing as City Hall in Middle Foxamerica.

The major media corporations are way fucking ahead of the doom forecasts you all are trying to scare us with here. An entire generation has grown up only knowing the name of their city mayor if he was caught in a scandal; if you're only worrying now that regional TV broadcasters might be able to erode civic engagement, you haven't been paying attention.

But yeah, I'd like for the feds to not make it even easier for them to get away with this.
posted by at by at 8:25 AM on October 25, 2017 [10 favorites]


Sure. As long as you live in an area where you can pull-in multiple stations without erecting a 30-foot tower outside your house.

Well, of course there isn't complete, robust coverage. With demand and community support, that range could be extended, rather than relying on broadband internet, which not everyone has access to either, either because it's not available or they can't afford it. The fact that something doesn't apply to you doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

It is very likely that your ISP will be moving to some type of tiered plan now that what few consumer protections we had are going away. I will eat my hat if most major ISPs don't have plans already in place to do just that. And, as roll truck roll points out, the obvious problem here is that, regardless of how you receive the programming, your local news coverage originates with these broadcast stations.

We have a contentious ballot issue in my area right now. It's a big big deal, but it's a local big big deal, and it's attracting massive amounts of funds from industry groups. If it were not for our local media, including broadcast TV, the only information most people would see about it would be coming from the industry groups that have the money to print flyers and make robocalls and other propaganda.

And it's not just that we'll lose that local news coverage. It's about the groups that are holding all this concentrated power.

They want people to think, "Oh, ha ha, broadcast TV! This doesn't affect me!"
posted by ernielundquist at 8:53 AM on October 25, 2017 [9 favorites]


if you're only worrying now that regional TV broadcasters might be able to erode civic engagement, you haven't been paying attention

I get your point but it's wrapped in a bit too much "ha, I was into Band X even before they went major label" attitude. I believe around these parts the shouting has been ongoing for nearly two decades.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:01 AM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Meh. Things are different now.

Helpful Reminder:

The Way Things Are

is not

The Way Things Must Be
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:06 AM on October 25, 2017 [25 favorites]


Sorry, I'm on edge today. I didn't need to make that comment.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:06 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Well, that's fucked up and annoying.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:09 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I was looking back to find a time when I used to agree with the FCC , can't find one.

I learn more about the airwaves being public property while signing a petition against the FCC - like when they sell spectrum or cut down low voltage radio. With reversing net neutrality and this, they are reducing access to information over the internet and the airwaves for all to the benefit of the few.

No local news should not be a problem . until it is a problem.

Keeping in mind, that during an emergency there will be no internet, but there will be radios and batteries.
posted by epjr at 9:13 AM on October 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


How about we make it so their main corporate office has to be in the county they broadcast from? Oh wait then giant faceless conglomerates couldn't own a jillion stations and set the tone for what we all see and hear based on shadowy unknown motives.
posted by freecellwizard at 9:14 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


So, basically, this means literally every single radio station nationwide will be shut down, all its employees summarily fired, and the "station" turned into a rebroadcasting hub that gets content from a single central location? Did I understand the outcome and intent here correctly?

This is what I see for nearly every commercial station. PBS I can't really speak to, but I feel confident saying that NPR won't be interested in absorbing stations. The model is totally different, and I can't imagine that they'd be interested in the insanity of hoovering up every 5-person station in rural America (of which there are MANY).

On the other hand, say you're a commercial music broadcaster - you can now take a single feed and send it directly (via a combination of satellite, internet, ISDN, and microwave) to every dinky little transmitter building in the country. You can still have a contract salesperson selling local spots (for you know, 8-10 of your stations), and they get inserted into the network avails by an automation computer in the transmitter building, rather than the studio.

The reduction in cost is enormous. Labor, facilities, land, upkeep, etc. I can't see how the large media organizations can pass it over. I do think that the changeover will be slower in TV, only because people are more attuned to the talent on TV - it seems like more people know the names of their local TV news hosts than their local radio hosts.

And count me as another (begrudging) vote for local TV news. I get that it's 50% "ARE THERE DIAPERS IN YOUR DRINKING WATER!@!!," but the other 50% is often things that don't get covered by larger outlets. There was recently a mass shooting in my town (of about 90K people), and the only entities covering it are the local media. Except that, because we're sandwiched in between 2 larger cities, we don't even have much for local media - it's been the local TV stations from the larger cities covering it.
posted by god hates math at 9:32 AM on October 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Silver lining: The liberal media bubble is likely to prevent a repeat of the 2016 election season; less local news means fewer bigot-friendly local-focused newscasts that support Fox's pack of broad-spectrum lies.

