Last week I wrote a post about the storm that is a brewing over at the FCC surrounding the cable industry and media ownership. The conversation was picked up by my good friend Amanda Mooney and tonight I will be speaking with the folks over at the On Digital Media podcast. In case you have not been following this whole extravaganza, here are a couple of things you should be familiar with:
"70/70 rule."
- A provision of the Cable Communications Act of 1984
- Under the 70/70 rule, if the Commission finds that cable service is available to 70% of households and 70% of those homes subscribe, then the FCC can "promulgate any additional rule necessary to provide diversity of information sources."
Under what some are regarding as false pretenses, FCC chairman has claimed that we have reached the 70/70 point and gotten a majority vote on his plan to cap cable ownership at 30%
- Comcast, who is said to be at 27% is not too happy about this rule
Cross Media Ownership
- In my last post on this matter I spoke about how Martin is pushing to relax laws regarding cross media ownership, allowing media companies in the top twenty markets to own both a newspaper and television station
Tribune Company
- Despite cross media ownership laws, The Tribune Company has been granted the right by the FCC to extend ownership of both newspapers and television stations in major local markets
What is going on here folks!?
Kevin Martin is seeking to regulate and deregulate media simultaneously. Meanwhile, Google has officially thrown their hat into the ring to bid on the 700 MHZ spectrum, which disrupts everything.
How can one make sense of all of this?
Weigh in, please :)!