roundtable: 2 Ominous Events

roundtable: 2 Ominous Events

2 Ominous Events

Curtiss Priest (cpriest@juno.com)
Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:53:01 EDT 

To: communet@list.uvm.edu, cyber-soc@LISTSERV.READADP.COM,
Subject: 2 Ominous Events
Message-Id: <19970731.105209.8007.4.cpriest@juno.com>
From: cpriest@juno.com (Curtiss Priest)
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 10:53:01 EDT

Ominous Event I

It appears that Senators McCain (R-Ariz.), Stevens (R-Alaska) ,Bliley
(R-Va.) and Tauzin (R-La.) are caving into demands from the
broadcast industry regarding deployment of digital television.

On July 28th they proposed language for the budget bill where, under
fairly liberal circumstances, broadcasters would not have to give
up their analog channels after 2006.

This is a serious setback to anyone who was looking forward to 
the move to digital TV as improving our TV manufacturing industry (non-
existent today) and as a means for ushering in advanced services and
broadband innovations for the next century.
("Plan would allow stations to keep TV channels," Boston Globe,
7/29/97,p. D5)

Ominous Event II

Also, in today's news, we see that the new budget bill contains a
provision that may let a TV station or newspaper buy A TV
station in the same city.  Such "cross-ownership" has been illegal
for nearly 50 years, based on fears newspaper and broadcasting barons
could dominate public debate in a community by snapping up the
local media.
("Budget bill would loosen media ownership rules," Boston
Globe,7/31/97,p. D7)



	   W. Curtiss Priest, Director, CITS
      Center for Information, Technology & Society
         466 Pleasant St., Melrose, MA  02176
       Voice: 617-662-4044  BMSLIB@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
 Fax: 617-662-6882 WWW: http://www.eff.org/pub/Groups/CITS

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