Tag: FCC

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Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

Sinclair/Tribune Mega-Merger Collapses. What Does it Mean for WREG?

Race to the Bottom

The controversial, law-bending $3.9 billion merger of Tribune Media and Sinclair TV collapsed Wednesday, August 8th, when Tribune Media’s board voted to terminate the deal.

The merger, which seemed likely, given the FCC’s initial willingness to misapply the outdated “UHF discount” rule, became considerably less certain last month when the FCC criticized Sinclair, casting doubt on Sinclair’s proposed divestitures, which might amount to divestiture in name only. Or, per the actual concern, “sham transactions.”

[pdf-1]Historically, Sinclair’s content has been right-wing. Recently, it has become overtly Trumpian, with mandates for local stations to air editorial segments by Boris Epshteyn, the Russian-born Republican political strategist and investment banker who is now the “chief political analyst” for Sinclair. Epshteyn was also a senior advisor in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Sinclair/Tribune Mega-Merger Collapses. What Does it Mean for WREG? (2)

The president has been more than happy to return the favor. 

Sinclair/Tribune Mega-Merger Collapses. What Does it Mean for WREG?

What made Trump’s endorsement especially troublesome — even for him — is the fact that Sinclair’s stations operate unbranded. So, in terms of affiliation, the Sinclair stations the president endorses often are actually affiliates of the NBC, ABC, CBS networks he criticizes.

And some Sinclair stations are FOX affiliates. Welcome to the media ownership funhouse.

While much attention is focused on the big, national networks such as CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc., Sinclair has been creating a vast web of local, network-affiliated stations. Local TV news has more reach than all four major cable news stations combined.

In addition to ending the merger, Tribune is suing Sinclair.

The stake in this deal for Memphians was news station WREG Channel 3. It now appears that for the foreseeable future, Memphis’ Channel 3 will remain a Tribune Media property.

Bye, Boris. 

Boris Epshteyn — Not coming to WREG.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Stormy Weather Ahead

CREDIT: Starstock | Dreamstime.com

Lord knows, it’s hard to keep up these days. There’s an information overload from our information overlords. So much distraction, so little time to process change before more change happens. Mostly forgotten in all the daily chaos coming out of Washington, D.C., is the mid-February repeal of net neutrality by Ajit Pai, the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Net neutrality rules instituted during the Obama administration basically classified high-speed internet as a public utility, meaning all broadband consumers have equal access to all content from the internet — and at the same access speed. It’s similar in concept to MLGW, which, as a public utility, can’t charge more for water usage for some customers than others. Nor can it decide to provide electricity only to certain neighborhoods, based on profitability concerns. When it comes to broadband providers, all the rules are about to change.

The repeal of net neutrality is another example of the Trump administration’s push to privatize pretty much everything, including our public institutions and properties. They’ve opened up thousands of acres in national monument lands to oil and timber companies. They’re pushing to allow offshore drilling in sensitive coastal waters. They’ve incentivized for-profit prison systems, turning them into a mega-billion-dollar industry.

And now they’re coming for your porn.

Now, that probably got your attention, but it’s true: Repealing net neutrality means that high-speed internet companies like Comcast, AT&T, and others will be allowed to block or throttle web traffic or offer priority to certain websites and services. Essentially, the providers can charge you different rates for specific content, based on profitability. And what’s more profitable than porn? On the internet? Literally nothing.

Even more troubling, the net neutrality repeal also allows for increased meddling from state legislative bodies. Which is where the porn issue is likely to, er, arise. Rhode Island legislators, for example, have proposed a law, contingent on the implementation of the repeal of net neutrality, that would require content providers to block most “adult content.” In order to visit their friendly neighborhood PornHub, Rhode Islanders will be required to request in writing that they want their broadband provider to disable the state-imposed block. They’ll have to present identification verifying they are 18 and acknowledge receiving a written warning regarding the “potential danger” of deactivating the content block. And they’ll be required to pay a $20 “digital access fee.”

In short, if this bill passes, the state of Rhode Island would charge residents to view adult content and create a registry of those who’ve paid to do so. And this is in Rhode Island, one of the bluest states in the country! Just imagine what our gun-loving, non-fun-loving, evangelical Nashville Hillbillies will come up with. They don’t want a gun registry, but they’ll sure as hell want to know if you like to watch Busty Milfs on Broadway.

In fact, 44 states are preparing one sort of legislation or another to deal with the consequences of net neutrality repeal. The possibilities are mind-boggling. Providers could charge extra for to you to watch presidential debates or the Oscars or the Super Bowl. Political content could be amplified or throttled, based on profitability or a corporation’s preferences.

