Category Archives: Consolidation

FCC: Trick or Treat! Media Consolidation

kevin_martin.jpg Today is November First, which is the deadline for comments on the FCC’s media consolidation move. There’s still no notice on the FCC web pages of a hearing on November 2.

Oh, wait! Kevin Martin held a hearing two days earlier, on Halloween instead! Without ever announcing it on the FCC web pages.

Dissident commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein appeared at a rally outside the FCC’s office in Washington to object to Martin’s chicanery. “Neither we nor the public received any confirmation that the hearing would occur until … just 5 business days before the event,” the commissioners said before entering the building for the hearing. “This is unacceptable and unfair to the public.”

Joining Copps and Adelstein were political, labor and community leaders who condemned Martin’s assault not merely on media diversity but on the basic standards for making regulatory shifts.

— No Treats for FCC Chair and Media Monopolists, John Nichols, The Nation, Wed Oct 31, 6:03 PM ET

Jesse Jackson, National Organization of Women, United Church of Christ, Future of the Media Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives; they all protested.

Martin even has the Parents Television Council against him.

Notice of a meeting only five days before to the other commissioners, and apparently none to the public? You’d think Martin didn’t know how to talk to the press. Yet just a few days ago he was chatting with the New York Times about ending cable monopolies to apartments.

I wonder if he told the telcos about that Halloween meeting more than five days before? Nah, that would be corruption.

-jsq

Fitch: More RLEC Consolidation

fitch_logo.gif Likely consolidation in Rural Local Exchange Carriers:
RLECs are experiencing relatively little organic growth, the company says, because the increased revenues from such growing services as high-speed data “have not materially offset declining voice revenues. The erosion of the traditional wireline voice business of the RLECs, mainly by competition from cable multiple-system operators (MSOs) and wireless operators, has already led to some industry consolidation over the past year.”

Over the longer term, RLECs also face the uncertain effects of increased competition on service revenues for the rural operators as well as uncertainties on the regulatory side.

“In the absence of meaningful organic growth, acquisitions become a means for rural carriers to increase revenues, cash flow and diversity,” says John Culver, senior director at Fitch Ratings.

— Lack Of Growth Could Spell RLEC Demise, TelecomeWeb, 12 Oct 2007

The RCCC acquisition may be one of these.

-jsq

Exogenous Technological Change

Here’s a good backgrounder video on where the Internet came from and where it may be going: Humanity Lobotomy. See especially the part by Larry Lessig about how printing presses in the early days cost about $10,000 in 2007 dollars, and lots of people had one and published books and pamphlets.

What did the telephone companies have to do with inventing the Internet?
Nothing.
The browser?
Nothing.
The World Wide Web?
Nothing.
What have they had to do with the Internet from the beginning of time?
Nothing.

–Bob Kahn

What did they invent? Continue reading →