MASSIVE CORPORATE CONSOLIDATION OF LOCAL NEWS UNDERWAY
BlacklistedNews.com
May 13, 2017
(ANTIMEDIA) In a deal that will allow one broadcasting company to reach 72 percent of U.S. households through ownership of local news stations, it was reported this week that Sinclair Broadcast Group is buying Tribune Media for nearly $4 billion.
Such a move wouldn’t have been possible a few weeks back, but Donald Trump’s new Federal Trade Commission (FCC) chairman, Ajit Pai, just began implementing sweeping changes to previously established media ownership rules. Bloomberg explains:
“A Sinclair-Tribune merger was made easier last month when the FCC restored a rule that allows TV station groups to count just half of their coverage area for Ultra High Frequency stations to comply with a 39 percent nationwide cap set by Congress.”
Reporting on the news, Democracy Now invited the president and CEO of Free Press, Craig Aaron, to comment on the significance of the purchase.
“Well, you know, we’re really concerned about so many things happening at the FCC right now,” Aaron told host Amy Goodman, “because Ajit Pai, Donald Trump’s pick to head the agency, has been dismantling all kinds of consumer protections and regulations, certainly net neutrality, which many of us consider the First Amendment of the internet, what protects your ability to go online, do whatever you want, go wherever you want, and download whatever you want.”
Continuing, Aaron calls the Sinclair-Tribune merger — and the others that will surely follow given the loosening of regulations at the FCC — an “unprecedented” wave of “media consolidation.” He asserts that an awful lot of power is about to be concentrated in only a few select spots:
“So we’re seeing a concentration of power on the broadcast side at the same time they are building up these powerful new gatekeepers, really doing the bidding of the most powerful companies and just paving the way for them to do whatever they want.”
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