... I'm not seeing that as a good trade.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:33 AM on October 25, 2017


Also, from the press release:
"Elimination of the main studio rule should produce substantial cost-saving benefits for
broadcasters that can be directed toward such things as programming, equipment upgrades,
newsgathering, and other services that benefit consumers."
OH YES I'M SURE THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY WILL GO.
posted by god hates math at 9:34 AM on October 25, 2017 [29 favorites]


less local news means fewer bigot-friendly local-focused newscasts that support Fox's pack of broad-spectrum lies.

Dude, what? Sinclair is mentioned in the FPP. That's what they do, and the only barrier is some slight, ineffectual pushback from local stations. This will eliminate 100% of that pushback.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:54 AM on October 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


SiriusXM has Westwood One as their traffic news provider and you can always tell when you've got an out-of-towner doing the NYC report by how they pronounce Van Wyck.

Now, the rest of the US can enjoy the same with your news too!
posted by dr_dank at 10:16 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


If we lose the local news stations, where am I going to get reports about which restaurants failed the health inspection?!?
posted by LizBoBiz at 10:22 AM on October 25, 2017


what the fuck? who do I get cranky to about this?
posted by redsparkler at 10:23 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm sorry, but the one place in the US that doesn't have to worry about losing local news coverage is NYC, no matter how the newsreader pronounces Van Wyck.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:27 AM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


When USA TODAY reached the agreement with McDonalds in 1984 to put their television shaped dispensers in the drive thru we called it Mcpaper. It seemed like a joke. Everything local is not. All Gannet now.

Radio stations didn't have to do those annoying shows on Sundays any more. Where the fuck else was I going to continue my Yiddish?
posted by Mr. Yuck at 10:29 AM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Rural areas, already supersaturated with RW talk radio, are now going to be supersaturated with RW "local" newscasts. Their bubble just grew a lot bigger.
posted by sutt at 11:10 AM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]




So, does this mean that I can buy any defunct radio tower, and start broadcasting, piggybacking on any website that will publish podcasts? Or I can broadcast from my back yard, and go anywhere someone will carry my stuff? For instance, any small local station? I am sure this is for a nefarious reason, but there has to be some good derived from it.
posted by Oyéah at 1:52 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Not a single word of this reported by the likes of CBS, ABC, NBC, or CNN. Go figure. It could be because Reuters didn't report anything about it either, so nobody was able to copy their homework.

These sites are posting articles on the cross-ownership proposal mentioned above, though, so it's not for a lack of information or immediacy. In fact, watching all the articles about the cross-ownership proposal flood the feeds in real time while the "main studio" decision got relatively little traction outside of special interest publications is telling.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 1:55 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


In other news: Verizon to stop pretending to respect network neutrality any more. Verizon customers will soon have to pay $120/year to stream video without extreme downgrading.
posted by at by at 2:02 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


In other news: Verizon to stop pretending to respect network neutrality any more. Verizon customers will soon have to pay $120/year to stream video without extreme downgrading.

I want to point out this is Verizon Wireless. I had a heart attack because I'm on FiOS.
posted by Talez at 2:09 PM on October 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


In other news: Verizon to stop pretending to respect network neutrality any more.

From the article:
Verizon in August limited video quality on all of its unlimited data plans to a maximum of 720p on smartphones, but starting in November, the carrier is allowing customers to pay an additional $10 per month for higher-quality video streaming, reports CNET.

...

allowing customers to pay an additional $10 per month
Fuck everyone involved in writing and disseminating that sentence.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:11 PM on October 25, 2017 [16 favorites]


Allowing! Fuckers.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:12 PM on October 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


To be fair, previously, they didn't allow you to unlock video streaming that wasn't bitrate limited at all no matter the price so it's technically correct.

And as we all know, that's the best kind of correct.
posted by Talez at 2:15 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Ever since the first go round with unlimited plans ended the way it did, the telcos wrote the terms on the new unlimited plans to allow themselves to block or throttle anything they damn well please. Limited plans have no such issues since it's in their interest that you accidentally exceed your bucket.

If they're only selling unlimited plans now then I need to recalibrate my outrage meter. (Unlimited plans are inherently fraudulent when it comes to wireless, since wireless spectrum is an inherently limited resource, as are caps on landline connections sold as unlimited where the only limit is the provider's underinvestment in their network)
posted by wierdo at 7:14 PM on October 25, 2017


Funny thing is there was a time that image and video recompression was a feature you had to pay extra to get. I went from paying $80 a month for unlimited EDGE data to $15 a month and literally the only lost feature was that one thing. (This was back in the early 2000s when the previous state of the art in the US was dialup over cellular or CDPD/ARDIS, any of which got you around 9600-14400 bits per second with 1000ms+ latency, fine for a BlackBerry, but shit for interactive sessions)
posted by wierdo at 7:20 PM on October 25, 2017


Kind of sad. My first career grew out of a sort of summer job/ apprenticeship in the 70s, at the local radio/tv station in our smaller town, learning to fix things in their maintenance dept.

