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GLOBAL VS LOCAL/ TV
source: cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/
cooper/archives/mediabooke.pdf
www.krysstal.com/democracy
_media.html
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Television is special because of its immense power to influence public opinion and the role it plays in elections…- deregulation has meant that requirements to produce in-depth public affairs programming were removed. On most Western TV channels, only 4 % of prime time programming is about the majority of the world's population. Programs that cover ‘controversial’ subjects are screened at late hours.
- in the United States, TV networks still dominate the most valuable viewing time - prime time - and capture the lion’s share of national advertising dollars. The addition of 4 new broadcast networks, only one of which provides a little news and public interest programming, has not altered the fact that the big three networks still account for the overwhelming majority of high impact news and information shows – 80 % or 90 %. Adding in Fox, which has been built from stations that already did news, the share is well above the 90% range;
- TV programming is a tight oligopoly: of the large number of available channels, almost 3/4 of them serving approximately 4 billion subscribers, are owned by 6 corporate entities. The 4 major TV networks, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the 2 dominant cable providers, AOL Time Warner and Liberty, which has carriage arrangements with Comcast and owns 18.5% of NewsCorp, completely dominate the tuner;
- in addition, the number of independent studios in existence has dwindled dramatically since the mid-1980s. In 1985, there were 25 independent television production studios; there was little drop-off in that number between 1985 and 1992. In 2002, however, only 5 independent television studios remained. In addition, in the ten-year period between 1992 and 2002, the number of prime time television hours per week produced by network studios increased over 200 %, whereas the number of prime time television hours per week produced by independent studios decreased 63 %;
- in Europe, the audiovisual sector is set to play a considerable role in realising the objective set out at the Lisbon summit of making Europe the most dynamic, knowledge–based economy in the world. The directive Television without Frontiers (TwF) laid the main foundation of EU audiovisual policy in 1989, before new media technologies emerged. Its revision in 1997 brought clarification and new rules, but the scope and extent were not fundamentally altered;
- although the single regulatory pattern does not emerge across Europe, generally speaking it could be sustained that controlling more than of 1/3 of the television market is deemed as a limit in many member states. This means that a minimum level of diversity implies having at least three nation-wide broadcasters. In several smaller states the foreign channels received are a means of contributing to pluralism;
- a Media Concentration Committee in Sweden made a proposal to the Government, suggesting that mergers and acquisitions of media companies should be subject to both competition legislation and to specific Media Concentrations Act. Such solution would provide a mean of possible prohibition of mergers that impede free exchange of opinions and comprehensive information.
The power of commercialism is so great that it overwhelms the political function of the media…- competition drives news to seek blockbuster scoops and to play the big story more intensely and longer, to hold the larger audiences that have been attracted. The search to find and maintain the audience’s attention drives the media towards exaggeration and emotionalism at the expense of analysis.
- time pressures create a tendency to not only run quickly with a story but to uncritically pass through manufactured news. Reporting becomes highly condensed and selective. Planned events and personalities are the easiest to cover. Short pieces require extreme simplification. Stories become stylised so they can be easily conveyed.
- entertainment and aesthetic values dictate the nature of the picture and getting good video images becomes a critical need.
- in the United States, although the number of broadcast TV outlets has grown (from just under 1,000 in 1975 to almost 1,700 in 2000), there has been a decline in the number of TV stations that have news operations: 940 in 1975, only 850 in 2000. The broadcast networks have provided data that shows the high level of concentration of local broadcast news: in 70% of the markets, original local news is available from only 4 (or fewer) broadcasters. Even if we include stations that do not produce original local news but air news content produced by someone else, we still find that in 62% of the markets there are 4 or fewer stations airing local news;
- in Europe, the German group Bertelsmann announced the creation of a consortium in April 2000, merging its company CLT-UFA with Pearson TV, the television company of the British group Pearson, giving rise to the constitution of the largest European radio & television group, as well as the main television production company. At that time, the consortium had a share in 22 television networks and 18 radio stations with a daily audience of 120 million viewers and 25 million listeners;
- the British Television Distributors Association estimates that the US controls more than 60% of global trade in television exports, estimated at US$4bn. In feature films, Hollywood's grip is unchallenged though not always to the extent as in the UK: the EAO says 93% of feature films on UK TV in 2001 were US owned or co-produced.
Cable provides local distribution of video content, primarily capturing non-prime time viewing… - in the United States, while total hours watching TV have been almost constant over the past fifteen years, cable’s share has grown from 14% to almost 50%. Cable now has about 70 million subscribers (compared to satellite’s 18 million);
- at the national level, cable has undergone a strong trend of increasing concentration since it was deregulated in 1984. With attribution of the systems in which AT&T owns substantial interests, the market now has the equivalent of only 5 or size competitors. Lately there has been a strong trend towards regionalizing the local cable companies so that contiguous areas are joined under one company. In 1994 less than 5% of subscribers were in clusters of half a million subscribers or more. By 2002, almost 50% of all cable subscribers were in clusters of that size. Since 1996, cable rates have increased by over 40%, more than two-and-one-half times the rate of inflation. There has also been a strong trend toward vertical integration into programming, primarily by purchasing libraries of programs and sports entertainment;
- of the26 top cable channels in subscribers’ and prime time ratings, all but one of them (the Weather Channel) has ownership interest of either a cable company or a broadcast network. Of the 39 new cable networks created since 1992, only 6 do not involve ownership by a cable operator or a national TV broadcaster;
- in 2000, Canal Plus was the major pay television company in Europe. It operated in 11 countries, it had almost 14 million subscribers throughout the world and 4,600 employees.
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