Most broadband providers have a monopoly already, and they have insatiable stockholders to please and profit margins to enhance. Throw a bunch of ideologues from various legislatures into the mix and what could go wrong? Better to ask, “What won’t go wrong?”

The good news is that dozens of lawsuits against net neutrality repeal have already been filed by states and by private companies. A recent New York Times story reports that there may be enough votes in the Senate to repeal it, but that a House majority still supports the FCC rollback. It’s expected that the various battles over net neutrality could stave off implementation for as much as a year,

It’s easy to lose track of everything that’s being sold off to the highest bidder with so many other distractions grabbing our attention, but it’s important to keep our focus on the real issues. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for Stormy Daniels.

Bruce VanWyngarden
brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

I want my f*&king money back. I keep seeing a paid advertisement on television that deeply offends me and probably millions of other red-blooded Americans. It’s the commercial for Positive Changes, the company that swears it can help you lose weight through hypnosis. You may have seen it. It’s the one in which the still-overweight woman is talking about how great the program is and how it gives her so much more energy and, just when she says that, her eyes close and she appears to doze off. It’s pretty spectacular in its badness and to think that they actually paid an advertising agency to create the spot is hilarious. But what offends me about the commercial is that right after she seemingly falls asleep on camera while talking about how much more energy she has, a very loud man appears and makes the statement: “Diets just don’t work. Positive Changes does.” Well, as a person who has been on a diet since the age of 11 and who has had success in some instances (though not lately, as gravity and old age continue to ravage my once sleek physique), I am offended and I am sure millions of other Americans who diet are too. Here we are trying to look better to make the United States of America a more pleasant country and cut down on healthcare costs associated with being overweight, and this man has the audacity to question us. I think the FCC should look into this and I want a portion of my Direct TV bill taken off. No, wait, I have a better idea. Let’s have the U.S. Senate spend a great deal of time debating this paid ad and then spend more time voting for a nonbinding resolution to condemn it, like they did with the controversial MoveOn.org “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” ad that the group ran in The New York Times. And politicians wonder why we don’t trust them. Sure, the ad backfired on them and gave those who live in constant fear of the terrorist bogeymen something to come together about, especially the Republican senators who aren’t so happy with Bush and his war but don’t have the ‘nads to speak up about it because they might lose some of their conservative base. Now they have one extremely important vote under their belts to realign themselves with Bush in some way. Yes, they took the brave step of voting to condemn an ad in a newspaper. And even 22 senators from the Democratic side thought long and hard about this and cast their vote in favor of condemning the ad. What they should be condemning is the fact that The New York Times charges $142,083 for one page of advertising, even though Moveon.org somehow got the brother-in-law discount and paid only $65,575. Chicken feed. And pretty stupid of MoveOn.org to shell out that much money on one ad when they could be using that money on a campaign to get Bush impeached. But they have since said they will step up and pay the difference and the whiny Times issued a letter of apology for giving them the rate, in response to complaints by FreedomsWatch.org, the organization that pushes the war in Iraq and pays to run those horrible commercials about not “surrendering” featuring maimed, legless soldiers from the war talking about how they would like to go back. I went through every link on their Web site the other day, just for fun. Although they claim to be nonprofit, their site informs visitors that donations to the organization are not tax-deductible. Sounds pretty fishy to me. I also registered to become a member and sent them some questions, like: Do you pay these soldiers and their families to drone on and on about how great the war is and how much “progress” we are making? Of course, I haven’t heard back from them, but that might be because I registered under the name Phil McCrackin. But back to the Senate vote — the brainchild of Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from, naturally, Texas. I guess he was bored with all the hard work he’s been doing as the vice president of the Congressional Sportmen’s Caucus, which is dedicated to making sure Americans have the right to hunt, fish, and trap animals. I guess it also gives him the right to trap senators in a room and have them waste their time admonishing a newspaper ad rather than trying to figure out a way to keep more soldiers from having their legs blown off. So, as I mentioned above, I want my f*&king money back. If one red cent of my taxes was used to pay for those senators’ salaries and the time they spent, I want it redistributed to something worthwhile. And while they’re at it, telling me that it is treasonous and unpatriotic and disgusting to ever, ever question or say anything bad about members of the U.S. military under any circumstances? Please. Watch a tape of the Abu Ghraib hearings. Trying to force us to be noncritical about the military is completely and utterly against what the military is laying their lives on the line for in Iraq, even if they are in the wrong country.