(bit of a derail: while this is certainly a step backwards, to me the biggest hole in the US broadcast landscape is the lack of an arms-length funded national broadcaster like what you can find in just about all other industrialized countries (eg BBC, CBC, NHK, Deutsche Welle). To me, it seems that a national broadcaster sets the bar higher for all broadcast journalism and documentary work. Including local coverage. PBS and NPR are great, but not big enough to be influential.

Yes I know that a US gov't funded national broadcaster is a non-starter.)

posted by Artful Codger at 7:52 PM on October 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Well, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine could shake things up a bit.
posted by rhizome at 7:58 PM on October 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Ever noticed that little graphic your over-the-air station shows at exactly the top of the hour for exactly ten seconds? Or, if you listen to radio, the station blurb? (Baseball fans know it. "Let's pause ten seconds for station identification on the [corporate sponsor] [name of team] radio network!")

There's a reason there is at least one city said or shown during those blurbs. (Fun fact: if they mention more than one city, the extraneous ones mean nothing. Only the first "counts.") That's the city of license. The city, and market area, that's supposed to be "served" by the Federal Government granting an exclusive license to transmit on a given chunk of the radiofrequency spectrum and backing up that license with law enforcement.

The National Association of Broadcasters has been whining about this rule since about three days after it was implemented. Local studios are "redundant" and "inefficient" and "wasteful" and "of course we'll keep local news reporters in local cities it is what our viewers expect!" Never mind that, as with everything, the viewers aren't the customer; they're the product. (Ad-supported media is the first instance of this saying being true.) Advertisers are expecting lower ad buys and those can only be sustained by more and more "belt tightening."

Have a look at the Wikipedia media market list. Do you live in a market that's numbered in the single digits? You'll certainly keep local studios and locally-produced news. The studios located in your markets will probably produce most of the newscasts for the markets numbered in the triple digits. If you live in a market that's numbered under, say, 30-35, you'll almost certainly keep at least one local studio, though at least one of your TV stations and likely almost all of your radio stations will divest from their studios. That one remainder of each TV and radio station will likely be owned by the same company and colocated in the same building but, hey, it'll be local and they'll probably still cover city and county meetings and the like.

Between 50 and 100 is where the forecast looks dry and confusing for the extended weather outlook. Some markets will assuredly go all voice-tracked (in radio parlance). Some won't. If you're a smaller market and you've not yet attracted the notice of Sinclair or Tegna or Liberty, you might actually come out better on the other side. If all you have are stations that are owned by companies* that could barely find your city of license on the map, well, I'm sorry. I genuinely hope your local NPR outpost is up to the task.

* Fun fact: Seattle actually meets that bit. None of the TV stations that serve the Seattle-Tacoma Metropolitan Area are owned by local companies. KING/KONG was the last one to go. But I don't see Tegna, for all its failures, pulling its local studios and reporters out. KOMO (Sinclair, which owns KOMO, the station that got John Oliver all fired up) is almost certainly going to bail almost entirely out, especially once they own KOMO and KCPQ.
posted by fireoyster at 11:59 PM on October 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


Way back upthread…
sotonohito: "Adding to the wish list for if we ever have a Democratic majority again: a law prohibiting any person, conglomerate, umbrella corporation, or any other single entity from owing more than one media outlet of any sort. That means you can own **ONE** radio station, period. Or one newspaper, or one TV station. Not one of each, pick one and that's it."
FWIW, Australia had rules like this - the so-called "two out of three" rule that prevented one entity from controlling more than two platforms - radio, tv, or newspaper - in a single market; the "reach rule" that prevented a single entity from owning TV licences that in total covered more than 75% (originally 60%) of the population; the "one to a market" & "two to a market" rules that prevented a single entity owning more than 1 TV or 2 radio licences in each market, and the "5/4 rule" that tried to ensure a minimum of 5 (metro) or 4 (regional) separate media 'voices' in each market.

