Big Media: Getting Too Big Or In Big Trouble?/Google: Big Media?

Who Does The Media Serve?


The better questions may be, who should it serve and who is responsible for ensuring service?


Since the onset of mass media, the role of media ownership has been in question. If media is supposed to serve the people it would be an obvious conflict of interest if one governing body owned too much of the media, and on the flip side, without ample capital it is not easy to run a successful media organization.


How About A Little History?


The Communications Act of 1934 (here is a link to the PDF of the act) paved way for the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) which replaced the FRC (Federal Radio Commission) as well as the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission, the body that regulated the telecom industry at that time).


It was not until 1996 that a major overhaul was made to this act.


1996 was the year that gave birth to the Telecommunications Act Of 1996 (if you want to see the actual act you can go here to the official site) which was signed by Bill Clinton.


Many would argue that the Telecommunications Act Of 1996 loosened media ownership laws to the point where media concentration bordered on media monopolization for a few large corporations. Despite the fact that companies such as Clear Channel were allowed to own as many as 1200 radio stations, the laws did not allow them permission to own newspapers or other media in certain local markets and retained  the ability to block other types of cross media ownership (note: this is intentionally a very top level account of media ownership in service of this post. If you are interested in this history, which you probably should be, I recommend you follow the various links I am providing to get more in depth information).


With media ownership laws looser than ever the questions arose, who is our media serving, and can we really trust media that is owned and operated by corporations with very specific political and economic agendas?


How Loose Can The Media Get?


The Chairman of the FCC, Kevin J.Martin has begun making some noise lately surrounding various issues. One such issue involves cross media ownership in the top 20 US markets. Martin seeks to relax laws surrounding ownership, and aims to empower television and newspaper companies with the ability to own more media bodies across more outlets than ever before. This move has various consumer groups and politicians (Democrats as well as Martin's own party, Republicans) outraged. Martin's proposal includes two important caveats which  are not popular with many media companies:



  • the proposal requires that there be at least eight other "media voices," including newspapers and major commercial TV stations, in a market for it to qualify for the rule change.

  • the TV station can't be one of the four largest channels in the market. Typically, that leaves out local affiliates of the four major broadcast networks, and those are the stations that offer value for media conglomerates seeking synergies for their newsgathering operations.


The above points are taken from The Street



The question you must ask yourself is, why would Martin ostracize members of virtually every entity involved in this feud? If he is angering consumers, politicians as well as big media companies, who is he satisfying?


Head over to NPR to hear more on this issue.


One of Martin's reasons behind the relaxation of ownership laws is the declining prosperity of more traditional media in light of new media outlets such as the Internet. One may argue that traditional outlets such as newspapers are still incredibly lucrative businesses, but the fact remains that circulation continues to suffer at the hands of new media.


While I do agree that it is imperative for the FCC to ensure that no one media body has too much power, I find myself tending to feel that a media company is a media company, and should be allowed to exercise the type of transmedia news and storytelling that is indicative of the modern media environment we live in.


Can you imagine if a media company were only allowed to podcast and not blog? That would be ludicrous.


Media has changed and so must the laws. It seems that no one will win the current argument as the argument itself is flawed!


After all, when all of our information is delivered via IP, will anyone care who owns the newspaper division of The Wall Street Journal? In ten years will there even be a newspaper version of The Wall Street Journal (I imagine there will be, I was just posing this question for effect)?


So What About Google, Aren't They Playing In Multiple Media Channels?


With all the talk of regulation, where is the talk about Google's foray into every type of media on the planet. Sure, Google is not playing the same role as the traditional media company in many of these situations, but Google has landed itself in print, mobile phones, newspaper, radio, magazines and let us not forget the Internet.


Has Google found the loophole that traditional media companies cannot seem to find?


After all, Google is providing the one service that realizes most of the revenue generated by media anyhow, advertising. Google does not own anything equivalent to what Clear Channel or Viacom owns, but does that mean Google is not poised to have influence over a fair share of the media we receive? Just because Google does not own the media they are advertising in does not mean that they do not have influence, or does it?


Most of us have heard of Google's various ventures into traditional media, but the last few months have paved way for some of the most interesting debates surrounding Google and media ownership. Google has been able to hold true to it's original mission statement, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" and at the same time has begun to create an empire by monetizing the worlds information and making it useful to their bottom line (I am in no way attacking Google here. In fact, I have the utmost respect for what Google is doing, but I feel it may get to the point where the FCC does not appreciate it as much as I do. Either way, Google has changed the way media is subsidized).


Take a look at this video outlining the potential of Google's Android. Sure, the system is open source, but who do you think the population will turn to when it comes time to search for information on this platform? People will undoubtedly turn to the worlds most efficient search engine, Google.


Google's investment in Android is predicated by the fact that they are aware they have a superior engine, and I don't think their are too many that would disagree.





Now go take a look at some of the speculation surrounding the Google Set Top Box. Notice how this strategy is perfectly aligned with Android, and Google's strategy at large.



I don't even want to touch the idea of the Google Magazine but I felt it was essential to provide a link.


I have been pondering all of the questions above over the last week and I would love to get the conversation going (or at least continue it, as I know this conversation is going on all over). I would love to hear your thoughts.


Talk back!


Lets get a conversation going and maybe some action based on what we decide is right.



Tags: , , , , , , , ,