The idea was to ensure a safety net of a minimum amount of media 'diversity' in each individual market (i.e. the 5 metro cities & multiple … what is it, a couple of hundred? … regional markets). Given that the national daily newspaper (& most of the capital city dailies, almost all now of the regional papers, and a substantial interest in most of the rest) are owned by News Ltd (who also half-own what is really the country's only Pay TV operator), and the fact there's really only 2 major capital city networkbroadcasters (plus a perennial 3rd placerunner just recently bought by CBS), it was thought that was a good idea.

(As an aside, when I said here months ago that Huffington Post opening an Australian edition actually increased the quality of journalism in Australia, I wasn't kidding!)

In the end, though, it simply consolidated commercial media into several large groups countrywide. 3 commercial operators fill all the TV slots in metro areas with (mostly) networked content, and just token local content in individual cities. 2 commercial operators fill all the TV slots in non-metro areas, and are in the final throes of consolidating most of their operations to networked content (and they primarily operate in affiliation with one or other of the 3 metro operators anyway). Radio is in a similar boat - a handful of network stations with mostly networked content in metro areas, plus a couple (or is it one now?) commercial networks with increasingly networked content in regional areas, plus maybe 1 truly 'local' station in each reasonably-sized regional town or city.

In short, the rules didn't work; all they did was concentrate media ownership into a different pattern, with maybe different groups than would otherwise have occurred. The government recently did away with the "two out of three" and "reach rules", and already we're seeing the jockeying for amalgamation & consolidation because of that (CBS buying Ten, over the dead bodies of a Murdoch and the owner of one of the regional networks, is the first example of that).

The rules were worthwhile while they lasted but they always were going to fall eventually, and now we're heading in to interesting times - but mainly in a "will we become a fully Murdoch-owned country, or an American network subsidiary?" way…
posted by Pinback at 2:16 AM on October 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Reading the response from Miss C above about consolidation in local markets, one wonders if local stations can be relied on to provide accountability to power. And yes, with the Internet drawing away eyeballs, the local stations have less Advertising power. Cost cutting is necessary change on the face of it, I loathe to admit.
posted by xtian at 3:26 AM on October 26, 2017


Pinback I was thinking more of a rule of one. As in any single entity could own exactly one media outlet anywhere. You could own, for example, a newspaper in Chicago and that's it. No other media, anywhere, of any sort, for you. If you own a newspaper in Chicago you can't own any other media, whether its a newspaper, a TV station, or a radio station, **ANYWHERE** else in the USA.

This would, of course, require making a sledgehammer of law and utterly shattering our current megamedia structure. Which is a multibillion dollar industry and therefore quite resistant to shattering.
posted by sotonohito at 4:11 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Imagine if FacebWRQX had to abide by main studio rule and tack on 4(n) unique letters to each locally operating Domain Name. Yummy!

(disclaimer: WRQX randomly chosen and has nothing to do with the Washington station I just discovered shares this happenstance.)
posted by filtergik at 4:26 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


The airwaves are a limited public resource, which is why the FCC can limit ownership of radio or TV stations, but not newspapers. Anyone can start their own newspaper.
posted by grouse at 5:01 AM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Local emergency broadcasts are going to be utterly fucked without local newsrooms, especially in tornado prone areas where hyperlocal tracking with expensive weather graphics systems to show tornado touchdowns and paths and people who know how to use them save lives.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:21 AM on October 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


This is what I see for nearly every commercial station. PBS I can't really speak to, but I feel confident saying that NPR won't be interested in absorbing stations. The model is totally different, and I can't imagine that they'd be interested in the insanity of hoovering up every 5-person station in rural America (of which there are MANY).
I know we've moved way beyond this point already, but I feel compelled to clear up the misapprehension that NPR owns or can "absorb" even one of its member stations. NPR stations are "independent, locally owned and operated ... Public radio stations choose to apply for NPR membership. In addition to paying membership dues, Member Stations pay fees for the individual NPR programs they choose to broadcast."

So, yeah. Nothing about this applies to NPR or any other public media conglomerate you care to name.
posted by mykescipark at 8:06 AM on October 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Ajit Pai submits plan to allow more media consolidation -- Rules that preserve media diversity in local markets will be eliminated. (Jon Brodkin for Ars Technica, Oct. 26, 2017)
The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month on ending a rule that prevents joint ownership of newspapers and TV or radio stations in the same geographical market.

The change is part of a larger overhaul of media ownership rules announced yesterday by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Currently, the FCC says its newspaper/broadcast station cross-ownership rule "prohibit[s] common ownership of a daily newspaper and a full-power broadcast station (AM, FM, or TV) if the station's service contour encompasses the newspaper's city of publication."

Pai is proposing to eliminate that rule and others. He announced the move during an FCC oversight hearing in Congress yesterday, saying he wants to "pull the government once and for all out of the newsroom."

...

Strict rules are no longer necessary because the news market is much different than it was more than 40 years ago when the rules were enacted, Pai told lawmakers:
The marketplace today is nothing like it was in 1975. Newspapers are shutting down. Many radio and TV stations are struggling, especially in smaller and rural markets. Online competition for the collection and distribution of news is even greater than it ever was. And just two Internet companies [Google and Facebook] claimed 100 percent of recent online advertising growth. Indeed, their digital ad revenue alone this year will be greater than the market cap of the entire broadcasting industry. And yet the FCC's rules still presume that the market is defined entirely by pulp and rabbit ears.
...
Pai's latest plan continues a string of proposals that benefit Sinclair Broadcast Group, Advocacy group Free Press said. The FCC previously relaxed a separate broadcast TV station ownership limit, potentially allowing Sinclair to complete an acquisition of Tribune Media Company and reach 72 percent of TV-owning households in the US.

"Ajit Pai's disastrous proposal is tailor-made for Sinclair and other giant broadcast chains that push often slanted or cookie-cutter content over the public airwaves," Free Press CEO Craig Aaron said. "He's fulfilling a longstanding industry wish list and ignoring how decades of runaway media consolidation have significantly harmed local news and independent voices. The FCC has routinely failed—and been repeatedly scolded by the courts for doing so—to consider how gutting these rules will impact already abysmally low levels of broadcast ownership by women and people of color."

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, yesterday told Congress that there should be an investigation into how "all of [the FCC's] media policy decisions seem to be custom-built for this one company."
More on Sinclair: Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News -- Its mix of terrorism alerts, right-wing commentary, and “classic propaganda” could soon reach three-quarters of US households. (a long article by Andy Kroll for Mother Jones, Nov/Dec 2017 issue)
[In 2002], Sinclair created a national news desk to produce segments for stations’ local newscasts, and in 2003 it followed up with a Washington bureau. Sinclair’s political leanings gained more widespread attention in 2004 when Ted Koppel planned to spend an episode of Nightline reading the names of soldiers killed in Iraq. Sinclair ordered its ABC affiliates not to run the show, saying it was “motivated by a political agenda.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called Sinclair’s move “unpatriotic.” During that year’s presidential campaign, Sinclair sparked a national uproar when it planned to air Stolen Honor, a controversial documentary widely seen as a hit piece on then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the Democratic nominee. Amid the backlash, Mark Hyman compared news networks that refused to report Stolen Honor‘s allegations about Kerry’s anti-Vietnam War activism to Holocaust deniers. After Sinclair’s DC bureau chief described the documentary to a Baltimore Sun reporter as “biased political propaganda with clear intentions to sway this election,” the company fired him and sued him for breach of contract.
Yes, yes. This is fine.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:57 AM on October 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


So, yeah. Nothing about this applies to NPR or any other public media conglomerate you care to name.

Yeah, I'm on top of that. I've worked in public radio for quite a while. What I was saying with that comment is that I don't think there's anything that would prevent NPR from owning and operating stations. I don't think they'd do that, but there has been a steady trend towards a more commercial business model (for both stations and the network) in the time that I've worked in public radio. So with the increasing commercial mindset in their leadership, as well as this ruling making it MUCH easier to run a station remotely, that raises the tiny possibility in my mind that it could one day happen. That's all.
posted by god hates math at 12:26 PM on October 26, 2017


Local emergency broadcasts are going to be utterly fucked without local newsrooms, especially in tornado prone areas where hyperlocal tracking with expensive weather graphics systems to show tornado touchdowns and paths and people who know how to use them save lives.

Never mind, citizen! Since the NWS is on the brink of collapse, there won't be any actual weather to report. Problem solved!
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:32 PM on October 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


I can't help but suspect that part of the goal here is doing as much damage as humanly possible during the Trump Presidency so that even if the Democrats retake all of the government in 2020 they can't undo it all before the Republicans get another bite at the apple.

Building up is, after all, so much more difficult than tearing down.

Even if we had a Congress and President fully behind ending media consolidation, making Net Neutrality law of the land, breaking up Sinclair and so on, they'll be so caught up in trying to fix the NWS and our diplomatic situation they probably won't have time for "minor" things like Sinclair and Clear Channel owning basically all the radio stations in the country.
posted by sotonohito at 1:24 PM on October 26, 2017 [1 favorite]




How is this story not being reported in all the TV news and such?

Oh. Wait.
posted by NedKoppel at 2:26 PM on October 27, 2017 [2 favorites]




« Older Truly not just a river in Egypt   |   Is that you dear? Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments